“Your ring is⁠—”

“A shield.”

“It prevents magical attack?” she says.

“And magical eavesdroppers.”

“Bullshit.”

She’s smarter than I anticipated. The ring doesn’t shield anything but the visual aura of my magic. I assumed these city walls would have made her soft-hearted and -headed, but she’s sharp as a blade.

“I wanted protection, but I didn’t want to be spotted in the city until we formally met. Didn’t want to cause a fuss ahead of schedule.” I tug on the lapels of my jacket. “I like to make an entrance. I thought you’d understand, considering that dress you were wearing the night we met.”

She crosses her arms, shivering, and for the first time, I realize she’s only wearing a delicate silk dress. She didn’t stop to get a coat before we ducked outside. I pull off my coat, and she flinches as I reach to wrap it around her.

“Easy, Harlow. Just being a gentleman.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ve heard that one before.”

“In your nightly exploits? Tell me—do you usually let them get so close to fucking you, or do you prefer to kiss quick and get it over with?”

She silently turns away and rounds another corner, leading me farther into the hedge maze.

I walk faster to catch up. “Why did you try to kill me?”

She frowns. “I didn’t.”

“But you did. You pressed your poison lips to mine and you tried to kill me.”

“No, I didn’t try to kill you.”

I laugh. “Could have fooled me.”

She throws her hands up. “You don’t understand. I didn’t know who you were⁠—”

“So you kill indiscriminately?” I ask.

“On the contrary. I kill selectively, and I was led to believe that you were a problem that needed solving. I didn’t know you were my fiancé.”

Her indifference disgusts me. I know I’m supposed to get her to like me and open up, but I can’t mask how much I loathe her. She’s grown up behind tall walls, and she knows nothing of the world yet thinks she has a right to execute men as she pleases.

“Is this a regular thing for you? Just a normal night out with a side of murder?”

She scoffs. “Why did you take me to your room? Trying for a taste before we make it official? You could have just told me who you were and it would have saved us both trouble.”

Her tone is so haughty, it takes me a moment to realize she thinks I knew who she was.

“I didn’t know who you were either,” I say. “In fact, every person I asked about the youngest Carrenwell had no idea what you even looked like.”

She hums low. “So, you think I should believe you, but you shouldn’t believe me.”

I don’t know what to think. I don’t like that I’m already on my heels. I’d assumed she’d be a delicate flower, but she’s more like a climbing vine waiting for the chance to choke me.

She cocks her head. “Why didn’t you tell your parents?”

“This alliance is important for my people. I wanted to at least speak to you before I decided how to handle the incident.”

She stares at me for a long moment before turning and continuing down the trail.

I follow her around the corner into a tall, ivy-bracketed pathway.

“Why did you look so relieved when they told you I was a healer?” I ask.

She glances up at me and flutters her lashes. “Who doesn’t want a nurturing husband?”

It’s almost enough to make me forget she’s a murderous little viper.

I try again. “I think you owe me a little honesty.”

She scoffs. “I owe you nothing. Just because my family traded me away doesn’t mean I owe you my mind. You’re standing here looking none the worse for it. You got to feel up a pretty girl and now you’re crying about it. Maybe I should be asking the more compelling question…” She smiles viciously. “Why didn’t you die? I poured poison into you and you drank it down like fine wine.”

“I told you. It was the ring,” I say.

She purses her lips, her gaze raking over my face, looking for a lie. She doesn’t look at all convinced. This is trouble.

Her eyes dart past me just long enough that I pick up wariness in them.

I glance over my shoulder. There’s an offshoot of the maze that I almost missed. The whole walkway is bracketed by climbing white roses.

“What’s down there?” I ask.

“Nothing for you to see.” Her tone is suddenly cold.

“It looks beautiful.” When I turn back to her, there’s a murderous glint in her eyes.

“It’s not for you.”

That makes me certain it most definitely is, but I’ll have to wander the gardens another time when she’s not looking at me like she’s planning my death again.

I trail her around a corner into a wild-looking section of the garden. “Poisonous plants,” a sign at the entrance warns.

“Your favorite spot?”

I want her to say more. To explain how her magic works. To offer me any information at all—but she just stares at me.

“Many poisonous plants are medicinal,” she says matter-of-factly.

“So you just use magic to hurt people.”

She scoffs. “If magic was all that hurt people in this city, we wouldn’t need a city watch.”

I’ve hit on something. “Is that why you do it? The casual kissing murders? To stop violence?”

She looks away.

So that’s it. She does have a soft spot under all those thorns.

“You can tell me, Harlow. I won’t tell anyone.”

When she finally looks back, her eyes are glassy. She hesitates, then leans in close, her breath ghosting over the shell of my ear.

“I would rather marry another old pervert than pour my heart out to some feral forest wolf.”

I stumble away. “You think I want this?”

She crosses her arms and looks completely bored by my outrage. “Do you want to hear all about my secret pain, Henry? Want to be my white knight stealing me away to your creepy forest fort?” She huffs a cruel laugh. “You’re not a hero. You’re just another asshole impersonating a good guy.”

She storms by me, bumping my shoulder as she passes.

Anger twists in my chest as I stalk after her, but she’s too wound up for me to get a word in.

“I’m not your friend,” she says. “I’m not your family. I’m just a person who knows how it feels to be currency. Just like you.”

“Harlow, I⁠—”

“You and I are nothing but necessary to each other,” she says as she turns and shoves me back against the marble statue. “Do not be an obstacle.” Her voice is laced with menace.

I hate to prove her right, but maybe growing up in the fort has made me a little feral, because her viciousness turns me on.

“Or?” I ask, arching a brow.

“Or I’ll be forced to remove you from the board in this little chess game our parents are playing.”

I hook an arm around the slim curve of her waist and twist us so that she’s pinned to the statue. I bracket her body with my arms and slip a knee between her thighs. She looks up at me with murder in her eyes, and I’m reminded of how good she feels pressed against me.

“Is that what it is? A chess game?”

I lift my knee so it’s flush between her legs. She tries to shift away. My jacket slips down her shoulders, revealing the pale swell of her breast straining against the dark silk dress. I let my gaze linger.

“Are you foolish and feral enough to believe you’re more than a pawn?” she taunts. “If so, I suppose I won’t have to worry about it being difficult to eliminate you if I wish to.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“One option down, plenty more ideas to go,” she says.

I slide my hand to her hip, but she doesn’t even flinch. I wonder if she’s thinking about last night. This close, it’s hard to think of anything else. But that’s the kind of blinding sense-memory that will be my demise. I brush my fingers down the silk on her hip to her thigh. My knuckles graze something hard.

She freezes as I slide my hand inside the slit and palm a sheath on her thigh. She has a fucking dagger.

My mind flashes back to the ceremonial blade she gripped when she thought I was going to sell her out. Did she just want me to know she had a weapon in hand?