Page 53 of Crowned By the Fae King

"I feel almost naked wearing nothing but glamor," I said, crooning the words at him. "Don't you want to protect me? Someone could slip their hand right up under this drifting mist. I'd be helpless."

Heat sank into me, pooling on my chest and in my groin. His dark eyes dropped to my bare shoulders and followed the lines of the ruby necklace down.

"Hardly helpless," Cass said in a low rumble. He shifted his weight forward, wings half-cocked for balance. The body-chains brushed against my nipples and I practically lit on fire from lust. "You can melt anyone who gets handsy without your invitation. They'd deserve it."

"Hm. Seems rude." I traced my fingertip along one of the metal pieces spanning the chains like I was touching him instead of his ornamentation. Fuck, his nipples were almost exactly at the height of my mouth. That was a temptation nearly beyond bearing.

A shiver of desire that wasn't mine played across my skin. Cass started breathing so hard our torsos stopped brushing and started touching, but the impact of his nearness didn't amplify our connection.

The metal, I realized. He couldn't heal through metal. He probably couldn't heal through a glamor, either. Cass was practically shirtless, and he was better-armored against me than he would have been if we'd both been dressed head-to-toe.

Okay, fine. Vad could still get a reward. A note, maybe, stating "brat."

Cass didn't say anything. He stared down at me, wanting, and he didn't speak and he didn't move—a tiger on a chain.

One thing at a time. "Come on. Let's go make our requisite appearance. We can dance until we're bored of it, admire each other while sitting in fancy chairs, and then call it in early."

He flicked one ear. "You should probably dance with the dukes. Perhaps a lord or two."

"Sure thing," I said, flashing him a bright smile. "Just keep your eyes on me. Make sure you work up a real possessive glower for the occasion."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. His eyes hooded and lips parted in a hungry expression, tension limning his face and body. "Like this?" he said in a low purr.

My stomach did flip-flops from the predatory look in his eyes. "Exactly like that," I said, trying not to drool about it.

He smirked at me, then proffered his arm, holding it low. "Well, then. Shall we?"

I lifted my hand, but hesitated, the illusory veils of mist drifting down off my forearm to curl over his. "Are you sure?" I asked, looking up at him. "You don't have to let me touch you. I know it's a lot, and tonight's not going to be easy for you."

That smile spread, such a look of warmth that my heart felt like it might stop. "It's your choice, Quyen," Cass said softly. "If you want to touch me, then touch me. You're my soulmate. You have the right to lay claim to me." He wet his lips, voice going hoarse, and asked, "Will you?"

Please say yes.

His silent plea echoed in my thoughts, longing vibrating through my bones.

There was no way I would ever say no. Without any hesitation, I set my hand on his.

Revel In It

Iexpected Cass to lead me down the stairs, as he'd done after the coronation, or maybe to take me somewhere wall-like to make a door.

He did no such thing. He turned us so that we had the thrones to our back, moonlight streaming over us, and with a sharp snap of his wings tore a rift in the open air.

Music and light poured out of the twelve-foot-high tear in reality. Behind us sprawled Mercy's night—before us, the great coronation revel came to a staggering halt, every eye turning towards us.

The musicians played on, the wild music of the revel thrumming through the air. Cass lifted his chin as he folded his wings down, then stepped forward. I schooled my expression into heavy-lidded calm, as if terrifying, world-breaking magic and soul-telepathy was no big thing, and stepped into the revel alongside him.

People parted in front of us like minnows in front of sharks. Behind us, reality snapped back together with a whipcrack, a breeze whooshing across my back. Mercy murmured underfoot, a self-satisfied sort of focus. It was an empire. It liked its King being viewed as a god.

We stepped across the warm hardwood floor of the ballroom, coming to a halt in the dead center under an enormous chandelier, with the High Court all around us. Color and light flickered in my peripheral vision, the courtiers dressed with all the vibrance of tropical flowers and the light shining through jeweled collars around the throats of the glass lamps.

I kept my eyes on Cass. All my skin was hyperaware of the air and the eyes. I felt like I could count the people watching us from nothing more than feeling their gaze on my skin.

Cass settled us into a dancer's pose, my hand on his upper arm and his on my hip instead of beneath the drifting mist that fell down the small of my back. The only outward indication of the tension vibrating between us was the way the claws of his gauntlet jewelry pricked me through the fabric. Even the Court seemed to be holding its breath, the attention of the entire world falling on us.

The pace of the music changed, to something more stately, as befitting the first dance of a King and Queen. Cass rolled one shoulder. The palace turned eagerly towards him, like a dog fawning at its master's feet. "What's your favorite flower?" he asked in a low rumble.

"Irises," I said, not missing a beat, even with the power of Mercy growing over me like ivy. "The spiky Pacific kind, not the big frilly bearded ones old ladies grow in their gardens."

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