Page 79 of Bloodguard

The speckles of color spread out, and the shape of that damn phoenix forms, her wings expanding before soaring ahead, evaporating as she passes us.

“That fucking bird,” I mutter, watching the fragments of her wings dissolve above us. I think these nobles will look for any excuse to celebrate.

“That fucking bird was actually a monster,” Maeve says in the same enthusiastic tone.

I wouldn’t know. In Grey, we had only the belladom fields and our dry and rainy seasons, the caverns and cisterns. We have no mythic history like Arrow’s. Or if we do, they stopped teaching it long ago.

The drumbeats draw closer.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

My heart beats hard and fast in my chest. The rush of my blood makes my muscles tense, andI squeeze my eyes closed, focusing on Maeve and her presence. I breathe in her sweet scent, like mint and sunflower oil, allowing me to return my attention to the road. The drummers are in the lead, a band of acrobats mere feet behind them. The entertainers walk forward, each holding a partner balancing on their shoulders, save for a giant and a cyclops who balance their partners out to their sides on their hands.

With each bang of the drum, members of the troupe are thrown in the air by the strong bases charged with catching and then flinging them to each beat.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Those horrid beats increase in speed, pushing the performers to toss higher and faster, inciting the crowds to scream and clap, demanding more, even as sweat soaks the cyclops’s dark-brown skin and blood reddens the faces of those attempting to stay balanced on just their toes.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Maeve angles her body, swinging her legs so she rests over my lap. She nuzzles her face into my throat, and her arms wrap around me. I didn’t realize how on edge I was…until I’m not. At least not as much.

Hell, she really iseverything.

“Will you please distract me?” I ask.

She smiles softly as her face meets mine.“Leith,”she says as if it’s the most important word she knows—no, as if I’m the most important person she knows.

But that can’t be right.

Thatshouldn’tbe right.

Even if we marry like we’re supposed to, like we planned—and I become a king—she will always be a princess, and I’ll always be that poverty-ridden boy who just wanted more.

Until she says, “Don’t you know that I would do anything for you?”

I lift my hand when she nibbles on her bottom lip as she does when she’s nervous, and I glide my thumb across it. Her large eyes melt me in their bottomless blue depths, and I want to kiss her.

Instead, I ask, “So, what is so important about the bird?”

Her mouth briefly dips. But then her expression evens out. If she’s disappointed in me, she hides it well.

I want to tell her, to admit to the longing, the sheer adoration I feel for her in my heart—to give her those three short words that will convey it all.

In the time I’ve known Maeve, I’ve come to see that she deserves them. But until I’m a Bloodguard, I have no control over my life, and I need to take care of my family before I can think about my own happiness.

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