Page 45 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

The Blades are here, too—Ghost, Whisper, and Night—accompanied by Night’s hound at his side. It’s strange. I didn’t notice before, but I can’t seem to hear the hound’s voice in my head.

Hello, friend, I try, but the dog ignores me, keeping her chin on Night’s knee.

I feel the creeping feeling of being watched and find Iyre studying me from behind her long lashes, her glowing fey lines casting harsh shadows on her angular face. Slowly, she blows a perfect smoke ring into the air.

“Highness,” she says, flashing her pointed incisors. “Bold of you to join us.”

Chuckles ripple among the crowd.

Ghost stands up, preening as he combs his long, fair hair over one shoulder and offers me a dazzling smile. “Take my seat, Highness.”

He flexes his exposed biceps as he motions to the bench.

I feel suddenly locked to the edge of the gathering. Gods, is it a mistake to be here? What if the cloudfox tricks me again? Am I a fool for trusting our fae bargain? My cheeks are still streaked with dried tears, and the last thing I want is to show them any weaknesses.

Oh, and my breasts are popping out of my loosened corset.

Great.

Warily, I sink into the seat Ghost offered, subtly trying to tighten the corset ribbons.

“That’s the spirit!” Tati laughs as she collapses onto one of the blankets. She takes the pipe from Iyre, draws in a toke through the foot-long stem, and then releases a puff of green smoke up toward the sky.

Sighing contentedly, she offers me the pipe.

All eyes watch me in unabashed interest as I take the pipe, holding it with as little skill as I would a blacksmith’s tongs.

“Like this,” a deep voice says. The raven-haired Night takes my wrist, trailing his other hand up my shoulder to find my chin, and then guides the pipe to my lips. With his cloudy eyes pinned somewhere in the distance, he murmurs in my ear, “Breathe in through your lungs, not your mouth. Here.”

His hand slides down my side to rest above my ribcage, over the slackened corset ribbons, his rough thumb grazing the top of my breasts. My heartbeat picks up. I shift on the bench, uneasy. There’s nothing overtly seductive about his touch. Still, I’m not used to strange men touching me.

“Thanks,” I croak.

On the count of three, I suck through the pipe. A spark shoots down my throat, and I double over, coughing out clouds of green smoke.

“That—thatburns!”

Iyre cackles as she reaches over to take the pipe and then draws a long, practiced toke. “You’ll learn, little human.”

My lungs feel like they’re on fire, but after a few minutes of throat-clearing, I’m able to finally breathe steadily.

The Wicked Weed shoots straight to my head. Soon, my muscles soften like warmed honey, my worries falling away. I drape myself against the bench between Ghost and Night, staring up at the orb-shaped lanterns.

Tati nudges my foot with hers and passes me a slice of beautyberry cake. My stomach growls to alert me that I’m ravenous. I pounce on the cake, devouring it in two bites and then moaning as I lick my fingers.

“Easy, Highness,” Ghost teases in my ear as he stretches his muscular arm on the bench’s back behind me. “Save some of that appetite, and I’ll give you something better tolick off your lips later. One night—that’s all I need. One night, and you’ll never look at another man again.”

Grimacing, I shove away his arm. “I’ve had better offers—from men who don’t trip over their own egos.”

He wiggles his eyebrows. “Doesn’t seem to bother half the women in Norhelm.”

I can’t do much other than stare at this pretty, pompous buffoon. With his theatrically bulging muscles and perfectly coiffed hair, he’s the definition of a foppish dolt. Harmless? Absolutely not—he must be one of my father’s top bodyguards for a reason. And yet he might be the most unserious man I’ve ever met—and I was engaged toRian Valvere.

“If that is true,” I counter as I scoot away from his knee, “Then you’ll have no trouble finding company tonight other than me. Or better yet, leave the poor ladies alone and pleasure yourself.”

He tips his head back for a deeply amused laugh.

I suddenly feel too warm, crammed on the narrow bench between Ghost and Night—two men whose beauty would rival Basten’s if it wasn’t so skin-deep—and move to Tati’s quilt.

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