Page 35 of Lord of Dance and Desire

“My Prince,” I whispered.

He stood in front of me, cloaked in the mist that was now more gray than lavender, and I struggled to remember something important.

But there was nothing more important than him.

He danced with me, spun me, flung me into the air and when I drifted back down it was into his arms.

Yes. He was the one. How could I have not known before? It had always been him.

Arms wrapped around me, fingers caressed my eyelids, closing them. My head spun and the ground fell away. I was floating again, heat pressing from above me, enclosing my body, silk on my face and shoulders.

You were always mine,my Prince said.

Was I? I must have been lost.

Mist on my lips, on my skin, coiling around my body and slithering between my thighs, slipping inside. I opened my mouth, my back arching, and the mist slid between my open lips, down my throat.

Hasannah.

The cold pierced the mist, throwing me into confusion. That voice. I should know that voice.

Anah!

I wept. The mist tightened, constricted. Why wasn’t I dancing? Why was I still? What was confining me?

My Prince?

No, Anah. Grasp the rope.

What—I saw it then. A shimmery rope of a thousand writhing tendrils. It reached for me, viciously pierced my core because I belonged to it and it wouldneverlet me go to another, and I screamed.

It ate me from the inside, tore the mist out of my body, purged it from my veins.

Hard, cold beneath me. Hard, hot above me.

I opened my eyes and screamed.

“You were always mine,” Dartanyon said, and touched my cheek. “I know who you really are.”

“Anali.”

I shuddered, flailing.

“You’re safe. I have you.”

Cold, crisp voices surrounded me, not just Mathen’s furious, frigid tone.

I opened my eyes. My guard cradled me where I lay on the floor of the rehearsal room.

“What happened?” I croaked.

Mathen’s arms tightened. I looked up into a face thin with an expression I’d never seen in his eyes before—implacable death.

“You were attacked, Anali,” Mathen said.

“My Prince came,” I said, confused. “I was dancing, and he came.”

Mathen closed his eyes. “Lord Dartanyon created a fairy circle and spun you into it. We were almost too late to draw you out.”

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