Page 16 of Dance with the Dragon Duke

Susan gave his knee a consolatory pat. “Not that you aren’t scary, Darko. Don’t you worry.” She shared a toothy grin with her partner. “Our friend, the Bloody Queen of Night, is just scarier.”

“Much scarier,” Margot agreed.

Not wishing to encourage them further, Dark sucked in his cheeks to keep his lips from quirking. He opened the coach door and climbed out. One at a time, he helped the women down, handing them off to the row of footmen who lined the stone steps, ready for guests. They carried crescent-shaped lanterns to light the way.

Tomorrow tucked her hand into the crook of the duke’s arm, and he covered it with his own, enjoying drawing her close more than he ought to. This was a ruse, he reminded himself. A ploy. A plot. A—

Pinkened from the cold, Tomorrow’s skin was positively touchable.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said resolutely from the stone steps. The snow fell gently around them, glittering brilliantly in the collective lanternlight, but not as brilliantly as the playful look that filled her cheeks once more. “Unless you were partial to ‘my little cabbage’? I’m willing to call you either.”

“Sweetheart is preferrable,” he said, and he lowered his head the way any courting gentleman might, touching his brow to hers in a sign of fae affection as old as time.

He did it for their audience, of course.

Not because he wanted to.

Mate, his soul whispered.

“Veryconvincing,” Margot teased.

At his glower, Margot and Susan burst into giggles, then hurried up the steps toward heavy double doors pulled wide by guardsmen in midnight-blue mage uniforms.

The foyer revealed an arched ceiling and a long corridor dotted with oil paintings and ancient hangings, a mating of new and old. Flanking the entryway, incense had been lit at both altars for the Divine Day and the Divine Night, blessing the guests who entered at twilight while the sun and moon were briefly joined.

Tomorrow squeezed his arm. He felt her distress in the touch, and he patted her fingers consolingly. Her heeled boots, damp with snow, skidded on the marble floors. Dark’s tail came up to brace her, curling briefly around her waist.

“Hm.” She grinned down at the coil of scales at her hip. “Well, aren’t you useful.”

“I’ve got you,” he said, echoing her words from the night before when she’d comforted him through his injury, and together they moved through the corridor into a ballroom elegantly transformed into a formal dining hall full of tables and high-backed chairs. Gilded chandeliers decorated the ceilings. A quartet played string music. Most of the guests stood, holding small plates of food or chilled glasses of champagne while they conversed.

“There he is,” Tomorrow said, tugging Dark to a standstill. “The Earl of Westarow— No, don’t let him see you staring.”

He followed her gesture to a far table. A lunar gentleman sat tall and lean in a chair so heavily varnished it gleamed. Short, twisted horns stood out from his honey-colored hair. A tail like a lion draped at his side.

“Now I’m wishing we’d concocted more of a plan,” Dark confessed.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Tomorrow said. “We were all in a rush to arrive on time. We should have discussed what comes next.”

“The earl is looking this way now.” Dark turned her so that she was flush with him. “Is there some sort of Seelie tradition that might make this all more credible? How do your people declare themselves?”

Dragons usually gave gifts during courting, but making a show of that would require more forethought.

“I know just the thing,” she said, lowering her voice.

“What is it?” He leaned in close to hear her better.

“Brace yourself,” she warned, then she rose up on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips to his.

Dark froze, taken aback. And then the sensation of her mouth pillowing against his, the hum of life under her skin, the taste of mint and hot flesh, drowned out his surprise. His hands moved, filling up with her, skimming lace and taffeta to find more ofher precious skin above the low neckline. He caressed the flesh at her throat, trailing downward to the delicate hollow of her collarbone, gratified by the way she shivered. Dark encircled her with his arms, cupping her close.

Her lips moved with his, vibrant and lush—as sweet as Rasika berry pie—and when she slowed the kiss, he took over, turning the endearing declaration into something deeper, something that fed the growing need inside him and caused his heart to thunder in his chest.

Here’s your peace, his instincts told him. Here was sweet tenderness. Here’s where thirst was slaked. Hunger sated.

Tomorrow pulled away, breathless and flushed.

“Ahem,” came a voice at Dark’s side. A guard in a woolen tunic that marked him as a mage stood with his hands laced in front of him. A Lunar fae, he had curled horns, a broad build, and a long leathery tail that swished at his back.

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