Page 3 of Dance with the Dragon Duke

It didn’t help.

“You’re the daughter of the Duke of Easton,” Dark guessed. Whatever he said next, the words were swallowed up by the crowd pressing in around them.

A blonde doxy climbed onto the bar and started to dance, flipping up her skirts for tips. The crowd responded with loud whoops. Margot jumped to her feet and added to the noise, cheering on her employee. An impromptu bawdy song stole over the parlor, something about a buxom barmaid in search of a ribbon.

Tomorrow scooted in closer, trying to hear Darko better. One of his big hands locked around her elbow.

“Gods above and below,” she gasped. Clearly, he was done talking. An image of her being tossed across the room like some discarded rag doll immediately came to mind.

To her great surprise, his touch was gentle as he pulled her to her feet. Instead of throwing her, he tucked her against his solid side, guiding her away from the crowd. His long, powerful tail stretched out before him, pushing away abandoned chairs, scooting tables across the hardwood. He used his spare arm—the one that wasn’t around her back making her sweat lead bullets—to move eager patrons of varying states of drunkenness out of her path.

She made it across the parlor and into the entryway without coming into contact with another person, a feat she’d never managed before on her own. If he were auditioning for therole of protector, he’d have won it just then. Unfortunately for Tomorrow, there was absolutely no one for him to compete with.

“That was impressive,” she told him in the hall. Her mouth tugged up at the corners.

Darko ignored her to speak gruffly with the footmen manning the entrance. A heavy fur-lined frock coat was brought to him. Without a word, he dropped it over her shoulders.

“Oof.” The weight of it surprised her, but it was soft and thick and very warm. It smelled of fresh wool with hints of wood smoke and musky cologne. She fingered the image of a gilded blue trident stitched into the cuffs. “What’s this symbol mean?”

“It means,” he growled, “that you talk too much about things that have nothing to do with why you came over to bother me in the first place.”

“Ah,” Tomorrow said. He had a point there, and she scratched at her cheek uncertainly.

The doors were pulled apart for them. Winter’s chill whipped inside to stir her hair, but she barely felt the bite of it through the mountain wool. “Don’t you need your coat? I have one in my room.”

“I’m a dragon,” he rumbled at her. Returning his hand to her elbow, he guided her through the doors. In the cold, his horns and tail steamed.

As they crossed the threshold, Tomorrow spotted an old wooden nail centered in the front-right door. Susan had told her that the Queen of Night had hammered the stump of a thief’s hand there to deter repeat offenders. Now only the nail remained. Tomorrow was safe behind the protection of that tack. Beyond it, she felt like a lamb lost in the woods, surrounded by hungry wolves. Instinctively, she moved closer to the duke. His dragon heat warmed her.

After a few paces, he halted them under a gas lamp that glowed brightly, illuminating Main Street. The sound of the brothel’s playful debauchery was a dull roar at their backs.

Tomorrow’s nerves sharpened. A light snow began to fall. The street was quiet, but pedestrians crowded the sidewalks. The theatre across the way must have just finished a performance.

Could another assassin be lurking amongst them? It had been weeks since she’d spotted some unsavory type tailing her home from the market, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

“Talk,” Darko commanded, ripping her from her thoughts. The steam rolling off his horns gave him an appearance of being boiled. It added profoundly to his ability to make her feel befuddled.

“Right, right.” Tomorrow shuffled her feet. The snow picked up just enough to begin collecting on the ground. “I know we’ve only just met, and I realize this isn’t the most romantic of places,” she added, spotting a puddle not far from their feet that could have been vomit or possibly piss.

“I’ve been in worse,” he said, folding muscled arms over his chest.

Swallowing hard, she met his eyes. “Your Grace, will you please marry me?”

Chapter 2

Dark

Dark stared at the small woman before him, as dumbfounded as she’d seemed earlier in the parlor. What was the word she’d used? Befuddled.

That was him now. A befuddled dragon.

“Hm,” he grunted at her, momentarily unable to put syllables together to form sensible words. His gaze dragged down her body, and it didn’t take long to inspect the whole of her. She was a dainty thing. The top of her head barely reached his breastbone. Dark knew better than to underestimate the Seelie because of their slight frames. In the great war all those centuries ago, they’d won for a reason.

The Seelie were ferocity in tiny packaging, but Dark struggled to describe this woman that way. Tomorrow, was it? An unusual name. Margot had called her sweet, and he sensed that was apt. She radiated softness, not fierceness. He could nearly taste syrup in the air around her. Sweet as Rasika berry pie, this one was.

And hurting.

She wasn’t fully fae. Her freckles—a mortal trait—gave her away. The woman had thousands of them. They clustered in thick sun-bronzed constellations across her pale cheeks and up-turned nose. She had a boyish figure, and she’d chopped her wavy hair short—an uncommon choice in the Faelands, which made him curious. It fell to her chin, framing a narrow face.

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