Page 54 of A Court Bright and Broken

And up andupto see the face attached to that wide chest and strong neck.

Pharis.

He’d stepped into my path, and his expression said it hadn’t been by accident.

“Enjoy your royal meet and greet with my father?” he asked in a challenging tone.

Time to lie.It wouldn’t be smart to insult the Fae king to his son’s face.

“Of course. He was very… welcoming.”

Pharis sneered. “Yes, I noticed howwelcominghe was to you.”

He looked me over as if inspecting a newly discovered species of insect.

“I wonder why.”

All of the charm Pharis had displayed earlier had vanished. It had been replaced by suspicion and animosity.

“The king is gracious?” I was breathing more shallowly now.

Did Pharis have some sort of lie-detecting glamour? Had my secret identity already been revealed to him?

“No,” the prince said. “He’s not. Not usually anyway.”

I attempted to side-step around him. “Excuse me, I must—”

The rest of the sentence was cut off by Pharis’ swift and shocking embrace.

Before I quite knew what was happening, he whisked me into the throng of dancing guests and was leading me in a fast, whirling dance I struggled to keep up with.

I didn’t have enough breath left to protest, and it barely mattered that I didn’t know the steps. My feet hardly touched the ground.

The prince had me pressed tightly to his body, completely enclosed in his arms, in total control of our pace and direction.

The motion was so fast and unexpected, I felt disoriented. And the whirling scenery around us was making me dizzy. Ilooked away from the other dancers and the room and focused my gaze straight ahead at Pharis’ chest.

The shirt he wore was open at the neck, and the skin in my direct line of vision was sun-browned and smooth. It was also marked by a tattoo of some sort. I could see only the edges of it protruding where the fabric parted, which naturally made me wonder what the rest of it looked like.

From this close proximity, I was aware that Pharis smelled at least as alluring as his brother, if not more so.

In fact, in spite of the hostility emanating from him in waves–and my distress at being yanked out onto the dance floor like this—it was all I could do not to lean in evencloserand press my nose to his neck.

It was thick and muscular. The vein on one side of it throbbed noticeably.

Was it the rapid pace of the dance that had his pulse racing? Or was it something else?

His entire body was tense, and based on the stern set of his jaw, he was furious.

“So where is it you’re from,Lady Wyn?” he asked in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I’m of House Elardis in eastern Sundaris,” I said, parroting the name and location the king had unwittingly given me. “That’s in the southernmost—”

“Iknowwhere Sundaris is,” Pharis spit out. “Andyou’reone of LordElardis’daughters?”

Knowing I’d never be able to pass myself off as the daughter of a human nobleman, much less an Elven lord, I shook my head.

“No, a distant cousin. In fact, the members of his primary family would probably be hard pressed to recognize me.”

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