Page 112 of A Dance of Shadows

He dips his head close. “And perhaps I can continue keeping you company when you’re ready to leave.”

I gaze up at him and lie through my teeth. “That sounds lovely.”

He doesn’t touch me anywhere more provocative than my arm or my waist through the dance and as he escorts me back to my apartment. When we’re alone in my bedroom, he frames the swell of my belly between his hands.

I tense up without meaning to, too quickly to prevent my reaction. Marc glances up at me with a furrowed brow.

I explain before he has to ask. “Your brother… has expressed some dissatisfaction with the current shape of my body. Of course I want to look as pleasing as possible for?—”

The flash of Marc’s eyes burns away any lingering shame from Linus’s caustic remarks. “He’s a fucking idiot. You’re beautiful.Thisis beautiful.” He strokes his thumbs over the growing curve that now protrudes nearly as far as my breasts. “You’re more radiant every day I see you. I wish Iwasseeing you every day.”

There’s something you could do about that wish, I say only in my head, but perhaps Marc can guess at that thought.

He raises one hand to my cheek. “You really were incredible yesterday. I wish I could have seenthat. You always find ways to stand up to everyone in your own way, and you even managed to head off whatever additional violence Linus might have carried out.”

The praise sends a flush through my body that I don’t know what to do with.

I lower my eyelashes. “He might have stopped there anyway.”

“Knowing my twin, I doubt it.” Marc caresses the side of my face. “You have a different kind of strength than I knew existed. Maybe there are other problems you could solve that I always assumed couldn’t be, as long as we have the chance to try. I promise it’ll be better soon. Once we’re back home… Once we’re home, I can set everything in order.”

What exactly does he mean by that?

I don’t think the woman he believes he’s looking at would press for more reassurance. He’d rather be simply trusted. So I bob up on my toes to kiss him, flicking open the barb on my ring as I do.

As his caresses move down my body, I guide us over to the bed. Before the drug kicks in, a different sort of question gnaws at the back of my mind.

What would it be like to hear my husband say those things and be able to fully believe them?

And why has an ache formed in my heart at the thought that I’ll never know?

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Raul

Ithought the nights in Cotea were starting to get cool, but they’re nothing compared to the chill of the Accasian darkness. I tug my cloak closer around me as a shield against the icy bite in the air. “I hate to think what it’s like around here when it’s actually winter.”

Next to me, Bastien tucks his hands into the pockets of his own cloak. “Aurelia’s survived twenty-one of those winters. I’d imagine we could handle one.”

“Not happily,” I mutter.

Then a figure steps into view between the trees. Her heavy cloak’s hood is pulled low over her face and the folds completely shroud her dress, but I know my woman when I see her. My heart leaps with a burst of warmth that washes away my discomfort.

Scratch that last remark. I’ll be happy anywhere if Aurelia is beside me.

As our empress reaches us, she smiles from beneath the shade of her hood. The thin moonlight that filters between the branches gives her face an unearthly pallor.

Her hair is down. A fiercer jolt of heat hits me in recognition of the implications.

Marclinus was doting on her a lot this evening. He must have taken her to bed.

Even though I know she has her schemes for avoiding his full attentions, my teeth set on edge. I’ll be happier when he can’t set his cruel hands on her at all, when she never has to endure another caress she reviles.

Lorenzo moves to meet her fastest, stealing a kiss before I’ve recovered from my flare of anger. He lets his hand linger against her cheek while his gaze slides beyond her, toward the smaller palace we’ve left several minutes’ walk away.

“How did you leave without your guards realizing? I could have hidden you.”

Aurelia slips her fingers around his. “I know, but this once I could take care of it myself. Or rather, my parents took care of it ages ago. After they heard the marriage had gone forward, they renovated the empress’s apartment for when I’d be using it. There’s a passage to allow a hasty exit if safety requires it—nowhere as elaborate as the secret halls in Vivencia’s palace, but it got me outside easily enough.”

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