Page 14 of Married By Treachery

“But you—!” she started.

“I need you to remove your wrist-strap first, my bride.”

Raquel fumed and grumbled as she unclasped the strap and the little blade tucked within. She chucked the strap across the room, glaring at him as she did.

“Andthe one in your corset.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…how do you know!?”

But Jake only waited, golden eyes gleaming. She begrudgingly reached around and slipped a slender dagger from beneath the ties of her corset. This, she threw with so much vigor that it sank into the wall above his bed.

Jake eyed the still-vibrating hilt, then her. “I would so love to see you throw that withoutyour corset.”

Raquel made a face, but he slipped the goblet into her hand and wrapped her fingers firmly around it. As he pulled away, Raquel asked, “How do I know this, too, isn’t a disguise?” She gestured at his figure.

The corner of his lips quirked upward. “Would you be disappointed if it was?”

Raquel felt suddenly flushed. “My only disappointment is that I didn’t skewer you to that bed…” Her words trailed as he took a small step in her space. His warmth and summery scent assaulted her again, and his lips twisted, as if he’d just counted yet another victory for some game he was playing.

“What are you doing?” Raquel demanded, but there was no gusto to her voice. Only breath and heat and unwieldy nerves, and those nerves hummed louder as Jake reached for her—no,pasther—and plucked a brown coat from a coat rack, then held it between them.

It was a single piece of fabric that had been neatly cut and sewn, with wide sleeves, its hem and neck trimmed with embroidery. Those stitches had been made with golden thread—a gold that matched Jake’s eyes, Raquel noted.

However.

“Why are you showing me this—blazing stars in heaven!” Raquel gasped.

Jake had opened the coat and pulled it around his shoulders. The effect had been both instantaneous and transformative, changing the man before her into the Bear Prince. He now towered over her, all boorishness and wild hair—he even smelled of sour earth again!—and those dark and feral eyes burned into her.

Raquel touched her fingers to her mouth and took an involuntary step back, marveling at the complete transformation. “How… how is this possible?”

“With rare andverypowerful magik.” He pulled it free, and in a blink, he was his (painfully charming) self again. “Though I’ve recently been told this kind of magik is nothing compared to your suprememortalpowers oflove.”

Raquel ignored the slight, instead wondering at the kind of magik that could make a man appear exactly like another, even down to the sensory details. “Areyouthe one who’s been stealing our brides all these years?” Because if it had been Jake, it drastically altered her present objective.

“No, no,” Jake answered, and he must have seen the skepticism written all over Raquel’s face, because he added, “Upon my word, it has always been my brother, Edom, until now.”

Raquel searched his (handsome) face. Did she believe him? Did she even have a choice? He was kith and physically incapable of lying, after all. So if it had truly been Edom all the previous years— “Then why now?”

That kith wildness reflected in his eyes, and he leaned a fraction closer. “Why, indeed?”

She glared at him, waiting for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. Instead, he reached past her and returned the coat to its hook.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked, trying again to get to the bottom of this.

But Jake only smiled wide, showing off a set of perfect white teeth. “I am going to marry you properly.” And then he winked as he flicked her ear—she flinched—and strode for the hearth.

And Raquel wondered…

Would the coat transform her? Could she steal it and use it to escape? There was the issue of her voice. While the coat had made Jake appear like a totally different man, it had not changed his voice, and her soft tone—coming from that Bear Prince—would be alarming to anyone who heard it.

“Don’t even think about it.” Jake sat in the high-backed chair. “The glamour won’t work for you. It’s fashioned specifically for me.”

Raquel pursed her lips and folded her arms. “So you can read minds too?”

“Just yours.” He winked again and refilled his goblet. “Come. Sit.” He nodded toward the chair opposite.

Well, this wasn’t at all how she’d planned for the evening to go.

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