Page 8 of Married By Treachery

Unguarded. Ripe for the taking.

Raquel licked her lips, cast one last glance toward the end of the hall, then gathered her skirts and tiptoed to Prince Edom’s door.

She observed the lock, but instead of reaching for her pins, she tried the handle instead.

The door opened with the softest creak.

Either the Bear Prince was even more arrogant than she’d suspected, or he’d left the room without her hearing.

Or.

Perhaps—and she didn’t really want to consider the implications—he’d fortified his room with magik she could not see. Whatever the reason, this was her chance. Possibly heronlychance.

Raquel inhaled deep, pushed the door open just enough to slip inside, then closed it behind her.

So far, so good.

The room was definitely occupied. The sound of heavy breathing softened the silence, and sheets ruffled as someone turned. Raquel strained to look in the corner where the sound emanated, but she couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

She crept forward, light on her toes, hands out and searching so that she didn’t unwittingly bump into anything and forfeit her one advantage.

In three breaths, she’d reached the bedside.

She still could not see, though the shadows had differentiated into shapes. There was an unmistakable mass atop the bed; however, it didn’t appear large enough to belong to the Bear Prince, or maybe he just didn’t seem as large when he wasn’t towering over her like a feral beast. Regardless, Raquel did not wish to die burdened with the knowledge that she’d murdered an innocent, and so she leaned closer to be sure.

An edge of cool metal pressed against her throat.

Raquel cursed inwardly.

“Now, is this how one treats one’s betrothed?” asked the Bear Prince smoothly, his words lovingly incongruous with the situation.

Because she also had her blade athisthroat, but now her heart was pounding. “You promised to come to my bedchamber,” she replied, her words also contradictory to the vengeful fury in her voice. “I was beginning to worry.”

A single breath passed between them. She thought she heard him chuckle, though the sound was too soft to be sure, and his blade still pressed to her neck as surely as her blade pressed to his.

“And here I was so certain I’d removed all of your sharp little claws,” he continued in that space between them, wholly unconcerned. “Tell me, mybelovedbride, where did you keep this?”

“You can’t expect me to answer your question when you haven’t answered a single one of mine.”

He leaned a fraction closer, which inadvertently pressed her blade a little deeper. She still couldn’t make out his face, but his warm breath brushed her nose, and his eyes glinted in the dark. “And what, pray, would my bride care to know?”

She almost asked. Her lips parted to start listing off all of the questions that’d been mounting inside of her since her abduction, but then she caught herself. “You’re trying to distract me.”

“Am I?”

She pressed that blade as hard as she dared, but the Bear Prince did not flinch, and also, she didn’t feel any hair upon his neck. Adrenaline and circumstances had initially distracted her, but now that she thought on it, she realized her blade rested against smooth skin.

Confused, she reached for his face with her free hand, buthisfree hand lashed out with that impossible quickness and caught hers.

This hand also felt significantlylesshairy than she recalled.

“It seems we are at an impasse, my bride,” he said, as if the entire situation was completely under his control and it thoroughly amused him.

“We’re only at an impasse if you believe that I am not prepared to die.”

She felt him studying her.

“You are prepared to die?” he asked.

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