Page 6 of Iron Bride

She had always been pale, but now she was downright sallow. Her eyelids fluttered, as she slowly nodded.

“I’m fine,” she said in a barely-there whisper.

“You’re not fine.” I tightened my arm around her as I looked around. I called out, “Randa!”

“How dare you… call…her…” She slipped, her knees buckling beneath her. “It’s our wedding.”

Was my darling fiancée jealous?

I didn’t think she was capable of such a thing. How delightful.

Randa was by my side in an instant. “What can I do?”

“Damnit, Gia,” I snarled when the ice queen melted like a snowman in summer, losing her footing completely. I barely had time to catch her.

I pulled her into my arms like the reluctant bride she was and ignored her mumbled protests.

“Get Maeve to go up to my penthouse, and have her bring a doctor.”

Randa nodded at me, her phone at her ear. Who knows where in this gargantuan hall my sister would be.

“One more dance, and I can…” Gia said, her eyes were half closed as her head lolled onto my shoulder. “I can... leave.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I quietly growled down at mydarling,“Your night is over.”

The crowd around us had stopped dancing, and stared at us like we were a car crash on the side of the highway.

Riordan appeared beside me. “Is she alright?”

I never knew if my brother’s concern stemmed from affection, or from something else, like a concocted plan to thrust me from my position as heir. I’d care about that some other time, though.

“She’s not feeling well. Probably just all the stress,” I said, excusing us. “Come on, love, let’s get you home.”

“I’m fine,” Gia said, gasping for air in my arms.

I carried her off the dance floor, through the Grand, and took her to the private elevator behind the front desk. I ensured that no one followed us into the elevator car before I pressed the button to our home.

As I waited for the mirrored doors to open to my floor, I tightened my hold on her.

“What—and I can’t stress this enough—thefuckjust happened to you?”

Chapter two

No Snakes in Ireland

Gia

There are no snakes in Ireland because they all came to America.

They washed up right here, in New York City. Green snakes that killed my father and pumped their venom into my mother’s heart, which poisoned me until I was as hard as petrified wood.

I would have been born Giovanna Morelli, had the green snakes of Ireland not slithered onto these shores.

I blinked my eyes open, as the unfamiliar scents tickled my nose. Far from the smell of winter berries and wool, I was surrounded by pine and other woodsy scented things. These were not fromcheap grocery store candles. No, they were from expensive, cool diffusers that kept the scent subtle.

Far too rich for my taste. Sterile. Sophisticated. Lifeless.

The sheets were silk instead of flannel. Instead of the red brick of my apartment, there was drywall, painted a deep gray, or maybe even black. Expensive, moody dim lights accented the grim place.

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