Page 124 of Burn

The gentle slide of a fiddle drifted into the air, followed by the tender pluck of a lute, the instruments straying into a classic melody. This sort of dancing, I could manage. By Seasons, I could handle anything with him.

Raising and bending our arms parallel to one another, we aligned our palms. Although we didn’t touch, the tips of our scarlet bracelets brushed. The contact slammed into me, a soft sort of heat flowing through my veins.

Like this, we circled each other. Our eyes fastened, the pasture beyond evaporating. Once, twice, then we wheeled the other way.

I thought back to the night we met. My attempt to dance in an empty hallway. His eyes tracking my movements from the shadows. How we had circuited around one another like enemies.

Now Poet’s body revolved seamlessly, the motions fluid as we switched arms and pivoted in reverse. Memories of another dance scorched my flesh. That night after the labyrinth, in his chambers when we’d swayed and pumped our hips together. In the middle of his suite, then against his wall, articles of clothing had been discarded with each turn.

Me, sprawling on his floor, with the fire crackling beside us. The jester, looming above.

The first sensation of his cock against my pussy. The first taste of ecstasy. The way he’d opened me to a new existence until I was crying out for it.

More than that, the exquisite honesty. The trust.

With his gaze latched to mine, Poet led me over the grass. We swept through the steps, veering in one direction, then the other. It was a slow, methodic dance, in which the partners never made contact. Our fingers laced behind our backs, then hung at our sides as we rotated, always following the other, always just out of reach. Like something eternally forbidden.

Yet it did not matter. The jester held me in the grip of his stare, riveting his eyes on me as though nothing else existed, and I claimed his attention with the same vigor, so that we fell into the motions, the landscape blurring. Merely from this, I felt Poet’s fingers across my parted lips, running down my back, and rushing into my hair.

With every move, I heard him speak. And I heard myself answer.

Marry me.

Yes.

My bones melted. My lungs hitched.

Blood and breath. Mind and soul.

Fear. Sorrow. Joy.

Rage. Grief. Desire.

All the ways to love someone. All of them inseparable.

We spun in opposite trajectories, then glided into one another again. Our palms hovered between us, the air seeming to crackle there.

As the instruments faded into wisps of sound, Poet and I stopped. Engrossed in one another, our chests heaved. The pasture materialized once more, with the area cleared of dancers.

I blinked, discovering everyone in our proximity idling on the margins. At some point, the revelers had vacated the expanse, the better to observe us. The awestruck crowd studied me and Poet wistfully, as if they’d just witnessed a mating ritual. Or a wedding dance.

Our clan beamed as they had during the library reading. Beyond Eliot and the ladies, the Winter Prince’s silhouette idled on the outskirts. Jeryn’s expression seemed muddled, speculative, and as disconcerted as it had been during the reading, when Poet and I were ensconced in our trance.

It became clear. Everyone finally identified us beneath the costumes, having viewed our hypnotic dance from beginning to end.

After the crowd dispersed in a daze, genuflecting and migrating across the market or converging into another dance, Poet and I stood still. Firelight from the gourds and lanterns laced the grass and maple leaves, transporting us into another haze. The jester’s expression reflected the same sweet desperation scattering across my flesh.

As the activity resumed around us, Poet stalked my way. His torso radiated against my shirt, and our exhales rushed together. For the second time, he offered his hand. “Come with me.”

39

Poet

Every ounce of breath held fast in my chest. I waited on tenterhooks for her to take my hand, a strange concoction of nervous anticipation running rampant across my flesh, to the point where my fingers shook with need. ’Twas as if we’d never done this before, never touched or even tried, never dared to make contact.

A chaste shade of pink bloomed across Briar’s cheeks, like she was experiencing the same mystifying sensation. We gazed at one another, marveling at each other’s features. She and I might as well be caught in a glass globe, isolated in time and space.

After an eternity, the princess settled her fingers in mine. And the world blackened, and it burst with firelight, and my veins ignited. A great exhalation flew from my lungs. My relief proved inexplicable, as though I was some besotted adolescent, inexperienced and smitten, unsure but hopeful that the woman of his dreams would accept him.

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