A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)(59)

It takes me a moment to realize he means the dress. His hands are barely holding the loosened corset in place. I have an underdress beneath it, so I’m not in danger of everything falling to the floor, but still. Since coming to Emberfall, I’ve learned what people mean when they talk about a glimpse of ankle or shoulder being sexy.

I turn in his arms, and his fingers take up the lacings again. The corset finally gives, and I toss it onto the sofa, folding my arms against my chest instinctively. Rhen doesn’t move from behind me. His hands have settled on my waist again, and I can feel every finger. A tiny gasp escapes my mouth.

“The skirts as well?” he says, and he’s moved closer, because his voice speaks right to my ear, his breath warm on my neck.

I can’t breathe. I nod quickly.

He doesn’t hesitate. His fingers brush the small of my back as he works the lacings there, and my entire body flushes. “Ah, Harper.” His mouth finds my shoulder, and a tiny sound leaves my throat. The lacings give, and the skirts pool on the floor, leaving me in the thin underdress. I don’t know if my knees will keep holding me.

They don’t need to, because Rhen’s arm snakes around the front of my body, pulling me against him, and I hiss in a breath. His mouth finds my neck, his free hand sliding along my hip. I’m dizzy and breathless, but everywhere he touches, it lights a fire inside me. I try to turn, to face him, but he’s strong enough to hold me in place, his hands slow and seeking, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin of my neck.

“Rhen,” I whisper. My hands fall over his, but I’m not sure if I want him to stop or keep going. “Rhen.”

“My lady?” he says, and there’s a touch of humor in his tone—but there’s a true question there, too. His hands have stilled.

I lean into him, into his warmth, into his strength. This thin fabric leaves nothing to the imagination, and goose bumps spring up along my skin when I realize how very closely we’re pressed together. I shift slightly against him, and Rhen makes a low sound that’s half growl, half plea. The hand at my hip tightens.

A knock sounds at the door. “Your Highness,” calls a muffled voice. “Dinner has arrived.”

Rhen sighs, then rests his forehead against my shoulder. “Silver hell,” he says, his voice both rueful and amused. “Fate must truly hate me.”

I laugh under my breath, then draw his hand up from my hip to kiss his knuckles. “Grab my dressing gown,” I say. “Maybe fate is giving us both a breather.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

HARPER

I’m glad there’s food to keep my hands busy, because I can’t look at Rhen without blushing. Every time my eyes flick to his, I’m distracted by his mouth, by his fingers, by the way he lifts a glass to his lips.

I have to think. I have to talk. I have to … something. Otherwise I’m going to keep imagining the feel of his hands on my body.

I take a gulp of wine. “Rhen? What are you going to do about Silvermoon?”

He hesitates, like he needs a moment to think of how to answer for the same reason I needed a moment to think of a question. “I’m going to send word to the Grand Marshal that if his merchants and citizens would like to discuss their grievances, I will listen to their complaints if they are willing to present them in an orderly fashion.”

That’s not at all what I expected him to say, and I stare at him. “But … what about the army? Wasn’t that the whole reason we went there?”

“Yes.” He drains his own glass of wine. “Though in truth, I have no idea whether he had an army that would be willing to fight on my behalf, or if that was merely a means to get me to Silvermoon on his own terms.”

“So what are you going to do?”

He rises to top off my glass, then refills his own. “I’ve been fighting against my people for months, Harper, trying to get them to unite once again. Today I nearly killed a man for daring to allow his people to question me.” His voice turns grave. “I have no idea what I am going to do. But spilling blood in front of a crowd is not going to forge any kind of path to unity.”

My whole body has cooled. I can’t stop staring at him. “Wow.”

He takes a sip from his glass. “My lady?”

Okay, maybe my entire body hasn’t cooled. I blush again, then wince. “I … I don’t know how to say this.”

“No lies between us.”

“Right.” I smooth my hands against the silk of the dressing gown, feeling it slide along my knees. “I’m realizing that I got so caught up in the poor choices you made I forgot that you knew how to make good ones.”

His eyebrows raise, but he thinks before he speaks, which is probably something I should have done.

“As did I,” he says. “With you.”

That’s unexpected. I want to say that I don’t know what he means.

But I do. He’s talking about me helping Grey.

Just like I’m talking about him hurting Grey.

But I suppose we can add other things to that list. Like when he kept Lilith a secret.

When I did the same thing.

All the times I didn’t ask for his help—and all the times he didn’t ask for mine.

I swallow and look away. My body has gone cool from the track of this conversation, but like those moments we spent together in the barn, it feels good to have naked truth between us. “I keep thinking about my mother, and whether she made a bad choice in staying with my father. Jake and I spent so much time resenting him for everything he put us through. Like … if he’d been knocking her around, that would’ve been one thing. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t a bad husband or father. I think he was just …”