Four Dead Queens(85)

“Thank you.” There was a hint of dimples on either side of his cheeks.

“Come on,” I said, wiping my tears away. “You can do better than that. Show me some teeth.”

He grimaced, his teeth flashing white in the dark room.

I laughed. “Better, but it still needs work.”

He stepped toward me, tentatively. “Mackiel didn’t steal anything from you,” he said quietly.

I didn’t reply.

“Keralie?” he whispered. “If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that you’re your own person. No one can make you do anything you don’t want to. Look at the way you’ve moved about the palace, with no one the wiser.”

I studied the floor. “I’m not sure I know who I am without him. I’m not sure I can stand on my own.”

“You already are.” He placed his hands gently on my shoulders. “This is all your doing, not his. You want to help the queens. You want to help your father. That’s all you.”

I looked up into his eyes, and a breath lodged in my chest. His expression was heated, as if his gaze could cleave me in two and reveal the true Keralie trapped within.

Who do you want to be?

His eyes, like silver moons, moved across my face. My heart slammed against my rib cage. In that moment, I didn’t feel like Mackiel’s best dipper. I didn’t feel like the girl who had ruined her family. A girl you couldn’t trust.

I didn’t feel alone.

That was when I realized I didn’t want to be anyone other than the girl standing in front of Varin. The girl he was looking at with such desire in his eyes.

I gripped his shirt and pulled him to me.

His lips were softer than I expected. Warmer too. All this time, I’d pictured him as though he were made from the same shiny metal Eonia seemed to love. Unfeeling and cold.

But he wasn’t. Not at all.

His mouth moved against mine, taking both of my lips in his. His skin smelled salty and a little spicy. That was the real Varin, not what the dermasuit made him.

I ripped off my gloves and gripped the back of his neck, splaying my fingers underneath his locks. His hair was silky—everything about him was soft.

My heart sped faster, if that were possible, heat blooming wherever we touched skin to skin.

Then he let me go. In that brief moment of lost contact, we grinned at one another, surprised and electrified. I pulled at his neck, but he brought his hands up to stop me.

“I want to feel you too,” he said, cheeks darkening at his words. My heart fluttered. He unclipped his suit at his wrists and pulled off his gloves. With his hands free, he brushed a strand of hair back from my face, his fingers shaking. Then he burned a line across my cheek to my lips. I was worried we’d lost our moment, but then his mouth returned to mine.

I gasped, already forgetting the gentleness of them—of him. No longer restricted by the dermasuit, his hands dug into the back of my hair, bringing me up to meet him. Now I could feel the real him. See the real him. And he was all warmth. And hands. And lips.

Hot and cold shimmered through me, fighting for dominance as the dermasuit tried to regulate my searing temperature. The tumbling in my belly was similar to fear, and yet I wanted to embrace the feeling, wrap myself within it and never let go.

He continued kissing me, and I wasn’t sure when to stop. Why should we stop? We still had much to do—too much. Even so, I didn’t want to pull away. He obviously felt the same, his hands roaming across my sides, his touch almost as intimate as the kiss. I shuddered at the thought of what it would be like to touch Varin without our dermasuits in the way.

His eyes held a flicker of longing, and I thought I might combust under his gaze. In that moment, I couldn’t imagine kissing anyone else.

How did people kiss strangers with such abandon? Kiss without a care? How could they do something this intimate, this revealing, with someone they didn’t want? Other dippers easily wielded the power of seduction as though it meant nothing at all.

Mackiel had tried to teach me the power of a kiss, to make men forget, and then steal from them. Now I understood, for it was a perfect plan—the perfect distraction. But I couldn’t do it. I’d tried, and was close on a few occasions. But when it had come down to it, I couldn’t. And now I knew why.

My first kiss was meant to be with Varin.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX





Arebella



The eight most perfect words roused Arebella in the middle of the night.

“You’ve been summoned to the palace, Miss Arebella.”

She bolted upright, not needing to be told by whom or why. This was the moment she’d been waiting for—the moment she’d been planning over and over again until her plans were a tangled mess in her mind. She looked out her window; it was still dark.

There wasn’t time to waste.

“Dress me in my finest,” Arebella said to her housemaid, leaping out of bed. She didn’t need to rub sleep from her eyes, for she hadn’t really been sleeping. Arebella was not familiar with the deep unconsciousness that others seemed to enjoy. A few shallow hours of quiet here and there were all she could achieve. Her brain was far too active. “And quickly,” she added.

Her housemaid’s hands shook as she laced up Arebella’s corset and attached the large hooped skirt to her narrow waist.