Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(9)

My pulse pounded traitorously. I caught a glimpse of outraged nobles beyond his handsome face before everything else blurred but him, the scene lost to our quick, certain movement. “Yes.”

But we danced anyway. His movements were smooth and elegant, his grip on my waist something I felt keenly through my whole body. I wasn’t going to fall for them like all these idiots they disrespected; the royals might fight bravely on the front for us all, but they were still assholes when they came home.

His hand on my lower back was certain, his muscular body moving against mine as he led me so gracefully through the dance steps that I never stumbled. Up this close, he smelled delicious, like cinnamon mixed with a darker musk. He was suffocating me, and he was smiling down at me all the time as if he knew just what he was doing.

For a moment, I forgot I hated dancing. It was just the two of us moving smoothly across the dance floor.

As the music faded, he raised my hand to his lips. “Thank you for the dance, beautiful Honor.”

So he’d learned my name.

Everyone in the ballroom had turned to look at us. My cheeks flushed scarlet at the disapproving glances. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”

“No, I’m making a spectacle of you.” His voice was near my ear, low and sexy, but his words still hurt. Because they were true. I yanked away to find him still smiling at me, the expression not quite kind. He didn’t seem quite as sexy to me when he looked so damn arrogant. “I do what I please.”

“Well, that doesn’t include doing me.” I yanked my hand free of his and barely resisted the temptation to rub my knuckles, where his lips had pressed them in a kiss.

I stormed across the dance floor to pick up my tray, ignoring the people who shied away from me as if I’d been dipped in acid when I touched the duke. Maybe they were right. He stood watching me no matter how pointedly I ignored him.

“You have no idea just how cold and dead our hearts really are,” he promised me, his voice quiet.

I threw a champagne-soaked napkin onto the tray, turned with a barb on my tongue.

But he was gone. It took me a second to find him in the crowd, already dancing with another girl. The two of them flew across the dance floor with ease and grace, and she smiled widely up at him, her long dark hair smooth as it swept behind her. She couldn’t look more different than I did with my braid and ugly, simple dress, and a wave of longing rushed through me, no matter how much I tried to pretend I never missed the years I’d spent as a noble’s daughter.

I was left picking up soggy napkins and discarded goblets and my fractured feelings. What the hell just happened? I stood with my tray, my chin lifting as I did my best not to look toward Talisyn.

“Take a break,” Head told me crisply, materializing out of nowhere. “Somewhere…out of sight.” She yanked the tray from my hands.

“Gladly,” I said.

I made my way through the crowd of dancers, ignoring the cold, judgmental looks—some of which came from noble girls who used to be my ‘friends.’ Calla and the other women in housekeeping seemed a lot warmer, but it was still hard for me to let down my guard around other girls.

Meanwhile, Lord Talisyn was dancing and everyone still seemed to love him.

I caught the hard eyes of a man watching me and my gaze went back to him, startled, drawn to him. It was the knight who’d scolded Talisyn for wasting his time on me.

He was tall and more thickly muscled than Jaik or Talisyn. He didn’t look away when our gazes met, not even pretending that he hadn’t been staring at me.

Lord Arren. The quietest and most terrifying of the dragon royals, from what I’d heard.

His gaze seemed to sear right through me.

Who the hell was he to stare me down as if I was some kind of unexpectedly sentient turd?

I stuck my tongue out at him.

His brows rose. He just stared at me, the two of us making eye contact that sent prickles of heat washing over my skin. Then, abruptly, he pushed off the wall.

As soon as he moved, the spell between us was broken. He probably wasn’t coming toward me, but I didn’t wait around to find out.

I headed through the double doors into the hallway, then realized I should have gone the other way, into the servants’ quarters. I’d been here with my father for dances when I was just a young girl and I’d gone the wrong way out of habit. Sometimes I forgot that without Lord Danen, I was nothing again to the nobility, just as I had been before he rescued me from the streets.

I stared around the long marble hallway. Even the portraits on the wall seemed to glare at me.

The library. I’d always loved the library at the academy. I wasn’t even allowed in there to clean now, but I missed it.

I ran down the hall toward its refuge.





Honor



The library at the academy carried a soft hush that was welcome after the noisy chaos of the party. The room was enormous, five stories with ornate wooden balconies running around the outer shelves; the domed ceiling was open to the starlight. There were many small student work areas clustered around fireplaces, and private carrels built in between bookshelves, hung with lush velvet curtains for quiet study groups.

The academy did cozy awfully well for a place where its students trained for war and death.

But I’d always loved it here, since my father brought me in when he came to the academy for a meeting when I was ten. I’d crawled under one of the tables with a book. A boy with a freckled face and mischievous eyes had crawled under with me. We’d spent the afternoon leafing through the gilt pages, unaware that my father thought I was lost and half the academy had turned out looking for us. The memory made me smile.