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I released a ragged breath, feeling the same pleasure, the same astonishment, and not a little shattered, because I knew it would be short-lived.

He grabbed my waist and lifted me off him, pulling us apart. The euphoria left me. Went with him. As though a piece of me had just been cut away. I felt depleted. Hollow. Suddenly as cold on the inside as the room.

The pull in my chest reasserted itself, a demanding clench. I covered a shaking hand over the area, rubbing, willing it to go away, to stop. With space between us again, I used my other hand to hold together my gaping nightgown, attempting to reclaim my modesty, however pointless that might be now.

“’Tis done,” he breathed, the sound ragged.

Reaching for my veil, he pulled it from my face.

10

Fell

IWAS A FOOL. THAT WAS INSTANTLY, PAINSTAKINGLY CLEAR.

She had seduced me with her sumptuous skin and soft cries as I plowed between her thighs like it was just the two of us in that bed, like I was an untried youth with his first woman, believing, remarkably, that she was the princess I had been promised. The wife I had been seeking.

She was not.

I knew this woman. I knew her face. The wide amber-gold eyes. The trembling mouth. My gut tightened as I recalled how I had tasted that mouth beneath a kiss-soaked veil, whilst the whole time it had been the bold little spy I’d caught emerging from the painting in the chancery. The very same servant girl the lord regent had sent scampering away with a stern admonition. I’d just wedded and bedded her.Herlips.Hergolden-skinned body.Herlong legs wrapped around me, quivering under my hands.

And she wasnota princess of Penterra.

To further confirm this, I reached for the wimple covering her hair and yanked the headdress off with unkind fingers, tossing it aside. My anger twisted higher, tighter, a fist driving through me.

She gave a small cry as the mass of her flame-red hair was exposed, but I could not find it in myself to care. I seized the thick-as-my-wrist braid hanging over her shoulder in a fierce grip.

“What is this?” I snarled, wrapping the rope of her hair once around my hand and tugging her closer, seething as my inner beastbristled. I usually kept that side of myself in check, unleashing it only in combat, and even then I kept it tightly contained, but this felt like war. The first assault had been made, and I had not even seen it coming. The next move would be mine.

Her eyes widened. She must have recognized the danger. Before I could guess her intent, she balled her hand into a fist and struck me solidly in the mouth.

My head snapped back, her punch splitting my lip, drawing blood.

I growled.Fuck.Attacked unaware.Again.

She yanked open the drapes and bounded from the bed with surprising speed and agility for someone who lived in the shelter of a palace.

Chest heaving, I followed, unconcerned with my nakedness, my cock streaked with her maiden blood for all to see. Faces swam before my eyes. The king and queen. The lord regent. The priest. Nobles of the court. That glaring face of the captain of the guard, flushed in anger. There were fewer people than when this farce started, but I could still see plenty of dumbfounded expressions through the fading fog.

The chamber went silent as a tomb as the mist melted away, everyone somber and wary of me: the Beast emerging from his marriage bed feral and glowering, bloody-lipped and intent on reprisal.

And they should have been wary.

I spit blood upon the floor and swiped savagely at my mouth. “Explain,” I bit out.

Her wide-eyed gaze looked from the blood on the floor to me. She hummed and vibrated with an emotion I could not name. It could not possibly be outrage. I was the only one with rightful claim to that particular reaction. She was the deceiver. The liar. The fraud.

She stood out of arm’s reach, a mutinous, ready-to-bolt look on her face. No doubt she would run—or quite possibly take another swing at me—if I made a move toward her. The warrior in me smoldered at my core, willing her to do it, to try again.

The lord regent was the first to speak. Clearing his throat, he said, “What is... amiss, my lord?”

I blinked. Was this asshole in earnest?

“What is amiss?” I echoed, stabbing a finger toward the woman I’d just divested of her maidenhead upon the bed behind me, putting the stamp of legitimacy on our marriage. “She isnota princess of Penterra.” Not the bride I was promised. Not the bride my father always insisted I deserved.

“Ah, but she is, my lord. Tamsyn is recognized as a member of the royal family and sheisyour wife.” The smug bastard flicked a glance down my body, his attention pointedly on my cock.

Well, that sounded like some very fine politicking if I’d ever heard it.