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I glanced around rapidly, as though fearing someone else might see the evidence of what I wasn’t... of what I was. Thankfully, it was still just me in the dressing room. No one else had entered.

As I studied that purple, winking with an iridescent sheen, swelling like spilled ink in my palm, I searched my memory, trying to recall if I’d ever heard anything about dragons possessing different blood. The bards had never mentioned it, but that didn’t mean anything. No one was alive who had fought in the Threshing, who could give a firsthand account of fighting dragons, who could speak of their blood.

Suddenly I recalled the painting of the Hormung that hung in my father’s chancery: that very detailed and graphic canvas depicting the violence of that long-ago day. I’d studied it so often over the years. It was perfectly memorized in my mind. I remembered several dragons in the midst of death, twisting through the sky with sprays of purple escaping from their massive bodies. I had not thought much of it at the time, assuming it was an artistic choice. Now I knew better. Now I understood. The artist had chosen purple for a reason.

Because dragon blood was purple.

I pressed the handkerchief firmly against my palm, applying pressure, desperate to stop the bleeding... desperate to change the blood. Desperate to change.

Desperate. Desperate. Desperate.

My hand throbbed, and for once it wasn’t because of the carved X there. It was the collection of cuts and nicks from the shattered glass. The torn skin stung and tingled as the nerves worked to heal and knit the ragged edges back together.

I panted, choking back a sob. If I needed any proof, any evidence that I wasn’t going to go back, that the dragon was still in me, real and very much alive... this was it.

I was the stone after the throw. It could not be taken back. It could not be undone.

I was the dragon, and the dragon was me.

Reaching this realization settled me, cooling some of my panic. I took several calming sips of air. My breathing steadied after a few moments, and I carefully peeled back the handkerchief to inspect the damage, finding only further evidence that I was no ordinary girl.

The cuts were gone. The wounds had healed. Unblemished skin stared back at me. Releasing a grateful sigh, I quickly wiped any remnants of purple blood from my hand. Finished, I rose from the cushioned bench, the soiled handkerchief clenched tightly in my fist as though I could crush it into nothingness.

I left the dressing room behind and strode purposefully into my bedchamber, walking a hard line toward the hearth, intent on getting rid of the evidence of my...

What could I call it? Aberration? Defect?

I was shaking as I tossed the stained handkerchief into the fire, trembling all over as I watched it wilt beneath curling flame. There. No one would happen upon it now and—

“Are you settling in all right?”

I whirled around, my hand flying to my throat with a muffled cry.

Fell stood there, one shoulder leaning against the threshold, that almost-smile on his lips again.

“Fell,” I breathed, relief and fear at war in my heart. “I did not expect to see you tonight.”

“I, too, am looking forward to a comfortable rest.” He nodded to the bed with an incline of his dark head.

“You’re sleeping in here?” I croaked.

In the same bedchamber? In the same bed? With me? How was thatnota bad idea?

He pushed off the threshold and strode into the room, shrugging out of his leathered armor first.

“I’ve dreamed about my bed ever since I left home.”

My face went hot. When he dreamed of his bed, was I ever in it? Were we in it together? Were we doing... things? Intimate things?

Because a dream was all it could ever be.

He moved with a fluid grace, like smoke winding through the room. I had to force myself not to stare as he finished undressing himself, stripping down to the waist, revealing all that sculpted and inked skin. Warmth buzzed in my hands. My palms tingled, longing to explore the smooth expanse of his warrior body, itching to reacquaint myself with the texture of his flesh.

I swallowed and found my voice: “I did not realize that this would beourroom.”

He stilled, his eyes lifting to mine, that crystal gray so penetrating I felt it like a sword cutting through me. “Is that a problem?”

A problem that I would share a bedchamber with my husband? How could I admit such a thing?