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As I sipped the cool, plain liquid and willed it to calm the fire still smouldering in my core, the High Lady settled into Batre’s lap.

“This was not how I envisioned this introduction, but I’d like you to meet my girlfriend,” she told me, nudging Batre’s softly rounded nose with her own.

Batre’s cheeks flushed again, and she nuzzled her head against Morgoya’s chest before turning towards me. “Apologies, I skipped an important part of the getting-to-know-you process.”

“Whatwereyou hassling her about?” the High Lady enquired. Her tone was soft, but there was a strain to it that didn’t quite make sense to me.

Batre eyed the dais across the room suggestively, and Morgoya’s throat tightened in response. When she fixed her gaze on me again, there was a question in her eyes.

I didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t decipher it.

“Was it like that for you?” I asked instead, shifting in my seat so that my body was facing the couple. “The feeling under your skin?”

To be honest, I didn’t know why I posed the question to them or what I hoped the answer would be. Thin wisps of smoke were beginning to cloud the ceiling, giving the effect of a starry night above us as they danced around the faelight orbs, and I was beginning to worry about the potential effects of secondhand exposure to faerie drugs.

“She gets under my skin,” Batre murmured, linking her fingers with the High Lady. “But…no. We aren’t mates.”

Hurt flashed across Morgoya’s eyes, and I wished that I could take it back.She said they didn’t experience the horrors of humankind. I assumed…

“I’m so sorry—”

Morgoya raised her free hand to stop me. “It’s fine. We’ve made our peace with it. We’re in love, and that’s all that matters.”

Wren made a comment that Morgoya was jealous. He hadn’t meant jealousy of the throne or even of me, but rather that the High King had met his fated mate and Morgoya’s love interest hadn’t triggered the bond.

Absentmindedly, I wondered if Wren had ever met his mate. Or thought about it. For her sake, I hoped he never did.

“Dance with me?” Batre murmured, her sultry voice barely loud enough for me to hear.

Morgoya shot me a glance.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. I gestured to the dance floor. “Please.”

Her mouth twisted as if she was considering staying, but she heaved a sigh and climbed off her girlfriend’s lap, leading her by hand towards an empty space left by the portion of the crowdwho had gone off to utilise the pipes presently filling the room with smoke.

It was stupid of me to ask her about the mating bond.I knew it was a sensitive subject for High Fae, and though this encounter only prompted more questions, I made a mental note never to pry like that again.

Curled up with my hand cushioning my head as I rested it on the side of the couch, I watched the two beautiful women dancing together until the moment became too private for me to witness.

Looking away from them only made me search for Lucais again, and the slimy pit of melting ice in my stomach hardened when I found that he still hadn’t noticed me.

The creeping, crawling feeling.

Like a second layer of flesh you can’t shake.

Evidently, it was not like that for Lucais. If I was truthful, I didn’t feel that way about him, either. But I didn’t want to be truthful because that opened up far too many questions, and each one of them left the gaping wound in my chest a little bigger.

When he and I were together, I felt like I was home, but when we were apart, I felt…perfectly fine.

Morgoya and Batre had a natural, easy sort of affection for one another. It was obvious to anyone who saw them together. Somehow, the absence of the mating bond only made it seem all the more raw and genuine. Like Micael and Livia.

My eyes, High Mother take them from me, drifted back towards Wren.

He was still sitting on the dais with Lucais, and a dark-haired High Fae woman was perched between them. There was nothing suggestive about the position of his arm resting on the couch behind her, or the way she inclined her head towards him to allow him to speak into her ear over the noise.

Still, I felt the flutter of rage building up. Hot enough to melt the ice, and wild enough to make me wonder where the hell it had come from.

Wren was under my skin.