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He didn’t want to elaborate, clearly. While the tape encircled Rune’s hips, pulling her closer into his warmth, she tried to remember it: a younger version of Gideon Sharpe, refilling her cup while she gossiped with her friends.

But she couldn’t remember him, and the guilt of it twisted in her belly.

But why should I remember him?

Her mind wandered back to that nickname.Cress.Was he the only one who called the queen that?

When Gideon left to write Rune’s hip measurement down, she asked, “I didn’t know Cressida very well. What was she like?”

He stayed bent over that book, not writing or answering for a long time. “She was …beautiful,” he finally said. “And alluring.” He seemed half-lost in a dream. “And powerful.”

Rune suddenly remembered the rumors about Cressida and her lowborn lover. Rumors she’d dismissed as silly gossip. She wondered now if there might be some truth to them.

Gideon had said he’d lived at Cressida’s summer home, and he was certainly easy on the eyes.

If dark, brooding, and brutal are your type,she thought with a scowl.

The way Gideon talked about the youngest Roseblood sister was so informal. Not at all like someone who had served her. More like someone who’d known her well.

Or been intimate with her.

Rune shifted. An uncomfortable feeling snaked through her at the thought of him sharing Cressida’s bed. If he’d been a witch queen’s lover, Rune would need to be much more careful. He would pick up on the smallest of cues.

“Are you familiar with the pitcher plants that grow in the island’s bogs?”

Though he’d turned around to face her, there were several paces between them. Rune stood in the lamp’s glow, still in her lace underwear. Gideon was in the shadows outside it, fully clothed. And yet, in this moment, he seemed to be the vulnerable one.

“Those deep purple flowers that trap and eat bugs?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Cress was like that: pretty from a distance, tempting you closer. Like a fool, you were happy to approach.” He was staring at the space over Rune’s shoulder, his expression haunted. “It was only after she’d reeled you in that she revealed her true nature. But by then, it was too late.”

He met Rune’s gaze.

“She was already eating you alive.”

NINETEENGIDEON

IN THE BEGINNING, THEattraction had been mutual. The first time he met Cressida Roseblood, he’d traveled to the palace with his mother to deliver a dress. While his mother spoke privately with the two eldest witch queens, Gideon waited in the hall, knowing how much rested on this moment. If the sisters liked his parents’ work, Analise and Elowyn would employ the Sharpe Duet full-time to be their dressmakers.

It would give Sun and Levi an enviable salary.

It would change their family’s fate.

Gideon had been standing against the wall when Cressida walked by with her handmaidens. Not realizing who she was, he’d done a double take, soaking up her ivory hair, bright blue eyes, and slender frame.

She had stopped and turned back. Smiling, she’d slowly approached and asked his name, then stayed to converse with him. He was completely taken in by her beauty, flattered by her flirting, and, most of all, surprised at being treated like her equal.

She only left his side when his mother returned, looking dazed, saying she’d signed the contract.

“I guess we’ll be seeing more of each other.”

Gideon still remembered the way his pulse had stumbled atthose words. At the look she had thrown him before disappearing down the hall.

It started out slow. Once his family moved into the palace, Cressida invited him on walks in the gardens, or horseback rides along the shore. He started joining her at breakfast on her terrace in the mornings.

They traded kisses in empty palace rooms, hands wandering over each other.