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Her hands threaded around my neck and the sharp thrill of knowing she wanted this too had me pulling her closer, desperate to eliminate the space between us, to feel every inch of her against me.I ran my hands over that slip of a dress, seeking out the warmth of her skin.I drew my mouth away from hers, down her slender neck, where I was more teeth than lips, leaving marks.She sucked in a sharp breath, tilting her head, exposing her neck to me, silently begging for more.

I gripped her thighs and lifted her, crashing her back against the tree as she wound her fingers through my hair, chasing the panting flutter of her breathing, the mad beat of her heart, the promise of heat between her legs.

The sound of footsteps crashing through the undergrowth, of laughter, stilled me.I opened my eyes, drew away from Imogen’s skin, feeling more beast than prince as I glared at the intruders.

Two fae stood in my eyeline, a male and a female, watching hungrily.‘Mind if we join you?’the female purred.I lowered Imogen back to the ground as I glowered at our audience.

‘Or we can just watch?’the male suggested.

‘Leave.Now,’ I snapped.

The female rolled her eyes.‘Princes never learn to share,’ she sighed.I didn’t take my eyes off them until they’d dissolved back into the shadows.

When I looked back down at Imogen, she was still breathing hard, leaning against the tree, her green eyes warily tracking my face.Her lips were swollen, her cheeks flushed.

‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ I said, resisting the urge to trace those swollen lips with my fingers, to pick up right where I’d left off.Hurt flashed in those eyes before anger chased it away.A foreign twist of guilt turned like a knife in my stomach.

‘How did I know you were going to say that?’she said, a cold edge to her voice.She straightened, slipped the strap of her dress back over her shoulder, pushed her hair from her face.‘If you’re going to start harping on about how being bonded to me is a curse, you can take your hands off me.’

I did, dropping my hands back to my sides as she slid away from me, straightening her dress as she went.I took a slow breath, gathering myself, trying to release the animal who’d been wearing my skin, trying to reassert enough control to keep from grabbing her again.

‘I think the bond can be broken,’ I said as I turned to watch her combing at her hair with her fingers.The feeling I had when I watched her do that didn’t feel like it could be broken.

The eyes that met mine were hard, as if she had shut her feelings behind a steel door.‘Good.Because I want to go home.’

I reached out, plucked a leaf from her hair, offered her a grim smile.‘Maybe one day.But right now, you’re going to a ball.’

Chapter 22

Imogen

Ididn’tspeakasI followed Tarian back through the forest.The silence surrounded us with an oppressive air, filled with all the words we’d spoken and all we’d left unsaid.I wrapped my arms around myself for some protection against the cold morning, as if it was the reason my body trembled.

The way he’d looked during the hunt, that wild energy radiating from him, the way he’d kissed me...a deep warmth bloomed low in my stomach at the mere memory of it.I wanted more, and that terrified me.

I think the bond can be broken,he’d said, as if those were the words I longed to hear, as if his hands hadn’t been all over every inch of me only moments ago.I don’t know why I’d expected anything else of him, even if he had kissed me so hard my lips were swollen and bruised.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, forced myself to keep walking until we returned to where the hunt had begun, complete with spectators and fanfare I barely registered.It didn’t matter, none of it mattered.I wasn’t a person here, just an object, something to be thrown about to watch how it shined before it fell.

‘Looks like you win again, Your Highness,’ someone said.I didn’t hear Tarian’s response.Didn’t care to.I saw the other tributes standing off to the side, separated into two groups: male and female.

‘Imogen,’ Tarian said but I ignored him, making my way to the others, to thelesser.After all, that’s where I belonged.He’d made that perfectly clear.

A woman in a red dress which was once probably a marvel of silk and lace, though now looked fit for the bin, offered me a smile, small as she took in my appearance.Her hair was wilder than mine, tangled with leaves and various other bits vegetation.

‘First time?’she asked me.

‘Yes,’ was all I said.

‘I don’t remember looking so haunted after my first time, but perhaps I did.I’ve run in the hunt a few times now, so it’s hard to remember,’ she admitted.

‘Why?’

She studied me as she considered her answer.‘It’s exhilarating, don’t you think?To be hunted down by the lords and ladies of the courts, the pleasures they can bestow…’

‘Or the death.How can it be exhilarating to be treated like an animal?’

‘Whoever brought you to Beltane should have warned you,’ she said, her gaze flickering over my shoulder, back to the surly prince who’s eyes I could feel locked on me.‘It isn’t a place for those with their… innocence still intact.’