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“It sounds too good to be true. How can I trust you?”

“You don’t have a choice.”

She exhaled heavily and ran a hand through her hair. Everything was so muddled, but her uneasy alliance with the prince was the first true step to getting her younger sister Britta back on the throne and liberating the isles.

Arrik’s plan was risky, but one with the chance of high reward. It certainly beat her sitting inside Lord Idril’s castle doing absolutely nothing, waiting for her aunt to tell her what she was expected to do next.

But something bothered her about the plan, nonetheless.

She refused to be chained.

“I don’t want to be locked up again,” she said, turning to face Arrik with an abruptness he hadn’t expected. It brought them almost toe-to-toe. “I won’t be caged by your side because of this. If you are using this to trick me, I promise you won’t survive the month.”

He dipped his head toward Wren’s. The sun was behind him, lining his pale hair in a halo of gold. It was almost too dazzling to look at, but still Wren kept her gaze on him. She wouldn’t be cowed by him. Not anymore.

Never again.

“What would you have me do, then, to make you believe that I won’t lock you up?” he murmured.

“Seal your promise in blood,” she said, holding up a hand to cut it.

Arrik intertwined his fingers with hers. “How about sealing it with a kiss, instead?”

Her eyes widened and she gasped a moment before his lips descended on hers.

The feel of their mouths pressed against one another was familiar—Arrik had kissed Wren on their wedding day, after all—but it sent a thrill down her spine that the first kiss hadn’t. His lips were powerful against Wren’s, demanding her attention, but there was no violence or forcefulness to the action.

She broke away and slapped him hard across the face. His head turned from the blow. Wren’s heart pounded in her chest as he slowly turned back, touching his red cheek.

“I told you not to touch me.” Her words didn’t hold as much venom in them as she would have liked. She hated how heat swirled in her belly from just his kiss alone.

“No, you told me to keep my hands to myself. You never said anything about my lips. The devil’s in the details, wife.”

He was the devil alright.

She untangled her fingers from his, hating how flushed her cheeks were.

From anger, not passion.

That was the lie she told herself.

“Until the ball,” he said, the faint outline of her hand on his cheek.

She nodded once and he turned on his heel, disappearing into the forest like he’d never been there. Wren stood there for too long staring into the dark woods. Her lips still tingled from the kiss. She touched them, a sickening sense of guilt trying to drown her. It was so easy to kiss him.

Enough.

She dropped her hand and returned to the castle, slipping in through the servants’ entrance. The entire place was in an uproar.

“What’s going on?” she asked a young servant.

The woman’s eyes went wide. “Lord Idril has invited the queen to join him for a party tonight!” she exclaimed, before running off with her arms full of fresh linens.

Queen Astrid was coming? Surely she knew better.

Wren made her way back up to her room, not surprised to see her aunt waiting there. Vienne had taken to hovering the last few days.

She closed the door and faced her aunt. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”