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Wren scanned the crowd and she spied Queen Astrid, who was sitting in a pit of cushions close to where Soren was dancing. She was staring straight at her. When she noticed that Wren had spotted her, she saluted her with her goblet of wine.

Wren’s pulse thundered in her ears. How did she think she could do this?

You’re a dragon warrior. Hold your head high.

All eyes were on her as she forced herself to keep moving through the crowd. She took another sip of her wine, searching the sea of masked faces. Where was the prince?

The music changed to a heartbreakingly melancholic tune made for slow dancing. She watched as couples paired off.

“Might I have this dance?” Arrik asked from behind Wren, his voice smooth as silk over her skin. She turned to face him and was immediately glad for the mask obscuring half of her face, for her cheeks flushed as red as her hair as she took him in.

Her husband was dressed all in black; his horned mask inlaid with Dragon Isle diamonds was a perfect pair for Wren’s own. His long, pale hair was braided away from his face, though it was shot through with fine silver threads. The black velvet waistcoat he wore over a dark frothy shirt was also shot through with silver, which complemented the silver buckles that ran up his black boots.

His perfect lips curved into a genuine smile as he took in Wren, too busy with his own observations to realize she was doing the same to him. “I am glad to see the dress I chose fits you so well,” he said, his voice holding a slight growl that caused her to shiver. He held out his hand and the whispering around them increased. “How lovely you are in my colors, wife.”

She took his hand and he led her to the dance floor, skirts swishing around her bare legs. He pressed her close to him, arm snaking around her waist, and began dancing.

“Where did you get these diamonds?” Wren asked, though it wasn’t what she’d wanted to ask at all. “The ones in the masks, I mean.”

“They may have been seized when we raided Lorne,” Arrik replied, so easily that Wren winced. “You will be reassured to know that each and every one of them is accounted for between the two masks we’re wearing though. Soren did not get his hands on a single one. Idril, either. They’re mine.”

“Ours,” she corrected.

He smiled. “Ours.”

He made the word sounds sinful.

Wren didn’t want that to mollify her, but it did. It should have incensed her that Arrik had the audacity to take her kingdom’s own gemstones to decorate himself.

But the diamonds suited him.

Too well.

“I was getting worried you had been held up,” Wren muttered, when Arrik twirled her elegantly beneath his arm before pulling her back to his chest once more. To their left, Wren spied Kalles without a mask. He waved his hands above his head like a reed in the breeze.

“Is your brother high?”

Arrik’s lips thinned. “When is he not?”

As if Kalles heard their conversation, his attention latched on to them. Despite his stupor, he was scrutinizing Wren with absolute precision.

She tensed. People overcome by drugs were unpredictable.

“Do not feel concerned,” he reassured her. “So long as you remain by my side, you’ll remain safe.” His hands tightened around her. He lowered his mouth to Wren’s ear. “Make my father believe that you’ve become my complicit wife and all will be fine. He is losing his mind over the dissent in the isles. Your people are holding up against him with commendable strength.”

A surge of pride filled Wren’s body. Arrik seemed proud, too, or at the very least impressed. He was not frustrated by the Dragon Isles refusing to cooperate—not in the least.

Why did she find that attractive?

“My people ride dragons for fun,” she whispered back, sliding her hand from Arrik’s shoulder to the back of his neck without quite knowing what she was doing, her fingers tangling in his hair. “I thought you knew by now that we were not so easily conquered.”

Arrik’s eyes gleamed when he pulled away just enough to gaze at Wren’s face. “Not conquered, no. Conspirers though…”

“Conspirers?” Wren raised a sharp brow. “I quite like the sound of that.”

The two of them exchanged a look, then, and time seemed to pause. They stopped dancing, though the orchestra’s song was yet to draw to a close and there were people all around them still twirling and moving.

He brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. “I hoped so. You’re going to make an incredible queen.”