Page 22 of A Dance of Water (Moon Song #2)

She squirmed where she stood, breaths ratcheting out of her chest and matching the flurry of snowflakes throughout the room.

Settle, Luella, whispered into her mind.

And the dragon’s sharp, long talons reached up, his snout coming down as he stared into her eyes. A puff of hot breath across her cheeks, smoke wafting from his nostrils, and the hush that had befallen the revelers was broken with the Prima’s cry: "The King has chosen!"

Cheers and raucous calls filled the room, and the females by her side slowly backed away, dispersing into the crowd with crestfallen features and ugly looks thrown Luella’s way.

"I-I don’t… I don’t want this," Luella beseeched, backing up until her heels hit the first step leading to the raised dais of the throne. The dragon’s snout followed her, a curious, possessive action that made her nearly tumble backward.

But the Prima spoke again. "Silence!"

Once more, the crowd grew silent.

Tharen turned, finally meeting her widened, alarmed eyes.

He strode toward her without care of the large onyx dragon looming in their midst. He gripped her wrist tightly, and she bit back a wince.

The dragon let loose a low, groaning rumble, green eyes sparking.

Tharen’s jaw clenched, even as he eyed the beast with a knowing glint.

The Prima raised her arm high up. "The Chosen!" he yelled. "Luella Eritrais. The captive Princess of Solis."

And the crowd roared.

The dragon’s head bowed, never looking away from where Luella was standing adrift in a den of vile intent, forced into a silken fallacy and paraded about as a… as a sacrifice .

She hoped Bastian was listening to her. Could hear her woes. Could feel the dread in the very marrow of her bones.

The dragon changed.

It was a swift transformation—she could have blinked and missed it. Scales receded, skin replaced onyx, wings grew smaller, then disappeared altogether, and suddenly, the King knelt on the ground, naked and prideful as he stared up at her.

She averted her eyes from his nudity, and chuckles rang out throughout the room at her abashed state. She was a sacrificial lamb. Laughing stock.

The King stood, uncaring of his nudity. From somewhere she did not see, the Advisor arrived, a thick fur cloak in his hands. He draped it over the King’s shoulders, concealing his nude body, making him appear some wild thing with raw masculinity and ferality.

Bastian handed off another fur cloak to the King, who took it with a savage smirk. The King walked toward her, and she could do nothing, say nothing, arrested by him. He took her wrist, much like Tharen had, and came to stand by her side, the extra fur cloak thrown over his arm.

The King and the captive Princess looked out over the crowd of frost-tinged revelers, debauched and covetous with voracious appetites.

His fingers stretched hers as he gripped her hand. He was warm, and the call sang a requiem of ice and fire. Water and smoke. Snow and embers.

Vapor and… ash.

Her throat grew dry.

"Luella Eritrais is the Chosen for this Winter Solstice. Her pleasure will be a sacrifice to help the lands prosper for the cold months ahead," the King boomed.

Color drained from her face.

Pleasure… Sacrifice…

"Now," the King started, turning to her and taking up both of her hands as he stared down at her. Seeing those green eyes… It reminded her of the magnificent beast that had just been in his place.

A breath against her nape, the flutter of her white hair from the presence at her back. Something cold pressed to her throat.

Her whole body shook, and the cool steel of the blade pressed to her neck dug harsher into her delicate, exposed throat.

"Relax, sweetheart," said so low from behind her, it was a wonder she had even heard it over the pounding of her heart. A gravelly voice—Graves.

She swallowed and felt something hot and wet dribble from the tiniest of cuts on her skin. The raven shifter had cut her.

I want this to be over.

No answer.

Luella resisted the urge to sway; she felt faint, but the slightest of movements forced the blade to dig deeper into her throat.

The Prima—she could no longer call him by his name, for he was not the unhinged, sporadic male she once knew, but a lethal and coldly cunning mage—stood by their side.

The Knight—no longer Graves—at her back, and the King at her front, keeping her hands held hostage…

Their positioning was reminiscent of the fae marriage ceremonies.

"Do you accept to be the reigning King of Serpentis’s Chosen?

" the Prima asked. She looked at him, catching his unforgiving, icy stare—she found no help there.

The blade dug harder into her skin. "Failure to accept is death.

" The Prima stepped back and faced the crowd of revelers.

"The choice is yours," he said, not looking at her.

Her choice.

She could choose death. She could. Nothing was stopping her. If this was tradition—and what an ungodsly tradition it was—it would have to be upheld in front of so many eyes.

She could rest.

Finally .

Luella.

Her head tipped back, eyes fluttering shut.

No.

Not even the sound of Bastian’s voice in her mind could grant her peace now.

Luella, trust us. What did I ask of you? Trust.

You have proven you cannot be trusted, a softly whispered response.

She felt Graves’s steady breaths at her back, the King’s hands gripping hers fiercely.

Suddenly, she was taken somewhere else. The swirling stone paths cut into perfectly manicured grass, a stone block placed in the middle of the gardens like a stage for violence, hands against her cheek, promises whispered from lying lips…

Reddened eyes and shaking hands. And Bastian telling her he would not let her die.

You will live. I will make sure of it. Just as I will make sure that I have you.

The vampire’s cruel words from the past echoed in her mind.

You see , Bastian whispered. The vision he had forced upon her flickered like a dying flame as she opened her eyes to the sights in front of her, staring deeply into the King’s green eyes. I have kept my promises to you. Let me show you I can keep this one.

The throne room was so silent she could hear the faintest fall of the snow as it cascaded down into the room from the shattered skylight above.

She did not reply to the vampire but somehow found herself giving the slightest of nods, the cool blade digging into her throat and warm blood sliding from the cut on her skin.

"Use your words," Graves urged from behind her.

As Luella searched the King’s eyes for any hint of a saving grace—finding none—she felt her lips move before her mind could catch up: "I agree."

Low and hushed cheers swept throughout the crowd.

The dagger was removed from her neck, and the Knight disappeared back into the shadows.

Leaving her to face the King alone.

Tharen took a few steps away, hands folded in front of him as he watched her with predatory intent, and the King held out the extra fur cloak before him.

"Turn," the King ordered, and she did. A heavy, warm weight settled on her shoulders, and the fur cloak was placed upon her. A hot palm fell atop her nape, tugging her into his side as he forced her to stare out into the crowd.

Possession was etched into every line of his face; that wild sense of regality he held was like the flickering flame of a candle to a moth. She found herself staring up at him with unadulterated awe. And fear.

She saw the gleam of his tanned chest, revealed by the way the cloak hung around him.

Each flake of cold snow that fell to his skin immediately turned to water, droplets sliding down and disappearing under the thick furs.

She stopped her eyes from dipping further and following the wet trail the water left on his skin.

The crystalline, blue sheen painted the room as an inhospitable land forged in ice, casting them all as vicious and cold.

Luella felt the King to be the worst of them all, but as her head dipped and she saw a strand of her white hair dusted with blue shimmers and flakes of pure snow—not melting on her skin, she noted—she wondered if she was just as bad as them.

"The Chosen!" the King roared, gripping her hand so tightly her bones ached.

The exalted cries of the crowd would haunt her dreams.

She was quickly ushered out of the throne room, calls and cheers following after her, clinging to the very furs of the cloak she had been forced to don.

A fog had settled over her. She was not sure of anything anymore…

Sounds were too loud, and the fur against her shoulders scratched her skin. She was sensitive and shivering.

And barely flinched when she was forced into a dimly lit room, the door shutting firmly behind her, trapping her. With them.

Again .

Bastian’s face filled her vision, and she could not stop the faintest whimper that fell from her lips. Pained, he tore away from her; bereft, she looked away from him.

The warmth of the furs was tugged off her. Hands on her bare shoulders.

"We must continue with the ceremony." She looked up to find the Prima before her.

She was sitting… When had she sat down?

Anger softly simmered inside her soul.

"Okay," she replied without inflection. For once, she was the one without tone.

Their voices were a drone of sound around her, and she let herself sink into that floaty, deep space where she would not have to feel.