Page 51 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors

Was that evasion, or was he just drunk?

Moving on.“So, I guess that makes me Hippolyta.”

He grinned at me. “I didn’t have to threaten you in marriage. Hippolyta was threatened with a fate worse than death if she didn’t marry Theseus,perpetual virginity.”

I stared up at him. Was it actually written on my face? Could he actually see it? “How did youknow?”

“What?” he asked.

“What?” I replied, because he hadnotknown. I was just paranoid. And maybe too literal about everything.

And yeah,thatwas evasion, but we didn’t need to talk aboutshmexand virginity right there witha prieststaring at us.

He dipped, bending while his arms wrapped around my back and took me out at the knees, and I windmilled as I fell, grabbing at anything to not crash to the floor.

But Nicolai Romanov swept me up in his arms.

“Oh!” I grabbed at his shoulders, even though his arms were locked under me.

The priest snatched up the marriage license and shoved it into my hand.

Nicolai turned his head and yelled something in Russian to the priest behind us, and he carried me in his strong arms, my squishiness cradled against his warm chest as I looked up at the determined set of his jaw and teal-blue eyes staring straight at the double-wide church doors like he was on a mission from God, the fluffy white wedding dress billowing as he strode down the aisle and I held our half-signed marriage license like fairies were chasing us, trying to disrupt our wedding with mischief.

The priest and his aide had signed and stamped the marriage license already because, as the priest had insisted, he’d done his part.

We hadn’t signed it. I’d refused, and I hadn’t let Nico anywhere near a pen.

So, my second wedding day was the strangest day in my life, and I had no idea it would lead to so many deaths.

CHAPTER 20

hangover

NICOLAI ROMANOV

Light waspain was suffering was my heart drumming in my head was bitter decay in my mouth.

Every joint ached.

My stomach roiled like a blowout tire flapping around the rim.

Sunlight on my face burned and pierced my eyes.

“Fuck me,” I whispered, and my throat hurt all the way to my ears.

And then, mortifying me further, a feminine alto voice murmured, “Are you awake already?”

What Itriedto do was flip over and scramble backwards while demanding who the woman was and how she had ended up in my bed.

What actually happened was that I thrashed on the bed like a beached goldfish and moaned,“Whuuu?—”

My boneless flop maneuvered my head around on the pillow, and I saw the woman who’d spoken.

She was pretty, though disheveled as we were in bed, her long blond hair tangled around her face and dark eyes soulful as she raised one eyebrow at me.

She asked in mercifully soft dulcet tones, “How are you doing there, Nico?”

Knowing my name meant she had the advantage. “Not too well.”