Page 20 of Only in Moonlight (The Moonlit Court #1)

Valen

S ome people sprinted headlong into the forest, while others moved at a more reasonable pace. Those who could shapeshift into hawks or wolves set out on wings or paws. Quite a few people had already passed out drunk or were vomiting.

I waited for the crowd to thin, took a lantern from an attendant, and led Emmeline into the trees. We walked for about five minutes before I found a small clearing. Soft-looking clover covered the smooth ground, and a few glowing flowers grew around a fallen log.

I took a seat, set down the lantern alongside my bow and arrow, and gestured for her to join me.

Her eyebrows rose, but she flopped easily onto the ground beside me. “I guess we’re not hunting the stag?”

“We’re not venturing any farther with those drunken idiots shooting arrows everywhere,” I said. “And no, I don’t want to win the hunt.”

“Too much attention?”

“Precisely.”

Emmeline stretched, leaning back and gazing up at the branches rustling lightly in the wind.

She looked much more relaxed than she had at the party, the lantern casting a golden glow upon her face.

My thoughts went back to the picnic and our kiss—a necessary ruse, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t enjoyed it.

And by the way she’d kissed back, she was either an excellent actress or had enjoyed it, too.

She was an excellent actress, though. I’d just seen her lean forward to listen with apparent rapt attention to the most tedious blathering, heard her laugh musically at horrible jokes.

Had she faked the passion in our kiss, too?

I had no reason to think she wanted me. Our entire relationship was a lie.

“I wish we could just stay out here,” she said. “It’s so much nicer than making polite chitchat with those snooty, two-faced popinjays.”

“They’re not all snooty, two-faced popinjays.” I paused. “Just most of them.”

She tugged on the skirt of her dress. “Why do you go to these things, anyway? Before we met, I mean. You obviously hate them.”

I’d found it much more bearable with her at my side.

“They’re informative,” I said.

Besides Aristoph blabbering his family’s designs on the throne (which I would definitely pass on to the queen), Lord Gallvien had made comments hinting that he’d joined the expansionist faction.

The chief falconer had snuck off into the forest partway through the party with a painter who wasn’t her husband, which I could use as potential blackmail.

And House Muzikune was trying to show a united front in public, but I’d caught the rigid postures and backhanded compliments.

They were still feuding over who would inherit the lordship, and one of the potential heirs was Regula’s lackey.

I wished the queen had ordered me to poison Regula years ago, before the princess had amassed so much power.

For all her wisdom, Queen Verena faltered at ordering her own sister’s death.

I suppose I understood more than I’d like to admit.

Despite what Drudon had become, I still reminisced about when he’d let me win games as children just to make me happy.

He used to comfort me after nightmares and fight the bully down the street who tried to push me around.

Could I kill him if it became necessary?

I’d killed better people for less, but it wasn’t the same as spilling my own family’s blood.

My gaze went to Emmeline again. If it came to protecting her from Drudon... I would kill him without hesitation.

Loud laughter carried through the trees, the forest’s natural silence filled with a multitude of voices and the crunch of undergrowth getting trampled. The stag was going to run to the dark side of the moon to escape this racket.

Emmeline plucked a flower and twirled it in her fingers. “What if someone spots us just sitting here?”

“We fake a dalliance. We won’t be the only ones who’ve given up hunting for more amorous pursuits.”

The flower she was fidgeting with stopped moving. “Like at the picnic.”

Her voice held an edge that made my stomach sink. We’d never talked about the kiss. Discussing the threat Drudon posed had seemed more important. Emmeline hadn’t brought it up, and I... I’d been too much of a coward to speak of it. Dwelling in dreams and wishes was easier than facing the truth.

I was supposed to be gaining her trust for the heist, not developing feelings of my own for her. How had my careful plans gotten so twisted up?

“Drudon was watching,” I said. “And our conversation was straying into risky territory. I had to put on an act.”

“I know, but I don’t have to like it.”

Her words hit me like punches. Of course she hadn’t liked it. I was a cruel scoundrel who’d manipulated her into helping me. She didn’t want my affections, didn’t want me touching and tasting her, and I was a fool to delude myself into hoping otherwise.

“I apologize.” My throat felt scratchy, and I cleared it. “It wasn’t ideal, but...” I stopped, unwilling to offer her pathetic excuses. “I’ll do my best to avoid physical intimacy in the future if it’s repugnant to you.”

The shouts of the hunters grated on my ears.

Couldn’t those dumbasses shoot the stag already?

The hunt was going to drag on all night at this rate.

I wanted to go home and sleep—except even that wouldn’t give me a respite from shame and despair, because Emmeline would be in bed beside me.

She’d remain at my side for over a month, so close yet completely out of reach, a torturous prison of my own making.

“It’s not repugnant to me. I never said that.”

I felt like a criminal offered an escape from the gallows. I tried to keep the shameless hope from showing on my face, but she wasn’t looking at me. She stared at the flower in her hand. Then she tossed it to the ground.

“I didn’t like getting used as a distraction,” she said. “And you didn’t even ask if you could kiss me.”

I scrutinized those words from every angle. I could have spent hours analyzing what she hadn’t said, but each passing moment took me closer to a missed opportunity. It seemed she objected to the circumstances, not the act itself.

She was angled toward me, not shying away from our closeness. She hadn’t flinched from me for a long time now. Her hands fiddled with the clover on the ground, but that indicated nerves, not revulsion.

I could study her all night and still not learn her true feelings. There was only one way to know for certain.

“May I kiss you?” I asked.

Her gaze shot to mine, her lips parting. Time seemed to stand still between us, and the wait both captivated and tormented me. Then her eyes darted sideways as if searching for someone.

“No one’s watching,” I said. “I’m asking genuinely.”

Her brow furrowed as she searched for something in my face.

“Your answer doesn’t affect our other business,” I said.

“Doesn’t it?”

I smiled with a carefree confidence I didn’t feel. “I can still work with you if you say no. I’m a professional.”

“And if I say yes?”

I leaned closer to her. “Well, then things get interesting.”

Her chest rose and fell with unsteady breaths, and I struggled not to stare.

I kept my gaze on her face, searching for a sign of her answer.

Those eyes… The longer I looked into them, the more intimate it felt.

My skin tightened, a wave of prickles running down my back.

Stars, I wanted to touch her. I yearned for it, though I knew I shouldn’t.

The heist didn’t need any complications.

But it was already complicated. Feelings for her had taken root inside me and grown without my realizing. The only question was whether she—

“Yes,” she said.