Page 91 of The Chains You Defy

“I will have her seated at the unused commoner’s table; that shall be honor enough. You will attend the revelry with Danartha.”

The commoner’s table was a joke, originating from the beginning of Galrach’s reign. By creating a space for everyone, he’d earned a lot of goodwill and had used the pretense that anyone might be given a chance to be a guest at High Court events like a carrot on a stick. Hopeful fae had offered their services for a fraction of their worth, all in the hope of scoring an invitation to a function. Of course, those had never come. I’d forgotten this farce still existed.

Clenching my jaw, I counted slowly to ten, but in vain. Rage still ran rampant in my veins.

Also because of Danartha, for fuck’s sake.

Galrach was pushing her toward me at any viable opportunity. Although he couldn’t downright order me to court her—maybe the only autonomy that customs granted me, and which my grandfather couldn’t circumvent—he could force me to parade her around at official functions.

But this time, instead of just swallowing the bitter potion, I’d use the chance to sever any connection between me and the light Wielder female. This was a decent enough first step—ensuring that this ball was the last one we’d ever visit together, one way or the other.

“As you wish, Your Royal Majesty.”

“Good. I will call on you again soon. For now, you are dismissed.”

After meeting the godsdamned tyrant king of the fae, I followed Dion through the corridors of Alaiann Palace, silent as a mouse. Even though he sauntered in front of me, his arrogant, superior, and aloof presentation impeccably executed, his minuscule tells gave away his true mental state. The muscle feathering in his jaw, the fist in his pocket, clenching and unclenching, and the heavy steps, their intensity barely visible—for everyone but me—all of this spoke a language of its own.

Dion’s pace was brisk as he led me back into his quarters without delay. Once the door had closed, his mask dissipated, and he was shaking, a seemingly perpetual growl leaving his throat. He was hanging on by a thread.

“Can you help me? I lost track of time. How long until winter solstice?”

Not true, but I needed a hook to reel the creature, who was on the edge of succumbing to his feral nature, back in.

Dion’s jaw worked, and if he didn’t relax his face soon, he’d likely break a bone. Fists balled and spine stiff, his body was taut like a bowstring. I was no stranger to this expression, usually reserved for when he was moments away from losing his temper, often because Thain behaved in a way he hated—like being alive.

New, though, was a certain primal lethality, highlighting the danger he posed.

The next warning sign was his failure to reply to me.

“Dion? Did you hear me?”

“Can’t—speak—”

His voice was almost drowned out by the subliminal growl, which hadn’t stopped since we’d entered his quarters, and the clarity that he was about to lose control cut me to the bone.

Yet I wasn’t scared.

Deep down, I trusted Dion not to hurt me.

Once before, his blind rage had ended with me injured because the prince had pushed me out of the way when I’d attempted to stop him from murdering Thain. I’d earned a sprained wrist while Dion, the male I’d believed to be unable to have a bad conscience, had been devastated. The promise never to endanger me again in his fury was one he wouldn’t break, I was confident.

So, I didn’t flinch when he darted forward and crowded me into the wall. Before I could crash against the solid surface—with a force which would have cracked my skull—he cushioned me with his large hands andwith his magic erupting in thick, inky tendrils coiling around me, absorbing the impact.

Surprise and shock must have been written all over my face. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but the attempt was squashed when Dion’s lips collided with mine. He was a force of nature, a primal spirit, ancient and unyielding, forever untamed. All I could do was surrender, and as I kissed him back, there was nothing soft or tender in the clash between him and me.

His power around us thickened, the strands pulsing and undulating, and the only beacons visible in the darkness were two dots of bright amethyst light, shining with the strength of two purple mini-suns.

Gravity lost its meaning. I was weightless, only grounded by the connection of our lips, by his smell of a rainstorm in a forest just as immemorial as he, and by the taste of shadowy darkness so unique to Dion.

We were the beginning and the end, the void, and yet infinite—discerning where he ended and where I began was impossible, as this dance, older than time itself, overwhelmed my senses and dragged me asunder.

And then his lips abandoned mine. Instead, a fiery trail of fluttering kisses trailed along my jaw to my neck, descending at a steady pace.

Before my lungs collapsed, I gasped. My body had forgotten that air was needed for survival, and light-headedness still had me in its grasp as Dion nipped at my pulse point. His sharp canines against my delicate skin delivered a delicious pang of pain, and they almost broke through my skin.

As the pressure vanished, a tendril brushed its tip against the lingering sting, soothing the tender spot. Another audible gasp propelled from my throat into thevoid, encouraging Dion and his magic to repeat their undertaking.

An inferno had roared to life in my core, and rational thinking threatened to abandon me in favor of endless desire.