Page 209 of Blade of the Nightking

I shook myself mentally.

Lifting a hand, she brushed her fingertips along the stubble lining his jaw. "Stay with me," she breathed. "Stay this time. They'd never find you here."

Her fingers slipped into the dark hair at the nape of his neck, drawing his mouth down toward hers.

"Perhaps the gods will finally see fit to bond us once and for all."

"I'm already bonded." The words fell from his lips a hair’s breadth from hers.

She blinked. "What?" Elyndra pulled back, confusion giving way to disbelief. "How…? Who?"

Understanding dawned. She rounded on me. "You?" She was somehow even more beautiful when she was angry. I immediately regretted noticing.

“It's not something either of us wanted,” I said hurriedly.

She let out a shrill, disbelieving cackle. "You don't want him?" She gestured toward Rìan as though I'd lost my mind. "Him?"

Rìan's expression darkened.

“Aedric is going to kill you,” she hissed.

"Get me to Pelaga and it won't be a cause for concern."

"I have a better idea." A wry smile curved her mouth, her beauty contorting into something dangerous. "I'll kill her. Aedric never has to know. Let me do that for you."

Ice flooded my veins.

"No."

For a moment, she looked as though he'd struck her. Then her expression smoothed.

"This?" she asked softly, incredulously. "This is what you want?"

Before my eyes, her features rippled and shifted. High cheekbones softened. Color flooded her pale irises, transforming them into a familiar shade of blue-green. Her hair deepened to a rich brown.

A heartbeat later, I was staring at my own face. Or something close enough to it.

The expression she wore—my expression—was so inviting, so seductive, that I scarcely recognized myself.

She could alter her appearance.

Suddenly, I found myself wondering how much of Lady Elyndra's beauty was truly hers. How much had been gifted by nature, and how much had been shaped by her magic?

"No." The word sliced through the room. Rìan's response was immediate, almost violent in its force. It was something in the way he said it that made something catch deep in my chest.

In the blink of an eye, her features shifted back to their original form. Only the hair remained unchanged, identical to mine, right down to the damp strands left by our crossing of the salt flats.

“I need your help, Elly—nothing else. Not anymore.” His voice broke on the last word, and for a fleeting moment his expression strained with something that looked almost like pain. “Get me to Pelaga.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why is that so important?”

“Just trust me when I say that it is.”

She chewed on her lower lip and his eyes dropped to that motion.

“There may be another way,” she said at last. “Let me think on it.”

Rìan blinked, as if awakening from a sudden spell. He dipped his head briefly. “You have my gratitude.”