Page 42 of The Duchess Curse

Braxton grunted, threw a punch so hard and with such precise aim, his opponent flew backward and into the overhanging shadow of a building. Braxton jumped to his feet and prowled after him, golden hair the only source of light in the almost faded day.

She lost sight of him and ventured closer until she could see two shadows grappling in the dim light. They were locked in battle, and blood poured from a wound in the attacker’s side.

Braxton was nothing more than a dark blur, and the man he had trapped against the side of the building was writhing, clawing at his eyes where shadows clung, blinding him.

With a guttural scream, he broke loose and ran from the shadows, his red gaze firmly on Guin.

She flattened the hat again, ready.

But Braxton reached the attacker first, pulling a blade from his boot, hooking an arm around his neck, and slipping the knife between two ribs.

The attacker dropped between them, and Guin was staring into Braxton’s golden eyes when the sun completed its journey below the horizon, and the city shadows slid together.

Darkness. For a breath.

Before the fairy lights lining the street flickered on, flooding everything with their bobbing white light.

Braxton stood in their glow, chest heaving, sweat slicking his brow, blood on his hands.

But his eyes weren’t gold. They were green.

And the thick black tangle of his hair was as familiar to her as each scar that scorched his jaw, his eyebrow, his hands.

Bran.

She couldn’t feel her legs, but somehow she still stood, a buzzing growing louder in her ears, swallowing her whole.

“S-stop it,” she heard herself say. “Why would you be so cruel?”

Confusion flickered in his eyes. Green eyes. Then he stretched out his arms, turned them over. And over. “Fucking Jupiter.”

What Bran always said.

And so many little details clicked into place—the way he fought, how he’d not asked her if she’d slept with Bran, how he took charge of Ned as if he’d done it before, how he’d known exactly what to get to stock her conservatory, how Artemis had flown to him without question, how he knew every detail of her life since she’d left him.

She flew at him, making claws for green eyes she’d longed to see since losing them. “Stop it! Take it off! Take off the glamour!” She knew it wasn’t one, but a screeching inside her couldn’t let it go. Because to rip away the lie left only betrayal.

He caught her, pinning her arms to her sides, hissing and thrashing like a cat held over water.

Everywhere she touched him—hard like the body that had kissed her ten days ago. And solid like a form without a glamour. Her clothes did not disappear past a glimmering surface. They met dirty linen and silk. Her face thrashed against a bare throat. Her hands pushed against a black waistcoat.

No glamour.

Just him.

Bran.

Also Braxton. Impossible, all of it impossible, but solid like the truth.

He released her, and she stumbled backward, unable to look away from his face. Her lips were numb now.

He’d kissed her.

What had he said that night? Oh yes…

“The man did not want even a kiss from me.”

“I think he did.”