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The body truly didn’t feel like what I remembered.
The taste on my tongue, and the sweet, fresh scent of honeydew wasn’t at all what I recalled.
The hesitancy of how she returned the kiss. There was nothing even remotely tentative about the way Britta kissed. That much, I did remember. She kissed like she was starving, from the moment our lips touched to the very second our mouths parted. The female under me kissed like…
Like someone who had far less experience than those I usually spent my time with.
Heart thumping heavily, I broke the kiss and lifted my head. “Who are you?”
There was no response. Irritation flared. Whatever game this girl was about, I was done playing it without knowing what cards I’d been dealt. I tugged the hood back, exposing her face—
Holy shit.
For a moment, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was caught in a state of shock that was so rare I almost laughed, but no sound parted my lips as I stared down at her face—at what I could see of it, anyway. She wore a white mask, as many did while in the Red Pearl, but I still knew whose body cradled mine, whose taste still tingled on my lips. I just couldn’t believe it as my gaze tracked over the wide mask that covered her from cheek to brow.
It was impossible, but it was her.
I’d recognize the curve of that jaw and that mouth—those full, bow-shaped lips the color of berries—anywhere. It was all that was ever visible of her. And the gods knew I’d tried to catch a glimpse of what she looked like beneath that fucking veil when I followed her and her Royal Guards through the gardens or the castle or when I watched her with her Lady in Wait. I’d seen her smile a few times. I’d seen her lips move even less, but I knew that mouth.
It was who I’d just sat in this very room discussing.
It was her.
The Maiden.
The Chosen.
The Queen’s favorite.
THE MAIDEN AND THE RED PEARL
The Maiden was here, in the godsdamn Red Pearl, in a room with me—under me—someone she had to fear more than the gods themselves. Because there was no doubt in my mind that she’d heard the whispers about me. The name the Blood Crown had given me.
The name I’d become.
I’d spent years planning to take her, had orchestrated many deaths and just sealed the fate of another, all so I could get close enough to take her. And she’d practically fallen into my lap.
Or I’d fallen into hers.
Whatever.
Another disbelieving laugh built in my throat because what in the wide kingdom of fucks was the unreachable, unseen, and untouched Maiden doing in the Red Pearl? In a private room. Kissing a man.
The laugh was never given life because something else snagged my attention. Her hair. It had always been hidden beneath the veil, but in the candlelight, I could tell that it was the color of the richest red wine.
I drew my hand out from behind her head, noting how she tensed as I picked up a strand, drawing it out. The tendril was soft as it slipped through my fingers.
The Maiden was a redhead.
I had no idea why that surprised me, but it felt like a discovery just as startling as finding her here.
“You are most definitely not who I thought you were,” I murmured.
“How did you know?” she demanded.
So, she does speak. Her voice was stronger and earthier than I’d expected.
The shock of the situation forced an honest answer out of me. “Because the last time I kissed the owner of this cloak, she damn near sucked my tongue down her throat.”
“Oh,” she whispered, and what I could see of her nose wrinkled.
My gaze flicked to hers, and I made another discovery. Her eyes, which were always hidden by the veil, were a stunning shade of green, as bright as spring grass.
I stared down at her, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this was the Maiden, and that the Maiden was a green-eyed redhead, when something occurred to me. “Have you been kissed before?”
“I have!”
One side of my lips kicked up. “Do you always lie?”
“No!” she exclaimed.
“Liar,” I teased, unable to help myself.
The skin below the mask deepened to a rosy color as she pushed against my chest. “You should get off.”
“I was planning to,” I muttered, thinking she probably had no idea what that meant.
But then her eyes narrowed behind the mask in a way that told me she knew exactly what I meant, and that was another shock.
She had…the Maiden had a dirty mind.
The laugh that had been building broke free, and it was a real one that came from a warm place that hadn’t existed since I made the foolish decision to go after the Blood Crown myself. The laugh shocked the hell out of me, filling me with emotions I’d long believed dead.
