My reflection stares back at me with clenched fists, offering no answers. Only a handsome face and an empty mind.
And for the first time since arriving in the Sun Court, I find myself wondering whether Max is afraid of losing me, or of discovering exactly who I am.
I wake with a start,my head swimming with thoughts of Max, but her heat is still nowhere to be found. The bedroom smells of fresh cedar and citrus. Moonlight spills across carved furniture and gold-trimmed walls, catching on objects that should feel familiar, but nothing in this room belongs to the man I know myself to be.
I sigh into the pillow and shift onto my back, still half asleep, still irrationally bothered she insisted on sleeping apart.
If only she’d let me go with her to the women’s quarters…
The thought tightens low in my stomach, my cock stiffening beneath the luxurious ivory sheets.
The revelation of my alive-ness shocked us both, but my head is still spinning, and my body knows exactly what it craves. If Max were here, none of it would matter.
Not this curse that apparently stole decades of my life, or the legacy that belongs to me whether I want it or not. With her here,I wouldn’t have to suffer the unbearable weight of everything attached to the name Ezra Lightbringer. The prince. The son. The husband.
I would only have to brush her hair away from her face and kiss the corner of her jaw to forget.
I run my hand up and down my length, and chuckle quietly at the memory of my ghosts erections, and how uncomfortable they were. Still, I haven’t touched myself in decades, and my own hand is a very poor replacement for Max.
A feral instinct inside me bristles.
I can picture it too easily—pulling her into my lap beneath these ridiculously soft royal sheets, breathing in the scent of her skin, my hands tangled in her curls while the rest of the world dissolves into static.
I’d drown all that external noise in skin and heat and kisses.
Then a body slides over mine, soft thighs settling on either side of my waist, and I freeze.
Something’s wrong.
A mouth finds the space beneath my ear, a tongue dragging slowly along my neck, and I grab the woman’s hips instinctively, trying to stop her without hurting her.
The curtain of black hair fanning across my chest confirms that Max isn’t the one sneaking into my bed.
“Iris?” I gasp. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Hi,” she hums against my skin, completely unbothered as she closes a small hand around my erection. My teeth grind together as she slides down to the base and back up again with the confidence of someone who’s done it many, many times before.
I grip her wrist. “No.”
My stomach clenches as her wetness brushes the base of my cock. She’snaked.
“No! Stop!”
The words come out louder this time, panic climbing up my spine. I wrestle her off me, rolling her over to the mattress and slipping from her grasp, climbing out of bed.
I stumble backward toward the open balcony, my feet cold on the marble, and wrestle with the pants I wore at dinner to add a layer of fabric and dignity between us. Given her brazenness, layers are needed. Layers aregood.
Moonlight catches her sprawled over the bed, utterly shameless.
And smiling.
A black eel curls around the elegant line of her spine, just as it did in the gardens and at dinner. If anything, it looks even more active in the dark, coiling and writhing in slow, serpentine motions. The parasite nestles itself deeper into her nervous system under my frozen stare with obscene audacity.
It’s not even bothering to try to hide anymore.
Iris’s hair spills wildly across the ivory sheets. She’s petite, almost deceptively delicate, but there’s nothing fragile about the way she moves. Every shift of her body carries the controlled grace of a trained fighter, fluid and predatory, even half reclined against silk pillows.
She doesn’t bother covering herself. If anything, there’s something deliberate and provocative in the openness of her posture, in the elegant curve of her spine. and the slow glide of her foot against my bed. It feels as though she’s offering me a familiar temptation and waiting for my instincts to take over.
