Silence fell, heavy and thick with the synthetic sweetness of Miranda's perfume.
Emily stayed frozen against the table.Her cheek burned.
"Emily?"
Blinking, she turned her head slowly.Lucy took a step toward her, her expression concerned.
"Time is running out, Em," she said quietly, then her wrist comm chimed and she winced."Shit, I have to go."
She headed for the door, then paused with her hand hovering over the panel.She looked back, her eyes dark.“Make the right choice, Em.Before they make it for you."
Then she was gone.
Emily stood in the center of the room.Alone with the gilt furniture and that phantom ache pulling at her ribs.
Two days.
In two days, Raaevik would be three steps behind her for the rest of her life.
Slowly, like her limbs were weighted with lead, she headed to the bedroom.She went to the dresser and pulled open the second drawer.Pushing aside the silk camisoles, she reached to the back until she found cool matte plastic.The comm sat ugly and black in her palm when she pulled it out.
She stared at it, tracing the single button on its side with the edge of her thumb.
She couldn't marry Daaynal.Couldn't spend a lifetime trying not to look at Raaevik, couldn't bear the weight of that false crown pressing her down day after day.
If she disappeared...
The thought crept in before she could stop it.If she vanished completely, maybe Raaevik would follow.Perhaps he'd find her, and they could?—
She crushed the thought before it could finish.That kind of thinking got people killed.
But the comm was still in her hand.
Two days.
* * *
The formal dininghall was a cage made of crystal and candlelight.
Raaevik stood at his post beside the secondary entrance, hands clasped behind his back, his back rigid against the carved column behind him.From here, he could see both exits, the serving corridor, and every face in the room.He was supposed to be watching the entire room, but his eyes kept drifting to the woman in crimson silk.
Emily sat at the high table beside the emperor, her posture impeccable and her smile as fixed and bright as the crystal chandeliers above.Her dark curls had been pinned up, exposing the line of her neck, and the crimson gown poured over her curves like wine.
She looked perfect.On the outside.
She looked like she was dying inside.
He knew nobody else would see it.All they saw was the Emperor's mate-to-be, radiant and poised… everything they could want in their future empress.
He watched her charm the Minister of Trade before turning to listen raptly as Duke Kaarigan droned on about his racingkeviits.She laughed at all the right moments, touching her napkin to her lips with a delicate precision that would have delighted her etiquette instructor.
He saw the faint tremor when she lifted her glass, masked by the tilt of her wrist as she raised it, and the same hand gripping the stem of her wine glass hard enough to turn her knuckles white until she realised her mistake and relaxed.
The need to go to her twisted in his chest.She was hurting, and he couldn't do adraanthingthing about it.
He crushed the thought.Flattened it beneath decades of training and the rhythm of his own breathing.In through the nose.Hold.Out through the mouth.Repeat.She wasn't his.She never had been.What they'd had had been nothing more than a dream.A fantasy of hours gone with the morning light.
And she hadn't looked at him once since entering the hall.
