Page 165 of Taken By Shadows

It was strange to see someone offer such respect to Kaed. I was used to the councillors being blunt and callous with him. Morgana was just honest. Not soft and gentle and kind like her sister. Verity flowed in her veins the way healing flowed in Celeste’s.

“And I have no doubt the Crown will be better for having you by its side.” Morgana took my hand in hers. There was a quiet power in her, different from Celeste. Like tree roots and waterfalls. A force of nature under her neat and reserved facade.

“Well,” she said, taking her leave, “make sure you offer your magic to the stars, and I will see you later, I’m sure.”

And with that, she was gone.

Turning me to him with a hand on my waist, Kaed’s words hummed over me. “While she has definitely warmed to me—and I think I have you to thank for that—she certainly seems to like you, my darling bride. Lucky I have you by my side.” He was in such a carefree mood for someone who was supposed to be investigating the threat of war.

“We won’t bother with Tallis Merdia,” he said as we moved through the glasshouse, Kaed holding fronds from my path. “He’s a male who has long been known to be in favour of war.” I remembered the name and the three raked scars across his scalp from Kaed’s second hearing in the council chambers, and my tongue soured. “Audrie will probably know where it’s written, but he was a major supplier of weaponry during the war. For both sides. A business was all it was to him. He’d sniff out the chance of war if we came to speak.”

Councillor Tov, another male, was a pacifist by default, according to Kaed. Even if there was knowledge of faebane sources going missing, he would abstain from taking any action about it, to everyone’s detriment. At least those who chose a side stood for something. He wasn’t a pacifist for peace. But out of fear.

Five others sat on the council. Three fae and two humans. And of those, only one was likely to side with us. And it would be Gavrin who would have to speak with her. Rionna Darrion would definitely speak to Gavrin.

Kaed had a mischievous grin on his face when he appointed Gavrin the post of Rionna Darrion.

According to Denora, their history went back decades. It wasn’t so much a history together as a one-sided admiration from Rionna. They had spent three days on the battlefield during the war. Not long. But long enough to make a lasting impression on the councillor.

The longer we surveyed the scene around us, the more rigid Kaed became beside me. His languid demeanour was replaced by iron in his veins. Like he was waiting for something to go wrong. I had a similar feeling, my muscles tightening and winding, and I tried to force them to relax. We didn’t exactly look like the picture of happy revellers.

I leaned over to him. “Not everyone is waiting for their chance to fight you.”

“Maybe I want to fight them,” he joked, and came a little closer to me, his arm looping around me.

I wriggled to turn to him.

This casual contact from him was causing my heart to beat erratically, and I hoped he couldn’t hear it.

“You look beautiful tonight.”

The declaration caught me off guard, and I blinked. It was so unreserved. So unnecessary for the charade. There was no one close enough to hear it.

He nuzzled closer to me, his hips coming to meet mine. People crowded the garden room and I could feel their eyes straying to us as we pressed closer to one another.

“Are you drunk?” I asked, trying to push away from him.

“Never more sober,” he said, and his nose pushed at mine and drew a line across my cheekbone. He inhaled, and a low rumble reverberated through him. “But you could make me drunk with the way you smell.”

I pulled back to look at him, to unravel the words.

I had never seen him like this, and I didn’t know what to do with it. It was a different hunger than before. This was like he was savouring the taste of me. Like he wanted to draw out the moment.

“Since that night. In the rain. In here. Since having you in my bed, moving under me.” His voice was husky with restrained desire, and my body responded involuntarily. “I’ve wanted, needed, you again. It’s all I can think about.”

But the weight of the band on my finger dragged me back to reality. It meant something to me that it didn’t mean to him. It was impossible to ignore the words Eryk had planted in me, the roots of their truth. Even if this was fun for Kaed, emotional or physical—maybe both—how was it ever meant to be more than that between a prince and someone like me?

Not one day ago, I’d have been a pile of bones in his arms with the way he was speaking. The way his lips were now grazing along my jaw, descending to my neck. My skin pebbled at the feel of his lips on me.

A shuddered breath tumbled from me, unbidden and unwelcome.

Another animalistic rumble sounded in Kaed, and his eyes darkened as he looked down at me.

“If there weren’t hundreds of people here, I would take you right now, right here. I want you, peach.”

Heat flushed on my neck and my chest, and I was breathy despite standing perfectly still in Kaed’s grasp.

Just then, Tymon broke the tension as he walked into our space.