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“Perhaps it would be better if I stayed,” Fen replied.
It made a deep sort of shiver rattle its way deep into Melody’s bones. Because Fen was the least nurturing creature Melody knew, and given who she knew, that was saying something.
This could only mean it was worse than it seemed.
Her own heart beat so hard then, so loud, she thought it might leave a scar on the outside of her chest.
And still his footsteps came closer. Melody tried to imagine what Griffin must look like, bearing down on her. That beautiful face she’d felt beneath her hands taut and grim. Both of them unchained, finally, from this game they’d been playing all the while.
If the normally unflappable Fen was apprehensive, Melody should have been terrified.
But she knew that wasn’t the thing that bloomed inside her, thick and ripe.
“I’ll be fine,” she murmured to Fen. “Truly.”
She had no idea if that was true, so she did what she could to stand balanced on her bare feet. Ready for whatever might come at her—or ready to counterattack, anyway, which amounted to the same thing. She’d learned to punch and kick quickly, as all white belts did. It had taken her a great many more years to learn how to be still.
To wait.
“Godspeed, then,” Fen muttered from beside her.
Melody didn’t try to find her way back into the weak little character she’d been playing. She doubted it would work this time.
And on a deeper level, she didn’t want to.
Because she wanted him to seeherfor once.
Had she sensed him? Had that been why she’d felt so much fierce joy in this particular session? Why she’d jumped higher, punched better? Had she known all along he was here?
Melody knew he was here now, certainly. She couldfeelhim as he stalked toward her, temper and heat. And she couldn’t bring herself to shrink back down into palatable size.
She had no idea what to do with the storms she could feel snap and howl around them, but she knew she couldn’t pretend any longer. It already felt like years since she’d agreed to play her role. Decades since she’d found the whole thing amusing.
Something in her whispered that she would pay for this, later—
But she heard Fen close the door.
And in the next second, Griffin was there.
Right there, looming over her, wrapping the storm tight around them both.
Melody should have been afraid. But instead, she felt as if she was expanding. As if her ribs couldn’t contain all the things she felt, and none of them was fear.
“It never fit, did it?” Griffin seethed at her. She could hear rain pounding down against the great domed ceiling, high above. But here, between them, there was nothing but thunder. “All this time, you were playing me. Letting me think I was protecting you when it seems, Princess, that you could take on the better part of the Royal Guard without breaking a sweat.”
“Only if they got lippy with me,” she replied.
The way she would reply to anyone. No breathiness. No cloying sweetness.
No act.
He laughed again, that wild, dangerous sound, as if he relished this as much as she did. No mask. None of that tinkling, polite, brittle laughter. No pretending she was meek when she was anything but.
“Did you have any intention of telling me the truth?” he demanded, his voice soft and close.
She didn’t mistake the softness for weakness. Not when she could hear the fire in it. And could feel it crackling all over her skin.
“Because here is what I think you do not realize, my innocent bride.” She expected him to grip her again, with those marvelously hard hands of his, but he didn’t. Griffin prowled around her instead, walking in a tight circle. And she could feel, too distinctly, the touch of his gaze on every part of her. She felt a flush wash over her, head to toe and back again. “Or is that also a lie?”
