Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“I never said you were,” he says. “But you don’t stop fighting until it’s over.”
I cough and pull in air. “Noted,” I croak.
Cursing, he lifts himself onto his elbows. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“I’m fine. Didn’t need my pride anyway.”
He grins, brushing the hair from my face. “You’re different,” he says, still breathing hard.
Those words should panic me, but I can’t think straight when the weight of his body still rests between my thighs and his lips are so close to mine. He has the most perfect mouth. Bow shaped and soft. A little too wide for his face. Hungry looking, like his eyes.
“Different?” It’s hard to push out the word, hard to do anything when it’s taking all my energy to keep my hands from plunging into his hair and pulling his mouth to mine.
Kissing him is a bad idea. It’s a terrible idea to follow this gut-level attraction with this male, with this king who thinks I’m someone else.
“I can’t put my finger on it,” he says, eyes scanning my face. “You look no different. You . . .” His tongue skims the ridge of his teeth, and I want to do the same. What would those teeth feel like on my lips? On my neck? “Ever since you arrived in my court. Maybe that was what it took to make me see you.”
I shift beneath him, pulling up one leg and giving his powerful thighs more room between my smaller ones. His body sinks closer.
He closes his eyes and mutters a curse. “What are you doing to me?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I’ve never felt this. I . . .” I’m entranced by the sight of his throat as he swallows. I want to taste that too.
“It’s not your scent. It’s not the way you look or even your voice.” His fingers skim across my cheek again, as if to tuck my hair back, but there’s none left to tuck, no excuse left. He’s just touching now. Memorizing. Cataloging. “Is it the fae in your blood? Is it because you’ll turn so soon, and now . . .” He shakes his head. “Even that doesn’t make sense to me.” When he meets my eyes, his look is almost nervous. “Do you feel this too?”
I can’t deny it. I won’t. I should. “Yes.”
“But your baker’s son back home. Your—”
I shake my head. “I let him go.” What am I doing?
“And do you miss him? Do you think about him?”
I can’t think about anyone else when I’m around you. I can’t remember who I am or why I’m here. But I only say, “It was best for both of us to move on.”
His hand cups the side of my face, and his gaze locks on to my mouth. Then just as suddenly as we found ourselves on the ground, he’s rolling off me and hopping to his feet in a fluid motion. He wipes his hands on his pants, then helps me to my feet. But his gaze shifts from me to someone behind me.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” a female says, her voice delicate. “I wondered if you still wanted me to meet with the princess this morning.”
I turn and blink at the former Wild Fae queen. She’s tall—nearly as tall as Misha—with ebony skin, dark brown eyes, and hair that is cut close to her scalp. I know she’s an empath just by the sense of peace I feel looking at her. At this moment, she’s trying to ease my mind about what she just walked in on.
“Another time, of course,” she says. “I didn’t realize you’d be training with the king this morning.”
Misha clears his throat and looks back and forth between us. “I think we’ll end our session early this morning, Jasalyn,” he says, glancing toward me without meeting my eyes. “I’d like to speak with Amira.”
I swallow hard, feeling awkward and scandalized and rejected all at once. “Of course.” I duck my head, not wanting to see the regret in his eyes. He almost kissed me, and he knows it was a mistake. Noted.
I should feel the same. It just might take me a few minutes longer to get there.
Spying on the king and his former wife is unforgivable.
Yet I find myself taking the form of a servant just so I can sneak into the king’s quarters. Just so I can see them together.
Echoes aren’t like shifters, and taking the form of another requires sleep—dreaming—so it can’t be done on a whim. Here? Where I’m expected to be Jasalyn and where her absence will be noted? Being anyone else is practically reckless, but when I found out the king and former queen were planning to take lunch together in the king’s quarters, I couldn’t resist.
I need to know what he thinks about what happened this morning. It’s one thing for him to declare that I seem different in the heat of the moment, but if he’s had more time to contemplate those feelings and he’s grown suspicious, I need to know.