A Feather So Black

Book 1: Fair Folk

by Lyra Selene

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Romantic Fantasy; Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

The Cruel Prince meets For the Wolf in a sizzling fantasy romance inspired by Celtic fae mythology, spinning a magical tale of a changeling princess, her cursed sister, and the dangerous fae lord she must defeat to save her family.

In a realm without magic, Fia is a rare changeling, swapped for the Princess Eala by the wicked Fair Folk. Eala's mother, the High Queen, has taken Fia in as an adoptive daughter and trained her as a warrior spy. Princess Eala, meanwhile, is the prisoner of a shadowy Folk lord, cursed to be a swan twenty-eight days of the month.

When a forgotten gate to the Folk realm is discovered, Fia is tasked by the High Queen to break Eala's curse and retrieve her, and to capture a powerful magical weapon that will help humankind destroy the evil in Otherworld. Accompanying Fia on this mission is handsome prince Rogan, the betrothed of Princess Eala, and the very man who Fia secretly loves.

As the two journey through the gate, Fia is conflicted by her feelings for the prince. And as each moon cycle waxes and wanes, she soon finds herself fighting a heated attraction to the dark-hearted Gentry lord holding Eala captive as well.

With time running out to break Princess Eala's curse and claim the powerful weapon, Fia begins to question everything-the truth of her origins, the reality of her mission, and the "love" of her mother and High Queen. Ultimately, the key to unraveling truth from half-truth and saving the balance between the realms might just be. . . herself.

Release date: March 12, 2024

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 448

Sample

I should not have drunk the blackberry wine. It slid violet through my veins and pricked sharp thorns at the nape of my neck. I’d thought it would calm me—focus my mind on the task at hand—but the opposite was true. I felt loose and reckless, jittering with nerves. I curled my hands tighter around my cup, fighting the brambles nettling at my fingertips.

Served me right for drinking on duty.

“More wine?” Connla Rechtmar, prince of Fannon, leaned forward in his fur-draped seat. He sloshed a carafe of purple liquid and flashed me an expectant smile. “Or do I need to offer you something stronger to make you take off that cloak you’re hiding under?”

By now, the wine had traveled to my face, and I fought a flush—not of girlish embarrassment, but of fury. He had the audacity to speak to me like I was some timid strumpet? I could break his neck without breaking a sweat.

My wine-spiked blood pounded between my ears, hot with the prospect of violence.

I reminded myself that Connla didn’t know what I was capable of. And if I had any sense, I’d keep it that way.

The tent was too warm, the fire roaring to ward off late autumn’s chill. I would’ve preferred it cold—a bite of frost to keep me alert. I forced myself to count off the steps of my mission through the fevered muddle of my thoughts:

One. Get to the carafe of wine.

Two. Drug the wine.

Three. Smother Connla’s unconscious face in his mound of seduction furs. (If I had time.)

Four. Find the prince’s captive darrig.

Five. Bring the wicked creature to my mother.

I took a deep breath, even as I pressed a thumb against the bracelet I wore around my wrist, a woven circle of dried poison ivy, nettle, and bramble. It dug into the tender ring of irritated skin below it. The flare of pain untangled the snarl of my thoughts.

I undid the clasp of my heavy woolen cloak, dropping it to the floor before my skin could prickle with sharp thorns. Without the outer garment, the air was blessedly cooler on my bare arms and exposed collarbones. I looked up through my lashes at Connla, gauging his reaction to my kirtle—or lack thereof. The sheer forest-green silk was striking against my pale skin and did little to disguise my physique. The thin shoulder straps were unnecessary considering how tight I’d cinched the bodice, accentuating my modest curves and slender waist. The high slit in the skirt left little to the imagination.

It achieved the desired effect. Connla’s eyes widened, then darkened. He shifted in his chair. I fought the urge to shudder at the vulgar anticipation slicking his gaze.

Truthfully, I could have worn a grain sack or a few judiciously placed oak leaves. Connla wanted me, with or without the clinging dress, and I’d known it since that morning.

For the past fortnight, all the under-kings and noblemen of Fódla had been camped near Rath na Mara—the high queen’s capital—to participate in the Áenach Tailteann, funeral games held to celebrate and mourn kings of Fódla. This year’s assembly honored the late under-king of Eòdan and crowned his heir.

For the first few days, the high queen, Eithne Uí Mainnín—my adoptive mother—had presided over the creation of new laws, followed by a great funeral pyre in the king’s honor. Then the games had begun—trials of physical and mental prowess that allowed young warriors and poets the opportunity to prove their strength, valor, and wit.

Connla Rechtmar had represented his father’s household in a few categories—archery, horse racing, blades. He’d won all his matches—an odd bit of luck, considering he was lazy and slow, even for a prince.

Mother had not allowed me to compete. No—I was her secret, her instrument, her weapon. Flaunting my skills before her nobles was of no use to her—not if she wished me to spy on them, tease out their secrets, hunt down their weaknesses. So, as always, she kept me beside her in the queen’s box, demurely dressed and diffident. The queen’s favored fosterling—a strange, quiet little mouse.

That was where Connla noticed me. It wasn’t unusual to feel eyes on the side of my face—even though I looked chaste and obedient, there were the rumors. There were always the rumors—about where I’d come from, why I looked the way I did, why the queen took particular interest in me. But Connla’s regard was different—an oily kind of interest I didn’t find particularly flattering. I was debating whether I could surreptitiously give him the two-fingered salute across the ring, when Mother leaned over to me. She pretended to tuck an errant lock of sable hair beneath my veil.

“Rechtmar’s son desires you,” she murmured to me, too quiet for her other attendants to hear.

“I noticed,” I grumbled. And then, hopefully: “May I kill him for it?”

“You may not.” She almost smiled. “Cathair?”

Ollamh Cathair—the queen’s druid, chief advisor, and long-term lover—moved from his place behind her. He slid onto the bench beside me as Mother returned her attention to the archery contest below. His unwanted closeness chased away my cheekiness, but I forced myself not to flinch.

Cathair was a slender middle-aged man with a mild bearing. But his looks were his best deception. He had trained me in many things these past eleven years. Folklore. Ciphers. Poisons. Espionage. But first and foremost, he had taught me never to show my enemy how much I hated him.

“Fannon has been exceptionally lucky in their border skirmishes this year,” Cathair muttered. “Flash floods sweeping away enemy troops, falling trees blocking supply wagons. That kind of thing. My informants believe they may have captured a darrig.”

Although the Fair Folk found ways to slink into our realm, it was expressly forbidden to consort with them. To keep a darrig was treason—the gnome-like creatures could predict events not yet passed and affect the outcome of simple occurrences. A tree falling, perhaps. The direction of a flood. Or even the outcome of a sword fight in a tournament.

“You believe Connla has the darrig?” I guessed, keeping my eye on the prince in question, who was celebrating his lucky wins by lazily swilling ale in the stands.

“Old Rechtmar is past his prime,” Cathair told me. “Connla is his heir, his war advisor, and the captain of his fianna. If anyone has it, it will be Connla. Capture the thing for us, won’t you?”

“You mean execute it.” I glanced past Cathair to the queen. “Don’t you?”

“Not this time.” His expression held the kind of deadly intent I’d learned not to question. “We have a use for the creature.”

I hid my uncertainty. Mother despised and distrusted the Fair Folk—they who had once ruled this land as gods. They were wicked, fickle, violent creatures who did not belong in the human realm. During a diplomatic delegation twenty years ago, the Folk had assassinated the high king, Mother’s husband. The unjustified execution had incited the Gate War. The fight had been savage and bloody, until the Folk had effectively ended it by stealing away twelve human girls—the last, the queen’s own daughter.

Mother never utilized the treacherous Folk for her own devices. Except me, the changeling child who had been left in her daughter’s place twelve years ago. But after so much time in the queen’s household, I was far more human than Folk. And everything I did for Mother, I did willingly.

Including this.

I refocused my attention on Connla, who was still staring brazenly at me from below. “How am I supposed to find the darrig?”

“You’ve demonstrated your tactical skills to me, little witch. And you’ve been developing an adequate head for subterfuge.” Cathair’s voice was sardonic. “But you have not yet proved yourself adept at seduction.”

I wasn’t thrilled by that idea. But what Cathair—and by extension, Mother—asked of me, I obeyed.

So here I was—a little drunk, sweating my arse off in a gown that left nothing to the imagination, as an overfed prince beckoned me closer with greedy fingers. Again, I fought a shudder of disgust.

I reminded myself this face did not belong to me. Nor the body, most likely. Who cared if I used them as tools, as weapons? They were nothing but what I made of them.

I swayed toward Connla, pasting on a slow smile and swinging my hips more than was strictly necessary. He patted his knee and I lowered myself onto his lap, gritting my teeth as his hand slithered around my waist.

“Yes, more wine is exactly what we need,” I murmured, leaning into him. “But won’t you allow me to serve you this time, my prince?”

I reached for the carafe of wine. But Connla caught my hand with one of his own, gripping my wrist. His eyes raked me from head to toe, bright with a canny light.

“I didn’t expect your message tonight, my lady.” His breath was hot and sour on my cheek. “Nor did I expect you to show up in my tent, half-dressed and eager for wine.”

“What can I say?” I clenched my jaw harder behind my smile. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Besides, it’s hard to find a decent drink up at Rath na Mara.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps you had some other reason.” His eyes glittered. “You see, after your unexpected note, I confess I told a few local lads about it. I maybe even bragged a bit. And what they had to say about you was… interesting.”

His hand tightened around my wrist, sending pain flaring up my arm.

“The thing is, Fia Ní Mainnín, everyone says you’re not actually a cousin of the queen. They say you’re a little witch. A cailleach, if you can believe it.” His voice took on an unpleasant note. “Now, I’ve lain with a witch or two before, so I couldn’t care less about that. But they also say your power comes from the Folk. They say you’re a changeling.”

Shite.

“Changeling?” I forced a laugh, which came out reedy. “The wine must have addled your wits, my lord. I’m the queen’s fosterling.”

“I know what I heard.” His expression was implacable. “You’re unnatural. Look at you—your hair is dark as deep water. Your mismatched eyes are strange enough to give a man nightmares. You’re small enough to snap like a twig in the forest. I’d wager money on it—you’re a filthy changeling, like they said. Where did the high queen find you? How does she keep you? And what must I do to take you from her?”

I froze at the menace—the hunger—in Connla’s voice. His grip on me tightened painfully. My options were narrowing by the moment. My veins itched with brambles, and I fantasized—brilliantly, achingly—of wrapping my fingers around his throat and choking him with thorns. Filling his mouth with sharp leaves, blanking his eyes with wet berries until I returned him to the land as a creeping, stinging blackberry bush.

It would be so easy.

But mother would eat my liver for breakfast if I Greenmarked one of her under-kings’ heirs without her say-so. With more willpower than I knew I possessed, I calmed myself.

Still, his words crept into my mind on serrated little feet.

You’re small enough to snap like a twig in the forest.

The words rankled me, although they were half-true—I was small. I’d always been small. When Mother first sent me to her weapons masters to learn to ride and shoot and wrestle and fence, I was nine, and small even for my age. I couldn’t draw the longbows favored by Mother’s fianna; I couldn’t reach the backs of their fine tall stallions; I couldn’t even begin to lift the broad, straight claimhte carried by proud fénnidi into battle. So I fashioned my own bows out of young saplings I found in the wood, and I taught myself to ride bareback on fleet marsh ponies too small for grown adults and to fight fast and dirty with a dagger in both hands. Even now, at twenty, I was small—shorter than most and lean from strict exercise and rigorous sparring.

But size wasn’t everything. The height of a bow was worth less than the aim of the archer. The stride of a horse was worth less than its will to run. The length of a sword was worth less than the edge on its blade.

I was small. I was a changeling, although I’d be damned if I admitted it to this fatted prince. But I was fast and fierce and unrelentingly trained.

Screw the revealing dress and the subterfuge. I was going to have to do this my way.

Without warning, I jabbed my free hand inward, catching Connla’s bicep above his elbow. He grunted as the muscle spasmed. His grip on my wrist relaxed—I wrenched my hand free and sucker punched him in the face. He reeled away, dumping me out of his lap. Blood dripped down his chin, staining the expensive rug under his feet.

“You bitch,” he gasped wetly.

“Bitch, witch.” I shrugged. “Just don’t ever call me changeling again.”

I climbed him like a ladder before he could so much as make a fist. Wrapping both arms around his head, I swung my legs around his neck—the fabric of my dress audibly ripping—and threw myself backward. My weight jerked Connla forward, cartwheeling him head over arse. He landed hard on his back, the wind visibly gusting out of his chest.

I landed neatly on my feet. I crouched over him where he flailed like a gutted fish, planting my elbows on my knees and staring into his blood-drenched face.

“Tell me where the darrig is,” I demanded.

It took him a long time to draw enough breath to say, “No.”

“Fine,” I told him. “I’ll find the wretched creature myself.”

I slammed his skull against the edge of the fire pit. His eyes rolled and his head lolled sideways.

The tent was large, but it wasn’t endless. There were only so many places you could hide one of the Fair Folk, especially if you were keeping it captive. Somewhere out of the moonlight, which lent them power. Within a cage made of iron, which sapped their strength. I skipped the bed—mounded with soft furs, its purpose was revoltingly clear—and turned to Connla’s war trunk.

Locked, of course. I could pick it, but that would take precious minutes I didn’t have. Connla wouldn’t be out for long.

I laid my hand against the mechanism, then hesitated.

Little witch.

When I was ten, I’d found an injured hedgehog at the edge of the forest. I snuck it into my chambers, hiding it beneath my bed. I’d come to adore it, nursing it back to health and naming it Pinecone. But I’d let it get too close to me. One day, I’d fallen asleep with it tucked against my chest, beneath my shirt. When I woke, my magic had taken Pinecone from me—all that remained were clods of dirt and flecks of blood held together by pine needles and wood sap.

Some people—Mother in particular—saw my magic as a gift. I knew it to be a curse. It never gave, only took.

Blood throbbed against my palm, dark with shadow and hot with wine. I hesitated a second longer, then closed my eyes. I imagined thick brambles studded with dark fruit and capped with sharp thorns. When I opened my eyes, tough briars had snaked into the mechanism.

The metal groaned, bent. Snapped. I threw the trunk open.

At first, it looked like Connla’s trunk was full of jumbled sticks. But I blinked, and it was the darrig—a hunched and broken creature, with a body like a stump and limbs like gnarled branches and eyes like glossy pebbles. The iron cage Connla kept it in was too small—the darrig’s legs didn’t have room to bend without touching the metal, and ugly welts vied for space with bruises on its tree-bark skin. The sickening stench of burnt wood and rotting mulch wafted out of the trunk.

“Help,” the darrig croaked.

Sympathy pulsed through me, warring with my purpose for being here. The darrig might be a wicked, deceitful creature from Tír na nÓg. But not even fiends deserved the treatment Connla had given it. Stuffed into a tiny cage, starved and beaten.

I steeled my emotions. The Gate War had been fought with battle metal and mortal blood, nightmares and stolen fears. It had claimed countless lives. The war might technically be over—the Gates closed and buried, Mother’s vast fianna disbanded—but it had never ended. It was now simply fought on different fields.

I turned away from the creature, casting about for where I’d left my cloak. I needed something to wrap around the cage, to—

Fingers brittle as twigs wrapped tight around my wrist. I whipped around. The darrig had squeezed its wizened arm through the bars of its cage, ignoring the metal searing its flesh. It was surprisingly strong—although I shook my wrist in disgust, it held on to me with grim determination.

“Help.” An inexplicable glimmer of hope touched its depthless eyes. “Mend the broken heart. End the sorrow. Give what life is left, so we may see the morrow.”

“What are you talking about?” I twisted my arm, but the thing wouldn’t let me go. “Are you asking me to put you out of your misery?”

There was a thud behind me, drowning out whatever response the creature would have made. A hand wrapped around one of the braids coiled at my crown, brutally yanking my head back. Through watering eyes, I saw Connla looming behind me. His arm snaked around my throat and squeezed, sending pain spiking from my neck to my skull.

“Dishonorable bastard,” I croaked. I had severely underestimated his recovery time.

“Treacherous changeling,” he growled.

My vision blurred.

Wrapping my hands around his elbow joint, I pivoted, swinging sharply away and breaking his hold. I slid one hand to his wrist, still gripping his elbow in the other, and cranked his arm sharply. He cried out, leaning back to avoid my breaking his arm. One swift kick to his leg sent him to his knees. Another returned him to the floor.

This time, I was angry. I flung myself down on top of him, clamping my legs around his arms and torso. One of my hands found the hilt of my razor-sharp skean; the other, jammed into the soft space where Connla’s throat throbbed, began to change. My veins went green. The tracery of serrated leaves was lace on my skin. And little thorns—sharp as a blackberry bramble—prickled my palm and fingertips. A trickle of blood dripped down Connla’s neck, and his throat worked, fear muddling his gaze. Some corner of my mind screamed at me to release him, to shake out the fury bruising my blood.

But it was too late. I hadn’t wanted to kill him before.

I did now.

Black and red and tumultuous green flared behind my eyes. I lowered my knife toward his throat.

Hands clamped down on my shoulders.

I cursed—yet again, I’d forgotten to watch my back.

My attacker was strong—they lifted me like a rag doll off Connla’s supine figure. I kicked back and struck flesh, earning a male grunt for my efforts. I took quick advantage, seizing the wrist of the hand gripping my shoulder. Twisting under the man’s arm, I grabbed a fistful of his thick cloak and sliced my skean toward his throat.

He blocked my blow with a gauntlet, sending a shock of impact blazing up my arm. His hand folded over mine where it gripped his mantle. He leaned forward.

“The joy is in the thrill of the fight,” he murmured, too low for Connla to hear. A trace of inexplicable amusement varnished his low tenor. “Not the promise of a kill.”

I froze. The voice might not be familiar, but the words were. They conjured a morning swathed in mist—the training yard at dawn. The clack of wooden training swords. Cold sweat puddling along my collarbone and my breath like a knife in the throat. I’d been thirteen and livid with righteous indignation—my sparring opponent, a trainee in one of Mother’s fianna, had beaten me a dozen times in a row. But he’d won badly each time—whacking me over the wrist so my numb hand dropped my claíomh; jabbing my throat with his fingers so I doubled over coughing; pulling my hair until my neck ached. Each time, I’d looked to the rígfénnid for support, but he was never watching when my opponent cheated. Anger had spiked hemlock through my veins. Finally, I’d snapped—I’d thrown myself at the young man, play-sword forgotten, throttling him and pummeling him and kicking him. I’d wanted to kill him, and nothing had ever felt so good.

But he had been there to pull me off—Rogan Mòr, prince of Bridei, one of Mother’s noble fosterlings. My best friend, two years older than I was. My only confidant.

That day, he’d gripped me tight until my rage had faded, and he’d whispered those words in my ear, as he would many times after: The joy is in the thrill of the fight, not the promise of a kill.

But Rogan had been gone for years.

The last time I saw him, he’d been a gangly youth. Now he had the face of a man—hard jaw, soft lips, bold brows. But the boy I knew was still there—in the waving golden hair kissing his brow, in the laughing set of his mouth, in eyes the same shade as the ocean below the hill at Bré.

I unwound my hands from his mantle. Not because I didn’t want to touch him, but because I did. I had to remind myself—it was he who had left four years ago.

He is not meant for you.

“Princeling?” I ground out through clenched teeth. “What in the Morrigan’s name are you doing here?”

“Saving your hopeless arse.” Despite my tone, he smiled—warm wind and spring green. “Or more accurately, his.”

Connla had taken advantage of our distraction to scoot backward across the floor, clamber over his mound of seduction furs, slam the top down on the darrig’s chest, and rip open the door to his tent.

“Guards!” he hollered into the night. “Guards!”

The response was immediate—shouts rang out across camp, along with the clatter of metal and the keening bay of hunting dogs.

“Shite.” I lunged for my discarded cloak, glancing regretfully at where the darrig was hidden. Maybe there was still time—

But a long, sharp claíomh had found its way into Connla’s hand. Blood still dripped from his nose—the triumphant grin he gave me was red and gruesome as he blocked the doorway.

Swiftly, I glanced around Connla’s lordly tent. The canvas was thick and new—there was no way I’d be able to slice through it with my slender skeans. No claíomh hung from Rogan’s hip.

And I had a feeling Connla would rather kill me than let me get past him.

Which left only one option.

I laid my hand against the fabric of the tent wall and closed my eyes. The fibers were fine woven and dense. Lifeless. I pushed through the haze of purple wine and sharp thorns still clouding my mind, seeking the spark, the life, the growth. Finally—a glimmer of green. A flash of pale sunlight between high rows of plantings. Comb-toothed leaves swaying in a damp breeze. Mud and rot and earthworms pushing between roots.

The hemp had nearly forgotten what it was to grow, to live. It had been plucked and retted and combed and spun and woven. It had grown accustomed to being inert, being dead, being cloth.

But nothing could forget what it truly was. Even those things that might wish to.

I latched onto the hemp, anchoring it to my own moss-stained blood. The fine-woven fibers burst to life. Green rippled along the canvas. It split apart, broad leaves waving us through. I dashed out into the chilly evening, Rogan close on my heels, then closed the gap behind us. Regret slid through me as the hemp reluctantly became cloth once more.

I let my hand drop, then glanced at Rogan. A trace of unease touched his face before smoothing away.

“Now what?” he asked.

I set my jaw and glanced up. Perched on the neighboring tent were a few curious starlings, their glitter-black plumage nearly invisible against the night sky. I signaled to them, and they dispersed with a trill.

Tonight was not yet lost. I might not have retrieved the darrig myself, but I wasn’t the queen’s only spy. After the offenses I’d done him, Connla would feel honor bound to pursue me if I ran. And with his fiann on my tail, his tent would be unguarded.

Cathair’s witch-birds would pass along my message.

“Now? I’ll lead them in a merry chase.” I smirked at Rogan, giving in to the pulse of new life shading my blood green and gold. “See if you can keep up, princeling.”

The fields below Rath na Mara were dominated by the vast hunching tents of the four under-kings of Fódla, their households, and their retinues. But theirs were not the only encampments. Despite plague in the south and famine in the north, many had made the trip to the capital for the funeral games—merchants, beggars, bards. Hopeful farm boys with their granddad’s rusted swords. Tents and lean-tos and caravans dotted the plain, with a cobweb of makeshift roads and pathways churning to muck between them.

It made for bad, slow going. And with every step we took, Connla’s men and dogs circled closer.

“It’s too far,” I gasped out. My bravado was beginning to leak away as we crouched down behind a makeshift privy reeking of shite. The high wooden palisade ringing Rath na Mara was barely a quarter mile away, but the improvised city hemming us in was like a maze. “What if you led them off? Connla’s looking for me, not you.”

I turned to Rogan. It was hard for me to look at him without staring—I reveled in the familiarity of him, even as I ogled at the changes. And there were a lot of changes. He’d filled out, for one—his arms, bare beneath his cloak, rippled with thick muscle, and the cut of his shoulders was far broader than I remembered.

“Me?” He huffed a laugh. “Fannon hates Bridei. If they catch me lurking in their camp, they’ll cut an eye out, then tell my king father it was an unfortunate accident.”

“Good point.” I looked at the eyes in question, which even in darkness shone a deep blue-green. “Although you only really need one of your eyes.”

“I would look dashing in an eye patch.”

A dog barked, too close for comfort. Some decision sparked on Rogan’s face, and he began slinking away.

In the wrong direction.

“Where are you going?” I hissed at his receding back.

He paused. “Have I ever led you astray?”

“Frequently.”

“Maybe I’ve changed.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but smoking torches flamed in my periphery and for a moment I felt the bite of phantom teeth. Following the prince who had broken my heart deeper into the camp of a man who wanted to kill me wasn’t my favorite idea. But I was running out of other options.

I crept after Rogan.

After what felt like miles—Connla’s men gaining ground with every step—the tents and lean-tos thinned out. The light of a bonfire rose up. A scattering of derelict outbuildings appeared—a crofter’s hut, long abandoned, and what looked like an old barn. Torchlight glittered from dilapidated windows ringing with loud laughter and song. Men and women stumbled drunkenly around the fire. Tapped barrels were stacked beneath the eave of the hut.

A makeshift tavern? “I don’t think—”

“Trust me.” Rogan held out his hand. I hesitated, then gripped his palm, even as I cursed myself for a fool.

He pulled me toward the hut, pushing through the crowd. A narrow alley cut between the hut and the barn—barely any light filtered through. He pushed me in first, then glanced back the way we’d come.

Connla’s fiann had cleared the last few tents and marched on the bonfire. Metal glinted red in the firelight. Huge dogs strained at collars. The rígfénnid stopped one of the drunks by the fire, who shook his head. The rígfénnid waved his men toward the ring of barrels. I swallowed fear and tugged Rogan’s hand, wanting to move deeper into the alley. He shook his head.

“Dead end,” he whispered.

My heart thundered in my chest. “Then why—”

Over his shoulder, one of the men by the barrels pointed in our direction.

Rogan spun toward me. He slid both hands around my waist and lifted me like I weighed nothing. My back struck rough stone as Rogan pinned me with his bulk. I inhaled sharply, gripping his shoulders for balance. His muscles flexed beneath my palms as one of his hands slid along my bare leg, lifting it up around his hip. The leather armor covering his torso slid hard against the inside of my thighs. Warmth sparked in my core and sizzled through my veins, tangling with my rising panic.

“What are you doing?” I breathed.

His other hand rose to my face, tugging the hood of my cloak further over my forehead. His fingers splayed against the side of my cheek. He bent his face toward my neck. “You can thank me later.”

Rogan’s lips brushed my throat, sending delicate vines of heat to climb my face. His breath was ragged. My own breath rose to the same cadence as nerves and adrenaline and his overwhelming closeness sent my pulse ratcheting. I dug my fingertips deeper into his mantle, praying to any gods who might be listening that this wasn’t the stupidest plan my handsome, idiotic prince had ever devised. But it was hard to focus on impending doom with his kiss teasing my neck, his large hands circling my waist, his belt buckle pressing into my lower belly. I shifted my weight, hooking a leg into the small of his back to brace myself. He exhaled roughly, sliding his hands lower to cup my rear. His eyes dragged up, collided with mine. His lips were mere inches away, and I—

The thud of boots made every muscle in my body tauten. The scrabble of claws on stone scratched my ears. The shink of metal being drawn pulled ice down my spine.

There was a rough male chuckle from five paces. A mocking whistle.

Without pulling his mouth from my throat, Rogan lifted two fingers and flipped off the guards.

Who laughed. Yanked at their dogs. And miraculously moved on.

I closed my eyes and followed them with