Page 137 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

I suppressed a sigh.

He stared at her like he hardly recognized her, but that was because he had never understood her to begin with.

The woman with the scarlet lips and the backless dress was exactly who Rowan had always been. And though I had been appreciating that dress a moment ago, I was markedly less enamored with it when it allowed him to put his hand on her bare skin.

I felt Arès’ gaze, somewhere between amused and aggravated, and I took care to school my features. Just as I wascontemplating the many ways I might interrupt this dance, Iiro sauntered up to us.

“Sir Iiro,” Arès intoned.

Iiro raised a single condescending eyebrow. “Don’t you meanYour Majesty?”

Arès met his eyes solidly. “Notmymajesty.”

The almost-king’s eyes flashed with murder, and I lifted my drink to my lips to hide my smirk.

“I’m certain that you’ll be…influenced to come around in no time,” Iiro said with a pointed glance in my direction.

So that’s how he’s going to play this.He wanted my help in turning the two remaining clans in his favor, which meant he believed he had some sort of leverage over me.

I made a noncommittal noise in the back of my throat, and Iiro left with an expression entirely too calculating for my liking. I turned back to Arès, a muscle clenching in my jaw.

“Yes,” I answered his first question again. “I will find a way to fix this.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

For as seriously as our new not-quite-king claimed to take the sacred traditions of his people, he certainly had no problem usurping the final dance with my wife, one that was mine by tradition and right.

Even if I could have stopped him without causing a scene, though, I wouldn’t have. His actions spoke for themselves. He wanted a reaction. He wanted to provoke me. And for as much as I had already endured an evening of watching my wife be paraded around the dance floor in the arms of my enemies, I wasn’t about to give Iiro the satisfaction of seeing me react now.

Even if my resolve to that end was being tested with every passing second.

It was an effort not to prowl the edges of the dance floor, following each of their movements with my own, listening in on the conversation that was making Rowan’s eyes narrow and the muscles in her shoulders stiffen.

The barest tendrils of relief crept into my veins as the song finally ended, bringing with it the end of this long, tedious evening. I held out my hand for my wife to join me for the final toast, flames snaking through my bones at the contact of her skin once more.

As soon as it was over, I scooped her up in my arms. I held her body firmly against mine as I carried her from the room. Even if it hadn’t been a custom of my people to carry her all the way to our rooms, I couldn’t imagine any force or reason that would have me letting go of her now.

It signified the start of our lives together, and a promise to protect and care for my wife. And it was one of the few wedding traditions we had been subjected to in the two kingdoms that I wasn’t opposed to.

However, I was beginning to rethink the layout of my castle and the necessity of our new rooms being so damned far from the reception hall. The longer I held her body against mine, the longer my thumb grazed the bare skin of her back and her fingers twirled the hair at the nape of my neck, the more eager I was to get her behind closed doors.

“Where are we going?” Rowan eventually asked in a breathy voice that made it clear her thoughts were similar to mine.

I let out a low chuckle, unable to resist teasing her a little.

“Impatient, Lemmikki?” I asked, my fingers digging into her sculpted thigh to let her know she wasn’t the only one.

She let out a small gasp that had me quickening my steps.

“I have been patient for seven stars-damned weeks,” she protested, though nothing I knew about her supported that claim, let alone her tone.

A surge of heat washed over me—of anger and desire and the desperation to make up for every minute we had lost.

“Well, that makes one of us.” My words came out in a low growl.

A shiver ran across her skin, and she pressed herself closer in response.

Der’mo.

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