Page 1 of Lady of the Lake

CHAPTER 1

Claret-tinged moonlight slants through the palace windows, casting an otherworldly glow on Talan’s body from behind. Russet light sculpts the hard angles of his muscled arms.

For one breath in the cedar-laced warmth of the room, the world fades away, and I am alone with the divine, breathtaking Dream Stalker.

In the next breath, I remember he’s a sadist. And he wants me to be his wife.

The worst person I’ve ever met is so fucking hot. So hot that I forget how to form words when he’s near. Forget how to think around him.

Forget that I’m here to end his life.

He steps closer, moving at an unhurried pace. In the firelight, droplets of water gleam on his broad shoulders like liquid gold. Shadows and light glide over his features: the masculine jawline, high cheekbones, and sensual mouth of a true voluptuary.

His eyes lock on mine, smoldering with a dark intensity. “Nia? I need to get you ready for our wedding. Now. I sent for the dressmaker the moment I heard you were riding back into the kingdom.”

I’m sure he knows the effect he has on others. His beauty is a weapon, a poison he uses to disarm his victims before he strikes, a sedative before a lethal blow.

And me? My thoughts are a raging storm. In the hollows of my mind, my voice screams at me to run.

But it doesn’t help that he’s only in a towel, or that his earthy, jasmine-tinged, smoky scent wraps around me.

“Our wedding,” I repeat. My voice sounds a million miles away.

I’m not sure if it’s the fatigue, or if it’s justhim,but my thoughts can’t seem to catch up with the reality of the situation.

Our wedding?

I scan the room. His clothes are laid out on a mahogany table beneath towering, mullioned windows. His wedding clothes?

I wonder if he plans to drop that towel and get dressed in front of me.

“I didn’t say yes to a wedding,” I finally manage.

Days ago, we were on opposite sides of a battle, but he doesn’t know it. He has no idea his soldiers slaughtered my friend Viviane, or that I was still spattered with her dried blood when I crept back into my bedroom here. He doesn’t knowI’mthe one who ruined his battle plans, who leaked his attack.

He’s talking about marriage, and I’m here to kill him. My life has reached new depths of absurdity, wrapped in layers upon layers of lies.

As I stand, dripping with melting snow in my room, I struggle to wear the mask of my Fey persona. Here, in Castle Perillos, I’m Nia Vaillancourt—a farm girl, a fake mistress to the crown prince of Brocéliande, not the Nia raised by a human mom in LA, someone who spent her twenty-first birthday singing bad karaoke in a dive bar. I’m a lifelong subject of King Auberon and his son, the prince.

Talan’s molten copper eyes drink me in. “I don’t have much time before I’m supposed to marry Arwenna, and you, farm girl, are my only way out.”

This man is a flickering flame in the darkness, and I’m the moth drawn to his fire. I know he’ll singe my wings, but I can’t resist the light.

My mind offers up a memory of Talan the first night I spoke to him, torturing a servant. His victim writhed in pain on the floor, half-mad with agony. Broken. A more recent memory flares to life: Viviane’s body, shattered on the wintry Scottish earth, her jaw slack, eyes vacant, staring up at the gray skies as if hoping for an explanation, some answer to the glistening pool of gore beneath her head.

Emptiness carves through my chest.

Talan’s work.

He’s an artist, and violence is his medium. Doesn’t matter how gorgeous he is, I can’t ever let my guard down around him. Not for a single moment.

But I’m still here, standing before him, listening to him talk about marriage.

Mentally, I’m scrambling to put a thought together. At last, I manage, “Not much of a proposal, is it? This isn’t how I imagined my wedding, rushing into marriage so another woman doesn’t get there first.”

“Would it help if I got down on my knees to propose?” His voice is a soft purr.

“No.”

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