Page 63 of Courting the Tiger King

She was right. The burnt amber made Neah glow, her eyes brighter, her hair shinier, and that was before she’d even considered her hair and make-up for the ceremony. It was a dramatic dress, the skirt full and frothy but still lightweight and easy to move in, and Romi had snuck in pockets too. Not that Neah would be smuggling weapons into their ceremony…or maybe just one. To be safe.

“Thank you,” she murmured and Romi beamed. “Not just for the dress. For taking care of Zennon. It means a lot.”

“No thanks necessary,” Romi replied, snipping a stray thread of fabric away from Neah’s sleeve. “Why don’t you head around the side there and slip back into your clothes? I just have a couple of final adjustments I want to make on this cuff.”

Ever the perfectionist. Neah smiled. “Sure.”

A modesty screen had been erected just to the side and behind the floor length mirror and Neah let Romi undo the laces on the dress’ back before she slipped around the screen to shimmy the dress the rest of the way off.

“Did you finish the other dresses?” she called out and Romi chuckled. Neah had spoken privately to the seamstress,commissioning two special dresses for Zennon and Sonnet to wear for the ceremony too.

“Yes, they’re perfect. Do you want to see them?” Footsteps padded softly against the floor, Romi’s voice fading as she walked to the other room.

Neah grinned, hanging the dress back up and admiring it for a second. “Nope, I trust your vision completely.” Romi was good humoured and quick to laugh, so the silence surprised her. Frowning, Neah stepped away from her dress and rounded the corner of the privacy screen. “Romi, is everything?—”

Neah froze. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth as Romi’s breaths heaved silently, her chest rising and falling too fast and her eyes were wide, the cornflower blue of her irises darkening with her panic.

A guard stood in her room. The door was closed, so Romi must have let him in—and he was in uniform, why should she be suspicious?

His chest was to Romi’s back, a short blade pressed to her throat hard enough that Neah could smell the faint tang of blood amidst the sour stench of fear.

“Put down the knife,” she said slowly, calmly, like she was speaking to a cornered animal. “I’ll do whatever you want, but not if you hurt her.”

The guard’s face remained impassive, though a muscle feathered beneath the pale skin of his jaw. “I wish I could believe that. But we both know that as soon as I release her, you’ll shift.”

Neah tilted her head, considering. She didn’t need to shift to kill this man, but one wrong move and Romi would bleed out. Zennon would never forgive her.

“I won’t shift.”

The door opened and closed quickly and another guard joined the first, his captain’s uniform mocking her as she kept her weight balanced evenly on the balls of her feet. She wouldhave preferred to be a little more clothed when battling her enemies, but there wasn’t much she could do about it now. At least her underwear was modest, unlike the lacy scraps of fabric she often wore to torment Wren.

“You got it?”

The other guard nodded, holding out a pair of chains that made her nose wrinkle. They smelledwrong, like magic and death.

“Prove your word,” the guard holding Romi said, nodding to the chains. “Put them on.”

If that was what it took, she would do it. Being chained wouldn’t stop her, but it could save Romi.

Neah offered her wrists and the guard moved closer, his dark brows furrowed as if she might snap and kill him at any given second. Normally, she would have. But now, she couldn’t risk it.

The metal closed around her wrists and Neah shuddered, immediately knowing something wasn’t right. The cold of the shackles bit into her skin, causing a lurching sensation in her stomach like she was falling, and then the pain began.

She retched, bending in half as the cuffs seemed to tighten. “What the hell… did you.. do to me?”

Through her blurry vision, Neah could make out the relief on the guards faces. “You can’t shift while you’re wearing those. It drains your magic.”

She did her best to regain her breaths but nausea still tightened her throat and black spots dotted the air in front of her. “Fine. I’m wearing them.” She groaned as she tried to straighten and one knee hit the ground. “Let her go.”

Sweat beaded at her temples and her hands shook, but what sent her heart jumping into her throat was the look the two guards shared.

“Sorry, sweetheart. But we can’t have you raising the alarm now, can we?”

Neah lurched forward but only fell to the ground as the guard backhanded Romi, sending her sprawling on the floor.Maybe she’s unconscious. Maybe they won’t kill her and that will be enough.

But the guard with the knife was approaching and Neah dragged herself upright, her knees scraping painfully across the wooden floor as she tried to crawl to Romi’s crumpled form.

A kick to her back knocked the breath out of her and Neah coughed, eyes never leaving Romi’s face from where she lay still dazed on the floor.

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