Page 121 of To Touch A Silent Fury
I leaned back against the wall, catching my breath as the cold of the stone helped calm me.
I would not die for this power. But now I had my dragon, running would be near impossible. They would never stop searching for me, never stop seeing me as a threat. If there was anyway through it, anyway tohim, I had to climb past all of it, not run away.
I would not give up because of a vision, nor because of the Wragg’s club-like words. I would not let them bully me away.
If there was truly no hope of Langnathin’s hand, I would leave.
No sooner had I thought it, did the very man appear.
As Langnathin stood in the doorway, I saw that he must have unbuttoned his white shirt another notch.
My eyes caught on the sliver of his hard pale chest visible above his golden dueling doublet and black trousers. The silk ruffled behind him as he lay a hand on the doorframe, his blood-red eyes passing across every face in the room.
Until they reached mine.
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Tani
The Dragon Prince dropped his hand and stalked towards me.
I pushed myself off from the wall, moving my hair over one shoulder as he approached. My body shook with anticipation, and I rubbed my fingers over the moonstone tied with a golden cord to my left wrist. The perpetual coolness of it steadied my rattling heart.
He stood before me, his mouth already open and ready to speak. The intensity was more than I could bear. It was too much. This whole night was too much.
Before he could say anything, I fell into a curtsy. “My prince.”
Langnathin gave me a look, and then he returned my formality with a perfunctory bow. “Vorska.”
“It is an unseaso—”
“You look entirely beautiful,” he said, staring. “I am sure it has been said too many times tonight and in far more poetic ways, but I had to say it. You put Mephluan to shame.”
By my blood, every part of my flesh seized. I wanted to melt and freeze, to blaze and yet turn to stone. I felt queasy, excited, thrilled, and terrified in equal measure. Coiled tight and unravelled.
I blushed to my whitened roots as his compliments twisted my stomach more than anything that night. “Thank you for your kindness.”
“I meant nothing of kindness by it,” he replied. “It is only an irrefutable observation.”
“You also,” I started, and then immediately cursed myself for the sentence I now had to finish. “Look well.”
He smirked at me then. “I look well?”
I couldn’t resist my small answering smile. “Quite so, Your Grace.”
It was a true understatement. The man was unfairly handsome this night. He could have been some provincial lord and not the Crown Prince, and he would still have his pick of any woman at the ball.
Langnathin laughed, and my throat felt thick. “Well, if sickly is on your own list, then I have passed that barest of minimums, then.”
We both paused as we realised what he had said. What he referenced. My list. My list of traits I would want in a husband, if I could choose. Was he—?
“I shall not ask you to dance,” he said, and my heart dropped. “For your own sake.”
The blow of that rejection was stronger than it deserved. I tried to smile, but it wasn’t quite so real this time. “I will not believe you are a poor dancer, for I have watched you.”
He raised one eyebrow. “You have watched me?”
I lifted my chin. “As you havewatched me.”
