Page 91 of To Dance with Death

Though I brace myself, the kiss is decadent. Slow and warm. Tender, like I’mtreasured.Like he feels the way I do.

Like his longing is a rival to mine.

It turns out I don’t have the strength to pull away. So I tell myself that I will kiss him in such a way that I will have no regrets. A kiss I can take with me, preserved in my memories like a butterfly in amber. Mine to keep forever—even if he moves on without me.

I can’t tell him how much I love him, but Icanshow him. So I put every ounce of it into the way I pull him closer and press against him. The way I fist the fabric above his heart, even as I swallow down the burgeoning tears.

He, in turn, responds with such tenderness, it weakens my knees. His lips graze across mine in sweeps, and then he spends time in the corner of my mouth, kissing his way to my dimple then back again, his palm hooked around the base of my neck.

But it ends before I’m ready, and he brushes a thumb across my lips.

“Do not think this fulfills the kiss you owe me, Vasalie,” he says, pulling away, “when this one you would have given to me for free.”

Chapter Thirty

I shiver down to my toes. But I can’t help asking, even as my chest might burst, “So you will be taking the one I try to withhold?”

“Absolutely not,” Anton says, lashes fluttering down at me, before he puts a few inches of space between us. “I will never take anything by force—not even what I am owed.”

Like his kingdom,I think.

“Then I don’t understand. Why make the bargain?”

“Because you wanted an excuse to kiss me. Don’t bother denying it,” he says, grinning in a way that thieves away any response I might have had.

He toys with the rope, and all the while, I touch two fingers to my lips as if I could replay what just happened.

That kiss…

There wasmeaningbehind it. Like it gave voice to many unspoken words, and now I am supposed to make sense of it in a language I barely understand.

“We will need to find somewhere to stay tonight,” he says, hopping off the crescent and onto the stone landing. “Moranya will not have finished yet. We can return come morning.”

“We don’t have any quatra,” I say as he offers me an arm, pulling me toward him as I leap from the crescent.

“There’s one place we won’t need any,” he responds.

Rain greets us in an unfriendly fashion not long after, pelting the cobbled roads and the back of my hands as I try to shield myself from it. A storm snuck in while we were underneath the theater, and now it tears from the clouds in a shroud of gray as we make our way down a busy alley. Horses hurry past, hooves splattering through rapidly filling potholes. Patrons huddle under cloaks, all trying to escape the weather to find their way home.

A carriage breezes by, large wheels sending a spray of water and mud over us both. The cold of it sets me to trembling. Sluiced and shivering, I lose purchase on my next step and land in a puddle.

The emotions bundled tight within my chest shake loose. Tears burn my vision, but then a laugh erupts—perhaps at the absurdity of it. Then Anton is there, wide-eyed. He pulls me up and gathers me close, as if he could shield me from the rain that has since tilted on its axis, slanting with the wind.

At last, we find our destination. The building is nondescript—a black turret of rounded stone squeezed between a row of shops, cafés, and vine-laced apartments. A swift bang on the brass knocker, and the door screeches open. A man in his fifties or so appears, crisp and refined in a dark uniform rimmed in copper. At the sight of Anton, he snatches his spectacles and swipes them across his sleeve, blinking when he gets a better look.

“My King,” he rasps. “Is it really you?”

“I am no longer your king—” Anton attempts, but the man falls to his knees.

“You willalwaysbe our king, Sire,” he says. “Even the King Regent made certain of that.”

The King Regent.

Gustav.

“I am certain he’s told everyone whatever it took to stanch any talk of rebellion,” Anton says. “In any case, this awning is not providing much of a shield, Aimes.”

Aimes leaps to his feet, ushering us into a small but elegant mahogany-paneled entryway along with a slew of apologies. “What can I do for you, Your Majesty? By the Fates, you’re soaked. A hot bath, perhaps? I’ll send for the launderer to wash and dry your clothes. I’ll have night robes sent up immediately along with fresh linens, soaps, and bathing oils.”