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Then he stepped away and into the ensuite. I sprawled out onto the mattress with a sigh, stretching out my limbs across his fine sheets. Even with my dress still rucked up around my waist, I felt comfortable, sated. My wolf did, too. I could easily fall asleep here, in the warmth of his quiet quarters, with the fire burning low in the hearth and the sound of water running and idle puttering coming from the bathroom. Sleep was already beginning to tug at the edges of my consciousness when Elias stepped back into the room. He’d removed his shirt, revealing all that muscle and dark hair and soft skin, and interest curled hot inside me even though I’d just had the most powerful orgasm of my life. He seemed to notice the effect he had and smiled as he approached the bed. He had a washcloth in hand, and the promising hard curve in his pants was gone as well.

I reached for the washcloth, but he just shook his head and crawled back onto the bed. Tenderly, he cleaned up the mess of my inner thighs, his touch heart-stoppingly gentle, but I was so sensitive it still made me hiss. And made me want more—again—his hands on me, his mouth on me. I pulled him down for another kiss as he cleaned me up, but this was slower, easier. Almost like it meant something.

Then there was a demanding knock on the door of the quarters, audible even in the bedroom itself. Elias pulled away with a sigh. “I should get that,” he said. “They only bother me in my quarters if it’s important.”

“Of course,” I said. I pressed my lips together. Being forcibly reminded of the outside world broke the spell. Right. For a moment I’d been swept up in the fantasy—a world where all that existed was him, and me, and the confines of this warm room. But of course that wasn’t reality. He was still the king. I was still a competitor.

Had he meant what he said? That I was to be the queen?

Surely that was just the heat of the moment. Surely the council wouldn’t allow that.

Elias stood up with a sigh. Again, there was another insistent knock on the door. “Your Highness!” a voice called from the hall. “It’s urgent!”

He grimaced and pulled a heavy, fur-lined robe from his armoire, then tugged it on as he strode out of the bedroom. I clambered out after him and tugged the silk of my dress back down, smoothing it over my thighs. My underwear was nowhere to be found, though, lost in the covers of the bed.

“Your Highness,” a man’s voice said.

I lingered in the doorway of the bedroom. At the threshold, Roth stood at attention in his guard’s uniform with a concerned wrinkle in his brow. He glanced up at me, and his eyes narrowed briefly, almost imperceptibly, before his gaze cut back to the king. “Terribly sorry to interrupt, but it’s urgent…”

I ducked back into the room, unnerved by the expression on Roth’s face. I stepped into the bathroom and rinsed my face in the basin of clean water. I dried off, then peered at myself in the mirror.

What had just happened? I’d gotten so swept up in the attraction. I’d lost control of myself. It was almost worse than shifting in the middle of the dining hall. No, it was definitely worse. I hadn’t been thinking. We hadn’t had sex exactly, but still—still.

Griffin. Waiting for me, alone and loyal in Daybreak. How could I have done this to him?

18

A

commotion outside snapped me out of my reverie. But it wasn’t coming from the front room of the king’s quarters—it was outside. Shouts and snarls, and the tell-tale crack of sword pounded against steel breastplates in intimidation. A sound I knew well from the training grounds at Daybreak.

But the wolves of Nightfall wore leather.

I hurried back into the bedroom and threw the curtains open.

Outside, the dark wolves of Nightfall snarled and growled, pawing at the dirt near the edge of the forest. Standing against them, emerging from the tree-line, were Daybreak scouts on foot in their human forms. Daybreak soldiers rarely, if ever, shifted. The Nightfall guards were hulking and bestial, jaws open like they might lunge forward at any moment. But this wasn’t the front of the manor —the king’s quarters overlooked the back. If there were scouts here… What was happening?

My blood ran cold. I rushed back out into the front room, heart pounding, only to see Elias still in deep conversation with Roth, shoulders set as the role of king fell back on him like a cloak.

“Tell them to allow the interloper into the throne room,” he growled. “Keep him guarded. I’ll be down soon.”

“Sir,” Roth said. He turned on his heel and strode down the hall.

Elias closed the door behind him and whirled to face me. His eyes blazed with anger, ferocious enough that I took a stunned step back across the threshold into the bedroom.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s happening?”

“Soldiers from the Court of Daybreak are at the gates of the Efra,” he said. “Led by an insolent little brat who calls himself Griffin, claiming he’s here to free his betrothed from the prisons of

Nightfall. Might you know anything about that?”

My heart stopped. I stood frozen in his bedroom, standing by the mattress with the sheets we’d just mussed, with his gaze that was so tender just minutes prior now burning through me with rage. Rage and something that looked almost like betrayal. Bile rose in my throat, and for a moment I felt like I might throw up.

How could Griffin be here? Why would he do this?

“Tell me,” Elias growled. He stalked toward me, and I instinctively stepped back, back, until I was pressed against the cool stone wall of his bedroom.