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There was still hope for me.
Pulling on Fek’s reins, I slowed him to a leisurely walk in front of the stone building with large windows that let in the soft morning light. Mistik stopped alongside us, and Izidoradismounted with the ease of a female who had been riding for her entire life. “What is this place?” she asked, eyes roaming over the small building.
“I have arranged for us to have dance lessons. With the masquerade coming up in a few days, I thought it might be fun to learn some of the Iron Realm’s traditional dances,” I said, taking Mistik’s reins from her and hitching our horses to a post alongside the building.
When I glanced up from my work toward Izidora, her lips were pinched, and her eyes held a level of wariness I hadn’t seen since the first days we had together. The sight of that ripped me to shreds, and I couldn’t lie to myself and say that it wasn’t entirely unwarranted. She had asked me to be gentler with her when we last danced, but I was so caught up in seeing her that I did not listen.
The binding magic slumbered in my chest after I’d beat it into submission the previous night, sending dark tendrils flying in every direction among the snow-packed trees in the mountain closest to Radence until my body trembled from exertion and the wicked magic no longer begged to be unleashed.
I took a slow step toward her, hoping she wouldn’t bolt around me and clamber up Mistik to escape the date I had planned for us. “I promise I won’t hurt you, Izidora. You know I’m not like that.”
She blew out a breath, but her aquamarine eyes did not melt for me like they once had. “If you do, I will cut your balls off.” Her normally bright voice was serious and carried no hint of teasing.
“Understood. Shall we?” I hovered a hand out toward the door, directing her to enter first. She threw a look over her shoulder, then pushed through the wooden entrance, unveiling an open space with wall-sized mirrors and polished wood floors.
A pretty dark-haired female, the same one I’d spoken with the previous night, greeted us. “High Lord Kazimir, so good to see you again. And this must be Princess Izidora.” She dipped into a quick curtsey. “I am Iskra.”
“So nice to meet you, Iskra. Are you Fae or Félvér?” Izidora smiled at the female with all the warmth she’d kept from me.
“Félvér. How did you know?” Iskra blushed, and I ground my teeth. Of course, she was Félvér.
Were there no pure-blooded Iron Fae left in this Goddess-forsaken place?
“You look like you might carry a hint of Shifter. Some sort of bird if I had to guess?”
“You are correct. My father is part Eagle Shifter. Must be why I love ballet,” Iskra grinned. “But enough about me. High Lord Kazimir said you wanted to learn some steps to traditional Iron Realm dances.” She glanced at both of us, dressed in casual yet warm clothes. “I’ll take your cloaks, and then we’ll meet in the center of the space.”
I shrugged out of my furs, handing them to the female and following behind Izidora as she blazed a trail to the middle. That tug begged me to close the physical and mental distance between us, but I bided my time, knowing we’d be forced together during the steps of the dance soon enough.
“Great, here’s how we will learn. I’ll demonstrate the first few steps, and then you will try until you’ve got them down. Then we will add on, repeating the process until you can twirl about the room on your own. I’ll hum the tune as we go along.” Iskra proceeded to teach us the steps, a simple series where Izidora and I walked side by side, hands clasped at shoulder height. Her hand was tense in mine, and the stiffness ran all the way through her body as she held me at arm's length. We mastered the first part in minutes, and Iskra walked us through the next steps,which involved a tug and a twirl with Izidora landing against my chest.
Heat surged through me at the thought of our bodies being flush, though it was obvious from the coolness in Izidora’s countenance that she was less than enthused about the steps. After our third failed attempt, Iskra cut in. “The Iron Realm is a sensual place, Your Highness. Relax your body and let it glide through the air.”
“Thanks,” Izidora said, her voice clipped. She drew a breath, then blew it out slowly, dropping some of the tension that held her straighter than a freshly forged sword. “Let’s try again.”
When we grasped hands at the top of the dance floor, I gave her small hand a reassuring squeeze. “You are doing so well, Izidora. We’ll get the steps.”
She ignored me as Iskra hummed the tune, and our first few steps were flawless. When the tune switched, signaling the first tug, I pulled Izidora toward me, throwing her across my body as she spun on her toes, her body light and loose. Once she’d unspiraled completely, I reversed her direction, sending her twirling into my chest. Her untethered palm landed just above my heart, and it gave a heavy beat as if it knew she touched there. That tug tightened us together, seemingly of its own accord, and for a moment that icy exterior Izidora had tried so hard to maintain melted and I saw the depth of her pain.
The moment was broken by Iskra’s claps echoing through the empty space. “Well done! Let’s practice the next steps.” Iskra replaced Izidora, demonstrating the hand placement for the rest of the dance, as well as the next ten steps that sent us diagonally across the space. “Now, from the top!”
Izidora and I clasped hands at shoulder height, walked forward, executed the tug and twirl, and the moment Izidora landed against my chest again, that bond we shared became insistent. My hand found her hip while the other held her tinyhand, and her free hand pressed against my chest, searing into my skin beneath my tunic.
The tune changed, and I guided her along, making sure my resting hand was not hurting her like it had last time. The steps that took us across the open space were slow and sensual, legs and torsos brushing as the space between us became nonexistent.
“You’re so beautiful, Izidora,” I whispered as we reached the end of our first diagonal, cutting back in the direction we came.
A blush spread across her cheeks, and she looked up at me through dark lashes as we crossed the space, though she said nothing. Before our next switchback, I spun her again, this time directing her back to land against my chest, and I splayed my fingers across her belly as we blazed a slow path across the room.
Pebbles broke out across the skin that was visible around her tunic, and my heart pounded into her back as we continued our dance. We switched directions, and her breath hitched as my large palm dipped lower on her opposite hip. “You fit in my arms perfectly, like you were carved from stone just for me,” I murmured, dipping my head so the words brushed over her ear.
The shiver that went down her spine stopped at my groin, heating it in the best way, and by the way she pressed back into me, I knew she felt my desire for her. I wanted more, so I kept going. “The first day I saw you, I knew you and I were meant to be together. The way I raged for you when I saw you in chains, the anger I felt when I learned you were not given your name, the grief that I felt when you backed away from me in fear. I promised myself that I would show you how to live.”
The air froze in her lungs as I spun her again, and her head tipped up to look at me. Iskra’s humming melted into the background as it became only Izidora and I dancing. “I’d fight the Fates with nothing but my fists to save you, Izidora. I promised you that I would protect you, that I would never seeyou chained again. I fell into darkness to get to you, and now that I’m here with you again, I’m starting to see the light.”
She lifted a single brow over her gem-like eyes. “Are you?”
“It helps when you are near, like this. When we are apart, I am crazed for you, dying for even a taste of you.” I dropped my head so my lips hovered a breath from hers. “Mate bonds are a powerful, ancient magic that defy all logic, all reason, all sense. They surpass any other type of magic one may possess, and mates often die of broken hearts when their other half dies before them.”
