Page 169 of Bone Year

“There she is,” he says. “Was wondering when you’d show your teeth tonight.”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t talk.”

“Now where have I heard that before?”

My stomach turns. The exam table flashes through me without permission, his mouth on my throat, his hand sliding down my hip, the moment I came back to myself and shoved him off. I push the memory back. I focus on the rhythm of the steps and the placement of his feet, and I count the music in my head. One, two, three. One, two, three. My father used to count for me when he taught me to dance in the clinic on slow afternoons.

“You’re tense, Red.” Malric’s hand spreads across the small of my back. “You used to be looser around me.”

“That was the bite.”

He hums against my temple. “It was.”

He turns me, and the ballroom rotates around us in a slow blur of amber light and colorful silk and the hum of a hundred conversations. From somewhere on the perimeter, I feel eyes on me. The skin on the back of my neck prickles.

“Your prince is watching.”

I narrow my eyes against his shoulder. He knows I know, which means Draven told him. Why would Draven tell him?

I don’t look. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Oh, he’s watching, Red.” Malric tips his head down toward mine, close enough that I feel the cold of his breath against my cheek. “He’s been watching since you walked through the doors. He watched you at the bar pretending not to look for him. He’s watching while you’re in my arms right now, and he’s gone very, very still about it.”

I keep my eyes on his collar. “You’re saying it to upset me.”

“I’m saying it because it’s true. The lost prince of Valen, who’s never given a public damn about anyone in his life, has spent nine months pretending not to notice a human girl, and he’s currently failing to pretend across this entire dance floor.”

“Malric.”

“Hmm?”

“You agreed to leave me alone after this dance.”

“I did.”

“Then stop talking about him.”

His thumb traces a slow line along my back through the satin of my dress, and for a moment I think he’s going to push me. Going to ruin this. Going to give me one last reason to hate him for the rest of the night.

He pulls back enough to look at me, and the smirk is still there, the performance of it all, but underneath it is something I haven’t worked out yet.

“What does that look mean?”

“It means be careful tonight, Red.”

“You said that already.”

“And I’m saying it again.”

The orchestra reaches the end of the piece. He turns me one more time, a full revolution, and on the way around I let myself glance toward the place along the wall where I felt the eyes earlier.

Draven is standing alone.

His beard is perfectly manicured. His hair is tied up in his favorite half bun. He’s dressed in a pristine all-black suit that fits him the way a sheath fits a blade.

Gods, he’s gorgeous, and tonight he looks every bit the prince I now know him to be.

He isn’t pretending to do anything. Not drinking. Not speaking. Not even pretending to be looking somewhere else. He’s simply watching me across the floor, across Malric’s shoulder, with an expression I haven’t seen on his face since the chapel in Holloweir.