Page 193 of Feralheart

Voices cut through the haze. Too close outside.

We broke apart like someone had physically ripped us from each other.

I scrambled backward so fast I hit the tent pole. My breath came in gasps I couldn’t control. Fen’s chest heaved, and his hair had been completely wrecked from my hands. His mouth was swollen and red from mine.

His hand was still raised where it had been cupping my head, his fingers curved around nothing.

The voices grew louder. Multiple riders. Heading in this direction.

Panic clawed up my throat.

If they saw me here. Like this. With him looking like⁠—

Fen’s mother had dismissed his aide to teach him a lesson.

What would she do to express her anger about a kiss between the crown prince and a commons?

Would she go after my family?

“I should…” The words wouldn’t form.

I was already moving. Stumbling to my feet on legs that wouldn’t hold steady.

I emerged from his tent to eyes that tracked me like bloodseekers scenting a kill. They watched as I started across the compound.

I could still taste him. And I wanted more.

I’d wanted Fen with an intensity that terrified me. And the way he’d looked at me before I’d run said he felt the same.

We couldn’t do this. The kingdom wouldn’t let us. The world wouldn’t allow it. But we were lying to ourselves if we thought we could stop. I’d just proven that.

I didn’t look back. If I did, I’d stay, and staying could destroy not only us but everyone we loved.

Three riders stood near the fire pit, their conversation dying the moment I stepped into view.

Vella. Her gaze raked over me, and I could only imagine what she saw. My flushed face, my swollen mouth, and the way my hands trembled when I tried to smooth my tunic. Her expression curdled.

Contaminated.

The word didn’t need saying. I could read it in the twist of her mouth. She stepped back as if proximity might infect her with whatever commons disease I carried.

My shoulder blades pulled tight, the way they did at the aerie when Overseer Nuant stood behind me, when I knew without turning that someone was calculating what I was worth and coming up empty. I’d spent my whole life learning to walk through that feeling without letting it show on my face.

I walked through it now with my head up. My pace even. My hands very still at my sides.

I had every right to be in this place and time.

No, I’d earned the right to be here with the commons gauntlet.

A lord laughed and said something to the woman beside him that I didn’t catch and didn’t want to.

I kept walking. Running would confirm what they already suspected, and I wouldn’t give them anything they could use as a weapon against me.

My body hummed with leftover want.

My skin felt too tight to contain everything inside me. I could still feel the weight of him against me, the desperate way he’d kissed me.

More eyes found me as I crossed through the elite camp, their gazes holding judgment thick enough to choke on.