Page 194 of Feralheart

Someone faked a cough.

I didn’t look. Just kept moving toward the boundary between their world and mine, that invisible line drawn in grass and sand and firelight that said, this far and no further.

I crossed it.

The commons section sat darker, without servants bustling through with trays and comfort. No light bled through the tents. They’d gone to sleep while I’d been kissing the crown prince like the world wasn’t determined to punish us for daring.

My hands shook when I tried to unlace my boots.

The dying fire near my tent crackled, embers glowing faint orange. I sank down beside it, giving up on the laces, and stared at the coals.

My fingers lifted to my mouth before I could stop them. My lips were tender. I pressed against them and felt the ache, the proof that it had happened. I hadn’t imagined his mouth on mine or the way he’d groaned when I’d pulled him closer.

I’d kissed him.

He’d kissed me.

The fire popped. A log shifted, sending sparks spiraling up into the dark.

Across the camp, his tent still glowed with warm amber light.

I’d spent my whole life learning to want nothing. To make myself small and invisible and safe. But I wanted him so badly my hands were shaking with it, and I didn’t know how to shove the feeling back down now that I’d let it loose.

I wrapped my arms around my knees and stayed where I was, alone with what I’d done, my mouth still aching with it.

I’d do it again. That was the thing I couldn’t put down.

I’d do it again.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

FEN

I’d spent thirty years being afraid of the wrong things. My mother’s disappointment. The council’s judgment. Failure.

This was different.

I rolled the fabric tight, shoving it into my pack. The decision had already been made. The moment Eradin’s mouth had opened under mine, and I’d tasted her need and recognized it as the mirror of my own, I’d crossed a line I couldn’t uncross.

I wasn’t going back.

I grabbed my bedroll from where servants had laid it out, the fabric still carrying the scent of whatever herbs they used to keep it smelling fresh. It wouldn’t matter where I was sleeping tonight.

My shoulder pulled when I hefted the pack, the wound protesting.

I ignored it. Pain was just information, and right now it was telling me I was alive enough to make choices that were the best decisions of my life but would probably destroy me.

It would be worth it.

I’d spent thirty years doing what I was supposed to do. Performing the role I’d been cast in before I could walk. Crown prince. Perfect heir. The golden son who never stumbled.

I was done with all of it.

It was time I lived for me.

The tent flap shifted to the side, and Vella stood in the entrance, backlit by firelight. Her eyes held fury she was too well-bred to voice.

“You’re making a mistake,” she said, her gaze on the pack.