Page 77 of Of Iron and Moonlight

He turned sharply, his hand sliding instinctively toward the knife in his boot. Two memories collided: the red blur of a carriage slick with blood, and the hiss of an arrow skimming past his shoulder only hours before.

Seraphine stood framed in lamplight, one elegant brow lifted, eyes alight with mischief. With a sly smile, she set a slender finger to her lips in a teasing hush.

“Sera,” Duncan nearly huffed. Relief washed through him, tension leaving just as quickly. He had not expected her to come tonight.

He could not claim surprise that she did.

“Duncan,” she purred. She drew the door nearly closed behind her, each movement softened for effect, her eyes never leaving his. “I’ve missed you.”

Duncan eased back against the window seat, unsure whether to invite or resist. He watched her cross the room with her usual grace, silk whispering at her steps.

Despite himself, his mood shifted, and intrigue eclipsed exhaustion. “Court season hasn’t been over long,” he said, returning the teasing. “You already miss me?”

“Not long,” she whispered, her smile faltering just enough. “And yet so much has changed.” She stopped within reach, eyes dark and unyielding. “A wife, Duncan?”

“You know very well the timing was not by choice.”

“I do,” Seraphine allowed, inclining her head. “But the bride was.”

Duncan drew a slow breath. “A narrow timeline limits one’s options.”

A soft hum rose from her throat as she stepped closer.

Her fingers traced his jaw.

Her perfume, amber touched with smoke, drifted between them, calling back memories like heat.

The scent slipped past his restraint, and his body reacted, desire answering before he could think better of it. Winter nights in Vaelstrom flickered through him—the two of them tangled in sheets, her laughter muffled against his skin. In the darkest months after his family’s deaths, he had sought her touch more often than he cared to admit.

“Tell me plainly, Duncan,” she whispered. Onyx eyes searched his face with feline patience, waiting for the crack in his control. “Do you love her?”

His breath caught, surprised by the question. “No,” he said quickly, barely more than a whisper. It was not a lie—not exactly. Still, the word stung as it left him.

A triumphant smile spread across her face. A soft, delighted laugh curled from her throat. One hand remained at his jaw, the other slid to his shoulder, then into his hair as she closed the remaining space, fitting herself between his knees.

Memory guided his hands before thought could intervene, settling them uncertainly at her waist. She laughed again, brighter now, unable to contain her satisfaction.

Then she leaned in, her lips catching his.

Duncan let it happen, the way a body remembers a habit. His hands followed the familiar lines of her figure with startling urgency, reaching for the impression of how she had once fit against him. Beneath it lay a simpler truth: he was a man who had gone too long without a woman’s closeness, and the want he had forgotten now flared through him like a spark finding dry tinder.

His arms moved of their own accord, pulling her nearer until silk pressed against his chest. He deepened the kiss, and she answered by arching into him. For another heartbeat he let himself sink into the familiarity—her perfume, her confidence, the fire she could always coax from him.

But when her fingers slid from his hair to the first buttons of his breeches, his body stilled and desire fell away. The thought did not arrive so much as reveal itself: your wife is in this house.

It was not guilt—not quite. From the start, he had been honest with Kora about what the marriage was. He had promised her nothing beyond that.

Yet he had brought her here. Told her she belonged. Made her a Goldfire vow. And she had honored hers in full, with a devotion he had neither asked for nor deserved. To betray her here, beneath the same roof where she slept, felt like breaking something deeper than any spoken vow. Like undoing something in himself that had only just begun to mend.

Duncan caught Seraphine’s wrists, firmly but not cruelly, and set them aside.

Confusion flickered, then annoyance gilded her poise. “What is it?” she asked. “Have you tired of me? Has marriage cured you of your appetite?”

“It has not,” he said gently. “But I won’t do this here.”

She let out a short, hollow laugh. “I knew,” she said, anger thinning her voice, “when you were a third son that you could never marry me. But when you became Duke, I hoped—” Her hands flattened briefly against his chest, then fell away. “I let myself believe you might choose desire over duty. For once.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I should have remembered you are a derWhitte. And derWhittes are nothing if not predictable in their loyalty to virtue.”

Her smile turned venomous. “Well, enjoy your virtue,” she spat, stepping back.