Hey, guys!

Dorian?”

“Yes?”

“When we first met…you told me that if I slept with you, you’d go with me to get Jasmine. Does that offer still stand?”

The first surprised look I’d ever seen on him crossed his face. I took a certain amount of pride in realizing I’d finally caught him off-guard.

“My, my,” he said softly. “This is unexpected. So. Desperation and fury achieve what all my charms could not, hmm?”

A flush spilled over my cheeks. “Well, no…it’s not like—”

“No,” he said abruptly. “The offer does not still stand.”

“But I thought—”

“I saw you fight with Aeson and the kitsune. I won’t have you come to my bed out of some misguided sense of revenge on the two of them.

‘Wait…’ I murmured, lost as his mouth bit against my skin. ‘No, we can’t…I can’t…’

‘You can,’ he breathed in my ear. ‘Let me…let me do it. Let me bury myself in you. Let me spread your legs and take you like I did before. We are gods in this world, Eugenie, with no other lovers who are our equals. No others who are worthy of this joining.’

I set out to Dorian with a sense of foreboding, made worse by the fact that I wore a skirt with a slit all the way up to my hip. Both Shaya and Nia had wanted me to go see him in a dress, arguing it befitted my station and would endear me to Dorian. I’d argued that I wouldn’t be able to ride in a dress, and this slit thing had been their solution. And like always, I had a handful of guards in tow. Their constant presence still continued to make me feel like a child. In this case, a kind of slutty child.

‘Damn you! You almost got me killed!’ I yelled, hearing the hysteria in my voice. ‘You almost got me killed!’

He grabbed my upper arms with a solid strength, pulling me to him and forcing me to stillness. ‘Eugenie, calm down. Eugenie!’

He shook me—hard—where I still struggled, and I halted abruptly, quelled by the harsh sound of his voice and ferocity of his grasp. I could no longer find the silly, languid gentry king. There was a stranger holding me, his face hard and commanding.

‘Do you think I’d let anything happen to you?’ he demanded, almost shouting. ‘Do you think I’d let anything harm you?’

‘I can’t go inside,” said Deanna. ‘I’ll just wait here for you to come out.’

‘I too shall wait,” said Volusian, ‘in the hopes that you meet your death and that it is your spirit that emerges, so that I may torment it for all eternity.’

‘Eugenie, why do you keep having such a hard time believing I’d do things for you?’

There was earnestness in his voice, and I realized we kept having this conversation over and over. Out of everyone in my life lately, it seemed like he was the only reliable one.

‘I don’t know why. I’m sorry. I just run into few people who give something for nothing. Mining isn’t going to get me into your bed.’

‘Well,’ he said cheerfully, ‘nobody knows that for sure, but even if not? It doesn’t matter. You need it. It makes you happy. End of story.’

I looked away. Dorian truly was my friend. ‘Thank you. It does make me happy. One less thing in a sea of problems today.’

He handed me the cup. ‘Get me wine this time, and tell me what your problems are. You can even sit on my lap.’

‘No thanks,’ I said, but I did get him the wine.

Dinner had long since ended, and Dorian was in one of his posh sitting rooms, surrounded by a handful of counselors and generals. To my surprise, Masthera sat there too, off in a corner where she observed rather than participated in the meeting. Dorian’s face was calm and collected as he spoke to the others, but his expression broke a little when he saw me.

‘Eugenie!’

In a few strides, he was across the room. Something cracked inside of me too, something that was so, so glad to see him alive and well. Despite Volusian’s report, I’d needed to see Dorian alive for myself. My heart swelled, and I let go of my aversion to gentry customs. I dropped the bag and wrapped my arms around his neck, seeking his lips before he could hardly even get his hands on me. He gripped my hips as we kissed, the power of that kiss sweeping my body and filling it with heat as I pressed against him. It was suddenly easy to understand why gentry sometimes felt the need to have sex in public.

As hard as it is to believe, I’m not the only one who knows how to use magic around here. True, I’m the most stunningly attractive and dazzlingly intelligent, but if you’re dead set against my help, there are others whom you could benefit from.