GIDEON SHOT LIKE LIGHTNING from the sofa. On his feet, he stumbled away from Rune, staring down at the dark stain seeping through his rare and expensive jacket.
Guilt pricked her like a pin.
“Oh, Gideon! I’m so sorry …” Rising from the love seat, Rune grabbed the wool shawl hanging off the back of her dresser chair. She felt shaky. Light-headed. “Clumsy me. Let me clean you up …”
He backed away from her, arms raised. “It’s fine. Please—don’t ruin your shawl.” He unbuttoned the jacket, shrugged it off, and held it out to inspect the damage.
“I’ll call for Lizbeth. Maybe if she soaks it—”
“What is going on here?” a voice exclaimed from the doorway.
Rune spun to find Verity entering the room, pearls gleaming from her neck and wrists. She looked windblown and out of breath, as if she’d heard Rune’s startled cry and, expecting the worst, ran to her bedroom.
At the sight of Gideon, Verity abruptly halted, staring like she’d caught them in the middle of something scandalous. Her heart-shaped mouth formed a shocked O.
“This appears to be my cue to leave,” said Gideon. Folding his soggy jacket over one arm, he caught Rune’s eye. “I’ll see myself out, Miss Winters. Good night.”
Before she could answer, he trod past a still-gaping Verity and disappeared into the hall.
When he was out of earshot, Verity hissed, “Are you out of your mind?”
She’d gone dark as a thundercloud.
“That”—Verity’s index finger sliced the air in the direction Gideon had gone—“was not the plan. Gideon Sharpe is not on your list!”
Rune crept to the door and peered out, watching the Blood Guard captain’s form recede down the hall. She was warm all over, her body humming with the memory of their close encounter. When Gideon was good and truly gone, she said, “That’s because he’s never shown interest.”
Verity went quiet. “Has he shown interest?”
Rune’s skin buzzed where Gideon had reached for her chin. She could still hear the hunger in him as he murmured her name.
Maybe?
Either that, or he was a cold, calculating master of seduction.
“I don’t know.” Rune closed the door and turned to her friend. “But he showed up tonight and gave me this.” She tugged the silk rose from her hair, wincing as several strands came with it, and held it out for Verity to see. “Suddenly, none of the names on your list were good enough. I had to improvise.”
Verity’s mouth thinned to a hard line. She took the flower as if it were a living rose, full of thorns. “Something’s amiss here,” she said. “Gideon Sharpe doesn’t court girls like Rune Winters.”
Ouch.
For some reason, that stung. “Gee, thanks, Verity.”
Verity glanced up. “Oh, Rune. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Rune brushed off the comment. “Maybe he needs a rich wife. Maybe he gambles too much and is neck-deep in debt.”
“Or maybe he’s playing you,” said Verity.
Rune looked away, thinking of the enchanted wine, of the way his tracing hands knew exactly how to disarm her. He was experienced in a way Rune wasn’t. That had been clear.
Verity’s right. I’m in way over my head.
Gideon had turned the tables on her tonight. First, with the wine. Then, on the love seat. And finally, by refusing to give up Blood Guard secrets despite passionate distraction. None of her tricks had worked on him.
Courting him, therefore, would mean enduring a high level of danger, but for how much reward?
Sighing, Rune walked over to the bed and fell backward, letting the duvet catch her in its downy softness. Closing her tired eyes, she said, “It seemed like the perfect opportunity.”
“It’s too much of a risk.” Verity sat down on the bed and took Rune’s hand, gripping it tight. Quietly, she said, “I don’t want to lose you, too.”
Rune heard what her friend didn’t say: I lost my sisters. You’re all I have left.
It was true for them both. Rune and Verity had lost the people who mattered most and only had each other now. And Alex.
The bed’s promise of blissful tranquility called to Rune. She’d ridden hard through terrible weather to get to Seraphine. Every bone in her body ached for rest. The longer she lay here, the more likely it was to drag her under.
“Promise me you’ll reject him and choose someone safer,” said Verity.
Rune knew she should heed her friend’s wise advice. It only made sense to pursue someone easier and less dangerous than Gideon Shape. But if Gideon already suspected her, wasn’t courting him the best way to put those suspicions to rest?
“Reject who?” interrupted a new voice.
Rune’s eyes flew open. She raised herself to her elbows, groaning a little at the fight against gravity, and saw Alex enter the room.
“Your brother.” Verity’s hand was still clenched around the rose’s wire stem. She held it out to him. “Maybe you can talk some sense into Rune.”
Alex took the rose.
Sighing, Verity pushed herself from the bed. “I’ll see you both back at the party.”
If I can make it that far, thought Rune, falling into the covers once more. Alex stared after Verity. “What’s with her?”
Rune made an inarticulate noise, too tired to explain.
Claiming the spot Verity had vacated, Alex lay down beside her. Even with several inches between them, Rune felt the warmth of his body. Together, they lay on their backs, staring at the stucco ceiling.
“Where’s Gideon?” Alex asked, voice tightening around his brother’s name. He held up the silk flower, contemplating it.
Rune winced, remembering their thinly veiled argument on the stairs earlier.
She and Verity hadn’t told him about the list of suitors, knowing he wouldn’t approve. Better to tell him once it’s over and done, Verity said when she first made the list. Remembering Alex’s interference tonight, Rune found herself inclined to agree.
Alex was fiercely protective of his older brother.
“Gideon went home.” Rune’s eyes closed. The comforting call of sleep lapped against her mind like waves against the shore.
A little voice inside Rune reminded her that her party wasn’t over. That she needed to get up, go downstairs, and resume her role as hostess.
Just a little rest, she told the voice. And then I’ll go down.
Silence filled the space between them as Alex went to that quiet place inside himself where he could collect his thoughts. Considering and arranging each one before showing them to the world.
There was a time when his long stretches of silence had unnerved Rune. She didn’t know what they meant and tried to fill the space with her words. But nearly a decade of friendship had taught her to love his silence, and now it was as comforting as his music.
When he finally spoke, she was closer to asleep than awake. “Rune?”
“Mmmm.”
“Whatever you’re doing with my brother needs to stop.” The bed moved as he sat up, and Rune felt him reach down for her shoes, sliding one off, then the other. She wanted to tell him to keep them on, because she had to go back downstairs, but he continued before she could. “Hunting witches is Gideon’s obsession. If he discovers what you are, he won’t hesitate to kill you.”
“Why does he hate me so much?” she asked, eyes still closed.
Rune felt him lie back down beside her, then turn his face toward her, his breath feathering her cheek. “My brother saw horrible things when he lived at the palace. Things that damage a person irreparably.”
She thought of Gideon refusing the wine earlier. There was a time when I needed it to survive.
She wanted to know more, but it was wrong to pry one brother’s secrets out of the other.
Alex hadn’t really answered her question, though. Gideon had disapproved of Rune since the day they’d met five years ago, long before this damage Alex spoke of. It seemed there was something unique about Rune that Gideon couldn’t abide.
It bothered her more than she cared to admit.
Alex stretched out his arm toward her. It roused Rune a little, and she lifted her head, letting him tuck his arm under her like a pillow.
“It’s too late for Gideon,” he said, turning her on her side and pulling her back against his chest. “You, on the other hand, can still be saved.”
If her eyes were open, she would have rolled them.
We’ve known each other for seven years, she thought, remembering when she first met Alex. She’d been eleven, and accompanying Nan to the Royal Library, which was a glass building full of every spell book in existence—before the Blood Guard burned them all and converted the building into their headquarters. As she wandered the aisles of books, Rune heard music coming from somewhere in the library. The song brimmed with emotion, and she’d searched every floor until she found the boy playing it.
In all those years, how many times have I needed saving?
She must have asked aloud, because Alex said: “It’s not the times you don’t need saving that I’m worried about. It’s the one time you’ll need it, and there will be no one to do it.”
If she hadn’t been so tired, she might have pinched his arm. Instead, she shifted closer, nestling into him. Breathing in the clean smell of his freshly ironed shirt, Rune let herself relax for the first time all day.
Alex was familiar. Alex was safe.
“Rune?”
But whatever he said next was lost in the sound of her snoring.
