Three weeks pass in a blur. My life is a whirlwind of social events with Taron by day and either practicing in my room or training with Abel at night.

  Until Taron leaves.

  Earlier this morning, I stood beside Clara and Lilianna upon the Privetts’ brownstone platform as we all waved politely and watched the Privetts roll away in their elegant black carriage. Taron hangs out the doorway, smirking and waving as it rolls down the street.

  Clara painted a warm smile on her face for the Privetts, but murmured through barely moving lips to me, “I’m sure you’re quite pleased with yourself and your defiant behavior. You’ll do well to know that, while I can’t imagine many suitors finding disobedience endearing, Lord Venon has assured me he finds a little wild spirit,”—her smile twisted to sinister—“enticing.”

  My insides curdled, but I kept politely waving until the carriage faded from sight.

  Clara then let out a soft laugh and dropped her hand and with it all her pretenses. “Oh, what’s that? You don’t want to marry the man who got you those scars on your back? Poor you.”

  Bile rises up my throat at the memory. The rest of the day slipped by without further interactions with Clara—she took her leave shortly after the Privetts and didn’t return until dinner time. I spent exactly one hour in the library with Lilianna after dinner, then announced I was going to bed.

  Now, I turn my bedroom’s door handle and blow out a breath as I slip into its quiet solitude. I hated seeing Taron go. Weeks of parties and social events suck the life out of me, but Taron himself is like a breath of fresh air between the toxins. I’ve continued to be treated like a pariah without Taron’s direct accompaniment, but he’s insisted we attend everything together if we want to sell a future engagement between us—assuming the Prince allows it.

  Oh, the Prince. He’s watched me at every event. Always from afar. Always with a sullen, bitter expression. Always just a little too transfixed upon me.

  I ease my bedroom door shut. I’ll just have to buck up and take it. Besides, tonight Abel waits for me just outside on the neighboring roof and that’s certainly something to look forward to. I won’t miss an opportunity to see him, no matter how exhausted I am. Summer’s end nears and with it all of my deadlines loom larger.

  My distraction causes me to fumble twice trying to light the lamp on my vanity. When the wick finally catches and casts a warm glow across the room, it glints off a pair of staring eyes.

  I jerk back and stifle a cry.

  Clara sits on my bed, legs crossed casually.

  “You nearly scared me half to death.” I slide my hand from my mouth down to my pounding heart. So this is where Clara disappeared to after dinner.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” Clara says, the words honed to a dangerous edge. She gently pats the bed.

  A trap. But what choice do I have? I lift my skirts and perch on the edge of the bed. “Whatever for?”

  Clara’s mask doesn’t falter as she claws deceivingly gentle fingers through my hair, until her fingertips fall upon the capped sleeve of my housedress. Her thumb brushes across the gold there. “Aubrey, what happened with Prince Emory?”

  Damn. It takes all of my will to not shudder and force myself to smile instead. “He seems to have taken a keener interest in Nicoletta.”

  “No.” Clara’s voice slashes through the air like the King’s Wyvernblade. “You’ve withdrawn. You’ve given up. I demand to know why. Do you find royalty beneath you?”

  “No, of course not, stepmother.”

  Clara’s grip hardens on my shoulder. “Then is it us who are beneath you? Me? Your sister? Your father’s honor?”

  It hits me harder than any physical strike my stepmother can give me. All I’ve ever done is for the wellbeing of my family—for my father’s dynasty. Except… Abel. He’s been all for myself. “Never.”

  “Never?”

  Again, the fleeting desire to tell Clara everything rises up my throat. To beg for understanding. I can almost imagine Clara stroking my hair and telling me everything will be alright. Almost. “You instructed me not to throw myself at him. He stares enough. He’s not forgotten me.”

  Clara’s eyes narrow. “My previous instructions expired the moment you rejected him—oh yes, I know about that. The entire city knows about that. Decorum doesn’t matter with the Prince, you stupid girl. Throw yourself at his feet. Give him whatever he wants. He is the Prince, damnit. Have I taught you nothing? I thought you were smarter than this, Aubrey. But look at you, behaving like you’re nothing more than a pretty, dumb Gold. So much like your mother.”

  The sick feeling in my chest sparks, ignites. “I thought you didn’t know my mother.”

  Clara rolls her eyes. “Oh, I knew your mother. Everyone knew your mother. Prettiest thing in the Kingdom. And stupid. Stupid as pretty gets.”

  The words stab straight into my heart with a lancing pain that bleeds fire into my veins. I grind my jaw against it. I cannot lose control in front of Clara. The repercussions are too dire. Especially now when I have something to lose. Farnell and Abel. Lilianna to let down. So I draw in a deep breath and empty out the disgust and hate. Composure, commitment, conviction. It’s what my stepmother’s taught me all along.

  Clara sighs dramatically. “I suppose there’s always Maurus.”

  “I will never marry Maurus.” The words tumble free before I can stop them. Skies.

  Clara’s eyes flash—is that triumph? “I wouldn’t say such things if I were you. Do you know what they do with unmanageable Golds?” Clara barks out a mocking laugh and rises from the bed. “Unmanageable like a filly that won’t break? A dog that won’t obey?”

  I flinch.

  “They exterminate them.”

  It’s what they’d do to the dogs.

  Clara cups my chin in her fingers, nails biting into my skin. “They can’t risk losing an unruly Gold to the wyverns, you see. So, if I were you, I’d think long and hard about whatever it is you’ve done and fix it.”

  The wyverns. The real reason I’m a liability—one that’s better extinguished than risked.

  Clara rips her hand away as if she’s touched filth. “If I can’t make a deal with a Lord by the end of the season, I will sell the estate and cut my losses. You’ll be lucky if you have your life and, if you do, it won’t be anywhere near me or my daughter. I will not allow you to tear us down with you.”

  Clara crosses to the door and there she pauses, almost as if she’s about to turn back. Instead, she shakes her head and walks out, slamming it behind her.

  I let out a breath and peel open my clenched fists. I want to believe Clara’s bluffing. That the monarchy won’t do anything so barbaric as ‘exterminating’ me. Yet Taron’s own words flash back to me. They’ll never let someone like you out of the lines. Can you imagine? Risk the wyverns getting their claws on Gold like that?

  My gut churns, hot and sick. But deeper, down in my bones, I burn. It started that day in the Pits and has grown steadier since. Something wild and rebellious and perhaps stupid, too. If that makes me more like my mother? All the better.

  I cross to the door and flip the lock.

  Tonight, at least, still belongs to me.

  My body still shakes when I clamber onto the Privetts’ roof. On the opposite roof, across the narrow alley, a figure stands with his back to me.

  Abel.

  I know from the mere shape of him. Long lines, shirt billowing around his tapered waist, and that wild hair dancing about his broad shoulders. Like a wraith against the night. He’s everything I long to be: confident, powerful, free.

  He turns, as if he feels me. “I didn’t think you were coming.” His face, barely visible in the gloom, holds that familiar playfulness, that calm confidence I wish I could bottle and pour upon myself.

  I shove still trembling hands into my skirts and hurry across the board that bridges our roofs. “I was… delayed.”

  Long strides close the distance between us. “A problem?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” I don’t want to rehash it, to admit to him how profoundly my stepmother can still hurt me. Or how cowardly I allow it. Abel can teach me how to fight and I want to learn. I want every second I can have with him and not waste a moment on a simpering discussion of my societal ineptitudes.

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  He nods towards the far edge of the roof where he’d replaced the ladder with a rope weeks ago. Just like all the prior times we’ve met over the past few weeks, he uses the rope to lower himself down onto an open windowsill at the next floor down. He slings the rope behind his back, twists it around his forearm, leans back against it, and extends his arms to me. “Ready.”

  I suck in a breath. “I can do it by myself.”

  He smiles, just like all the other times. “I’d rather not risk your pretty head splattered on the cobblestones, thanks.”

  Skies, this man. I sit, roll onto my stomach, and lower myself over the edge. Abel’s hard body meets mine as I slowly lower myself into the muscular grip of his arms.

  He chuckles into my neck and holds me for just a breath longer than necessary. Then he pushes me in through the open window and swings in behind me.

  I stride into the center of the room, trying to subtly walk off the goosebumps and jitters I always get when he touches me. The white sheets thrown over the furniture rustle in the breeze. Despite Abel having already thrown open the windows—except for the ones on the Privett side—it still smells of dust and disuse. “The plan to rescue Farnell?”

  “Confirmed for the Summer Solstice Ball, barring any unforeseen changes.”

  I nod. At least that hasn’t fallen apart.

  Abel steps closer. “You know, you’re nearly impossible to read. Sometimes I think I see you flinch or feel something, and then it’s gone before I can put my finger on it.” The scorching breeze flips the half-undone edges of his shirt back and forth.

  My cheeks flush hot at the faint shimmer of sweat on his exposed chest. “Thank you.”

  He snorts. “You would take that as a compliment.”

  I jerk my gaze up to his. It wasn’t?

  He shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “I’ve something special for you today.” He draws a dagger from his boot and extends it to me. “Take it, get a feel for it.”

  I stare at it in his palm. Slowly, I slide my fingers around the hilt and all my bitter, depressing thoughts disappear. Its weight surprises me, even though it isn’t particularly big.

  “Turn it over,” he says. “Take a swing with it, move it around.”

  I do, feeling strange and clumsy. Yet a rush of exhilaration fills me, too. I hold a weapon. A weapon that could hurt me—or someone else. A weapon that could kill. I swipe it through the air.

  It feels like power.

  “Have you ever… used it?” I frown down at its strange beauty.

  “I have.”

  It weighs heavier in my hands. How many times has this blade met the flesh of another? Perhaps power isn’t about money and marriage. Perhaps power is having a weapon and knowing how to use it better than the opponent. So long as that opponent doesn’t have the Wyvernblade, that is.

  “You got a feel for it?” Abel asks, extending his hand for it back.

  “Yes,” I lie and reluctantly hand it back to him. I could never get enough.

  “I’m going to teach you how to move around it, how to evade and escape an attack by a blade, such as this one. Show me your stance again.”

  I move into the posture he’s taught me. It’s still strange and foreign, but I’m determined to get it right. If I can walk with a book and teapot on my head, I can sure as Skies take this stance properly.

  Abel crosses his arms over his chest, and a smile warms his face. “Good, very good. You know, you’re truly gifted at this. I’ve taught a lot of combat and I’ve never seen someone absorb technique like you.”

  I can’t resist the genuine smile his praise evokes. “I’ve practiced.”

  “I can tell. It still defies all logic.”

  I shrug. “I’m a quick learner. I’ve had to be.”

  His face contorts like he can’t quite wrap his mind around that explanation.

  “My stepmother has always expected perfection. I’ve… adapted.”

  “She’s a real piece of work, from what I hear.”

  I twist my fingers tighter in the fabric of my skirt. I don’t want to dwell. I want Abel’s energy, his life, to bask in the momentary joy of being near him, of being free with him. “What’s next?”

  “Come, stand over here by the wall.” He gesture to an area of open wall, free of furniture.

  I move into position and turn to face him.

  Before I’ve so much as braced myself, Abel rushes me. His forearm slams me back against the wall, the dagger clutched in his fist and angled towards the underside of my jaw. I’d not even seen the flash of the blade.

  My eyes fly wide up at him, pulse pounding in my ears.

  “Get comfortable.” His breath tickles my lashes. Taut, aggressive power radiates from the coil of his body. Yet his words remain calm, playful even. “This is a bad position for you to be in. This is where most panic. Where most give in, give up. Find a way to be calm. If you cannot keep your head, you cannot think. If you cannot think, it’s over. It’ll be a long time until you act out of impulse—and even then I urge you not to. Impulse, instinct, will betray you. Embrace how you feel, accept it. Then think.”

  I nod as much as I dare with the dagger so close to my neck. If only he knew what I feel. Sucking in a shaky breath, I set my shoulders and wiggle my toes against the soles of my boots to ground myself. “What do I do next?”

  “You have a couple choices,” he says, his fierce green eyes penetrating into mine with more intensity than the threat of his dagger. The forest wafts off him, moss and pines and horses. “Your right leg is between mine. You could bring it up and knee me good, though I beg you not to just yet.” That cocky smirk takes flight across his face and his gaze flicks down to my mouth.

  My chest squeezes.

  “Your left hand is free. You could consider striking me with it, but you’d have to be sure your mark was good—and fast. A nice clean jab to my eye would likely make me jerk back and away, assuming you were quicker than me and my blade.”

  I move my left hand towards his face, trying out the range of motion. I can reach his eye easily. Whether I’m quick enough is another matter.

  “Your other arm is compromised. Though my elbow is only against your shoulder, don’t make the mistake of thinking your arm useful. You’d accomplish very little with only the power of your elbow and wrist. Now, if you had your own knife stowed away somewhere, at your hip or within your skirt, you’d be able to gut me good and quick. I might fall forward on you and slit your throat, though. The eye option is still better. Or the groin.” He releases me and steps back.

  I nod. Exhilaration mingles with the heat rushing up my body in pulsing waves. I love this. Love the aching soreness of my body for the few days after our meetings. Love the way he looks at me, how seriously he treats me.

  Abel shrugs his shoulders and cracks his neck. “I’m going to come at you again, but this time you’ll be prepared. The sequence goes like this: distract, then act. The best distraction is pain, but many other things could work too. You could scream—though many will expect it. You could spit—assuming a dignified lady knows how to do such a thing. Or you could start confessing some kind of secret, something interesting or intriguing. It doesn’t need to be true, it just needs to be something your attacker cannot ignore.”

  I quickly lose track of how many times we practice this, but I do my best to stay focused. To perform each of the techniques he teaches me with exactness. Each time pushes me higher. Less worry, more strength, more confidence, more addictive exhilaration.

  Abel comes at me again. This time, he counters every one of my attempts to thwart him. Around my first block, under my counter. I barely catch his arm before he brings the blade against my neck. My arm shakes with the exertion of holding him back. His knee thrusts between my legs and his other foot comes down on mine, preventing me from kneeing.

  I gasp at the hard press of him between my thighs and clamp my lips together against the tingling shiver that washes up my body. I swing my free arm at his face, but he catches my wrist and presses it against the wall by my hip.

  His breath entwines hot with mine. A trickle of sweat rolls down his tanned temple. His hair, loosed from its tie, frames his face like the mane of a violent beast. His lips curl into a satisfied smile. He’s beaten me. I only have to admit it and he waits for it. As if he revels in challenging me, pushing me to my very edge.

  It lights me alive.

  Distract, he said.

  I let my arm give a little, direct his dagger arm down slightly. He follows me, allowing the dagger to inch closer to my collarbone and it brings his face and frame closer, annihilating the last traces of space between our bodies.

  His brows knit, eyes flicking over me as if he’s trying to discern my play.

  Too late, Abel. I lift onto my toes and press my lips to his.

  The unexpected softness and brush of his lips as he sucks in a breath nearly undoes me. His fingers slacken on my arm, the press of the dagger eases.

  Yes! I twist my wrist from his grip and shove his dagger arm with all my strength. The connection between our lips breaks and the hot summer air becomes an icy storm in his absence.

  Abel stumbles back, jaw slack.

  The exhilaration of victory blooms like a blast of wyvernfire in my chest—and then plunges into a deep twisting dive of my gut at the shocked expression on his face. I drop my gaze. Skies, I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve let him win. Shouldn’t have given myself a taste of something so unobtainable.

  The dagger clatters to the ground.

  I jerk my head up.

  Abel’s fingers sink into my hair and his mouth slams down on mine.

  Fire explodes low in my belly and pours through me. I forget everything. Everything except the scrape of his stubble across the delicate skin of my mouth, the hot touch of his tongue urging my lips to part. I don’t know what I’m doing as I kiss him back and I forget to care. Every part of me blazes to life and mutes to nothing at the same time.

  His hands are in my hair and my back strikes the wall. His body crushes against mine, hot and hard and overwhelming and I welcome every bit. He consumes me and I claw at his shirt, desperate to have more, more of this blazing fire, more of the dazzling eruption of sensation wrought by every rough brush of lips against mine.

  Abel breaks our lips apart and presses his forehead against mine. His eyes squeeze shut, almost as if it pains him to stop. His breaths are ragged, as if he’s just run here from the Camp at a sprint.

  I’ve done that.

  My own heaving chest burns with rebounded desperation. I twist away from his tilted brow and press my lips against his again. It’ll never be enough. Never.

  He meets me with a guttural growl and his fingers fist in my hair, holding tight. Like he’ll never let me go. His mouth moves over mine, commands me. Each brush, each stroke, sends flurries of sparks coursing through my body.

  I am alive. Truly alive. I run my hands up the bunched muscles of his shoulder, up his taut neck, into his tangled mane of hair. My back arches my body flush against his. To read of a man’s body is one thing… entirely another to feel his hardened length pressed against me.

  He grates his hips against mine and I gasp at the bite of near-pain against my pelvic bone. His groan into my mouth sends a rush of liquid heat sweeping down my body. I want, Skies, I want.

  He tears his mouth from mine again and sucks in a breath. A shudder rolls over him and I revel in it. Revel in the wild beating of my heart, the life that this tiny moment has breathed into me. Revel in the haggard breath Abel cannot exhale with his usual control.

  “I beat you,” I whisper.

  His face cracks into a smile, though his lids remain heavy. “Yes, you did, Aubrey. You did.” His voice is raw, ragged.

  Slowly, he unentangles himself and draws back, his gaze avoidant. Two paces away, he stands as I’ve never seen him: uncomfortable, maybe even on the edge of vulnerable.

  My legs wobble. The lack of his warmth raises all the hairs on my arms, even in the oppressive summer night’s heat. Everything feels disturbingly acute, as if even a moment of this is enough to addict me to him forever.

  He clears his throat. “Tomorrow night is the Moon Festival. It’s probably nothing you’ve heard about before, a peasant festival. The camp is celebrating it.” He drags his gaze to mine, eyes tentative. “Would you like to come?”

  I’d expected him to say this kiss is something we can never do again. For him to let me down with gentle platitudes. But an invitation to spend more time with him? It twangs unexpectedly in my chest, alighting me so easily again.

  He shifts and crosses his arms, waiting—nervous?

  “I’d love to,” I say, a little too breathless.

  His smile crinkles the corners of his eyes. A real smile. An honest one.