“I saw Lucas after he’d been poisoned with dragonsbane. He didn’t say much about it — he doesn’t talk about anything he thinks might make him look weak — but he’d obviously been to fucking hell and back.” Then Nick remembered that Raluca had been there when Lucas had been poisoned, in his home country of Brandusa. “But you know that. You were there when it happened.”
Raluca shook her head, sending her hair swinging like a sheet of liquid silver. “No. Oh, I could see that he was ill. And he did say that he’d been forced to swallow dragonsbane. But I thought he meant one drop, not half a bottle. And he said he’d already taken the antidote. I had no idea of how serious it was, or I would not have left him. By the time I found out, he had long since recovered.”
“Yeah, that’s Lucas,” Nick said. “Guess he thought it was unmanly or something to say he’d been poisoned and he might be dying.”
“Lucas is proud,” Raluca replied. “Dragon princes are taught to be so. Even so, I cannot imagine what it must have been like. I have only been touched by dragonsbane once in my life. Even a dragon princess must experience that pain, so if we ever are attacked with it, the shock will not be such that we will be unable to defend ourselves. My uncle Constantine poured a single drop on to my hand, and made me sit with it for an hour before allowing m
e to wash it off and take heartsease. The pain was like nothing I have ever felt, before or since. And to be forced to swallow it —!”
Raluca shivered. Nick moved closer, instinctively protective even against an imagined threat. “Baby, that will never happen to you. Never. That’s what I’m here for, okay? Nothing’s gonna get past me to hurt you.”
“I believe you,” Raluca whispered.
Her tremors subsided, but an angry heat burned within Nick at her story. She was so delicate, so helpless. It had been cruel to hurt her, even if had been meant as life-saving training. Constantine’s motives had probably been mixed at best.
Lucas had told Nick how Constantine had tried to force Raluca and Lucas to marry so he’d have power over them both, and then tried to assassinate Lucas and his mate Journey. Sure, Constantine was in a dungeon in Brandusa now, but it wouldn’t surprise Nick one bit if he was somehow orchestrating the attempts on Raluca’s life from behind the scenes.
Raluca drew in a deep breath, straightening her spine and stepping away from Nick. The moment of vulnerability vanished as if it had never been, leaving nothing behind but the hard princess shell.
“Enough of such unpleasant topics,” Raluca said. “I am certain that they will never come to pass. Nick, I have selected most of my wardrobe in consultation with the saleswomen, but I wished to get a man’s perspective on a few dresses, if you will. Then we will be done here.”
“Sure.” Nick took the opportunity to check Raluca out thoroughly while pretending he was just inspecting her outfit. “The dress is hot. Uh. I mean pretty. I like it.”
Raluca’s eyes rolled so hard, he was surprised they didn’t go bouncing across the room. “This is a slip, Nick. An undergarment. I have not yet put on the dress.”
“Oh.”
Since Nick obviously couldn’t say anything right, he decided to shut the fuck up. He watched in silence as Raluca wriggled into a floor-length dress, then posed for him.
The skirts flowed around her hips and legs like water, floating and rippling in every shade of blue, as if she had risen dripping from the ocean. While the skirts were feather-light and loose, the blouse was skin-tight and covered in sparkling jewels shading from sky-blue to sapphire to a blue so deep it was nearly black.
The dress was backless, allowing him to see more of her glittering dragonmarks. They wound sinuously around her left shoulder and upper arm like chains of silver, trailing along her side and across her chest. The low-cut front showed more of Raluca’s cleavage, but Nick still couldn’t tell exactly how far the dragonmarks went. A winding line of silver curved above one breast and then disappeared under her blouse. He wondered if it looped around her nipple...
“Well?”
Nick swallowed, hastily jerking his gaze upward. “Gorgeous. You look fu — you look great. Beautiful dress. Perfect.”
Raluca’s lips quirked in an amused smile he was getting to know all too well. “I was going to ask if you’d help me zip it up.”
She indicated a zip on one side, nearly invisible against the jewels.
“Right.” Nick took the tab and tried to pull it upward.
The seam gaped open; he had to use his other hand to hold it together, sliding his fingers upward as he went. It was impossible to close it without touching Raluca’s hot skin. Why did she have to pick a dress so tight that she couldn’t zip it up herself? It was killing him to feel her skin, so silken-soft, and not caress her or pull her into his arms or spin her around and kiss her.
He’d lay money that she usually wore perfume, probably the sort that came in a crystal bottle and cost about $10 per drop if you divided the amount of liquid by the price. But she must have washed it off before she’d gone to bed the night before, because all he could smell was her natural scent. It was a little bit like Lucas’s, with overtones of hot metal — a dragon’s scent — but sweeter. Like roses in a steel vase in the sun.
Nick breathed it in deep as he inched the zipper up, making sure not to snag it in her hair. But her hair was everywhere, flowing over his hands like silk, like the skirts flowed over her hips. It was cool against the heat of her skin, smooth as satin but oddly heavy. It felt like real silver beaten impossibly thin, each strand strong and slightly weightier than it looked.
The tab caught on some snag. Nick had to step in closer to disengage it. He was trying not to stare, not to put his hands anywhere inappropriate, not to fucking breathe—
He forced his gaze away from her. Or at least, he tried. But when he looked straight ahead, he saw them both in the mirror. He stood behind her, with his big hands on her body, one palm flat on her waist and one at the top of her bodice. Her hair moved in the air conditioned currents, drifting across his broad shoulders and settling over his forearms, as if she was binding him in silver chains.
He looked like he was holding her, like they were dancing together. But his jeans and boots and black leather jacket and tats were all wrong for the person who should be holding her — he was all wrong for her. She was every inch a princess in her jewels and silk and gauze. The only thing they had in common was the designs on their skin. But she’d been born with her royal dragonmarks, while his tattoos were the brand of his gangster past.
Raluca didn’t turn to look back over her shoulder. Instead, she caught and held his gaze in the mirror. Still looking straight ahead, she reached down. He watched in the mirror as her hand closed around the stem of a cocktail glass and lifted it. But to his surprise, her hand reached the level of her mouth, then moved backward. Raluca lifted the glass to his lips.
“For your help,” she said. “It must have been very dull to stand guard while I enjoyed my shopping. So take a moment for your own enjoyment. I presume that you drink?”