The prince's jaw set. "Don't ask me something you don't really want the answer to." He dipped me again and when he pulled me to him his face was guarded. "Thank you for dancing with me, Ryiah. Even if you didn't want to."
Darren released me and I caught the scent wafting from his shirt – a mixture of pine and cloves that smelled so much like my home in Demsh'aa it brought tears to my eyes. But it wasn't just his smell, as soon as he released me I felt cold and numb and… empty.
I watched Darren walk away, cutting through the crowd to Priscilla who stood at its edge, glaring pointedly. I continued to stare, oblivious, until Ian found me.
"Are you feeling alright?" the fourth-year asked, anxiously. "You look flushed, Ryiah. Perhaps it's too hot in here…"
But what I was feeling had nothing to do with the room. The temperature could not make me feel like I was suffocating – like something was dying, like something was shattering, breaking into a million tiny pieces as Priscilla took the non-heir's hand in hers.
Ian pressed his palm to my forehead. "You should lie down. Would you like me to walk you to your chambers?"
"No." Did I really feel this empty all the time? Or was it just that Darren had made me feel whole? What was it that I had felt when he held me? Safe. Whole. Happy. But right now I couldn't remember any of those things with Ian.
What was wrong with me?
I swallowed, a hard lump lodged in the base of my throat. "You should stay and enjoy the rest of the evening with Alex and Ella."
"Are you sure?" A flash of confusion dashed across the boy's features but it was gone before I could place it. "Goodnight, Ryiah."
"Goodnight, Ian." I walked up the atrium steps in a haze, hardly conscious of Sjeka's beautiful sea as I passed the looming window to the second spiraling stair of the apprentice quarters.
As I continued the walk down the long, dark passage I forced myself to replay the dance in my head. It's an illusion. It's not real. What I feel is not real.
But it had felt real. And I had felt it before. But it wasn't fair, it wasn't right, it wasn't-
"Ryiah!"
I spun around – and my heart leaped out of my chest. Darren. He was running through the hall, toward me, seemingly uncaring as he knocked over an unlit sconce to the floor. I opened my mouth to tell him to leave or stay or go or any of those things but before I could get a word out he grabbed me and shoved me against the wall.
Then
He
Kissed
Me.
Wildly, possessively, with a hunger that stole the will from my limbs. He kept me up against the wall, kissing me like he couldn't fight any longer. Like he was me, fighting himself and losing to a fervor that would burn him alive.
A loud gasp escaped my lips and he deepened the assault. His hands slid into my hair and I felt myself crumble, sparks shooting across my scalp and my skin and my heart until I could hear nothing but the hammering of our pulse.
"I shouldn't have danced with you." His voice was hoarse, ragged. He looked at me and his eyes were two black stars, pulling me in and drowning me. "I knew I shouldn't and I asked you anyway."
My lips parted before I even realized what was happening.
And then: What was I doing?
"No." I shoved the non-heir away. How could I? What was I thinking? A wave of shame rolled through me. "Darren, this is wrong!"
"You can't fight this Ryiah." Darren's eyes met mine and held them. "Any more than I can." The third part was so quiet I almost missed it. "And believe me. I've tried."
I took a step back and realized he was still pinning me to the wall.
"Let me go."
"Is that what you really want?" His eyes were unreadable.
No. "Yes," was what I heard myself say.
Darren leaned in close, his mouth brushing my ear. "You are a terrible liar." Then he kissed me again. Slowly. Once. Twice. Soft moth's wing kisses that made my knees buckle and collapse right out from under me.
And then I was home.
Everything smelled of pine and cloves and him. There was a steady burn rising in me that I couldn't ignore. My whole body was in flames. I was losing myself in what it felt like to be near him. This was what I had wanted. This was what I was missing. This was what I needed.
"Ryiah." The word was barely a whisper. "Ryiah, I have wanted to do this for so long."
You aren't the only one. Before I could stop myself I had pulled him back to me. My lips hovered above his for just a second before I lost control. And then I kissed him. I kissed him in a way I had never kissed Ian: hungry, hot, angry, desperate, confused, in love, in madness. I kissed him with everything I had. Everything I hadn't wanted to let myself feel—
A loud clash came from the hall behind us as someone sneezed loudly. Darren and I broke apart and I saw the telltale flash of Lynn's straight black ponytail. I could see the sconce she had accidentally kicked in her soft-footed approach.
It took me a moment to figure out what had upset her. And then I remembered.
Ian.
The moment was shattered in less than a second.
"Ryiah, look at me."
Ian.
Darren touched my face and I turned away, hating myself for what I had just done to the boy I claimed to love. And the one I didn't want to love.