Seraphina POV:
The first thing to cut through the haze was a woman's voice, sharp and triumphant.
"She's in there! I saw her sneak in with some vagrant myself!"
A cold smile touched my lips. Cammie. You didn't waste any time.
I pushed myself up, my body aching. I looked down at the man beneath me.
He was fully awake now. Those golden dragon eyes were fixed on me, no longer filled with need, but with the cold, clear promise of murder. He was offended down to his very soul.
I met his gaze without flinching.
The footsteps grew louder. A crowd of lavishly dressed nobles, holding torches that cast dancing, monstrous shadows on the ice walls, burst into our chamber. Leading them was my dear cousin, Cammie Faulkner.
She was a member of the Faulkner family, a branch of House Carlisle, and she had always been jealous of my position as the granddaughter of the main house's patriarch.
Behind her were several matrons from other branch families, their faces pinched with disapproval, and a few younger nobles just there for the show.
Their collective gaze landed on us. On our tangled limbs, our torn clothes.
A wave of shocked gasps rippled through the group.
The matrons immediately began whispering, their voices dripping with scorn. "By the First Dragon, shameless."
"She's disgraced the Carlisle name!"
Cammie pressed a hand to her mouth in mock horror, but her eyes were gleaming with victory. "Sister! How could you... with a man of no name, no station?"
Her words were a carefully aimed dagger, painting me as a slut who'd consorted with a commoner.
I ignored her, my attention on the man whose lap I was still in. I searched the memories of the original Seraphina for his face. Nothing. He was a stranger.
His gaze swept over my face, as if confirming something. Our eyes met, two predators assessing each other.
Then he spoke. His voice was a low rumble, laced with frost. "Seraphina Carlisle."
He knew me.
And in that moment, seeing those unique golden eyes, feeling the sheer weight of his presence, I knew him. Only one man in the entire kingdom of Dragonreach had eyes like that.
The Prince Regent. Aldric Beaumont.
Shit.
I had just slept with the one man in the kingdom you absolutely do not fuck with. My face remained a calm mask.
Aldric's eyes narrowed. The murder in them intensified. A disgraced, dragonless noblewoman had dared to defile him.
Cammie, misinterpreting our silent appraisal as some kind of lover's gaze, grew bolder. She stepped forward, pointing a finger at me. "Seraphina, you're caught. What more can you say? You've not only betrayed your betrothed, Kian Sterling, but you've sullied the Carlisle bloodline!"
Her accusation ignited the crowd's self-righteous fury. They began to shout, calling me a disgrace, a whore.
Slowly, deliberately, I moved off Aldric's lap. I straightened my torn dress, my movements unhurried, as if I were at a garden party.
My calm was a stark contrast to their hysteria. Cammie's smile faltered.
Aldric sat up. He simply pulled the edges of his open, scale-patterned tunic together, and an invisible wave of pressure, the authority of a true apex predator, rolled through the cave.
My reaction had annoyed Cammie. She hadn't noticed the shift in the man behind me. "You harlot!" she shrieked. "Show us the face of your lover! Let's all see what kind of trash you've picked up!"
She lunged, reaching to grab my arm and pull me away, to expose the "commoner" to the crowd.
A glint of ice entered my eyes. I was about to move.
Aldric moved first.
He didn't stand. He simply lifted his head and pinned Cammie with his gaze.
That one look was like a physical blow. It carried the weight of glaciers and the chill of the void. Cammie's outstretched hand froze in mid-air.
The temperature in the cave plummeted. The shouting nobles fell silent, a primal fear clutching at their throats, a tremor that ran deeper than thought, right into their blood. It was the bloodline pressure of a Dragon-God.
Cammie finally realized something was terribly wrong. Her gaze trembled, shifting from my face to the man sitting behind me.
The torchlight illuminated his features. The face that launched a thousand fantasies in every woman in the kingdom, and a thousand fears in every man.
Cammie's eyes widened. The blood drained from her face, leaving it a waxy, pathetic white.
Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
Behind her, the other nobles finally got a clear look. A chorus of choked, strangled gasps echoed in the ice cave.
Then, a dead, terrified silence.
