Crown of Hidden Scales novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Heat Isn't Mine

Bronwyn's brother took the mill horse and rode for the village to see what could be done before dawn.

Bronwyn went with him, swearing, with a poker in her belt.

She turned at the ladder and pointed it at both of us.

"Whatever that was, do it quietly, and not in my mother's flour."

Then she was gone, and the loft was very still.

I sat with my back against the beam and the crown in my lap, and Rhain stood by the window.

He was thirty paces away from me, then twenty, then less, because he kept coming back toward me without looking.

"We ride for Brannock at first light," I said. "I will walk into that square myself."

"They'll kill you."

"They'll try. I want the prince to see me do it."

"Sabine."

It was the first time he had said my name.

It went through me.

"Don't," I said, shaky. "Don't say it like that, I'm trying to plan."

"Then plan."

I could not.

My skin was burning, my scales had come up again along my arms and down my sides.

The crown was warm as a living thing against my thigh.

Every nerve in me wanted him to cross the last few feet.

"This isn't mine," I said. "This heat. The crown is doing it."

"I know." His voice had gone rough. "It's doing it to me too."

"Say it isn't only the crown."

"I can't," he said, "or I'd light up the whole mill."

The gold light blazed on his bare hand, bright as a lamp, and I laughed once, unsteadily.

Then I put the crown on the floor and stood up.

I crossed to him and took his face in both hands.

His eyes were black in the lantern light.

"I'm not asking the crown," I said. "Kiss me."

He took my mouth hard.

It was nothing like the kiss before, which had been a question.

This was an answer.

He lifted me against the beam with a forearm under my thighs.

My back hit the wood.

My legs wrapped around his waist.

His mouth went down my throat to the torn collar of my gown.

He bit the skin above my collarbone.

I heard myself make a sound I had never made in front of Edric in two years.

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