A surge of adrenaline met his words, and my face twisted up into a snarl. Dain was rubbing off on me, I supposed, because I wanted very much to wring the necks of the assholes who had put steel-tipped arrows into my Dain.

Possessive much? I thought at myself, mildly amused at the strength of my reaction. We weren't balanced soulmates, but I did feel a certain amount of proprietary ownership of him, and I was very much of the opinion that nobody was allowed to hurt him. I wasn't quite up to the insta-murder line that Dain was—sometimes the people pulling the trigger, so to speak, are only the poor saps with bad choices who get thrown onto the front lines. But whoever had sent them? For that moment of white-hot anger, I was rethinking my stance against the death penalty, big time.

Dain was waiting for me in our usual little waiting room for open court. He'd really pulled out the big guns, clothing-wise, all in black armor-cut leather with silver metal accents, quite literally dressed to kill. Usually he wore a fancy sword to court, in deference to the general appearance the crown was supposed to keep up, but today he had one that had clearly seen battle, with a bloodstained leather-wrapped handle. His earrings were small silver hoops linked by delicate criss-crossed silver chains with blood-red garnet drops dangling off of them, and he had on his silver circlet and horn-cuffs. He wore a septum piercing, too, also in silver; I hadn't even known he had his septum pierced.

He glanced up at me with a smirk that told me he knew I was admiring, and stretched out his wing-arms to display the long, garnet-dripping chains running from rings on each finger down to silver loops on black leather cuffs further down his arms. In a purring voice, Dain asked, "Think I'm ready for my triumphant return?"

"You look like an avatar of Death," I said with a grin, sweeping my eyes down his body. "I get why Kamharida picked out this blood-red dress. Does your wardrobe staff coordinate with her?"

He laughed, loose and easy. "Probably. I have no complaints with them; the heavy drape of silk looks good on you."

"The heavy drape of silk looks good on anyone." I swept my skirts out and dropped onto the plush couch next to him, leaning back against his arm and tilting my head up to look at him.

A look of surprise crossed his face, and Dain slowly shifted his arm to rest on my shoulder while I kept smiling up at him. He ran the smooth backs of his claws against my jaw. "Am I being encouraged to flirt with you again?" he asked, his voice dropping deeper and picking up an edge of roughness. "As I recall, we both got somewhat carried away the last time you had my arm around your shoulders."