I came up next to him and laid my left arm along his, placing my palm on the back of his scaled hand and lacing my fingers down through his. I expected them to feel cool, like a lizard, but they were warm, like resting my hand on sun-heated shale. He radiated heat, slightly warmer than a human, more on par with a dog.

Or a wolf, I thought, remembering him saying that his body linked him to the fae wolf-god. I looked over at him, examining the remote, almost sneering expression on his face. Dain had done it so fast, locking down every trace of personality and putting it behind the face of a man who would kill anyone who got in his way without hesitation.

His thumb ran down my pinky in a small caress, though he didn't look at me. It made me flush, such a tiny gesture of what had to be comfort, a reminder that I didn't need the crawling prickle of fear moving down my spine. Dain started walking before I could figure out how to react to that, making me trot two steps to catch up to him as he led me out of the room and down the hall to a set of double doors.

We paused in front of them as they swung open, and I glanced sidelong at Dain.

"Don't forget the smolder," I said, and was resoundingly rewarded by a twitching of the corner of his mouth as he tried not to smile.

"Their highnesses, Crown Prince Dain Sundamar and his soulmate, Princess Leah Escarra!"

They wanted us to be a matched set, and at this point I was pretty all-in on using Dain to keep me safe. I needed to look like I could somehow measure up to him, and like it would be possible for me to kill him. I was dressed in the sort of thing actresses wear to the Met Gala, and my arm was lying on the arm of a man best known for removing a city from the maps, leaving behind a charnel pit. Time to channel Catwoman, I supposed.

I sauntered in with Dain, quite as if there was nowhere else I wanted to be. I let my eyes pass over the room full of fae, none of whom moved quite right, all too quick and fluid to be human. The sight unbalanced me, leaving me feeling like I was surrounded by doppelgangers instead of people, and I clutched at Dain's hand to anchor myself, the one person in this room that felt right to me.