These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows 1)

“Then dance.” Riaan taps his glass against mine. “It is my pleasure to serve my future queen.”

Those words bring back memories of Sebastian and the girl tangled up in the shadows in his room. I don’t want those thoughts. I don’t want the bad feelings that come with that memory, so I throw back the third glass, drinking it so fast I cough.

The music changes . . . or maybe that’s me, and my weightless body suddenly feels very different. I’m hyperaware of my limbs moving through the air, my hips swaying to the beat. Why have I never noticed how nice it is to have a body? To have arms and hands? To feel the air on my skin?

I want more of that.

I reach back to unlace my bodice, but someone stops me.

“Abriella, stop,” Emmaline says, taking me by the shoulders.

I blink at my handmaid a few times, but she flickers in and out of focus, and when I squint, she isn’t one of the twins, she’s Pretha. “Preeetha,” I crow, dragging out the first syllable. I stroke my hand down her smooth face, trying to see the beautiful faerie’s true form. “You’re so beautiful. Why do you always shift to be someone you’re not?”

“We’re leaving,” she says. “Stop it.” She smacks my hands away from the laces on my bodice.

“We should take off our clothes and feel the air on our skin,” I whisper conspiratorially. “It’s lovely having skin that feels so much. I just want to feel with my skin and not with my stupid heart.”

“You’ve been drugged,” she says. “You don’t know what you want.”

“You’re right about that.” I let her guide me out of the ballroom, mostly because it’s easier to follow than to fight her. Why would I want to fight and ruin this wonderful feeling?

We’ve always left the palace in a carriage, but today she takes me through a new door in the hall. “Where’d this come from?” I ask, but she’s already pulling me inside, and we’re suddenly in the quiet sitting room of a warm home.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“MAGIC TASTES LIKE RAINBOWS,” I say, swaying on my feet.

“Gods above and below,” Pretha mutters.

There’s a rug on the floor and candles burning from sconces on the walls. It would be a great place to read a book, but I don’t want to read tonight. I want to feel.

I grip her arm. “Is this your new house? I’m so sorry you had to move because of me. I’m sorry that he’s kissing another woman because of me.”

She shakes her head and turns away. It’s too bad. She looks like herself again, and she’s so pretty, but then I see who she’s looking at, and I understand.

“Finn,” I say, stumbling toward him. “You’re beautiful too. So beautiful it distracts me when I’m around you. Did I ever tell you that? Sebastian would be so mad if he knew that.” I giggle. “Maybe we should go tell him. It would serve him right.”

“She’s been drugged,” Pretha says.

“Clearly,” Finn says. Those stunning silver eyes crinkle in amusement. “Bring her up here.”

Finn leads the way up a large staircase, and Pretha holds me upright as we follow him to the top and into a large bedroom. I take in every detail I can—the big, worn rugs, the candlelight, the massive bed. My gaze snags on the bed and stays there until my mind starts painting pictures of Finn stretched out on his side, propped up on one elbow. He’d smile down at me, and I’d feel those crisp white sheets against my bare skin, a contrast to the heat of his fingertips trailing over my stomach the way they did when we were hiding in the back of that cell.

My eyes float closed again as I let the fantasy wrap around me. I’m vaguely aware of sinking to the floor.

Heat presses into my side as I’m jostled into someone’s arms. Finn’s scooped me up off the floor, and the smell of him so close flips a switch inside of me. That dull sexual ache winds tighter and more insistent until it’s a pressing need. I wrap my arms behind his neck and bury my face in his chest.

He stiffens and mutters a rough, “Thanks.”

Did I say something? Maybe about how good he smells or how sometimes I think about those big hands of his, wonder how those hypnotic eyes might change when he’s aroused—no, not that. He wouldn’t thank me for that.

“What did you drink? And how much?”

The sound of his voice makes me open my eyes—when did I close them? His face is so close when he’s holding me like this. Those lips hovering above mine. “Just one, two, three,” I say. “I’d like more, please.”

“I’m sure you would,” he grumbles, then takes his eyes off mine. That makes me sad. I don’t want him to look at anyone but me. “She’s too far gone for the elixir.”