Chapter One

Music rang through the great hall as the ensemble tuned their instruments for the first dance. Excited chatter filled the gaps between notes. Gossip mingled with congratulations for another successful year of life. Rhiannon accepted it all graciously, curtsying for this lady or that lord. Her lady-in-waiting stood at her elbow, taking the gifts on her behalf and setting them aside on a large table for the purpose. After nineteen years, this was a familiar song and dance. Smile, thank the guests for coming, accept the gift, hand it off. It was the same routine every year, and yet she still struggled with the limelight.

Being the center of attention meant attracting the bad kind as well as the good. At a function like this, there would be no escape should someone less desirable come to bother her.

So far, it had just been the nobles Rhiannon knew from before she could walk. The Lady of Linat and her husband, encrusted in their extravagant jewels, pinched her cheeks and gave her a choker featuring a ruby the size of a gold coin. Duke Trystan, her former tutor, kissed her hand and pulled a colorful box from his pocket that contained a brand-new fountain pen. Her cheeks warmed slightly from his light affection. She turned to the next guest.

From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the one person whose company she would never mourn the loss of. Sir Brodrick, captain of the knights and her tormentor since childhood, strode past the line of nobles with cocky confidence and a smirk to match.

"Rhiannon!" he called as if they were bosom friends. "Congratulations on your nineteenth birthday." He seized her hand and pressed a kiss to the back. The unwelcome gesture sent a shudder up her spine. "You've become even more lovely today than you were yesterday."

"Thank you." The smile plastered on her face only just hid the sickening twist in her gut. This man had been the bane of her existence since her father insisted they become playmates as children. Thanks to that, she knew exactly what he meant by his compliment. Yesterday, she hadn't been considered an adult. Today, she was marriageable and thus at the perfect age to be forced into a situation she would regret.

He continued as if he hadn't noticed her stilted response. "Might I request your first dance tonight?"

"I do believe Duke Trystan has beaten you to the punch," she replied, casting a hopeful glance her tutor's way. Sure, he was a good decade and a half her senior and already married, but that granted her some safety.

But alas, even he was afraid of the man who'd worked so hard to isolate her from all others. "Oh, I couldn't possibly step between you and your dearest friend," Duke Trystan said with a polite bow. "Please accept my apology for hogging Her Highness's attention."

Well, there went that escape route. Rhiannon swallowed her resigned sigh as she returned her attention to the person she least wanted to give it to. "Then I would love to dance with you, Sir Brodrick," she lied.

"Wonderful!" Having never released her hand, he dragged her to the dance floor away from the line she was supposed to receive. The band looked at each other in confusion when Brodrick called them to strike up a tune. Dancing wasn't to begin for a while yet. Not until after the meal.

Before they could earn his ire by making him repeat himself, Rhiannon curtsied and apologized. "It doesn't have to be a long song," she said. "I would just like to start the festivities a little sooner if that's all right."

"Of course!" The conductor quickly raised his baton and waved them into a waltz.

Brodrick seized her waist and pressed her closer against him-far past what she was comfortable with. Rhiannon's movements lacked their usual grace with him in the lead. Her body went rigid anytime he handled her roughly, but she hid the fright with yet another pleasant smile.

"I didn't think you would make it," she said as he led her through the steps the way a guard might guide their prisoner to the gallows. "Weren't you sent to take care of the manticore attacking the Western provinces?"

"'Twas a simple matter to take care of," replied the knight with a confident smirk. "I wouldn't miss your birthday for the world. Especially considering the announcement I understand will be made tonight. It's quite the surprise, I hear."

Rhiannon's limbs stiffened. Her feet dragged on the tile for a few steps. "Oh? What sort of surprise?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?"

She laughed lightly, somehow keeping it from sounding forced. "You know how I hate surprises."

"I'm rather confident that this will be a good one."

He was always confident, particularly about things Rhiannon would be horrified by. As children, he'd always been confident judging her friends. This lad was too low in birth, that lady too stuck up. Therefore, he chased every one of them off until only he and her tutor remained. Had her father not personally selected Duke Trystan, Rhiannon doubted Brodrick would have spared the other man either. The tutor proved her only lifeline, as he was too old to be interested in a child beyond the lessons he taught her in her schoolroom, and thus not a real threat. As Brodrick grew and implemented the next phase of his plan, he sought to deny any suitor-for their own safety, of course. For, as he always told them, the dragon awaiting its bride would snap them up in its jaws in an instant. Her lady's maids, too, were informed that if they stayed on, they might be given as wedding presents to the dragon's family for snacks.

Brodrick had always insisted Rhiannon's isolation was for her protection as well as theirs. He proclaimed himself the only one she could trust. Why he thought she would trust him when he regularly cornered her, she didn't know.

One song ended, and at Brodrick's behest, another began. Titters echoed in Rhiannon's burning ears as guests whispered behind fans. One dance out of turn was one thing, but two? She pushed against Brodrick's chest in a silent plea to stop. He responded by squeezing her hand and tugging her even closer. The sudden dip he forced on her made her stomach lurch in terror.

"Don't worry about them," he cooed. "They're just jealous."

If they were jealous, they could have him. She would support their pursuits wholeheartedly.

Before a third song could start, the dining hall's doors opened to signal the beginning of dinner. Winded and dizzy, Rhiannon pushed against him once more. Unwilling to let her go, he released her only after another squeeze that forced the breath from her lungs. "Shall we, Rhiannon?"

More titters followed them off the dance floor. "What sort of relationship must they have that Sir Brodrick felt comfortable without the use of titles?" speculated the gossips.

Rhiannon hated the way Brodrick used her given name. Brodrick had begun the casual address a few years prior in private. Once, when Rhiannon had told him that he was being too forward, he'd not so subtly threatened to give her even more informal pet names in public. Mortified, she'd allowed it to continue so long as it stayed private.

"Please don't speak to me like that in public," she hissed, failing to extricate herself from the arm draped around her waist. "You forget yourself."

"We've been close for so long. Don't you think it's about time we let others know of our intimate relationship?" He planted a kiss on the top of her head.

Surprised gasps sounded behind them. Her cheeks burned scarlet. Hurriedly, she tried to distance herself without success. "You assume too much, Sir Brodrick. Kindly release me."

He held firm. No one watching would have noticed her attempts to free herself. "Now, now, no need to be so coy. Considering the nature of our relationship, it's only natural we should be so close."

At last Rhiannon slipped free of his grasp, though she couldn't shake the feeling that he had let her escape for his amusement. A cat, she thought, toying with a cornered mouse.

"We do not have that sort of relationship," she informed him. "We are nothing more than friends." Even that description was too generous. Brodrick had never been a friend in her mind.

She made her way into the dining hall, eager to take her seat at the head table away from Brodrick. With their stations so far removed, he would sit with the knights as their captain, and she would be safely ensconced between her royal father and mother in the place of honor. She wouldn't have to interact with him another moment once dinner began-

Her heart nearly stopped. At the head table between the throne-like chairs reserved for the king and queen, there were two seats, not one. Hers she knew, for it had been decorated with the crystalline species of sapphire roses cultivated in honor of her birthday a few years ago. The one beside it, however, was somehow grander, fit for a visiting prince. It was made of a heavy dark wood decorated with softly glowing ivy tied in lovers' knots. Bloodred roses sprouted among the silvery vines, resembling the Brodrick family crest.

The color drained from her face. She nearly collapsed in a dead faint. Brodrick, wearing a cool, friendly smile, threaded her arm with his and placed her hand on his elbow...