Shadows darkened the gallery, where the gaslights were turned low. Red damask wallpaper only gave it a more intimate feel. Mina was practically vibrating with nervousness as she saw the tall, elegant form leaning against the railing, watching the crowd below.

Barrons didn’t bother to look at her, but she knew he was aware of her arrival. How could he not be? Tension vibrated in the air between them, an electric glide across her skin.

“You have a certain look in your eye tonight, Mina,” he murmured, his eyes half-shuttered as he surveyed the ballroom. “I feel like prey.”

He didn’t look it. Tall, hard, and lean, with his rapier sheathed at his side, he looked like the king of his own jungle. Slowly his head turned, those dark eyes locking on her. Some trick of light gave hint to the striations of his irises—not black, not truly. Hints of warmth gleamed there, the color of molten chocolate. She was left at once overwhelmed and somewhat uncertain. Mina fought to regain her sense of equilibrium. She needed a damned victory tonight. Anything to take her mind off the queen’s absence.

“A ridiculous assumption.” Mina circled behind him. Barrons’s head turned, tracking her movements as she trailed her filigreed claws over the back of his coat. “How could I ever harm you?”

“You seem to be lumping me with the rest of those addlepated fools who think you’re a pretty little symbol.” Turning, he caught her wrist, slowly lifting her clawed fingers to his lips. He never took his eyes off her as he pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist, just over the pulse. The gentlest of touches, a ghostly caress. For a debutante, this would be considered a sign that he intended to pursue her for a thrall contract. “I know just how dangerous you can be, and just how clever your little ruse in the Council chambers is.”

Shock froze her. “Ruse?”

“You vote like a pendulum, swinging one way and then the other, placating the prince consort just enough to appease him on items that matter little to you. But when it comes to something that appeals to your heart—or whatever game you’re running—you don’t back down. No one else has quite figured it out yet. They all think you’re some puppet, dancing to his tune.”

He’d guessed half of it. It was extraordinary—and proved just how closely he’d been watching her.

Dangerous. If anyone realized the game she and the queen were playing, they’d both be destroyed.

“Though I can hardly countenance what occurred in chambers today.” Barrons lowered her hand from his lips, his thumb stroking where his mouth had left its burning mark. His lashes lowered and he dropped her hand.

Of course not. For you don’t understand it. Still, her cheeks burned. She had no need to explain herself and yet… “If she’d said any more, he would have hurt her. The embarrassment of being chastised so publicly will perhaps suffice.”

Sharp eyes bored into hers. “Then it was done out of mercy?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters,” he replied, turning and leaning on the rail, surveying the room once more. “It means that perhaps I was not mistaken about you.”

A thousand thoughts coalesced. First and foremost, a warming buzz at his words that she shouldn’t be feeling. There was no reason to desire his praise. “You do not like the way he treats her,” she said instead, for she was a little curious herself. The very idea that Barrons had tried to speak today on behalf of the queen… Foolish and only bound to make Alexa’s punishment more exacting if he hadn’t stopped when he had, but… A ridiculous warmth spread in Mina’s chest. There had been no strategy behind the move, simply a man voicing disapproval of the treatment of a woman, and how rare was that?

“I should have stopped it. I should have done more.”

“She’s not your wife. He would only have taken his anger over such a confrontation out on her.”

“I know. It’s why I didn’t give voice to more.” He glanced down. “And in not lifting voice, do we not condone it?”

A knife to her chest. Mina ran her polished claws over the rail, finding the prince consort in the room below. He laughed at something his pet spymaster, Balfour, had said. Hatred twisted the knife, her vision dipping to black and white shades for a moment as her hunger fought its way free. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it wash out of her, leaving only sadness and guilt in its wake. Perhaps she wasn’t only furious at the prince consort. Perhaps some of that hatred was for herself.

“What can we do?” Somehow her thoughts found voice, dripping with bitterness. “As her husband, he owns her. He can beat her as often as he likes and what can we do?” Never, she’d promised herself, watching the queen slowly succumb to despair over the years. Never would she find herself in the same trap.

A slight warming prickle over her skin revealed how closely Barrons was watching her. Mina flushed, knowing she’d given something away.

“I thought you complicit in the queen’s treatment, but you don’t like it any more than I do.” Slowly he reached out and brushed a strand of hair off her face, fingertips grazing her cheek. She backed away and his fingers dropped, but his focus didn’t. “You don’t like it because you see yourself in such a situation.” Slow, questioning words, as if he were working through the thoughts himself. “Is that why you never married?”

“What could any man ever give me?” she asked instead. “I’m the head of my house, a woman on the Council. What man wouldn’t try to take that from me?”

Instead of answering, Barrons actually smiled a little. “Not all men are created equally. Perhaps you should find one who isn’t threatened by your achievements. Someone who finds such accomplishments to be part of the fascination.”

“I won’t hold my breath.”

“Perhaps you should open your eyes then. You might just realize he’s closer than you think.”

Every muscle in her body locked up tight. “What a fascinating little theory,” she replied hollowly, while inside…shock rampaged through her system, followed closely by mistrust. This was part of a game, though she couldn’t see what he thought he’d win from it. Fool her into thinking his pursuit was genuine and then… Then what? Did he think she would spill all of her secrets across the pillow one night? Or perhaps let her emotions hold sway until she was voting as he desired just to please him?