A River of Golden Bones (Golden Court, #1)

by A.K. Mulford

She was strong and soft, masculine and feminine, threatening and enticing, all at once. Briar knew how to be a princess, but this . . . whatever this was . . . I could be.

Be too aggressive, and it would provoke them. Be too sweet . . . and it would provoke them.

In my desperation I’d forgot the most important rule: defenses up, always.

“You’re my best friend, Calla. You always have been.” His eyes scanned me up and down. “Would it really be so bad? To be mine?”

“You are just as stunning in your furs as you are in your skin, little fox.”

“Pack orders,” Grae muttered. It was the thing wolves said to end a conversation. Nothing mattered more than the will of the pack. Pack orders meant “you lose.”

I didn’t want to wear dresses like Briar. I wanted to wear them like Ora.

It meant “with the river.” I loved that. With the river—flowing, carving its own path. That river was taking me further away from all the things I was told I should be.

“I see you like every other person is in the shadows and the moonlight only shines on you.”

“Also, Grae, or Graham, as you introduced yourself and just as quickly forgot.” They rolled their eyes as if we had all instantly forgotten the name.

“I think we’ve just started a war.”

I had no name, no body, no history beyond this moment. I was a symphony of pure pleasure.

We were two notes in the same song, two destinies of the same fate, two bodies with the same soul.