She locked eyes with the giant of a man she’d followed to the stables, and her voice died in her throat. Peeking from beneath his collar, tattoos swirled, inky black against coppery-brown skin. His black hair was shorn short on the sides, and it pushed out from his crown in thick, tight curls that caught the last light of the day, while his beard had been trimmed so neatly it had to have been done this morning. But most striking of all were his eyes—mahogany and so sharp with anger, she could feel the scrape of them along her skin. Ashes, she thought. Were all these people beautiful? This
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