The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles, #1)

by Mary E. Pearson

Today was the day a thousand dreams would die and a single dream would be born.

With Pauline at my side, in one swift act that could never be undone, an act that ended a thousand dreams but gave birth to one, I bolted for the cover of the forest and never looked back.

wondered what it would be like to have someone who knew me so well, someone who would look right into my soul, someone whose very touch sent all other thoughts from my mind.

My only consolation as I looked up at the blinking stars was that the prince of Dalbreck was probably still awake too, furiously jostling home on a rutted road, his old bones aching with pain in a cold, uncomfortable carriage—with no young bride to warm him.

Lia. Like a whisper on the wind.

The devil had arrived. And some strange part of me was glad.

“Some things last.” I faced him. “Really? And just what would that be?” “The things that matter.”

His bite will be cruel, but his tongue cunning, His breath seductive, but his grip deadly. The Dragon knows only hunger, never sated, Only thirst, never quenched.

I looked at his happiness, and mine returned. That was how it had always been. Walther always cheered me when no one else could.

Even with her brows pulled low and an anguished crease between them, she was beautiful. It was a strange thing to think at the moment. I had deliberately avoided the thought each time I had looked at her before. I couldn’t afford such thoughts, but now the word came, unbidden, unrelenting.

“One day I will.”

“And if one can’t be trusted in love,” I added, “one can’t be trusted in anything.”

That was what I both hated and loved about Rafe. He challenged me on everything I said, but he also listened intently. He listened as if every word I said mattered.

Dammit, if everything about her doesn’t fascinate me.

“All my life I dreamed about someone loving me for me. For who I was. Not the king’s daughter. Not First Daughter. Just me. And certainly not because a piece of paper commanded it.”

“Is it asking too much to want to be loved? To look into someone’s eyes and see—” Her voice cracked, and there was more silence. “And see tenderness. To know that he truly wants to be with you and share his life with you.”

Some truths refused to be hidden.

But even the great can tremble with fear. Even the great can fall.

He stood tall and still and so beautifully and irritatingly perfect.

But there’s one thing you could never call me.” He set the bottle and basket down on a patch of grass. “The one thing you can never call me is repulsed by you.”

“Because ever since that first day I met you, I’ve gone to sleep every single night thinking about you, and every morning when I wake, my first thoughts are of you.”

Maybe there were a hundred different ways to fall in love.

“Expecting to fall?” Kaden asked. “I don’t want it to get spattered when my opponent plummets.”

It can take years to mold a dream. It takes only a fraction of a second for it to be shattered.

Never forget that, Lia. Venda always comes first. Even before you.”

And late at night as I stared at the stars, sometimes a whisper broke through, one I was too afraid to believe. I will find you. In the farthest corner, I will find you.

I saw that he had ached for me as much as I had for him. The good ones don’t run away, Lia. But now, with a new burning passion, I desperately wished he had.