Private Arrangements

by Sherry Thomas

He admired her surety. She knew her own worth and did not pretend otherwise for those who judged her on her parentage. But by refusing to tolerate fools and play nice, she'd condemned herself to a solitary path, both in defeat and in victory.

If she could distill the sensations that flooded her—the headlong rush, the metrical, earthy hoofbeats pounding away beneath her, the dense evergreen woods tearing by at the periphery of her vision, and the cold wind that was utterly powerless before the fire of her exuberance—she would have the essence of joy.

Her features were only half visible in the faint illumination of the moon, a shadow of a high cheekbone, a dark fullness of lips, and eyes like water at the bottom of a deep well, black with pinpoints of refracted starlight.

because she couldn't imagine her life otherwise, because she saw every breath she took intertwined with his,