The Faceless Woman by Emma Hamm (i love reading .txt) 📕

feared losing the piece of herself that made her warm to others. Aisling had always been withdrawn, but she felt deeply. Every stone, every cut, every threat—they stung her soul. But she could see a time when such things would no longer bother her.

And this cold woman in front of her was the outcome.

The duchess reached forward and skated a tea-stained finger over the back of Aisling’s hand. “You are here for my entertainment, little girl. Don’t forget that.”

Hidden meaning slipped underneath the words.

If I die, it will be an adventure.

Aisling nodded, then dashed the tears from her cheeks. “Then by all means, how might I entertain you tonight?”

There was a healthy amount of respect in the duchess’s eyes as she rose from her seat. Aisling realized she’d been seated on another of the kneeling men. His back immediately curved, as if he had been stuck in the same position for so long his muscles spasmed.

The duchess lifted her hands over her head and clapped loudly. “My family! We have a rare treat to entertain us. The Unseelie Prince and his witchling have graced our court with their presence. I call upon them to dance!”

“Dance?” Aisling choked out. “I don’t dance.”

“You’ll learn.”

Hands pressed her forward, shoving her through the crowd past all manner of Unseelie creatures. They were missing eyes, ears, arms, lips. Each grotesque face gnashed at her, jeering and pushing her forward until she was turned around in the center of the ballroom.

She slammed against another person, shoulder blades pressed against his heat, and immediately knew who it was. She heaved a sigh while telling herself to ready herself. He’d look at her again as if she was something horrible. And she would have to endure.

He turned, his breath fluttered against the nape of her neck, and Aisling forgot how to breathe. It was so easy to remain detached when she had held herself away from him. But now she felt naked, bared entirely to him, and she didn’t know how to act.

“Aisling,” he muttered, “they’re expecting us to dance.”

“I didn’t agree to be the show of the night.”

“It’s not the worst thing we’ve done together.” She could feel his eyes on her. They drifted across her shoulders, dipping down to the curve of her waist. “Shall we?”

She swallowed. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable with my new face.”

“You couldn’t make me uncomfortable if you tried,” he replied with a chuckle.

“Is that a challenge, Unseelie?”

“It always is between us.”

The words filled her with a sense of purpose, an understanding of their predicament. He wasn’t holding his discomfort over her head like a trophy he’d somehow won. They would march forward through his past.

She let out a shuddering breath as his fingers danced over her shoulder. Each digit carefully whispered down her arm. Two of his fingers slid under the soft skin where her heart beat furiously, then he lifted her arm delicately into the air.

A musician ran his bow across a violin’s strings. The thrumming call echoed in a single note, vibrating through her soul. An answering call rang out on the other side of the room.

Bran gently stepped forward, heat blanketing her shoulders. She tried to focus, to breathe, but everything faded away as his other arm reached in front of her. His hand spread wide over the rounded curve of her waist, then sliding forward until his palm was flat against her stomach.

When he tugged her backward, every muscle in her body tensed. Fire spread from his palm, but she wasn’t afraid. Instead, the heat spread through her body until she felt as though she could fly.

His voice whispered in her ear, “Are you ready?”

She tilted her chin just enough to catch a glimpse of dark feathers. “Unseelie, I do believe you are trying to seduce me.”

“Witch,” he growled, “what would you do if I was?”

They spun into movement, gliding across the floor with her back pressed against his chest. He controlled her body and soul with every tiny nudge and pressure. She knew exactly what he wanted her to do, how he wanted her to move, and she yearned for him. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know how to dance. He did.

Control was not easy for her to give up. He damned her to yield, and every time she stiffened, his body compensated. Slight shifts, a pressure at her hips, small indications of what he wanted her to do, and she didn’t even need to see his face.

Unseelie flashed by, their faces twisting into one macabre vision of monster and Fae, melded together into one impossible being.

As the violinists lifted their song into a crescendo and beasts beat drums, he released his hold on her hip and spun her in circles. She saw only flashes of starlight until he brought her back around and caught her firmly against his chest.

Aisling focused on the bruise of his lips, parting into a smile that seared her to the bone. His arms slid under hers, and her quaking knees didn’t matter since he held her up. He spun them in circles, around and around the ballroom. Moonbeams danced across her shoulders, dripped down the open part of her dress, pooled in the center of her being, and filled her with feminine light.

He didn’t recoil from her face. The more he stared, the less his gaze ached with disappointment.

“What are you staring at?” he asked.

“You.”

“Why?”

The ache in her chest spread until she could hardly breathe. She wanted to tell him he haunted her thoughts and dreams. She was terrified of his rejection and hadn’t realized that until this moment. Their travels had turned her into a different woman, and she didn’t know herself anymore.

Instead, she lifted a shoulder and stepped closer. “You’re the only thing to look at.”

He arched a brow, and the raven eye stared her down. “Not the answer I was expecting.”

“And what were you expecting, Unseelie prince?”

The violins wound down, and a final beat of the drums hung in the air. Bran slid his