"Heaven save me! Your affection comes armed," said Prince Damian, voice smooth as wine and twice as intoxicating. "Tell me, fair one, do I get a kiss before the next blow?"
The sunlight fell through the high canopy in fractured gold, glancing off Damian's hair until it gleamed like threads of fire. There was something unbearably radiant about him in the light; all charm and sin stitched together into one dazzling contradiction.
Leroy's eyebrow twitched. He had a wife at home, and even she did not dare tease him this way. His skin crawled, not from fear, but from the strange discomfort of Damian's attention. It wasn't the kind of look a soldier knew how to defend against.
And with Damian, one could never tell where jest ended and danger began.
He turned to leave, jaw tight, but Damian moved faster, his fingers catching lightly beneath Leroy's chin. Reflex was faster than thought. Leroy's steel sang from its sheath in a bright, vicious arc.
