Chapter 20 · Kiss With A Knife

"Smile like you mean it, wife."

Cassian's hand clamped around my waist and yanked me hard against his side before I could breathe.

"What?" I hissed.

"Inquisitor. Twelve o'clock. Don't look." His mouth was right at my ear, his breath hot against my skin. "They're scanning invites. And heartbeats."

We were stuck in the bottleneck at the Hall of Veils entrance. Gold light, too many uniforms, too many white masks. Every noble couple ahead of us got a crystal pressed to their wrist. The crystal flashed green or the guards took them away.

My second heart — his heart — thudded once, too loud, right under my ribs.

"We don't have an invite," I whispered. "We have a forged pass that'll get us killed."

"So we don't give them time to scan," he said. "We give them something else to look at."

"Like what?"

"Like this."

He turned me. One hand slid up my back, fingers splaying between my shoulder blades, the other tipped my chin up. His eyes dropped to my mouth. Cold, calculating, then something else flickered there.

"You want to fake it?" I said, and my voice cracked.