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    “Yes, Zaniah forbid the wolf bed down with his sheep.” His derisive snort brought a faint curve to my lips. “I was bred to serve you. I’m only doing what I was born to do.” His finger traced the slope of my nose. “Lucky for us both I enjoy my work.”
    “Harper…” Archer had been right. I would have sold my soul to buy his freedom. What good were his wings if he would never be free to use them?
    “Shh.” He pressed that same rough finger to my lips. “I’m yours, lady, and I will never leave your side.” He glanced around, seeming to survey not just the room, but the entire kingdom beyond the castle walls. “I could never leave you in this place.” Then his bright white teeth flashed. “And don’t think for a moment I would remain if not for you, and Emma.”
    I playfully slapped his chest, content to pretend he, at least, had other options. Even if a haven existed, I doubted an Askaran royal would be welcomed there. Most likely I would be turned away, if not worse.
    I’d heard whispers of an Evanti uprising. All of Rihos buzzed with the news of slaves gone missing under the cover of night and stores of food and supplies being raided. I was likely the only member of the nobility hoping, praying, that the rumors were true and wishing my slaves would vanish next.
    Harper captured my hand where it still rested against his chest and pulled me into a sitting position. I flinched as pain seized my upper back.
    “You don’t have to do this every time, you know.” I could only imagine how I appeared to him. Puny and pale, wingless and weak, nothing worthy of the devotion he gave me so freely.
    “You might as well cooperate. I won’t leave while you’re in pain.” He tugged the hem of my nightgown up around my hips and exposed the pale coral of my silken undergarments.
    “Stubborn male,” I accused.
    Harper laughed, the sound as dark as the night surrounding us. “I’m not the stubborn one.” He tugged the sweat-dampened nightgown over my head to land softly on the stones. “Now, roll over.”
    I growled at him, but the sound lacked any real heat. In truth, I needed the relief he offered me.
    Flopping onto my stomach, I pushed my face into my buckwheat pillow. The hulls shifted and sifted around as they conformed to my new position. “Fine,” I groused. “Just don’t look, all right?” As if he hadn’t seen my back bared a thousand times since childhood. “I hate for you to see me this way.”
    Wearing nothing but the same scrap of leather tied around his narrow hips, Harper straddled my legs and leaned over me, kneading away the aches sandwiching my spine.
    “Oh, Maddie.” Sadness laced his voice.
    The sound of his pity grated in my ears. I pushed up, but he forced me down with a gentle hand to the small of my back.
    “I know they’re hideous,” I snapped, closer to tears than I cared to admit. “I told you not to look.”
    “They” I called them, making it easier to forget they were a part of me.
    His fingers dug into the skin of my lower back still pinned beneath his palm. “You’re beautiful.” His warm breath fanned my skin. I shivered as he kissed the bony knuckles protruding behind my shoulder blades. “And you can have the use of my wings whenever you need them.”
    His chest lowered to press against my back, and his leathery wings enfolded us like a living blanket. His bare skin warmed me. His chin rested on my shoulder, placing us cheek to cheek as his fingers interlaced with mine and tightened.
    The steady beat of his heart soothed me, guiding my own to rest.
     
    Morning had almost passed and noon approached in steady increments tapped out by my numb fingers against my slick thigh. Mother would arrive at any moment.
    I heard the yawn of my bedroom door opening and turned too quickly, pitching forward on unsteady legs and cinching my fingers around the gilded frame of my oval mirror. Its spindly stand creaked against my added weight, but I couldn’t