The wind swept across the open fields beyond Nightshade's high stone walls, cool and wild, carrying the sharp scent of pine and distant rain. It slipped beneath Dakota's thin shorts, traced the bare skin of her legs, tangled in her unbound hair—untamed, alive, exactly like the freedom she had been denied for so long.
She tipped her head back and smiled, fierce and reckless, the kind of smile that remembered she had never been born for cages. Never meant to be a quiet royal consort. Never meant to be anyone's wife.
"It feels so good to be free," she whispered, stretching her arms wide as if she could catch the horizon itself.
