It's weekend, and time for more Rainbow Snippets! The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ.
This month, I'm going to share some snippets from A Dance of Water and Air, the first book in my Elemental Magicae series. This book has a demisexual cis m/bisexual trans m pairing. Prince Edmund is informed that he must marry the queen of a neighboring country in an alliance marriage. When he arrives, the queen is distance, but Edmund grows close to and ends up falling in love with her brother, Arden. Then Edmund is accused of attempting to kill the queen, and he and Arden flee. They have to unravel a plot that endangers both of their countries, and find a way to be together too. I'm jumping in after Edmund has already been accused. He and his secretary Peregrine and guard Seren have been thrown in the dungeon. But Arden has been scheming to get them out (the kiss is unplanned!).
He had no idea how much time had passed when he heard the scrape of a key in the lock. Seren scrambled to her feet with less than her usual grace, but far more quickly than Edmund expected. Edmund was slower to move on legs gone stiff and cold. He squinted into the light as the door swung open. Seren tensed, as if ready to jump at whoever might come through, never mind how well that had worked before. Two figures crowded into the doorway; Edmund had just realized who they were when one of the men spoke.
“Edmund,” Arden gasped. “Are you all right?”
“Arden—”
Arden rushed forward and pulled Edmund into a kiss, a kiss that tasted of fear and desperation and a brilliant sweetness underneath the rest. The suddenness of it, the impulsivity of Arden’s kissing him in front of others—in a dungeon of all places—froze Edmund for half a second, but then he was kissing Arden back, and he never wanted to stop. Edmund brought his hands up and held on to Arden’s arms with chilled fingers, anchoring Arden’s slim, strong body to his. The feel of it went a long way toward warming Edmund through.