Mirabelle should have turned away.
There were dozens of stalls she hadn't seen yet. Food she hadn't tried. Merchants from distant territories whose goods she actually had a perfectly legitimate reason to inspect now that she was Duchess.
And Kaelith's hand against her lower back was still applying the faintest pressure in the opposite direction.
She ignored all of it.
Her feet moved. One step. Then another. Mirabelle frowned slightly as she crossed the square.
It was strange.
She wasn't even sure she wanted to speak to the foreign Beastman. The last time they'd met, he'd managed to make her feel fascinated, irritated, embarrassed, and vaguely threatened within minutes.
And yet something inside her pulled toward him.
Not like the mate bonds.
Not like the strange connection she now shared with Luchsenstein.
Nothing she could clearly identify.
It was simply an inexplicable certainty that she wanted to go over there.
No.
That wasn't quite right either.
