by Shana Abe
Paris was not like that. Perhaps there was no other place on earth like that.
She was wearing her last French gown, salmon-pink satin with yards of deep orchid lace, and even with her shawl of plain wool she would have done better with the cook’s second frock, but when she’d arisen this morning she hadn’t known what she was about to do. She hadn’t thought through anything beyond leaving the maison, removing herself and her belongings and everything that had belonged to Hayden. Even the diamonds he’d buried. Even the jasper, which she’d already thrown into the river as far as she could.
Zoe waited until she and her entourage of urchins reached an especially narrow passage, one with tilted buildings looming so far over the street the upper floors had been propped in place on stilts and all trace of the sun was blocked. As soon as she stepped fully into the shadows she whirled, raising her arms and Turning invisible, rushing abruptly toward them with the most unearthly howl she could manage.
Every single child stopped, stared, and screamed, fleeing in all directions. She was alone within seconds.
Not quite alone.
“They’ll have nightmares for years,” predicted the being who had been smoke just an instant before. She became seen, turned about, and found him leaning naked against a peeling house that cast some of the deepest shadows. “I’m fairly certain there’s a reason the council frowns on that sort of behavior.”
“They may add it to my list of transgressions.” She looked him up and down. “What about Turning in public? I’m fairly certain that’s forbidden too.”
“Rebels, the both of us,” he said with a shrug. “But at least I’m dragon enough to face my consequences.”
A woman bent out from the open window above them, peering around to discover the source of the commotion below. Zoe ignored her.
“You’re saying I can’t face consequences?”
He slanted forward a bit, raised his hand and waved up at the woman, who stared at him with her mouth agape before hastily withdrawing inside. “I’m not the one who ran away.”
“No. You have permission to leave Darkfrith, remember? Glorious son of the Alpha, et cetera, et cetera.”
“I’m not talking about Darkfrith.” He scowled at her. “I’m talking about now.”
“Now? Right now I’m about to go procure us some foodstuff. In case you failed to notice, we suffer a rather severe lack of domestics to serve us. I haven’t run away.”
Another woman appeared in the Dutch half doorway across the street. She glared at them, shouted a name back over her shoulder.
“Your things were gone,” Rhys said, straightening. He limped a step toward her, his hair falling longer than she last remembered, a look on his face that pierced her like a rapier. “Everything. All of it. After last night, after what happened—I thought you’d left.”
“So you chased me all the way here? I don’t know if I should be more insulted or impressed.”
“Be impressed,” he said, after a moment. “Your scent is exceptionally subtle. A snowflake in a blizzard. I’ll have to douse you in rosewater every morning just to find you for luncheon back at Chasen.”
A man pushed the woman in the doorway aside; he had the aspect of a butcher, a close-shaved head and burly arms, a shirt streaked in red rust. Zoe tucked down her chin and began to walk. Rhys stepped back into the shadows and went to smoke, a hovering wisp above her.
“I wouldn’t desert you,” she murmured. “Kindly don’t make the same mistake again.”
He lowered, became a brief, twining mist about her face and shoulders, almost stroking, before rising above her again.
As apologies went, it was nearly sufficient.
* * *
That night, she took him back to Tuileries. It was where she had already reestablished her former suite, resheeted the bed, redraped the mirror. Better to leave the maison before it was to be turned over to its landlord, who had no idea who they were, anyway. She could not envision maintaining the illusion of beclawed Lord Rhys as an ordinary man in a Parisian hotel or country inn. They needed privacy. The sanf inimicus would be well aware of them now, so they needed a place no sanf inimicus would think to look.
And there was a deeper truth she would not say aloud. She needed to escape the last hints of Hayden: her memories of him in each chamber of the maison, sandalwood yet lingering. It had been difficult enough to enter his room: the comb and brush and aquamarine-rimmed snuffbox. He knew how she disliked his habit; he’d made certain never to indulge in front of her. She’d been unable to bring herself to touch the pillows on his bed, where a single golden hair still shone. She’d shoved all his possessions into his portmanteau and stored it far back in the closet of the palace apartment. She would return everything to his parents. She would keep only his ring.
Since she’d been here last, a pair of swans had taken up residence in one of the garden ponds. Zoe was sorry to see them go, silent and massive, taking flight across the liquid silver surface like water-dragons, long necks stretched and wings of thick perfect feathers.
She and Rhys watched them together, outlined in moonlight. The back of his hand touched hers; he kept it there, unmoving until she nodded toward the palace and drew him onward.
He was displeased about the solitary bed, she could see that. But she wasn’t going to sleep on the floor and told him that if he wanted to, he could, and he was a fool to even consider it.
“Your virtue is safe from me,” she said, dry. “I shan’t trouble you again.”
“Mine is safe,” he muttered, still glowering at the bed. “Most reassuring.”
She walked to the closet to find her nightgown. “Sleep where you wish. You might sample a hundred different rooms here before anyone discovered you. But this bed is comfortable.”
“Is it feather?” he asked, lifting his voice a little, but she didn’t trouble to answer. She knew he could smell the down as well as she, and better feathers than straw.
When she emerged again, he was exactly where she’d left him, only now he was glowering at her.
“Can’t you see? I can’t sleep beside you.”
“Stars above! I told you I’d leave you alone.”
He hunched his shoulders and angled his body away from hers, his gaze fixed churlish to the crimson walls. “It’s not that.” One fisted hand slowly raised into the lamplight; gold glimmer and blades. “It’s this. I don’t want to hurt you. If I’m asleep, I won’t know what I’m doing.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
His eyes cut to hers. “Your faith is gratifying, if extremely misplaced. I’m not a light sleeper. You did see the mattress back at the maison, did you not?”
“I did. And I also see this.” She walked forward across the chilled floor, the folds of her gown flowing and rippling behind her. She lifted his hand daintily, mindful of his talons, and held it up between them. “They’re shorter now. Did you notice? Your hair is longer and more brown, your claws are shorter. Even your eyes seem a deeper green. And that’s in just a few days. Soon you’ll be much better, I think.”
He stared down at his hands, marveling. “You’re right. They are shorter.”
“Just sleep on your side,” she said, and crossed to the lamp upon the floor, blew out the flame.
Darkness. The same shrouded gloom she’d grown used to since she’d left her English home, far more comfortable and known than the little girl’s room at the maison. The smells of the palace, the antique curtains and bed, the tapestry above her like a pale patterned magical carpet, sending her off into dreams.
She fell asleep before Rhys made up his mind, but awoke in the night to feel the heat of his body against hers: chaste, his back pressed to hers, the soles of their feet barely touching, a single sheet covering them both. It nudged her out of that deadened, exhausted place where she’d been hiding: Never before had she lain in a bed with a man, any man. It felt foreign and wrong, and at the same time ordinary and exactly right. She had the drowsy notion she’d awoken to him like t
his, the two of them like this, so many times before she’d lost count, and yet it must have only been because he’d been her shadow, her familiar. The spirit that had watched over her and discovered her dragon reflection without her even knowing.
And now he was no shadow.
He wore no nightshirt to bed, only breeches. He wore no cologne, and so his scent was purely his. Zoe curled her fingers into her pillow and inhaled it: Rhys. Summer woods and smoke. Nature and grass and outdoors. Enticement.
He spoke into the darkness, his voice so muted she barely heard it.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
She twisted around, allowed her hand to briefly brush his waist. “Then do not.”
She waited. She did not move again.
He rolled over. He lifted his arm and placed it across her, just beneath where the gown pulled taut against her breasts. She felt his breath upon her cheek, only slightly uneven, and then the pressure of his lips: a kiss that was also chaste and yet not, because it wasn’t on her mouth, but his arm lifted and pushed at her a little, and his body curved toward her a little, and his feet retangled with hers.
All she had to do was turn her head. Not even very far, just a fraction. She kept her eyes open and gazed at the canopy of the bed, the tapestry of purple roses and vines, and as he bent closer she allowed at last that small motion of her head, tipping toward him, and he leaned up and found her lips with his.
It was a gentle thing, so light and skimming, and yet it warmed her in a way that all the gold she’d ever worn never did. He savored her, faint, delicious kisses at the corners of her lips, her chin and nose and eyes, his cheek scraping hers, because he was still unshaven.
He began to lean more heavily against her. He drew one arm up by her head to support himself and allowed the other to slide along hers, his hand flexed, the warm skin of his biceps and forearm tracing the shape of hers through her sleeve. His leg lifted, angled across her stomach, gliding slowly up and down as he kissed her, and the hem of her gown rumpled upward until her bare knees and shins touched his.
She felt the whisper of his hair along her neck, that faint tickle of metallic silk. She reached up and wove her fingers through it, enjoying its heat and satiny weight as he closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek back to hers. He learned her without using his hands, exploring the delicate hollows and curves of her face with lips and eyelashes, his scent intoxicating. She was melting from it, melting from the inside out.
And he was changing too. She stroked her hands down his back to the sudden rougher edge of his breeches, traced the circumference of his waist from back to front. Wool and linen. Hard buttons. His hips finding a rhythm against hers, the leg curled over her scissoring tighter, aligning his body over hers, one knee between her own.
She’d seen him before without clothing, more than once, and if he could summon even a sliver of their time together in the house of the sanf, he’d seen her nude too. There were still mysteries between them, the interlocking of their bodies, her gown and his breeches; the gown at least had a simple solution. A few slithering moves and she had it over her head, wadded into a new pillow against the gilded headboard.
He had arched over her as she’d moved, allowing her the space to disrobe, but that was all. Now he lowered himself again, and she felt the fresh heat of his chest to hers, his mouth moving from her temple to her ear to her neck, to the winged curve of her collarbone. Lower, to the underside of her breast, his tongue drawing circles against her, smaller and smaller luxurious circles. Her pulse matched his circles, thumping and thumping in hard, anxious beats, and when he closed his lips on her nipple at last her heart skipped and the flutter of breath trapped in her throat became a moan.
He suckled her, a hard pull and a brightness that shot all the way through her like a comet. The gold of his claws scraped the gold of the bed, and the music of their clashing rose in her head; Rhys at her breast and the metal songs in her ears; she could not seem to drag in enough air. Her hands were working at his buttons, her leg lifted to bring him closer, and he broke off with a gasping that matched her own.
“No, no. Let me.”
His hand moved between them; the bone buttons popped free, one hitting the sheets and the rest bouncing to the floor. He rubbed his face between her breasts and his palm up and down her arm.
“Sweet Zee,” he said breathless, smiling. “Lovely girl. I think I might need some help for this next part, actually.”
She put her hands upon his shoulders, pushed until he sat up. Zoe rose to her knees, kept her eyes on his—a faint gleam of color, framed with lashes darker than the night—and drew her palms down his chest, let her fingers catch against the loosened waistline. She tugged the breeches down to his hips, down to his thighs, pressed him back against the mattress lightly with one hand and finished the job, tugging the tan wool all the way down his legs.
When it was done she had a moment of dreamlike uncertainty: There he lay, beautiful still in his animal way, with his hair a dark-and-bright flag against the bedding, and his arms spread wide and his legs crooked around her hips. Rhys Langford. And he was looking back at her with that smile that was both knowing and aroused, as aroused as his body; Zoe lifted her hand and covered her eyes with her fingers.
She felt his legs encircle her waist, muscled warmth, strength that pulled her back down to him. His arms came up too, wrapped around her and held her pinned to the length of him. When he arched his hips into hers she opened her mouth to the hard curve of his shoulder; he tasted of salt. He made a low hum in his chest and used his wrist to guide her lips higher, to the bottom of his jaw, whiskers and the scar, all the while grinding against her. All the melting inside her seemed suddenly concentrated in her loins. Where she felt that male part of him, satiny and hard and demanding.
But she didn’t know what to do next. Silly, spinster virgin—untouched for all her years, untouched despite all her best efforts—and she didn’t know what to do.
Rhys did. Of course he did; there was nothing virginal about him, she’d known that forever. He wasn’t smiling up at her any longer. He was watching her through those lowered lashes, breathing as if he’d just run a sprint. She moistened her lips and looked back at him, and he blinked once, a slow and lazy blink.
“Am I awake?” he asked.
“I hope so.” She sounded breathless herself, the shyness stealing her words. “Or this is a very frustrating dream.”
“You are the most wondrous, miraculous—you know that; I know you do—but Zee, if this is a dream—”
She lost her nerve, hid her face against his shoulder.
“This is how I wanted it,” he murmured, holding her. “When I was dead. This was all I wanted. You, with me. To touch you again. To do this …”
He tensed, gathered her closer, and rolled them together, so now he was on top and she had the rumpled bedding beneath, and the mattress must have ripped anyway, because there were tiny feathers dusting them both, caught in the mess of their tangled hair.
“To do this,” he whispered, and cradled her head in his hands as he pushed into her, into the center of her heat, his eyes closed.
She stilled, feeling him, the strange and brilliant sensation of him filling her, stretching her to hurt: She couldn’t move, she was afraid to move. He was inside her, and she’d never, ever thought it would feel like—
“This,” he breathed, moving in and out in slow, languorous thrusts, turning the hurt into the worst pleasure imaginable, an aching, throbbing pain that spread white fire through the core of her, that had her opening her legs wider and digging her fingers into his back.
“I love you.” She barely understood him; he’d buried his face into her hair. “I love you. I love you.”
It was a chant, a song, rawly beautiful in his broken voice, a rhythm that matched his body’s, and he moved more quickly now, plunging deeper, pulling that white fire within her into a taut coil. She was drawn thin with it, she was desperate for something she could not name. She t
urned her head from his, searching, held in place by her hair where he pinned it with his arms.
“Love,” he ground out between his teeth, and pressed at once so hard and so deep within her that her entire being lit and burned and she cried out in surprise, a soft startled sound that curled across the floor and walls to die in echo, just as she did.
Rhys collapsed against her. His skin was slick, his heart racing. She felt that, the pounding in his blood, just as she felt his legs against hers and his face and his talons that curved up and around her head like a spiked metal sunburst.
He did not lift himself from her; he felt heavy but not crushing, supple and warm and welcome. She was floating, astonishingly relaxed, gliding into smooth liquid dreams before he moved, and even then it was only his lips, a bare kiss at the top of her ear, and words she could make out only because she was asleep now, she was finally dreaming …
“Someday you’ll love me too.”
* * *
He’d hurt her. He knew that; in the morning he found the blood that marked him, and her, the small dark smears on the sheets and between her thighs.
Zee was a virgin. Naturally, she was. Ice and proper prim on the outside, she’d rebuffed more men of the tribe with just a single, level look than he’d been able to count. Yet her eyes kept betraying her. Poor Zoe; she’d probably never even realized it. No matter how cool her words or demeanor, those exotic black eyes always promised pure, wanton sensuality.
And last night that promise had transformed into truth.
He hadn’t only hurt her. Rhys had given her pleasure as well. Even like this, even as a miserable scrap of who he’d once been, he’d found the way of her, things he’d known for years because of all those daydreams: how to kiss her. How to stroke her white skin. How to move inside her so that her lips parted and her head arched back and her throat worked, all because of what he was doing to her. All the things he could do to her.
How to feel that rising release that wanted to shatter her, and him. To coax them both into that place.
