Collecting Isobelle

by L. L. Muir

  Her green eyes were startling. Her nose was a bit red from crying, and her lips were as smooth and perfect as the petals of a pale rose. He was completely powerless to look away from them.

  “Isobelle. Isobelle,” he whispered. “What am I to do with you?”

  Those jeweled eyes rolled. “Ye let me go, ye daft dragon.” Then she whispered, “Ye let me go, or ye let me burn.”

  “I would like nothing better than to make you burn, my sweet, but not the way you have in mind.” He lifted her head to his and pressed his lips against those perfect rose petals before she had a chance to misunderstand him.

  Her arms rose tentatively around his neck and he hoped it was not only for balance that they did so. But to be sure, he ended the kiss and retreated only slightly. To his joy, she pulled him back to her and demanded more. All other such embraces from his past were melted from his memory—like so many dusty candles turned to an indiscernible puddle of wax—by the heat of what he felt for Isobelle.

  Kissing her felt like coming home to the only destiny he would ever need, and he was determined to show her the same, worshipping her mouth with his own. When he paused for breath, she pushed him away and looked into his eyes. A little fold of worry twisted her brows while she took his measure. Then she shook her head and kissed him again, her hands searching his hair, his face, his arms as if she were trying to convince herself he was real.

  “Gaspar,” she breathed. “My dragon.” She kissed his mouth, his cheek, then his ear. “What am I to do with you?”

  He leaned forward and pressed his lips to her neck, ignoring the blood, searching for the taste of her flesh. “You let me—”

  Burn, he was going to say, but his whisper was interrupted by the click of the lock. He closed his eyes and took her scent deep into his lungs for fear of never knowing another chance to do so. Then he looked up, while he still hovered over her, like a predator interrupted mid-meal.

  Icarus stood against the open gate as if prepared to defend it from being closed again, his chin held high, his eyes on the ceiling. Gaspar thought him both foolish and stout of heart…and far too loyal to the man he used to be.

  The little man cleared his throat. “Mi perdoni,” he said in a small voice, his eyes never lowering.

  “No, please.” Her whisper was warm against his neck. “Take me with you.”

  Gaspar knew that if he carried the woman out of the tower, he’d continue on to his bedchamber. He was that untrustworthy at the moment, but could not find the words to explain.

  She kissed him again, to plead her case. It might have been one of the most difficult things he’d done in all his years, but finally, he turned his lips away and gasped for breath.

  “I am not the man who brought you here, Isobelle. You have changed me to my soul, truly. But you must give me time to consider what this new man must do.”

  He laid his hand gently against her cheek and waited for her complete attention. Finally, she raised her gaze from his lips.

  “When I attended the commencement ceremony for the Regatta, I so easily slipped back into that other man, and it frightened me. Will I always do so? I am a man torn in twain. One very much alive. One very much…apart. You brought me to life, Isobelle. I must be certain I will yet live if you are no longer within my reach. Do you understand?”

  “Ye are too quick to worry, my love. Ye returned to yer duty and felt familiar with it, ‘tis all. Ye’re the same man now as the one before ye left, are ye not?”

  “I am. But the moment I returned to the patriarch’s presence, I saw you differently.” He hung his head, ashamed. But he would not keep the truth from her. “I thought of you as a temptress come to ruin me. When I returned, I tried to stay away from you until I knew what to do with you.”

  She tried to climb from his lap, but he wouldn’t let her go.

  “Don’t you see? I left this island and I became dead again. One touch from your hand and my foolishness dissolved. My heart beat again.” He lifted her hand and pressed it to his chest. “You see? The man lives.” He shook his head sadly. “But does the dragon merely sleep?”

  Her struggles resumed, so he set her off his lap. He refused to release her hand.

  She sighed. “I’ll tell ye true, I am not flattered to be thought a temptress.”

  “I do not—”

  She pressed her fingers to his lips. “You must release me, Gaspar. Send the temptations away and slay this dragon if that is what you truly wish. And if the man survives, find me.”

  Gaspar released her hand and stood. He paced to the window and back, looking for an argument to offer, but he found nothing. Removing her from his island felt as foolish as removing his heart from his breast, however. She could not expect it of him!

  He stomped to the gate and Icarus scurried out of his way. He ignored her gasp as he stepped out of the cell and pulled the gate closed again.

  “I will consider it, Isobelle. But I must have time to examine how much of me is the man, and how much the dragon. And if I can survive the separation…” He locked the gate and turned away. This time, walking down the steps was no easier than walking into a dark, incoming tide.

  Her voice trailed him into the stairwell.

  “Ye only use the beast to excuse yerself, Gaspar. Dinna offer me hope when ye’ll only recant. I know ye now. Through and through. I will not be fooled again…Dragon.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Icarus was so distracted by the excitement on the island that he’d rowed the small boat off course three times causing him to arrive home later than usual. His sister would be sufficiently displeased to tempt Icarus to find another place to sleep for the night and tell the woman the dragon had detained him until morning.

  He stopped and stared at his sister’s door while he weighed the possibility of her believing his tale, that the dragon would allow him to go home in the morning, only to break his fast and return again.

  Not likely at all.

  He steeled himself and headed for the door, but a giant shadow stepped in front of him, barring the way. The man was so large in fact, he might well be his master, so he swallowed his surprise, stepped back, and waited for the man to speak.

  But after his gaze took in the length of the silhouette from boots to head, he concluded this man could not be his master. Not even God’s Dragon stood so tall.

  “Easy, Icarus, m’ friend. I’ll not harm ye.” He spoke the same language as the woman, and even to his simple mind, Icarus knew that could be no coincidence. “Parlez Francais?”

  Icarus nodded. “I speak a little,” he said in clumsy French.

  “Ye understand why I am here?”

  He nodded. “She has not been harmed, monsieur.”

  The man smiled as wide as Icarus’ own head.

  “Happy I am to hear it, my friend. Let us go inside and show yer sister that ye, too, are unharmed.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The cruelest twist of all was that Isobelle’s window faced northwest. Toward home. Just so many mountain ranges between herself and East Burnshire, Scotland. Castle Ross and the clan would be rising to a fine mist, perhaps—a fine mist that would be such a relief from the warm Mediterranean nights here. Although she’d been given water for bathing and cleaning her wounds, the heat had long since dried her short hair and left her wishing she could bathe all over again.

  Only once had the tyrant demanded to know what she’d used to cut her hair and face, but he’d quickly retreated without an answer. It seemed he was all dragon again, and the sight of a woman shedding her clothes was a temptation to which he refused to subject himself.

  She smiled at the memory of his face just before he’d turned and fled. The dragon did not love her, but he wanted her, and she would use it against him.

  She refused to think about the feel of his arms around her, or the taste of his mouth, his skin. For a few foolish moments, she’d forgotten that Gaspar could not truly love her. But she would never forget again.

  Her gaze droppe
d to the surf below. There was a fine spray taunting her to come out and play, to cool herself at her leisure. A wee swim. Aye and away the most immediate relief to hand. Aye and away as likely as her tasting a bit of Scottish mist before nightfall.

  Away, whispered the serf. Come. Away.

  She listened for half an hour longer, while she formed a plan.

  ~ ~ ~

  Later that night, long after the sun had set and the sea had grown black, she stood at the window again, gazing out upon the Quarter Moon seemingly shining down upon the mainland beyond.

  And she waited.

  Her thoughts lost themselves among her possible routes home—for she would be going home—and she nearly missed the shift in the air behind her. She might have waited, unmoving, for an hour more if not for the chill that ran up her spine.

  He was there. Without so much as a toe skimming the floor, she knew. She always knew. It was simply a change…in the silence. An exchange of one emptiness for another. Her own breath joined by his.

  “Gaspar,” she whispered out the window. “Gaspar,” she breathed to the moon. “Please.”

  “Isobelle.”

  He’d spoken so quietly, she wondered if he’d meant her to hear it. But she turned her back on the window, pretending surprise.

  “Dragon?”

  “Come, now, Isobelle. You knew I was here.”

  She considered denial, but nodded.

  “Gaspar will do, here in the darkness, do you not think?”

  She shook her head. His name was an endearment she would use only when necessary, to control him.

  She held on to the windowsill at her back, suddenly frightened to go on with her plan. Did she wish to leave him? To hurt him? To punish him for not loving her, even when she’d always known that for Isobelle Ross to be loved, and loved undeniably, was impossible? Just like many others before him, he wanted her. But now…

  No! She had to stand strong. Gaspar Dragotti wanted her only as a pet. Something amusing to lighten his mood. It was madness.

  It was possible her life would have ended in a witch’s fire if he hadn’t opened her eyes to the dangers of being accused again. In spite of all Ossian’s warnings, she’d never really understood, could never truly understand how immediate that danger was until God’s Dragon showed her. She supposed she owed him something for that. But he’d already taken something…

  She was a habit for him now. And it was difficult for anyone to overcome a habit until they were forced to do so. The problem was, he had become a habit for her as well. She found it hard to sleep until she felt him stretched out on the other side of her wall, until the coolness of the metal faded with the warmth of his body. Did he press himself against it, as she often did, to feel less alone in the world?

  Yes. Madness.

  And the madness must end. Better to end it quickly.

  “Fine, then. Gaspar. Gaspar, I beg ye…”

  “What is it, Isobelle?”

  Their whispering was ridiculous. Icarus had gone for the night. No one would hear if they screamed at each other, let alone spoke at full voice. And still she whispered.

  “Just once,” she sighed. “Just once, can I walk along the shore? Just once, can ye let me outside? No one will see me in the dark. No one. Please.” She whined the last as she could already see his head shaking in the shadows beyond the gate.

  “I cannot open the gate. Every night, Icarus takes the key with him. Even if I wished to—”

  “Gaspar! I will go mad if ye doona let me outside tonight. I have done my penance. This room is little different than my tomb. I have light. I have life. But what good are either of those without hope? Ye may as well begin collecting wood for me fire, for without hope, any death is welcome.”

  He came forward, grabbed the bars to either side of the gate. His chest was bare to her. His hair was mussed and wild, making him seem a different sort of beast, something much warmer than a dragon. His arms were immense but his wide hands and knuckles looked like bones in the moonlight from the way he gripped the barrier between them.

  “Say you do not mean it,” he growled.

  The sound induced chills up her back and into her hair. Or perhaps it was the sight of him that did so, for she was sorely tempted to go to him, to reach through those bars and prove that he was real—not some shadow that had stalked her each night. She placed her hands on the wall behind her and struggled to stay put.

  “Yes, Gaspar. All yer instruction has been for naught. I would confess to witchcraft, or murder, or both, if this prison were my only alternative.”

  He was agitated, but not enough to bend to her wishes. She had to push him further.

  “Ye never planned to release me, did ye? Ye’ve known it from the first.”

  She turned back to the window and grabbed the bars there for strength. She looked down, trying to see the path that led to the dock, to judge the distance for the thousandth time. If she were somehow able to squeeze through the bars, the fall might not kill her. But anyone who jumped from such a height was a fool, even if the dragon might someday leave her alone long enough to work the bars loose.

  “Isobelle. You must believe me. I will allow you to leave when I believe you to be ready. I will even send word to Ossian where to find you. I only need time to…accept it.”

  “No, Gaspar,” she said sadly. “I am prepared to leave this prison, or leave this earth. But I canna stay another—”

  “Yes! Yes, you must. One more day. Be patient one more day. I will keep the key tomorrow, when Icarus leaves. I will allow you to walk along the shore, though you must allow me to tie a rope—”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Why would ye need a rope?”

  “You might try to swim—”

  “I dinna ken how to swim.” She turned back to view the darkening waves.

  “But you tried, that first day, before you saw the sharks.”

  She shrugged. “I was going to drown myself, ‘tis all. I thought ye were taking me away only to burn me, so I’d have no body in Heaven. ‘Tis what they did to Joan of Arc, is it not? If I drown in the sea, I might have kept my body, aye? But not if sharks got me.”

  “You cannot swim?”

  “Nay.”

  “Then you might try to drown yourself again? You’ve just said you are ready for death.”

  “I want to live, Gaspar, as much as ye yearn to feel alive, aye? If only I could trust ye to keep yer word, that ye’ll return me to Venice…”

  He sighed heavily. “No, Isobelle. Not Venice. You would not be safe there. But I will have your things collected and sent to you. Wherever it is you wish to go…”

  His voice trailed off. He was unhappy to suddenly be bound to that promise. She could hear the regret in his voice.

  Well, damn the man for sending the key away every night. If he hadn’t, she could have ended their little habit much quicker. Now she was going to have to wait another day.

  “I will bother you no more tonight,” he murmured. “Sleep. You may walk along the sand tomorrow.”

  It may have been the first time she’d actually heard him leave the room so late. His footfalls were heavy, as if he were stomping down the steps.

  Isobelle sighed and moved to the bed. Even though the night was warm, she did not welcome the coolness of the metal wall beside her. Just as she teetered on the edge of sleep, listening to the receding waves, she thought she heard a man’s voice. Arguing. Coughing. Arguing again.

  It became part of her dream.

  She was in her tower. A much higher tower now. And the people of Venice were carrying bundles of sticks across the water, walking on the water. They placed their sticks at the base of the tower, then hurried away for more. They were building a bonfire. They were going to burn her, tower and all.

  But she wasn’t alone. Gaspar stood inside her cell with her, looking out the window.

  “They saw you dancing on the sand, Isobelle. Nothing for it now. They’ll try to burn us both, but the flames won’t
harm me.”

  She laughed. “Are ye a witch, then?”

  He laughed too, then his eyes began to glow. “Not a witch, my sweet. A dragon.”

  But a dragon had wings. He could take her away if only he would.

  The flames whooshed up the side of the tower and she stuck her head between the wide bars to see it. When she stepped back, Gaspar the dragon was gone.

  She should never have danced.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Never, since that first week he’d spent writhing in pain from his burns, had Gaspar been known such abject torment. He’d chocked on it with each step as he’d descended the tower, feeling an immeasurable and irreversible form of distance grow between them. Then, when he’d reached his private rooms, he’d released that torment with enough force to bring the dark stones down around him had he not buried his howling in the bedclothes.

  He was both monster and man, the halves of two animals fused together. There would be no separating them. He loved her, but more than that, he needed her. Without her company, he would wither and die like a flower with no sun. He’d turn into a dead and colorless creature—the very creature that had stepped behind the rood screen in the abbey and waited for his life to be saved.

  The moment he’d stepped into His Beatitude’s presence, he’d lost his color in spite of the extravagant emerald raiment’s he’d been ordered to wear, to mark him as part of the patriarch’s retinue. His mind had slipped back to familiar, emotionless thoughts. Heaven help him, his voice had even changed into something cold and ugly.

  But he didn’t wish to be ugly anymore. The world wasn’t ugly anymore. And he wanted to be part of that fresh and appealing world again. But he would lose that chance if he lost Isobelle. And so, Gaspar the man and Gaspar the monster would keep her against her will, even if she hated him for it.

  ~ ~ ~

  The next day passed slowly for Isobelle with nary a breeze to cool the sweat on her brow. The only thought that kept her from going mad was the hope of dipping herself in a dark sea.