by Shana Abe
“Clarissa Hawthorne,” he said formally, never moving. “By the laws of the tribe, I hereby bind you. Do you yield to me, and to the will of the council?”
Ritual words, and the beginning of the end. She recognized them as any child of Darkfrith would, sacred words seldom relayed above a whisper, terrible words meant for outlaws, for the dangerous few who chanced freedom. The marquess spoke them softly, even tenderly, but when his eyes lifted to hers she saw the steely resolve behind his gaze.
“I bind you,” he said again. “Do you yield to me?”
Yes or no. She knew what happened to those who said no. She'd shivered with all the other silly-frightened children over the rumors, and every Hallow's Eve had listened, rapt, to the dreadful stories of the dead. Adults were ever evasive on the details, but even Antonia had forbidden her to venture past the shire falls, where the bones of the tribe's outcasts had been burned and buried.
Christoff watched her, and the blood on his arm trickled slowly lower, tracing the veins of his hand down to a finger, and still he didn't move. She followed the first drop as it fell, a crimson plish against the floor.
His voice grew even softer, infinitely dark. “Do you yield?”
She looked up at his face, shadowed in gold, so inhumanly perfect. “No,” she said, and turned to the wall. She propped an arm up against it and leaned her forehead to the bricks. Her hair was a heavy tangle against her skin, blocking what remained of the light. She closed her eyes and waited.
For a long while, nothing happened. When at last he stirred she was able to hold herself perfectly still, not flinching, not fleeing. He halted just behind her.
She felt his hand cover her own above her head, his fingers spreading, slipping between hers. He drew his palm lightly down the bow of her arm to her hair, smoothing it, discovering her shoulder blade beneath the mess of locks, her spine. Rue squeezed her eyes shut more tightly.
“I'm grieved to hear it,” Christoff said, and with his hand on her hip he urged her around to face him. She allowed it, beyond thought, beyond fear, the only thing real and true the rough wall against her back.
He stood too near, large and utterly male. His hair, his skin, even his eyes, bright with flame: he was a seraph come to life, too dazzling and devastating at once, every rise and fall of his chest taking in the light, making it his own. His fingers remained curved over her hip.
It was as if she remembered this moment from a long-ago dream, from her girlhood, all her youthful fantasies now fulfilled in the most disastrous of ways. Kit Langford touching her, looking at her as though he knew all about her, her every secret hope and sin—as though he divined her whole life, laid before him unmasked.
His gaze drifted to her lips. His fingers tensed. Candlelight slid like a lover's touch over the breadth of his shoulders.
From outside the chamber came a distant commotion. As one they glanced toward the door, then back at each other. Possibilities seemed to spin between them; Christoff captured her chin and spoke again, very quietly.
“There's going to be a crowd of people out there, drawn to our descent and what I'm sure is a rather large hole in the roof of this building. There's going to be a constable, at least. Promise me you won't scream.”
She could hear the men. She could hear them running.
“Promise,” he insisted, and his hand lowered, became the lightest of threats around her bruised throat. Rue licked her lips, her thoughts tumbling—if she did scream, if the door opened, if she Turned—and he let out his breath in a hiss.
“Listen to me! I don't demand anything else right now. But I will not risk further exposure.” Someone began to approach the closed door, footsteps scuffing over stone, and she thought, Now, now—but Christoff's hand contracted. The pulse in her ears became a river rush.
“Mouse,” he whispered, past the rising babel in her head.
“Yes.” Her lips shaped the word; she couldn't hear herself say it. But his grip relaxed. She pressed back against the bricks, fighting the dizziness, then reached up and shoved his hand from her. He let his arm drop and studied her face, speculative, as the conversation beyond the walls grew clear.
“. . . quite a thing! Did you or your men see it, sir?”
“No, no, not at all.” A glib voice, with an affected drawl. “Something falling from the sky, you say? How astonishing.”
“A handful of witnesses pinpointed it near here. Quite a mess you have! Would you mind if—”
“As I've said, constable, we're in rather a rush. You understand. We've come merely to survey the building. We've over forty ton of wool coming in with the afternoon tide, and more on the way. But the place is ruined, as you can see. Quite useless.”
“The roof—”
“Aye, disgraceful, isn't it? Collapsed last week, after the rains.”
The marquess had cocked his head, listening. A smile caught at the corner of his lips.
“Last week?”
“I say!” chortled the glib man. “You didn't think—but surely not!”
“Oh—er . . .”
“No, my good fellow, not a bit of falling sky made this wreck. It was wood rot, and a damned lot of it. Look at this timber! Damned shame!”
“Of course. Of course.”
“We plan to bring charges against the manager, naturally. Outrageous that he allowed it to fall into such a state. Perhaps, sir, as a man of the law, you'd be willing to take a hand in this. . . .”
Rue opened her mouth on a breath and Kit's palm flashed up, firm against her lips. But the sounds beyond the room were lessened now, fewer voices, as the bystanders were herded from the warehouse. When she could no longer hear them at all, he broke away from her, turning toward the light.
She pushed her hair from her face and thought again, Now. But it was too late, and she knew it.
Christoff walked to the door and stood there, obviously waiting, with his head bowed and his arms crossed. The candle sent up black pincers of smoke.
Rue sank to the floor. She didn't mean to, she didn't want to, but her legs had gone curiously nerveless. Through the haze of her exhaustion the room seemed to take on a creeping, sideways reel. She thought of Turning now, the instant the door cracked, and knew she'd never have the strength to hold it. How long since she'd slept? She couldn't recall. She pressed her toes into the granite dust of the ground and saw a fleck of dried blood on her calf. Hers or his, she could not tell.
Her throat hurt.
She wondered how many drákon he had out there. She wondered if she could outrace them all.
A low scratching came from the door.
“My lord?”
Christoff unfolded his arms. “Here.”
“They're gone. I've sent for the carriage.”
“We're going to need clothing too. Hats, shoes. A dress for her. Hurry.”
“Aye.”
He glanced back at Rue. And for the first time she had the full sense of her own nudity, of her flesh against the unforgiving floor, and her hair slipping over her shoulders. She drew her legs up before her in a mermaid pose, wrapped her arms around her chest and met his glinting look.
“You haven't won.”
“No?” He leaned against the door, surveying her. “It certainly seems that I have.”
“I won't go back there. I'd rather die than go back there.”
“It's been a grand chase, Clarissa. But we are going home.”
“My home is here.”
In the tarnished light of the candle the marquess lifted his injured arm, inspecting the cut, the sheen of blood, then raised his eyes to hers. The smile that came to him now shone wicked with promise from all the way across the chamber.
He said, “No, love. From now on, your home is with me.”
CHAPTER SIX
She had to be blindfolded for the journey back.
He didn't like that, but the only other option was to knock her senseless. Kit could not imagine raising his hand to her, not for such a thing, and he would not suff
er any other man to touch her.
So Clarissa was blindfolded, with her wrists secured behind her back. A mortal woman never could have endured it, but the drákon were altogether stronger than the Others. And in truth, he had no choice: in her circumstances he knew he'd do his damnedest to escape. He'd risk life and limb and anything else for his freedom, certainly the sanctity of the tribe. But she could not Turn if she could not see; Kit trusted the same rules were true for females as for males. It was a fatal flaw of their people, but one that worked in his favor today.
He recalled that his father preferred to use hoods.
They'd had to move quickly from the warehouse, before the constable and all those sharp-eyed witnesses realized there were no other conveniently crushed roofs around. Kit had watched her dress in a gown that George had procured, a merry ensemble of sapphire blue taffeta with yellow stripes down the skirts. Without asking, he finished the buttons she couldn't reach. And then he produced the blindfold.
She looked impassively at the sash uncurling from his fist. The council and his guard crisscrossed the area beyond the door, shifting lumber, muttering plans and predictions. He knew she heard them, just as he did. It was probably the only reason she let him do it.
“I don't suppose you would stash the diamond in your home,” Kit said, coming near. “I didn't feel it there.”
Her gaze went to his, and there was something on her face, just a flash—revelation, perhaps—swiftly hidden behind the subtle curling of her lips.
“Suppose what you wish,” she said, shrugging.
“Doesn't matter.” He fixed the sash around her eyes, careful to leave no gaps. “Not at the moment. I'll come back for it.”
And she said nothing. She only stood silently with her jolly striped skirts and her slight, mocking smile, her back straight and her chin lifted. He'd led her from the room with both hands.
He hadn't expected her to surrender her secrets so easily, not really. Not her.
Now, in the enclosed luxury of his carriage, Kit was at his leisure to ponder her, since it appeared that despite the blindfold she had fallen asleep. He sat opposite her with a borrowed boot propped against her seat and let his gaze roam. Her head had tipped to rest against the velvet-padded cushions. Beneath the bruises, the pulse in her throat beat slow and steady.
The striped gown nearly swallowed her in pleats and ruffles; she had already kicked off the shoes. The straw hat with the ribbons he'd tied so fetchingly beneath her chin—the better to hide her face—had slipped sideways, covering her ear. Soft brown hair waved free as a girl's, shining dark all the way to her waist. She seemed fragile, and lovely, and everything innocent.
He could still taste her blood in his mouth.
It filled him with regret, but deeper than that, in some dim buried place—excitement. Clarissa Hawthorne was not innocent. She was unlike anyone he had ever known before. Beneath her delicacy beat a heart as untamed as his own, he was certain of it. No one else would have had the nerve to live such a life.
And flying with her . . .
He'd never, ever seen anything so amazing as the sight of her against the blue sky. He could still feel the potency of it, the sweet jolt of looking back that second time, finding she was truly there with him above the clouds, truly one of them.
His.
The carriage was part of his official persona. It was new and sleek and well-sprung, hardly swaying along the rutted Great North Road from London. He had lowered the shades for the tollgates and the city, because even he might have a time of it explaining a trussed, blindfolded woman. But his ears told him they were finally past the outer edges; he lifted the shade at his side, looking out at rows and rows of early green wheat outlined with holly hedges. Farmers in homespun plowed their fields. A herd of goats stood pressed back against a fence, following the carriage and outriders with canny orange eyes.
Kit reached over to Clarissa, untied the hat, and tossed it to the seat. She never woke.
The air still reeked of city. But there was a more pleasing note beneath it, freshness, clean earth.
Darkfrith awaited.
On the night of her fourth day trapped inside the miserable carriage, stopping only to eat and change horses, they arrived. Even without her sight, Rue felt the difference all around her, the eventide scents, the waterfall of sounds of a place she'd pushed so far from her it had resurfaced only in her dreams.
She'd spent the time in a daze; sometimes the marquess was there, and sometimes he was not. He brought her food and drink and fed her with his own hands. She wondered if it was drugged. She slept a great deal. But when Rue came awake that last night, she knew, like a lark swept by the wind back to its birthplace, that she was in Darkfrith.
She knew the crickets that chirped from the shaggy ferns that lined the long, winding approach to the manor house.
She knew the crush of pea gravel beneath her feet as she stepped gingerly from the carriage onto firm land.
She knew the fragrance of the forest that drifted over her like a cool, cool hand, touching her face, lifting her hair.
She knew the grass and the owls.
She knew the small crackles of rushlights.
She knew the whispers, and the stares, and the gasps.
And she knew the man holding her elbow. His stride, shortened now to match her own. Rue straightened her shoulders and walked confidently into the nothingness before her. She was here, that was all. She was not defeated.
“This way,” Christoff said into her ear, as though she might suddenly choose another. She heard the wooden doors of the manor creak open, new smells: beeswax, roses, pine resin, polished metal. Very faintly—onions and beef stew.
The people by the carriage would be watching her walk away. She kept her fingers deliberately relaxed at the small of her back, no hint of the bitter stinging beneath her skin, of how the marquess's satin cords bit into her.
The heels they had given her were too large. God knew if they were new or old, but when she put her foot out for her third step into the slick vestibule the sole skidded out from beneath her. She stumbled for a floating instant; the grip on her arm became a vise. They paused together, Rue catching her breath with her balance, proud that she hadn't made a sound.
“Careful,” Kit warned. And then, more gently, “We're almost there.”
Which of course she already knew, because the smells around her changed once again, darkened as they walked deeper and deeper into the echoing halls. She'd been inside Chasen Manor only once before, for her tribal blessing by the old marquess. It was a rite celebrated for every newborn, even halflings, or else Rue doubted she would have had even that brief, stellar moment. She had been but two weeks old.
As a child, it was one of her favorite stories. She had begged Antonia to tell it to her over and over again.
The room was lit with candles, tens of candles, every one of them angel white.
The temperature was definitely cooler now. The walls were closer, the hallways more narrow. There were more turns.
You were dressed in your grandmother's lace.
Someone was speaking from behind closed doors; she could not make out the words. As they passed, the voices quickly shushed.
Everything was the finest, purest marble, the walls, the floors, the font.
Christoff slowed, and so did she. She felt him turn to look behind them, perhaps at the men who followed.
The candles melted into wonderful perfume.
There was another door before her. It radiated coldness. Metal again. Probably iron.
You smiled at the marquess.
She heard a heavy grinding, a bar lifted. She heard a key fit into a lock.
The other babies were fussing.
The air that swept her now was stale and dank.
But you never cried, not once.
It tasted like desperation.
My brave little princess.
She entered the chamber and stood motionless as Christoff at last released her arm. Sh
e heard him conferring with someone beyond the door as she took slower breaths and tried not to give in to the urge to rip her hands from their bonds.
The door shut with a small, irrevocable click. The marquess came behind her. There was a blade between her wrists.
“Hold still, if you please.”
He cut the cords. For a moment the only thing that happened was that her numbed arms slipped forward again, limp at her sides. Then the blood rushed back, a delayed agony that arced from her fingers all the way up to her skull. Rue bit her lip to stop from moaning.
Christoff stepped in front of her, taking up her hands, rubbing her skin in light circles. As soon as she could, she pulled herself free—not hastily, not clumsily, but with as much disdain as she could put into a backward tug. She fumbled with the blindfold, not even bothering with the knot, simply jerking it from her face.
She blinked at the new light, at the little cell. At the man before her, watching her with unsmiling intensity.
“I'm sure you know of this place,” he said. “It's yours for as long as you require it.”
The Dead Room. Naturally she knew of it, everyone did. The room of judgment, of final hours. It was said to be buried so deep in the labyrinth that was Chasen that no one could ever hear the screams.
The walls were not, in fact, painted in the blood of the doomed as she had always heard, but were instead an ordinary gray stone, heavy blocks that also formed the floor and ceiling like the solar of an old Norman castle, but without windows.
There was an oak-framed bed, a plank table, and a pair of chairs. There was a lantern on a hook by the door.
The bed was narrow, and plain. It held two pillows and a fleecy blanket the color of sand.
“Will it be rape, or will you flatter yourself with an attempt at seduction?” she asked, still facing the bed.
He did not reply. Rue looked down at her hands, opened her palms and stretched her aching fingers.
“There is no rape between a husband and a wife,” the marquess said.
“Yes, well, I'm afraid I'm not going to consent to marry you, Lord Langford. You'll have to call it something else.”
