by Shana Abe
For a moment-just a moment, a brief tick of time while the soup bowls were cleared-Zane allowed his gaze to linger on a necklace of cobwebbed gold and colored gemstones. He imagined how easy it would be to be a ghost in the hall. To wait until the wine was done, and the banter finished, and everyone was conveniently asleep in their silent, scattered rooms. There had to be enough trinkets in this villa to keep him in satin and Spanish oranges for years. No wonder István Hunyadi kept so many guards.
The necklace would be magnificent on Lia.
When he glanced at her again, she was watching him, her glass paused halfway to her lips. She looked slightly alarmed.
He tipped his head and smiled back at her, mocking.
“Do you enjoy the wine?” Hunyadi asked Lia, oblivious. “Please, I beg to know. There are few things more agreeable than the opinion of a beautiful lady.”
“It is lovely,” Lia said.
“Yes? Not too dry for your taste?”
“Not at all.”
Hunyadi rubbed his hands together, his eyes gleaming. “We use a different process here than the Germans, you know. The fermentation alone-”
“Tell me, Lord Lalonde,” said Hunyadi’s wife, “what brings you to our land? You have said you are on the Tour, but I confess we do not see many English so deep into the countryside.”
“No,” said Zane, giving her an attentive look. “And you might not have seen us, by heavens, had we not had the good fortune to stumble across your generosity. My beloved bride, you see,” he smiled once more at Lia, “has a very great fondness for wine and winemaking. Her family maintains a substantial vineyard outside Arcis-sur-Aubé. Good, hearty country stock, God bless her, but their Blanc de Blancs is entirely exquisite. She insisted we venture deeper into your land than first we planned. She’s heard splendid things about your Riesling.”
“Truly?” Hunyadi shifted in his chair, the rubies on his chain gathering the light. “We’ve had a very nice season, my lady. You will be interested to know the harvest was late and the juices concentrated-”
“But you, Lord Lalonde,” purred the wife, taking a deep breath, “what is it you enjoy?”
“Ah,” replied Zane, still smiling. “I enjoy diamonds.”
Everyone turned to see him.
“All precious stones, really, but especially diamonds,” he continued, gazing straight into the wife’s avid eyes. “It’s something of a passion with me, shall we say.”
“Do you collect them?” asked a man down the table.
“Whenever possible.”
“Fascinating,” said the wife, showing a row of even, yellowed teeth.
“You have done well to come here, then,” announced someone new, an elderly gent with white curls down to his shoulders. “The Carpathians are known for the quality of their mines. You’ll find no better stones than ours.”
“Yes.” Zane lifted his glass. “So I’ve been given to understand.”
Another course was served, pheasant and trout, the red wine whisked away and replaced with white. The servants here were dressed to match the dark, no paint, no wigs, just simple frocks and chapped hands. They moved in utter silence; their eyes never lifted from their work.
The wife stabbed her fork into the broiled pheasant set before her. Her fingers glimmered with rings. “A happy business for you indeed, Lord Lalonde. But where do you go from here? The best jewelers are back in Buda, I fear.”
“We’re down to chasing legends, Madame,” answered Zane. “Fool’s dreams, but amusing enough. I’ve pulled us all this way to find a stone named Draumr.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Amalia stiffen.
“Perchance you’ve heard of it?” he asked mildly.
“Draumr,” muttered Hunyadi, tugging at his lower lip. “Draumr, Draumr. It does sound familiar, I vow. A strange name though, isn’t it? Not of our tongue.”
“It is a diamond?” inquired the wife.
“Yes.”
“A very…large one?”
Zane’s smile deepened. “Assuredly so.”
“What is the legend that accompanies it, my lord?” asked another woman, tilting forward into the candlelight so her emeralds sparkled with every breath. “Pray, do tell us.”
“Alas, dear lady, I don’t yet have all the details. But…it is a sky-blue diamond of uncommon beauty,” he improvised. “So uncommon it haunts the dreams of any who’ve seen it. In fact, it’s said to be so fantastically unique that, if one listens closely enough, the sound of its singing fills the ears, more dulcet than the music of the heavenly spheres. It is…ethereal. An opus so haunting it captures souls, grants infants their first tears, gives wings to lovers, and,” he finished, inspired, “bankrupts the hearts of honest men.”
“Singing,” sighed the emerald woman, with another rapturous lift of her bosom.
“A treasure indeed,” drawled one of the gentlemen guests.
“I’ve a mind to set it in a necklace for my bride.” Zane leaned back and favored the wife with a look from under his lashes. “’Twould suit her well, I think. Since I’ve mentioned the notion, she simply won’t let it rest.”
“Singing,” exclaimed Hunyadi, with an air of triumph. “I do remember something now! Certainly I do! Wasn’t there such a stone in those wild Magyar tales from the Carpathians? Serfs will believe anything, you know. I am nearly positive they have a saga about something of the sort, a singing diamond.”
“Yes,” said the elderly man abruptly, straightening with a creak of his corset. “Yes, I recall it too. I heard the story as a boy. I can’t quite recall the details…but it had something to do with the dragon-people of the far mountains. It had to do with the drákon.”
Lia dropped her wineglass. It shattered like a bomb upon the stone floor.
“You knew,” he said, standing with his back to her, gazing out the tall, glazed window of the bedroom chamber they’d been assigned.
“No,” she said.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“If I had known,” she said, very composed, “why wouldn’t I have told you? Why would I have kept it hidden? It serves no purpose.”
Zane did not answer. His shoulders were stiff beneath his new indigo waistcoat; she could not tell how angry he was. If he was.
He had seemed more surprised than anything else. He’d masked it well, had finished the meal with the suave, clever polish of a master of deception. A part of her had even admired his pretense, how he’d continued to flirt with the unbearable wife of their host. How he’d tried every dish, and complimented every drink, and meticulously fished out the last of the details of the drákon that he could from these sotted, smug aristocrats.
Diamonds, warfare, lost souls. The rough fable of her people, presented like a medieval parable with no bearing on actual fact. She could hardly comprehend it herself.
The dragon-people, yes. It’s a very old myth. I recollect they’re known for a few things, gemstones primarily. And like most wicked creatures, they wreak havoc among the peasants-stealing away the fairest virgins, poaching deer, switching babes in their cradles for mischief, that sort of thing. They hunt by night but look just like you and me during the day-just like your fetching young bride, my lord!-but they’re said to have eyes that phosphoresce and smiles to freeze your very blood…
It had frozen her blood. It had kept her a lump in her needlepoint seat beside the laughing Hunyadi, unable to speak, unable to eat…because with every word she remembered the frisson of the dragon that morning in Jászberény, and the smell of alcohol that had ruptured into flame.
Zane turned his head and fixed her with a pale yellow look; the glass behind him reflected the fire in the hearth and her own shape perched upon the bed, her face and gown smeared into shadows. The bed itself was wide and plush, covered in mink. She’d retreated to it because it was the farthest distance she could put between them, and still she felt his heat. Still she felt the pleasure of his voice.
It was a small room, extravagantly furnished w
ith burled wood and pillows and more of those dangling, colored lamps. They cast blue and turquoise along the length of his body, as if he stood at the brink of a dark, deep sea.
“How long have you known?”
“Precisely as long as you have,” she retorted. “Approximately two and one-half hours. So sorry, it seems my timepiece was recently incinerated. I suppose it might be a tad longer.”
“Amalia.”
“I didn’t know! I had no idea. You know my people as well as I. You know what they say in Darkfrith-we are the last. We are the only. I assure you that if anyone there had any idea there were others like us alive in the world, someone would have done something about it.”
“Yes,” he agreed, with a faint lift of his mouth. “I do believe that. But what, my lady, are you not telling me?”
“Why-nothing.”
“Did you realize,” he said conversationally, “that when you lie, the most charming spots of pink appear high on your cheekbones? It’s really quite convenient. Oh…not for you, I suppose.”
“I did not know of this. I swear to you, I did not.”
“Very well.” He crossed to her through the strange shifting light, took a seat close beside her on the bed before she could protest. The mattress tilted her toward him; she leaned hard away to keep her balance. “Why don’t you tell me what you did know? What, snapdragon, you do know. I prefer not be led around like bear bait. It’s really most undignified.”
She dropped her eyes. The shadows changed; she felt his fingertips graze her cheek and suddenly couldn’t breathe.
“Lia.”
“You said you didn’t want all my secrets.”
“You’ll discover that lying is just one of my many nefarious skills. We have that much in common. Lia,” he said again, amusement threading his tone, “good heavens, must I torture you for an answer? It’s a simple question, my lady: what do you know?”
“Every night,” she said finally, very slow, “I dream. In my dreams…things happen. Random things. Things that come true.”
His head tilted. “Is that a common Gift among the drákon?”
“No.” Her lips pursed. “Apparently none of my Gifts are very common.”
“Naturally not. What do you dream of this diamond?”
“That you will find it-that we find it.”
“And?”
“That’s all. We find it. You give it to my mother. You’re rich.”
His finger tapped her cheek. “That’s the end of it?”
She pulled away from him, unable to bear his casual touch. “That morning in Jászberény, standing on the street after the fire…I thought I felt the presence of another drákon. Watching us. Watching me. I didn’t tell you because I thought it wasn’t real, that I was merely fatigued. I thought I was imagining it.”
He sat back. “But you weren’t.”
“No.”
“Dear me.”
“Yes.”
He was silent for a long while. Firelight licked up his stockings in whispers and crackles and threw hot gold off the silver buckles of his shoes. In time, he heaved a sigh.
“This rather changes things, my heart. The stakes have been raised. If it is your delightful kinfolk who wish you harm, you’ve become quite a liability.”
“Why would they wish me harm?”
“I’ve really no idea. All I know is it’s bloody hard to fight smoke. Believe me, I’ve tried. Sixty thousand pounds won’t do me a damned bit of good from the cold, dark beyond.”
“I don’t want you to fight them!”
“But then who will protect you,” he asked smoothly, “the next time around? Who else knows their secrets as I do? Who else here knows that they must be able to see to Turn? Who else here knows the usefulness of hoods and blindfolds and a solid bullet to the gut? Who else knows how to steal through shadows, and capture singing diamonds, and share riddles with all the other animals? Who else is a mere human, a mortal man, with knives and pistols and blood on his hands, and the knowledge of how to defeat a mighty dragon in flight?”
She stared back at him, mute.
“Perhaps they wish to kill you,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he agreed, nonchalant. “But I really rather doubt it. You make a nice, shining target-a pretty maid, a dragon-maid, encroaching on their land and their traditions. Oh, yes, I also know how your kind admire their traditions. I’d wager you’re shattering all sorts of worthy rules right now. It’s not even England, it’s middle Europe. We haven’t seen a real water closet in days. I can’t imagine the laws of the drákon out here are much more enlightened than your own.”
“Do you want me to go?” she asked, very still.
“Not especially. But if you mean to stay, I’m afraid there would be a price. I don’t work for free, love. Everyone knows that.”
He smiled at her, a dangerous smile, a thief’s smile, warmed by firelight and the dark timbre of his voice.
Her own voice came very thin. “What is the price?”
“Only this,” he said, and leaned across the bed to cover her mouth with his.
CHAPTER TEN
It wasn’t like her dreams. It was softer, and warmer, and tasted of the Madeira they’d finished with the end of supper, and of him. She kept her eyes open, because for the first time-this very first time-she wanted to see him. She wanted to see his face.
He’d gotten a faint sunburn from his days outside that crinkled color along the edges of his eyes; his hair had blown long and wild in a handsome streaked ruff down his shoulders. She knew his face, she knew his expressions, she knew the slow heat of his look whenever he turned his head and caught her studying him. She knew the squared cut of his jaw, and the shadow of his beard before he shaved, the pure lines of his nose and chin and those sensual lips.
But she did not know him like this: his brows a dark serious slash, every lash satin. His skin a golden gleam with the light, his queue a fall of shifting colors. He kissed her slowly, so slowly, as though he wanted to taste her as she was tasting him, as though they weren’t seated together on the bed with only inches between them, and every man and woman in the villa believing they were wed.
His hand came up. She felt the brush of his palm sliding from her temple to her eyelids, blocking out the light.
“Close your eyes,” he murmured. “Lia-heart. Close your eyes.”
A thousand dreams, a thousand hushed commands. She did as he said, and his hand moved to cradle her cheek, her neck, his thumb stroking the line of her jaw as his lips stroked back and forth, making delicious friction. She felt the unhurried, familiar heat begin to pulse through her body. She felt her heart racing and the animal in her, the dragon, stretching and singing I want through her blood. When his tongue found hers, she dug her fingers into the mink. When he brought up his other hand to push his fingers through her hair, she took a gasping breath against his mouth, all she could inhale, and he stole it back from her with a low, masculine sound in his throat.
That was her hand touching his shoulder. Those were her fingertips discovering the angles of his cheekbones, the heavy rope of his hair, a plait that she held and used to bring him closer, because she could, because she knew he wanted her to.
He took her by the shoulders and pushed her back against the bed, his mouth never lifting from hers. With his forearms braced by her head he had her trapped, half of her at least, his chest to hers, pushing her into the glossy furs. His head tipped; she felt his teeth against her ear. He took her earlobe into his mouth, his tongue tugging, releasing. He traced his hands down her sleeves, her wrists, their fingers entwining, and raised them slowly into the tangle of her hair.
Put your arms above your head.
Lia turned her cheek to the bed, trying not to pant. “It…hasn’t been ten years yet.”
She felt him pause, smiling into her neck. His heart beat a fierce tattoo against hers. “You remember that, do you?”
“Vividly.”
“Hmm.” With slow intention his teeth
pressed into her skin, harder than before, a brief, stinging pain before he stopped; he let loose one of her hands to slide his arm under her waist. “Are you sure I said ten?”
“Yes…”
“How rash of me.” He shifted, using his arm to lift her closer. Even through her stomacher and stays he burned her, all heat and muscle. “I meant, of course, six.”
“Five,” she corrected him, as he trailed kisses along the crest of her collarbone, down to the starched lace ruffle of her bodice.
“Five,” he agreed unevenly, rubbing his cheek against the rise of her breasts, turning his face so that she felt his lips, his eyelashes, respiration-sensations that lit through her like a torch touched to tinder. “Five long, very long years…God, Lia…”
When he found her mouth again they were both panting. Willfully she kept her eyes open, saw the wolf-hunger the fire illumed across his face, saw the ceiling, and the shadows, and the blue-green cast of the lanterns that danced along the blackened oak beams. The desire inside her was a beast of its own, throbbing just under her skin, poised to devour her.
“Is this enough for your price?” Lia asked, turning her head aside once more. “Have I-” She was forced to take a quick breath. “Have I met it yet?”
His head lifted. He gazed down at her without speaking.
“Do you require a whore?” she said deliberately, when he didn’t move at all.
He didn’t get angry; he didn’t act offended or draw back. Instead, slowly, awfully, the corners of his lips turned up.
“Perhaps I do. Are you offering yourself for the position?”
“I wasn’t in jest.”
“Neither was I.” Zane took her left hand and drew it down his body, pressing her palm over his breeches, the length of his arousal, holding her there when she tried to yank away. Above his cold smile, his eyes glittered hard and bright. “A man in my condition doesn’t find this sort of delay very amusing. But-if it’s what your ladyship wishes…”
He released her hand. She lay still, watching him. He rolled from her in one lithe motion, ending up seated back upon the edge of the mattress. His shoulders lifted; he took a slow breath and did not look at her again.
