by Karen Kincy
“The Serpent’s Tower,” he said.
“For the asp that killed the princess?” she said.
“So the story goes, though you won’t find any asps there. Only assassins.”
She turned in his arms and looked into his eyes. He tilted his head, and the wind blew his hair sideways across his face.
“The Order of the Asphodel?” she said.
“Yes.”
She smoothed his hair from his face, but she still couldn’t decipher his expression.
“What are you thinking?” she said.
He shrugged and tightened his jaw. She wanted to trace his cheekbones with her fingertip, but she held herself back.
“The Serpent’s Tower is where it ends,” she said.
“No.” He closed the distance between them. “Where it begins.”
She looked down and swallowed hard. If only she could believe him.
“Ardis,” he said, his voice vibrating through her chest. “Trust me.”
“You don’t have a sterling reputation.”
His green eyes glimmered. “Please.”
“God, Wendel,” she said. “I can’t say no to you. Not with you looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You look almost innocent. But I know better.”
“You know, I’m not always a liar.” He broke into a grin that reminded her how beautiful he could be. “That would be a paradox.”
She laughed at his audacity, then kissed him so fast she startled him. His hand slid along the nape of her neck and knotted in her hair. His other hand found her hip and crushed her tighter to him. She moaned against his mouth.
They broke apart to breathe, and she gasped.
“Don’t stop talking,” she said, somewhat incoherently. “Your voice is amazing.”
He arched his eyebrows. “Is it now?”
“Much better than you scribbling down notes. Your handwriting is terrible.”
He laughed. “I don’t need that particular talent.”
“You do have plenty.” She looked into his eyes. “Don’t let that go to your head.”
“It’s going somewhere else entirely.”
A blush blazed across her face. “Could I convince you to take a break from revenge?”
He whispered something in her ear, and she almost didn’t hear him over the wind.
“Always.”
She shivered and arched against him. He brushed his lips over her cheek.
“You have me until nightfall,” he said.
Her stomach tightened. “Why nightfall?”
“It would be foolhardy to sail to the Serpent’s Tower by day.”
“You know,” she murmured against his neck, “it would be foolhardy to leave me.”
“I could never leave you, Ardis.” He grew serious. “Would you stay with me?”
She knew what he was asking. Stay with him when he went to the Serpent’s Tower. Stay with him when he fought the assassins, and the Grandmaster, to the death. Her answer ached inside her heart even before she spoke it.
“Yes.”
~
In the lobby of the Pera Palace Hotel, Ardis admired the luxury of Oriental style married to Art Nouveau flourishes. Porters lugged steamer trunks across the parquet floors for well-heeled Orient Express passengers.
Wendel chatted with the concierge at the desk, then returned a minute later.
“Fantastic!” He smiled. “I’m so close to happily bankrupt right now, it’s amazing.”
Ardis gawked at him. “You spent all your inheritance?”
He held up his hand. “A pitiful fraction of my inheritance. Remember? And I wasn’t planning on taking a cent to my grave.”
“Don’t talk about dying,” she said coolly. “I liked your idea to loot the Order better.”
“Ah,” he said, grinning, “so you remembered the plan.”
Ardis resisted the temptation to swat him. Instead she pried the key to their room out of his hand and started walking. She saw a luxurious tearoom, and an even more luxurious restaurant, but she passed them both.
She wanted to see their room the most.
Ardis glanced at the key in her hand. Room 202. She bounded upstairs, her muscles tight with unspent energy. Wendel followed at a more leisurely pace, or at least he made the climb look effortless with his long legs.
“Why did we bypass the tearoom?” he said. “And the delicious Turkish Delight?”
Wendel’s poker face would have been perfect without the wicked glint in his eyes.
“Sure,” Ardis deadpanned. “Sounds good. You wouldn’t want to miss teatime.”
He tilted his head, clearly thinking of a retort.
“I’ll just be in bed,” she said. “Naked.”
His eyes darkened, and he stepped toward her as if magnetized. “Oh?”
She smiled with a flick of her eyebrows. “I might get a little bored, of course, so I might have to… entertain myself.”
He growled a sigh and backed her against the door, trapping her between his arms.
“Am I invited?” he said.
Ardis ducked under his arm and twisted the key in the lock. She shoved open the door, and he stumbled forward into the room.
She found a switch on the wall and flicked it on.
“Electric lights,” she said. “How modern. Maybe I can read in—”
Wendel tackled her and kissed her hard. They tumbled onto the bed. He made a hoarse satisfied sound in the back of his throat, and she shivered in anticipation. The weight of his body over hers, the heat of his skin, the masculine smell of him. It was almost too much. She shoved him away, her heart racing.
“The door,” she panted.
He lunged and slammed the door, then grimaced like he hadn’t meant to be so loud. She climbed to her feet, the back of her knees pressed into the mattress. When he returned to the bed, she shook her head and smiled.
“Lie down,” she said.
Wendel smirked and looked like he was considering disobedience. He tried to kiss her, but she shoved him onto the bed and climbed onto him. Straddling him like that, she could feel exactly how excited he was.
He looked up at her with dark, dark eyes, his lips parted, expectant.
“Still feel like teatime?” she said.
He rocked his hips so she gasped. “Still feel like reading?”
She grinned. “I don’t have any books.”
He narrowed his eyes and tried to sit, but she shoved down his shoulders. She leaned back and peeled off her jacket and shirt. The instant she was topless, his hands cupped her breasts and caressed them most distractingly.
“You can’t escape now,” she murmured.
“Escape?” He feigned innocence, but his hands squeezed. “Why?”
She laughed. “Don’t make me tie you down.”
His eyes chilled. “No,” he said.
She remembered, then, how he had been chained in the coffin factory. Doubtless he had been punished many more times than that.
“Wendel,” she said, “I forgot. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged as best as he could, lying beneath her on the bed.
She wanted to melt the ice in his eyes. She bent over him and kissed him, softly, her hair curtaining his face. He stayed tense, then relaxed into the kiss. He ran his hands along the curve of her back and sighed against her lips.
“Ardis,” he said. “I wish I…”
She drew back to look at him, and he closed his eyes. Maybe he couldn’t look at her.
“I wish I weren’t so broken,” he whispered.
His words cut her deep, a pain so sharp it was almost sweet. She lay beside him on the bed and rested her head on his chest. Wendel held very still, and Ardis thought he must be trying hard not to feel. His ribs heaved in a sigh.
“We’re all broken,” she said, “one way or another.”
He was silent for a moment. “How did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Leave America. Leav
e it all behind.”
She played with his hair. “Honestly? I’m not sure I did. I can’t stop missing my mother. Sometimes I want nothing more than to go home, to San Francisco, before I was Ardis. But then I remember that isn’t home anymore.”
He closed his hand on hers to stop her fidgeting. “Before you were Ardis?”
“Ardis isn’t my birth name,” she said. “I was Yu Lan. It means Magnolia.”
“Yu Lan,” he repeated.
Her old name sounded odd. She didn’t think she could be that girl again.
“Call me Ardis,” she said.
“Ardis.” He paused. “Are you happy?”
“You make me happy,” she said, without hesitation.
He lifted himself on his elbows, then met her in a kiss. She stole the heat from his skin.
“I can do better,” he murmured.
She shivered at the rasp in his voice. “Then you better survive.”
He laughed, and it was almost a believable laugh.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” he said.
TWENTY-NINE
Wendel lowered his head and traced Ardis’s neck with kisses while she unbuttoned his shirt. She fumbled with the last buttonhole until he simply yanked the shirt over his head. The button pinged off the window.
She laughed. “Be careful. You’re bankrupt.”
“Almost,” he said. “And don’t you love me shirtless?”
She swallowed another laugh. “Could you be any cockier?”
“Easily.”
He slid off the bed, unbuckled his belt, and stripped completely naked. A wholly wicked smirk curved his mouth.
“Is this cocky enough for you?” he said, and he waved at himself.
Laughing, she clapped her hand over her eyes. “That’s it. You killed the romance.”
He didn’t seem to care. He hooked his fingers into her trousers, and she tilted her hips upward to help him undress her. She shivered in the cool air. He found a preventive in his coat, and her pulse rushed in her ears.
When he climbed over her on the bed, he kissed her neck, but went no further.
“Ardis,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m all yours.”
She sighed at the aching sweetness of his words. He slipped inside, slowly, agonizingly, until she dug her fingernails into his hips and dragged him down. He gasped and flung back his head. She wrapped her legs around him, forcing him deeper, and he growled low in his throat. His fingers clenched the sheets.
“I want you to ride me,” he said.
She grinned at the lust in his eyes. “Me, too.”
He hooked his arm under her shoulder and rolled them both. He landed flat on his back, her knees on either side of his hips. She looked down at him, greedy for the sight of his long dark eyelashes and kiss-swollen lips.
“Gorgeous,” she said.
Wendel laughed. “Gorgeous?”
“Take the compliment.”
She licked her lips, watching him, then sank lower and took him deeper. He sucked in his breath, his eyes smoky with desire. She wanted to hear his pleasure. Smiling mercilessly, she moved up and down, torturing him.
“Ardis,” he said, his voice gravelly in the best way. “Touch yourself.”
“Why?” she teased. “Would you like that?”
“Very much so.”
She did as he said. He let out a shuddering sigh. He couldn’t resist thrusting, and she encouraged him with a moan.
“Harder,” she said.
Sweat glittering on his skin, he set a relentless rhythm. It brought her close faster than ever before. When he slowed, she ground against him with frustration. It was too much—it wasn’t enough. She shook her head.
“Wendel!”
He thrust again, harder, and she tightened the muscles in her thighs. Pleasure built and built until it resembled pain. He angled himself to lick the sweat between her breasts. She teetered on the edge of ecstasy.
Then she fell.
She clung to him and bit his shoulder to stifle her scream. He held her as she shuddered. Gasping, she curled against him and squeezed her eyes shut. She realized she felt raw and fragile, baring herself to a man like this. Not just skin to skin, not just letting his body entwine with hers, but letting him into her heart.
“Ardis?” he said.
Inexplicably, her eyes prickled with tears. She gritted her teeth. No. She wouldn’t cry over him when she hadn’t lost him yet.
“Did I hurt you?” he said softly.
Not yet.
“No.” She cleared her throat. “I needed to breathe.”
He smoothed her tangled hair from her face. Then he slipped out from underneath and lowered her head to the pillow.
“Am I that breathtaking?” he said, his smirk at odds with the concern in his eyes.
He had to understand. Of course he did. He had lived his life in the shadow of the Order of the Asphodel. Even now, he didn’t believe he could escape. He could only steal fragments of a life that wasn’t his.
And lies hurt so much less than the truth.
“Breathtaking?” She managed to laugh. “Put your money where your mouth is.”
“My mouth, you say?”
Wendel almost hid behind his smile. When he bent over her, she closed her eyes and tried to let herself live in the moment. She wasn’t very good at it, she realized, but he knew what to do. His lips closed around her breast. He licked her nipple, teased her with his teeth, and she sighed and knotted her hands in his hair.
“Wendel,” she said.
She wanted to say, “I love you,” but fear choked her throat. She wasn’t sure she could admit to loving a man she couldn’t save.
He looked into her eyes as he gave himself to her. And it was almost enough.
~
Nightfall. Wendel didn’t leave, as he had promised, but stayed at the Pera Palace.
They lingered over dinner in the hotel restaurant. A delicious dinner, no doubt, though it tasted bland in Ardis’s mouth. She sipped water to wet her parched throat. Wendel divided his food into ever smaller pieces.
“I wasn’t joking,” Ardis said, “about running to Switzerland.”
Wendel shrugged and nudged a pea around his plate.
“Or France,” she said. “We could seek asylum there. Enemy of my enemy, you know.”
“Not France.” He flattened the pea beneath his knife. “I hate French.”
“How do you feel about English?”
He ate the pea. “Indifferent.”
“Then we can go to England. If we survive. When we survive.”
“This might be my last supper,” he said, with a fleeting smile.
She swallowed hard. “Wendel.”
“Maybe they will make a painting out of it,” he said. “The Last Supper of the Necromancer sounds a bit ludicrous, don’t you think? A statue might be more appropriate. Though I doubt anyone will give a damn.”
“This isn’t funny,” she said, and she glared at him.
He stared out the window. He was quiet for a long time. The clink of silverware on china scratched at her nerves.
“Say something,” she said. “Please. Don’t be silent after—”
“I love you.” He looked into her eyes, his cheeks flushed.
She forgot to breathe for a moment. Shakily, she wiped her mouth on her napkin.
Finally, she said, “You could have said that earlier.”
“I tried.”
His eyes looked intense, but there was a softness to the way he held his mouth.
“You took it back,” she said.
“And then I took that back.”
She glared at him for waiting until the last moment to say this. She had almost forgotten how frustrating the necromancer could be.
Wendel flagged down the waiter. “Check, please?”
Ardis’s stomach somersaulted, and she wished she hadn’t eaten a thing. Was this really happening? Was she really so powerless?
“You don’t have to do this,” s
he said.
He didn’t even answer. He paid for their dinner, with what might have been his last coins, then stood and pulled out her chair for her.
She gripped his arm. “Wendel.”
He met her eyes. “You don’t have to come with me.”
He wanted this to be goodbye?
“No,” she said. “Hell no.”
He pried her fingers from his arm. “Then let’s go.”
Her throat tightened. She had to stop him somehow. She didn’t know if the Grandmaster even wanted his prize necromancer alive at this point, which meant that Wendel was far too confident about his chances.
Unless the dead look in his eyes meant he was beyond caring.
Wendel walked from the restaurant, and she followed at his heels. She was afraid that if she fell behind, he wouldn’t wait for her to catch up. Together they strode through the twisting nocturnal streets of Constantinople.
“Where are we going?” she said.
“The Galata Bridge,” he said.
“Why?”
“To find a boat.”
The waters of the Bosporus glittered like a thousand silver coins beneath the moonrise. The spire of the Maiden’s Tower soared against the opposite bank. Not too far away, far too close, the Serpent’s Tower loomed.
Ardis felt sick. She tasted acid creeping from her stomach.
Fisherman lined the Galata Bridge, casting their lures into the rippling of reflected lights. Wendel surveyed them, then shouted in Turkish. One of the fishermen stepped forward. Wendel dropped coins into the man’s hand. Gold coins, she noted, which seemed like a steep price to ferry them across to the Serpent’s Tower.
“His boat is ours,” Wendel said.
Her eyes widened. “You bought the boat?”
“So we won’t be stranded there.”
She nodded. Thank heavens he thought there was a return trip.
The fisherman trotted down the Galata Bridge to the bank. A sleek little skiff bobbed in the water. Ardis lowered herself into the skiff and clasped her hands between her knees, her knees pressed together tight. Wendel climbed into the back, shoved off from the bank, and started rowing toward the Serpent’s Tower.
Ardis cleared her throat. “Let me talk to the Grandmaster. Before you—”
