“Yes, but that’s not the truth he was hiding.”
“. . . silver disk of the Gylferion . . .”
David caught only every third word of Lord Duncallan’s conversation. Enough to nod appropriately or make suitable noises when it was his turn to speak, but beyond that, his attention remained fixed upon the door and the woman framed there.
Was this the same woman who battled cutthroats in an alley with a broken plank? Who slammed Beskin to his knees with a bagful of bells? Who sat beside a cook-fire, her face a rosy glow, as she chatted with churls and laughed with charlatans, or shook the dust from her skirts as she gathered kindling or collected water?
It couldn’t be. This vision carried herself like a queen, and when she moved into the room, her hips swayed and her skin shone as invitingly as any courtesan’s. A complicated knot of dark curls exposed a long, graceful throat, while the cut of her gown revealed the rounded curve of her breasts.
“. . . four of them placed in the obelisk . . .”
Then she met his gaze and her eyes contained a mix of shy pleasure and self-deprecating amusement, and the goddess turned back into Callista Hawthorne, the woman he knew. The woman he’d grown to love despite all his efforts to do otherwise.
“. . . so I leapt on the table and skewered him with my butter knife . . .”
“You don’t say,” David mumbled, crossing the room toward her as if drawn by an invisible cord.
He shouldn’t go to her. He should exchange gossip with Lady Duncallan or seek out Gray for another stern lecture. He should shed his skin and become the wolf, hunting along the wide empty coast and in the deep woods beside the brown, muddy river.
But while his mind screamed at him to run away, his body ached to be near her for as long as he could. To revel in these few precious days before reality kicked him in the gut. And why not? If Gray kept his word, the dream would die its own death. Callista would soon be beyond his reach, forever lost behind Dunsgathaic’s high walls, shrouded in the gray of the
Until then . . .
His steps came slower than normal, but she waited and her smile widened in welcome as he folded her hand in his.
“What did you say to Duncallan? He has the oddest grin on his face,” she remarked.
“Honestly? I have no idea what the man was babbling on about. My attention was focused elsewhere.”
“Do you like it?” she asked, her cheeks turning pink.
“I’d have thought my tongue on the floor would be answer enough.”
“Dress a pig in pearls, she is still a pig.”
“If you must compare yourself to an animal, rather call yourself the sleek and slender otter or the swan, whose beauty hides a lethal ferocity.”
“Not the wolf?”
“Why
“I’ll wager you say that to all the girls.”
“Yes, but they didn’t get the joke.”
“Who’s there?” David whispered to the darkness. The bedchamber lay wrapped in gloomy shadows, the only light coming from the fire that smoked and guttered; the only sounds, rain smacking the windows, the shush of a curtain caught in a draft, and his heartbeat drumming in his ears. But something had woken him. Some sound that shouldn’t have been. Some wisp of a scent.
A figure passed in front of the window, midnight blue against the black and stormy night beyond the glass. “It’s me.”
“Callista?”
“Were you expecting someone else?” She whispered the words that set flame to wick, the candle sputtering and crackling as it burst to life.
She still wore the crimson beaded satin, but where before she moved and spoke like a seductress, now she scowled at him and gripped the candlestick as if she might bash him over the head.
“When were you going to tell me?”
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, scratched at his bandages, which itched like the very devil, and tried to decipher what in the hell she was talking about.
“Or were you going to tell me at all? After all, you’ve got Gray to do your dirty work. You can tease and charm all you like while behind your smile you’re deciding my future for me. First you try to marry me off to Sam Oakham and now you’re shoving me onto the Duncallans as if I were unclaimed luggage. I risked everything to escape people who were trying to live my life for me. I refuse to roll over and let you do the same.”
He dragged himself out of bed, wincing only once or twice. The cool night air slapped him awake, and he was able to concentrate on the thunderous expression darkening her eyes and tightening her face. Of course, he was also able to focus on the way her gown dipped low and revealed the valley of her breasts, the perfume rising warm and fragrant off her heated skin, and the shapely curve of her hips.
He padded across the floor, combing a hand through his hair, noting the way her gaze traveled over his naked body before her chin lifted in a show of defiance and she stared only upon his face.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she snapped. “Most men would at least don a dressing gown for propriety’s sake.”
“You came to my room in the middle of the night. Propriety was left behind long ago,” he said calmly. Taking her hand, he threaded his fingers with hers, feeling the stiffness in her body, the way she held herself rigid and unwilling. “You must have had some reason for coming.”
“Yes, to pummel you with a heavy object and tell you what a cowardly, backhanded, deceitful creature you are. Wolf? More like a rat.”
He raised their linked hands for a kiss on her fingers, on the underside of her wrist. “Do you think I want you to leave? To put you on that coach and know I’ll never see you again? But it’s for the best. The Duncallans are highborn Fey-bloods. Your aunt will welcome them—and you—with open arms. Far different if you arrive escorted by an Imnada shapechanger who also happens to be a single gentleman of scandalous repute.”
Bare inches separated them. Her perfume intoxicated him, her gaze was both endless and clear as a mountain stream. He knew what she wanted. He sensed it in every rise and fall of her chest, every sweep of her lashes across her cheeks, every expression rushing like wind across her face. His body would go up in flames if she kissed him.
“This is your chance to erase the weeks we spent together. No one need ever know.”
“I’ll know. Don’t pretty this up by claiming you’re doing it for me. You’re doing it for yourself. You’re running away like you’ve been running since the war ended. Since the curse was cast.”
Her breath smelled of wine and cinnamon and oranges. Had he called her eyes muddy hazel? They shone with amber and glimmered with jade. Her lips were moist. He smelled desire and heat on her flesh. He closed the inches between them, his mouth hovering above her own as their breath mingled in the prelude to a kiss. Arousal damped his own skin and licked like honey along his nerves.
“I’m trying to save your blasted life,” he whispered.
“You’re trying to control it,” she answered.
She stepped back, taking him with her. Step by slow step, she backed toward the bed, her gaze still hot, but now it contained as much passion as anger. His brain locked. He knew what he should do and what he wanted to do, but his legs just kept moving in pace with hers, his groin tightening as she pushed him down on the edge of the mattress and stood between his legs, her hands upon his shoulders.
“This is my life, David St. Leger. And I’m in control.”
He closed his eyes, but every inch of her was etched upon his brain, the creamy skin, the round perfect breasts, nipples pebble hard, long slender legs, a brush of fine brown hair between them. He opened his eyes and she was there blazing in the crimson and gold of a flame or a comet. He was the moth, the dust pulled along in her wake. He couldn’t break free, but he tried. Really, he tried.
“Damn it, Callista. You don’t understand.”
She kissed his chin, the corner of his mouth, his nose. “Then explain it to me. I’m not simple. I walk the
