helpless, dominable creature in a position of supplication; she had been his, was his, should be his and could be again through his choosing.
That she lifted only one hand, the other still holding and hiding her knife, was a detail she willed him to ignore. When he hesitated she let herself laugh, a sound of tears, and looked away, fingers curling in despair. “I am a fool.”
“No.” The word was strangled. “Beatrice-is it Beatrice?” Javier asked, half desperate himself. “Or are you Belinda, as they named you? It hardly matters,” he added in a whisper. “How can I let the only woman like myself die?” He moved abruptly, stretching flat on his stomach to reach a hand into Belinda’s prison. “Come. This will not be comfortable, but I can ask no one for help.”
Belinda scrambled to her feet, shaking off cold as she grasped Javier’s hand and almost cried out with its warmth. “Hold tight,” he said. “Both hands.”
She bit her lip and dropped her knife into the bits of straw. The blade struck stone at her feet, sharp metallic clang cutting into her heart: it may have betrayed her, but it was one of the few tangible things her father had ever given her. To lose it in the depths of a Lutetian prison was more bitter than she could imagine.
Less bitter than losing herself to those same depths. She clasped Javier’s hand and wrist with both of hers with all the strength cold muscle could muster. Javier braced himself against the pit’s edge with his free hand, eyes dark and serious on hers. “Are you ready?”
She only nodded, not trusting words. Javier surged upward, jaw clenched against strain. Belinda’s feet left the ground and she cut off a shriek, caught somewhere between surprise and delight at his strength. It took effort not to kick, even realizing extra movement on her part would make her weight more difficult to manoeuver. He breathed hard, fingers white around her wrist, and she felt the determination of witchpower flare, as if it lent him the strength to draw her up. He went to hand and knees, the arm that held her still dropped with her weight, then opened his mouth in a silent roar as he dragged her halfway over the precipice’s edge, falling backward as he did. She scraped over rough stone and swallowed pain, then pulled herself the rest of the way free, crawling forward to collapse against Javier’s chest. Both heaved for air, Javier more than she, though he sat up within seconds, pushing her onto her heels with his hands hot on her shoulders. Questions fired in his gaze and she drew breath as if she might answer them before they were so much as spoken.
His eyes dropped to her breasts again, and desire, irrational and beyond thought, crashed through the hold he had on her. Belinda caught it with her own witchpower, stroking it and feeding it back to him hungrier than it came to her, then reached inside his grip to pull his shirt open. His warmth bled toward her, drawing her close, and she moved forward, hands dropping to loosen his breeches.
“Beatrice-” A dungeon floor was not Javier’s idea of an idyllic romancing spot, that much was clear from his thoughts. Belinda stopped his mouth with a kiss, sliding cold fingers into his pants to curl her fingers about him, earning a quiet gasp and a thrust up into her hand. He said nothing else as she crawled atop him, wrapping her arms under his shirt and melding her body to his. His body was hot against hers, painful relief from the cold, and she rocked against him, letting herself whimper as the chill began to recede from her limbs. Witchpower responded to the heat, coursing through her and demanding satisfaction, but she held it off, burying her nose in the prince’s throat as Marius’s words haunted her: we have not shared physical love.
Love was too dangerous a word for one such as she, even before Akilina had moved to expose her. It left vulnerabilities that she couldn’t afford; she had understood that since her childhood, watching Rodney du Roz fall to his death; watching her father so deliberately whittle away at the emotional structure he’d provided when she was very young. Belinda Primrose was not meant to know love, and she had not until lately felt its lack in the life that she’d led.
Javier slipped his arms around her, holding her as close as she held him. She could taste his thoughts, running free beneath the surface of passion, and shivered at them: they spoke too much of freedom and an escape from responsibility, ideas only whispered at in night’s darkest hours; they were not daylight thoughts, no more for the prince than the assassin. It made commonality between them and flavoured Belinda’s need with a kind of despair. All, all she could offer was what she did: her body, her mouth, her gentleness in place of coupling whose enthusiasm often touched on violence.
“Come away with me.” She spoke against his mouth, knowing even as she said the words that even if he agreed she could never allow it to happen. Javier breathed laughter, breaking away far enough to look questioningly into her eyes. “Come away with me,” she said again. Witchpower surged, rash agreement; whether it was her own or Javier’s she couldn’t tell. “Tonight. You and I are alike, Javier. Let us be together. Forget the rest of the world.” She echoed the thoughts that he did not dare speak, could barely imagine speaking, and for the few seconds that they hung in the air she reveled in them, using them as her only way to offer in words what she hoped to say with shared bodies.
The thrill of the idea peaked and passed, reluctance flooding in its place, and her frustration rose, sudden and sharp. “Come away with me.” She tore at his reluctance, weakening it, searching for a core that wanted to do as she proposed. “Do you not wish to? They could never find us, Javier, not if we didn’t want them to. Perhaps you’d no more be a prince, but you would be free. Come away with me.” She rolled her hips into his, offering physical gratification as pleasing at the dangerous thought she suggested, and Javier’s resistance faded. It was a fairy tale, a dream for playing at, and for a few moments she lost herself in it as they came together in love.
He held her, gasping roughly against her shoulder, after, then drew a ragged breath. “If we’re to go we should go now, Beatrice. Time must not be wasted.”
“You have duties today, do you not?” she whispered. He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly, and she tightened her arms around him. “You must be seen attending them, Javier. I’ll go to the docks and secure a ship to leave on the late tide. You’ll leave the palace after supper-can you lose your guards?”
He laughed, low raw sound. “Sometimes. Yes, I will.”
“Then meet me under moonlight.” Belinda called witchlight to her fingertips, soft and golden, tracing it over his skin. He shuddered beneath the touch, eyes turning dark with desire, and a thrill of delight spasmed through Belinda’s belly. Even a prince could be conquered, it seemed, if only she took the right path to it. “Come to the docks and I’ll meet you there tonight, bring you to our ship, and we’ll go away together.”
She meant it. A jolt of astonishment cut through stillness imposed by habit. She meant it. Her heartbeat leapt, rabbit-quick, and she found an incredulous laugh bubbling deep inside herself. For those brief moments she meant her words with everything she had in her. If it were at all possible, she would make her promise of We’ll be together real.
It was not in the least possible. Her spike of hope and excitement was already dying, larger purposes reminding her of her place and her duties. Desire twisted at her and faded beneath a curdling in her belly, a bone-deep revulsion of abandoning her mother’s cause. It could be no other way, but she could never whisper that truth to Javier. Her life and freedom depended on his agreeing to her scheme; he must believe her, even when she herself could not.
She brushed her mouth against Javier’s and rose from his lap, arms wrapped around herself again to ward off the chill. “Tonight, Javier.”
He closed his breeches as he came to his feet, putting warm hands on her shoulders again. “And until then will you run around Lutetia naked?” he asked, a trace of wry concern in his voice. He released her to close a hand in his shirt and Belinda stopped him with a touch.
“I can get to the laundry and find clothing there without being seen, I think. The prince of the realm cannot be discovered walking the palace halls half naked, my lord. It would not go without comment.”
“Prince no more after tonight,” Javier said quietly. Steadfast emotion came through, no regret in it at all. He had never lived a life uncoddled by warmth and comfort; Belinda felt a bitter note that her lies would spare him learning regret for his decision. Eliza, she thought, would understand. “Are you certain, Beatrice? Your skin is still clammy.”
She offered a weak smile. “Then perhaps we should leave the dungeons, my lord. If we can. The guards…?”
“Dismissed.” Javier’s voice scraped low and raw. “Reluctantly, but dismissed. There is some good to being Sandalia’s son. They aren’t bold enough to forbid me a last while with my lover, even if I saw the laughter behind their eyes as they left. Help me put the lid back on the oubliette. No one will look for you until tomorrow dawn. You’re to have no food, no water. Nothing until the priest comes to hear your confession, and then the axman.”
