The Treasure Keeper

Every single child stopped, stared, and screamed, fleeing in all directions. She was alone within seconds.

Not quite alone.

'They'll have nightmares for years,' predicted the being who had been smoke just an instant before. She became seen, turned about, and found him leaning naked against a peeling house that cast some of the deepest shadows. 'I'm fairly certain there's a reason the council frowns on that sort of behavior.'

'They may add it to my list of transgressions.' She looked him up and down. 'What about Turning in public? I'm fairly certain that's forbidden too.'

'Rebels, the both of us,' he said with a shrug. 'But at least I'm dragon enough to face my consequences.'

A woman bent out from the open window above them, peering around to discover the source of the commotion below. Zoe ignored her.

'You're saying I can't face consequences?'

He slanted forward a bit, raised his hand and waved up at the woman, who stared at him with her mouth agape before hastily withdrawing inside. 'I'm not the one who ran away.'

'No. You have permission to leave Darkfrith, remember? Glorious son of the Alpha, et cetera, et cetera.'

'I'm not talking about Darkfrith.' He scowled at her. 'I'm talking about now.'

'Now? Right now I'm about to go procure us some foodstuff. In case you failed to notice, we suffer a rather severe lack of domestics to serve us. I haven't run away.'

Another woman appeared in the Dutch half doorway across the street. She glared at them, shouted a name back over her shoulder.

'Your things were gone,' Rhys said, straightening. He limped a step toward her, his hair falling longer than she last remembered, a look on his face that pierced her like a rapier. 'Everything. All of it. After last night, after what happened—I thought you'd left.'

'So you chased me all the way here? I don't know if I should be more insulted or impressed.'

'Be impressed,' he said, after a moment. 'Your scent is exceptionally subtle. A snowflake in a blizzard. I'll have to douse you in rosewater every morning just to find you for luncheon back at Chasen.'

A man pushed the woman in the doorway aside; he had the aspect of a butcher, a close-shaved head and burly arms, a shirt streaked in red rust. Zoe tucked down her chin and began to walk. Rhys stepped back into the shadows and went to smoke, a hovering wisp above her.

'I wouldn't desert you,' she murmured. 'Kindly don't make the same mistake again.'

He lowered, became a brief, twining mist about her face and shoulders, almost stroking, before rising above her again.

As apologies went, it was nearly sufficient.

* * *

That night, she took him back to Tuileries. It was where she had already reestablished her former suite, resheeted the bed, redraped the mirror. Better to leave the maison before it was to be turned over to its landlord, who had no idea who they were, anyway. She could not envision maintaining the illusion of beclawed Lord Rhys as an ordinary man in a Parisian hotel or country inn. They needed privacy. The sanf inimicus would be well aware of them now, so they needed a place no sanf inimicus would think to look.

And there was a deeper truth she would not say aloud. She needed to escape the last hints of Hayden: her memories of him in each chamber of the maison, sandalwood yet lingering. It had been difficult enough to enter his room: the comb and brush and aquamarine-rimmed snuffbox. He knew how she disliked his habit; he'd made certain never to indulge in front of her. She'd been unable to bring herself to touch the pillows on his bed, where a single golden hair still shone. She'd shoved all his possessions into his portmanteau and stored it far back in the closet of the palace apartment. She would return everything to his parents. She would keep only his ring.

Since she'd been here last, a pair of swans had taken up residence in one of the garden ponds. Zoe was sorry to see them go, silent and massive, taking flight across the liquid silver surface like water-dragons, long necks stretched and wings of thick perfect feathers.

She and Rhys watched them together, outlined in moonlight. The back of his hand touched hers; he kept it there, unmoving until she nodded toward the palace and drew him onward.

He was displeased about the solitary bed, she could see that. But she wasn't going to sleep on the floor and told him that if he wanted to, he could, and he was a fool to even consider it.

'Your virtue is safe from me,' she said, dry. 'I shan't trouble you again.'

'Mine is safe,' he muttered, still glowering at the bed. 'Most reassuring.'

She walked to the closet to find her nightgown. 'Sleep where you wish. You might sample a hundred different rooms here before anyone discovered you. But this bed is comfortable.'

'Is it feather?' he asked, lifting his voice a little, but she didn't trouble to answer. She knew he could smell the down as well as she, and better feathers than straw.

When she emerged again, he was exactly where she'd left him, only now he was glowering at her.

'Can't you see? I can't sleep beside you.'

'Stars above! I told you I'd leave you alone.'

He hunched his shoulders and angled his body away from hers, his gaze fixed churlish to the crimson walls. 'It's not that.' One fisted hand slowly raised into the lamplight; gold glimmer and blades. 'It's this. I don't want to hurt you. If I'm asleep, I won't know what I'm doing.'

'You won't hurt me.'

His eyes cut to hers. 'Your faith is gratifying, if extremely misplaced. I'm not a light sleeper. You did see the mattress back at the maison, did you not?'

'I did. And I also see this.' She walked forward across the chilled floor, the folds of her gown flowing and rippling behind her. She lifted his hand daintily, mindful of his talons, and held it up between them. 'They're shorter now. Did you notice? Your hair is longer and more brown, your claws are shorter. Even your eyes seem a deeper green. And that's in just a few days. Soon you'll be much better, I think.'

He stared down at his hands, marveling. 'You're right. They are shorter.'

'Just sleep on your side,' she said, and crossed to the lamp upon the floor, blew out the flame.

Darkness. The same shrouded gloom she'd grown used to since she'd left her English home, far more comfortable and known than the little girl's room at the maison. The smells of the palace, the antique curtains and bed, the tapestry above her like a pale patterned magical carpet, sending her off into dreams.

She fell asleep before Rhys made up his mind, but awoke in the night to feel the heat of his body against hers: chaste, his back pressed to hers, the soles of their feet barely touching, a single sheet covering them both. It nudged her out of that deadened, exhausted place where she'd been hiding: Never before had she lain in a bed with a man, any man. It felt foreign and wrong, and at the same time ordinary and exactly right. She had the drowsy notion she'd awoken to him like this, the two of them like this, so many times before she'd lost count, and yet it must have only been because he'd been her shadow, her familiar. The spirit that had watched over her and discovered her dragon reflection without her even knowing.

And now he was no shadow.

He wore no nightshirt to bed, only breeches. He wore no cologne, and so his scent was purely his. Zoe curled her fingers into her pillow and inhaled it: Rhys. Summer woods and smoke. Nature and grass and outdoors. Enticement.

He spoke into the darkness, his voice so muted she barely heard it. 'I don't want to hurt you.'

She twisted around, allowed her hand to briefly brush his waist. 'Then do not.' She waited. She did not move again.

He rolled over. He lifted his arm and placed it across her, just beneath where the gown pulled taut against her breasts. She felt his breath upon her cheek, only slightly uneven, and then the pressure of his lips: a kiss that was also chaste and yet not, because it wasn't on her mouth, but his arm lifted and pushed at her a little, and his body curved toward her a little, and his feet retangled with hers.

All she had to do was turn her head. Not even very far, just a fraction. She kept her eyes open and gazed at