The Treasure Keeper

'Rhys!' She caught herself, lowered her voice. 'You set afire to draw them away?'

'You're welcome. See all the trouble I go to for you?' He came forward at her look, held her gaze in a straight green reply, then leaned in to buss her cheek. Soft, soft, like bluebell petals, a bare tempting brush of sensation.

'Afire,'she murmured, shaking her head. 'What a madman.' 'Excruciatingly small. Hardly any grass burned, I promise.'

She surveyed the meats and fruits and the peony-painted pot and thought of how much work it must have been for him to get it all here. How he must have made three trips at least in his mangled human form, and the kitchens were nowhere near the queen's elaborate pink-and-blue world.

The bread was so fresh it sent out waves of yeasty perfume. Her stomach gave a loud rumble.

'Lovely timing,' her shadow said, and lowered himself to the blanket. She stood there watching him, watching how his face went blank and his muscles clenched, his arms and back and calves, how his claws dug ten pointed holes into the immaculate marble floor. When it was done he released a breath and looked up at her. His scar seemed reddened but that was all. She saw not a trace of the pain that must have racked him left on his features.

'My lady. Won't you dine with me?'

She gathered up her nightgown and sat beside him with her legs tucked under, close enough to feel the heat of his gold, because like everything in Tuileries, the parlor was cavernous, and her body was chilled.

She was glad to have the cook's uniform after all. Its tan-and-brown stripes would make her blend better with the teeming crowds of peasants, and it was going to be easier to hide amid them than in the extravagant pockets of nobles who picked their way about the city like jeweled birds hopping through rubble. She could stoop her shoulders and stuff her hair beneath a cap, and if she kept her face lowered, she would gather hardly any attention. Especially with a measure of dirt rubbed upon her cheeks and neck.

It was brilliant. No matter what Rhys said.

'It won't work,' he insisted stubbornly. 'You're still too pretty. You can smear yourself with all the mud from here to the Seine, and I still won't believe for a moment you belong in that woefully hideous frock.'

'I'll keep my face down.'

'And I'll see the nape of your neck. And your hands. And your chin. And your lips. It's no use, Zee. Everything about you screams of aristocracy.'

'That's ridiculous. I'm the daughter of a seamstress.'

'You are Lady Rhys Langford,' he said, coming up to her. 'And it shows.'

It was the first time he'd used the title the tribe would give her—that all of English society would give her. It pricked at her conscience and made her take a sliding step back from him, averting her gaze.

She was going to hunt. Nothing he said or did could change her mind about that. She'd accepted his body last night, his caresses, but that was all. It granted him no dominion over her, despite what he believed.

And still . the beauty of last night, the joy of discovering true physical acceptance, had been a rare revelation. Their merging. That devastating conclusion. Whenever she found herself slipping back into daydreams about it all, her blush rose again, and she'd swear—she'd swear —he felt the change in her, pinned her in a cool green gaze and sidled close. Close enough that, if she wished, she could lift a hand to trace the curves of his lips. Enact a slender motion of her arm to have it brush his. His essence of outdoors, that warm summer scent, wrapped around her in constant invitation and desire.

And she did desire, she did. As sure as if he'd lifted a veil from her eyes, Zoe saw herself more clearly now than ever before. He'd been right, all those days ago: She burned inside, more vivid than the sun. A hard, steady burn that kindled only for him. She wanted his touch. She wanted it in the most intimate places on her body, and she wanted his tongue in her mouth, and she wanted him inside her again. If she let her imagination fly too far, her blood peaked and her nipples hardened and even the pain between her legs seemed insignificant.

She'd never felt this way for Hayden. It was a niggle of discomfort crawling through her, a small ugly truth: never this way for Hayden, nor any of her other suitors over the years. None of them had had eyes of winter and jade, or a smile so staggeringly sweet it eclipsed scruff and grief and scars. Only Rhys.

But last night had lifted into morning, into right now. She was bathed in daylight, hard autumn daylight, and last night was done.

Zoe was going to hunt. She was going back to the Palais Royal and use the cloak and finish what she'd begun in the house of the sanf.

Rhys, of course, was determined to go with her. She'd already presented her arguments about why he should not:

He was weakened.

He countered that by Turning back and forth from man to smoke, ten rapid times in succession. He was noticeable.

Not with the proper garments, he replied.

His body, she said.

He bent and touched his toes, ten times again, and she'd had to bite the inside of her cheek against the agony he concealed with that proud, blank mask.

His claws, she said.

Easily hidden beneath a blanket. Elderly gents were often wheeled about by their nurses in chairs.

His hair, she pointed out. His brown-and-metal hair.

'A wig,' he'd answered. 'A nice, dodgy, old-fashioned sort of wig, I think, with horsehair and lots of stiff curls. I'd wager there's a good one somewhere in this monster abode. And a rolling chair,' he'd added, before she could open her mouth again. 'You can wheel me about. Pretend you're going to pop me over the riverbank into the rapids.' His tone softened. 'Honestly, Zee. You can't possibly believe I'd let you go alone. Not when you have me. But I'm an old goat, you see. I don't need a cook. I need a nurse.'

So they removed the apron from the dress. They had no scissors, and of course, did not need them. Rhys used the smallest finger of his left hand to sever the threads.

By the time they'd worked out the details, it was past teatime. They were seated upon the bed, both of them, and Zoe was so absorbed in using her fingernails to tweeze free the last, frayed threads left from the apron from the bodice that at first she didn't notice his silence.

She looked up when she rolled the crick from her neck, and only then realized he'd been staring at her for minutes with his hands cupped atop his knees, his expression pensive. That lock of chestnut down his forehead, still rakish and charming, a clash to the more sinister reality of his scar.

'This isn't how I thought it'd be,' he said in an undertone.

She let her hands fall to her lap.

'I wanted a different life for us,' he said. 'I wanted peace for us. A home together. Babies. Laughter.'

'There has been anus for approximately twelve hours,' she said. 'A bit too soon to become maudlin, don't you think?'

'There has been anus since the day I first beheld you. Yes, I realize you don't believe me. All those girls, all those years, and I didn't even know myself how much of myself I'd lost to you. Given, rather. I don't need you to believe me. But it's true.'

'I don't wish to discuss this now.'

'When?' he asked calmly. 'After tonight, when we may both meet our fates? We're not playing skittles and tops here, Zee. You desire to challenge our most earnest enemy. You're determined to strike a blow, no matter the cost.'

She compressed her lips and pinched at the last white threads.

'I want you to know that I support you,' he said. 'In this, in all your heart's dreams. I know you loved him, and a part of you needs this. I'll do what I can for you. But God's truth, if it comes down to a choice of hurting the sanf or saving you from yourself, I'm going to choose you. It's domineering and unfair and reeks of our tribal ways. But I want you to live, no matter what. I would do ... anything to ensure that you live.'

'Why don't you just knock me over the head right now?' she asked without looking up. 'Save yourself some trouble. Hood me and bind me and trundle me back to England. It's been done before.'