Once Upon a Forbidden Desire, page 66
“Enough now. Dry your eyes.”
The shuddering breath she drew in to steady herself was thick with the scent of him, smoky and spicy, completely unlike the stale smell of the preceptors, and her head spun anew with this first shared intimacy. She knew what he looked like, her new husband. She knew that his voice was dark and deep and plush, and could roll like a thunderclap in anger. And now she knew how he smelled.
“The soldiers came by train,” she whispered hoarsely, once he’d crossed back to the sideboard, lifting the crystal top from the decanter. “The last summer before the war, in the village where I lived. They rounded up the smaller species first, the gnomes and fauns, some goblins. Then the trolls.” He had gone still, hand frozen around the brandy snifter, his eyes locked on hers. “The orcs, they left on their own one night, the whole lot of them, heading north. The soldiers stayed. They put my library to the torch.” Her voice shook as she remembered that night, wailing as if she herself could feel the lick of flames against her skin, held back only by Harrigan’s arm. She looked up, meeting his eye, knowing her own flashed in rage. “So you see, my Lord, I’ve always lived amongst the roínfolk. I didn’t know there were any of your kind left, and I didn’t realize … I did not mean offense.”
He held her trapped in his gaze for what felt like a tiny eternity, finally glancing down to the decanter, and the moment was broken. Marionette sucked in another swift breath as he turned, two of the snifters in hand, the wicked-looking barb on the end of his tail making her shiver.
“And your Citadel?”
“They want your books. I suppose they expect I will help deliver them.”
“And how will you manage that, I wonder?”
She shifted, face flushing again, but he didn’t wait for an answer.
“Do you have a name, my dear?” he asked. Her heart climbed to her throat as he crossed the room slowly, broad paws pushing into the thick carpeting silently. If this was a test, she thought as his arm stretched out, snifter in hand, she intended to pass it. She didn’t need to press her fingers to his as fully as she did and certainly didn’t need to linger there before taking the glass from his hand. She had grown accustomed to navigating this world of men, and he was only one man. A heartbeat passed, then a second and a third. When he finally pulled away, she was dismayed to notice the way her hand visibly shook.
“Marionette, my Lord.”
“Marionette,” he echoed softly, a velvet whisper she felt against her skin in a soft drag like an echo of his velutinous touch. “How apt. Who pulls your strings, little Marionette?”
“You’re the one who purchased me, my Lord. I don’t belong to the Citadel anymore.”
“No,” he cut in, an edge of the thunderclap returning. “Don’t ever say that. One cannot claim ownership over another, despite what your Citadel decrees. If I’ve purchased anything, little puppet, it is your freedom, and you may thank me for that. What you choose to do with it is up to you.”
His words caused a shiver of apprehension up her back, the warmth of the library’s fire suddenly too far away. “M-my Lord? Are you … are you sending me away?” When he declined to answer immediately, the hand that clutched the glass began to tremble anew.
“I will not keep you here by force.” His voice was clipped again, frost from the mountains threaded through every syllable. “I will not make demands of you for things you would not give freely, and I have no desire for a terrified mouse who shrinks away and trembles every time I am near.”
“But I thought you wanted—”
“You think because I look like a beast, I must behave like one as well?” His wings rose along with his voice, a black rumble once more, and she shrank before the volatility of his moods, crying out when he darted forward, hands raising to shield herself from attack … but all he did was pluck the crystal glass from where it hovered mid-air, collecting the floating liquid above it. Magic ebbed from him, making something within tremble. She noted he had the grace to look abashed by her reaction to his shout.
“I will give you one month’s time,” he went on in a low voice, not meeting her eye. “One month to make your choice. I am not interested in a prisoner, nor in a slave. In one month, you shall decide if you wish to be a bride in truth. Your freedom is yours, no matter how you choose. If there is anything you would ask of me, you may do so. Until you make your choice, Rosebriar is your home. You may walk these halls freely. No door will be locked to you.”
“Am I allowed to read?” she blurted, slapping a hand to her mouth as soon as her traitorous tongue allowed the words out.
“You are lettered? You know how to read?”
She huffed, straightening once more. “I was a librarian. It would have been a poor job if I couldn’t sort the books. I loved studying things once, when it was permitted. May I study the books here?”
His interest was piqued, she could tell, his brow raising curiously. He took his time answering, gimlet eyes leaving her frozen and breathless again, ignoring her question altogether when he finally spoke. “I could use your assistance,” he mused. “Opening ourselves to petition the menfolk, again for your arrival … the gate needs to be reclosed, and it is a hard job to undertake alone. We shall begin your study,” he agreed, without fully explaining his words, “if it will please you. And you may have unfettered access to this room for the duration of your time in residence here. And in thirty days—” Marionette trembled, not realizing she was holding her breath until her throat began to burn. Thirty days was a pitifully short time and absolutely interminable, but the notion of resuming her studies made her blood thrill in her veins. The Citadel can hang. This is my home now. “—you will make your choice. In the meantime, I would be pleased to have you join me for dinner.”
“AGAIN.”
Marionette closed her eyes, concentrating. There was a powerful magic that ebbed through every corridor of the manor house and down the gravel pathway in her garden—magic she could learn to harness and control, if only she opened herself to it fully. She imagined herself floating, opening her mind to allow a dazzling golden light to shine out from behind her eyes, filling her consciousness; imagined her hands opening to accept a ball of that same light, closing her fingers around it until it absorbed into her skin, imbuing her with its power.
She was a little more than three weeks into the month she’d been given for her fate to be decided. A month against the balance of the rest of her life. Would she stay, or would she go?
“Concentrate,” the voice above barked, huge arms coming around her like a steel cage, his hands gripping hers to guide them through the spell. Heat spread across her back at his nearness, hotter than the fire that burned in the grate. If he believed this was the most expedient way to guarantee her concentration, he was a laughably poor judge of the situation.
The velvety drag of his fingers upon hers was all she could feel as he directed her hands. The heft of his heavily muscled arms was a secure weight, and rather than force her concentration, they only drew her closer to his dizzying, maddening smell. Oakmoss and candlewax, pipe smoke and some primal-smelling musk, seductive and strange and deeply appealing. She was quite unable to keep herself from leaning back against his broad chest, the solidity of his form supporting her. His name was Guile. She liked the shape of it in her mouth, liked the hard clip of it. She’d not yet been brave enough to use his name informally, and she wondered if she would ever have the chance to do so. Guile, she thought, breathing him in.
She was unable to pinpoint the moment when the spell was forgotten, when his massive hands enfolded each of her own, the velvet pad of his thumb stroking over the inside of her wrist with a feather-light pressure. She felt the heat of his breath as he pressed his face to her hair, felt the movement of his chest as he inhaled deeply … but the moment ended as quickly as it had begun, her hands snapped back into position.
“Concentrate,” he growled again, and she could see the shadow of his wings rising and heard the snap of his tail. Refocusing, she imagined herself holding the light she exuded, shaping it like a ball in her hands. She imagined opening herself to the magic of Rosebriar, opening her mind to let it in … opening her legs for her husband, taking him into her bed and into her body, joining with him in a dance as ancient and powerful as the golden light itself. As he moved within her, she imagined herself throwing the ball of light from her hands, casting it over their bed and her garden and the library, casting it as far as she was able.
The door slammed shut and she stumbled forward, the leaping flames of the candles seeming to lick at her face, burning her in mortification as huge hands locked around her shoulders to anchor her in place, their tawny softness dragging once more against her skin. She wasn’t sure if he noticed the way she shuddered when he released her after a moment, nor the way her head lolled as he moved around the table—but her new husband, for all his cleverness and magical knowledge, noticed very little.
“That was quite good,” he admitted begrudgingly, crossing to the doorway, rattling the handle. His voice was as deep and sonorous a sound as she could have ever imagined, like the quaking stone face of a mountain, and its velvet curl pulled at her insides, making her squirm. “You even managed to lock the door.”
“I nearly swooned,” she laughed awkwardly, pressing the back of her hand to her exposed neck, still burning with heat. “It—it must be the heat from the fireplace …”
She was unable to prevent the shiver that moved through her as he came back around the plinth, his great, hulking shadow subsuming her own. The flames of the fireplace did an admirable job outlining his towering frame—broad shoulders and curling horns, the neat nip of his frock coat and the outline of his wings, his shadow hiding her completely. Invisible. Invisible and safe, all she desired.
“You need to work on projecting this. Next time, lock the front door. Then the gate. For now, though, I think we’ve reached a good stopping point. Perhaps you should rest before dinner. You … you did well today.”
She preened under his soft praise, and the voice in her head that was smarter than her heart berated her simpering reaction.
“Yes, my Lord. That’s probably what I need.” Her words wavered like the flickering candle flame upon the sideboard, and she wondered if he heard the conflict in her voice. Clearly not, for he snapped the book shut and crossed to the sideboard to pour himself several fingers of the dark amber spirit that lived in its cut crystal decanter. One month. She hesitated another moment, but the sight of his back made it clear she’d been dismissed, and she turned away, crestfallen.
The library door remained open as she disappeared into the dark corridor beyond, waiting until she was a respectable distance away before breaking into a run, retreating to her own chambers like a child, slamming the door with more force than the poor old wood deserved. That was not the end of her tantrum. Her frustration over the situation in which she’d found herself was not something she could voice, after all. She could say nothing about the way she tossed and turned in her bed at night, the dreams she had of some dark shape covering her or the sticky-slickness that coated her fingers upon waking, a pulsing ache thudding through her body that satisfied as much as it confused—and so her lovely new possessions were forced to pay the price for the impotence she felt.
Her dressing gown was thrown from the bed into a flannel-lined satin heap and kicked across the floor, followed by the neat stack of creamy stationery at her writing desk, fluttering like feathers as they drifted to the floor. The tea that had been left for her was consigned to the flames of her fireplace, then the cup itself. When the delicate china shattered against the stone behind the grate, a strangled sound left her throat—half sob, half scream, born of the frustration she felt and the certainty that nothing would change unless she herself was the one to change it.
Retreating to her bath, Marionette grumbled as the hot water ran, slipping beneath the surface as if she might be able to wash away her confusion. From the stained glass window beside the claw-footed tub, the Hoarfingers appeared to be jagged teeth in the distance, menacing peaks rendered in cobalt and crimson, uneven and smiling over the night like some great beast in the sky. Sinking a bit lower into the steaming water, she tipped her head back with a sigh, replaying her lesson behind her closed eyes.
You’re meant to be invisible and disappear with your books. Do whatever you need to do to make him happy so that he doesn’t send you away, that’s all! She slipped beneath the water completely, not wanting to remain on the surface where she would be forced to acknowledge the way her core tightened at the thought. She would need to explain to her heart that the plan had changed, that locking it into the library and throwing away the key was no longer tenable. Lord Rosebriar. Guile. Everything had changed, she thought, emerging from the surface with a gasp, fat water droplets clinging to her eyelashes. As a traitorous hand dragged down her body to delve between her thighs, she was forced to admit that being alone with her strange husband didn’t seem a terrible fate at all.
“WHY IS IT that you needed to petition the Citadel, my Lord?”
Her cheeks flushed, but she held her ground. The question had rankled in her mind since that first night when she’d met him. They were in the library once more, and she stood over one of the forbidden texts, laid open on a plinth. She’d never fancied herself a witch, but then she’d never expected to be wed to a mage. “There are none at all of your kind left?”
His wide, leonine mouth pressed into a flat smile as he shook his head. “I have lived here alone for many, many years, little puppet. There is no way to get back to my home. I am … satisfied with my lot in life. My family is safe on the other side, and that is all that matters.”
She swallowed hard, nodding. There was a fine oil painting over one of the fireplaces, a painting of her husband, seated beside a woman of his species, as if they were royalty. She had thought it was his wife, had lived with the assumption for several days, curious at the way it twisted her belly. When she could bear its sharp edges no more, she questioned him.
“My twin.” There was a curious warmth in his voice, one that heated her cheeks more effectively than the roaring fire in the grate. “We were both betrothed at the time of this sitting. It was to be the last feast we shared together here in our home before she was sent off to her husband.”
“What was her name?”
His smile was soft, and she decided she liked the look of it on his face. “Wit.”
“Wit and Guile,” she murmured, deciding she very much liked the soft smile and the way his eyes flashed as he glanced at her. “What—what happened?” She felt foolish for even needing to ask as he shrugged elegantly, a grimace pulling at his wide mouth.
“The war,” he said simply. “No one was safe. Roínfolk were being rounded up, families separated, and no one knew the fate of those taken. My betrothed’s family fled at the first sign of danger. My sister’s new husband was killed in the early days. I was able to get her and our mother back to safety, to the other side, but I could not stay with them. Rosebriar was the last holdfast before the mountains, and there were too many of our people making their escape through the mountain pass. I stayed here to prevent the humans’ army from advancing into the Hoarfingers.”
Tears overflowing from her lashes pooled at the neckline of her fine dress. She tried to imagine him here, imagine him leading a battalion of the roínfolk army to hold Rosebriar and keep the humans out, and she found it not that difficult to picture. “What happened?” she asked again.
His jacket that day was chocolate brown and surrounded with rose-colored embroidery, matching his waistcoat. It was as if time had not touched Rosebriar, as if the grey, dour existence that had enveloped the world of men after the war had missed the manor house. The grounds were suspended in a bubble of agelessness, remaining exactly as they had been before the war: the grounds, and her husband, concealed inside the smooth gray walls. She watched as he poured himself a finger of brandy, swirling it in his cup before swallowing.
“We held the keep,” he answered grimly with another small shrug. “The veil dropped shortly after. And that was that.”
He had been cut off from his people. Cut off from his family, from whoever it was he’d been meant to marry. Cut off from all others of his kind.
“And that’s why you petitioned the Citadel for a wife. There really isn’t a curse.”
“A curse of loneliness, perhaps,” he murmured. “I’m certain I’m not the only one who was left on this side, but if there are others like me, they are similarly in hiding. Petitioning your Citadel was the only way to find myself a companion, I’m afraid. It was a risk, but one I was willing to take. Rosebriar can only be found when I wish it to be found. Your Citadel can try as they might, but they will have a hard job of retrieving my books.”
“Is it only companionship you seek, my Lord?” That ember in her belly spread lower as she thought of the book currently resting on her bedside table, hidden beneath several others, hopefully well concealed from the servants. She had chanced upon it by accident, the illustrations within making her mouth drop and her hands shake. A beast that looked quite like her husband had been stretched over the prone figure of a woman, rutting her obscenely. She had never seen such an illustration in a book, had never seen such illustrations anywhere! … But she’d taken it with her. The illustrations within were numerous, each depicting a creature like her husband engaged in various sexual acts with a woman possessing humanlike proportions—a woman like her. Marionette was ashamed to admit that she had lit the candle beside her bed more than once, late at night, to pore over the book and the lewdness within, her fingers wandering beneath the bedding to coat themselves in her slick.
