Steel's Edge

TEN

“LIGHTS,” Richard said.

Pale yellow lanterns ignited on the walls, bathing the cabin in their soothing light. Delicate frosted spheres, they dangled from the wood like bunches of glowing grapes. The layout of the cabin was open and simple: in the center, two large couches faced each other, flanked by an overstuffed chair, all in handsome, masculine brown. A classic Adrianglian fire pit sat between the couches, a rectangular construction of stone with a grate partially overshadowed by an exhaust hood venting outside the house.

To the left, wooden stairs led to a small loft supporting a bed. Under the stairs, a desk stood, filled with stacks of paper. A large map of Adrianglia decorated the wall, with hand-drawn arrows and annotations written in Richard’s hand.

At the right wall, a kitchen occupied the far corner, complete with the ornate box of an icer unit and a small stove.

Richard walked past her, struck a match, and dropped it into the pit. Immediately, the flames surged up. He must’ve laid out the fire before he’d left.

Long windows offered a view outside the house, all of the forest soaking in the gray deluge of cold rain. Every inch of the wall free of windows was filled with bookcases. Volumes of all shapes and sizes sat on the shelves, interrupted by odd objects. He liked books. So did she.

The space felt warm and inviting, the crackling of the logs a soothing counterpoint to the rain. For some odd reason, she had expected the house to be austere, almost grim, but it was comfortable and inviting. He was letting her into his personal space, into his home.

“A towel?” he asked, offering her a green towel.

“Thank you.” She took it and stood there, looking at the towel like an idiot.

“Would you like to take a shower? The water is heated by the icer’s coils, so it should be hot,” he told her. “It’s through that door on the right. There are clean clothes in the cabinet.”

She could wash the Isle of Divine Na off her skin.

The bathroom was equipped with a standard Adrianglian shower. When the first drops of water hit her, Charlotte exhaled.

Ten minutes later, she rummaged through the cabinet and found a tunic that was too long on her and a pair of soft woolen pants, which were tight on her hips. She twisted the towel into a turban on her head and slipped out of the bathroom. Richard waited until she was settled on the couch by the fire pit and entered the bathroom with his own towel.

She watched the flames and tried not to think. If she didn’t feel so broken, she would’ve walked along the shelves, caressing the spines with her fingers. She wanted to know what he liked, what books he had read, but defeat wrapped around her, like a thick, dull blanket, and she couldn’t fight it off.

The heat of the fire warmed her skin, and she forced herself to enjoy the simple, meager pleasure of being clean, warm, and safe, at least for the moment. When she looked up, Richard had left the bathroom and was coming toward her. She pulled the towel off her hair and let it down.

He sat down across from her. For a few minutes, they sat silently, the fire crackling between them.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“We lost,” she said, hating the failure in her voice.

“We lost a battle. I intend to win the war.”

“How?” she asked.

“We know who runs the slavers. We have the names of five people. We study them, then we go after them,” he said.

Go after them? After the bluebloods with money, after the peers of the realm with power, after the cousin to the king . . . “You make it sound so simple.”

“Charlotte?” he asked quietly. “Are you giving up?”

“No. I have to see this through to the end. I just . . . I feel spent. I thought it would be over.”

“But it isn’t.”

“No.” She faced him. “The truth is that I’m weak, Richard. Despite all my determination, the moment I saw a way out, I leaped at it. When we found the ledgers, I felt this overwhelming relief. I felt hope. I haven’t gone over the edge yet. I could stop and never use that side of my magic again. I glimpsed a new chance at life, but now it’s gone.”

“It’s a strength, not a weakness. Despite everything you’ve seen and done, you retained your humanity. I admire that.”

She shook her head. “There is nothing worthy of admiration here. I’m simply a very selfish woman. We’ve been robbed of our victory, and even though I barely began the fight, I’m already in despair at the first setback. How can you keep going? I thought you would be more dejected.”

“I am. I’m used to setbacks by now, but this one is crushing.” His damp hair, almost black with moisture, fell over his face. The light of the fire played on his skin. “I struggled with it, but I’m also a very selfish man.”

“What does that mean?”

He glanced at her. “I realized that if this were over, you would leave.”

The slavers, Brennan, and the insurmountable obstacles to bringing them to justice faded from her mind. He was right there. All she had to do was get up and take two steps forward or invite him in. He could be hers.

Charlotte raised her chin. “I’m here now. In your house.”

Richard stopped moving. She had his complete attention.

She leaned forward and ran her hand through her long blond hair, letting it fall over her shoulders to frame her face. He focused on her completely. She read admiration, desire, and a touch of hard male possessiveness in his gaze. It made her giddy.

“The question is, are you going to do something about it, Richard?”

Richard cleared the distance between them in one rapid step, then his arms were around her. She saw him leaning down and closed her eyes. The first touch of his lips made her shudder, not in fear or excitement, but in desperate, all-consuming want. His lips told her everything she needed to know without making a single sound: that he wanted her just as desperately, that he hoped, that he wouldn’t force her. That he thought she was beautiful.

His tongue brushed her lips, and she tilted her head and opened her mouth, letting him know that she wanted him, too. He tasted her, kissing deeper, seducing with a promise of more but holding back. Her body tightened. Her breasts pressed against his chest. A deep-seated desire sparked inside her. Suddenly, she felt empty, and she wanted to be full of him. He sensed it, as if they were perfectly attuned, and pulled her tighter, possessive.

His hands stroked her back, under her tunic, and the roughness of the calluses on his fingers scraping lightly against her skin sent aftershocks through the sensitive muscles of her back. Wrapped in his heated strength, she let go of words and self-awareness, and just kissed him, delighting in the simple pleasure of having him. He tasted of sandalwood and smoke and the promise of bliss.

“So beautiful,” he whispered in her ear, and kissed her lips, her cheeks, then her neck, coaxing her to melt. It was too slow. A sudden fear that he would change his mind gripped her.

“Bed,” she whispered to him.

He picked her up like she weighed nothing and carried her up the stairs to the loft, depositing her on the covers.

The bed was huge.

The full reality of what she was about to do dropped onto Charlotte’s shoulders, like a crippling burden.

She swallowed. The blood spatter on her clothes flashed before her. She wanted to forget it. The clothes she wore now were clean, but she still wanted them gone because she knew her skin was free of blood.

She started to pull the tunic off herself, then his hands touched the bare skin of her stomach and slid up, along her back, stroking places she never thought erotic but which now sent small pulses of desire through her. He kissed her neck, slipped her tunic off, and kissed her chest, moving down in a slow, confident seduction. Her husband used to do this.

She swallowed and pulled away.

Richard stopped.

Her confidence evaporated. She felt so vulnerable sitting there with her shirt off, painfully self-conscious.

Richard swallowed. She sensed he was about to step back and grasped his hand. “No.”

He stopped.

“I want you,” she told him. “I . . .” She tried to make sense of the tangled ball of feelings.

Richard crouched by the bed. “A woman once told me to use words.”

“I’m barren,” she said with brutal honestly. “Sex was about making children. I want to be loved.” She sounded so needy and desperate. “I’m afraid.”

“Of me?”

“Of intimacy.” She swallowed. “I need it to be different than it was with him.”

She killed it. She ruined it, she brought the shadow of her ex-husband into the bedroom, and now Richard would have the burden of being different from him without knowing what it was like. It was unfair and selfish. He would walk away from her.

“Do you want me?” Richard asked.

“Yes.” He had no idea how much.

Richard pulled off his tunic. Underneath, his body rippled with strong, carved muscle, his bronzed skin lightened with old scars. She watched mute as he took off his shoes. His pants followed. He was aroused.

Oh gods, he was so aroused.

Richard sat on the bed, leaned against the carved wooden headboard, and rested his muscular arms on its top edge. His spare, hard body looked almost decadent against the sheets.

“Come,” he invited.

She stared at him, her eyes wide.

“You want it different. Come, make it different.”

“Me?”

“You.”

He was giving her control. She wasn’t sure what to do with it.

She would do something.

Charlotte stripped, shook her head, letting her blond hair fall over her in a cloud, and sat on the bed.

He was looking at her with such unrestrained, almost feral need, that she blushed. All of his brakes were gone. This was Richard without manners, without proper etiquette, without restraint. She thought he was ice. She had no idea he was fire.

The awkwardness fled, leaving sheer excitement.

“What can I do?” she asked him.

“Anything you wish.”

Anything she wished. She raised her hand and touched his chest, drawing her fingers along the narrow hollow between the hard panes of his pectoral muscles. He strained, his body tightening under her touch, but kept his hands on the headboard. She felt so free and . . . wanton. Yes. That was the word.

Charlotte slid her fingers lower, caressing the hard bulges of his abdominal muscles, sliding her hand lower, past his navel, tracing the long line of dark hair pointing down.

“Richard?”

His voice was strained. “Yes?”

“How good is your control?”

“How good do you need it to be?” His voice sounded strained. His biceps bulged as he gripped the headboard.

“Can you keep your hands on that headboard?”

“If you want me to, yes.”

She touched the smooth head of his shaft, and he flexed in response, raising himself slightly off the covers.

“Let’s find out,” she whispered.

She stroked the hard length of him and lowered her head to kiss his neck. The rasp of his stubble scratched her tongue. She tasted a hint of sweat and soap. He groaned. She smiled and kissed him again, his lips, his chest, running her tongue over his nipples, over his hard stomach. An insistent liquid heat spread between her legs. She really could do anything. He would let her. She had complete control. Her excitement spiked.

She trailed a line down from his navel with the tip of her tongue, feeling the muscles tense, like hardened steel under the skin.

She slipped his shaft into her mouth.

His back arched, as he flexed his arms, lifting himself and her. The headboard creaked.

She licked him, testing his discipline. His body shuddered. He groaned again. “You may not want to . . . do . . . that. It’s been a while for me.”

“For me, too.” She straddled him, her breasts inches from his lips. She felt him press between her legs. He was looking at her, his gaze like a heated caress. Everything about him was so unbelievably erotic, from his strong muscular body, to the way his skin, warmed by the fire, burned under her touch, to the way he looked at her.

She tilted her hips. The hot hard length of him slid inside her in a rush of pleasure, stretching her from the inside. Charlotte gasped, arching her back, feeling the full extent of him inside her. She felt tight, but flexible, pliant, warm, and so impatient for more.

“Gods, I want you,” he growled.

She began to rock forward, sliding over him. It felt like heaven, but she wanted more.

“Touch me now,” she whispered. “Please.”

He pushed off the bed, grasping her hips, grinding up, deeper into her. His mouth found her breast, then her nipple, still cool from the shower. His tongue slid over it, and she tightened in response, the rush of sensation so intense it almost hurt. He sucked on her, and she shivered atop him, bending back, riding him faster. Her joints turned liquid.

He slipped his hand down between her legs and touched the sensitive knot of nerves there. Bliss cascaded through her.

“Please,” she moaned. “Please.”

He kept caressing her, his fingers skillful, adding just the right amount of pressure, matching her movement. The combined sensation overwhelmed her, lifting her higher and higher. Her head swam, but she felt every moment, every caress, as she was hovering on the precipice.

Her breath was coming in quick whimpers. His body was so hard under her, each muscle taut with strain. He let out a masculine half growl, born of pure lust. It triggered some deep feminine instinct inside her that told her his pleasure was as intense as hers.

And then the waves of euphoria crested inside her, met, and she fell over the cliff. All the strength went out of her spine. She slumped forward, her eyes wide, lost in erotic bliss.

He flipped her back onto the covers. She kissed him, running her hands down his back. He pinned her down, pretending to keep her from moving, and looked at her, her mouth, her breasts, the swell of her hips. There was something so deeply gratifying in the look of male satisfaction on his face. She realized that he must’ve wanted her for a long time, and now he had finally gotten her.

“I want you,” she whispered.

“Are you mine, Charlotte?”

“Yes.”

“You should’ve said no. Now you’re mine, and I won’t let you go.”

He thrust into her, building to a smooth, rapid rhythm. She melted, matching his thrusts, once again desperate for that peak of pleasure. She didn’t close her eyes. She watched his face, drinking in every moment of his pleasure. He kept thrusting, his whole body taut with tension, the muscles of his back strong like hard cables under her fingers. He reveled in her. Moments later, she climaxed again, the aftershocks of an orgasm rocking her. His body went hard, a tremor gripped him, and he emptied himself into her with a satisfied male groan.

She held on to him, not wanting to let go. He turned, shifting his weight onto the bed, and they lay wrapped in each other. She felt so happy, so heartbreakingly happy.

“Can it be like this again?” she asked.

“It can be however you want it to be,” he told her, and kissed her lips.

She closed her eyes and smiled.

“YOU never told me why you do this. Why you went after the slavers.”

Richard turned his head and looked at her. Charlotte lay on her stomach on the covers, still naked and completely his. That glorious hair spilled over her back like a silken waterfall. Her face, neck, and arms had a tan, but her breasts and the swell of her butt were pale, and the intimate bare stretch of that pale skin seemed intensely sexual. She lay next to him, content, perhaps even happy, completely at ease, looking at him with her silver eyes. Like sunlight shining through the rain, he thought.

Mmm. Mine. My Charlotte.

He’d made her happy, he’d made her moan and ask for more of him. If it was at all in his power, he would make it so it would always be like this.

It could always be like this, a quiet voice whispered inside him. He could take her with him and disappear. Just walk away. Nobody would blame him. Nobody but the ghosts in his memories.

Richard reached over and stroked her shoulder.

“Do you remember the girl at the Camarine Mansion? The one who met us?”

“You look alike. Is she your daughter?”

“She’s my niece. Her name is Sophie.”

“The Sophie? The one you were saving when you were delirious?”

He nodded. “My grandparents had several children. My father was the oldest son, and Gustave, my uncle, was the second oldest. Our family was involved in a feud. In the Mire, everyone feuds with somebody. Our feud was old, with deep roots.”

“Is that why your father was shot in the market?”

“Yes. I was too young to take care of the family, still a child by the Mire’s standards, and Gustave was a much better fit. He became the head of our clan. He had two daughters, Cerise, who is now married to Earl Camarine’s best friend, and Sophie.”

“So you’re her cousin?”

“Technically. Our relationship was always more that of an uncle and niece. I’m old enough to be her father. Gustave was often busy. One day, he had gone out and taken his wife and Cerise with him. Sophie came to see me. She wanted to take a boat down the river to Sicktree, the nearest town. Her mother’s birthday was coming up, and she wanted to sell some wine and buy her a gift.”

Telling the story was like cutting open the old wound deep inside him. He was surprised it still hurt that much, after so many years. “Celeste, my second cousin, was going with her. I didn’t see the harm in it. Celeste was a capable young woman and a good shot. In the Mire, everybody knows everybody, and our family had a dangerous reputation. Nobody except for the feuding family would dare to bother them, and our feud had cooled to a smolder. I told them to go ahead.

“About twenty minutes out, a group of slavers found them. They put a bullet into Celeste’s head. She pitched into the water, and Sophie went in after her. When Sophie broke the surface, the slavers hit her over the head with an oar and hauled her into their boat.”

Charlotte moved closer to him, wrapping her fingers around his.

“Slavers were unheard of in the Mire. The border with Louisiana is the only place they could enter, and it’s guarded too tightly. Someone on the Dukedom’s side had to have let the slavers in for that raid. We never found out who or why. The girls didn’t come home, and that evening, we went out on the river and found Celeste’s body. We began combing the swamp, but we had no idea who had taken Sophie or why.”

“Where did they take her?” Charlotte asked.

“To a hole in the woods. They wanted children, specifically. They put her into a hole in the ground. Sophie said on the second day a man climbed down to visit her. He groped her and tried to rip off her clothes.”

Charlotte’s eyes shone with outrage.

“Sophie can flash. She’s properly trained like most of us. Her training wasn’t complete then, but she defended herself. She flashed through the man’s eyes and killed him. In punishment, they stopped feeding her or giving her water. It took us eight days to find her. I remember that camp like I saw it yesterday. Half-flooded holes, starving children, some dead, some dying. We slaughtered the slavers. I got into the hole to pull Sophie out. I stood on the slaver’s corpse to lift her. Some of him was missing.”

“Dawn Mother, did she eat him?”

“I don’t know. I never asked. She didn’t know when we would be coming for her, and she did what she had to to survive. But she was never the same. First, she stopped brushing her hair. Then she stopped wearing nice clothes. She decided that she didn’t like her name and she wanted to be called Lark. She spent most of her time in the woods and stopped talking. She would hunt small game or just find carrion and hang it on a tree in the forest because she was convinced that she was a monster, and we would run her off into the woods to fend for herself.”

Charlotte sat up. “Did you get her help?”

“There are no healing colleges in the Mire,” he said. “Every time I tried to speak to her, she would run away as if I were one of them. One of my cousins is a physician. Not like you, but she is talented in her own way. She examined Sophie several times. There was nothing physically wrong with her. But Sophie was always close to her mother, and as long as some connection between her and her family remained, I thought that, given time, she would slowly heal. But the Hand came calling.”

“The Louisiana spies?” Charlotte’s eyes widened.

“They wanted something our family had. Do you recall the exile I mentioned? Vernard?”

“Yes.”

“His last name was Dubois. Does it mean anything to you?”

Charlotte frowned. “Vernard Dubois was a celebrated medical scientist in the Dukedom of Louisiana a few decades before my time. I’ve read some of his work—he con-centrated on applied medical botany. Contrary to what some people think, the College healers don’t just limit their medical education to the use of magic. We study pharmacology, herbology, and other disciplines just like any other medical . . . I’m rambling. Was he the same man?”

“Yes. He’s Sophie’s grandfather.”

Charlotte blinked.

“Louisiana exiled him into the Mire because he had crossed the line into the forbidden territory of magic alteration.”

“That’s rich.” Charlotte snorted. “They turn their spies into magic monstrosities. You wouldn’t believe some of the things they do to the human body.”

“I would,” he told her. “I’ve killed many of them.”

She leaned over and brushed a kiss on his lips. “What does Dubois have to do with all of this?”

“He built a device. He meant it to be a healing apparatus, but instead it turned the human body into an indestructible monster. The Hand wanted it. Louisiana sent a unit of their magically altered spies into the Mire led by a man who calls himself Spider. They kidnapped Sophie’s parents. It cost us two-thirds of our family, but we wiped them out.”

“Sophie’s parents?”

“Spider fused her mother.”

Shock slapped Charlotte’s face. That’s how Richard had reacted when he first found out. The process of fusion melded human tissue to that of plant, creating a symbiotic entity with all of the memories of the human being but none of the will. Irreversible and agonizing, it had robbed both Cerise and Sophie of their mother.

“Gustave survived,” he said. “So Sophie has one parent. When the Mirror relocated our family to Adrianglia, I hoped she would leave Lark behind. She traded rags for dresses, and now she takes etiquette lessons. The rest of the time she trains.”

“With her sword?” Charlotte guessed. She was beginning to get an idea of how their family worked.

Richard nodded. “I’ve never seen her level of dedication. She practices constantly. Three years ago, she had no interest in it. If you asked me back then, I would’ve told you she would be a mediocre fighter at best. Today, I’m running out of things I can teach her. She developed the killer instinct, she’s ruthless, and I worry about her lack of restraint. Something drives her.”

“Do you think she wants to go after slavers?”

“I don’t know. I told you about my brother. I have, had, another, our half brother Erian. He was just a child when my father died. He was standing right next to him. It irreparably damaged him. He hid it for years, but eventually his hatred consumed him. I don’t want that for her.”

“You think that by killing the slavers you can heal her?” Charlotte asked.

“No. But I can spare her the need to take revenge herself. She’s a good fighter, but she’s still a child. If she goes after the slavers, she will die. Even if she doesn’t, seeking vengeance will damage her more. Slavery is an aberration. It shouldn’t exist in our time, yet it does, and I decided I won’t permit it. I can’t stop it on the entire continent, but I will stop it here in Adrianglia. Sophie will never have to see what I saw. I won’t let their atrocities scar her any further.” His voice degenerated into a snarl. He caught himself. “I let her go on that boat. I was the one who said, ‘I don’t see any harm in it. Go ahead.’”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that it happened.”

“Richard, it’s not your fault. It’s not her fault either. I can take her to Lady Augustine. She is my surrogate mother at Ganer College. She’s a mind soother, and she’s as good at healing the soul as I am at healing the body. If anyone can assist Sophie, she can, and she will.”

“I’m not certain she wants help.” It wasn’t their way. One didn’t rely on strangers.

Charlotte raised her arms. “Of course she doesn’t want help. None of us want help when we’re fifteen and the world has victimized us. That’s why we have adults in our lives who make that decision for us. She may not want it, but she needs it. Promise me that once we’re done, one way or the other, you will take her to the College. If neither of us survives, her sister or Rose should make sure she visits there. I will write a letter. If you take it with you, Lady Augustine will see you. Promise me?”

“I promise,” Richard said.

“I’ll hold you to it.”

A sad whine echoed through the house.

Charlotte blinked. “Is that the dog?”

“Couldn’t be. We left him with the boys.” Richard slid off the bed. “I’ll be right back.”

He went down the ladder and opened the door. A black shape shot by him, smelling of wet fur and dripping rainwater.

“I thought I was rid of you,” he growled.

The dog shook, causing the fire pit to hiss.

“He’s decided he’s ours,” Charlotte called from the loft.

Richard took the towel she had left on the couch and spread it down for the dog. The big mutt flopped on it.

Richard climbed back up the stairs, stretched out on the bed, and pulled her closer. “Your turn.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Tell me why you wanted to kill your ex-husband.”

Charlotte turned on her back, looked at the ceiling, and sighed. “Turnabout is fair play?”

“Yes.”

“I was taken to the College when I was seven. It’s the only life I knew until I was twenty-seven years old. I’ve read books about adventures and love. I flirted. I even made out with boys.”

“Shocking.”

“Oh, it was. In the last years of my being there, I couldn’t wait to escape. I was going to travel. I would have all the adventures I could possibly want.” She sighed again. “At twenty-seven, I received my land grant, my house, and my noble title for my decade of service. I moved in, and soon I realized that I had no idea how big the world really was. I was going to travel, I really was, but the house needed work and the garden needed to be tended, and there were good books . . .”

She made big eyes at him.

“You were scared,” he guessed.

She nodded. “I had all the training and confidence I would ever need, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything with it. And then Elvei Leremine walked into my life. He was a blueblood, flawless, handsome . . .”

“I hate him already,” he said.

Charlotte smiled, a sad parting of lips without humor. “I was besotted with the idea of falling in love and having a family. Here was my prince, so considerate, so together. The whole thing seemed like a perfect shortcut to happiness. Instead of combing through men and dealing with rejection, I found the ideal husband right away, and I married him because I was so utterly stupid. He stood in line to inherit his family’s lands, but until then we decided it would be best if he came to live with me. He started speaking of children right away. We tried for six months, and he grew more and more alarmed when I didn’t conceive. Then, finally, I went to be diagnosed. For another year and a half I denied the inevitable. I went to the best healers I knew. I underwent procedure after procedure—the memories still give me nightmares. I refused to give up. I was always taught that if you strive hard enough, you will achieve what you desire. I’d read all those romantic books, where a woman can’t conceive, then she meets the right man, and the power of love or his magic virility or what have you overcomes her problems, and she has gorgeous triplets. My magic cure was just around the corner, I was sure of it.”

She turned to look at him. “I’m barren, Richard. Irreversibly. I will never have a child. There is no cure.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She hesitated. “Does it matter to you? I can never give you a child.”

She was thinking of staying with him. Don’t read too much into it, he warned himself. They came from completely different worlds. She was a blueblood, and he was a fraud, with hardly anything to his name.

“There are sixteen adults in my family, all that remains of over fifty, and almost twenty children, most of them with one dead parent or both,” he told her. “I have many children to take care of. My worth isn’t tied to having one specifically my own.”

Charlotte sighed and caressed his cheek. Her finger traced his lips. “Funny, had you asked me that before I’d married Elvei, I would’ve told you the same thing. But somehow the quest to have a child became the most important thing in my life. I felt deficient. Almost as if I were somehow not female if I couldn’t conceive. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I realized that Elvei required a child so he could inherit the family estate. He was in competition with his younger brother, and he was trying to race to the finish line and produce a bouncing baby to claim his land, house, and leadership of the family with it.”

“He sounds like an idiot.” Who the hell would care about the lands and house when he had her?

Charlotte gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I was very naive. And my blinders were firmly in place. Elvei was always attentive. He came with me on some of my procedures. This journey toward getting a child was something we took together. It was a quest we had in common, and I thought it would bring us closer. Really, we were both at fault. He should’ve made his position clear before the wedding, and I shouldn’t have mistaken his courtesy and attention for love. I think it took a toll on him as well. He’d grown obsessive. We had to have sex in a specific position because someone had told him it was most likely to result in conception. He’d help me chart my ovulation. It was a kind of insanity that took over both of us. Looking back at it, all of that seems . . . creepy.”

Richard stared at her, speechless. Her husband was an ass. He wanted to find him and skin him alive. Saying it out loud, however, probably wasn’t the best strategy.

“In the end, when all options were exhausted, I came to him with the news. I had expected him to hug me and tell me it would all be fine and that he loved me anyway. He presented me with an annulment.”

Charlotte laughed bitterly. “My world had collapsed. I wanted to hurt him, and I almost did. I came this close.” She held her index finger and thumb a hair apart.

“What stopped you?” he asked.

“It was wrong,” she said simply. “I was a healer. I was meant to heal people, not to hurt them because they crushed my heart.”

And that’s why she would always be the ray of light in his darkness. He had to hold on to her. He couldn’t let her go. He had to not screw this up.

Charlotte closed her eyes. “We, the healers, have two sides to our power: one prolongs life, the other cuts it short. We’re conditioned to use only one. It’s repeated so often, you have it chiseled in your mind by the time you reach your teens: do no harm. Healing is hard work. You feel the magic leaving you. But doing harm is easy. You feel powerful and strong. It’s almost euphoric. You don’t realize how much magic you’ve spent until it’s gone, and you collapse dramatically and make a complete fool of yourself.”

“You may swoon as you wish. I’ll always be there to catch you.”

She laughed.

He grinned.

Charlotte turned on her side and looked at him. “Two things can happen when a healer stops being a healer. One, they drain themselves of all of their magic and die. And two . . .”

She hesitated.

“Two?” Richard prompted.

“They become a walking plague. They spend their magic, realize they require more, and began to feed on those around them, converting other lives into fuel for further killing. They cease to become human. The first time I killed, when I infected Voshak and his slavers, I wasn’t sure I had enough power to kill them all. So I fed on them. You have no idea how wonderful it felt.”

Her voice shook.

“You’re terrified of it,” he guessed. Alarm wailed in the back of his head. He was certain he read an article describing something very similar a few years back. The book claimed it was a death sentence to the magic user.

“Yes. Since then I haven’t done it. Once you start, the temptation to keep going is too strong. In the bookkeeper’s mansion, when I was near my limit, I felt you. I could sense your life force. It made me hungry.” She touched his face. “Are you scared?”

“No.” He wasn’t afraid of her; he was afraid for her.

She cleared her throat. Her voice was quiet. “Some people think they are better than others at what they do. I don’t think, I know. I’m the most powerful healer of my generation. I wouldn’t become a plaguebringer, I would unleash a pandemic on this world. I’d become a living death. I would rather spend all of my magic and die than kill thousands of people.”

She closed her eyes. “I shouldn’t have ever done it. You have to understand, back at the clearing I saw you in the cage, battered and bruised, and they were lounging about as if they were on some picnic. It made me so angry. Draining them seemed like the only way, and I did it. I knew the risks, I just didn’t realize how strong the pull of the magic is.”

“You were in shock,” he told her. “Trust me, I was there. I saw your face.”

“It’s not an excuse. A lot of healers disappear after a few years. I always thought it was because they burn out. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they succumb instead and have to be put down like rabid dogs.”

“Stop,” he said. “Don’t do this to yourself. You won’t be put down. I won’t let anyone touch you.”

“Richard, if I ever lose myself, you have to stop me.” Her lips touched his, warm and pliant, and he savored her taste. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but promise me.”

Something inside him went dead and cold at the thought. “I’ll take care of it.”

He would do it because she asked him. At the very least, he would try. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him, wishing he could protect her from everything, wishing he could keep her safe. Men, creatures, beasts, he could end them. But how could one fight magic? He couldn’t cut it, he couldn’t kill it, and if it took Charlotte from him, there was nothing he could do about it.

She hugged him, sliding next to him. “Some twisted romance we have going here.”

He forced a smile. “I don’t know. It could be worse.”

“How?”

“We’re still fighting our war. We could simply give up.”

“We can’t give up,” she said. “If we did that, everything we have done until now would be for nothing.”

“Does it pull on you? Your magic?”

“It’s almost as if it has a life of its own. I picture it as a dark beast or a nest of snakes. Sometimes it sleeps, like now, perfectly content. And then I use it, and the beast awakens and scratches from the inside, trying to claw its way out.”

“I wish you had told me sooner.” He squeezed her closer and kissed her lips. She tasted so sweet. “I shouldn’t have asked you to kill the crew. I shouldn’t have let you get off that ship, period.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.” She smiled.

“Yes, I do. You promised to obey me.”

She rolled over and climbed on him, her face full of mischief. “And if I disobey you, mighty Sir Richard, what shall you do?”

“I have no idea. I suppose I’ll growl in a ferocious, manly way.” He put his arms behind his head. Her hair spilled over her left breast. Her right was bare, a perfect, glorious breast tipped by a small dark nipple, almost pink against her soft, pale skin.

She was so beautiful. He was amazed she let him touch her. That he had her here with him was some sort of miracle of the universe.

“You’re ogling my breasts.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course.”

She leaned over him, her locks falling around them like a shimmering curtain. Her nipples brushed his chest, cool peaks against the heat of his body. He smelled the delicate scent of citrus from her damp locks.

“Are you afraid loving me will make you weaker, Richard?” she whispered.

“No.” She had no idea how much he wanted her. If someone right now offered him a guarantee that she would stay with him in exchange for walking away from his mission, he wasn’t sure what his answer would be. You’ve fallen too hard and too fast, fool.

No, loving her didn’t make him weaker. It made him desperate.

“You’re mine,” he said, and wrapped his arms around her. “I have no intentions of letting you go.”

She smiled, a wicked sexy smile.

“I mean it,” he told her. “You can’t escape.”

The logical side of him warned that a hope of a future together would only hinder them. It would make them hesitate. It would cause them to avoid danger and abandon caution for each other’s sake. They were able to do what they had to do precisely because each of them had nothing to lose. But that wasn’t true anymore. He shut down the logic. It didn’t help.

“Maybe I don’t want to escape.” She caught his bottom lip between his teeth, pulled gently, and let go. Her eyes were luminescent. “My deadly noble swordsman.”

He was so hard, it was making him crazy.

“I want to have you again,” she whispered. “Can I have you again?”

He rolled her over on her back and pinned her down. She widened her eyes. “Oooh, I’m trapped. What will happen to me?”

He bent down, relishing the softness of her body under him. “Let me show you . . .”