by Nalini Singh
Shaking his head to erase that haunting voice that made things in his chest tear and break, he stared at Liliana, spoke in the gentle tone that made the villagers tremble. “Where’s my breakfast?” He ran the sharp tips of his gauntlet along her jaw. “I do not smell meat.”
“Your breakfast is right here,” she said, her face going white…but she didn’t back down. “And it’s quite delicious, as you’d know if you’d stop trying to terrify me.” Reaching out, she touched him, her hand curving over the black armor of his upper arm. “Please sit.”
He was so startled that anyone dared touch him, he obeyed without realizing what he was doing. When he would’ve snarled, she seduced him into silence by serving him bread studded with fruit and sprinkled with honey and sugar and…cinnamon.
This time, when the scent threatened to ensorcel him, he fought it.
Liliana laughed, the sound an invisible stroke that caressed him through the armor. “No one ever told me the Lord of the Black Castle was so stubborn.” Her father, Liliana thought, hope a jagged pulse within her, had likely not realized the indomitable will within the child this dangerous man had once been. Far more of the prince might have survived his entrapment than anyone realized—though she’d have to be careful how far she pushed him. He might have allowed her instinctive touch, but he remained the Lord of the Black Castle, powerful and lethal.
“Speak to me with respect,” he growled at her, but his lips were dusted with honey and sugar, his hair falling across his forehead. For an instant, he looked unbearably young, deliciously approachable, his mouth a treat for her to suck on.
Feeling her cheeks burn at the scandalous thought, her breasts taut points against the thin black material of the tunic, she went to pull away from the table.
A strong hand clamped down on her wrist, his palm hot and rough, the brush of the razored points extending from his gauntlet an unnamed threat. “Where is Bard?” It was a silken question.
“Outside the door,” she said, realizing he was pulling her down.
She resisted.
He compelled.
Until her lips were on a level with his.
Her heart pounded hard enough to bruise against her ribs, but she couldn’t take her eyes off those sugar-sweet lips. “My lord?” Her voice came out a croak.
His mouth curved, as if he could read her thoughts, and she held her breath, waiting to see what he would do. Right then, she had the sudden, shocking realization that she might permit him any liberty, no matter how darkly wicked, if he would only allow her to sup at those lips, to taste his mouth.
“You smell, Liliana.” He released her wrist. “You must bathe.”
Face so hot she knew she must be a dull, angry red beneath the brown of her skin, she stepped away from the table. “Bathing facilities are rather limited in the dungeon and the kitchen,” she snapped, wanting to slam the candlestick in the center of the table on his beautiful head.
He glanced at her as he bit into a pastry, and she could’ve sworn there was laughter in his gaze, but of course, the Guardian of the Abyss didn’t know how to laugh. “You remind me of a creature in the village,” he told her as he gobbled up her pastries like some greedy, ill-mannered child. “The baker keeps it as a pet, though the kitten is forever spitting and clawing at everyone she meets.”
Taunted, she was being taunted. “This spitting kitten is your cook,” she said, unable to sit back and allow him to get away with it, though no sane woman would have argued with the Lord of the Black Castle. But then, as evidenced by her sinful fantasies, she was in no way sane. “I beg you don’t forget that, or I might forget which is the salt and which the chili.”
Ignoring her threat, he waved her forward. “Pour me more chocolate—” the order of an emperor to his concubine “—then you may go and bathe.”
She really wanted to smash the teapot over his head, but she poured the luscious liquid into his cup, watched his eyes glaze over for an instant as his mind tried to drag him into the past. It was the truth she’d told. She hadn’t ensorcelled either the cinnamon or the chocolate—but some sensual memories were strong enough to act as spells on their own. “Now, may I go?”
“My lord,” he said, licking out his tongue to capture a drop of chocolate on his lip.
Her entire body hummed. “What?”
“You forgot to add ‘my lord.’”
She grit her teeth and put down the teapot with extreme care. “May I go, my lord?”
He took a sip of his chocolate, paused for a second. “No.”
“No?” Her vision was starting to blaze incandescent red.
“I haven’t finished breakfasting yet.”
Suddenly, she could see the spoiled princeling all too well—except that she was also certain there was a cackling imp riding on his shoulder at this moment. No, not a spoiled princeling at all. More akin to an adolescent boy pulling the pigtails of a girl to annoy her.
It should have been a ridiculous thought when faced with the black-armored Guardian, his hands tipped with bladed points, but this man had grown up in a cage of sorcery that had turned into a solid wall of armor. As she had never had a chance to be a child, he had never had a chance to be a boy, never had a chance to do mischief. The fact that he might be doing so now, with her—it created the beginnings of a terrible weakness inside of her, one she knew she should fight, but couldn’t.
Several long minutes later, he finally finished his meal and stood. Picking up a piece of toasted fruit bread, he closed the small distance between them. “Try it. It’s very good.”
She took it with a bad-tempered scowl, attempting to hide the vulnerability within. “I know. I made it.” Eating it though she wasn’t that hungry, having snacked as she cooked, she narrowed her eyes when he continued to loom over her. “Now what?”
“My lord.”
Oh, she just wanted to— “My lord.”
“You don’t mean it.”
Smiling because it wasn’t her imagination—he was teasing her—she finished off the bread, then dropped into a ludicrously ornate curtsy. “Oh, my lord,” she simpered, fluttering her lashes. “What would you have of this poor wee maiden?”
A rusty sound, harsh and rough. Startled she looked up—and realized the Guardian of the Abyss was laughing. He was even more magnificent than she had believed.
“Why do you stare?” he asked suddenly, stopping midlaugh.
“I didn’t know you could laugh.”
A hush fell over the room, as if the ghosts themselves were holding their breaths.
Lines formed between his brows. “I don’t remember laughing before.”
“Did you like it?”
He considered the question. “It’s a strange sensation.” Not giving her any more of an answer, he said, “Come, I’ll show you where you will bathe.”
Will, not may or even can.
Gritting her teeth against the impulse to call down nasty curses on his golden head, she followed him as he walked to the back of the great hall. Once they were through the door and in a gloomy corridor that went on to a nothingness so deep it seemed impossible that light existed, he led her up a flight of stairs barely illuminated by a small window on the landing.
“Why must it be so dark in here?” she muttered. “A maid could fall and break her neck.”
“This is the Black Castle.”
“I realize this is the gateway to the Abyss, my lord, but surely you don’t intend to harvest souls here on your staircase.”
He turned and looked at her, then at the tiny window now at her back. “I can see in the dark.”
She startled. “Can you truly?” But she knew it was no lie. How else would he hunt in the pitch-black of night?
He started up the stairs again without answering, his armor gleaming even in the muted light. Staring at it, she had another thought. “How do you bathe?”
“Mistress Liliana, you ask the most peculiar questions.” Turning, he pinned her with a darkly intrigued look. “Do you wi
sh to share a bath?”
“I meant the armor,” she said, cheeks burning. “It doesn’t come off—does it?” If it did, that meant her father had made a mistake. Please.
He paused, his hand on the railing. “It must, for I am clean.” But he didn’t sound too certain. “I don’t remember bathing, but I know I do.”
It was a puzzle, she thought, one she’d have to stick close to him to figure out. No hardship, that. And it wasn’t because the Guardian of the Abyss was a monster most beautiful. She’d seen beauty in her father’s castle—the Blood Sorcerer himself was an ugly man, but he surrounded himself with the most exquisite courtiers male and female. It had only taken a few overheard pieces of mockery, a sneer here and there, for her to learn that outward beauty was no measure of the person within.
But the Guardian—there was a strange charm to him, a wildness that was as innocent as she was not. He truly appeared to have no comprehension of the impact of his looks, trapped as he was in the Black Castle and regarded with fear by both his prey and the people of this realm, but he knew his own intelligence very well. And Liliana was discovering that a lethally fascinating mind was a temptation as sinful as those lips she wanted to lick.
“Surely you don’t wish me to expire before we get to the bathing chamber,” she said in an effort to derail the thoughts that had a sumptuous warmth uncurling low in her body. She couldn’t afford to feel anything for him, for even though he would never look at her the same, that way lay distraction and failure. Her task was to awaken and return him to Elden so that his kingdom could breathe again, its people no longer crushed under the steel boot of the Blood Sorcerer’s brutal reign.
“So weak, Mistress Liliana?” Stopping at the top of the staircase, he held out a hand, his green eyes intent. “Come.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
HER HAND WAS HALFWAY TO his when she pulled it back, suddenly afraid that he’d sense her tainted blood. “I’m dirty, my lord. You said it yourself.”
His hand curled into a fist even as his eyes darkened to black. Turning, he pushed open a door and she had the terrible feeling she’d wounded him. That could not be. For she was a hook-nosed, raw-boned, ungainly thing. What man would be offended that she didn’t take his hand?
But he is ensorcelled, whispered another part of her mind. He hasn’t known friendship or love, or the touch of a woman’s softness.
Liliana was the last person to teach anyone those things, but even she’d had the friendship of the cook as a child. She was starting to fear that the Lord of the Black Castle had had no one. Biting her lip, she walked into the room to see him staring out the window, his back to her. “In there.” He pointed to his right.
Peeking in, she saw a stone pool filled with cool, clear water, a bar of soap set on the edge beside a thick towel. When she sniffed the soap, she smelled the freshness of herbs, the scent sweet, the softness of the soap a luxury. Eager to begin, she dipped her finger into the water and winced…had an idea.
“The water is very cold,” she said, stepping to the doorway. “I shall shrivel away to nothing.”
He said nothing.
Taking a deep breath and hoping she wasn’t about to humiliate herself, she crossed to him and very carefully placed her hand on his back, just below his shoulder blade, shocked at the warmth she sensed in the armor. It had been cold before, she was certain, but now it seemed to pulse with life, as if it was an extension of his skin. “Please, my lord. Will you not use your magic to heat it for me?”
She could’ve used her own, but that might give away her identity as a blood sorceress—and he was a Prince of Elden. He had incredible power within his own body, beyond anything that had been bequeathed him when he took on the mantle of the Guardian of the Abyss.
A slight shift of his head, as if he was considering her request, his hair shining golden in the light pouring in through the window. A sly look slid across his features. “You will tell me a tale while you are in your bath.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “My lord, that is unacceptable.”
Turning, he stared at her with eyes as curious as a cat’s—and once more as green. “Why?”
“Well—” He confused her, this man with his intelligence and his darkness and his wild innocence. “I can’t tell a tale naked!” she said at last.
He shrugged those shoulders covered by armor that had become living skin. “The water will protect you.” With that, he walked into the bathing chamber.
By the time she managed to break out of her stunned shock and follow, steam was rising from the surface of the huge bath, the Lord of the Black Castle standing there with a small, pleased smile on his face.
She found her own lips curving. “I can’t wait to bathe properly.” Her entire body tingled in anticipation.
When the big, deadly man beside her didn’t move, she folded her arms. “I will tell you a tale, but I won’t disrobe in front of you.”
A short, taut silence before his expression changed, the smile whispering away to be replaced by something hotter, not the least bit innocent. All of a sudden, he was no longer the dread lord, but simply a man, one who was looking at her in a way no man had ever before done.
It closed up her throat, caused butterflies to awaken in her stomach, made her blood run hot, then cold…but though her father often called her such, Liliana wasn’t stupid. She knew she wasn’t a woman men desired. However, the sorcerers who coveted her father’s patronage had tried to make her believe they saw her that way, though they were revolted by her all the while.
She’d seen the shivers of disgust they couldn’t hide, the smirks when they thought her back was turned. But those men hadn’t hurt her. Her heart had already been so bruised by then that it felt little of their insults. Nothing they could do would ever compare to her father’s cruelty.
“Perhaps you are my curse.” Laughing as he made her stand in front of him, a young, fragile-hearted girl of twelve. “I lay with the most beautiful woman in the kingdoms and sired the ugliest creature ever born. Yes, perhaps you are the punishment for my sins.”
Another day, another year.
“Come, daughter, you’re not afraid to help your father?”
“Father, no, I—”
“Are you scared the magic will damage your face?”
“The acid—” Screaming, because he’d reached out and broken her nose with a single twist.
“There,” he said with a nasty smile while she tried to staunch the blood using her apron. “It will heal back as ugly as always, but now you don’t have to worry about the threat of pain.”
“Liliana.”
A deep male voice, not her father’s, not hurting and vicious and—
“Liliana.” Impatience colored her name this time, breaking through the haze of memory.
Snapping up her head, she looked into winter-green eyes that said they’d very much like to see her naked. Heat seared her veins, but she dampened the simmering burn with cold practicality. This man wasn’t like the others, didn’t intend to humiliate her—but, given his life in the Black Castle, he was unlikely to have come into contact with many women. It was unsurprising that even the ugliest girl in all the kingdoms had managed to capture his attention.
“I said I won’t disrobe in front of you.” She kept her arms crossed, hiding the tight points of her nipples, mortified by her reaction.
His scowl covered his face as he mirrored her action. “I am the Lord of the Black Castle. You are my servant.” A raised eyebrow. “Though you are also my prisoner.”
“Does Bard bathe naked in front of you?”
“I don’t wish Bard to bathe naked in front of me.”
She glared, knowing if she gave in now, it was all over. To return him to Elden, she had to challenge him, awaken him. “No tale.”
“You’ll tell me a tale or you’ll starve in the dungeons.”
“Fine.”
A growl. An actual growl, one that scraped over every inch of her skin. Then he turned on hi
s heel and gave her his back. “Two minutes.”
“You don’t think I’ll actually start disrob—”
“A quarter less than two minutes.”
“It has been but a second!” Realizing he was going to cheat, she ripped off her clothing—including the underwear she’d laundered yesterday—with such furious speed that she heard something tear, and scrambled into the bath. Water sloshed over the side just as he turned.
His disappointment was open. “The steam hides you very well.”
“Yes,” she said, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. “It does.”
“Next time, I won’t make the water as hot.” Walking over, he picked up her clothes. Then he proceeded to stare at them, paying particular attention to her underthings.
“What,” she managed to get out through her mortification, “are you doing?”
“Looking.” A scowl. “I don’t like these.” To her shock, he proceeded to tear the tunic and tights, her underthings, into small strips. “You may keep the boots.”
“Stop!” She reached out over the edge of the bath, but he continued on in his methodical destruction even when her fingers brushed the black stone of his armor. All too soon, her clothes were reduced to a pile of rags that he pushed into a corner with his own boot.
Wanting to cry, she glared at him instead. “What am I supposed to wear?” She’d soaked her dress in an effort to remove the bloodstains, and it was still wet.
“Tell me a tale and I’ll steal you a dress.”
She didn’t know whether he was serious—about either part of his statement—but she knew he had her exactly where he wanted her. That would teach her to fence with the Guardian of the Abyss. Blowing out a breath, she drew deeper into the bath and ducked her head under the water to clear her mind, wet her hair. When she rose back out, she made a startled, undignified sound.
He was crouching with his arms on the edge of the bath, so close that she could’ve leaned over and caressed his face with her lips— Oh, dear. Swallowing the insane urges that told her to react to him as a woman reacted to a man who looked at her as if she were some particularly delicious treat, she pushed herself through the water until her back hit the wall.