Shana Abe: The Treasure Keeper

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 an us for approximately twelve hours," she said. "A bit too soon to become maudlin, don't you think?"

"There has been an us 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."

"Not by me," he said.

She pushed the cook's gown from her lap. She uncrossed her legs and slid off the bed, walking toward the door, veering to the mirror, touching a hand to the sheet that still covered it.

She would have sworn she could hear the chorus of voices swell from behind it. Could see the darkness shifting, small lights drawn into coronas around the tips of her fingers.

Rhys had managed to come up behind her without noise. He touched his hands to her waist, lightly, diffidently. She felt his head bend to hers, his exhalation at her temple.

He did not speak. He moved his lips to her hair. She turned in the circle of his arms and met his gaze.

He was wild and not, a green reflection of the woods, of home, and not. Because he was here too, he was a shadow creature tortured into the light, and he gazed at her with such a sober wild clarity it sent quivers of awareness crawling all along her skin.

"You should stay here," she managed, her voice a thread as small as those from the apron. "No."

Her fingers had found his own waist; she had changed into the salmon-pink satin but he still wore no shirt, only those breeches, torn and knotted, because she hadn't had the courage to go into Hayden's portmanteau and get him anything else.

His skin burned her. He was hot, very hot, still too slim. He felt as if he were a man cut from paper, so brittle and impermanent as if he might flame to ash at any moment. Wintry cold or sizzling heat, there was never anything temperate about Rhys Langford. His passions ruled him. He'd decided that this was love, and Zoe knew he'd never change his mind. She would be the one for him for the rest of their lives . however long that might be.