Shadowheart (23 page)

He passed from her sight above. She forced her aching legs to mount the stairs. Her knees were trembling by the time she climbed past the beams that supported the upper floor. She expected to emerge into a guard room, or outside, but instead there was a tiny landing, with no protection from the giddy drop, and another door: bronze again, embellished with the dogs and sheep and bear.

He waited beside it, looking at her expectantly. Elayne leaned her hand against the wall, still panting from the climb as she repeated the secret pattern. This time she made it work. The lock made a familiar sound, and the panels slid open smoothly. She turned the latch. The door swung full open on silent hinges.

Rich colors caught her eye, and a flutter of motion as birds took off, shadows on the outside of the shuttered windows. There was a great bed hung about with red-and-gold damask. A soft, fringed carpet beckoned her bare feet. A large chest and a throne-like chair and stool, a cupboard— even a mirror the size of a woman’s face, framed in a gilded sunburst and hung on the frescoed wall.

“Hold,” he said, catching her arm before she could enter. “Let me make certain of it.”

With a quick move he sent one of his daggers spinning across the chamber. It stuck hard in the window shutter, rattling the wood. He stepped inside the door and looked up, running his hand all along the frame. Then he made a slow circuit of the room, his other knife at ready, as if some attacker might spring from the walls.

He reached the far window and pulled his dagger from the wood.

“You are sure that the galley sailed as we left Venice,” he said. “One day and half another past now?”

She wet her lips and nodded.

“Come in,” he said. “We’ll be safe here. Use the bed, but touch nothing else. I’ll return as soon as I’ve seen Gerolamo.”

Safe here. He said so. As the door closed behind him, she dropped her boots and went straight to the bed. She climbed onto it and fell back against the pillows with a great sigh, asleep almost before she let her eyes fall closed.

* * *

Elayne awoke with a sneeze. In the first moments of fathoming where she was, she saw half-open shutters with a sky glowing vivid blue beyond. The doves cooed and rustled on the sill. She lifted her head from the pillow. Dust motes made her sneeze again.

There was a startled move beside her. She looked around as the pirate rolled upright in the bed, hand reaching for his dagger. For one perilous instant he stared at her, a stranger with murder in his grip, and then his hand relaxed and he made a groan, turning over into the pillows.

His face was not so swollen, but colored now in shades of blue and violet and green that would have done justice to an artist’s palette. Dried smears of blood still marked his nose and jaw.

“I loathe horses,” he said, half-muffled in the pillow.

Elayne sat up. She smiled wryly. “They served us full well,” she said. “I hope your man took good care with them.”

“Aye, I told him all you said to do.” He turned on his back with a stiffness unnatural to him. “My own servants don’t get better treatment.”

“That palfrey is a rare animal,” she said, crossing her legs carefully. She was a little sore herself. “I’ve never seen a finer pacer.”

“It is yours, then, and welcome.” His gaze drifted down to her lap. “God knows I hope never to mount the vicious beast again.”

She felt herself flush at the way he observed her. She moved quickly to close her legs and rearrange her skirt over the rumpled damask bedcovering. “We are not to ride further? Is this Val d’Avina?”

“Nay, d’Avina is leagues from here yet. But we will go by the lake, when Gerolamo arranges for it. Until then, we wait here. We have two days of grace, if I told Zafer what I meant to tell him.”

“You do not remember still?”

He stared at the bed canopy. He squinted, as if he were looking far into the distance, and then shook his head. “It is maddening!” he said. “I recall the wine with Morosini… then nothing. Nothing after. I know what I intended—we can only pray God that is what was arranged. But I thought they would expect us here, and they did not.”

Elayne slid from the bed and curled her toes in the rich carpet. She went to the window, pushing the shutters full open. The setting sun blazed just above the mountaintops. The air was so clear that she could pick out valleys and deep ravines on the far side of the lake, miles away. Angled shafts of golden light played through parting clouds and onto the water, like a perfect vision of Paradise. “What is this place?” she asked in wonder. “Is it yours?”

He laughed, a bitter sound. “Ask that of the Riata.”

She looked back at him. He sat propped up in the great bed, a lithe shadow in the richly appointed room. It was clearly the residence of a wealthy man, but there was an air of austerity to it, a graceful simplicity, as if the owner had chosen the finest of each thing he wished to have, and no more.

“This chamber was not violated,” she said.

“Aye. We kept some secrets, it seems.” He scanned the room with a cool glance. “I’ve never been in it before. It was one of my father’s chambers.”

She remembered that he was a bastard son. He had called Gian Navona a devil; he had said that his father had tried to drown him for disloyalty. She looked at the room and its furnishings with a new perception, but still they only seemed to speak of subtle elegance, not evil.

“It is not what I would have expected,” she said.

“Did you imagine a torture chamber? He did not like blood on his own hands.” The pirate rose suddenly, swinging his long legs off the bed. He walked to the mirror and peered into it. “Mary, look at me!” he exclaimed with a harsh laugh. “He would have been revolted. And I cannot even remember a simple assignation! Forgive me, my sweet sire. Have mercy. Don’t kill me in my sleep.”

He stared at himself for a long moment. The late afternoon shadows made a dim reflection of his face, a rippled distortion in the mirror.

“Don’t kill me,” he whispered.

Elayne stood up straight. “Your father is dead,” she said firmly.

He closed his eyes, his lashes trembling, and blinked them open.

“Yes,” he said. He took a breath. “Yes. I brought him back and buried him in the duomo at Monteverde. Haps I’ll take you there, hellcat, in time—and you can light a candle to keep him dead.”

For once, she did not object to his name for her. “Do you fear a mortal man’s memory? You told me that you could keep your wits in the face of any fell thing.”

“Did I!” He turned from the mirror. “I must have neglected to mention my father.” He looked about the chamber. “We should be cautious here. There will be things even I don’t know.”

“You are ever comforting! What things?”

He reached out and touched the sunburst frame around the mirror, running his fingers along each gilded tip. “There,” he said, holding his forefinger behind the frame. He tilted his head toward the bed. “Watch.”

As she glanced toward the bed, there was a snapping sound and a flash of motion from the canopy. A needle the length of her hand stood buried in the bedclothes where the pirate had been lying. It wavered for an instant and then toppled.

“The poison will have long since lost effect,” he said. “But it would hurt.”

Elayne put her hands over her face and sighed through her fingers. “Do you know what is unspeakable?” she said, drawing her palms down and looking at him over her fingertips.

“My murderous family?” he asked lightly. “Or my murderous self?”

“I am not even discomfited anymore.”

He smiled in the gathering gloom, as if it pleased him. “I’ll disarm everything. I know my father’s mind well enough to find what is here.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Close the shutters now. We want no sharp-eyed fisherman to notice such a change.” He nodded toward a large sack that lay upon one of the chests. “There is meat to break fast, if you want it,” he said. “And then we will go down to bathe.” His lip curled. “I cannot bear myself. I reek of horse.”

“Is it safe here?” Elayne asked, looking down the little beach in the last of the silvered light. Rosemary and citron trees grew along the base of the castle walls, and even palms, a strange sight against the dark background of snowcapped mountains.

He paused, holding a pair of robes he’d taken from his father’s chest over his arm. “You are learning to ask,” he said, with approval. He moved ahead without giving an answer to her question, barefooted still, a soft shadow in the dusk. They followed a faint path that wound between the water and the castle walls. As he passed by one of the citron trees, he yanked down three of the yellow fruits from a low-hanging branch and carried them in his palm.

The air was warm even as the sun set across the lake, but the water looked chill. Elayne carried a linen bag with soap of olive oil and herbs. She could smell the faint heavy scent of it, mingling with the rosemary, as familiar as Cara’s coffer where she stored her Italian treasures.

Beyond the castle, a row of arches stood, black silhouettes against the day-glow. He led her along the ancient pillars that lined the shore. The lake seemed to be all around them now, at the farthest end of the peninsula. A faint white mist rose from the water ahead, a citron-scented haze that drifted through the trees.

There were steps carved into the rock. In the fading light she followed him down to a bathing grotto. Antique columns and marble tiles formed a spacious vault, the clear blue water reflecting and shimmering against pale stone. Wild rosemary bushes grew among blocks of stone and broken friezes. The trunk of a huge olive tree overhung the entrance, its twisted branches and silvery leaves shielding the grotto from the lake. Steam rose from the smooth surface, drifting and vanishing into the evening air.

The pirate dropped his burden onto the carved and fluted capstone of some ancient fallen column. Without hesitation he released his waist-belt and laid it out over the flat shelf edge, with the daggers’ hilts turned toward the water. He pulled the loose volume of his doublet and cape over his head, tossing them aside, revealing vambrace guards of leather and metal strapped to his forearms, and another knife sheathed along the inner side. He turned his fist up and unbuckled the straps.

While she stood wide-eyed on the last step, he untied his hair and released his breechcloth. His back was to her as he stood for a moment, then lowered himself with a soft groan and a stiff move to sit naked on the edge, his bared arms and chest and loins awash with shadowy blue light—flawless, each muscle and limb formed in perfect harmony, the skin of his back and shoulders smooth and unscarred under the black fall of his hair. He paused only an instant, watching the steam, and then slid into the water.

He went fully under in the purple depths, and then rose like some lost water god, sending waves and ripples to the walls as he shook back his head and swept his hands over his face and hair.

He caught the shelf with one hand, turning to her. His blackened eye gave his face a strange asymmetry in the failing light, as if half of a pagan mask had been painted upon his temple. He tilted back his head and opened his arms on the steamy water with a fierce sound of pleasure.

“Heaven,” he said, with the vapor rising around him, his voice echoing in the vault. He looked toward her, unsmiling. “Come join me. This is as close as I will ever come to it.”

She stood frozen on the stair, clutching the linen bag. It was not fear or shame that held her. It was not modesty or shyness. If she could have claimed even an ounce of shame, she would never have followed him here.

She turned away, to hide her face, to compose herself. The vision of him standing for that one moment on the open shelf was like a revelation. She had not seen him so since that first night. The pure, unbridled force of her will to join him and wound him and sink down in that dark combat with him again caught her breathless, like a blow to her chest. This place, this pagan place, haunted by ancient columns and arches that no Christian hand had raised—he seemed a part of it, the very voice of it, calling her to the shadows with him.

She glanced back. He floated with his shoulders just above the surface of the water; the faint shade of the mark she had made on him still visible. He had sometime touched it and smiled that knowing smile at her, as if it were a sign between them. As if it were a token.

He grew still as she watched him from the ledge, returning her steady look. That memory rose before her; between them: that she had made her brand on him—that he allowed her one means to violate his guard.

One means, to put him at her mercy.

A hundred times, a thousand, she had thought of her teeth on his skin, his body shuddering with ecstasy as she marked him.

His mouth curved a little. “Hellcat,” he said, as if he were amused.

She thought distantly of Raymond. But that was so far away, another world. Not this world, where a part of herself that she had only glimpsed now sprang to vivid life.

He let himself drift backward, pushing away from the ledge. His hair spread around his chest and shoulders. There was just enough light left to see the smooth strength in his arms, the graceful line of muscle, like a fine hot-blooded animal as he stretched. He winced as he moved, opening and closing his arms, and gave a long sigh.
“Helas,
I hurt all over.”

The ache of desire swelled open in her like a flower blooming in the night. The thought of raking her hands across his wet shoulders made her dig her fingernails deep into the bar of soap through the linen bag. She moistened her lips, turning her back again.

“Do not come in, then,” he said, mocking her. “If you are afraid.”

Afraid. Oh, she was afraid.

She stepped to the water’s edge without looking at him. She knelt, skimming her hand into it. It was warm, near to hot, as if a spring from the brimstone depths of the earth fed it. Blue and purple and indigo swirled and broke with silver under her fingers.

He ducked beneath the surface. She could just barely see the length of his body, a wavering shape as he swam underwater to the far side of the vault. He came up and drew air, tossing back his hair. With a twist, he sat upon some ledge beneath the water, turning toward her, barely visible now in the darkness and steam.

With that much of distance between them, she pulled at the laces of her surcoat with trembling fingers. She hardly knew if it was dread or eagerness. She hardly knew what she intended to do until she sat down and put her feet in the water, yanking her chemise loose over her head.

She slid quickly into the warm lake, taking a block of soap with her. The depth was uneven, but smooth; her toes rested on curved surfaces of rock. The water enveloped her naked body like silk, slid against her breasts like softest velvet on her skin. She turned her back to him and ran the soap along her arm. The apple-scent of chamomile and almonds rose around her.

She bathed herself, vividly aware of her body, of every touch of the soap and the water and the smooth stone beneath her feet. Aware that he was there, watching her.

“Your hair,” he said, from close behind.

Elayne paused. Her hair was still bound up, though the water caught at loose tendrils fairing at the nape of her neck.

She turned her head a little, looking aslant. She could not see him, but she felt the water surface move and break just behind her back. Her breath, already uneven, left her completely. She lifted her chin.

“Take it down,” she said, as if he were her servant.

Her own boldness amazed her. She watched the faint steam rise, holding her breath.

“My lady,” he murmured, with a compliance that sent hot agitation surging up into her breasts.

Water splashed softly. He touched her hair, dripping warmth down onto her shoulder. With practiced skill he found the band and pins that held her braid, as if he had done such things many times before. It fell heavily onto her neck. He tossed the pins onto the dry ledge and tugged gently at her hair, unbraiding the strands as she held her place, until the loosened mass of it floated about her shoulders.

He came close behind her, took one deep breath against the side of her throat, and pushed back, floating away.

Elayne turned sharply, her hair coiling about her. “Do not,” she ordered. “Unless I wish it.”

He stilled, an arm’s length from her. She could no longer see his face clearly, only the planes and shadows of it. Her heart was beating hard. She did not know if she wanted him to contest her or obey her; it seemed as if she wanted both. She clenched her teeth as if in anger, but it was hot and melting anger, full of black desire.

“Tell me what you wish,” he murmured.

A deep thrill of excitement sank down through her. “You know what I wish. Do you know it?” It was half a question, half a cry.

His lips parted. She saw his chest rise and fall. “Tell me.”

“To give you hurt again!” she exclaimed, with a tinge of panic. “God save me.”

He made a sound like a muted growl. “Hurt me, then.”

She was panting. She turned away, in recoil from her own self. “Nay,” she breathed.

“I want it,” he whispered. “I have lived in dream of it for days.”

“Allegreto,” she said, closing her eyes.

The water swirled as he moved. “It is so sweet to hear you say my name.”

She wanted to weep and to wound him at the same time. “What is this? Is this a spell?” She let go of a sharp breath. “What is this you have done to me?”

He gave a strange laugh. When she looked again, his head was tilted back to the sky, the strong, bare column of his throat exposed to her. “Only told you the truth, for once.”

As she watched, he let himself sink below the surface. The water shifted and stirred. He rose at the far wall again and settled there, no more than a shadow, like a lonely spirit curled against the back of a cave.

“Elena …” The water and the vault brought his hushed whisper to her as if he spoke in her ear.

She leaned against the ledge, her feet finding a shallow bench, some ancient seat carved for bathers from time lost. She rested her hips on it, her hair flowing around her, tangling in her arms and encircling her waist. The longing in his voice cut her like an exquisite blade. Excitement possessed her, sharp as black polished glass. He gave her this. He wanted it.

She ran her tongue over her upper lip.

In the growing darkness the water seemed to take on its own faint glow. She could see him as he came to her, a strong movement in the depths; the sleek beast from the nightmare forest, his face awash as he broke the steaming surface. She laid her head back, hardly able to look at him for anticipation. She stared at the fading sky beyond the vault, the rising steam, her heart beating in her ears where the water washed against her.

“Allegreto,” she said.

“I am here,” he whispered.

She raised her head, her hair lying heavily on her neck and shoulders. He was very near, kneeling before her with the water to his chest. She leaned toward him, lifted her hand, and opened her fingers. She set them against the side of his face, just touching, resting gently on his injured temple. “I will not be taken again as you did before. Against my will. Do you understand that?”

He stared into her eyes, unmoving, as if her light touch held him like a leash. She pressed one fingernail into his bruised skin. His lashes flickered; she saw the instant of reaction. Then he reached beneath the water and grasped her waist, pulling her hard toward him.

“No.” She twisted away, drawing her nails violently across his cheek, scoring his injured face as she jerked free. She heard his hissed intake of breath. He let her go with a curse and a half-laugh, shaking his head back and spreading his arms with a deep shudder.

She had not intended it, to ply her fingers so hard where he was already hurt. But he said her name again, a low voice of hunger. And she felt the hunger in herself: she wanted the way he looked when she did it, the way it broke his inflexible control. The dim glow showed him under the water, full ready to mount her, but he kept his distance. They were like combatants now, circling … assessing one another.

She wet her lips again, and saw his glance fix there.

“Be still,” she commanded softly. “Do not touch me.”

He smiled, a faint curl, almost scornful. But he did not reach for her again. He drifted in the water, half-kneeling, watching her as she slipped from the bench. She did not allow her body to contact his. Instead she slid close around him, to the side. The water swirled between them, as intimate as a caress. She bent over his shoulder, not touching, letting her breath heat his skin. Her hair tangled with his.

He turned his head a little, as if he would face her.

“No,” she said, lifting her hand to his jaw, the sharp tips of her nails pressed against him in warning.

He laughed strangely, closing his eyes. A shiver ran through him.

She could feel the light roughness of new beard on his cheek, yet still his skin was smooth and hard. She let her fingers trace the elegant outline of his face. She slipped behind him, drawing his wet hair aside as she bent to the back of his neck. She pressed her fingers into his jaw, holding him as she closed her teeth softly over his nape like a she-animal in heat.

He made a low sound. She could feel a tremor grow in him, bone-deep. With her hands on either side of his face she drew his head down. She licked the skin under the dripping fall of his hair, taking cool drops on her tongue, tasting him. She felt him move; his hands came back for her, searching, as if to pull her close.

She drove her fingernails into his face and bit him hard. His back and shoulders contracted. “Do not touch me,” she said, her lips on his neck.

He was breathing roughly. He gave another laugh, short and husky, a vibration against her breasts. He could have thrown her off with one move. His daggers lay within his reach.

He opened his hands wide under the water and closed them into fists. But he did not pull away. A wave of dreadful delight suffused her, driving off all reason.

She slid her hands down his shoulders, down his arms. She caught his wrists and drew them behind his back.

“Do you understand?” she asked ruthlessly.

His fists closed hard. He had begun to tremble; she could feel it in his taut muscles where she held him with the lightest touch.

“Be still,” she murmured. She circled her fingers around his wrists, binding his hands crossed within her hold. She kissed his back and shoulders, opened her teeth against his skin. He tasted of sand and salt and water. His skin felt hot. He shook under the gentle stroke of her tongue and made a sound like a waking dreamer.

She drew away, leaving one hand resting on his crossed wrists. She stared at his bent head, his exposed neck, the taut line of his shoulders swelling as if he were truly bound. Her leopard, black and deadly and magnificent, surrendered to her will.

The first moment she had seen him, in his full power, armored with mystery and magic and command, he had seemed as perfect as any creature formed in Heaven or earth. But wounded and kneeling now in the blue-lit shadows, he was beautiful beyond comprehension.

He panted as if he had been running a far distance. “Elena,” he said, shaking his head.

I dread to be defenseless.

She could see it in every muscle of his body, in the way he closed his eyes and opened them wide, water dripping down his jaw. He could have killed her before she drew another breath. And yet she held him with her fingertips, in utter submission.

She did not free him. She kissed the nape of his neck. She slid her belly against his closed fists, deliberate taunting. In the place below, in the tips of her breasts, she was burning, all sensation.

She ran her tongue over his shoulder and leaned closer, feeling his hands work as if against bonds. The water supported her as she spread her legs and lowered herself so that his fists were against her nether curls, near the place Libushe had warned her was a woman’s greatest danger and weakness.

His hand opened against her, and she knew then it was a weakness beyond resistance. His fingers slid in where he had forced her maidenhead, probing and exciting her now. She kissed his shoulder and his throat and his ear, and closed her teeth on his earlobe. Her body moved of its own will, finding a hot pulse of delight. She was panting in his ear, pressing her breasts against his back, making little whimpers in her throat as the sensation grew toward a crest of joy.

He moved so suddenly that she cried out, breaking free in one swift twist, lifting her as he rose from the water. He kissed her, his tongue plunging deep into her mouth, driving her head back. His fingers slid down her back and into the curve of her buttocks, dragging her roughly against his thrusting cock.

Elayne tilted her head aside and kissed him greedily, drew his lower lip into her mouth and bit down until he fell to his knees again. He tore away as the water engulfed them, grinning with his teeth bared.

She laid her head back, resting lightly against his arms, her hair drifting about her. “Hellcat,” he said, his voice harsh and breaking. The muscles of his shoulders swelled beneath her palms as he sat back, cupping his hand around the nape of her neck.

Floating in his hold, she let one hand drift down to his chest. When she brushed his nipple, he drove his fingers into her hair, gripping it hard. She abandoned every wisp of shame and drew her heels up, floating, supported by the water and his arms at her back, suspended in the swell and ripple. His member slid over her, pressed hard at her opening, exposed as it was to him by the wanton position she took.