Page 50 of Lady of Darkness

“Callan, you have no idea what I risked coming here tonight,” Scarlett interrupted quietly. “Coming back will be nearly impossible.”

“Tell me,” he argued. “Tell me what is keeping you from me. I know you did not just stop coming of your own accord.”

“You don’t know that,” Scarlett snapped back, her tone harsh.

“Tell me that then,” he replied. “Tell me you suddenly decided that being my friend, being more than that, was no longer something you desired.”

“I told you,” she cried. “I told you tonight would change nothing. I told you this is not what I came for.”

“And I told you I did not care.” He took her face in his hands.“Tell me what happened a year ago, Scarlett. Tell me, and I will take care of it.”

Scarlett closed her eyes, making herself breathe in and out. In and out. She hadn’t realized tears were slipping down her cheeks until she felt him kissing them away. Then he pressed those salty lips to her own.

My safety is not your priority. She could hear Nuri’s words rolling over and over in her mind, like waves crashing onto the shore. She took a deep breath. “You will have to come to me,” she sighed. “Until we…take care of some things. I cannot risk being at the castle again anytime soon.”

“You did not let me finish my conditions,” he answered with a sly grin.

“There’s more?” Scarlett asked, raising her brows.

“You must spend the rest of tonight here, right beside me, and when you leave in the morning, do not slip out in the shadows. Say goodbye like a proper person.”

“I must go take my tonic, Callan. You know this,” she answered.

Callan pulled her onto his lap and began kissing up her neck, nibbling at her ear. “I also know,” he breathed into her ear, “that you brought your tonic with you.”

He was right. She had known this was a very real possibility and had come prepared. She’d even had Sybil mix a contraceptive tonic in with her regular one. “It can’t be like last time, Callan,” she said, pulling back from his kisses. “You can’t bring it up at council meetings. That approach, how we tried last time, that’s what set this whole mess into motion. No one can know you’re looking into it.”

“How am I supposed to learn anything then?” he asked, confusion on his face.

She gently pushed him back onto his pillows and hovered over him. “You’re clever, Prince. I’m sure you’ll think of something.” She brought her lips to his chest and began kissing her own way up to his neck.

He groaned low in his throat as her hands roamed down, and she continued to kiss up. “You really are quite persuasive,” he ground out.

“Oh, I know, your Highness,” she murmured, her lips finally finding his again. In a heartbeat, Callan had rolled and flipped her underneath him, and she pushed that self-hatred for what she was doing to him down, down, down as she let herself out of that cage she’d been shoved into.

Scarlett was dressed and standing before an open window, surveying the guards patrolling below. Maximus would be waiting for her with a horse around the corner. She just had to get there. She’d stayed as long as she could, but she was quickly losing darkness as dawn approached. She heard blankets and sheets rustling as Callan slipped into a pair of loose pants and came up behind her.

“We had a deal, you know,” he said, kissing her just below her ear.

“I wasn’t leaving quite yet,” she replied, elbowing him playfully in the ribs. “Just…getting the layout. It’s been a while.”

“Too damn long,” he said, his voice cold, and she stiffened against him.

“When you learn something, send word, and we will figure out a way for you to come to me undetected,” she said, closing her eyes as she leaned her head back against his chest. “Don’t tell anyone. Don’t involve anyone else, not even Finn or Sloan. We don’t know who to trust.”

She felt his hands on her hips, gently rotating her to face him. His hair was rumpled from their activities of the night and from the sleep they did get after she’d taken her tonic. “Stay,” he whispered, those hazel eyes imploring her. “Stay with me. We will figure the rest out.”

“Callan, I can’t. You know I can’t,” she answered sadly, bringing her hand to his cheek. “This. Us—”

“Do not say it,” he said, interrupting her and shaking his head. “Do not finish what you are about to say.”

“Callan—”

But then he was kissing her with an urgency that said he knew it could very well be the last time he did so.

She pulled back. She had to go. Now. Pulling her hood up over her re-braided hair, she whispered, “Goodbye, Callan.”

She was out the window faster than an alley cat, but not fast enough to escape the words that came from his lips.

---