Page 40 of Enslaved

Flickering orange light illuminates her too-pale complexion, plays across her pinched features, her frozen lips. Her brow puckers. She rolls her head to one side, nuzzling against my neck. My heart twists. Is she aware of me? Does she know where she is and who holds her?

A low moan escapes her lips. The sound cuts me to the quick.

“Live, Darling,” I breathe and press my lips to the top of her head. “Live. Live to despise me. Live to torment me. Live to drive me to the very brink of madness and beyond. But live, damn you. For if you do not . . .”

I cannot finish. The words are like bitter barbs, tearing my throat. To speak more will be to cut myself, to choke, to bleed.

Instead I sit there before that blaze, rocking her gently. Holding her body even as I wish I could hold her spirit. Hold it and claim it and make it safe with me. But she feels like little more than a daydream, insubstantial, ready to fade and flit away. Lost forever in the great nothing of the Hinter.

I wake to the sound of a crackling fire.

At first I don’t move. It’s pleasant to lie there, listening to that comforting crackle, luxuriating in the heat against my skin. I feel warm again; I wasn’t sure that would ever happen. I’m wrapped in thick, soft fabric which slides sensually against my bare skin, but my feet are sticking out and rest on coarser cloth. Scents of wool and damp wood and old stone fill my nostrils.

Slowly, I open my eyes. A fireplace. I’m lying on a hearth close to a roaring blaze in an old stone fireplace. I don’t recognize this place. It isn’t home. It isn’t Vespre. It certainly isn’t Aurelis.

Something shifts behind me. I swivel my gaze to a mound of white feathers which I seem to be propped up against. With a little hiccup of my heart, I catch my breath. The Prince’s wyvern. Its delicate head rests on the end of its tail, which is curled around me, keeping me close to its warm body. It’s like cuddling up to a living eiderdown mattress.

I’m very comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, I’d prefer not to move. If I move, I’ll also start to think, and that’s the last thing I need. Best not to remember anything about the last couple of hours. Particularly those most recent hazy, heat-filled memories . . .

Aching in places I never thought could ache, I lean back against the wyvern. It purrs companionably. And why not? I suppose a dreamed-up wyvern might as well purr. I pull whatever it is I’m wearing up closer to my chin. No, not a blanket—the Prince’s coat. Closing my eyes, I draw it to my nose and breathe in the scent of him. The scent of ink and leather which never fails to comfort.

Then I frown. Cautiously, I open the front of the coat and peer down. Gods on high! I’m wearing nothing but a delicate pair of lacy drawers, still damp and clinging. My chemise is long gone. A faint memory of it being ripped off my body scratches at the back of my brain.

Firmly shaking that thought away, I turn to the fire. Damp garments and my satchel hang on the backs of chairs, arranged close to the blaze, slowly dripping. My skirt, petticoats, blouse. All discarded and left in the rain on the clifftops of that floating isle. Did the wyvern fly us back to the same isle when it scooped us from the ocean? If so, this must be the ramshackle lighthouse, for there was no other building to be seen. It had looked ready to fall into the sea at the first high wind. Hopefully it will hold on at least until my clothes have finished drying.

A noisy clatter brings me bolting upright. The wyvern flicks the tip of its tail but goes on snoozing, even as I cautiously peer over its back. A figure moves in the shadows just beyond the firelight. The Prince. Lithe and graceful as ever, he turns, takes a step toward me and into the hearth glow, which shines on his open shirt and bare chest.

His eyes meet mine. He stops in his tracks.

It’s suddenly impossible to think of anything else but the sensation of his hands on my body. Life-giving hands, pushing warmth back into my frozen core. The memory sends heat roaring through my veins. I shift, pulling his coat a little tighter around my shoulders. But I can’t just sit here, staring at him, letting this silence between us build.

“Prince,” I murmur with a little nod. My throat is raw and scratchy.

“Darling,” he responds in a clipped, businesslike tone. It doesn’t sound anything like the raw, impassioned voice I’d heard just before drifting out of consciousness. But then, maybe I’d dreamt that. A hallucination brought on by near-death. Yes, I’m sure that’s all it was.

The Prince comes around the wyvern’s snout and crouches in front of me. To my surprise, he offers a small, steaming cup of herbal tea. “Here,” he says. “May as well warm your insides too.”

I reach out to accept the cup. It’s too hot, but the Prince angles it so that I may grasp the handle, no doubt burning his own fingertips in the process. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he deftly reaches out and pulls his coat shut a little tighter at my throat. A flush of heat rises in my cheeks. Before I can react, he stands and backs away without looking at me. “How are you feeling?” he tosses over his shoulder in that easy, indifferent tone I know so well.

I stare down at the contents of the cup. Little flecks of tea leaves float along the surface. “Sore,” I answer at last.

He grunts. He stands at an angle to me, hands in his trouser pockets. The fire highlights the sharp planes of his face and gleams in his hair. “The pressure,” he says. “It’s bad for your body. You’ll be aching for a few days at least, though I did what I could to ease it out of you.”

I nod. Take a sip of tea. Then: “How long was I unconscious?”

“A few hours.” He glances sidelong at me then. “Roseward Isle is not attached to any one of Eledria’s realms, but floats untethered through the Hinter. It’s not safe to stay here for long. We may rest tonight, then I hope you will be enough recovered for the journey back.”

“Back where?”

“To Vespre, or course.”

A different heat rises in me this time. Not the pleasant bubbling warmth of earlier. No, this is anger. Searing, raw. How can he possibly think I would give up now? After everything we’ve been through! Sure, the merqueen has made an impossible request. But why should that stop me? I’ve faced impossible odds before and will no doubt face them again.

Besides, I have an idea. The barest inkling of an idea, not worth speaking out loud yet, but . . .

I take another sip of my tea. It’s bitter but comforting and soothes that first flare of feeling. When I’m certain my voice won’t betray me, I flick a short glance up to the Prince. “I’m hungry.”

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