Page 45 of Enthralled

But here she is. Bared before me, not just in body, but in spirit. The change in her is remarkable, and while darkness yet simmers in the depths of her gaze, there is new understanding as well. I caress her gently, glorying in the way she moves and responds to my touch. “Oh, my Darling,” I sigh. “I should love nothing more than to lose myself in you again and never to return. But I fear we haven’t time.” So saying I take her hand and help her sit up. She leans naked against my arm, rests her head on my shoulder, and I would give a kingdom to remain thus with her for a little while. “I’m sorry,” I say, turning and murmuring the words into her hair.

“Sorry?”

“I should have told you about the curse on your brother. I should have told you before I allowed things to progress further between us.”

She nods, not in agreement so much as acknowledgement. After a moment she says, “If you had, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive you. We would have missed what little chance we had.” She lifts her head from my shoulder, her doe-soft eyes holding mine captive. “You were wrong. But I am glad nonetheless. And I forgive you.” Even as she says the words, those shadows in the depths of her gaze darken, as though in that instant, she relives terrors, choices, and losses beyond speech. When she finally speaks again, her voice is raw. “I’m sorry too. For my blindness. For everything I’ve put you through. Oh, Castien, I—”

Her voice breaks in a flood of grief and regret. She sobs incoherently, and when I put my arms around her, she tries to pull away. But I am too strong for her. Firmly I pull her to my chest, let her tears dampen my skin. “Feel it, Darling,” I say. “Feel all of it. Let it come and let it go.”

She trembles in my embrace, so fragile. Yet I know for a fact she has the strongest, truest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, if only it can be freed from that clenching fist which has so long held it captive.

“I don’t deserve your love,” she whispers at last, choking on the words.

“I don’t deserve yours either,” I answer, my mouth against her soft hair. “It’s damn lucky for us love isn’t about deserving.”

She lifts her tear-streaked face to mine, allowing me to stroke hair back from her face. Then my lips find hers. This kiss is different from those we shared in those hot, hungry moments. This is a kiss of knowing and healing, of bitter experience and sweet acceptance. A kiss of reclamation. She has begged my forgiveness as I have begged hers. We have given and we have received. Our bond is stronger than it ever was before.

Strong enough to withstand the battle that lies ahead? That remains to be seen.

Slowly, reluctantly, I push her back enough that I can look into her eyes again. I don’t want to say these next words, knowing the pain they will usher in. But we’ve stolen more time than we should already. “Oscar is here.”

To my surprise she nods. “I know. I saw the Hollow Man.”

My chest tightens. Memory of that monster passes through my mind’s eye, and I feel once more like the old, doddering wreck I was less than an hour ago. “It would seem Oscar and Ivor arrived not long before you and I. When the gates were broken, the two of them must have been caught in the ensuing shock.”

“Yes,” Clara says. “The crone promised to deliver me to Vespre within three days of Oscar’s arrival.”

“The crone?” I frown. “You went to the Daughters of Bhorriel? Again?”

“It’s all right,” she hastens to assure me, though the expression on her face tells a very different tale. “Danny paid the price for me.”

My blood freezes at mention of that name. If there was ever a man I came close to hating in this or any world, it’s Daniel Gale. Not even Ivor holds that distinction in my jealous soul. “And what price was that?” I ask coldly.

“His heart.”

“What?”

She tells her story, simply and softly. I listen with some resentment, not caring to have my opinions altered in the face of such revelations. My impression of her former sweetheart was of a small-minded, stubborn man. That he would make so great a sacrifice for the woman he loved, knowing all the while that she could never be his? Perhaps I misjudged him. Somewhat.

“That was well done on his part,” I admit grudgingly when she tells of his interaction with the crone. “I would have done the same in his place.”

Clara lifts her gaze to mine. “Ilusine paid a price as well.”

“Ilusine?” Now that was not a name I expected to hear. Nor could I have prepared myself for the next part of the story she tells. Ilusine and I had been close once, but we had parted on tenuous terms at best. I never would have thought she’d risk so much to save my beloved. Not for my sake. I’m not sure what I feel in that moment. Gratitude. And perhaps a little shame that I did not treat her better, that we had not managed to be kinder to one another in the end.

“I confess,” Clara says as she finishes her account, “I had only one thought when I returned to that horrible house: reaching Vespre. Finding you, finding the children. Now that I’m here, though, I . . . I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s simple enough,” I say, smiling into her worried eyes. “We must figure out what in the nine hells Ivor has planned, then thwart it at all costs.” I lean back against the bookshelf, heaving a sigh. My thumb runs up and down the back of Clara’s hand, over the delicate ridges of her veins. “But I have no idea what he’s planning.”

Clara’s brow knits in that thoughtful expression I know so well. “Estrilde,” she says after a moment. “Estrilde gave Ivor the bloodgem necklace.”

“What?” The word bursts sharply from my lips. I fall silent then as Clara recounts those panicked moments after the Hollow Man attacked Aurelis, when Ivor, Oscar, and Estrilde made their mad flight to Aurelis Library. At the time she’d not understood what she saw, but now she remembers that necklace and its significance.

I listen grimly to the end of her tale. “That would explain a few things,” I say darkly. “When I first arrived, I went down to the vaults. It looked as though the source of the initial outburst was the Eight-Crowned Queen. She must have escaped when Ivor ventured into her realm, trying to take control of her as Vokarum once did.” I grimace, teeth grinding. “Hopefully she slaughtered him in the attempt. But it would make no difference. Idreloth is so powerful, her escape would have set off a chain-reaction. Mixael and Andreas alone would have no hope of containing the outburst. It’s a miracle anyone got out of the palace alive.”

“A miracle,” Clara acknowledges, “and thegubdagogs.”

“Why yes. I did notice an awful lot of those eyesores strung about the place.” I squeeze her hand again then raise it to my lips and kiss her knuckles. “My mule-headed wife. Your stubbornness may have saved them all in the end.”

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