Page 41 of Never the Roses

“The world made us enemies, not we, ourselves.”

She cast him a glance of silvery interest. “Do you think, under other circumstances, we could have been friends?”

“I think we are on our way to being friends now, even given current circumstances.”

She laughed, then saw he was serious, and shook her head, pulling a strand of crimson hair out of her eyes. “Tristan is uncomplicated,” she said firmly, as if convincing herself. “I’ve never had good luck with sex, but he’s… practiced at it. He’s attractive, available, interested—” She didn’t pause as he snorted. “And he doesn’t know to be afraid of me.”

Ah, and there it was. And here he was. “I am not afraid of you.”

She stopped, and not only because they’d reached the final landing above the beach, the pink-pebbled shore framing her like a lighter shade of her startling coloring. Her eyes both wide with surprise and full of suspicion, she looked to be groping for a response.

“I’m not afraid of you, Oneira,” he reiterated. “And I can say that knowingexactlywho you are.”

“You do not know me,” she countered, though it came out breathless.

“I know you better than anyone in the world, I’ll bet. I know what you’re capable of. I know how that power isolates you. Just as you know me.”

“I know only what’s in your dossier, and a few observations, mostly while you were asleep.”

“So, we’ll correct that.”

“What exactly are you suggesting, Stearanos?” she demanded, sounding angry, sparks in her gaze, long, vivid locks of crimson whipping about her in a breeze that wasn’t entirely natural. She made his hair stand on end with wariness and made him want to kiss her in equal measure.

“You know what I’m suggesting,” he answered with deliberate calm, counterbalancing her anger. “But let me make it clear.Don’t waste yourself on that pretty boy. He’s not good enough for you. Consider my suit instead.” There. He’d said it, and ripped himself open to her scornful refusal.

“You.” She infused the single word with a universe of improbability.

“Why not me?” He ticked off the points on his fingers, all the logical reasons he’d been listing in his head, practically since the moment he laid eyes on her. Possibly before that, when he only guessed at what his mysterious thief might be like. “We’re of an age, of equivalent power, similar life experiences, shared interests. We find each other attractive and—”

“I never said I find you attractive,” she interrupted, and he grinned, pleased that she hadn’t argued any of the other points and that she was clearly—by the sudden flush on her strong cheekbones—dancing the line of truth.

“You didn’t have to say so,” he teased, enjoying stoking her outrage. “For myself, I’d tell you that I find you incredibly beautiful and profoundly sexually compelling, except that you’ve heard so much of that drivel dripping from Tristan’s lips I suspect you’ve become inured to it.”

She opened her mouth and closed it. Then shook her head. “I have no words.”

“That’s fine. I do. Why not give me a chance? Why not giveusa chance?”

“Oh, I don’t know, because you could kill me?”

“If you were afraid of that, you’d never have tweaked my nose in my own library.”

She firmed her lips over an objection, implicitly acknowledging the truth of that, studying him thoughtfully. “There’s a reason sorcerers don’t consort with one another.”

“Yes, but you’re retired with no intention of returning to your former career. Isn’t that true?”

“Absolutely,” she answered with firm conviction, but then fixed him with her penetrating gaze. “Are you planning to invade the Southern Lands?”

He gave that one due consideration, then replied with a question. “Is that something you really want an answer to?” Holding up a hand, he stopped her reply. “If you’re no longer involved in the wars of the world of men, then these are things you don’t want to know. That you’d be better offnotknowing, for plausible deniability.”

She let out a long, slow breath. “I think thatisan answer. Still, your point is well-taken. Were the queen to discover that I knew of invasion plans and did nothing, Her Majesty would be most displeased. To the point of accusing me of betraying the crown.”

“Could she do anything to you?” he asked, curious for himself, also. “Obviously the geas had to be removed when you paid off your contract.”

Oneira nodded absently, thinking about the ramifications. “Even without that absolute control, she could make things difficult for me. I want to be left alone and not have to kill anyone ever again, not battle an army come to punish me for being a traitor. There are so many more of them than us, after all.”

He nodded in grave agreement. Unless they were willing to murder thousands or millions of innocents, sorcerers could always be overwhelmed with the numbers of mundane bodies the monarchs could throw at them. “Our relationship would be a secret then.”

“Our relationship,” she echoed in turn, rolling her eyes.

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