Page 80 of The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo
“Because you can’t love the teeth out of a shark.”
“Is that what you are? A shark?”
His open hands became fists. “I don’tknowwhat I am. I’ve barely learnedwhoI am—who I was—and that’s if I take you at your word. I’ve been in chains all mylife, it seems. And some of those chains I deserved. I’m little more than a beast of burden. When I became the Rook, I thought I knew what freedom was, but… even leadership has its own cages.”
When Blackwell spoke, he wanted to strangle the pity from the man’s voice. Or maybe the truth from his words. “There is more than one prison, brother. I sense you carry yours wherever you go.”
“I will never be free of it.”
“Then why not grantherfreedom?” he pressed. “Would you inflict your chains upon her?”
The Rook surged to his feet, driven by a desperate gloom, and stalked to the window. “Yes, dammit. Because without her my confinement is solitary, and in that void, where I am alone, I’m locked up with my worst enemy.” He found golden tassels on the drapes that precisely matched the hue of her hair. He twisted one with his finger. “But she… she’s the only one who could share my cage. The only one whom I’m certain I wouldn’t eventually tear to shreds.”
“You do love her,” Blackwell asserted.
“No,” he insisted. “Love is soft. Love is kind. I know nothing of that. What I feel for her is… well, it’s neither of those things. It’s too obsessive. It’s marvelous and terrifying. It is the cruelest affliction for a merciless man. Because it leaves me athermercy. So unprotected. So easily damaged. It is a bizarre thing to accept, that when entire armies have failed to destroy me, one word from her lips could dismantle me.”
Dorian returned to the sideboard for a second drink. “You were always a romantic, even back then. Even before her.”
“Do not tell me I’ve always been this pathetic,” he lamented.
“You were the best of us, Dorian.” Something about the barely leashed emotion in the man’s voice chipped at the ice in his chest.
He couldn’t face it, so he studied the ruined dragon tattoo. The web of scars he carried over so much of his body, no amount of ink could hide it all. “How monstrous I am. I can kill a man faster than he can take a breath. I can wage war with the sea. But the stratagems ofthisbattle remain unknown to me. The rules of society. The needs of a woman. When do I smile at her? When do I stand? And sit? I don’t remember how to laugh… And, how do I kiss her? And for how long? How do I make her want to kiss me back? The last time I thought she did… she fainted. Forhours.”
At least this time the Blackheart of Ben More had the sense to try and hide his mirth. “Take it from me, brother. Twenty years of unrequited desire can be overwhelming to you both.” A clap on the shoulder was warm. Welcome. And so the Rook didn’t shove it off. “Believe it or not, we’ve led similar lives. I kidnapped my bride, as well. How apropos, that we should have found analogous women. Fair-haired and kind and tender.”
“Your wife lovesyou.”
“Yes, but she had to learn to trust me first.”
“What did you do?” It was the most humbling question he’d ever asked, right before the next one. “What… doIdo?”
“Open your heart to her, Captain. It’s the only way. Awoman of true worth needn’t be wooed. Not with poetry and flowers. But with honesty and gestures of your devotion. Farah loved me as Dougan Mackenzie as a child. And when I… coerced her into marriage with Dorian, she had to learn to fall in love with him all over again. Perhaps your Lady Lorelai works in reverse. She will not give herself to the Rook, just as Farah did not give herself to the Blackheart of Ben More. But perhaps she could love you for who you used to be… as Dorian?”
Something about that felt wrong. His body, his brain, rejected the name. “If I became Dorian again, who would you be?”
The hand slid off his shoulder as his Blackheart brother leaned against the casement and scrubbed at his face. “That… is an excellent question.”
They stared into the night together. He sensed night hadn’t always been their ally. That they’d done this before, stood sentinel against the moon.
The Rook studied the man next to him in profile, coming to a conclusion. “You have given my name back to me, my past, but… you have lived longer as Dorian Blackwell than I ever did. He is what you have created. His legacy is yours, I don’t want it back.”
Despite his lack of memory, the Rook read the man in front of him. Knew him. Understood the wordless communication glinting in a dark eye more deep set than his own.
“If I am Dorian, what do I callyounow?” Blackwell asked the night. “The Rook?”
Keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the moon casting the Isle of Ben More in a mystic silver glow, he answered from that place he’d thought empty. “I—I find I like that you call me brother.”
Dorian didn’t look at him, either, but the glass in hishand trembled a little. “And who will you be for your Lady Lorelai?”
“For her, I must learn to be someone else… Or no one at all.”
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
How was one to focus on anything when locked in an actual tower like some fairy-tale princess? Lorelai huffed out a frustrated breath and let the book she’d been attempting to read fall to her lap. Reaching down, she fluffed the pillow beneath her throbbing ankle. The storm outside and the adjustment from being at sea to coming ashore had angered the ancient injury.
Who’d have ever thought that she’d need to find her land legs?
