27.TALIESIN
Opening my eyes, my gaze is filled with the most beautiful frowning face in the world. Framed by a mess of blonde hair, her pale skin is slightly flushed in her sleep.
We’d gone to sleep crammed together on the cot.
The cot in the cage.
I’d give my life’s savings to experience this moment. Yet here I am, without paying anything except my heart.
Because, fuck it, I’m gone.
Gone. Done.
It’s over.
I love Aurora Drakeward.
And, on top of that, I no longer feel much of de Vaux’s poison in my body. This is a brand new day for Taliesin Bevan.
“Good morning, Tally.” Her eyes open, pulling me even deeper.
“Hey. Sleep OK?”
She wriggles against me, stretching her spine. “No nightmares, so that was amazing. What about you?”
I know, beyond the privacy sheet on the bars, Francois de Vaux is undoubtedly taking every word we say, but I don’t exaggerate for his sake, I just tell it like it is.
“I’ve never had a happier night’s sleep in my life.”
She smirks. “Me too.” Then her smile drops. “But I’ve got to pee.”
“No problem, babe. I’ve suddenly got a great desire to look at the wall and whistle a tune.”
At my response, she nuzzles her head against my chest for a moment, then unravels her body from mine. I know how desperately she’s missed personal privacy, so this is a small gift I can give her.
Apart from the fact my dry lips won’t produce a single whistling note on command. Fuck. OK, singing it is. I rack my brains for a song I know the lyrics to and come up with precisely one.
I guess the princess is going to get a quick lesson in Ashgrave civics.
After clearing my throat, I start the low, droning notes.
Deep in the throat of the black-iron hill,
Where the air is thick and the lungs are still,
We dig for the vein, we bleed for the spark,
To pull the white fire right out of the dark.
From the soot of the pit to the heat of the floor,
We drag the Anther through the factory door.
“What the fuck is that?” she laughs, flushing and then washing her hands at the faucet.
Instead of answering I go into the chorus.
Swing the hammer, stoke the flame,
Ashgrave’s sweat is the world’s great name!
With a steady hand and a heavy mass,
We’re blowing the light into Anther Glass.
Let the lords have their gold and their velvet skin,
We’ve the fire without and the iron within!
Shaking out her hands, Rory sits back down on the cot. “Well? Are you going to explain?”
“It’s the Ashgrave Anthem, from back when this place was the seat of Havengard industry.
Catchy, right?” Actually, I think the song is so fucking poignant, especially as my father was crippled in an Anther mining accident.
And even more ironic is the fact every kid learned this anthem growing up, even after the south had taken away all of Ashgrave’s industry, having found cheaper supplies out in the wider world.
“I don’t even know anything about Ashgrave and Anther glass,” Rory says, reaching up a hand and touching my face for the barest second. “Seeing as I plan to make my home up here, I should start learning the history!”
Huh? “You plan to what?”
She doesn’t get to answer. Francois tears down the privacy curtain. “Aurora. Shower.”
Rory shrugs at me then casts a glance over her shoulder. “I’m fine, Frank. I’m a Gravedigger. We don’t need daily showers.”
Fuck, her cheek is making my cock fill, and that’s not a good idea in these confined quarters. “I’ll take one, Frank,” I say, standing up. “If you’re offering."
I know it is a very bad idea for me to bait the French douche, seeing as he can apparently paralyze me with a glare, but this is the lightest moment I’ve had in forever, and I just don’t want it to end.
He ignores me.
“If you don’t wish further ablutions, Aurora, then it is time to break our fast,” Francois snaps. “Come.”
Aurora rolls her eyes but doesn’t protest. “I’ll bring you something back,” she tells me, slipping on the prison sneakers. She pauses, almost like we are a real couple and we are going to kiss before she goes off about her business.
But then the moment dissolves as she and Francois head out to the chow hall and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
???
Who knows how long it is until Frank and Rory return. I hang the privacy sheet back up then maybe I doze in their absence. All I know as soon as she’s back in my vicinity my radar is focused in one direction only. Aurora-ward.
She slips into the cage with a PBJ in one hand and a mug in the other. “Zavtrak podan!”
“Huh?”
“Breakfast is served, as they say. We saw Gleb and Heinz in chow, they didn’t realize I knew both Russian and German. I totally outed their discussion about Gleb’s urination problems.”
“Fuck, Princess. Bad idea. I mean, hilarious, but those motherfuckers are mean.”
She shrugs. “Frank won’t let them hurt me, right, Francois?”
The Frenchman glowers from his chair.
I almost feel giddy.
“And,” Rory whispers, “I have some more plans to wind Frank up, so hurry and eat your food.”
“Yes ma’am,” I mumble. Fuck, it’s impossible to not love this mad pixie delight. While I finish the coffee, she kicks off her sneakers and starts her regular routine of bending and stretching.
I watch, mesmerized. I’m aware of de Vaux doing the same from his side, though he can’t see as much as me because of the privacy sheet.
Ha.
As one leg extends behind her, she arches her back, fingertips grazing the rusted iron. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so graceful, beautiful. She moves like a willow tree in the wind.
After a few more minutes, she looks at me and grins, her skin already lightly flushed from the exercise. “Any chance you could help me, Tally?” she asks in a sweet tone.
Huh?
She winks, then darts her eyes into the next cell.
I’m not sure what she’s up to, but I’m game.
I get to my feet, still feeling annoyingly shaky and Rory beckons me closer.
“I need help with a stretch. My hamstrings are stiff as fuck.” Then she turns around, bracing her hands against the bars.
“Can you put your hand on the small of my back, Tally? Just keep me steady.”
With pleasure.
The second I touch her, a jolt of heat goes straight to my gut. My scarred hand looks massive against her slight body. “Like this?”
“Higher,” she requests, her head falling back. “And put your other hand on my thigh. Lift it… slowly.”
I swallow hard.
I can feel Francois shifting in his chair, the heavy silence from his side of the room crackling with a sudden, sharp jealousy. He’s watching the silhouette of us against the sheet, and Rory knows it. She’s playing him like a godsdamn violin, and I’m more than happy to be the motherfucking bow.
My palm slides over the rough gray fabric of her jumpsuit, finding the curve of her thigh. She’s all lean muscle and smooth skin. As I lift her leg, she leans her weight back into my chest. The scent and closeness of her are sending my senses crazy.
“That’s it,” she moans, her voice loud enough to carry. “You’re so strong, Tally. I don’t know what I’d do without you here to help me.”
The beast inside me is losing its godsdamn mind. He’s pacing at the front of my skull, wanting to growl, wanting to claim the throat she’s just exposed to me. I can feel her own heart hammering against my arm—fast, erratic, but pulsing with life.
I force myself to be steady, remain respectful.
Rory has enough to deal with, she doesn’t need a broken gutter-rat panting all over her as well.
But Gods, I want to pant.
Bite.
Take.
“Now,” she says, her breath hitching as I pull her leg a fraction higher. “I need to stretch my hip. Can you… wrap your arms around my waist? From behind? I need to lean forward.”
I step flush against her back, my chest meeting the blades of her shoulders, then wrap my arms around her middle, my hands interlocking over her stomach. Her body feels so right in my arms. She exhales a long, shaky sound, and sinks her weight into me.
“Is that helping?" I rasp.
My voice betrays how turned on I’m getting. So does the growing hard-on in my pants. I’ve got to keep it in check. She’s only seventeen, but she’s playing a game that would break any grown man.
I’m her anchor, I remind myself, not her undoing.
Mom and Dad got together when Mom was seventeen and Dad was twenty. Mom was pregnant with me only a few months after that.
Not helpful, brain.
“Mmm. Perfect,” she purrs, tilting her head until her lips are mere inches from my ear. “Do you think Frank is enjoying the show?”
Outside the cage, the sound of a book being slammed shut echoes like a gunshot. I hear the creak of Francois’s chair as he stands.
Then the sheet is torn down. The air in the room suddenly fills with an acidic, oily scent of his rage.
“Enough,” Francois snaps. His voice is a low, dangerous vibration. “Aurora, I believe your ‘hamstrings’ have had quite enough attention for one day.”
Rory doesn’t move an inch. She holds her pose, her back arching against me, and I feel sure she’s pinning him with her icy-blue stare.
After several more beats she slowly unwinds herself from my arms, face flushed, a look of pure, triumphant mischief in her eyes.
“Don’t be a spoilsport, Frank," she says, wiping a bead of sweat from her lip. “Tally is just making sure I stay flexible. It’s important for a dancer to have a partner she can trust.”
Mine.
Gods.
And watching the look on Francois’s face, for the first time since the Frenchman arrived, I feel like the one holding all the cards.
Ignoring Frank, I pull Rory around to face me.
She’s so small in my grip. Her eyes search mine for a second, then she gives a tiny nod, moving closer.
The moment her soft, hesitant lips press against mine, I taste a sweetness that is purely, dangerously her.
The snarling presence inside me surges, clawing at the walls of my chest to get to her. I stand there like a statue for a heartbeat, while my brain screams a thousand warnings.
She’s innocent. She’s fragile. She’s a Drakeward.
But when she starts to pull away, when I feel her hands begin to slide off my chest, I lose the fight.
Mine.
Threading my fingers around her neck, I haul her back toward me until there isn’t a breath of space left between us. I lean into the hunger I’ve been suppressing since the first day I saw her in those faded red scrubs.
This isn’t part of her game. This isn’t to torture the Frenchman.
This is for me.
For her.
For a second, all of Quo disappears. There’s just the heat of her and the pounding of my heart. It’s like, for the first time in my life, I know where I belong.
It’s with her.
It will always be her.
Then the cage door bangs open. Francois is beside us in a second, as he locks eyes on me the dark toxins flood my system again. My body starts to collapse.
“How touching,” he says, his voice a low hiss. “For a moment, the wolf has regained his appetite.”
Wolf?
The word rings through my head like a bell of clarity, but before I have time to register anything more, I’m down on my knees, unable to stand. The pressure in the air is enough to push me away, my muscles are locked under that same dark weight he used in the yard.
I’m frozen.
And he’s clamping his hand onto Rory’s arm.
I try to speak but even my vocal cords are paralyzed.
“Come along, chéri, let’s take a walk,” Francois’s gaze is fixed on her. “The scenery in here is boring.”
He propels her through the cage door. Aurora looks back at me, her eyes full of a silent plea, but I can’t do a thing.
The door slams shut.
The lock clicks.
I’m left staring at the empty space where the light used to be, more poison in my veins and the taste of her still on my tongue.