Chapter XXXV The Mute Tongue Moves #3
She looked upon him. His beauty was immeasurable. It could break a thousand hearts down their center. But she saw beyond that, beneath it, as one can glimpse the wondrous creatures of the sea below the surface of clear and sunlit waters.
Her friend, who had seen her when no other had cared to look.
Who had urged her to speak when the rest had ignored or rejoiced in her silence.
Who had taught her the language of rustling wings.
Her protector, who had aided her in so many ways she could only recognize now.
Who had sent the girl Ninian, so she did not have to labor any longer at Marozia’s feet.
Who had ordered Waltrude to bandage her wounds and keep the leeches and their hungry mouths from her door.
Who had tried, even, to stand between her and the king.
The water rippled, and she saw still more.
She saw the man who read with her in quiet companionship, Liuprand the Scholar.
She saw the man who spoke with such eloquence always, wise beyond his years, Liuprand the Silver-Tongued.
She saw the man who was gentle to all his subjects, even to those far beneath him, Liuprand the Good.
And she saw, of course, the man who had entered a bleak and loveless union for the security of his kingdom. Liuprand the Confessor.
Her companion, her guardian, and her beloved, who had hoped and waited for her in anguished silence.
Agnes lifted a hand from the water and touched his chin with just one finger. Warmth flowed into her skin.
“Liuprand,” she said softly.
He exhaled, a tremulous sound. With both hands he clung to the edge of the tub, knuckles white.
“Say it again,” he whispered.
“Liuprand.” She brushed her thumb over his bottom lip. “Liuprand. Liuprand—”
He grasped her around the shoulders, pulling her into his chest. Then he lifted her from the tub.
Water streamed down her naked body; she rose from it, like a naiad cresting the waves.
One of his arms braced around her hip, the other around the backs of her thighs, holding her so that their eyes were level.
Her own chest heaved against his. Her breaths were shallow and her blood was hot.
He kissed her, fiercely, desperately, without contrition.
Her fingers scrabbled for a moment then found purchase in his hair, the golden hair that was somehow softer than she had imagined it would be—and she had imagined it, imagined this, in flashes of shameful desire that made her skin prickle and her stomach twist with longing.
Yet she had never dared to imagine this: his lips trailing along her jaw, down her throat, as her head fell back and stars clustered behind her eyes.
She felt fragile in his arms, but there was no fear in that.
If anything she felt a surging of relief, the knowledge that she could fall apart, and he would hold her and not let her break.
He would hold even the broken pieces of her, she knew.
This epiphany was so powerful that it encompassed her soul itself, and her whole body ached with love for him.
Liuprand carried her across the room with great ease and then laid her down gently upon the bed. She was bare before him, long, damp hair spreading out across the coverlet.
Even the reaching shadows could not disguise them: her scars.
His gaze ran over the raised white lines, from the words inscribed across her rib cage to the etched flowers on her stomach, down to the instruction, the warning that spoiled and defaced her mound.
She would not have been surprised to see his face twist in disgust.
Yet no repulsed grimace ever came. His eyes only gleamed, both dark and luminous at once, that night-ocean blue.
“You are more beautiful than even my imagination could conjure,” he said at last.
“You imagined this?” she asked.
“Yes.” The word was so low, so deep in his throat, it was almost a growl. “And this.”
Then he surged forward, onto the bed, his lips on her lips and his arms sliding under her still-wet body.
When he pressed against her, it made his clothes wet, too, and it made the blood look new again, but she did not care—she could not care about anything, not when his mouth trailed down her throat and found her breast.
Agnes was barely able to stifle a moan; it hardly even occurred to her that she should.
She knew the guards were posted at the door and that they might hear, but Liuprand was reckless with his desire and all her reason was undone by his mouth.
His tongue worked her nipple gently, and the pulse of longing between her legs was so powerful it was almost painful, and she wanted to tell him, to beg him to attend to that part of her, too.
She did not have to. His mouth left her breast, swollen now, and laved its way down her stomach, over her scars, which flared like signal fires at his touch.
He kissed her center just as he had kissed her lips, his tongue caressing her, his teeth grazing that hard nub that made her gasp and arch into him.
Her fingers tangled in his hair, urging him closer, yet his palm pressed flat against her stomach, pinning her down onto the bed so that she could not see him; she could only writhe there among the sheets as he visited pleasure upon her again and again and again.
Agnes cried out, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Her vision flashed with white.
Then Liuprand rose over her, his hair mussed, his lips and chin glossy with her spend.
He breathed hard and so did she, their chests pressed together so their hearts pulsed in tandem, beat for beat, as if they were linked by some invisible cord.
With infinite tenderness, Liuprand swept back the hair from her face.
His fingers trailed through it, from root to end.
“I dreamed of seeing it like this,” he said. “Of seeing you like this, undone. It pained me some days, to keep from touching you. And even when the agony of it did not leave me sleepless, you invaded all my dreams.”
“Did I speak?” she asked him. “In your dreams?”
He shook his head. “No. But you moaned, when I did this.”
And then he stroked a hand between her legs, so expertly that she moaned indeed, hips straining upward into his touch.
Her mind was so broken down by this onslaught, her limbs quivering like saplings in the wind, though she still had just barely enough sense within her for the question to come tumbling from her lips.
“Does Drepane’s golden prince have a hundred secret lovers?” she managed.
He laughed, pausing for a moment his ministrations and leaving Agnes suddenly, horribly bereft. “Not even one. I did not even know what it meant to want until I first laid eyes on you.”
Her chest tightened with fondness. She cupped his chin in her hand, and he stroked her again, making her writhe and abruptly grasp at his face, fingernails digging into his cheek. She swiftly took her hand away and hoped she had not hurt him.
What she wanted then was to please him in the same manner, to see him undone at her touch.
He had endured so many weeks of restraint, and even now, she could tell he ached from it.
She ran her fingers down his chest, feeling the damp and bloodied fabric of his doublet (an unforgivable oversight that he wore it still) until she reached the swelling in his breeches.
She did no more than brush against the cloth there and he groaned, with relief and with need.
Agnes pried the buttons loose and freed him. Her heart skipped—he was large, larger even than she had expected, given the sheer size of his body, the Seraphine build and its pulsing power. But he quivered under her touch like a supplicant before God.
The taste of him was salt and skin, and apostasy.
Whatever obedience, whatever duty was left within Agnes fell away from her, crumbled, as a pedestal beneath a statue that had become too fragile to shoulder the weight of its idol.
She was no ascetic, no scrupulous, shrinking virgin, no longer slave to the posthumous existence of Adele-Blanche.
Her grandmother’s cold and sepulchral power had been diminished.
Dissolved into nothing. It vanished like mist in the summer morning, expunged by the stunning light of day.
Liuprand’s fingers tangled in her hair, and then he wrested himself free. His chest was heaving, the enormous length of him throbbing and taut with blood.
“Lady Agnes,” he said, between breaths, “will you have all of me?”
She was panting, too, and could not find words. She merely nodded.
Finally the doublet came off. He loosed the buttons and then peeled it away, that livery stained with her husband’s blood, damp with her wetness, and let it crumple to the floor.
She could not have imagined the beauty of him, what lay beneath his clothes.
The corded muscles of his chest were as firm and thick as the branches of an oak.
She ran her palm across them, past his navel, and down to where he was achingly hard and still damp from the ministrations of her mouth.
He groaned again and then surged forward, his huge body arching over her.
Their faces were close. He brushed his lips against hers, kissed the tip of her nose. She shivered, trembling with need.
“I do not want to hurt you,” he said. “Will you tell me if I do?”
Again she nodded.
With agonizing slowness, he began to thrust himself inside of her.
His entrance was eased by the slickness of her channel; she was so wet and needful for him that there was hardly any pain at all.
What little pain did occur to her was so twined with pleasure that she could not bear to tell him to stop, the loss of such pleasure would have destroyed her.
Still, his restraint was remarkable, and it was almost as great as his need. He did not increase his pace until he was fully hilted within her, their bodies joined most inextricably. Then he paused and looked down at her questioningly.
Her face was so flushed, her mouth ajar with the beginnings of a gasp; how could he question her desire? But there was a wry tilt to his lips, a teasing glimmer in his eyes. He would make her speak it.
“Liuprand,” she said, her voice strained with desperation. “Please.”
Would he make her beg more piteously for it? She would. But then he began moving within her, gently, so gently she could have cried out in frustration—instead she lifted her hips and wrapped her legs around him, pulling him even closer.
This was all the urging he needed. Liuprand increased his pace until she was jostled across the bed, nearly up against the headboard, though his arm shot out to keep her from knocking into it, curling around her skull protectively.
Yet still Agnes sensed restraint from him.
She wondered if his strength was such that the world around him took on a terrible fragility; did he fear that if he unleashed himself, he could inflict some grievous harm upon it?
Upon her? The Seraphine were heaven-kissed, imbued with power beyond that of humble humanity.
It seemed to her more curse than boon, to live in a world too flimsy for your unshackled touch.
The notion grieved her so deeply that Agnes suddenly pushed herself up.
Liuprand halted at once, stricken, but she did not allow even the half-formed thought to pass through him, the fear that he had hurt her.
She braced her arms around his neck and pulled him up with her, until she was spread open in his lap, her back against the headboard.
She hoped this would undo him, undo all his careful restraint. Even without speaking, she hoped she had made her intent known. A silent vow that she would indeed take all of him. That his need did not frighten her; she would never cringe before his true face.
Black desire was in his eyes, and she was almost brought to climax by this look alone.
He grasped her thighs, her flesh swelling up from between his huge fingers.
His restraint fell away from him at last, and he thrust into her so powerfully, so uninhibitedly that she cried out in a broken sob when her release finally came. Her vision blistered with stars.
And then, as if fevered by the sound of her climax, he spent himself inside her. He muffled his own cry against her throat, kissing her there messily. He gave two last, shuddering thrusts and then went still. His mouth slipped from her neck.
Rather than collapsing upon her, he pulled himself out and, with one fluid motion, flipped their bodies so that she lay on top of him.
His arms curled around her; she was bastioned against him.
His heart beat as if it might crack through his chest. She felt every pulse of it reverberating through her like it was an organ of her own.
And the beating of his heart, so raw, so close, banished every last drop of coldness from her veins.
His seed, pooling warm inside her, melted the frost of Agnes’s eternal winter.
She took Liuprand’s hand by the wrist and guided his fingers across the scars on her stomach. Slowly, so that he could read them with his touch.
“You are my ruination,” she whispered.
With his free hand, Liuprand tipped her chin up, so that she could see his face. The look in his eyes was pained.
“Do you regret it?” he asked. “I would have never—”
“No,” she broke in. She guided his hand down farther, so he could feel the slickness of their coupling between her thighs. “I begged for it. Just like in your dreams.”
He stroked her there, once, and she twisted against him, biting her lip on a moan. Then he leaned down and kissed her, briefly but deeply.
“Your ruination is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured.
Those were the last words that passed between them for a long time. She merely lay upon him, breathing, exhaustion weighing down her eyelids. His grip on her never slackened, and Agnes was glad for it. She thought she might die—truly—if he ever let her go.
They did not speak because they both dreaded the words that hardened in their throats.
The truth, as bitter as the core of an apple: that this had not been Agnes’s ruination alone.
That all of Drepane would fall if ever their clandestine coupling came to be known.
And then there was the truth within the truth, which was as poisonous as it was sweet, the secret at the heart of it all—that not even the threat of the kingdom’s ruin would make them regret what had been done.