Chapter 16 Scarlett
CHAPTER 16
SCARLETT
S carlett heard the door creak open as she lounged in a chair beside the dark hearth in Prince Callan’s private bedroom. It was dark in the room as she sat and waited. Sneaking into the castle had been easy enough using secret passages and paths they’d mapped out years ago. Once she had left the Elite District, and she was sure Nuri had taken care of Sorin, she’d swung inside the carriage. Tava and Drake were inside, dressed for dinner at court. They needed to be seen arriving without Scarlett. They had chosen this night because of the dinner the queen was throwing for her court. All the Lords and Ladies and their families had been invited, which meant Mikale and Veda would be present, too. They’d be watching to see if Scarlett set foot inside the castle, and while they’d been distracted by Tava and Drake, she had indeed done just that.
She waited in silence as he strode into the room, and she listened, making sure he was alone. She heard him unbuckle his sword belt, and it thudded to the floor. She took a deep breath. Seeing Callan alone for the first time in over a year? She wasn’t sure how this was going to go. They had indeed been much more than friends during the time they worked together, and he did not know what had happened that night.
The bed sighed as he sat on it, presumably to toe off his boots. As she heard them thump to the floor, she steeled herself and uncoiled from the chair. “Hello, Callan.” The prince swore and lurched to his feet, grabbing a dagger from his nightstand. She stepped from the shadows, pulling down her hood and clicking her tongue. “While I understand that you indeed may want to run me through with that, I’m hoping we can talk first.”
“Scarlett?” Her name was a question on his lips, his arm dropping to his side as he took a step toward her. He took her in, from her boots up to her face. In the moonlight that filtered in from the windows, she could just make out his features. He was handsome, as a prince should be. His brown hair was longer than she had last seen it, falling into hazel eyes flecked with green. His high cheekbones were as beautiful as she remembered, and his shirt was unbuttoned revealing his toned abdomen. He must have unbuttoned it on the walk to his bedroom from the adjoining drawing room. She didn’t know what to say. What she should say. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Callan spoke again, cutting her off. “Tell me you are really here. Tell me you are standing in my bedroom, completely from the shadows, like you used to do all those months ago.”
“I—” she started, but didn’t get another word out. She heard the dagger he was holding clatter to the floor, and then he was before her. His hands were on her face and his mouth was on hers. Her own hands came up and her fingers slid into his hair. He backed her against the wall, and she gasped as he slid his tongue along her lips, remembering the last time she’d been against this same wall. He was instantly inside her mouth, and she felt him against her teeth, the roof of her mouth. He pulled back, looking into her eyes. His own eyes were glazed and full of disbelief and lust.
This. This would be the most dangerous part of this evening. Not the sneaking into the castle. Not avoiding Mikale. Not distracting Sorin. This. Looking into his eyes and not allowing herself to give in to what they had been, and by the gods, she was failing.
Callan opened his mouth to say something again, but she stiffened and brought a finger to his lips. She looked past him to the open bedroom door. Leaning in so she whispered directly into his ear, she said, “You’re about to have company.” A moment later, there was a light knock on the hall door. “Go. Answer it.”
Callan made to step back, but his hands lingered on her face. “I am afraid that if I let you go, you will not be here when I return.”
“I will be here, Callan,” she answered softly, brushing her thumb along one of those flawless cheekbones. She felt him shiver slightly beneath her touch before he turned and walked to the drawing room of his suite, pulling his bedroom door shut behind him as he looked back over his shoulder at her.
Scarlett steadied her breathing and willed her hands to stop shaking. Nuri had been banking on this happening. “Give him what he wants, and he’ll answer any questions you have,” she’d said last night when they were going over the plan. Nuri and Juliette had never had issues with using their bodies to obtain what they desired. Scarlett, however, while she didn’t mind flirting to gain what she needed, had been far pickier about whose bed she crawled into. In fact, she had only shared a bed with the man now in the other room.
She silently crossed the room and pressed her ear to the door. Callan must have stepped out into the hall because she couldn’t hear any voices. His private bedroom was fairly spacious, and she made her way over to his desk. She smiled to herself. Nothing had changed. It was still a mess. Books and papers stacked on top of each other. She pulled open the top drawer and froze. There was a small stack of papers in the drawer, and the one on the very top was addressed to her. She picked it up but found other notes underneath. Every single note she had ever slipped to him lay in that drawer.
She heard the outer door creak open again and padded footsteps crossing the room. She dropped the note she was holding back on top of the stack and slid the drawer closed as she slunk into the shadows along the wall, just on the off chance he wasn’t alone. The bedroom door opened, and she relaxed as he slipped in, closing and locking the door behind him. He crossed to the fireplace and glanced at the now empty chair and turned to face the dark room.
It was a particularly hot summer evening. His windows had been flung wide, but she had closed them all when she’d come in. She watched as he crossed to one now and leaned his forehead against it. Then he said, without lifting his head from the glass, “I am praying to the gods that you are still in this room and that I did not just dream up that kiss.”
“If those are your dreams, Prince, then they are as beatific as I once claimed they’d be,” Scarlett replied, stepping from the shadows. She unclasped her cloak and swung it over the desk chair.
Callan straightened, turning to face her. “You are heavily armed.”
“When am I not?” Scarlett shrugged.
“The two times I have spoken to you this past year, I did not see a weapon on you,” he said harshly. Scarlett flinched, grateful for the shadows that hid her from him. “You were not at the court dinner tonight.”
“I am not part of the court,” Scarlett countered, lifting her chin.
“That has never stopped you before, and you now reside with Lord Tyndell, who is part of the court. Drake and Tava were here,” he said, taking a step towards her.
“They are his children and are a future Lord and Lady. Of course they were here.”
“Cassius was here,” Callan pointed out, taking another step.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She willed her body not to tremble as Callan took another step, slowly, as if trying not to startle a doe in a field.
“I look for you, you know. I look for you every time the court gathers. I look for you at every ball, every gala, every dinner.” Another step. “I look for that glimmer of silver hair. I listen for that voice that—”
“Stop, Callan,” Scarlett whispered, her eyes going to the floor.
But he didn’t. Another step. “Every night I come to my rooms. Alone. Just in case you will slip from the shadows.” Another step.
“Callan, I—”
“Did you know I even make my driver go by the Tyndell manor on the occasions I go into the city just on the off chance I might see you out and about?” Another step. “I did one time, you know. See you out.”
“I know,” Scarlett whispered.
It had been a day last autumn, a few months after that night when things had gone to hell. She had been wearing a rust colored dress and had been rushing back to the manor from somewhere she couldn’t even remember, cursing herself for not bringing a cloak. She’d seen the royal carriage coming down the street. She’d recognized it immediately, and if she didn’t disappear, she’d known he would have stopped, and she’d have hopped into that carriage right then and there. So instead, she’d turned to Tava, who had been chattering away beside her, and shoved her into a shop they were nearing.
His stockinged feet came into her vision, stopping inches from her boots, as she continued to stare at the floor. He didn’t move to touch her, though. “Nearly every day I have thought about what I would say to you. I have thought about what I could have possibly done to make you disappear so abruptly from my world with just a note on my pillow to say goodbye.” A sob cracked from Scarlett’s chest as tears slid down her cheeks, splashing onto her boots. Still, he did not reach for her. “I have thought about how I would demand to know what the hell had happened.” She didn’t say anything, and silence hung between them for one of the longest minutes of her life. Then, “Look at me, Scarlett Monrhoe.” His tone was firm, an order from a prince. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t bring her eyes to his.
She felt him move then, reaching for her braid that hung over her shoulder. He pulled the string from the end and slowly undid the plaits. He’d hated her hair when it was braided back. He’d told her once that she was too serious, too business, when her hair was prepared for a fight. That when her hair was down and flowing around her, she was relaxed, and he was honored to be someone she could relax around.
She had never once been that relaxed around him though. She’d always been listening. Always been watching for any sign she might need to make a quick exit. Even when she did sleep beside him, there was always a dagger within reach. Always.
One of his hands hooked under her chin. “Look at me, Scarlett,” he repeated, his tone softer, coaxing. “Please.”
She let him lift her chin, and his hazel eyes locked onto hers, searching for anything to cling to. “And now that I am before you, Prince? What do you wish to say to me?” she whispered.
“Now? Now I am afraid to say anything to you. Now I am afraid that one wrong word and you will become the Wraith of Shadows that I lost once more,” he answered, his other hand slipping into her hair.
Scarlett closed her eyes as the hand holding her chin moved to cup her cheek. She leaned into his touch, trying not to think about how much she had missed it. She didn’t dare move. Then he was whispering into her ear, his breath hot against her skin, and her entire body heated. “Please. Please take off all those weapons.”
Her eyes snapped open, finding his. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
He gave her a sad smile. “When you stand before me so heavily armed, I am holding my breath, just waiting for you to disappear. I know you will not leave without your weapons.” When she didn’t answer, he said again, “Please, Scarlett. No one is coming in here tonight. There will be no more interruptions. I have told the guard outside my rooms to let no one near my door the rest of the night.”
She slowly reached for the buckle holding her sword to her back. Her eyes never left his as she undid it and set her sword with her cloak on the desk chair. She unclasped the vambraces from her wrists. He watched every move as she unbuttoned her jacket and removed the hidden daggers from the insides, then her weapons belt and the dagger strapped to her thigh. Finally, she pulled the two daggers from her boots.
“Gods,” he breathed. “I forgot how…”
“Deadly I am?” she suggested. “You forgot how utterly lethal I am and yet you let me stand before you, in your private quarters, with your dagger forgotten on the floor by your bed.”
“No,” he replied, his voice husky. He slid his hands beneath the shoulders of her jacket, slipping it down her arms, letting it fall to the floor. Heat flared at every place his fingers brushed her bare skin. She wore a black tunic beneath the jacket with her black pants and boots. “I forgot how, even with everything I want to yell at you and demand from you, how even with all of that running through my mind, I would let you kill me, just to run my fingers through your hair one more time.”
“I am not here for this,” Scarlett rasped, bringing her hand up and wrapping her fingers around his, closing her eyes again. She soaked in the touch of his fingers on her cheek for a moment longer. One more moment, and then she’d shatter his world again and tell him why she was here.
“You know what I have missed most of all, my Wraith of Shadows?” he whispered. Again, he was right next to her ear, his breath tickling her cheek. She could feel his lips brush against her skin while he spoke. “I have missed talking with someone who did not care that I was a prince. I miss being around someone who did not care about my title. I miss having a friend who accepts me for who I am just as I accept her.” Scarlett held her breath, not daring to breathe. Not trusting herself to do anything. “Yes, I have missed that most of all, but this? This is a damn close second.”
And he was kissing her again. Slow and deep and lovely. One of his hands went around her waist, tugging her to him, as if he couldn’t stand to have any amount of space between them, and she felt him press against her front. Her hands went around his neck, and his kisses began trailing down her jaw, down her neck. Her back arched as he continued along her collarbone, licking the hollow of her throat. A moan escaped her that had him answering with a growl of his own.
“I am not here for this,” she rasped again, as his hands lifted her tunic. She raised her arms so he could slide it over her head.
“I do not care,” he whispered onto her lips, nipping her bottom one. He shrugged his own unbuttoned shirt off.
He gently steered her towards the bed, his hands grasping her hips, and she conceded one step. Two. “Callan.”
But his lips were on hers again, his hands roaming over her arms, her torso, her rear. He tugged at the band of fabric around her breasts, and she reached up to remove it. He tossed it aside and pressed her back again. She moaned once more as he sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, his tongue flicking over it. The back of her legs bumped the edge of the bed, and as she let him lay her down on it, she managed to get out, “This will change nothing, Callan.”
“I do not care,” he said again, sliding her boots and socks from her feet.
“Callan,” she tried again as he reached for the buttons on her pants.
He paused, staring at her, half naked, splayed out on his bed before him in the moonlight streaming in from the night sky. “Do you want me to stop?”
She took him in, too. This man that she had loved once, maybe still did. This man who, despite what he had said, was a prince, would one day be king. She could never be what he needed, who he would need at his side. But tonight?
“No,” she breathed, hating herself for that one word. “I want to pretend that the last year never happened.”
A dark grin came across his sensuous lips. “Good,” he said, unbuttoning her pants, kissing down her stomach as he went. “Because I intend to keep you here as long as I can.”