Chapter Eight #3
“Lovely,” said Avette. “And now you may leave.”
Bollocks. Dread was a cold trickle in Ger’s stomach.
He didn’t want to leave; didn’t want to fucking be here in the first place, but certainly didn’t want to leave and miss any more of this conversation.
Whatever plans they made, whatever mention of the Merrow King, or—and he nearly crumpled over the stab of panic at the very thought—any mention of Adeline, and how they might find her.
Imogen knew where she was just as well as he did.
Was she going to give her up? What the fuck was she playing at?
Rounding the suite of furniture, Captain Doran made a sharp, pissed-off gesture at Ger, and he reluctantly stepped around the settee to follow him out the door—only to be halted by Avette’s hand on his arm.
Her touch chilled the steel armour, and his skin immediately erupted in gooseflesh, barely fighting a shudder.
“You may leave, Captain Doran. We hardly need two of you for an intimate meeting of the Queen’s Ladies. Your young Gard may stay, as I’m quite certain you have more pressing matters to attend to.”
Doran’s jaw worked. He did not move at first, and beneath Avette’s paralysing, tightening grip, neither did Ger. Then, with a slow, backward stride, Doran gave a bow and wrenched the door open, striding purposefully away.
It was only when Avette released him that Ger realised his arm had gone numb, and he had to wrestle the urge to shake off the ghostly chill of her touch. She stood with a beleaguered sigh.
“Now. I believe I should like to try on my dresses in peace.”
For the next few minutes, Ger stood exactly where Avette had left him.
He stared at Mareda staring at the walls, neither of them speaking as Imogen set about arranging a painted privacy screen around Avette, who admired herself in front of an ornate silver mirror.
Imogen wheeled the rail of dresses to the screen and disappeared behind it for a moment, her voice a gracious hush to the queen’s imperious clip.
By the time she emerged alone, Gerard was practically vibrating, bouncing anxiously on the balls of his feet.
He seized his moment as she drew close and stepped into her path, taking her wrist in his hand so she had no choice but to stop.
She met his eye with just a hint of defiance, and his heart sank, weighed down with the new dread unearthed by the blaze of her eyes.
“What are you doing?” he said. “What about Adeline?”
He spoke beneath his breath, unable to keep from shooting a nervous glance at the screen.
Imogen stared back at him unblinking, and Daughters forgive him, his hackles rose, tension exploding across his shoulders.
He wanted to shake her. He wanted to fucking shout, and Ger did not shout.
Not at anyone, not ever. But he made himself whisper, and the words raked up his throat.
“What the fuck are you doing, Imogen?”
She snatched her wrist away, without so much as a flicker of anger or sorrow or resignation, or anything.
“I am doing what I must,” she said evenly.
Then she turned her back on him, and as Ger watched her go, he felt …
Helpless.
He was not supposed to feel this way again.
He was not supposed to feel helpless; that was the whole fucking point of it, of everything he’d ever worked for.
He raked his metal-clad fingers through his hair, drew down a shuddering breath through his quickly tightening lungs, and another.
In and out and in and out. And when his heart had somewhat calmed its pace, he forced himself to turn around, to follow Imogen and plead with her to—
“Gard.”
Avette’s calm, sweet voice rang from behind the screen, and Gerard halted mid-step.
“Gard,” she called again.
Now seated once more, Imogen looked up from her own splayed hands, where she was slowly weaving another bead of ice. “That’s you,” she said mildly.
“Shit,” Ger muttered, and turned to the screen.
He made as much noise as he could in his approach, then halted, expecting Avette to round the screen. When she didn’t, he closed his eyes on a long, bracing exhale.
“You called, Your Majesty?”
“Come here.”
He blanched. “Come … behind the screen, Your Majesty?”
She sighed. “If you make me repeat myself again, it could be considered treason.”
For fuck’s sake.
On the other side of the screen, he found Avette facing the mirror, holding the bodice of her dress to her chest—and with her entire back bared to him.
Ger’s breath left his lungs in one spluttering burst, head emptying of thought. In the mirror’s reflection, Avette’s black eyes fixed on his own; they glittered between each slow flutter of her lashes.
“These stays must be drawn as tight as possible,” she said, that melodic voice lower than he’d ever heard it. “I’m afraid I need a strong pair of hands.”
What in the bollocking fuck.
Beneath his gauntlets, Ger felt his palms prickle.
Sweating; he was sweating, anxiety flooding his every nerve ending and seeping out his pores.
He couldn’t put a name to the feeling, but it chased after his heartbeat, hastening his pulse until he could barely breathe without shuddering.
Avette arched a perfect black brow, and he could see little option but to slide off his steel gloves and set them down on the floor.
When he stood, the queen’s gaze moved with him, following every slow step toward her.
Ger lifted his hands—and hesitated. She had drawn her hair to one side, and it fell like a dark waterfall over her shoulder, baring the elegant line of her neck and the dull glint of her necklace.
Seize it, said some calm voice within, a voice that certainly did not belong to Ger. Snap it.
His hands hovered between the delicate jut of her shoulder blades.
One small movement, and his decision would be made; down to take her laces, up to break the clasp of her chain.
He drifted slightly upward, and his fingers shook as though bearing some invisible weight.
The memories came to him unasked for and unwanted; Avette’s dark brow pitched as a blast of ice wind enveloped her, dark hair whipping like a silken storm above her head.
The Wielder’s snarling face as he reached for her throat, and the way his eyes and skin and body had gone abruptly glassy, petrified from head to toe.
That was when Ger realised that she did not need to make it slow; she simply enjoyed it. She could freeze the blood in his veins with a turn of her thoughts.
He stared at his own trembling hand now, and remembered how Doran had snapped the frozen Wielder’s fingers clean off to free Avette’s necklace from his grasp. Then she had stepped neatly around him and resumed her seat on the throne.
And Ger had knelt at her feet.
“You do know how to lace stays, do you not?”
Without answering, Ger took the strings in his hands and began to lace her dress.
Her skin was smooth and creamy, and he took the greatest care not to touch it as he worked.
He tied off the laces, and when he finally dropped the ends, Avette turned faster than he could retreat; his hands brushed her waist as she stepped into him, tilting her head up.
Her eyes met his, and he could swear the blaze within them fused his joints, pinning him in place.
“You are nervous,” she said softly.
They were a lover’s words, spoken breathy and low.
Her long lashes dipped as she watched his mouth for a response.
All she got was a stutter of nonsense, his lips parting like a salmon’s gaping mouth around words that would not come.
And when she smiled and leaned ever so slightly closer, it hit Ger in one breath-absorbing rush.
Avette didn’t think he was nervous because she scared him.
She thought that he wanted her.
And for perhaps the first time ever, Ger did not know what to do with that. The oddest sensation stirred in his belly, somewhere between repulsion and—fuck. It made him sick to know he was capable of such a thing, but there it was, swirling in the pit of his stomach: desire.
The worst part was that he could see how she’d come to the conclusion; he could not breathe around her, he was visibly agitated at the turn of her attention, and she was—
He hated himself for even noticing, but she was undeniably beautiful.
So much so that the Laune had fallen to her beauty.
So much so that Eisalaan had built its national identity on epic tales of her lovely face.
But as that same lovely face stared up at him, eyes half-lidded and sensuous lips curved in the slightest, triumphant smile, Ger could not help but think of another smile.
A smile gifted to him easily by the warmth of the stove. A smile that did not knit terror down his spine; that had made his chest loosen with warmth.
With more courage than he’d felt in a very long time, Ger cleared his throat—and took a step back.
Avette barely moved, yet he got the distinct impression that she’d reeled. Whatever swirled in the dark depths of her widened eyes was far too complex for Ger to decipher, but he knew in his gut that it was nothing good. The flare of it sent his fleeting courage up in flames.
“Your ladies,” he said quickly. His voice was hoarse; with breathlessness, in truth, but maybe, with a bit of delusion, it could sound like something hotter. He tried to lean into it, pitching his voice lower, rougher. “They’ll wonder what’s taking me.”
The queen lifted her chin high.
“Yes,” she said. She flicked a dismissive hand at him, all that softness in her tone turning firm. As though he were the one who’d tried to seduce her. “You should not be here, Gard. Retreat at once.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Ger backed away from the privacy of the screen, nearly stumbling over his own feet to get back to his post by the suite of settees—and immediately halting mid-step at the sight before him.