Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
I stop breathing. After a beat, the Prince looks away, his eyes falling to the book of poetry. He takes it from my lap, his gloved fingers brushing the tops of my thighs. Even through layers of fabric, the touch causes goose bumps to spread over my legs.
Luckily he seems—or at least acts—unaware of his effect on me.
His finger runs along the first stanza of the poem.
“Look at the meter, the rhythm of it, like a song. The syllable with the greatest meaning on the upbeat. It’s a masterpiece.
” He recites the sonnet, but not the translated version. He’s memorized it in ancient Aragoise.
It’s … beautiful. The words roll off his tongue like wine. I want to scoop them up and taste them for myself. Maybe kiss them off his poisonous lips.
When he’s done, I’m breathing heavier than before. “Why did you memorize it?”
“I like to memorize poetry.” He meets my eyes. “And this seemed like an important one.”
I break eye contact simply because I can’t stand to look at him anymore. “We have to figure out what this means.”
I lift myself from the chaise, cross to his desk, and pull a scrap piece of paper from his desk drawer. I jot the words of the sonnet in ancient Aragoise and stare at them, hands braced on the table. They seem like poetic gibberish to me. But …
What if there was a mistranslation?
What had Professor Borges told me just days ago, when we talked about this exact sentence on my exam? Wooden—that’s what she’d called my translation.
I double-check it. But the meaning is clear—the book’s translation matches mine, and it’s sound.
The heart is the dominion of evil.
“Any luck?” Roze asks me over my shoulder.
“No.”
I growl in disappointment. I fold the piece of paper and tuck it into the pocket of my skirt. But when I take my hands away from where I’d been bracing them on the table, the sudden movement causes my vision to spot.
The world starts to go sideways, and suddenly, Roze’s arms are under mine, holding me up. As easily as if I were a rag doll, he lifts me into his arms and carries me back to the chaise, setting me down gently. “I believe Crémant’s explicit instructions were to rest.”
“I’m sorry,” I mutter as he adjusts a pillow under my head. “We just have to solve this.”
“Saints, you were poisoned, Sinclair. You’re no good to anyone if you don’t recover.”
He sits down, this time on the edge of the chaise, and we’re silent for a long moment. All that has happened settles between us as I stare up at the ceiling. My head is clearing—the antidote is working.
“Roze?”
“Hmm?” He’s staring into the fire, not looking at me.
“How are we supposed to fight power like this?” I look at him pleadingly. “We have a day left. How can we—”
“Don’t,” he says abruptly. His eyes are steel. “Not yet.”
I choke. “Maybe it’s time I turn myself over to Belladonna.”
He pauses. Then laughs. It’s the same cold, cruel laugh that I spent the better part of my time at Vandenberghe hating.
But it hits my ears differently now. I recognize that what I thought was coldness was actually loneliness, and what I thought was cruelty was actually pain. “You’re not going to do that.”
“Are we back to this again?” I say testily. “Don’t try to control me.”
“Can you even walk yet, Sinclair? How do you plan to turn yourself in?”
I frown down at my still-weak legs, realizing he has a point.
“We’re not there yet,” he says. “We have time.”
“Till sundown tomorrow.”
He smirks. “Eons.”
He stands, removing his jacket. “I suppose I’d better clean up your mess,” he says, putting his hands on his hips and surveying the room.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I might’ve taken out my anger on your room.”
He peers around the room darkly. “I suppose I deserve it.”
Roze reassembles the room while I rest. He’s bending down to reach under the bed, when he curses. He stands, holding a black slipper in his hand—a slipper that is gnawed to bits.
“You feral beast!” He marches over to where Waffles lounges on his armchair and waves the slipper in his face. “I’ll have you stuffed!”
Waffles opens his mouth, panting, his wrinkled lips pulled into a clear smile, and I laugh, unable to help myself. The sound seems to break Roze. The rage melts from his face, and he lightly scratches Waffles’s head and hands him the slipper. “Have at it, you. It’s ruined anyway.”
He continues to tidy the room. I don’t mention again what hangs over us like a dark cloud—the last thorn will disappear from Roze’s tattoo tomorrow at sundown. This is our last night.
When the bed is made, Roze wordlessly pulls his sweater over his head, loosens his tie, and flings himself onto one of the overstuffed chairs.
“You should get some sleep,” he mutters as he situates his arm under his head. “You still need to recover.”
I feel much better now—all my dizziness is gone and my stomach is back to normal.
I move toward the bed, but something stops me, my hand stilling on the silk sheets.
Roze and I have admitted some things and omitted others, but I can’t help the feeling that I don’t want to go into whatever tomorrow brings with regrets.
“Roze … do you … do you want to sleep in the bed?”
He opens his eyes just a sliver and peers up at me. His face betrays nothing, but his chest rises a little more rapidly. A tremble of fear that I don’t altogether hate spreads to my toes.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Well.
Now I’m offended.
“And why not?”
He stands up in one fluid motion, taking a single step toward me. “Because I can’t touch you,” he says. “And if we’re getting in that bed, I’m going to want to.”
I swallow, but I tilt my chin up at him and put my hands on my hips. “Even if you could, you’re presuming that I would let you.”
“And that’s not on your mind?” he says with a sardonic tone, a little tilt on his lips.
“I didn’t ask you to sleep with me. Next to me,” I argue. “Look, neither of us knows what will happen tomorrow. I just …” I want to be close to you. I can’t seem to make myself say the words.
But he cocks his head, like the same thought has occurred to him. Wordlessly, he crosses to the bed, and together we slip between the covers. He folds his hands behind his head and stares up at the ceiling.
“There, Sinclair,” he says. “You’ve gotten me into bed. I suppose you’re happy now.”
“Oh please,” I say, nestling into my pillow. “I’m doing you a favor. That chaise isn’t nearly as comfortable.”
He smiles, and it’s half-cocky, half-genuine. He turns his head toward me, his smile faltering, and reaches out with a gloved hand to brush a loose curl behind my ear. My whole body freezes as I stare back into those crystalline eyes.
The smirk is gone. His expression is sober, soft, almost … anguished. My eyes are locked with his—I couldn’t look away if I wanted to.
He’s beautiful. That’s always been undeniable.
But I’d always thought of his beauty as more of an objective thing.
Now, fear no longer rules me, and I can see the truth.
It’s not just the sharp edges of his jaw and cheekbones, the shadows in his eyes, the perfect bow of his sinful lips—it’s that when I look at him, I see all my pain, all the despair of living a life of self-loathing, reflected in his face.
His life is the echo of mine, and in him I’ve found what I’ve been looking for my entire life—understanding.
I want him.
It’s undeniable now.
But it’s also not possible. He’s deadly, and I shouldn’t play with poison. I should look away from those despairing eyes right now and go to sleep.
Then again, maybe Roze is right, and I’m not really interested in rule following, in good behavior. If I’m a moth and he’s a flame, I want to burn.
I glance away from him, biting my lip. “So?” I say, forcing my voice to be light and teasing. “Now we’re in bed. Do you want to touch me?”
His eyes darken and he mutters, low and rough, “Yes.”
“But you can’t.”
“No.”
“Because it would kill me.”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” I scoot close to him, resting my head on his pillow till I can feel his breath on my face, move my body into his till there’s just a hair of separation between us. “But this is fine,” I whisper against his lips. “This isn’t touching.”
His breath quickens. “Wicked thing.”
His voice is playful, but his face is hard as he looks at me. He lifts a gloved hand to my face and gently traces it over my cheek, my brow, my jaw, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of me.
“I would have married you, you know,” he whispers.
My heart stops. I want to respond, but what is there even to say to a declaration like that?
Roze doesn’t seem to notice. He continues to trace the contours of my face as though he hasn’t just devastated me.
“I tried not to think about it, to imagine it. But then, when I put my ring on your finger …”
He picks up my hand, still wearing the Roquelart ring, and toys with my fingers. We both stare at the ring, gleaming in the light of the fire.
“I put my ring on your finger, and I felt … monstrous. Possessive. Like if I ever saw another’s ring on your hand, I’d rip it off and make them choke on it.”
My lip twitches. “So violent.”
“Always.” His eyes flash to mine, cutting and bright.
Something melts deep in my belly at the look in his eyes. My breath is coming out in short shudders. This is dangerous. Definitely inadvisable. But I can’t stop.
“What would it be like?” I whisper. “If we were married.”
He shifts slightly closer, weaving his gloved fingers between mine. His thumb gently strokes my hand while his eyes are still on my face.
“I despise big weddings,” he says.
“Me too.”
“Though I suppose I’d have to marry you in the cathedral. Tradition—you know.”
“That would be awkward, with what we did to the Captain of the Guard there.”
He snorts. “I think it’d be rather fitting, holding hands and declaring our vows to one another over his grave. Murder and lies brought us together, after all.”
I laugh, hiding my face in the pillow.
His eyelids lower—the gray of his irises darkening to a deep slate beneath long, black lashes. “But I’d have you long before that.”
My heart skips a beat as I peek back up at him. “Oh?”
He nods and releases my hand, moving it back to my face. He draws a line over my cheek, then down my jaw, my throat, my collarbone. Gooseflesh spreads down my body, and my eyes flutter shut.
“I’d have you tonight,” he says. “I’d have my hands on every inch of your body until I’d memorized it, until I knew it well enough to wring pleasure from you with my eyes closed.”
I can’t breathe. “Rather confident of you,” I say.
“Not confident”—I feel his cool breath on my lips as his hand skates lower, over the swell of my breasts, coming to rest at my waist and gripping me firmly there—“just very dedicated to seeing what expressions you make when you come undone.”
A sound between a sob and a moan escapes my lips. “Roze—”
“Saints, I love it when you say my name like that.” His hand comes up to grip me on the back of my neck, his thumb caressing my cheek. I open my eyes to see him watching me earnestly, pleadingly. “Let me, Viola. I can’t touch you—not with my skin. But—” He swallows. “Let me give you what I can.”
His thumb strokes my jaw suggestively.
I want to give in, but it doesn’t seem fair. He’s had so much taken from him, his skin an ever-constant barrier between him and everyone else. “I want all of you, Roze,” I say. “No gloves or anything else between us.”
He swallows thickly. “I know, darling. Believe me, I know. But let’s take what we can.”
“I suppose—oh.”
My words are stolen from my lips, because he drops his head, and then his lips are trailing down my front, over my shirt.
Those gloved hands hold my waist, gliding up my sides.
And when his lips meet the peak of my breast, my eyes flutter shut and my hands grip his shoulders, holding on like he’s my anchor in torrid waters.
Roze gasps through his teeth and jerks back suddenly.
“Wh—what?” I ask breathlessly.
“Your arm nearly brushed my face. You didn’t notice?”
“No.” I’m still dazed. All he’s done is kiss me, and only through the cotton barrier of my shirt. And yet, I’m already unraveling.
Roze frowns, scanning my body, the bed. “Let me bind your hands.”
“B—bind my hands?” I repeat breathlessly.
He smiles, and I get the sense that he’s almost trying not to laugh at me. “So that you don’t accidentally touch me, Sinclair.”
“Oh. Right. Sure.”
He moves his knees to either side of my hips and lifts himself until he’s kneeling over me, caging me between his legs. He unbuttons the top of his shirt and then loosens his tie and yanks it off in one quick motion.
“What are you doing?” I’m not sure how undressing himself could possibly help.
“You ask too many questions,” he says, and the faintest, most wicked glimmer of a smile twists his lips.
I make an indignant sound. “Maybe I’ll badger you the whole time just to spite you.”
He smiles, and—Saints, it’s charming. Perfect teeth and dimples on full display. “You can try. I like a challenge.”
He seizes my wrists with one gloved hand and holds them together in front of me.
He grips the end of his tie in his teeth as he wraps the other end around my wrists and ties it off in a tight knot.
When he’s done, he checks that it’s secure, then pushes my bound hands down, resting them on the pillow over my head.
I’m fascinated by the whole scene, my eyes as shackled to him as my hands are. My whole body is on fire—every nerve ending on edge, and I want to both wiggle and hold completely still.
“No touching, Sinclair,” he says, raising his dark brows at me.
The hand not holding my wrists sweeps down my arm, his touch featherlight, raising goose bumps along the path he’s carving, until he reaches my jaw. He grabs it in his hands and turns my head so that I’m looking straight into his eyes.
“You’re sure?” he says.
“Yes,” I breathe, and that’s all the permission he needs.