Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
LARA
A s I fought for my life in the cemetery in the forest, Duke Ivrael strode out of the fog, passing through the open iron gate with little more than a flinch—something that did not strike me as odd at the time, though later, I spent hours contemplating the significance of it.
And for a bare instant, he looked like an avenging angel.
His gold-embroidered coattails flared out behind him, and his sword gleamed with an internal light. His golden blond hair waved around him in that undetectable breeze, and his eyes blazed with the same light as the sword. As he passed through the fog, he spun his sword around over his head in a wide, sweeping arc, intoning something in the language I didn’t understand. A bright white light flared from the tip of the sword, and everywhere it touched, the fog retreated.
With his appearance, I began to fight even harder, kicking out from where I lay sprawled on the ground. I drew my knees to my chest and kicked out at the kneecaps of the rotting creature closest to me, hearing the sharp crack of bones breaking. I barely managed to roll out of the monster’s way as it toppled toward me, and then I pushed myself to my feet as fast as I could.
I wasn’t fast enough, though. As I began to run for Ivrael, I felt the scrape of a bony hand against my scalp, my hair tangling in the thing’s finger bones as it closed its fist and jerked me back.
I screamed, and the sound was answered with a roar from Ivrael, again in that language I didn’t understand. I toppled backward, landing hard on my ass, my hair ripping away from my head, leaving my eyes watering with the pain.
With a handful of my hair now dangling from its closed fist, the skeletal creature moved around in front of me, its jaw opening and closing, teeth clacking as it prepared to bite me. I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I could not allow it to sink its long, pointed canine teeth into my skin. With a sob, I rolled over to my knees, once again pushing myself to my feet, my soggy sneakers slipping as I tried to find purchase against the icy ground under the snow.
This time, the monster grabbed my sweater, its bony fingers tangling in the threads as it attempted to pull itself toward me even as I tried to pull away from it. I grabbed its wrist, and without even thinking about it, I twisted my hands in opposite directions. With a snapping sound reminiscent of a rubber band popping, the tendon holding the hand to the rest of the skeleton snapped.
I lunged toward where I’d seen Ivrael last, every instinct telling me in that moment that he represented safety.
When I caught sight of him again, he stood in a circle of undead, his sword flashing as he whipped it around, every motion economical and graceful as he danced in a small circle, turning this way and that. Several dismembered bodies lay scattered around him, and there was nothing between us—it was a straight shot. And I knew that if I could get to him, he would protect me.
It didn’t occur to me until much later that assuming I’d have Ivrael’s protection was insane. But at that moment, I accepted the thought at face value and began racing toward him, ducking and weaving past the undead Caix staggering toward me.
Other monstrous Caix zombies lurched toward Ivrael, and I had to work to keep track of him. Eventually, I settled for aiming toward the sword flashing through the air. I ducked around mausoleums and jumped over headstones in my dash toward him.
I almost made it, too. He’d been steadily moving in my direction, slashing his way through the monsters attacking him, and there couldn’t have been more than three or four yards between us when the last undead Caix anywhere near us fell to his sword.
I gulped out a hiccupping sob at the thought of safety. Ivrael didn’t say a word, instead holding out one hand imperiously as if expecting me to race toward him.
That gesture probably saved my life.
As intent as I’d been on reaching him mere seconds before, the sheer entitlement of that hand held toward me, the fact that he expected me to come to him without question or doubt, froze my feet in place.
Almost instantly, the ground directly in front of me—the ground that I would have been stepping on in that moment if I’d kept moving—exploded into the air. Clods of frozen dirt mixed with cold, wet snow and ice pelted against my face and rained down on my head. I closed my eyes and ducked my face away from it.
When I opened my eyes, another Caix creature stood before me. This woman was so newly dead that I might have assumed she was still alive if not for the fact that her eyes were no longer in her face. Her lips and gums had shriveled a little, too, pulling back from her teeth so that they looked more like fangs than regular teeth.
Then I realized that her teeth were in fact fangs, and despite her eyelessness, she was aiming those fangs toward me, her mouth open and air whistling through her throat in a wordless moan.
My first instinct was to take a step back, but my calf banged up against a headstone I’d jumped over seconds before, and by the time I ducked to the side, it was too late. She’d grasped my shoulder in a relentless grip with her bony hand, and no matter how hard I tried to wrench away from her, I couldn’t get free, until she was so close the strands of her long white hair brushed against me.
When her hand jerked and she thrust her chest forward, I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned as far back as I could, certain she was coming in for the kill. But when nothing happened immediately, I opened one eye to check.
The monster’s face was frozen in a rictus grin, her face tilted downward as if staring at the tip of the sword protruding from her chest.
Ivrael’s sword. The duke wrenched it upward, slicing her in half, the sword curving up at the last moment to carve its way out between her shoulder and her neck, leaving the arm clutching my shoulder dangling uselessly. I peeled her fingers away from me, the papery feel of her skin sending a shudder through me.
The creature stumbled to the side, dropping to her knees, and in an instant, Ivrael had his arm wrapped around my waist. He lifted me up, keeping me close to his side, and spun toward the creature, slicing her head off her body. It hit the ground and bounced before rolling to a stop, strands of hair covering the holes where her eyes had once been. The rest of the body shuddered once, then toppled to the ground.
At least for the moment, we were free, the area around us clear of any undead Caix.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, his voice rumbling through his chest and vibrating against me.
I paused for a heartbeat, trying to figure out how to answer that question.
“I’m not hurt, if that’s what you mean,” I finally managed to say.
Ivrael pulled me in close, his hand curving up along my back.
His scent washed over me, spicy vanilla over ice, going straight to my core, bypassing my brain entirely. His body was warmer than I had expected, almost too hot to touch, as if he emanated heat from a fire within. If I had not been so terrified, I would’ve moaned at the warmth and the scent.
The arm still curved around my waist tightened, and I looked up to find him staring at me with an intensity that stole my breath. For a long moment, he stared at me as if waiting for something. I thought I felt his cock harden against me, but then he shifted and I couldn’t be sure—and I didn’t have time to process it, anyway.
Those ice-blue eyes went molten, flecked with swirling gold. He shifted his stance again suddenly, and this time I was sure I felt his cock stir against me before he subtly adjusted his hold.
He pulled off one glove with his teeth and tucked it into his pocket, then brushed his thumb across my lip. Without conscious thought, my gaze dropped to his mouth.
That was all it took. He bent his head and captured my lips with his.
His kiss wasn’t gentle. It held all the fierce energy of our battle with the undead, all the tension that had been building between us since the market—and it was hard, possessive, nothing like other kisses I had experienced before. Then again, Ivrael was like no other man I’d ever known.
His lips, like the rest of his body, were surprisingly warm, and I found myself responding before I could think better of it.
His hand pressed against my lower back, holding me closer. A small sound escaped me as his tongue traced my bottom lip, seeking entry. I gasped at the sensation, and he took advantage, deepening the kiss until I was dizzy with it.
For a moment, I forgot everything—that he’d bought me, that I was his prisoner, that seconds ago we’d been fighting for our lives. There was only the heat of his mouth, the strength in his arms, the way my entire body hummed wherever we touched.
Then reality came crashing back. I wrenched away from him, stumbling as my feet hit the ground. “No—I can’t?—”
His eyes had gone completely gold now, but as I watched, they shifted back to their usual shade of ice. His expression closed off, becoming the remote mask I was more familiar with.
“Who let them out?” he demanded.
I stared at him mutely, not knowing what he was talking about, but he didn’t wait for an answer.
“What are you doing here?”
I cringed away from his rough, gravelly voice and his harsh tone.
“Well?”
Apparently, these were not rhetorical questions.
“Tell me.”
“I was going home.” I knew I sounded sulky—but to be fair, that’s what I was. “I don’t want to be here.”
“That makes two of us.”
I jerked back, this time staring at him in surprise. Had I heard that right?
Before I could ask, he continued his barrage of questions. “But why did you stop here, in the graveyard?”
“How the hell was I supposed to know you keep monsters in your cemetery?”
This time he snorted, the sound somewhere between irritation and laughter. “Sometimes I forget where you spent your childhood.”
I shook my head, unable to reconcile this angry man—this passionate, expressive Ivrael—with the cold, cruel, remote man who had bought me in the Trasqo Market.
Which Ivrael was he? The remote Lord of the Manor? Or this one?
Or hell, the one who’d just kissed me…
Sometimes I think I still don’t know.
And at that moment, it didn’t matter, as the moaning of the undead drew my attention to the group lurching toward us, now blocking our path to the gate.
“You’re going to have to stay close to me,” he instructed, his tone turning perfectly neutral, as if we weren’t surrounded by Icecaix zombies… vampires… whatever the hell they were.
I realized then that my legs were trembling, and suddenly, I couldn’t walk. As I stumbled, though, Ivrael turned and caught me before I could hit the ground, scooping me in his arms and cradling me against his chest like a child. He pulled me in close, pressing my face into the fabric of his coat.
“You’re safe now,” he murmured, and I found it remarkably comforting.
Then he dropped me to my feet and snugged me in close with one arm. “Don’t look up, don’t make eye contact with any of them. ”
“I can’t make eye contact,” I muttered. “They don’t have eyes.”
His chuckle reverberated through his chest. “Then don’t look at them at all.”
I nodded, my cheek scraping lightly against the metallic thread ornamenting the jacket.
We began walking, and I lifted my head away from his chest.
“Pretend they’re not here,” Ivrael reminded me.
“Is that what you’re doing?” My voice came out shaky. I knew it wasn’t at all what he was doing. I could feel the muscles of his torso moving, hear the whistling of his sword as he slashed it through the air, sense the shudder of the metal as it impacted against the Caix dead.
“More or less,” he said easily, not even out of breath—not with fear, and not with exertion—whereas I was worried I might faint from both before we made it the twenty yards or so to the open gate.
I glanced up at his face, though, and saw that it did not match his voice at all. He was carrying on a conversation as easily as if he were at home in his own drawing room, but the muscles in his jaw were knotted and tense, his forehead furrowed with lines of concentration.
When I didn’t say anything, he dropped his gaze to meet mine, and his eyes gleamed silver in the moonlight. But that glance drew his attention away from the undead Caix who had moved to surround us long enough for one of them to get through his defenses. It came at us from his other side, and I caught a glimpse of the movement beyond Ivrael just in time to squeak out a warning, but not soon enough for him to avoid the half-rotted creature’s semi-tackle.
Ivrael stumbled, grunted, and spun around, blade in hand. He took his arm from around me to hold the sword two-handed.
“Stay close,” he told me, and now the strain in his voice matched the expression on his face. He turned back to shove the monster away, giving himself enough room to bring his sword down on its neck, severing its head entirely.
“Does that kill them?” I asked as we moved toward the gate.
Ivrael paused. “Does what kill them?”
“Chopping their heads off. Kind of like vampires?”
“Not exactly.” He shrugged. “But sometimes it sends them back into the Eternal Dream. Close enough.” He glanced down at me, and his voice softened a little. “Now, no more talking. I need to watch for more of them.”
I nodded, willing to follow his directions if it meant we got out of here sooner—and stayed alive while doing so.
Ivrael moved us out of the cemetery as fearlessly as he had entered it, kicking the gate closed behind us with a clang. Trapped behind the gate, the undead moaned and clawed toward it, but never quite touched the metal. Peering over back behind us, I scanned them, the terror clenching my stomach into a tight knot finally loosening its hold, subsiding as I realized they truly couldn’t follow us.
Ivrael glanced down at me, then followed my gaze back to the cemetery. An odd expression, reminiscent of something like triumph, flashed across his face.
That’s when I realized I could no longer see the King of the Dead.
Outside the iron fence stood one of those ice horses glittering in the moonlight. Once again, Ivrael curled one arm around my waist—but this time he lifted me easily.
“Wrap your arms around my neck,” he instructed, and when my gaze flipped up to him, I saw his eyes were glittering, too—only unlike the horses, his eyes glimmered with silver and gold.
Fear and desire.
The words whispered across my thoughts, almost as if they’d been inserted from somewhere outside myself.
I shoved them down deep inside until I could no longer hear them, tilting my forehead to rest against Ivrael’s chest, even as my arms stretched up to wrap around his neck. My whole body thrummed with an aching awareness of him, a physical sense of every place he held me pressed against him. Even wrapped in several layers, that awareness burned like fire.
Or maybe like ice.
Apparently unaware of my internal struggle, Ivrael murmured, “Hold on.” Then he sheathed his sword along his back, used his free hand to grab the pommel of the saddle, and swung himself—still holding me—onto the horse’s back.
I yelped a little. I don’t think I had realized until that moment exactly how strong Ivrael was. Then again, I didn’t know as much about the Caix back then as I do now.
“Be still,” Ivrael barked as I tried to sit up.
“You could make another horse,” I muttered.
When he didn’t answer immediately, I tilted my face back to look at him.
In his jaw, a muscle tightened and loosened, bunching up under his skin in a rhythmic motion. Finally, he ground out, “Since I can’t trust you not to try to run away and get yourself slaughtered, I can’t let you ride free.”
I inhaled to speak, reluctant to accept his version of events, but the look he gave me prompted me to click my teeth shut over my words. With a gesture from one hand, Ivrael directed the horse back to his home, then wrapped that arm around me, as well.
The ride back to Starfrost Manor took even less time than I had anticipated. Either Ivrael’s magical horse moved faster than I realized, or as I’d traveled through the forest, I had not been moving either as quickly or in as straight a line as I had thought.
I was pulled out of a half-doze when Ivrael once again lifted his hand away from where I was snuggled into his lap. But this time, it was to make an odd, waving gesture just before our icy steed bunched its legs under it to leap, and we sailed over the stone wall surrounding the courtyard. I had known that was where we were headed, of course, but that knowledge did not prevent my heart from clenching down in my chest, as if it had expelled every last drop of blood and sent it rushing through my veins, leaving me woozy and disoriented.
Before I could even fully formulate a thought, I let out a tiny whimper of misery, but then tamped it down mercilessly.
Under me, Ivrael flinched, and I could’ve sworn I sensed him repressing his response as quickly and ruthlessly as I had mine.
His jaw tightening again, Ivrael shifted me around until he held me with one arm again, and then swung us off the horse and onto the ground—where he still did not drop me to my feet. Instead, he held me in both arms as he stalked through the courtyard and around the back to the kitchen. When he walked in, kicking the door open and striding through just like the Lord of the Manor he truly was, Adefina was standing with her back to us, her head bowed as she stared into the fire, twisting one of her kitchen towels in her soft, stolid brown hands. When she turned to face us, I was surprised to see that her cheeks were tear-stained.
“You found her,” the cook gasped.
“She needs warmth and food, perhaps a healing salve for her head,” Ivrael said, his voice sounding oddly tense. “Where does she sleep?” But when Adefina opened her mouth to respond, Ivrael gave one sharp shake of his head. “Never mind. It’s better I don’t know.”
He moved over to the hearth, where he set me down gently and pulled my cloak tighter around my shoulders.
He was right, I realized. I hadn’t felt it before, but my whole body was shivering, my scalp ached where the undead creature had pulled out my hair, and my stomach gave a loud rumble, even though it really hadn’t been that long since I’d eaten.
At the sound, Adefina tried to smother a snicker. Her mouth trembled and her cheeks creased as she bit the inside of her mouth to contain her mirth at my expense. “Glad to know she’s not too much the worse for wear.”
I glanced up when Ivrael didn’t respond, only to find him gone.
I hadn’t heard him leave.
I blinked at the door.
What exactly had he meant when he said it was better if he didn’t know where I slept?