Chapter 39 Fragile
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
FRAGILE
ADELINE
What an odd proposal. He’s still kneeling there, the dress in his hands, in his fists, the fine fabric about to tear from the strain, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His long black hair is in its tangled braid, and his hands are dark with grime.
He shouldn’t look so handsome like that. I shouldn’t want him, and I don’t mean that because of the grime and oddness, but because he… he could break my heart.
It’s difficult for me to acknowledge how hard and fast I’m falling, that Olm was right. Hooked by Roane’s beauty, reeled in by his strength and protectiveness, foiled by his changing moods, I can’t get a breath in.
“Wearing a dress isn’t practical,” I whisper. “Wandering about—”
“It will look beautiful on you.” He slowly gets up, the dress held close to his body. “I chose it for you.”
“You chose it? I thought Talton was the one who found the clothes for me.”
“I put them there,” he says, his voice just a breath. “He doesn’t know. I pulled them. From a book.”
It sounds like a confession. His voice is low, his cheekbones flushed. But the words replay inside my head and I take an involuntary step back at the enormity of that statement. “You can do that? Pull things from books?”
“I’m the library’s guardian.”
I never knew a warrior librarian could do that. I thought his magic only allowed him to put things and creatures back, and that power seems to be failing, so how is he able to do this?
Clues. I need more clues. This place is making less and less sense the more I learn about it.
“If I wear the dress,” I say, “you will escort me into the sanctum?”
“Yes.”
I nod and reach for the dress. “Then give it to me.”
“And I get to help you put it on.”
I stare at him. His lashes lift and his gaze bores into mine, hot and hungry. It feeds the hunger in my own belly, the need to touch him and be touched by him. I know that if I keep looking at him, we will collide in a crash that will destroy me.
Last time I gave in to my lust, he made me feel na?ve and stupid.
So I turn my back to him and unlace the shirt. I grab the hem to lift it off, but his hands cover mine. Together we drag it up my body and let it fall to the floor.
Swallowing hard, I unlace the leather pants while stepping out of my shoes and he comes around to kneel before me, dragging the pants down, leaving me in my underpants and stockings.
I place my hands over my bare breasts, feeling exposed, but at the same time burning under his gaze. I like it on me. I want his hands, the same strong hands that held the scimitars and then clutched the dress so hard they almost tore it apart to caress me, touch me, hold me.
The white dress draped over one arm, he gets up and, Gods, his eyes smolder as he takes me in. “Beautiful,” he whispers. “Show me.”
“Roane…”
“I want to see all of you.”
He makes me feel beautiful. The way he looks at me is a drug, addling my senses. Slowly, I lower my hands and he catches them in his, the white dress caught between us, cool and soft. His gaze fastens on my breasts and his eyes seem to glow with a dark light.
“So perfect,” he breathes. “Prettier than I had imagined.”
The dress falls from his arm, breaking the moment. I step back, covering my breasts again. What are we doing? Why did I allow that? How can I forget how he has treated me?
He crouches down to retrieve the dress, and a smile tugs on his mouth. So easily he convinced me to show him my body… So easily I’m caught again, staring at him.
Good Gods, I’m ensnared like a bird in a net. No matter how fast I beat my wings, I don’t seem to be able to fly away.
“Here.” He holds the dress for me and I step inside. He rises, pulling it up, lingering when it reaches my chest, his gaze back on my breasts.
I grab the bodice and haul it all the way to my neck, which makes him grin. “You’re staring again.”
“Why, are you the only one allowed to do so?”
“I don’t stare at you,” I lie and my cheeks burn. “You haven’t been naked in my presence.”
“I’ve only seen your breasts. If you wish to see my chest naked, you only have to say.”
My lips pull into a reluctant smile until I remember why this is a bad idea. Instead, I focus on pushing my arms through the sleeves and shove my thoughts into another direction.
“Which book did you pull this dress from? And to whom did it belong in the story?”
He walks around me and stands at my back, giving the laces of the bodice a light tug. “Nobody.”
“Right. Now the truth, please?”
“Fine.” He huffs, his breath warm on the back of my neck. “It belonged to a goddess, or so the legend says. It hung in an abandoned temple.”
“And you thought it wise to steal it and put it on me?”
“It was just a story, Ellin. Besides… goddesses don’t need clothes. You don’t need them.”
I try to turn around to see his expression because the low rumble of his voice has deepened into a sexy growl. But he puts his hands on my shoulders and suddenly the heat of his tall body touches my back.
His scent winds around me. It’s a rope, tying us together in endless loops. “Do you trust me?”
“I don’t.”
“Wise.” He laughs quietly, his lips brushing over my neck, making me shudder. “But you’re drawn to me.”
I can’t deny it, damn him. I want him, and the force of that desire stings like a blade going through me, cutting through the physical need to something more profound.
I need to crack him open, see the real Roane, have him for myself.
I want entry into his secrets, his desires.
I long to touch him where it hurts and where it makes him groan as if he’s dying of pleasure.
His hands slide over my back, down my bodice. He pulls harder on the laces and ties them off. Then he ties the belt, too, and steps around me until we’re facing each other.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “You look…”
It’s a dress made of starlight and ice crystals, diaphanous tulles layered over the silken skirt, the bodice worked with opals and diamonds.
The sleeves are ruffled and falling off my shoulders, the stiff bodice forming a low cleavage.
It dips low at my back and molds to my body, fitting like a glove.
“I’ve never worn anything like it,” I whisper, awed. “My family could never afford it.”
“And yet you’re the kind of girl who should always dress in silk and gems, or…”
“Or?”
“Or in nothing. Only in your silky skin. Fuck, I’m dying to see you naked. Completely naked in front of me. Underneath me. Kneeling at my feet. Or I could kneel at yours.”
Shaking my head, trembling at his words, I smooth my hands over the bodice. His hands follow mine and where he touches the dress, I think I see the fabric shiver and transmute, going from silk to velvet and back, the pearls suddenly sparkling like diamonds before returning to their opalescence.
My mind is playing tricks on me, lost in sensation—the silk, the weight of the dress, his hands on my arms. It’s like magic.
And nothing is more magical than him. His long dark lashes, the glimmer of his gray eyes, the bow of his mouth. That faint glow that clings to him like silver dust, shining on the jut of his cheekbones, the cut of his jaw, the hollow of his throat.
His hands travel up to my shoulders, to my neck. “Ellin… Your skin is so soft.”
My breath catches again. It has that bad habit when he’s close. “I…”
“A healer’s daughter,” he whispers. “A thief. A book lover. Who crossed the plains to enter the Areon and who won’t take no for an answer.”
“I was raised to be as stubborn as my mother,” I whisper back.
His mouth twitches. “What did your father have to say about that?”
“He married the woman. He isn’t allowed an opinion on the matter.”
“Gods, woman. You’re driving me crazy.” His head dips, his mouth so close to mine. He’s going to kiss me, I think, and feel faint with anticipation.
But a distant crash inside the library startles me, and he jerks back as if burned, his gaze darting around.
“What was that?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he breathes, but the worry written all over his face says otherwise.
“It’s as if something heavy fell to the ground.”
His gaze returns to me, dips to my cleavage. His hands slip around my waist. “It was nothing.”
“Roane…”
“Yeah, say my name. I like its shape on your lips, in your voice.”
I’m drowning in his scent, in his warmth, his strength. “Tell me about yourself. Give me a story of your past.”
I don’t think he will, but he nods, his gaze traveling over me.
“Once… I got lost, pursuing a goal that wasn’t my own.
I was on a mission to find a treasure and I was attacked.
Racing down ravines and creeks, I accepted my fate.
I was going to die there, without reaching my goal, with no way to let anyone know what had become of me.
And then… there it was. A small bird. A kind of sparrow.
Gray and brown plumage, with a dark crown on its head.
It flew ahead of me, flying in circles when I slowed down.
Showing me the way to a hiding place. That little sparrow saved my life. ”
Sweetness trickles through me. This little story is so innocent and yet full of pain. Is the storm over? Is this the real Roane talking?
“I never knew I’d end up dying here,” he goes on.
That gives me a start. “Dying? Roane—”
He sighs, lashes lowering. “Gods, you’re beautiful. Since the moment I saw you… I knew you’d break my heart.”
That’s one way to die, I suppose. My heart is feeling kind of fragile, too, at the moment.
And he kisses me, at last, a long, dark fall into forever.