Chapter 27
“Sometimes [the faeries] contrived to induce, by their fair and winning ways, unwary men and women to go with them.”
I follow Isabeau into the stable. The sweet scent of horses, straw, and hay meet me with the usual result of easing my worry. The four men who currently work there glance at me.
“Take the morning with your families. Travel together.” I smile at them.
They all nod and then leave without a word, and I am grateful that the villagers who cycle in and out of service at the manor are bound by magic to silence.
I know Isabeau hears me. She watches me as she paces next to her horse like she’s a vicious thing, and I cannot help the flutter of worry that comes over me at the sight of her agitation.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I say softly. “I wanted to tell you before we . . . before . . . but I was selfish. I was impulsive, and . . . I am sorry.”
“That we were intimate?”
“No, but I am sorry that I am not the person you thought I was,” I correct. I give her a wry smile. “How could anyone regret being in your arms?”
“I will speak to the queen. Surely, a geas can be withdrawn by some act,” Isabeau begins. “Your curse—”
“I am not cursed.” I step into her path. “My father thought I could pass this obligation to someone else if I married. He chose a husband for me and . . .” I give her a smile. “I told you how that went. My body didn’t sing with him. My heart didn’t thrill. I was already in love with someone else.”
“I cannot accept this, Gabrielle.”
“I cannot change how I feel, but I forgive you of your words of marriage,” I say quickly. “I will not trap you.”
Isabeau grabs me, hands firm on my shoulders. “I cannot accept that you are the Hunter. I am beyond grateful that you love me.”
I shake my head as a bitter laugh bursts out. “There’s nothing to accept. You saw me fight, Isabeau. You felt me defeat you. You know I can find whatever creature is slaying—”
“You continue to misunderstand me, now.”
I pull out of her hold and walk away from her. I feel like my heart beats in my throat as I tell her, “The only way I stop being the Hunter is if I die.”
“No.” Isabeau approaches me, stalking toward me not unlike a predator. My body thrills at the aggression radiating off her, unable to control the possessive surge inside me. She feels like an equal, a person I could have and hold. She says, “I would burn the world to keep you safe, love.”
Hearing her call me “love” in that moment sends a frisson of hope through me. The words I want to say tumble together, but no sound parts my lips.
Isabeau stops in front of me. “I do not doubt your strength or your ability. I simply do not want anything to hurt you, especially because I asked you to hunt this creature. I intend to marry you, to cherish you, and I cannot stand being responsible for your death or injury.”
I step backward. It’s either that or I leap into her arms, and I doubt anything would be resolved by having relations with her instead of conversation. “I don’t know that marrying you is wise, Isa—”
“Liar.” She gives me the same arrogant smile that has always made me want to swoon. “You said I needed to hear your secret first. I have heard it.”
“You ran,” I whisper.
“For a moment, love. I wanted to lock you away. I would claw a moat in the ground with my bare hands. Fill the water with venomous serpents.” She cups my cheek in her palm. “I am filled with panic, Gabrielle. This monster kills.”
“Yes, it attacked me in the forest. You were there, after,” I confess.
“I thought you fell.” She crushes me in her embrace. “Never lie to me again. Swear it.”
“I swear.”
We stand in silence a moment until I pull back and ask, “Are you certain? About still wanting to be with me?”
“Absolutely.” Her hand darts out, catching my hip in her hold.
I am certain my bones are melting under the heat in her eyes as she says, “Do you know how often I dwell on the memory of every time I have touched you? Every conversation? Every time you laughed? Each serious explanation of some research or . . .”
She leans forward to kiss me, and I turn my head. Her lips brush my cheek.
She says, “I have always wanted you at my side. You were my first kiss. I watched you for months, but my tongue was like a weight when I tried to speak to you. Your clever sister arranged to meet me that first night, and I went thinking she was going to tell me how to talk to you. Instead, you were there.”
Isabeau steps forward. I will either be chest to chest with her or retreat. I back up into an empty—and clean—horse stall.
“I tried to tell you what I felt with my hands and my lips, with those tiny flowers you liked so much.” Isabeau shakes her head. “I crawled on my hands and knees plucking those so often. My love couldn’t want roses or some other huge blossom. You had to like the smallest of blossoms.”
“Yet you still picked such huge bouquets of them.” I smile at the memory of her mud-covered, grass-stained gowns. “I pressed many of them in books.”
“Let me love you.” She stares at me, and I think I can see the immensity of her feelings in her eyes. “I can show you how I feel even when I don’t say the right words.”
I shudder at the flood of need that fills me as she steps closer. All because of her gaze, that’s all she has to do to make my body feel molten. I still back away from her again. “I know how you feel, Isa.”
Isabeau steps closer. “Do you need my words then? I have no flowers, but I can tell you everything if you need assurances. I sent you a microscope. That man in Regina Centrum? The ocularist you liked?”
“Sir Bartholomew?”
“You named a grotesque on my home after him. I was jealous, but I sent you that microscope.” Her hand curls possessively around my hip.
“We were no longer speaking then.”
Isabeau shrugs. “And yet, I still wanted to lock you in my castle and guard over you. I thought if I could keep you there, you would accept my offer of marriage eventually.”
“I never heard your offer,” I remind her.
“Hearing that monsters will try to hurt you . . .” Isabeau makes an angry sound.
“I would build a tower and lock you away from any claw or fang. That’s what I was thinking when I ran.
I want to build walls to keep every threat away from you.
And in our tower, I will ravish you over and over until you promise not to fight them. ”
Despite my resolve, I gasp at the thought of it.
“I would escape, Your Grace. Your temper changes nothing about the geas. I hunt, Maudite. It’s who I am until my death.
I must seek out the faeries that are not to be in our world, and I must kill them.
That is my destiny. If you cannot accept that, we cannot be together. ”
“When I am awake and you hunt, I must be at your side,” Isabeau demands. “I will protect you. I will make you mine.” She puts her hand on her heart. “I feel like you always have been mine.”
I lift my chin, feeling like I am negotiating a surrender. “I like the ravishing part of your plan, but I cannot shirk my duties because you want to treat me like a noblewoman.”
“If I can make you beg, you will stay in my home, and I will accompany you in the daylight hours when you hunt.” Isabeau’s hand tightens on my hip like she is trying to brand her skin into mine. “Say yes, love.”
“I will agree to stay at your castle when I am not at my home. My weapons are all here, though,” I explain, although I carefully avoid mentioning that she will be abed in the hours when I must hunt. “You can move into my manor, too.”
“Yes.” She brushes her nose against my throat and gently bites. “I cannot be apart from you, not if you are in peril.”
“I want to kiss—”
The rest of my sentence is lost under Isabeau’s mouth. She sways toward me, and I am in her arms where I want to be. This time there is no hesitation. I melt into her embrace.
When I jerk back to stare at Isabeau’s lust-blown eyes, my voice sounds raw. “I cannot give you an heir or be the duchess you deserve. I’m afraid I am not what you need. If I say yes, and I fail you—”
“I know what I need, love. I need you. I always have. I want to be at your side as you research or hunt or sleep.” Isabeau presses me back to the wall. “Don’t run away from me because I am worried about you.”
Isabeau puts one palm flat on the wood and crowds close.
I draw a shaky breath. “I could escape right now if I wanted.”
“I’d let you if you wanted to flee, but . . .” Her lips are against my throat again, and this time I tilt to give her better access. Her words are warm against my skin as she says, “You want to be here as much as I do.”
The question hovers there, so I assure her, “I do, but you cannot simply seduce me every time you panic or I do.”
“Why not?” Her leg presses between mine. “I like seducing you.”
“You are impossible.”
“Maybe, but I assure you that I feel like we are very possible. Probable. Certain even.” Isabeau unwinds the long leather strap that protected my arm from shoulder to wrist. When she reaches the end, she says, “Hold this. I have a future bride to seduce.”
I laugh, but I still comply, curious about her intention as Isabeau makes short work of the other strap of my armor. “I cannot think about marriage. I want you in my bed, in my life, but I cannot think about forever right now.”
Ignoring my words, Isabeau tosses the ends that I don’t hold over the wall and loops them around a post. “I like this armor.”
I feel foolish holding the ends of the leather protective garb in my hands. “Do you want these, too?”
“My innocent love.” Isabeau takes them and wraps the leather around my wrists several times like manacles.
I allow it. I’m not sure what she intends, but I am intrigued. “Agree that you will not try to tell me I cannot hunt when you aren’t with me.”
“I will not. I will worry, love. You cannot ask me to stop worrying,” she says, pausing to stare into my eyes.
“Worry is acceptable.”
“May I unwrap your legs, Gabrielle?”
“Yes . . . ? I don’t understand why my wrists are held fast.” I glance at them.