Iona
Sera finds me cutting the sleeves off an old riding gown.
She stops in the doorway of the wash house with a basket on one hip.
“That dress offend you?”
“It has served its purpose.”
“It still has both sleeves.”
“Not for long.”
She watches me cut through the second seam. The gown is dark green, plain, and old enough that nobody will mourn it. I chose it because the skirt is narrow enough to run in and loose enough to tear.
Sera sets down the basket.
“Should I ask?”
“No.”
“Good. I’ve work to do.” She begins sorting sheets. “Take the wool stockings. The stones are cold after dark.”
I look up.
She does not.
“Thank you.”
“Mm.”
Sera goes back to the sheets. I keep cutting.
By sunset I have changed my mind six times. The wanting stays fixed. Sense does not.
Torgan can hear a mouse behind a wall. He can smell my body from the far end of a council table. Yesterday he broke stone because I asked him to follow me.
Tonight I mean to run.
The thought turns my stomach over and leaves heat behind.
I meet him in the old armory above the west stair. No guards inside. One lamp on the table.
He has stripped down to black trousers and a sleeveless leather coat. No sword. No armor. Bare forearms. Bare feet.
His claws are hidden.
For now.
He closes the door after me.
“You can still change your mind.”
“So can you.”
“No.”
The answer comes too quickly to be polite.
My pulse jumps.
He hears it.
“Good,” I say. “Then listen.”
I put both hands on the table so he can see they are steady.
“The inner wall is the boundary. The west passages, the night garden, the old orchard court. I do not leave them. You do not drive me beyond them.”
“Yes.”
“I left my cloak in the orchard court,” he says. “If you use ash, I cover you and walk you home.”
“Good.”
“If I say hold, you stop where you are and wait.”
“Yes.”
“If I say ash, the hunt ends. Completely. You let me go, you put your claws away, and you speak to me in your ordinary voice.”
His jaw tightens at the last part.
“Yes.”
“No mating bite. No fang point on my pulse. You may mark me with your back teeth anywhere else we already named. Shoulder. Breast. Hip. Thigh.”
His pupils widen.
“You may tear the gown. You may pin me. You may carry me. You may use your hands, mouth, and cock. You may leave marks.”
“How deep?”
“Deep enough to show. Not deep enough to need Sera’s sewing kit.”
A rough breath leaves him.
“My claws?”
“The flat sides anywhere. The points on the outside of my thighs or across my back, lightly. No face. No throat. No belly.”
His fingers flex once.
Dark points slide free.
I keep talking.
“If I fight you, it is part of the hunt. If I say no without the word ash, you stop long enough to look at me.”
“I stop.”
“You look. If I tell you to continue, you continue. If I don’t, it ends.”
“Yes.”
“Once you catch me for the final time, you do not have to ask permission for every thing we have already agreed to.”
His gaze drops over the cut sleeves, the old gown, the riding boots.
“Iona.”
“That is what I want.”
“I know what you think you want.”
“No.” I step around the table. “Every Serathi border ballad says the woman begs the horned creature for mercy. I am telling you what I want instead.”
He does not move.
I stop close enough to feel his heat.
“I want to run hard enough that I forget this is a court. I want to hear you behind me. I want to try to get away.”
His claws lengthen another inch.
“I want you to catch me,” I say. “I want to know I cannot move you. I want your marks on me tomorrow where your whole hall can see them.”
The old blood enters his voice.
“And if you become afraid?”
“I may.”
He draws one slow breath, sorting fear from want.
“That does not mean I want it to stop. Want and fear can live in the same body. You taught me that.”
His gaze fixes on my mouth.
“Say the word.”
“Ash.”
Again.
“Ash.”
He steps behind me.
I hear the soft scrape of one claw against the table.
“Three hundred heartbeats,” he says. “You take the west stair. The old passage opens behind the ivy screen. The gates are barred. Guards are outside the boundary only.”
“No one inside?”
“No one.”
“Vess?”
“Vess agreed to stay off the walls.”
That does not answer the question, but it is probably the best promise anyone gets from Vess.
Torgan picks up a length of green ribbon from the table.
“Put your scent on it.”
The command reaches lower than it should.
I take the ribbon.
He watches as I slide it beneath the front of my gown and draw it slowly under one breast. Then the other. My nipples are already hard. The silk catches on them.
His upper lip draws back from his fangs.
I trail the ribbon over my stomach, beneath the waistband of my drawers, and press it between my thighs.
His claws score the table.
The sound is small.
My body answers it anyway.
I draw the ribbon free. It is warm from my skin.
“Enough?”
“No.”
The word is almost a growl.
I tie the ribbon around my wrist.
He comes close behind me. No touch. His mouth hovers beside my ear.
“Once I start, I will not sound like this.”
“I know.”
“I may not use your name.”
“I know.”
“I will smell every time you become wetter. Every time fear sharpens. Every place you touch yourself to leave me a trail.”
My knees weaken.
He notices.
His palm covers my nape. Fingers only. Claws held clear.
“Last chance.”
I turn my face enough to see one dark eye.
“Count.”
His grip tightens.
Then it is gone.
“Run.”
I run.
The west stair turns tight and black beneath me. I keep one hand on the center post and take the steps too fast. My skirt catches at my knees. The wool stockings Sera ordered me to wear save my skin when I miss the last stair and hit stone.
I am up before the pain settles.
Behind me, nothing.
He is counting.
I reach the old passage and pull the door shut. It will not slow him. I do it because I need to hear it open.
The passage is unlit. Cold air moves through cracks in the outer wall. My boots strike hard enough to echo.
Fifty heartbeats. Perhaps sixty.
I drag the green ribbon along the first turning and snag one loose loop on a nail without untying it from my wrist.
At the second turn I stop.
The silence presses against my back.
I slide my fingers beneath my skirt.
One touch. Only enough to gather the heat already there.
I wipe it across the stone at shoulder height.
My face burns in the dark.
Then I hear the armory door open three floors above me.
Not slammed.
Opened.
The hunt begins with a hinge.
I run again.
The old passage forks. Left goes toward the garden. Right loops past the abandoned signal room before joining the same path.
I take right.
My breath is loud. Too loud. Every turn looks like the last.
Behind me, one claw touches stone.
Scrape.
Then nothing.
I go faster.
The signal room has no door. I cross it and catch a movement behind the broken shutters.
Moonlight.
No. A horn.
He is on the narrow outer wall-walk, moving parallel to me.
The shape drops out of sight. Stone scrapes somewhere ahead.
A service panel in the passage swings inward.
He fills it.
No cloak on him. No coat. Bare chest rising slowly. Horns almost touching the low arch. Claws fully out.
His eyes are black.
I stop.
He breathes in.
The doubled voice rolls through the narrow room.
“Run.”
I do.
He lets me pass.
That frightens me more than being blocked.
I hear him turn behind me. Hear nothing after.
I hit the left-hand passage at speed, shoulder scraping stone. The ivy screen is ahead. I shove through it and burst into the night garden.
Moonlight lies across the frost. Hedges divide the garden into dark lanes. The fountain is frozen. The orchard court waits beyond the rose walk, open to the sky and closed on three sides by old walls.
I know where he wants me.
I turn away from it.
Gravel snaps behind me.
I look back.
Nothing.
I reach the yew walk. The hedges are taller than my head. The path bends twice before the fountain.
At the first bend I take off the ribbon and knot it to a branch.
At the second, I pull the front of my gown down and press my bare breast to the cold stone edging.
The shock makes me gasp.
My scent stays there.
I hear him growl from somewhere behind the hedge.
The sound is low enough to feel through my soles.
I run laughing because my body has nowhere else to put the fear and joy.
The fountain appears ahead. I cut across the open court.
A shadow drops from the wall.
He catches me before my next step lands.
One arm locks around my waist. The other catches both wrists against my chest. My feet leave the ground.
I kick. Twist. Throw my weight sideways.
He does not shift.
His mouth opens against the back of my neck.
No bite. Breath and fangs and the hard scrape of his lower teeth against my skin.
“Caught.”
The word is barely human.
I drive my heel backward. He turns his thigh and takes it without a sound.
“Let me go.”
He goes still.
His face turns enough to see mine.
I hold his gaze.
“Continue.”
His pupils spread until there is nothing else.
He carries me to the fountain and bends me over the stone rim.
My palms hit ice.
His claws hook the back of my gown.
Fabric tears from neck to waist.
Cold air rushes over my skin. His hand follows, hot and broad, flattening between my shoulder blades.
He smells the exposed line of my back. Slow. Thorough. Nose at my spine, mouth at my shoulder, breath warming every place the cold touched.
One claw turns flat and travels down my side.
I shake.
He feels it.
The point touches the outside of my thigh.
A careful sting.
One long, shallow line.
My hips push back before he finishes it.
His growl breaks against my skin.
He bites my shoulder.
His back teeth close hard enough that pain flashes white. The long points lie outside the muscle and never pierce. He holds me there, mouth locked, while one hand slides under my torn gown and cups my breast.
I cry out.
He releases the bite and licks the mark once.
Then his hand goes between my thighs.
He finds me wet through my drawers.
The old voice comes against my ear.
“All this from running.”
I cannot find a clever answer.
“Yes.”
His fingers press through the cloth, slow once, then hard.