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He led me to the Tower of Winter, and the feeling of icy fear didn’t leave me even as I stepped into the familiar room I woke up in every day. I wrapped my arms around myself, waiting for the chastisement, for Bane to tell me I’d committed an egregious misstep, and in front of people he’d known for longer than I’d been alive.
I was no lady, no noble, and this one argument had done more than anything else to prove that. In the servants’ quarters where I’d grown up, arguments were settled quickly, with harsh words and harsh blows, not with politesse and verbal daggers.
Only Auré’s vampiric nature had kept me from a quick slap. I was more likely to break my hand on her face than to cause her any harm, and at any rate… it was best that I hadn’t. Surely it would’ve just proved to Bane that I was of the lower classes, and not a Lady, but a sham of one.
The door closed and locked, and I took a deep breath.
“What was that?” he asked, his voice quiet. “You were speaking too quickly.”
I avoided his gaze to pull out my journal, opening it past the crease where I’d tucked his poem to the next new page, and stared at the blank expanse for a moment. How did I even begin to explain a childish argument without sounding ridiculous?
But when I put down my pen to write, the blunt question that gnawed at me spilled out: Who is Auré to you?
Bane sat beside me, and read the question silently, his eyes moving to mine. “Is that what this is? Jealousy?”
To my surprise, he chuckled, shaking his head.
It’s not fu
“No, my lady. No.” He mastered his expression, barely managing to wipe his incredulous smile away. “Auré is, and has always been, a sister to me. To all of us.”
Well, to hell with it. I’d already shown my hand, ugly jealousy and all.
Wyn said Auré was the one she would choose as your lover, I wrote. If we didn’t find our way.
That was what fully killed Bane’s amusement. The smile, which had been on the verge of returning, became a stormy scowl. “Ah, fuck. I see why you’d think… but no, never. She genuinely is like a sister to me. Even if you and I had never met, that thought would never cross my mind. And as for Wyn… as you’ve noticed, she likes to be involved, whether she’s wanted or not. I love her, but that is a shortcoming, I won’t lie. Yes, she tried to make plans in the event that you preferred to be away from me, but as I told her then: no. While my vows are made, there will never be another, whether you love or loathe me—and Auré would never have been a consideration regardless.”
I licked my lips, feeling a little better. Perhaps he was lying, and there was a past… but if there was, it would clearly remain in the past. I trusted Bane enough to speak straight about his intentions.
She is very aggressive in her defense of you and your brothers, I finally wrote.
“I noticed.” Bane’s expression turned a little sour. “And as I said, you were speaking too quickly for me to read clearly. What did she say to you?”
By the Light… as much as I disliked the vampire woman, nothing good could come of repeating our argument.
“Cirri.” My husband’s tone was dangerously calm.
It’s resolved between us now. What does it matter?
“It matters to me. I’m asking now—don’t make me demand.” The growl in his voice had deepened, the reverberations tangible in my bones.
I sighed. She was concerned that I might be a whore or a gold digger. I was concerned she was too stupid to tell otherwise. We settled our concerns. The end.
Bane swiped a clawed hand across his face, torn between amusement and anger. “I will speak with her.”
No, I wrote. Neither Auré nor your brothers will ever respect me if I let you win my arguments. I have to prove to them myself that I’m not using you, or trying to harm you.
“But you’re furious,” he said, putting a finger under my chin to force my head up, so I had to look him in the eye.
I nodded. Yes, but when I look past my anger, I see they have reasons for this distrust. Look at Kajarin and Wroth. Something is terribly wrong there. As long as Auré stops touching you, I’m willing to do what I can to prove myself.
Bane’s lips twitched. “Ah. I apologize, Cirri, for as much as I want you to be happy and content, I am… rather taken with the jealousy.” He laughed a little. “Who would have thought that you would want to keep something like me for yourself?”
Bane.
“I really am sorry, but it’s gratifying. I spent ten years thinking my wife would immediately hand me off so she didn’t have to come near me herself… but here you are.”
Stop being gratified, I told him with some a
The fiend gri
I stared up at him, debating with myself, still icy to the marrow with nerves and fear, but I had to say it. It was eating at me.
Finally I wrote: Are you all mine? You are gratified by my jealousy, which makes me sick to think I must worry about Auré, but you won’t touch me outside of feeding on my blood. You sleep next to me, but you won’t sleep with me. I’ve used you for my own pleasure but I’ve never even seen you naked. I’ve wondered if there is something wrong with me that makes you not want—
Abruptly the pen was pulled from my hand.
“Nothing is wrong with you,” Bane hissed, looming over me, his teeth at eye-level. “Nothing! If anything, you are too good for me, and it would kill me to destroy you in a moment of lust gone too far.”
Penless, I resorted to simple signing. I am not too good for you.
“Don’t turn this around.” He put the journal and the pen on the table, out of reach, and closed his eyes for a moment. “I’ve told you this before, but perhaps not well enough. I am not a man. I am deformed and monstrous. I could, with the least effort, tear you apart. No, do not speak yet.”
I put my hands back in my lap, my stomach alive with nerves.
“Believe me, were I shaped like the men you’ve seen before, I would have you in bed all night and day.” He laughed sourly. “I don’t think we’d see the outside of this room for a year, and I wouldn’t regret a second of it. So… I live with the fear that I will destroy you. Secondly, I live with the shame of what I am. There is a reason there are only four of us; few of my kind are willing to give up their beauty when they know this awaits. Few of my kind even want to touch us. Everything we are is meant to evoke primal disgust; we are the most base of my kind.”
I want to touch you, I told him, waving his hands away. I don’t want another hand to not touch you; I want mine to be on you. There is a difference.
I signed slowly and carefully, Bane’s eyes tracking the movements, and he finally understood.
“I know. But, Cirri… it’s been so long. I won’t allow my self-control, or lack thereof, to be the reason for your destruction.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Let me alleviate your fears, at the very least. I have never wanted Auré, and I certainly don’t now. There has never been a woman I want more than you. While I find it delightful that you want me enough to feel jealous at all… the feeling is entirely misplaced. It isn’t—”
I stood up abruptly, and reached up to cup his face. Hard peaks and crests under my palms, his eyes alight with surprise. His ears had swiveled to point straight up, the tips trembling.
Could he hear my racing heartbeat? The rapidness of my breath?
I was more nervous than I’d ever been before, even on the day that I’d learned I was to be sold to him. I believed him, but I also couldn’t stop myself from seeking out a more physical brand of proof.
I slowly ran my fingertips down over his neck, to the swoop of his collarbone and the broad chest beneath. Bane’s own breath quickened, each exhale a low snarl. Tension quivered in his limbs.
Do you not want me to touch you? I asked, pausing. I will stop. Say the word and I’ll stop. But I do want you, and I don’t want you to fear my touch.
And, what we both knew and weren’t saying, was that I wanted proof that he wanted me.
I put my hands back on his chest, feeling the slow, steady thud of his heartbeat. I knew what he looked like beneath the shirt, at least, remembering rippling muscles in the stableyard as he picked up a thousand pounds, and the heat that flooded through me at the memory was more shocking than it was then.
It was the sheer intensity of it. I’d been surprised by my desire for a fiend at all; now I was surprised by how my hands shook, wanting to tear the clothes away and feel him all over.
Tell me no, I signed one-handed, unwilling to remove my palm from his heart. Or tell me yes. You choose.
“Cirri… if I hurt you…” He closed his eyes, chest rumbling.
You won’t hurt me. I smiled up at him. Because you’re not allowed to move. If you tell me yes, you have to keep your hands to yourself.
He opened his eyes a crack, peering at me. “I… ca
The kind of game where no one gets hurt, and everyone is happy. I trailed my hand further down, my stomach clenching at the sensation of hard valleys of muscle under my palm.
A minute ticked by, then another. My nerves were strained to the breaking point.
Those hard muscles twitched under my touch, and the rumble in his sigh gave away the answer before I heard it. “Yes.”
I exhaled silently, acknowledging how afraid I’d been that he would say no, and then letting it go. The only way this would work was if we trusted each other, and he was finally granting me some of that trust to not be disgusted by him.
I took one of hands and raised it, pressing a kiss to his palm as he had done to me earlier, then brought his hand firmly to his side and patted it. Stay there.
Then, a little worried about what I would come to, but burning with anticipation to finally sate my curiosity and lust, I returned my hands to his shirt and slowly unbuttoned it.
Bane tensed a little under my touch; I kept my movements slow, brushing the hot velvet skin of his chest with my fingers as I went. Soon he had shed it, revealing the carved bulk of his physique, the defined brawn that made my mouth water. The lower half of his stomach was a muscular V, quivering under my touch.
I kissed his chest, moving my hands lower and feeling a thrill of nervousness and anticipation when I came to the trousers. I tugged at the laces one-handed, unwilling to take my hand from skin even for a moment, and Bane’s own hands clenched into fists.
Tell me to stop, I reminded him, and gave him a moment to decide. He finally nodded his horned head, eyes narrowed to slits as he watched me tug the laces out and slip a thumb into the waistband.