“Don’tsay anything,” I warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,wife.”
My entire face flamed, and I tried to ignore the part of myself that was secretly pleased at his reaction, telling myself I had more self-respect than that.
“Let’s just go,” I said.
“We will. Just a moment.” Radven reached up and undid the tie that had been holding his hair in a small knot on the back of his head. His hair fell to his shoulders, black and sleek and giving off all sorts of sexy vampire vibes. Then he grabbed a small section just behind his right ear andpulled.
Nothing happened. Except Radven gave a small curse and pulled it again.
”Is something stuck in your hair?” I asked, trying to understand what he was doing.
“No,” he said curtly. “The damned curse—” He cut himself off and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I have other means.”
He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it until it had some texture to it, and then reached into a little pouch on his belt.
I craned my head to see what he pulled out. “Are those…contacts?”
“Your world possesses some interesting resources,” he said, holding the small contact lens case in one hand and plucking out one of the contacts with the other. “Colored contacts are just one of them.”
As I watched, he popped the pair of colored contacts into his eyes, hiding his forest green irises behind a very ordinary shade of brown. He returned the contact case to his belt and pulled out what appeared to be a small container of tinted powder, which he rubbed between his palms and ran through his mussed hair. It dulled the sheen of the strands, reminding me of how my hair had looked that time I’d failed to brush my dry shampoo in properly.
As disguises went, those two small modifications didn’t seem like much, but I was shocked by how much they changed Radven. Even his bearing changed—his shoulders slumped slightly, and he held his face a little slack. He was no longer dangerously beautiful, or even especially interesting to look at—he’d somehow transformed himself into someone perfectly indistinct. Handsome still, if you looked close enough, but not someone you’d bother looking at twice.
“Now we can go,” he said, then looked at me and hesitated. “Wait—we should probably hide those pearls. People will wonder how someone of your status came to possess so many. Andwhy.”
He started toward me, but I stopped him with a firm, “I can do it myself.”
Unfortunately, whatever knot he’d tied in the twine proved far too complex for me to undo, no matter how much I twisted the necklace around and tugged at it. After several frustrating minutes, I was forced to glance at him in defeat.
“Fine,” I said. “You do it.”
He only looked slightly smug as he sauntered over to me. This time, rather than deal with the necklace from the front, he walked around behind me.
His fingers gently brushed the hair away from my nape, and the flash ofdanger!in my mind had nothing to do with Radven’s character and everything to do with the quiver on my skin as he touched me. He took his time untangling the knot, and I could feel his breath stirring my hair, steady but the tiniest bit charged.
I could smell him, too, and his scent was different from those of his brothers—like sandalwood and smoke, the way I imagined asecretmight smell. It was dangerous and tempting.
After what felt like a lifetime of holding my breath, the knot finally came free.
“We should tie them somewhere out of sight,” he said. “Perhaps around your ankle.”
“I can dothatmyself,” I assured him. The thought of him kneeling at my feet, his hands under my skirt and his fingers brushing against the bare skin of my leg, gave me all sorts of feelings I didn’t want to examine.
Look at you, I thought as I crouched down to tie the pearls securely around my ankle.Pop on a medieval dress and suddenly your sensibilities have gone all medieval, too. Since when did it become so scandalous for a man to touch your ankle, of all things?!
I pushed that question aside as well, focusing instead on triple-knotting the twine so there was no way the pearls could fall off.
“Okay,” I told Radven, determined to keep all lustful, sex-starved thoughts out of my mind for the time being. “I’m ready.”
We walked down to Far Meadow together, crossing a field to join a packed dirt road that wound along the river. When we began to pass other people, Radven took my arm in his.
“We should discuss what we’re going to call each other,wife,” he said, clearly taking great glee in teasing me with that word. “What would you like your name to be?”
I considered it. “I have no idea what a normal-sounding name around here would be.”
“Ah, fair point.” He gave it a second’s thought, then said, “Let’s call you Cateline.”
