An expression somewhere between pity and scorn spasmed across Sunder’s face before smoothing away. His words, when they came, rang harsh. “How do you think, demoiselle?”
My hands tightened, digging crescents of pain into my palm. Pain barely comparable to the atrocious legacy cursing Sunder’s touch. My face must have betrayed my conflict, because Sunder’s expression softened.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to.”
“What are you going to do to him now?”
“What did I just say?” he growled. “And I’m not going to do anything. He’ll languish in the dungeons until you decide his fate.”
“Me?” Surprise made my voice shrill.
“Yes, dauphine.” His lips tightened. “Or did you think ruling an empire was just sitting on a throne and looking pretty?”
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair. Or haven’t you been paying attention?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. I met his keen metal eyes and saw dread lurking in their depths—an anticipation of pain frothing like an anxious sea. His hand had moved to his side, palm pressed surreptitiously to his stomach. Guilt poured cold water over the embers of my irritation. I rose onto my knees and reached for the asymmetrical buttons lining his uniform.
“You’re still wearing your coat. Here—let me.”
I ran my hands up the front of his jacket. Sunder inhaled sharply but didn’t move. He sat motionless on the edge of the bed, as though stillness alone could hold him together. Gently, I undid one gleaming button, then another. The thick black fabric was soft to the touch. The final button opened the stiff collar guarding his neck, revealing a white linen undershirt and the pulse leaping in the hollow of his throat. I lifted my eyes to his face. His frost-pine eyes were dark with want. A thrill kissed my spine.
“Mirage.” He said my name like a warning.
I slid a hand beneath his collar and around his neck, twining my fingers in his whisper-soft hair. But he caught the hand in his gloved palm, and held it.
“Demoiselle, you shouldn’t touch me,” he rasped. “Remember?”
I slid closer to him. I swallowed, but when I spoke my voice still came out unsteady. “There’s touching, and then there’s …touching.”
His eyes burned. I reached again for his collar, sliding my hands between his uniform jacket and the soft undershirt beneath. A frisson of energy pulsed against my palms, and Sunder gasped. His head tilted back and away, so all I could see was the taut line of his jaw and the pull of his brows. Slowly, I slid the jacket over his tense shoulders, my hands gliding over his arms. Even through the fabric of his shirt, his skin needled at my fingertips. But it was a faint sensation—nothing I couldn’t ignore. Nothing I didn’twantto ignore.
The jacket dropped to the ground. I twined a hand with his, then lifted our joined fingers. The suede of his gloves was soft against my lips as I brushed my mouth over his knuckles. He shivered, his eyes drawing lines of cold fire in the air between us.
“See?” I whispered.
He made a noise low in his throat and slid an arm around my waist. He lifted me as he stood, my legs draped around him. His eyes didn’t leave my face as he spun me gently and laid me back against the bed. Warmth pooled in my belly. His face hovered over mine, and in our shared breath I tasted his desire, so sharp it was almost acrid—burnt parchment and petrichor, a bitter wasteland of want. His mouth found the seam of silk grazing over my collarbone, and he followed it with his lips—past the pulse throbbing in my throat to brush along the swell of my breasts and then down along the ridges of my ribs. His hand skimmed the curve of my hip and slid behind my knee, painting heat on my skin as he curled my bare leg against him.
I closed my eyes, a gloss of want skimming over a jumbled sea of thoughts and sensations. I could sense how tightly he was holding himself together, yet I could still feel the hectic riot of barely controlled power sizzling within him. My focus narrowed to his touch, halting yet intense, each fingertip a caution, his lips speaking silent warnings to my skin.
A blade of agony sliced me from neck to navel. My body spasmed, my throat making an animal whimper that stopped time. Sunder threw himself away. He groaned and doubled over, bracing his forearms on the mattress and burying his face in the crook of his elbow. A shudder racked his frame, and he fisted hands in the rumpled blankets.
“I’m—I’m sorry.” I was on my feet, instinct shoving me away from him. I forced myself to stand still, to step toward him, to reach a hand toward his shoulder. “Sunder, I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t!”His voice came out guttural. He hurled himself off the bed, stumbling toward the armoire in the corner. He braced one arm against it as he tore at his shirt, shredding the neckline with his fingers until the material ripped jagged to bare his torso.
I stared. His chest heaved with exertion, and the lean muscles in his abdomen flexed, spasmodic. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was the slab of refined ambric embedded in his side. Dristic staples held it in place. Inflamed skin curled away from its edges as though it was hot to the touch. Veins of red climbed his stomach and slithered beneath the waistband of his trousers, throbbing bloody.
Histimbre.I hadn’t seen it in weeks, but the sight of it brought back a flood of nausea and strangling regret. Dowser had made sure Sunder didn’t bleed out in the dungeon—a kindness for which I would never stop thanking him—but there’d been no one willing or able to properly heal him. The wound in his side had festered, racking him with a fever that should have killed him well before I returned.
Vida was among the dissident legacies who were arrested and locked up, and I’d asked her to use her gift to heal Sunder. She’d set her palm against his skin, then jerked her hand away like she’d been scalded. When she turned to me, her cool-dark eyes held equal parts pity and triumph.
There’s nothing I can do for him.
Nothing?My stomach dropped.He’sdying.
She’d hesitated.
