She looked away from him then. Her arms crossed protectively in front of her, and she stood silent for a few moments, pondering, before meeting his eyes. The blush had faded, and her gaze was both resolute and steady. “Once you rid me of this curse, I want to try all of these as well, and I want you to teach me.”
She wouldn’t have caught him any more off guard than if she’d suddenly stripped naked and ran around the room in circles. No fear, no maidenly embarrassment, only an honest desire to experience the pleasures of the flesh denied to her. Cededa wanted to reply, but she’d knocked the breath out of his lungs, not to mention strengthened the erection that already made his trews uncomfortable.
“What?” she asked when he continued to stare at her in silence. “Do you think it wrong to desire such things?”
The words hung in his throat for a moment, bitter and sharp. “I think you will one day make a fortunate man very happy, Imogen.” A brief, agonized jealousy spiked him in the chest, along with the urge to break the lucky bastard in half. He ruthlessly crushed the emotion and tried not to dwell too long on the idea of Imogen as the woman in one of the paintings and himself between her pale thighs. He’d lose the ability to think at all if he did and act on instinct.
She inhaled an audible breath and drew closer to Cededa. A new tension made the air around them almost thrum. Her fingertips grazed the edges of key markings tattooed across his throat and partially revealed by the open edges of his tunic. Her eyes had turned dark, the pupils so large they nearly encompassed her irises. The tip of her tongue glided across her lower lip as she stared at the path her fingers traced. “You are a pleasure to touch,” she said in a voice deepened by desire. “A gift beyond price.”
The slow poison of her affections inflamed him, and he stood for a moment, docile under her caress as her bane surged through his body, igniting his insides so that the numbness instilled by the Waters burned away entirely. Imogen of Leids was the pinnacle of contradictions – sensual innocence and a death touch that made him feel so alive, he feared he might combust from the euphoric effect.
They strove together toward disparate goals—she to live a normal life, he to die a normal death. They had agreed on a process to attain both. She touched him as often as she pleased, and he bled the curse out of her by taking it into himself. He’d been the one to present the idea, and she readily agreed.
A fine plan except Cededa didn’t count on his body awakening so fiercely under an onslaught of sensations long forgotten. Imogen’s demand that he teach her the fine art of coupling combined with her forthright honesty in her pleasure at touching him raised his lust to fever pitch. If she didn’t leave him be for now, he’d either burst into flame or take her on the filthy floor.
He grasped her wrist and forced her hand to her side before stepping out of reach. Desire, lust, anguish, fear—they surged through him on a relentless wave. This woman had no place with him. He had nothing to offer beyond the lifting of her bane.
“Don’t touch me, Imogen,” he ordered. “Not here. Not now. Not in this place.”
She flinched away and turned her back to him, but not before he caught the shame and hurt stamped on her elegant features.
The tether holding his control in place threatened to snap. He fled, leaving her in his dusty chambers with their lurid frescoes and the ruins of his humanity.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
For the first time since her arrival at Tineroth, it rained. Unlike the low fog that encased the city each morning and left moisture dripping off the buildings and ivy, this was a true thunderstorm. Lightning flashed to the southwest, and rain fell in sheets, pounding on the palace roof and against the windows.
Most of the time Imogen could predict a storm. Niamh had taught her the old sailor's trick of a morning’s red sky heralding a storm, but in Tineroth the sky only changed with the passing of hours, its filtered light dimming with oncoming night.
Imogen stared out the window from her chamber and saw only darkness. Somewhere in the city, or the forest surrounding it, Cededa hid from her. She hid from him as well, still hot with the humiliation of his rejection, the sudden revulsion he had for her touch. He was mercurial as well as cruel, and Imogen thanked the gods he left her alone before the tears poured unheeded down her cheeks.
Now, her face was awash with the fire of humiliation. He had accepted her forthright, albeit clumsy praise of his appearance with an amused equanimity, even complimenting her more than once on her lack of guile or pretense. But sincere flattery was one thing, demanding he play the role of lover and teacher something else entirely. He had turned on her in an instant, warned her off, and put as much distance between them as fast as he could. Imogen pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “You stupid, stupid woman,” she admonished herself.
Niamh might have taught her a world of knowledge, but Imogen’s bane and quiet life had worked against her, leaving her unskilled at reading another person’s subtle cues and body language, especially that of men. And this man in particular.
A new fear clenched a fist around her heart and squeezed. He had rebuffed her, bruising her wrist with the effort. What if he refused to let her touch him ever again? Even if it was strictly to help her break the curse? Panic roared through her at the thought.
Lightning struck close by, blasting the darkness away and illuminating the courtyards and temples nearby in white light. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, followed by a crack of thunder hard enough to make her teeth rattle. Still, it was enough time for Imogen to catch a glimpse of a pale-haired figure striding toward the center courtyard, oblivious to the storm's deluge or its dangerous lightning bolts.
She scrambled for her cloak. She would apologize for any insult cast, any liberty taken. Grovel on her knees if she had to and beg his forgiveness. He’d given her hope in his willingness to break her curse by taking it into himself, where his immortality shielded him from its lethal effects.
“Please, Cededa,” she muttered as she yanked on her boots and opened the door. “Please have mercy.”
An inner voice mocked her invocation. Why would a man so named The Butcher show mercy to anyone?
Imogen raced into the corridor and snatched one of the lit torches off its brackets. The wavering flame offered the only light to break the sepulchral black of the cloisters beyond her door. If she didn't have that, she might well break her neck falling down one of the ever-changing staircases. She growled when a sudden coldness wrapped around her ankles and tugged as if to coax her back to her room. The palace's spectral caretaker. She'd grown used to its presence, the uncanny way it knew her needs and wants without her ever voicing them. But she had no time for it now. Wading through a roiling chill thicker than porridge, she ignored its mute demand and headed for the nearest staircase.
The stairs faded in the next lightning flash. A hallway appeared in their place. Imogen blew out a frustrated sigh as the vapor swirled around her legs, climbing ever higher. It would shroud her completely if she waited much longer. Desperate and frightened, Imogen stamped her foot.
"Your king," she snapped, "is a coward, and I'm going to tell him so. Right now."
She didn't need Niamh's innate magery to sense the surprise rippling through the mist at her words. It rolled back on itself as if uncertain what to do next.
"Let me pass," she commanded.
A hesitation, then suddenly the hallway reconfigured itself into the former staircase. The mist withdrew, hugging the wall as she descended the stairs. Obviously, no one still in possession of their senses called Cededa a coward, but her outlandish statement had served its purpose by shocking her ethereal guardian into letting her go.
By the time she made it to the main doors, the rain outside had settled to a steady drizzle, the thunder a distant rumble paying court to dancing lightning bolts. Imogen's cloak became a sodden weight on her shoulders. She abandoned it at the foot of the palace steps and sped along the main avenue, hoping she might find Cededa before her guttering torch went dark.
