“Please,” I replied, unfamiliar with the gown’s many laces.
Florence helped me out of my wedding dress, carefully setting it atop a stump so that it stayed clean. I covered myself as she retrieved a vial from her basket. There was something white inside: a liniment of some kind, judging by the viscosity. She dipped two fingers in and pressed it to my navel. It was cold, with a texture like yoghurt, and as Florence painted my stomach in a spiraling pattern, I couldn’t help but shiver.
“Why must I always be nude for the Lord of Night?” I complained. “Can a ritual not occur in a nice, cozy robe?”
Florence snorted, then trailed pathways down each of my limbs, about my breasts, and lower, stopping at the peak of my pubic hair. I fought the urge to jerk back, and at last, Florence offered me a cloak for warmth.
“The Lord of Night will be watching tonight, dear,” she said, the thought settling like ice in my blood. I remembered Quinn, touched by shadows in the garden, and parted my mouth to bring that up, but she continued. “In the moonlight, any witch’s power over men extends. They become more susceptible to their baser natures in our presence. It is one of His gifts.”
My heart pounded. “Does he possess the men?”
“Oh, nothing like that. It is more like an opening of the mind,” Florence replied. “The effect wanes with His absence. During the new moon, men are no different from their usual selves. And in daylight, or rooms ablaze with candlelight, His reach falters. Light is the Lady’s domain, after all.” Perhaps she sensed some worry in me, because she added: “The Lord merely removes inhibitions, amplifies what already exists. A man who desires you will burn with it, and if a man fears you, he might flee in terror.”
Quinn had done both. Gods, was any of it real? How much of his passion had belonged to him?
“Tonight’s moon is full. The prince will feel it strongly. He may seemunleashed. The ritual requires this: for the magic to take root, both participants must surrender completely to instinct.”
She marked lines beneath my eyes, across my nose, down from my lip, then drew a crescent moon at the center of my forehead, surrounded by twelve dots. The mixture smelled like jasmine, and it dried quickly so that I hardly noticed it unless I happened to glance down at my hands.
“What is this for?” I asked.
“The liniment assists with conception by heightening certain senses, and by channeling the seed.”
I blinked.
“You’ll see soon enough,” Florence sighed, motioning with her head for me to follow. We went back to the clearing, finding Nicolas alone and kneeling. He awaited me within the stone circle, adorned in a pelt; the wolf’s head sat atop his own, teeth dripping with red jewels. The pelt was held together over a matching cloak, fastened across his neck with ornate metalwork, but itwas parted enough for me to see that beneath it, my husband was every bit as naked as I was.
I paled. He, too, was painted with liniment, though his was a deep scarlet. It struck across his cheeks and trailed along the contours of his torso. Muscles long hidden by his usual fashions came to light. The prince was leaner than his clothing suggested, yet there was an undeniable strength to him. The scarlet paint traced paths across the planes of his chest, down a smooth, flat stomach, along powerful arms. In the otherworldly lighting of the runes and the moon above, Nicolas looked utterly savage, both a sacrifice and a god at once.
Before I could stop myself, my gaze traveled lower,and…oh.
Oh.
I’d wondered, of course, through all the impassioned moments we shared. Now I understood what Angharad meant when she mentioned those satisfied mistresses. The man was proportioned like everything else about him: elegant, and intimidating. The paint swirled around him there, too, making him resemble some ancient fertility god, which I supposed was the point.
I realized I was staring and forced my eyes back up, but they didn’t meet his gaze; instead, they fixed upon a scar along his stomach, and another near his heart. A knife from his uncle, an arrow from some assassin... as if the emotional toll wasn’t enough, every time he undressed, the prince would see those betrayals carved into his flesh.
But he was breathtaking.
My mouth was dry. This was nothing like my fumbling with Quinn, nothing like the descriptions in the books; it was primal. My body remembered the weight of Nicolas from our stolen kisses, but seeing him so exposed made my knees weaken with a confusing combination of desire and trepidation.
I pulled the cloak tighter around myself, though it only exaggerated the heat spreading through me. The liniment seemed to tingle with new awareness as every nerve of my body sang in anticipation.
Nicolas’ eyes met mine, dark with the same need I felt. I reminded myself to breathe, commanded my heart to slow.
Florence was gone. She’d disappeared into the woods without a word, leaving me to linger outside the circle. Crickets chirpeddistantly, knowing better than to approach the ritual, and I couldn’t will my legs to move.
His hands curled into fists atop his thighs. His head bowed lower. “I won’t look at you until you’ve entered the circle, Alana, nor will I touch a hair on your body until you’ve come to me.” Whether the words were his own, or a command given by Florence’s mysterious assistant, I couldn’t know. If he saw me, I had a feeling he would sprint from his position and take me on whichever side of the circle we landed on. “If I must remain kneeling here until I die of exposure, so be it.”
So dramatic. I wanted to laugh, but that bubbly feeling quickly turned to ash as I stepped into the circle. Then I let the robe fall, covering myself with my arms as the moon illuminated my bare flesh.
Nicolas dropped his guard at the sound of rustling fabric. His head snapped up, eyes tracing every bit of me and awakening my flesh.
“Would you prefer I close my eyes?” he asked, and he was serious; he considered his pelt. “I could forge a blindfold.”
He tore the tail away and fashioned it around his eyes.
Months of suffering from my curse, and he was still holding back. The promise of consummation, an end to months of aching desire, stood only feet away from him…and he was worried about my comfort.
