“And that brings you joy?” Nephele all but spits the words as she slams her book shut.
“Immense,” he says, grinning even wider than before.
We slip off our stools and hurry to the window that overlooks the sea to scan the shore toward the city. Nothing. Not even footsteps in the sand.
Just as I prepare to call Joran’s words horse shit, Rhonin and Alexus come into view, entering the cove around an outcropping of rocks. Walking side by side, their boots are in hand, their shirts stripped and hanging from the belts, their pants rolled to their calves, their trimmed hair blowing in the breeze.
How did Joran see them before?
When I turn around to ask, the Icelander is gone.
“So you are still not going to tell me what happened,” I sign as Alexus slips a new black tunic over his head.
I stand beside the mirror in my robe, watching him scrutinize the neatness of his dinner outfit before reaching for a black jacket that looks as though it was tailored for him. The collar and cuffs are embroidered in glistening, golden thread that also decorates the long lapels.
“Trust me,” he replies. “You don’t want details.” He keeps his attention on the man in the mirror as he slips the key around his neck and shrugs into the garment. “It was bloody and awful, but we made it out just fine.”
I cross my arms over my middle and lean against the mirror while he pulls half his hair into a leather tie. Just fine? When I met him on the beach earlier, he was already weary from using his magick against those guards. But after helping Callan build protective wards behind Nephele’s construct for reinforcement, and after chatting with Zahira and Yaz about their unlucky day at the archives, he only had enough energy to climb up the lighthouse stairs, dive into the pool for a bath, and eventually collapse on the bed in a naked heap. He slept for well over an hour before he felt himself again.
Running his hands down the front of his jacket, he slips on his shiny shoes and turns his attention on me. “I would rather not talk about that side of me, all right? Today made me feel too much like Alexi of Ghent, and he was a villain.” Though he masks it well, I hear a twinge of self-loathing in his voice, or perhaps regret. Maybe both. “It’s a bit of a mood killer,” he adds, still covering his feelings. I can’t even sense them through the rune.
I would never tell him this, but with his hair shorter and his beard gone and the dark, rich clothes, he looks like his old self. At least the image in my mind from our shared dreams. But appearance does not make the man.
“You are no villain,” I sign. “Ever the hero.”
He arches a dark brow. “We all play the villain in someone’s tale, Raina.” He falls quiet, but then he reaches for my hand and draws me close. “Listen. Tonight isn’t about my past. It’s about us. I want to go to the main house, eat the lovely meal Mari and Yaz are preparing, and then you and I are going to come back here, I’m going to tangle our magick, and we’re going to rattle this entire city. Can we focus on that?”
Before I can answer, Hel and Nephele arrive downstairs to get dressed with me, laughing as they start up the lighthouse steps.
“Don’t be naked!” Hel shouts. “Also, we brought wine and cheese!”
Alexus chuckles and kisses me. “I left you a gift on the desk. I saw it and thought of you.”
I smile and squeeze his hand before he heads down to the main house. Since tonight is our night, it’s an early dinner, at his request. A man who knows how to get what he wants.
But I can be persuasive as well.
Later, as Nephele tames her pale curls, and Hel works to make her ebony locks even glossier than before, I reach for my gift, wrapped inside a small golden box, and take my red dress and secret lacy undergarments from the wardrobe with one thought on my mind. At some point, Alexus Thibault is going to have to show me this other side of himself he so wants to hide. Maybe not tonight, but I’ve a feeling that it’s inevitable.
I just hope I can handle it when he does.
31
RAINA
“Why did no one tell me this was a formal thing?” Rhonin says as I enter the dining hall. Everyone’s here except for Finn which stings my heart.
Mari sets a dish on the table, leaning beside Rhonin, quite close. “I think you look handsome, sir,” she says with an admiring expression. “I like the shorter hair and the smooth face.”
“He does look handsome,” Hel counters from my side, her voice stiff and slightly territorial. “Always.”
Every head turns toward me and my sisters.
“Perhaps we overdid it a little,” Nephele mutters under her breath, because every eye in the room is wide.
Alexus heads straight for me. His eyes grow dark as he skims a gaze over my loose hair and down to my neck where his gift resides. He bought me a simple gold necklace with a single pearl in the center, like my own little moon. It’s perfect.
When he reaches me, his eyes fall to my exposed cleavage, then further down to the witch’s marks trailing up my leg, visible through the slit in my dress.
