He reappeared a few minutes later, disheveled and angry. “He escaped.”
I examined the lines on my trembling palms, the crisscrossing creases.
“He spoke to you?”
“Mad things.” I traced an uneven line. “He thanked me for finding the journal.”
His fingers lifted my chin, eyes examining mine. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head, green eyes wavering in my view. “But he had me.”
Arms pulled me into his warm chest. “I have you now.”
~*~
I hugged myself inside the carriage. I was glad we had taken it for once. Even if I wanted to celebrate the ice that had come so readily, I’d be hard pressed to do so now. “Why do you think he let me go?”
Gabriel watched me. “Likely for the same reason that Kennen was left alive. He only intends harm to his victims.”
“He said that he would have only killed them if they asked.” I clutched my dress. “That the one who killed them didn’t ask. Thatyouknow this.”
His body stilled, stark against the rocking of the carriage.
“What does that mean, Gabriel?” A flurry of emotions flashed through his eyes. “If he is not the murderer, who is?”
“He’s mad,” Gabriel said flatly.
“What little I read of Anastasia’s journal suggested she and Octavia were part of the same club. I asked Worley if he was a victim, he said he was a loyalist, that he—”
He leaned forward, a hand on my cheek. “Slow down. I have you.”
He had said the same to me in the house. It made my breath come easier, my heart unclench. I had been in charge so long. Alone and withso much—
“I have you.” He ran a hand up my arm and loosened my fingers, pulling them away and into his own. He repeated the gesture on the other side. Warmth bloomed against my skin—a spell unspoken.
“Do you trust me, Marietta?”
“Yes.” My fingers curled into his. I had putallof my trust in him.
Soft kisses up my neck, along my jawline, on my lips. He was trying to distract me. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to accept what he was offering.
He rapped on the trap five times in succession. We turned a corner, going in the opposite direction of the house.
He slid me on top, so I was straddling him. Heat swept up my skin and through my veins, making me burn. The carriage rocked over the cobblestones, swaying and brushing us together. A thrust of my dress, a flick of his trousers and he was pushinginside me, my body greedily pulling his heat in. I kissed him fiercely as he clutched my hips, warming every part of me.
I would never be cold again.
If he betrayed my trust…but no, how could he? Silly fears reared like spitting snakes at Worley’s poisoned words.
He hit that lovely spot deep within and I moaned into his skin. Over and over, relentlessly. I had hiredGabriel, I had come tohim.
I clutched the hair at his nape as I rode him to the rhythm of the stones. Pressing exactly where I needed him to, a lethargic, heavy feeling overtaking me as I reached for that peak. Magic coiled between us, heat warming the ice—cycling the magic so the power could be used again.
I let him wash away the itchy skin and disgust of Anastasia Rasen’s pink dollhouse, the sheer terror of murderous hands. Cleansing waves, but no answers.
I closed my eyes and let him push me over the edge, stifling my breaths into his dark hair as I clutched him to me. He might not be mine forever, but in this moment, he was. He followed a second later, washing the lingering fear and cold away.
I rested my forehead against his, drugged and oddly energized. “There must have been something in Anastasia’s journal. Some clue.”
