I snort. “Where you see a crystal goblet, the rest of the world sees chipped, cracked earthenware. Trust me, my beauty is only skin deep. My soul has more lumps and scars than you ever will.”
“Mayhap that is why I love it so.” There is no more space between us, just the immovable solidness of his chest, the planes of his stomach. “Do you wish to know what hap—”
I place my fingers upon his lips. “Later. Now it is enough that you are back.”
“You were worried?” He sounds both pleased and disbelieving.
Worried is far too small a word to contain the all-consuming fear and dread I felt in the days he was gone. “No, you lummox. I would never worry about someone as hardheaded and stubborn as you.”
“You are adorable when you lie.” His voice is naught but a deep rumble.
“I am never adorable.” I place my hands around his neck. “And if you do not kiss me,” I whisper against the side of his jaw, “I will be forced to stab you instead, and that would get blood all over the cobblestones.”
His warm breath grazes my cheek. “The sweetness of your courtship is impossible to resist.”
“It is one of my gifts.” I slowly pull his head lower until his lips are close enough for me to reach. When our lips touch, all the fear and worry and shame and anger I have held close for the last three days vanishes.
Like some great alchemist trick, Beast pulls all of that from me, taking all of it in so that I am left only with joy at his safe return. And wanting. So much wanting. The want curls deep in my belly with velvet hooks. I take fistfuls of his shirt, heat radiating from his skin and the warm, solid muscle beneath it. His hands on me are both heavy with strength and as light as those of a lute player. I want to feel those hands all over my body. To know that he is safe with every inch of my skin. To have there be no more distance between us.
“Sybella,” he whispers against my mouth.
“Here.” I pull my lips from his and slide along the wall to a door. My hand fumbles a moment, then opens it.
Beast blinks at the room behind us, his brows raised.
“It is no accident that I waited for you here against the wall of the tack room.” I take his hand, pull him inside, and close the door behind us.
* * *
Later, as we rest upon a pile of saddle blankets, I run my fingers along his chest, tracing every scar, every muscle, every rib, as if they hold the key to this man and his generous heart. “So tell me. What happened? Why were you gone so long?”
He settles his head more comfortably on the saddle he is using as a pillow. “There was a swarm of Rohan’s men just outside the city. It was impossible to find Pierre, at first. It wasn’t until he left his dead retainer where he fell that I was able to see where he’d been. But he had a fair head start. By the number of hoof marks in the ground, he had nearly a dozen men waiting for him.”
I prop my head up on my elbow. “And you went after them—alone?”
“Of course not. I had help.”
“Who?”
He grins. “The charbonnerie camp was not too far from there, so I collected six of Graelon’s men, and we settled in to follow.”
“Why not just return once they were free of the city?”
“I wanted to track them long enough to be sure they would not simply lie in wait, ready to attack us again when we leave for France.”
I tap him lightly on the chest. “Smart man. Where did they go?”
“South, beyond Nantes. They demanded hospitality from the local lords on the first and second nights. When they got past Nantes, I thought we’d finally be able to move against them, but they reached their own holding and were joined by a battalion of men before picking up the road to Gascony the next morning. That is when I decided they would not be doubling back.” He captures my hand in his, holding it still. “I am sorry he got away.”
“Do not apologize. Even you cannot take on an entire battalion of men.”
He lifts my hand and kisses it. “For you I would take on the entire world.”
And he would. I can see it so clearly in my mind—with a battalion full upon him, wading his way through them like a farmer scything wheat. I shiver.
“But,” he continues, “I am not that foolish.” He sighs. “It was easier. Before I met you. Before I knew Louise. It is harder now to find my courage.”
“That is called wisdom, and well that you should acquire some.” I am silent a moment as the weight of the confrontation with Pierre presses down on me once more. “I should have killed him.”
Beast studies me for a long moment. “Did he bear a marque?”
“No. But neither did the guards involved in Crunard’s escape attempt. It appears that marques are no more.”
Hearing the despair in my voice, he leans down to kiss the crown of my head.
An old familiar wave of shame washes over me. Unable to meet his eyes, I look down and pluck at one of his chest hairs. “I wanted to kill him,” I whisper. “I wanted to with all my heart, marque or no. The only thing stopping me was Charlotte and Louise.” I look up at him. “It was one thing to have those impulses when Mortain was guiding my hand, but that is no longer the case. Surely being so quick to kill makes me just like Pierre.”
He tightens both arms around me, as if trying to squeeze such thoughts from my head. “No.” The word is quick and certain. “You were sired by Mortain, not d’Albret.”
“I have done horrible things and caused untold damage long before I came to serve Mortain. I hold darkness inside me like an acorn holds a seed.”
“You are wrong,” he whispers against my hair.
I am quiet for a moment, unable to accept the comfort he offers. “At the convent, we used to soak apricots in poisoned honey, for the sweetness disguised the poison. And while the fruit itself is not toxic, a lifetime spent soaking in the poison made it so.” I pull away from him so I may see his face. “What if I am that apricot? No matter that I was born of Mortain, if I have spent my whole life steeped in the d’Albret poison, how can it not have tainted me?”
Beast brings his hands up to cradle my face, his eyes fierce with certainty. “You are not an apricot. You are a blade that has been brutally forged, painfully hammered, and wickedly honed. You are steel, not poison. You are deadly, not depraved. They are very different things, Sybella.”
His words soothe something in my heart. I want so desperately to believe him. At the very least, no matter how far I fear I have gone, how beyond salvation I have ventured, he will always accompany me on that road.
?Chapter 24