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Zarifa looked around as he walked across the balcony toward her, his black boots ringing on the marble tiles. She turned to face him, leaning back against the carved balustrade. “You know, I always wondered why my father trusted Umar. I knew they’d served in the marines together, and Umar had supposedly saved his life once, but…” She shook her head.
They were back to that again. He was frankly getting sick of the subject, but he knew it bothered her still, so he was willing to play along. “Well, if Umar was blackmailing him—”
“I don’t think it was ever that overt. If Umar had ever actually come out and said, ‘Make me regent or else,’ my father would have had him arrested.” She turned to gaze across the rolling green gardens of the palace grounds. “But my father still didn’t completely trust him. According to what Edin said under Kuarc’s…questioning, Lodur was counting on Edin to protect me from Umar if something happened to him.”
Rance leaned a hip on the balustrade and curled his lip in disdain. “Edin was only interested in protecting himself.”
“Exactly. Yet still, my father didn’t completely trust him either, because he left me Sevan’s ring, to be handed over when I reached my majority on my twenty-fifth birthday. And it was the ring that broke Umar’s control.”
“I wondered how you did that.”
She stepped closer and looped an arm around his waist. “Apparently, my father realized that since Umar had used Kuarc’s mother’s nanosystem to control her, he might alter mine and use it the same way. So the minute I put the ring on, it injected my nanosystems with a routine that blocked Umar’s control.”
He smiled at the triumph in her voice. “And you were free.”
She gave him a dazzling smile. “Not quite. Now I’m free. Umar and Gerik are dead, Edin will stand trial for my father’s murder, and the Empire is Kuarc’s to run.”
An opening. Rance’s heart started pounding in irregular thumps, but he fought to keep the tension off his face. “So what are you going to do now?”
Zarifa looked up at him, uncertainty flaring in her beautiful eyes. “Mostly I want to get the hell out of the Empire. I’d never have anything like a normal life here. I’ve spent the past ten years as media fodder, and somehow I don’t think it’s going to stop just because I’m not empress anymore.”
To hell with tiptoeing around this, Rance thought, suddenly impatient. I’m just going to damn well ask. He caught her hands in his. They felt surprisingly cool, as if with nerves. “Come to the Freeworlds with me. I don’t know if you’d consider living with a werewolf a normal life, but…”
Violet eyes flew so wide, he could see his face reflected in them. “Are you sure? You’ve seen the way the media hound every move I m
ake. Even relocating to the Freeworlds may not stop them. And they’ve got a talent for making my life a living hell.”
He bared his teeth. “Oh, I can safely say they wouldn’t try that more than once.”
Zarifa laughed. “I don’t doubt it.” She sobered. “But it still wouldn’t be easy.”
He slid his arms around her waist and drew her closer. “When I was lying on the deck under Gerik’s boot with my nanosystem frozen, I knew you wouldn’t let them win. I knew you’d get us out of it. And I trusted you enough to wait until you made your move.” He brushed the pad of his thumb against her mouth. “That’s when I realized I love you.”
She caught her breath. As he watched, a slow, blinding smile spread over her face. “It took you that long? I fell in love with you when you believed me about Umar’s smear campaign to make me look like a drunk.”
He smiled as his heart picked up that hard beat again. “Will you marry me?”
“Sweet Lady,” she breathed, “yes!”
Her mouth tasted of champagne and strawberries. He groaned into her lips, instantly hard.
Rance swept her into his arms, kicking aside the velvet of her train as it tried to tangle his legs. Zarifa looped her arms around his neck as he carried her into the bedroom.
He looked breathtakingly handsome in his aristo black jacket and snug black trousers, a stark white cravat tied around his powerful throat. The Order of the Lion hung around his neck from a crimson ribbon that provided the one splash of color against all that monochrome starkness.
He lowered her to the thick red silk counterpane of her bed—the same bed she’d cried in so many nights for so many years. Straightening, he surveyed her with a frown.
Feeling suddenly uncertain, she frowned back. “What?”
“How the hell am I supposed to get you out of that dress?”
She laughed. “Come here, and I’ll show you.”
He grinned and lowered himself to her side. “Your wish is my command, mistress.”
Velvet whispered. Buttons yielded to impatient fingers with a gentle pop, corset strings sighed from their eyelets. His hands felt strong and warm on the bare skin of her thigh. His mouth met hers, licking, tasting, as she untied his cravat. His jacket dropped from broad, silk-clad shoulders.
He growled, the sound impatient. “Aristos wear too damn many clothes.”
