Page 50 of Ravished By the Revenant

“So,” I say, spearing a potato. “We were discussing renovations.”

It takes him three tries to find his voice.

“Bring the entire century,” he rasps. “Bring two. I will build you a road.”

27

ALDRIC

Clara nearly faints when I show her the treasury.

I unlock the vault door beneath the east tower, hold my candle high, and step aside to let her see. The candlelight illuminates chests of coins, gold bars stacked like firewood, jeweled plates, chains, and a crown I took off a man who no longer needed it because he no longer had a head.

She makes a sound like a kettle left too long over the fire, then grips the doorframe.

“Aldric,” she breathes.

“Yes?” I ask mildly.

“You’re a dragon.” She points a shaking finger at the nearest chest. “You’re an actual dragon with an actual hoard. This whole time, I’ve been rationing candles, and you’ve been sitting on the GDP of Liechtenstein.”

My brow furrows. “I do not know what a GDP is.”

“Never mind. Just know that you could buy a small country.” She wades in, lifts a gold bar, staggers under the weight, and sets it back down with reverence. “This solves everything. Do you understand? Papers, permits, electricity… money is the universal curse-breaker of my century. Money and lawyers.”

“Then take it.” I gesture at the plunder. “Take all of it. What use has it been to me? I could not spend a single coin.”

Clara turns to me, cheeks flushed, eyes shining, and for a moment I believe she’s going to say something tender.

“I’m going to be the most eccentric rich lady the Black Forest has ever seen,” she breathes. “I’m going to walk into a notary’s office with medieval gold and vibes, and no one is going to say a word.”

She’s right, insofar as I can verify. She takes a single small chest, and three days later she marches through the gate with a leather folder held above her head like a captured banner.

“Blackthorn Keep officially exists!” she announces to the courtyard, to me, to Schmetterling sunning himself on the well cover. “Deed, land registry, the works. You are looking at the legal owner of one castle, contents included.”

I take the folder and study documents in a German so mangled by bureaucracy it might as well be a new language. “This says you are the owner.”

Clara winces. “Well, yes. You’re legally deceased. Extremely deceased. Your birth certificate would be carbon-dated.” She pats my chest, just above the glow. “Don’t sulk. We know you’re the actual owner.”

“I am not sulking. I am befuddled that I have survived seven centuries only to become my own wife’s tenant.”

Clara goes very still. “Wife?”

I reconsider my words and decide I regret nothing. “In time. When I have wooed you properly. I have a list.”

My little intruder raises one pale eyebrow. “You have a list.”

“I am a strategist, Clara. I do not leave campaigns to chance.”

She laughs and kisses me, and Schmetterling yowls at us to take our nonsense elsewhere.

But that night, as she recounts the raised eyebrows, the questions that disappeared at the sight of gold, I get an uncomfortable sensation in my gut.

“I should be doing this,” I say. We’re in bed, her head on my shoulder, her fingers tracing the wolf inked over the mostly intact side of my ribs. “Providing for you. Handling the coin, the men, the negotiations. Instead, I stand at my gate like an old hound while you carry the burden alone.”

“Aldric.” She props herself up on one elbow. “I bribed a district official with ancient treasure today. I made a lawyer’s eye twitch. I am having the time of my life. Do you know what my life was before? Carrying plates. Smiling at men who deserved soup in their laps. Now I’m the mysterious silver-haired heiress who pays in gold and doesn’t explain herself. I’m somebody’s local legend already. Do not take this from me.”

“It is a matter of honor,” I object.