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The outer corridor led to the guest wing, but taking it would mean passing guards, footmen, and at least six rooms occupied by Rochefort’s court. By breakfast, the entire palace would know where I had gone.

The balcony offered a more discreet route.

I traversed the courtyard roof and climbed the stone trellis beneath Cora’s rooms. The stone was cool beneath my palms, and the vines scratched at my sleeves. The open collar of my shirt caught on a thorn, but I pulled it free and continued upward.

When I reached the window, I called on the last bit of magick I had inside me, whispered a warding spell to protect her room from vampiric hearing. Once it was cast, I hesitated for only a second before climbing inside.

Chapter 31

Brûlante

CORA

Evenings in Valemer were nearly as humid as the days, and the only relief was the breeze coming in off the harbor. But it wasn’t the heat of the night that had me sweating.

Yves had been right about chapter twelve. I’d made it four pages in before my hand wandered between my thighs, searching for the place that was aching for relief. The book slid off my lap, but I didn’t need the words anymore. I had an image in my head, one that wouldn’t go away until I made it go away.

I was tracing little circles with my finger beneath the thin linen sheet when the candle beside my bed guttered. A ribbon of smoke rose from the wick. At first, I thought it might be my mother’s ghost, but her face didn’t appear in the dark.

A shadow moved beside the open window. Instinctively, I reached for my wand and Yves’s gold coin, both of which sat on the bedside table. “Who’s there?” I demanded, pointing my wand at the darkness. “Show yourself, you coward!”

But it wasn’t a ghost. Or an intruder. It was Yves.

His jacket was gone. His cravat too. The collar of his white shirt hung open, exposing a sliver of bronze skin and the tattoos hiding beneath. A careless lock of dark hair had fallen across his brow.

I knew he was a vampire. I watched him drink my blood. But it wasn’t until right now that I felt every inch of that distinction. He wasn’t a monster, but he wasn’t human either. Framed by the arched window with moonlight illuminating his sharp features, he was looking at me in a way that pulled on the desire I hadn’t released.

Slowly, I picked up my book, if only to put something between us.

When he didn’t say a word, I wet my lips. “What are you doing here?”

He reached back and closed the window, then turned the latch. “Being unconscionable.”

Unconscionable? “What in Damien’s name does that mean?”

Yves clasped his hands behind his back and came to stand at the foot of my bed. His gaze moved over my loose hair, my thin nightshift, and the book.

I’d been looked at plenty in my life. Neighbors. Drunkards. The doorman outside The Drowned Goose stared at me like I was a cut of meat hanging in a window. I knew how to use that kind of attention to my benefit.

This look was not the same.

I pressed my knees together beneath the sheet before I could stop myself.

His eyes flicked down. Then back up. “I have come to make a proposal. One entirely separate from your employment. Whatever your answer, nothing changes about your position in this household, your compensation, or the protection I promised you. You have my word.”

I set my wand and his coin back on the nightstand. “What kind of proposal?”

“That depends on the answer to my next question.”

I swallowed hard. “Which is?”

Silence filled the room. I leaned forward an inch, waiting, when Yves finally said, “Are you with someone?”

I glanced theatrically around the room. “No one is here except you.”

His mouth twitched. “I did not mean presently. I’m asking if you are attached to anyone? Is there a man—or woman—with whom you have an understanding? One of the palace consorts perhaps. Or… anyone else.”

My brows lifted and heat flushed in my cheeks. Since I was sixteen, I’d filled my nights with many someones. Names I hardly remembered now, outside of Lewan, who was my first, and Hartley, for practical reasons.