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“Are you certain of that, Anike?”
Ilse stood up with a start. “My lord …”
Raul held up a hand. “Wait. Let me speak.”
Her pulse beating fast, she sank back into the chair.
“I once said I would not make a cage,” he said. “I meant that. And I think … I think I understand why you wish to leave. If you wish my help in finding a new position, I will give you that. It’s the least I can do for how I treated you.”
“But my lord—”
She broke off at the change in his expression.
“I was wrong,” he said. “Wrong in so many ways. The way I acted. It was not fair to you or to Dedrick. But I was being selfish and arrogant. I told myself it was mere friendship. I lied. Or rather, I wanted your friendship and more, so I took more. In the end, I drove Dedrick away. Now I’ve done the same with you. I cannot ask you to forgive me, but I am deeply sorry.”
For a moment, Ilse could do nothing but stare. It was impossible to take in his words at first. And then, like a star winking into existence, came the thought, That is why Dedrick left. He knew. He knew Raul Kosenmark loved me.
An impossible word—love—too great for her to comprehend.
But the star burned bright inside the darkness.
She managed to draw a breath against the sudden thickness in her throat. Love. It was not just a creature of her imagination. It was real, this gift of joy. She had but to speak, to choose. Her heart, which had seemed to stop, raced forward.
Raul had not moved since he spoke, did not take his gaze from her face. He looked, she thought, as though he were memorizing her features, one by one. Like a starved man who sees a feast receding from his grasp. Ilse set down her wine cup. Stood and circled the table. She felt weightless, skimming inches above the floor, and only when her fingertips touched his cheek, did she find herself anchored securely. Raul’s eyes went wide. Ilse cupped his face in her palm, bent down, and kissed him upon his lips. Once. Twice. His breath puffed against her, an exhalation of surprise and delight.
“Come with me,” she whispered, drawing him toward the doors to his private rooms.
They passed quickly through a maze of rooms, where doors and closets and passageways led in all different directions. It was dark in his bedchamber, the room lit only by the shimmer of snow through the windows. With a word of magic, Raul lit the nearest lamp and turned toward Ilse. He unbuttoned his shirt and let it slide onto the floor. Ilse laid a palm over his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart.
“Whatever you wish,” he whispered. “However you wish. Whenever you wish.”
A momentary panic, which faded before desire. “I wish for you.”
She unbuttoned her dress and let it slide to the floor, next to his shirt. She stepped from her shoes. Another brief surge of irrational dread, then she lay on the bed. Raul was now dressed only in his trousers. He knelt beside Ilse, his face going taut. Without looking away, he unlaced his trousers and slid them over his hips.
In form, he was nearly like any other man, thick and rising stiff and red with passion. In size, however, he was more like a boy, and underneath the penis was a smooth hairless expanse, as though magic had burned away the flesh and hair.
“He was a master surgeon,” Raul said in a thin voice. “He left no scars that I could discover. He helped me as much as he could.”
Ilse reached out and took him into her arms. “You are beautiful. Come to me now, please.”
He slipped into bed next to her and covered her mouth in a kiss. Terror veered sharply into a desire so strong it overcame everything else. She kissed him back, tasting cedar and wood smoke. Sweat and passion. His warm skin against her shift. Then he tugged off her stockings and shift and was running his hands over her body, kissing her all the while.
“Ei rûf ane gôtter,” he murmured. “Ei rûf ane kreft unde strôm. Ane liebe de gôtter.”
A sharp green scent enveloped them as he entered her. Magic saturated the air, so intense, that her blood sang and her pulse thrummed. There was no moment like it. No time before, no time after. Only now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“MARRY ME,” HE whispered.
“Marriage?” she said breathlessly. “What would—”
“—my family say?”
A puff of laughter escaped her. “Have you found a way to listen to my thoughts as well?”
They lay close together, she with her cheek against his chest, he stroking her hair. Magic’s green scent lingered, mixed with sweat and musk and perfume. The snow had ended, and a pale dawn lit the windows.
