Chapter 5: The Lovers

His bedroom was the only room in the castle without a clock.

Liora noticed it first, before the bed or the fire or the man standing very still beside her.

"Where are they all?" she asked.

"In the next room." Bastien shut the door. "I couldn't sleep with them."

"Can you sleep with anything?"

"I have not slept in a bed for six years."

He said it flatly.

She looked at the great bed with its heavy dark curtains and its smooth, unslept blanket.

Then she looked at the chair by the window, where a pair of boots stood waiting beside a pillow and a folded cloak.

"You sleep in a chair," she said.

"In my boots. So I can run."

Her throat went tight.

"Take them off," said Liora.

He did not move.

"Come here, Your Grace."

He crossed the room slowly and stopped in front of her.

She went up on her toes and unfastened the collar of his coat with her ink-stained fingers.

His breath caught.

She slid the coat off his shoulders, and it fell to the floor with a heavy sound.

Under it his shirt was white and plain, and under that, when she opened it, he was all long muscle and old scars.

One ran from his collarbone to his ribs.

She laid her palm over it.

"Frostbite," he said, "and a knife, and a mistake of mine."

"Which one is the mistake?"

"This one." He touched her fingers on the scar. "I was nineteen."

She kissed it, because it was there, and he made a low, rough sound she felt in her own knees.

Then he took her face between his hands and kissed her.

She had meant to lead him.

For a while he did not let her.

His mouth moved down her throat, and his hands found the laces at her back.

The blue silk slid down her arms and pooled at her feet.

The air was cold on her skin for exactly one heartbeat.

Then he looked at her, and she forgot the cold completely.

"Tell me what you want," Bastien said. His voice was unsteady.

Heat rushed up her neck, and she lifted her chin.

"I want you in that bed," said Liora. "I want you to stop being careful."

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