Tate’s whole body felt blistered by fire, even though the night air was cool.She looked away, trying to gather herself.Trying not to think about Adelais on top of her, nothing but shadows and teeth in the moonlight.
About how wrong and thrilling it would feel to be held down in the dark…
They passed the menhir—the standing stone at the foot of the road leading to the abbey—and then turned.Soon they were on the moors, wild and undulating, a rough sea of grass and gorse and stone.
Adelais came to a stop, her eyes on the heath and the patchwork of fields carved out of its grasp.“Itisbeautiful here,” she murmured, seemingly more to herself than to Tate.“A naked, wicked land.”
It was the last thing Tate had expected the earthy soldier to say.It was almost…poetic.“What?”
Adelais’s mouth curved, though her eyes stayed on the landscape.“It’s what William’s pet abbot told me when I asked him if he’d ever heard of Far Hope.He told me it was wicked place in a naked, wicked land.”
Tate had a guess as to which abbot that was.“Lanfranc.”
Adelais’s eyebrows lifted.“You know him?”
She did, unfortunately.“There are rumors William will make him the next archbishop of Canterbury, in which case, he’ll want the English church to be reformed.”Again.Far Hope had managed to squeeze past the monastic reformations of Dunstan and Aethelwold a few generations ago, mostly because it had the protection of the king.But now the king of England was a Norman foreigner who’d never been to Far Hope and possibly didn’t know of its mission and its blessings.Could it survive another overzealous reformer with continental ideas?
The Wolf laughed.A short, bright laugh that sounded far too merry to come from the mouth of a murderer.It was lovelier than any hymn Tate had ever heard.“I don’t want to wound you, abbess, but if you’re an example of the English church right now, perhaps a little reformation wouldn’t hurt.”
Tate wasn’t wounded in the least.She knew how it all must seem; there was a reason Far Hope hid itself.“Far Hope stands apart,” she said.“We are the only abbey I know of like this.”And then she pressed her lips together.That was almost saying too much.
“Full of angel-faced nuns ready to tempt good Christians into lust?”
Tate didn’t answer.There wasn’t an answer she could give that wouldn’t result in a hundred more questions.Questions that she wasn’t supposed to answer, although she did wonder what Adelais would think of Far Hope.Maybe she’d be delighted.Maybe she’d laugh that bright, merry laugh again.
“No matter,” Adelais said.“If you are the flower of the English church, then I will pray that Lanfranc never attacks the beautiful, carnal root.Although I have to warn you that my prayers aren’t worth very much.”
“I could help you with that,” Tate offered, and Adelais’s smile widened.
“A sweet offer from a wicked girl.”A step closer, gold eyes nearly silver in the night.“Now tell me, abbess.When you were thinking about someone forcing you last night, what did that look like?”
The question was clear, direct.Abrupt enough that Tate could guess that Adelais had been wanting to ask it all day.Which meant she’d been thinking about Tate’s shameful admittance in the tent all day.
Humiliation ran down the inside of Tate’s chest like wine down the sides of a goblet.But it was followed by a hot rush of excitement, a thrill so twisted and dark that it brought even more shame sluicing down along with it.
Was this what forbidden things felt like to everyone else?Was this what a transgression felt like?Tate came from Thornchurch—Thornchurch, where Beltane was still marked with fire and flesh, where Imbolc and Lammas and Samhain meant bacchanals with the entire village participating.When she’d been accepted as a sister to Far Hope, she’d understood its unique blessings immediately, and unlike many other sisters and most of their pilgrims, she hadn’t had to unlearn shame about her body and its desires.
ButFar Hope wasn’t some orgy of limitless hedonism.It was a holy place, a place of God, and chief of God’s laws was free will.Waschoice.And so to fantasize about free will being taken away felt sinful beyond almost anything else.Not the chief of Tate’s sins, certainly, but close.
Adelais touched Tate’s cheek, and Tate wondered if Adelais could feel the flush there.“I’d tell you there’s no need to be shy,” Adelais murmured, “but I’m enjoying your bashfulness immensely.”
“I’m notshy,” Tate said, trying to sound firm.In control.“But I don’t know how to answer your question.”
“With the truth, of course,” Adelais said brightly and dropped her hand.“It’s not so hard.When you were thinking of someone grabbing you and taking you, what does that look like?What would you want it to feel like?”
“I—I don’t know.It’s too new.”
Adelais seemed to like that last part, her tongue going idly to her incisor as she studied Tate.“Too new.As in, last night was the first night you thought of such things?”
There didn’t seem to be any point in lying about it.“Yes.”
The Wolf’s eyes gleamed.“I don’t know if I should be honored or ashamed to bring out such thoughts in such a quiet little mouse, but there we are.Now, back to my question.There must have beensomethingyou thought of.Something that’s haunted your thoughts ever since.”
It had haunted more than her thoughts.Her body had been thrumming all day.
She couldn’t say that out loud though; she didn’t dare to—and then somehow she was.She was answering Adelais, even as she knew she shouldn’t.“Your hand.”Her voice was quiet.“Over my mouth.”
Adelais looked very much like a wolf then, eyes avid, body still.A stillness that lured prey into a false sense of safety.
