“I find the loneliest places have the most arresting diversions.”
That last reply was said just as lightly, just as casually, but a darkness threaded through the words.Tate’s heart was beating so fast that she was sure Adelais could hear it.She couldn’t stop her eyes dropping to Adelais’s hands, long-fingered and strong.She suddenly couldn’t remember anything ever being more erotic than those hands, than the way they looked in the dark right now.Deceptively innocent.
The Wolf’s hands and a stranger’s hands at the same time.
“I don’t think there will be much to divert you here,” Tate said, not as good at playing her part as Adelais was at hers but liking the way it felt anyway.She wasn’t an abbess forced into a job she never wanted.She wasn’t the only person who could keep Far Hope alive in these cursed times.She wasn’t a murderer, still trying ten years later to claw God’s forgiveness to herself.
She was just a sister trying to get back home.A mouse hoping all the cats were asleep.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Adelais said.They were very close to the wooded section of the road now.Shadows were beginning to pool at their feet like the lapping waves of the sea.“I’ve already got my eye on something.”
Tate held her mantle closer, reached up and adjusted her wimple.Then, quicker than she could understand it happening, Adelais’s hands were on her head, one on her jaw and the other plucking at the pins in her veil and her wimple.
“What are you doing?”Tate said, trying to twist away.The hand on her jaw was too strong, however, and she couldn’t move without hurting herself.
“I want to see your face,” Adelais said simply.With brisk, expert movements, she had the fabric unpinned, and soon Tate’s entire head was bare.“There, isn’t that better?Don’t you feel better?”
The minute Adelais released her jaw, Tate reached for the crumpled fabric, but Adelais held it out of Tate’s reach.
“Now, now,” tutted the Wolf.“I’ve just gone to all that trouble to see you.No sense in covering up again.Who’s here to see?Your sisters?Your abbess?Surely, they’ve seen more.Surely they’ve seen you bathing, in bed at rest.They won’t be shocked by the sight of your hair.”
“It’s not proper,” Tate protested.That part wasn’t just for the game; it was true.Uncovered hair meant wantonness to most people, and however much Tate knew about the secret holiness of what other people might consider wicked, wearing a veil was a hard habit to break when she was outside the abbey walls.Which was rarely.
“Do you think a lot about what’s proper?”
Not in the way Adelais meant, not in the way the game meant…but did Tate find herself consumed with duty, with penance, with forgiveness?
“Yes,” Tate said.“I try to do what’s right.It’s dark here,” she added hesitantly.“We should keep walking.”
“Are you afraid of what will find you in the dark?”
Nothing could be more frightening than her own memories, and it was in the dark that they visited her the most.“Yes.”
Adelais clucked.“Poor thing.I’ll keep you safe.”Adelais’s hand found Tate’s, clutched it.The possession in the seemingly innocent touch sent heat flaring up Tate’s arm to her throat and face.“You’re cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“I could warm you up.”
Tate tried to pull away.“I’m not cold, I promise.”
“You’re lying,” Adelais-the-stranger said.“I don’t like lies.”
“I think—I think I should go on alone.”Tate didn’t have to fake the tremble in her voice; it was there all on its own.Partly lust, yes, but partly fear too.
The difference was that she wanted to be afraid.
“Oh, no, that won’t do at all,” Adelais said softly.“I can’t let you go, sweet thing.We’ve only just gotten started.”
Now.Tate knew the moment to run was now.
She turned and bolted deeper into the darkness, able to make out the shape of the road only from the occasional pool of moonlight through the thick branches above.She heard Adelais’s delighted laugh as Tate forced herself to run harder, faster, pumping legs that were too short.It was like racing Heorot as children, knowing she would lose because she was pointlessly, eternally, shorter than everyone else.
Adelais seemed to know it, too, her laughter echoing off the trees as footfalls pounded on the road.She was chasing Tate now, and doing so easily, judging from the sound of her laughter.“Slow down, little nun!I won’t hurt you!”
It was dark, so dark, and the flashes of moonlight made everything all the more disorienting.How would Adelais capture her?And what she would do when she did?
The footfalls were so close that Tate knew Adelais was only a few feet behind her now, close enough to?—
