Page 77 of A Dangerous Bargain

They’re extended over us.

But she doesn’t look down. Her stare is intense, furious even, trained on the too-dark horizon like it’s personally wronged her in some way. Tears course down her face, mixing with the rain, but she makes no move to stop them.

It’s the wildest and the most human I’ve ever seen her look.

Leonardo cranes his head back. The hand not holding mine rises, tentatively touching the gleaming gold feathers just barely in his reach. He flinches when the entire wing ripples, like the disturbed surface of a pond.

“Lupa,” he says. “Do you mind if we stay here?”

“Why?” I demand, instantly anxious.

His stare drags back to me. He traces my jaw with the edge of his thumb, sliding his hand around the back of my neck. “Because as soon as we leave this cathedral, we’ll have to deal with the Medici,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to mine again. “And you keep telling me you don’t have enough time.” One knee eases betwixt mine, slowly, tantalizingly. “So we might as well make the most of what time we do have.”

A spark zips through me, then explodes. It’s fire down a slick of oil, to a barrel, no, to an entire warehouse filled with barrels of oil, and Madonna santa, I think I might be dead already.

“I don’t know how—”

“I do, if you’re willing.” He presses his lips to my neck and sucks. A bitten-off sound slips from me. I tilt my head back, giving him more access to my skin. Letting the full strength of my want course through me feels like releasing the sails of a ship in a storm. It should frighten me, but instead I want to follow it.

“I want you,” I say breathlessly. “All of you.”

His smile unfurls against my skin like a glorious sunrise. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I blink awake the next morning, rain dripping into my eyes.

And immediately choke at the face three inches from mine.

Lupa slaps a hand over my mouth. “Stop! You’ll wake him.”

Oh, so she’s the one scolding me? “You can’t do things like that!” I whisper-hiss.

Lupa scowls, as if I’m being unreasonable. Her hair’s a tangled, sodden mess. The sky is gray, sluggish drops pattering across the lantern tower’s marble floor. In the morning, the drop to the city below unsettles me more than it did at night. More exposed. It makes me want to cover sleeping Leonardo more fully with my ruined doublet, the world’s soggiest blanket.

One of his arms is still thrown across my waist.

He hugs me closer to his warm, sleepy body, a sweet sigh feathering across my neck.

A tender ache opens up beneath my ribs.

Lupa stares at the place where we touch like she’s tasting butter for the first time. Or seeing a kitten. Or one of her dozens of other firsts that give her that same fervently bright look.

It feels like too much.

I trust Lupa. I’m grateful she forced me to be honest with him. But I’d gladly hurl myself off the rooftop before explaining what’s happened between us to her.

Gently, oh so gently, I ease myself from under Leonardo’s arm. “Have you been here all night?” God, I really, really hope not.

Her mouth twitches. “I gave you privacy.”

Which is very much not a no, though I am squelching like a washrag, so she must’ve stopped sheltering us at some point. Heat bursts across my face, followed by an icy twist in my stomach. “You shouldn’t have stayed. You need to leave Florence.” If the church or the Medici catch her again, who knows what they’ll do to her?

An unreadable expression flits across her face. “Perhaps.”

She doesn’t look well in the weak dawn light. It pools in lines on her face that weren’t there weeks ago; it barely highlights her dull blond hair. Her wings are gone, her golden gleam limited just to the rings of her irises. Did the church refuse to let her make the bargains she needs to live? Is she starving? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she looks sick. Except… I doubt demons can get sick.

Unease spiders across my skin. “What’s going on?”