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His fingers stroked mine. “No, of course you would never. Give me a moment to work this through. The Wild Hunt will ride on Hallows’ Night. You fear they will track down and kill Beatrice. The Hunt must shed blood to be put to rest. I trust you do not mean to sacrifice yourself.”
I shook my head. The touch of his hands made me ache.
“It’s likely you are not of interest to the Wild Hunt. I can’t think of any reasons you would threaten them as dragon dreamers or powerful mages do.”
I tried to speak but only an exhalation came out.
“I trust you are not planning to throw me into their path,” he added.
“That’s not amusing!”
He considered more narrowly. “We’d be well rid of that fire mage. He’s very powerful.”
“He is? I’m amazed to hear you say it.”
“I’m amazed he hasn’t burned himself up yet. The only thing stopping him from torching this whole city is the fact, unfortunate only for him, that he would die.”
For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder what it would be like to hold so much power and know you could never use it. To know it could kill you at any moment. “If cold mages are fire banes, then couldn’t a cold mage act as a catch-fire for a fire mage? By extinguishing the fire?”
“Catch-fires don’t extinguish fires. As far as I can tell, they take the fire into them. Or I should more properly say, the backwash of fire magic floods into them instead of into the mage.”
I remembered the way Drake’s fire had limned the skin of the dying man at the inn. As the backlash of his fire magic had consumed the dying man, Drake had healed one who could live. “I just thought if a cold mage could act as a catch-fire, that maybe working in concert with a fire mage they might be powerful enough to…to…”
He pressed a finger to my lips.
“To defy the Wild Hunt and save your cousin.” By no means did he look astonished. “There you have the real question, Catherine. What purpose does the Wild Hunt serve? Everyone is taught that the Hunt gathers the souls of those who will die in the coming year. A few people know it also hunts down and kills the women who walk the dreams of dragons. But only mages know that any mage who becomes too powerful will be killed by the Hunt. Why would the courts fear us? Do they fear what we might discover? Or what we might become?”
I could not resist gently biting his finger. That was a kind of question, wasn’t it? What might he and I become?
He inhaled sharply, but he did not otherwise move.
I had him now.
I released his finger, and he splayed his hand across my cheek. His touch was firm, promising strength, but also precise in being a question rather than a claim.
“Tell me what you want, Catherine. For the worst of it has been wondering if you really meant the way you looked at me, the words you said, on the night of the areito.”
I studied the planes of his face and the precise stubble of his beard. How much time had he taken this afternoon in shaving, trimming, washing, and dressing, knowing I was coming? I considered his eyes, so dark a brown they seemed black, and his lips so full and inviting. Ought a man be allowed to be so handsome? How was a gal to think in the face of such looks?
I put a hand on each shoulder. The damask weave of his dash jacket caressed my palms.
“I want this chain off my tongue, Vai. Just as you want the chains off your village, just as Bee wants to live. I want not to live at the mercy of Four Moons House, or a prince’s militia, or the general’s schemes. Surely it’s the same thing most people want. Health and vigor. A refuge which is not a cage but those who care for us and whom we care for. Like Luce’s giggle. Aunt Tilly’s smile. Rory’s loyalty. Bee’s happiness. You.”
I pushed him onto the bed and pinned him there with my body stretched atop the length of his. His was a fine body to borrow as a mattress, not one bit soft. He lay beneath me, his dark gaze steady. I drew my fingers down his throat, then spread my hand so fingers and thumb spanned his collarbone, for his jacket was unbuttoned just that far. To measure my skin against his in so simple a way made me almost dizzy. Really, it was provoking how quiet the man could be.
“Vai, I made my choice the night of the areito. I can’t walk free and leave you behind. So I choose the path I walk with you, whatever it brings. Anyhow, I’m not going to let some mage House woman steal you from me.”
I brushed my mouth over his. His eyes fluttered as his lips parted and chin lifted to receive a full kiss. But I drew back and slowly counted down the buttons until I got to the sixth. He watched me, not quite smiling. If anything, he looked a bit dazed.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said as I unbuttoned the sixth and slid my fingers to the seventh. “I am going to take off?”—the eighth and the ninth slipped free—“this beautiful jacket… Unless by that quiver of your eyebrows you mean to indicate there is something you want to say first.”
“Yes,” he said, in quite the hoarsest voice I had ever heard out of him.
“Gracious Melqart, Vai, how many buttons does this garment have?”
He breathed, if you could call that breathing when in fact it sounded more as if he had been running most of the way across Expedition.
“Fourteen?” I demanded as I sat back to undo the last buttons. I spread the jacket to either side to expose not a vest and linen shirt beneath or even a singlet, as I had expected, but only bare chest. “Oh,” I said, intelligently. “Well. Let me not pretend I haven’t been thinking about doing this.”
