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But rather than feeling like an animal caught in a trap, Cera found it curiously liberating. The longer they kissed, the more her earlier unease began to fade. In its place, certainty crept over her. Certainty that she was where she belonged and where she would stay, so long as she could keep hold of the man above her.
Her hands moved up to touch him, more brazenly than before. She ran her fingers across his neck, brushed her thumb against the thick vein that carried the heavy thumping of his pulse. She buried her fingers in his hair, the silken strands making her own silver locks feel coarse by comparison. She took in his heady scent, each inhalation making her feel as though her soul was rising from her body, only to spiral back down as she exhaled.
At first, Isael kept his hands to himself, seeming content to allow Cera to grow comfortable with him. However, when she began to grip at his hair, he seemed to lose some of his cool collectedness. His hand moved to the small of her back, drawing her body close against his. His hand trailed heat against the bare skin of her back. Combined with his nearness and the warmth of his mouth, her blood began to simmer with anticipation.
He had only cut open the top of her dress, and his hand stalled on the lower ties. He made a sound akin to a growl against her mouth, and Cera was taken aback by the sharp spike of excitement that shot through her. She had to keep from grasping at him as he pulled back from her lips.
"This dress is absurd," he muttered, his voice husky. "Fioris was right, we are going to need a tailor."
And there was another unexpected spike, this one hot and barbed. Jealously had finally reared its ugly head, and at the mere mention of another woman.
Cera was doomed.
"I'll have my personal tailor take your measurements tomorrow," he said, coaxing her to roll onto her belly as he spoke. "He'll make robes for you in my colors. The colors of Ishvalier, that is. If I put you in the colors of the aesolin, we'll cause quite the uproar."
Cera listened with half an ear, acutely aware of his hands working at the ties, deftly unfastening them one by one.
Wetting her lips, she asked, "What would an elven uproar look like?"
"For you, many withering looks, particularly from the women. For me, it would likely be a lengthy council discussion." As he went on, he switched to elven and affected a nasal, haughty voice that sounded an awful lot like Lord Casean. "Generous and merciful Isael Aesolin, we're certain that this issue is beneath your notice and we lament to distract you with such trivialities, but it would seem that the tailors have mistakenly garbed your concubine in the colors of your most esteemed position."
Cera was laughing long before he'd finished, mostly because of his impression, but also because his slow disrobing of her was making her feel jittery.
"Sounds quite tedious," she said.
"Horribly so," he said, pausing to trail a finger down her spine. "I want to hear you speak my language."
She tensed at the request, feeling more apprehensive than at any other point in the night. Speaking slow and tentatively, she asked, "What would you like me to say?"
Isael chuckled, not the response she would have liked, but there was no malice in it.
"I've never heard that accent before."
His own accent was far more intriguing than hers. He spoke with the same melodic, flowing cadence as other elves in the capital, but his accent had a rumbling, purr-like quality to it that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand.
"I learned elven before I learned to speak Ateran," she told him. "My governess was from Taltra."
"Sa reskalta," he mused. A southerner.
The word was almost synonymous with "slave." Around the time that Isael was uniting the northern elves of Esryia, the last of the elves on the distant southern continent were falling into subjugation. For the first time, she wondered what he thought of them, if he viewed them with the same disdain as other elves seemed to regard their fallen brethren. Now hardly seemed the time to ask, so she held the question for another moment.
Reverting back to Ateran, she said, "I'll learn to speak properly, with time."
Even the refined version of Taltran Elven that Gersla had taught her sounded like the prattling of street children when compared to the dignified Virashindic Elven that Maewyn and the others spoke.
"I like it. It's unique. Maewyn doesn't know you speak our language?"
"Only you know, but I imagine I'll slip up in front of her soon enough."
All of the ties on her dress were loosened, but Isael had yet to make an effort to turn her around, or do anything besides trace lazy circles onto her back.
"It was judicious of you to hide it. But you should speak our language openly now. It'll give you more opportunities to interact with others and allow you to become accepted more quickly. They'll still overlook you, at least for a time, but that will be to your advantage, particularly if you can infiltrate the right groups."
"Because I'll know when they're lying."
"Precisely."
Cera turned onto her side, eyes wide. "I could be a spy. For you, of course."
