The Wolf's Captive (19 page)

And she’d stopped it. She didn’t know how. She wouldn’t have made the claim out loud to anyone else; she was perfectly aware of how foolish it sounded. But her touch had turned something in him. It had been like extinguishing a fire just before it raged out of control. And she had no idea how she’d done it.

But did it matter? What sort of explanation could possibly excuse what Lord Cesare had done? What he’d revealed himself to be?

What if Lucia let her own mask slip, and Lord Cesare didn’t like what he saw? Would the beast turn on her just as quickly if she failed to please him? If she disappointed him?

Always keep yourself to yourself
, Lucia thought. Her grandmother had been right. And yet, as logical as that seemed—and she could find no fault with it, considering what she’d witnessed today—her heart didn’t seem to care. Neither did her body. What did it say about her, that she still craved him, after what she’d seen?

Can you love someone you fear?
she wondered.
Can I really keep myself hidden from him?

No matter how many times Lucia thought it through, she always came back to the same conclusion: she was beginning to doubt that she’d be able to maintain control and keep herself hidden from Lord Cesare Lupin, and at the same time she was beginning to think that a failure to do so might, in fact, be deathly dangerous.

So Lucia was relieved, in more ways than one, to hear Remy’s whistle drift in through the open window. She’d forgotten her pork pie-related attempt at clandestine communication, but the little street boy had obviously come through. And Remy might have information about her father! That could change everything, if only she didn’t need to rely on Lord Cesare for the sake of her family. Lucia had no idea what that would mean, but it would mean something.

It was easier than she thought to slip out of Lord Cesare’s embrace. The man was exhausted. Still, she crept on quiet feet through the halls of his townhouse, refusing to let fear at what might happen if he woke up take hold in her mind, and easily found her way down to the kitchen entrance.

She couldn’t keep herself from smiling as she kicked open the door, arms laden with another meat pie, expecting to see Remy leaning against the frame with that impish expression.

But there was no one there. Just the empty, humid night.

“Remy?” she called out.

The whistle answered from the alley at the end of the street.

“What are you doing?” She tried to keep her voice low. “Come over here.”

There was altogether too long of a pause before she heard him. His little leather boots, scuffed and full of holes though they were, squeaked on the glistening cobblestones. It was the sort of night that managed to be wet without rain. Terrible for enterprising street boys, she knew.

Remy managed to sidle up to the gate with a modicum of subterfuge. But he would go no further.

“Come inside,” Lucia said impatiently.

Remy shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not in there.”

She’d never seen him look afraid before. He wasn’t very good at hiding it. Lucia guessed he hadn’t had a lot of practice.

“Remy, what’s wrong?”

“This place makes me nervous, that’s all,” he said, scuffing his boots a little more. “Should make you nervous, too. There’s something bad happening, Luce.”

It was as though a cruel, invisible hand had reached in and squeezed at Lucia’s chest. She had so wanted good news.

“You mean about my father?” she asked.

Remy nodded. “I don’t know what. No one knows where he is or what’s going on. And usually we know everything. But there’s been proper soldiers by your house every day, tearing the place up, looking for something.”

“In our house?”

“I don’t think they found it, though, ‘cause they keep coming back. Guess you listened better than I thought about hiding that Duke’s Blend, huh?”

Remy grinned at her, but Lucia could only manage a wan smile in return. If they were looking for the Duke’s Blend, it meant her father hadn’t told them how to find it. Or that he was dead.

Lucia’s entire body clenched with the effort of expelling that particular thought.

“That boy David comes around, too. He always looks real upset.”

David! It had been days! He must be out of his mind with worry.
Lucia wondered what Paolo had told him, what Paolo had told anyone. The situation was—when she stepped back and thought about it—absurd.

“Remy, can you tell him I’m fine? Please? Tell him I have a plan, and…” Lucia ran her hands through her thick hair, just to give them something to do. It was a lie. She didn’t have a plan, beyond hoping that the violent man who slept above would like her well enough to help her father. “Tell him everything will be all right, Remy. Tell him I’m ok.”

“Are you?” Remy asked. She could see he was afraid of her answer. “I know whose house this is. Everyone does.”

“It’s all right, Remy,” Lucia lied. “I promise.”

When he hugged her, she knew things were bad. Still, he took the pie and scampered off, the wet squeaking of his boots trailing behind him into the night. The idea of Remy out in the world somehow made Lucia feel slightly better about life. There was at least that, in the end. She could be sure of Remy, even if she couldn’t be sure of herself.

Because even with everything that had happened, she couldn’t deny that something in her ached to be back in Lord Cesare’s bed.

The heart lies
, Lucia’s grandmother’s words echoed in her head as she tiptoed back up the stairs.
Men lie. Listen to your head.

Keep yourself to yourself.

Lucia took a deep breath, as though she could hold those words in and keep them close, and eased open the door to her rooms. Lord Cesare still lay on his side where she’d left him, apparently asleep. But it was the first time she’d seen his naked back, illuminated with the dull light from the hall lamps.

It was covered in scars.

These were not scars with the unique, jagged beauty of battle wounds, of one-time tragedies, of moments in time. They were all the same shape, the same width, long lashes of scar tissue, endlessly repeating, a crosshatch of recurring pain, over and over and over again.

Someone had done that to him. Someone had done that to him many, many times.

Lucia would never be able to explain what had compelled her to do what she did next. It was as unknowable as the moment when she’d stepped forward and grabbed his hand in mid-rage. But her mind abdicated all responsibilities to her heart and her body, and so she walked to his naked, vulnerable form, and reached out to touch his scars.

His hand was so quick she didn’t see it. He’d simply shifted his weight, rolled toward her, and then her wrist was lost in his huge hand.

“What are you doing?” he asked. His deep voice still held the confusion of sleep, but Lucia could see clarity begin to seep in around his dark eyes. His expression slowly became…what? Hurt? Surely not. Angry? Possibly.

“I don’t know,” she said hopelessly. “Your scars.”

Lord Cesare’s ridged stomach muscles rippled as he raised his huge torso, pulling her down on the bed next to him. He was fully awake now. His eyes were fierce. Lucia imagined she could hear his heart, beating a vicious rhythm in his chest.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

It was not what she expected.

“No,” she said, and she wasn’t. And then in the next moment, she was. “Yes. I don’t know.”

He didn’t say anything, but closed his eyes. His hand burned into her wrist.

“Because of what I did tonight,” he said softly. “You are afraid…you pull away, because of what I did.”

Lucia didn’t know what to say. Little beads of sweat had begun to freckle his brow; a vein in his forehead pulsed madly. He seemed to be straining at something far beyond her understanding.

Even though he was terrifying, even through all her conflicted feelings, Lucia wanted to comfort him. She wanted to be able to reach out, and…

She touched his face. His eyes flew open.

“Tell me what happened,” she said. “If you tell me, maybe it won’t be frightening.”

The sweat trickled down the sides of his face now, to his neck, to his heaving chest. She followed the glittering trails of tears, saw how they lit up the other scars, the ragged ones that told of his ferocity and his strength. Scars had such different meanings, she thought. She wondered which scar was making it so hard for Lord Cesare to breathe.

“I want to help,” she said.

“Aren’t you afraid of me now?” he rasped.

“Should I be?”

“I think so.”

His eyes were wet. He took her hand and put it flat on his burning, thumping chest, right over the biggest scar. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry you had to see what I am. I never wanted that.”

Despite herself, Lucia heard her grandmother’s words then:
Always keep yourself hidden.
Coming from someone else’s lips they seemed uncertain, fragile, and stupid.

“What happened with the whips?” Lucia asked.

It was a long time before he spoke.

“When my brother was still alive, I was only the spare,” he said. His voice was flat. Emotionless. His body burned under her palm.

“I was the spare,” he continued, “and my father hated me because I was beastly. He liked that word, ‘beastly.’ I was uncouth, and boorish, and ill mannered, and I reminded him of my mother, whom he had been forced to marry. And while my brother still lived, he would try to teach me manners with a whip.”

Lucia tried to touch his face, but he turned away, his mouth set.

“No,” he said. “That wasn’t bad. I knew I deserved it, most of the time. I could tolerate pain. It was a simple thing to learn. But after my brother died…”

Lord Cesare swallowed. His lip quivered, but not as though he were suppressing tears, exactly. It was more like he was trying not to snarl.

His heart thumped beneath her hand.

“After my brother died, I was not the spare. I was the heir. You cannot whip the heir within an inch of his life.” He took her hand from his chest and brought it to his rough cheek. She felt the stubble there, the rough, weathered skin, his surprisingly soft lips as he kissed her palm.

He sighed. “You cannot whip the heir, so you whip the things he loves. My horse. My favorite dog. My first woman. They all suffered, and died, when I was judged to be too…beastly.”

Lucia didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. She had known there was cruelty in the world, but she’d never truly seen it up close, and this was the first time she realized how lucky she was to be only a poor vintner’s daughter.

“You believe that,” she said softly. “About yourself. You believe you’re…”

But Lucia let her words fall between them, unwilling to say it out loud. The truth was that she’d been thinking the same thing, not an hour before. She watched his shoulders shake with effort, and realized that she had no idea what it was like to keep hold of a pain like that, and to feel you must do it all by yourself.

She thought
she’d
been alone. She thought she couldn’t risk sharing herself with
him
. She was only a coward, and Lord Cesare had been brave. He’d been honest.

Carefully, she climbed up into his lap, and put her hand back to that rough cheek.

“I see you,” she whispered into his ear. “And I am yours, completely.”

She even meant it.

And, for the first time in her young life, Lucia gently guided him fully into her.

C
HAPTER 12

For the first time in his memory, Cesare woke up happy. The remembered feel of Lucia’s skin still clung to him, just like her scent, and her words still rang in his ears:
I am yours,
she’d said.
Completely
.

And he had
felt
it when she said it, had somehow known it be true, in the same way he knew…what did he know? Her scent. The effect she had on him. That he only felt whole when he was inside her. That when she loved him, he was at peace, and the thing he’d brought with him from the mountains was quiet.

Cesare had known all of that to be unquestionably true as he moved inside Lucia Lyselle and brought them both to the precipice together.

But in the morning, everything always looks different. This morning was like that. Lucia was still curled up in the bed he’d had prepared for her, her soft limbs entangled in so many yards of silk. She was beautiful, of course. Cesare marveled at her: she was so tiny, compared to him, so delicate, so soft, and yet he was expected to accept that she held such complete power over him?

“Soft,” Lucia murmured in her sleep, and snuggled deeper into the coverlet. Cesare nearly laughed out loud.
Behold the tyrant, Lucia Lyselle!

Cesare could be forgiven for doubting himself a little. It all seemed so fanciful. And even if everything he wanted to be true turned out to be actual reality, and not the delusions of a man who was quietly going mad, would she still feel the same? If only her whims didn’t have such unholy power over him. It wasn’t just being in love, though he was hopelessly in love with this creature: this was being held hostage. He couldn’t forget what had happened to him each time she’d turned away from him, each time she’d retreated into herself. If she did it again, Cesare was sure he would lose himself to the beast. The entire city would suffer.

And how could she love a beast? How could anyone?

Cesare hadn’t meant to lie to her. And he hadn’t, except by omission. He’d never told anyone about his father before, but that was only because he’d never had to. Everyone at court already knew. It hadn’t been kept a secret.

But he hadn’t told her about the mountains. He hadn’t told her that he’d fallen in a raid and woken up covered in blood, surrounded by dead men and a dead wolf. He hadn’t told her about the crazed killing fever that came over him. He hadn’t told her that he sometimes felt himself begin to…change.