Fear coursed through her in thick, suffocating waves. He turned away and she knew it was lost, they’d never get back what they had a few moments ago. The fear coalesced in a tight ache in her chest and she moved to rest a hand on the nearest shelf, the very same shelf he had pinned her hand against. Madison fought the teeming heartache, attempting to catch the breath that his denial had stolen from her. Movement from the corner of her eyes turned back to him. Tight fingers released their white-knuckle hold on the shelf as they came together once more.
Warmth slid from his arm through her body and she moved her hands to rest on his chest. The frantic best of his best thudded beneath her palm and she longed to melt into him, soft in stark contrast to all their previously frenzied movements. Each word he said ripped her heart further in two. The huntress wanted to immediately forgive him, force the doubt and pain away and ignore the past year. She wanted to promise herself to him from this tense moment forward. But just as he couldn’t take her against the ancient books as she wanted, she couldn’t release her hurt so easily.
The words to deny her status as mistress to the Terril heir bubbled up inside of her. If she just said it, was just honest, then perhaps he’d change his mind? Yet, the physician’s ex-lover would not betray the very people that had saved her from a immediate death when she fool-heartedly attempted to kill the most powerful man in Northam with no plan due to her grief. She leaned into his touch on her cheek. Madison would happily take angry stolen kisses, trysts in the dark corners of libraries and whatever they could patch together from the torn tapestry of their love. It didn’t feel real in that way. It didn’t feel like a betrayal to her pride that way. If it was all kept a secret then she could deny it, she could pretend.
Cerulean gaze bore into his captivating, pained eyes as the storm of emotion surged in the grays and blues. “I wish you had told me.” The words left her mouth before she had even thought them. The moment she said it, she flinched. He could have told her in the cabin, in the woods, in the inn, in their bed. The physician could have revealed his mark at any time. If only she had seen it. The dark blue etched on scarred skin, the same skin she had unknowingly dug her fingers into the first time they had made love and the second and the third and....
“If only you had told me.” Madison extricated herself from his grasp, pushing off his chest. The departure was followed by replacing her sweater on her shoulder and twisting her hair into a low bun. Shakily, the huntress moved from their little alcove without a glance back. She moved to the little table that Alice had placed their requested items. A large metal container resided on the floor with all their fire-starting necessities while the wine, two glasses and her wooden chess case rested on the small table. She took the already uncorked wine and poured what was a more than generous amount of wine into her glass. Bringing it to her lips before having set the bottle back down, she downed half the glass in a single gulp.
What may quell others’ rage, others’ pain, the alcohol only served to fuel hers. Madison slammed the library door with a resounding slam, rattling the metal handles as it clicked into place. “Fuck you.” Madison whirled on him, glass her firmly in her left hand. “You think you’re so honorable, so right, by sticking to some bullshit moral code when it suits you. Even when it leaves me like this.” Tear brimmed in her eyes but she stubbornly refused to allow them to fall down her cheeks. “But when it matters, when it really mattered you just conveniently abandon all of your integrity.”
The woman took a sip of her wine, even though her hand trembled. “And somehow, whichever version you choose to be on any given day, I end up suffering for it.”
The space between them, though he could have reached out and brushed her cheek with his fingertips, suddenly felt like miles. Shadows that had moments ago flickered sultry and intimate were now inky and foreboding, drawing sharp lines across the lovers’ faces as their emotion-packed eyes bored into one another’s across the alcove.
Where passion had blazed in the depths of the huntress’ gaze, fury now burned in its place. I wish you had told me. The words hung suspended in the air, clanging through him like a funeral knell. Yet even then, as he blistered beneath that glowering stare, he couldn’t look away. Because no matter how she wounded him, no matter that she’d spent the past year entrenched in Thebesian society…the expression she wore was purely Madison, the wrath of the intrepid huntress who prowled the forest with her bow. And even though the doctor was the current target of her ire, a pang of pride—and relief—flared in his chest. The world may have battered her, but it had not broken her. The Terrils had taken her in, sculpted her body, broadened her mind, even won her affections…but they could never steal the essence of the woman he’d fallen for all that time ago.
And just as Remy loved every part of her, he loved this one too. The fire, the passion, her unabashed sense of self and independence…even if it meant she loathed him for the role he had played in their undoing.
He didn’t have to be a doctor to understand that their stolen kisses were tissues against a hemorrhaging wound. He knew he had forfeited his right to her heart every time he’d kept his left shoulder in the shadows, every time he’d battled the voice of his conscience that had insisted he confess to his bloodline. And he would pay for that error in judgment for the rest of his days—whether he stood smoldering before her as he did now, or stewed in his guilt from afar.
Nevertheless, a dark part of him stirred—the one that remembered how had sacrificed everything he’d built in his seventeen years away from his father’s clutches—and lifted its ugly head from a deep, slumber. The searing energy that had coursed through his veins only minutes ago roared back to life, only this time his blood was angry magma. He tried to swallow it back, ripping his gaze away from Madison as she stormed into the open. Quick fingers buttoned up his shirt and righted the collar, and he raked a hand through his hair as much as with frustration as with the intention to tame the locks before he followed her out.
But he couldn’t tamp it down, not when Madison kept tearing at him. Perhaps it was his exhaustion—had it really only been last night that he’d discovered Quinn Belvedere bleeding out on his doorstep?—but try as he might to rid himself of the temper that threatened to boil over, Remy felt its seductive current begin to pool around his ankles. He hated it—hated that such fury could live within him. Hated…and feared…how much it reminded him of his father’s rages.
How easy it would be to submit to its pull.
The heavy door slammed, hardware rattling with Madison’s force. “So what would you have me do?” he retorted, voice low but sharp. The physician folded his arms across his muscled chest, eyes narrowing as he took in the ferocity of her expression in the lamplight…and the glimmer of tears that refused to fall. His own gaze flashed with a combination of indignance and pain. “If I could go back, I would.” His jaw clenched. “I know I fucked up. I know I should have told you who my father is. But, Madison…” He faltered, tone dropping even lower. The desperation that laced his growl only enhanced his icy tone. “I didn’t tell a single soul for almost twenty fucking years. Not one person. I lived more of my life as Remy Sterling than…than I did this.” His tongue couldn’t form the syllables of his birth name, and he tore his eyes away with shame.
The blizzard howled beyond the walls, relentless. “It’s not an excuse,” he admitted after a beat, gritting his teeth. “I just want you to understand that it wasn’t simple. And believe me, I’m paying for it. Every single day, every single night. Is that what you want to hear? That I’ve gotten what I deserve?” His teeth found the inside of his lip and bit down until the metallic taste of blood washed over his tongue.
He angled toward the door, stormy eyes dark, voice a snarl. “And maybe I do deserve it, but don’t you dare make the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who’s hurting.” He took a step as if to leave. “I hope you and Lawrence have a very happy life together.”
The storm howled around them, a thousand wolves crying out through the winter gales. The room grew darker as the snow packed onto the glass dome of the library, echoing the darkness that began to rush through her veins like spilt ink. He wanted her to feel badly for him. Remy wanted her to see all the pain that this had caused him, and she had for a brief moment when they sought to find comfort for in each other’s arms. Before his honor, his pride, had wedged itself between them and ignited an explosion of emotion in the tiny alcove. Madison took a long sip of the wine, leaving a crimson trail to flow back to what little remained at the bottom of the crystal. “You won’t even acknowledge who you are! Even now you won’t say it.” Madison grabbed the bottle again, feeling the warmth of the wine flood her limbs, coursing along her burning nerves endings. She poured herself a tall glass and set the bottle down once more. “You’re holding on to some delusion that all of this is temporary!” She motioned about them. “These are our lives now.”
The doctor moved to leave, turning away and she scoffed. “Go. Run away then, Commander. You can run and run and run but it will never been enough. You’ll never outrun who you are and what you did.” Madison had sharpened the words like blades, hurling them at him as though they were practicing in the woods on their travels. The huntress began to tremble so visibly, so forcefully due to the full pressure of her rage. The oppressive ache against her chest, threatening to suffocate her with the weight of it. The words she spoke did nothing to ease everything that she felt, though she tried to wield them as though they may be a cure for all her pain.
And Lawrence. The heir to Northam was jealous of Lawrence - no - jealous of the idea of what Lawrence had and what he did not. “And you think I can live this life? Even with someone as passionate, as kind as Lawrence....” the huntress shakily brought the glass to her lips and steadied herself. She allowed the compliments about the Terril heir to sink it, knowing it would cause her pain and reveling momentarily in it. “Even with everything he is to me,” a friend, a confidant, a protector, “it cannot keep me from what I need to do and cannot erase all of this. Everything that we were,” a sigh, “everything that we still are” glistening blue eyes met the storm in his, braving its damaging gaze, “even when I don’t want it any more.” Madison wanted to rip her heart out with her right hand and crush it beneath her heeled feet, so long as it meant not having to feel all these conflicting emotions any more. If it meant she could finally move on...
“And I know you said that to make me feel guilty for my relationship with him, to make me feel worse for the little life I’ve carved out after your betrayal,” and it did, even if the logic of it was not lost on her, “but you are the one that broke everything we had built. You made our foundation out of quicksand and convinced me we were solid.” Madison turned away, prepared to let him leave through the doors they had entered with so much promise just a short while before. She set down her wineglass, now half full and pulled the oak door open a crack, offering him his quick escape.
Gathering the items for the fire that Alice had carefully left behind, the young woman moved to the large fireplace. With practiced ease, she piled a few dry logs on top of the metal cradle, spreading out the quick kindling around them. Soon, the crackle of flames licked up the logs and warmed her already headed flesh. Cerulean stare lost itself in the hiss and flicker of enticing yellow light before she pushed herself up and turned. When she cast her gaze along the opposite side of the room, Madison found that the redressed man hovered by the door, as though the longing in the deepest depth of her soul had tethered him there. Heart skipped to an irregular beat and she struggled to suppress the need she felt when she looked at him. Need to be near him. Need to hear his voice. Need to feel his hands. Need to feel his mouth. Need to tell him she loved him. Need to accept the apology he would say as he kneeled at her feet. Need to spend hours in each other’s arms, discussing books she had read and laughing at her mispronunciations. Need to have him write new and tantalizing words on her skin. Need to spend the rest of her life with him.
“You’re still here.” Was all that she managed to say as she stood there, bound to him by invisible strings.
Remy felt his anger in broad, sweeping waves, a simmering tide steadily rising. After spending a lifetime tamping down an emotion he’d always associated with his father, its seductive caress was an exhilarating rush. It bubbled up from the murky dredges where he’d buried it, and it was only in its explosive release now that he realized just how accustomed he’d been to the tight pressure of everything he’d tamped down. But even as a spark of fear sputtered in the back of his mind, it was like trying to put a flame back into a match—impossible to restore once it flared to life.
He was suddenly reminded of the draw—how that surge of energy sharpened his tongue, brought trembling power to his clenched muscles, and shredded the filter on his thoughts to limp, useless threads. It thrilled him and terrified him in equal measure. Was this how his father felt, each time he’d raised his voice or wrapped a hand around his lash-whip? Was this the force that bewitched the high commander, his mind returning again and again to its beckoning call—an addict utterly dependent on the fix?
Madison’s words struck their mark with a huntress’ deadly accuracy, but he refused to allow himself to bleed at her feet. He may have well deserved every syllable of her vitriol, but he was exhausted…he knew, in his heart and his soul and his every waking thought, that he had single-handedly dashed their dreams for a future together. No matter how she argued, no matter how many verbal daggers she threw, no matter how many heated kisses they exchanged in the shadows, he couldn’t rewrite the past.
But that wasn’t enough for her. It wasn’t enough that his grief had consumed every aspect of his new life, that his mind was a constant battleground. He released a rush of air, a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Words bubbled up that he longed to spew, like furious arrows nocked under the dangerous tension of a bow. But even as his bitter cold rage begged to release them into the chilled library air, he began to recoil from the emotion, petrified that he might inflict more damage than he had already caused.
“You’re wrong,” Remy said instead, icy fury glinting in his gaze even as quiet desperation softened away whatever sharpness lingered in his tone. “The thought of Lawrence’s hands on you makes me sick, but…I would never wish ill upon you or the life you’ve made for yourself. And if he is all you say he is, then…no, I didn’t mean that to make you feel guilty.” He swallowed. “I want that for you.” Even if I wanted it to be with me.
When she turned her back and stormed to the fireplace, a shudder quaked his shoulders; whether it was from anger or relief, he couldn’t say. The physician swiveled toward the exit, which she had left partially ajar as if in request, and peered into the dimness of the corridor beyond. He clutched the door handle until his knuckles turned white, the metal cold and grounding in his grasp. Yet poised though he was to storm away and leave her to stew in her ire, his boots remained planted on the marble floor. He couldn’t bring himself to leave her, even if he knew it was likely for the best.
The chaotic, percussive snaps of a fire flaring to life preceded her voice calling to him from across the room, her statement a strange, almost reluctant melody to its rhythm. Before he spoke, he pushed the heavy door closed, its mechanism latching with a sharp click. And then, tentatively, slowly, he turned around…because he would always look back for her, and now was no exception.
He rested his back against the oak, the fresh glow of the young fire slowly turning gray shadows to shifting highlights of orange and gold. “I don’t want to run anymore,” he murmured, so softly he couldn’t be certain she’d heard him all those paces away. His eyelids fluttered closed, and he released as a defeated sigh. “I am…” Even then, he hesitated. But he took a step forward, and then another, pausing between paces as though afraid she might recoil from his approach. “I am Commander Gregoray Remington Walther II,” he breathed, the name like a curse on his lips. It was the first time he had spoken these words aloud to her—the first time directly confessing his true name, his true identity. She had learned of it through swollen eyes and blood with a glimpse of his tattoo from a distance in the woods, and she had heard him declare it to the lecherous soldiers holding them captive, but never had Remy told her. Even if she already knew.
“My father is the High Commander of Northam,” he continued, blue-gray eyes locking on hers. “I ran away when I was thirteen, I’ve been running ever since.” One more step forward, until he could just feel the caress of the fire’s warmth. “But I don’t want to run anymore. Especially not from you. Especially not tonight.”
The click of the lock was deafening, resounding through the library with the force of the gales howling outside. Bright eyes snapped towards his, examining his taut muscles beneath his rebuttoned shirt - tense from all of the anger that had swelled up inside of him. The fire grew behind her and cast beautiful flickers of orange light and shadow across his jawline and over his beautiful face. The blonde streaks in his hair glimmered with gold, like a crown upon a prince’s head. Even at such a distance, with the screeching of the storm and the crackle of the fire, she hears his words. Madison would always be tethered to his him and she would hear his voice above the loudest din.
An anxious buzz hummed on her skin as the heat lapped at her back. The huntress was rooted to the spot, a plant whose only source of nourishment was Remy Sterling’s voice, breath, touch. The words filled her, curling around the shattered and scattered parts of her heart. She imagined, briefly, hearing him say those words in their cabin, in the inn. The hurt as rage would be there, of course but...he told her. He trusted her to tell her. He was Gregoray Remington Walther II, heir to the country of Northam, son of the high Commander, and love of her life.
The huntress looked him over carefully, savoring each word that he said. “Then don’t.” She breathed in response, holding his gaze as she closed the distance between them. The heat from the fire was nothing compared to the waves of energy that passed between them. “Don’t ever run from me.” She looked down momentarily, afraid of those words as they left her, because all she wanted was him. Madison lifted her chin upward and captured his mouth. The kiss was gentle, not asking for anything more than he would be able to give her, than he was willing to give her. Delicately, slender fingers traveled up to cradle his face and tuck errant strands of hair behind his ears.
“You are Commander Gregoray Remington Walther II.” She pulled back slightly, hands still on his face. Emotion swirled in her chest, a mixture of love and residual anger. “And you are Doctor Remy Sterling.” The young woman kissed him again, a lingering promise. A longing to melt into him again filled her and so she stepped back. He wouldn’t take her to bed, no matter how much she begged or yelled or insulted him. And so she had to keep herself apart from him as much as she was able.
“Care for a rematch, doctor?” She whispered, casting a quick glance at the chess set by the locked door. “Unless you’ve had a change of heart about finishing that book.” Madison smirked, knowing the answer as she crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
His confession, even if it fell on knowing ears, spread its demon wings and readily took flight in the chilly air, suspended in the sprawling shadows cast by the fire. The same guilt and pain that laced his tone were spelled out plainly on the sharp features of his face, but Remy felt…different. Not lighter, and nothing close to relieved, but…changed, somehow. Raw.
The talons of his truth, his identity, were lodged so deeply in his subconscious that the agony of their razor claws had become an inextricable part of the man he grew to be. And for the better part of two decades, the phantom of his past had haunted him, a constant threat he’d learned to accept as a permanent aspect of his life on the run, and one he combated at every turn, with every patient. But now, having halted in his fleeing tracks by Madison’s prompt and his own declaration, he had at long last allowed that very same demon to catch up to him…and had dared speak its name—his name—aloud.
But giving voice to it—his deepest, greatest terror—had not breathed more life into the nightmare as he had always feared might happen. Instead, and against all odds, it loosened its grip. The lacerations still remained, and were too deep ever to mend completely, but the words had a strange healing power of their own. Even when the rest of his life remained a waking horror, even when it changed nothing about the insurmountable rift between the former lovers. It was something he had owed Madison for a very long time, and had, at long last, delivered.
He held his breath as the huntress approached. He would have been prepared for a slap, a strike, even storming away without another word…but the shock of her lips against his in a tender, heartfelt kiss sent a shockwave through him with such magnitude he could have sworn the floor lurched beneath their feet in response. The dancing flames turned the silvery blue of his gaze to an earnest molten gold as she pulled back to meet his stare. He tensed slightly as she spoke his damnable birth name and title, but then—but then—the name that was truly his, Dr. Remy Sterling, soared from her lips like a melody, like a breath of fresh, familiar air after months of gulping nothing but black smoke.
“Madison…I…” He didn’t know what to say. Unbidden tears glistened in his eyes, and he reached up with a trembling finger to trace the gentle curve of her cheek. He longed to take her in his arms, to tangle his limbs with hers in a cocoon of blankets as the storm howled outside, to forget all the rest of it and simply be. Together.
She pulled away, and a physical ache in his chest protested the sudden distance. But her smile, even as it morphed into a smirk, quelled the pang. Following her blue gaze to the chess set Alice had brought with their other requested supplies, he conjured a smile of his own and retrieved the game as his reply.
The marble was cool in his callused hands as he carefully placed the set on the small table between the armchairs closest to the fireplace. The fire’s glow gilded the ornately carved stone pieces as he arranged them in their proper squares. He ran his thumb over the smooth rounded tip of the onyx bishop, expression suddenly thoughtful as he looked up to meet the huntress’ gaze across the board. “Your birthday,” the doctor said quietly. “You mentioned this was a birthday gift.” He nestled the bishop between the knight and king, a wave of wistfulness passing through him like a shiver. “I can’t believe I never knew your birthday.” He leaned back slightly in the cushioned chair. “What do you say to raising the stakes?” he posited. “A piece for an answer. The taker gets one question.”
The tears glimmered in his stormy eyes, and she itched to fold him into her arms. The poor doctor had borne the brunt of her ire and her love and her desire for the last few hours. They danced together and apart, struggling to fall into the beautiful waltz that had been their life before the revelation. However, now their steps were jerky, disconnected from the ease with which they once existed. A time when the world was dark but far simpler – he a doctor looking for his lost sister, she a huntress on the prowl for her white whale.
His back to her as he retrieved the game, she waited in place until her began to assemble her birthday gift on the small table by the fire she had coaxed to life. Madison brought over both wine glasses and the half-consumed bottle to their new location. Setting the clean one in front of him, she dispensed a large pour before taking a smaller glass for herself. Reclining into her high-backed chair, she reveled in the warm flickers from the fire and the mischievous look on his face. Surprise lifted her eyebrows when the topic of her birthday came back up. Blue eyes flickered over his face, as he leaned back.
“It was. From Elora.” The mistress responded, bringing the alcohol to wet her lips. The pieces were arranged with careful precision, black before the Commander and white before his lover. Madison placed the queen down last, the marble cool beneath her fingers that had undone the buttons of his shirt just minutes ago. “Birthdays weren’t really necessary on the road.” She shrugged, remembering how surprised she had been when the Terrils had presented her with gifts on the summer solstice. Their guest had divulged the date at their request during their initial interrogation of her, prior to beginning her training. “And I don’t think I know yours either, to be fair.”
Careful gazed examined the board before them before capturing his eyes with a delighted glint. “A game? With such stakes?” Madison chewed on the inside of her cheek, considering. He had beaten her at their last game, but she had been understandably thrown off by his arrival and being in the same room as the High Commander. “How could I refuse?” The same seductive smile played her mouth, the same one she used while she ran her fingers up his bare chest in their little alcove. With that, she moved a pawn forward.
“Though you may find that I’m not so easily beaten as before.” They exchanged moved, Remy bringing his knight into play after two pawns. It helped the huntress immensely that she had played the game every day, sometimes twice, since he had bested her the night of their reunion. Madison did not like to lose. “Are you certain that you want to answer whatever questions I may come up with? I assure you that they will not be gentle ones.” He likely expected that of her, but she wanted to be clear. His confession, her acceptance, they were a fleeting reconciliation. The man before her had denied her something she had thought about before of his ridiculous moral high ground and part of her still seethed at his refusal. A multitude of questions danced about in her mind and she wondered what she would ask first, given the chance.
A pang of yearning rippled through him like gentle waves on a still pond, its epicenter a hollow ache behind his breastbone. It was a small detail, a fact so trivial in the face of their previous hardships that it had never once occurred to him to ask—and yet, the thought that he might have missed celebrating the day of his huntress’ birth left a bitter taste in Remy’s mouth. His gaze flitted across the chess board to settle on her face as the firelight played across her skin. He might have kissed her tenderly awake as morning snowflakes swirled, and together they could have forgotten about the icy wind and the Cold as he showed her precisely how glad he was that she graced not just the world, but his life too.
He watched as she poured him a generous serving of wine, but he made no move to pick up the glass. It did not escape his notice that she kept the date unvoiced still, even as she explained how Elora had gifted the fine chess set to her. Swallowing back a lump that had wedged itself in his throat, he matched her small smirk with a smile of his own. But the expression failed to touch his eyes as he met her stare above the board.
“I guess you’re right,” he replied, at last reaching for the wine. He swirled the liquid in the glass, watching as it spiraled against the flawless crystal. A distant memory of her voice, sultry and casual, floated through his mind like a phantom: I am plying you with wine to take full advantage of you later, she’d once declared in the sanctuary of their room at the Grafton Inn. “We did have more important things to deal with,” he said, meeting her gaze again as she took a drink from her own glass. I hardly heard what you said because I was too busy thinking about how much better this would taste from your lips.
Indeed, the taste of her kiss still lingered from their hungry tryst against the bookshelves. The wine glass remained cradled against his callused palm, untouched by his mouth—as though he were reluctant to wash away what might be the last time he tasted her.
Combined with the thought of the time they shared at the inn, the provocative grin that presented itself on Madison’s face caused his breath to hitch. She accepted his stakes—a question with every captured gamepiece—with the same easy confidence he’d always admired, and he kept his eyes on her face as she opened their match with the slide of a pawn. He responded; she countered again. “Do your worst. I told you, I'm done running. I have nothing to hide,” he murmured, propping his chin on his elbow as she made her second move. “Not anymore.”
Remy brought his knight into play after a moment of consideration. Unlike the huntress, he had not had the opportunity to practice the game; since the high commander’s trip abroad, his waking hours had been dominated by meetings and administrative duties, assigned by Belvedere and Mandeville. But even if he lost spectacularly, he wasn’t about to give up this opportunity to learn more about Madison…her time with the Terrils, her new life. Her new beau, even. And the new realization that he hadn’t even known her birthday—and still didn’t—had brought into sharp relief the fact that the rift he’d carved between them with his secret had only grown wider with their time apart. Like they didn’t know each other at all anymore.
They exchanged another move. Against his better strategic judgment, he captured a white pawn with one of his own and placed the small ivory piece to the side of the board. He leveled his blue-gray gaze at Madison, expression neutral even as a flare of nerves fluttered beneath his ribs. “What did you do…” he asked quietly, brows arching with both anxiousness and curiosity. “What did you do that day? In the woods, after…after I revealed myself to the soldiers. Where did you go?”
While he examined the board with intelligent eyes, the huntress examined her prey. The expression on her illuminated face was nonchalant, amused but not overly eager at the game before them. Madison would express it was only to assess her opponent, unable to confess that he was devastating handsome for behold. She liked the way his brow furrowed slightly when he concentrated, studying the knight before committing to a move. It was the very same expression he had when he had stitched her hand nearly two years ago. The doctor sat right before her and remained achingly far away. And it annoyed her that her eyes wouldn’t stop flickering to his lips. The wine has yet to stain them but she already knew what they tasted like when he drank. Wine. Bourbon. Every drink tasted better from his mouth and she cursed herself.
Kicking off her shoes, she stretched her feet before the fire momentarily. The Northam heir would not distract her from this task. He had made it clear that it was the last time, that nothing could happen between them. Instead, the Terril mistress focused on the squares and planned to completely obliterate him. The man had left her panting, aching, needing all because of his misplaced honor. Madison would be damned if she permitted him to have the upper hand again.
Strategically on her part, she allowed him to captured her white pawn and she smiled as she reclined slightly. The glass in her hand raised to him and she caught the way he grew anxious at the corners of his eyes. The mask he wore was carefully plain. Surprised and admiration raced through her at how he could school his features so well...enough to fool anyone but her. Yet, if the huntress had been surprised before he asked, then shock was the best way to describe how his question hit her. She had honestly expected him to ask what her birthday was. It was an easy, simple inquiry but she should have suspected the Commander wouldn’t waste his opportunity on something so trivial.
Madison sat down the glass, a fourth of the crystal filled with burgundy liquid. “I ran.” Mouth formed the words before she really had considered how best to respond. “I ran and I...kept running.” What had she done? The sight of the twin serpents flared in her mind and she shoved it down, hard and fast. The day was a blur after, compared to the heartbreaking clarity she recalled from the field. Every word the leader had spoken, the sound of his clothes ripping, the precise navy color of the ink on his skin. The woman closed her eyes and inhaled through her nose before focusing her attention on their pieces.
“I ended up in a tavern, a bar. I don’t remember if it was that same night or the next.” The huntress’ voice was soft as she moved a piece with a quick flick of her fingers. “And I got drunk. Completely drunk. I wanted to....” forget. I wanted to die. I wanted you to find me and tell me it wasn’t real. Silence stretched as she raised her bright gaze to meet his. “Lawrence found me there, saved me from the militia that would have surely come at the beckoning of the barman. He offered me a place here and I’ve....been here ever since. ”
Two more moves before she took his rook and set it down with a soft click on the side of the table. Madison pulled her chair closer and crossed one lean leg over the other. Her foot brushed his leg and she froze at the contact. It was like they had just started to notice each other, those shy touches, the electricity from something as mundane as an accidental brush. Heat raced up her neck and she studied him. There were so many options, so many things she could ask him. Why. Why. Why. “And it’s only fair that you answer two of mine, since you asked two.” Her smirk was playful despite the buzz beneath her skin, the itch to be closer- closer- closer.
“Why did you kiss me in the cabin - that first time when I was so mad at you? How did you know to...?” They had never talked about it. It was the spark that ignited their fire. If he never had...Yet, he had pushed her away, gotten up when they’d fallen on the mass of winter garments. And they’d gotten drunk. And the next night...he had begun to teach her read.
Remy had set himself up for this. He knew that the consequences of his own questioning would manifest as painful inquiries shot right back at him across the ornate chess board. But what he hadn’t anticipated was just how difficult it was to receive an answer. Hard queries did not often yield simple or easy responses. It was a price he was willing to pay, however, and whatever sorrows he might have to relive during this game could not be worse than the guilt and grief he already experienced every day in her absence.
The thought of Madison running away—not just from the soldiers, but from him—had his gut twisting with nausea. To the huntress, he was the very nightmare from which they’d been running for nearly a year. She had trusted him, promised herself to him, and yet he had pulled off a mask to reveal the monster he’d truly been all along. He didn’t deserve her and never had. Picturing her perched precariously on a barstool, drinking herself to oblivion in a tavern full of Thebesian strangers…it was enough to make him almost grateful for Lawrence Terril. A man who, as insufferable as Remy thought the blond man to be, was at least an honorable one.
And had been there to rescue her when he could not.
“I’m glad Lawrence found you,” the doctor replied genuinely, using the excuse of contemplating his next move to momentarily avoid meeting her eyes. When he did finally look up, the expression in his stormy gaze was shadowed with regret, but no anger or jealousy burned there. “I hate to think what might have happened…” Her foot brushed against him as she shifted positions, and a shock of familiar electricity raced in fractal waves up and down his leg. From the way she froze in the aftermath, muscles tensing almost imperceptibly, he knew she’d felt it too.
The Walther heir cleared his throat and dragged his focus back to the game, the array of pieces now broken from their tidy rows as their opposing strategies began to take real shape. Another couple of moves, several sloppy on his part, and it was the huntress who earned her right to a question.
Her words struck him like a blow—unexpected and sharp, despite the tender memories they conjured. For a moment, he didn’t dare look up from the black and white squares. A deep breath raised and leveled his broad shoulders, and he steeled himself against an onslaught of vivid recollection. The shockwave of their lips colliding, how she’d melted into him; how they’d tumbled to the pile of discarded clothes on the floor, stunned and breathless and utterly changed…forever.
His eyes were a hurricane when he at last looked up. “I didn’t know,” he confessed. “Not for sure. Not until…not until our lips touched.” The fire sputtered as if on cue, sending a plume of vermilion sparks dancing up the flue. “What I did know…” A pause. “I knew I hadn’t stopped thinking about you in weeks. And in that wretched camp, even when I thought you’d left me behind forever, all I could picture was your face. How even if you’d left me for a captive, or for dead, all I could think about was how I’d never get to see it again.”
He looked back down to the game, forcing himself to register the position of his onyx pieces against her ivory forces. He slid his bishop back two diagonal squares, pausing before he removed his touch from its rounded spire. “It wasn’t just that you came back, it wasn’t just that you saved me, it was…” The faintest of smiles tugged at his lips. “You were…so fucking mad at me. You barely spoke to me for weeks until we got to our—the—cabin. No one had ever cared about me like that, to be so furious.” He shook his head to himself as they traded turns once more. “I’d put you in danger. Obviously. You had every right to be pissed. But…then you said it. That you couldn’t believe I’d been stupid enough to risk my own life. And I dared to think maybe you did care. Maybe even that you cared like I had come to care about you.”
He put his bishop in play again, sliding it to capture a white knight. The words of his answer had spilled from his tongue with surprising ease, and now it was his turn to request something of the huntress. “Are you treated well here, with the Terrils?” he heard himself ask. “Not just the food and the gifts…but behind closed doors…” With Lawrence, he wanted to say, but stopped short. “When they’re not putting on a show for people who they think are important.”
The sparks flew invisibly between them at the illicit, mundane touch. But what heated her entire being, flaring to life that core of desire inside of her, were his words. The response was so perfect she focused extremely hard on not letting her breathing change. What she had asked in an attempt to unnerve him, to hurt him, had backfired spectacularly. Madison was drawn back into cabin and that bruising first kiss. The huntress hadn’t been able to control her incessant thoughts about her companion either. Every cursing, angry, lustful thought had compounded exponentially and culminated in that moment. Calloused hands had tangled in her thick, unbound hair. Furiously, she had shoved him away, not at the kiss but that he had read her so well.
They made their history after that – hungry words in the dead of night, fevered kisses, tantalizing touches and declarations of love that shook the foundation of her world.
The huntress was distracted long enough for him to capture her knight and she chewed the inside of her lip in irritation. The question, this one, did not surprise her in the slightest. She read the hidden words in his eyes, on his face that attempted to not look too eager. Cerulean eyes flickered across the pieces and she opened her mouth to respond when there was a sharp tap on the door. Startled, Madison called out in inquiry.
“Apologies, mistress.” The voice was distinctly not Alice. “Would you and the Commander like something to eat? Chef apologies that the power is out but sent me with a charcuterie board that might sate your hunger until he can stoke the fire for a proper dinner.”
“That would be delightful, Delphine, thank you.” She said, looking Remy over as she leaned back in her chair. The woman entered as the door was swung open by a slender kitchen boy, one that carried a new bottle of wine and a decanter of bourbon on a well-balanced silver tray. With swift, attentive movements, the servants repositioned some pieces of furniture so that everything was within their reach.
“Please do not hesitate to let us know if you require anything, Commander.” Both of them bowed hastily beneath the huntress’ watchful gaze. “Mistress.”
“We should be quite comfortable for a while.” Her smile was genuine as they happily departed, pulling the door closed behind them. The wooden board was laden with numerous cheeses, nuts – both candied and salted, olives, spreads, crackers and breads of different flavors and textures. Even slices of expensive orange littered the rustic platter. The taste of gouda on a wheat cracker filled her palate as she sampled the selection. Finally, after gazing languidly at the chessboard, she made a decisive move and responded.
“They treat me better than I deserve.” The Terril guest finally whispered, casting a glance over at the darkened alcove. Eyes lingered, perhaps too long, on the space. The feeling of eager hands was upon her once more. The spines of a variety of books dug into her back along with the wooden shelves and she…forced the recollection into a mental box. No. She scolded herself. Gaze falling upon him once more, Madison felt her heart pound like a caged animal against her ribs. A longing filled her - to tell him they were the best people, they were Resistance, there was a plan…but she couldn’t risk it, and so she continued to play the part of the adulterous lover. “And nothing they do is a show, except perhaps Lawrence’s calm when you are around. He knows what you-” a slight pause, “what your father could do, if he were so inclined. If the man wanted to make a prize of me, for you.” Slender finger ran up and down the stem of her empty glass, lost in a quick memory of the High Commander and the smugness that clung to his face when Remy had returned to dinner, alone. Lawrence relayed the interaction to her later, confessing that he was sorry he hadn’t come to her side sooner – as though it was not her fault for touching the heir’s leg. “He worries.”
The game continued, though she did not look at him directly as she sampled the array of food and moved. She took a pawn, an easy piece. “Bourbon or wine?” A smirk played her face. “That is not necessarily my question, but the why of it is.” The question hung in the air, easy to answer. Why did he prefer bourbon – because she already knew that was his drink of choice. The man would drink wine with dinner if required but his preference was the whiskey. Madison knew which she preferred to taste on his lips. The oaky flavor mingling with notes of caramel. The heated breath against her neck. The bite of the alcohol as his tongue would run teasingly along hers. Steading herself with a careful breath, the wine was surely affecting her in a way she had not anticipated. The purpose of the beverage had been to dull the desire raging within her, after his blatant refusal to give her any satisfaction. The opposite proved to be occurring more and more frequently as he sat insufferably far away.
They exchanged moves repeatedly, attacking and retreating for a few minutes without any major success, until she took another one of his pawns. Was it the wine? Was it a desire to wound? Was it just sheer curiosity? Madison did not know anymore as she licked her wine-stained lips and asked, “What is your favorite memory?”
Tinged through it was with his own breed of sadness, relief dawned across his features in the firelight. Madison’s response was everything he had hoped to hear—that she was not simply treated well, but that she was doted upon and respected. Remy knew very well how two-faced the elite families of Thebes could be, particularly those as close to power as the Terrils; to be reassured that the munitions family was more than their outward display of wealth and charm at social functions was a weight off his shoulders he hadn’t known how to put down until now.
Yet the words that followed cut him straight to the quick, and he looked up sharply. “No. Not just my father. Me,” he said, voice dark. His brows furrowed as he forced himself to meet her gaze, to confront the reality of what she’d said about Lawrence’s fears. “He wouldn’t know that I would never do anything like that. He’s right to be concerned. I would be, too.” He moved his remaining rook to the right edge of the board, but his thoughts were not on the game. “My father’s fascination with you seems directly tied to me. I suspect he relies on the Terrils’ business too much to try anything…but if he were to make a prize of you, at least it would not be for himself.” A shudder of fury and horror shook his shoulders at the very idea, and at last he indulged in a long gulp of wine.
The game went on, this time with a longer stretch between any captured pieces. Remy finished his wine and helped himself to a sample of cheese and prosciutto—probably another bonus from the Terrils’ recent Espanian shipment—and his mind drifted again to the Grafton Inn, when Madison had tasted the rich apple butter and squealed with delight. The memory was a welcome distraction from the previous topic, and he even offered her a soft smile of his own as he reached for the fluted decanter of bourbon. She stole a pawn and posited her question, to which he lifted his glass in response.
“Why whiskey? Besides the fact that it’s stronger than wine?” He chuckled, this time with a hint of actual humor. He turned contemplative when he went on, surveying the new arrangement of gamepieces between them as he spoke. “I like it because it forces me to slow down. You don’t use it to wash down a meal. You don’t throw it down your throat in a shot. Take your time with it, and the flavors reveal themselves to you like a secret.” The drink in his glass was rendered to liquid gold in the firelight, and he brought it to his lips for a small sip. “And it reminds me of my…” A pause. “Of the man who was more a father to me than the high commander ever was.”
Her next question caught him off guard, and he took another savoring sip of his drink as he considered his answer. Memories were fickle phantoms, and too many haunted him—most of them nightmarish. But stars always glinted brighter in the blackest nights, and there were indeed constellations that shone like warm beacons amidst the darkness. Moments he treasured, scenes he replayed again and again.
“It was a morning last spring.” He advanced a pawn, tone casual. “Early. The sun was just rising. It was one of those rare nights where we fell asleep together rather than one of us staying up to keep watch, and I woke up to you nestled in close to me, still sleeping. The dogs were curled up on either side of us. Our fire had burned itself out, but the air was warm, and I remember thinking the embers were the same color as the sky through the trees as dawn broke.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “I looked down at you…and you smiled in your sleep. Softly and small, like you knew I was there, like you knew I’d be there forever. Like we’d be the first thing the other saw when we woke up for the rest of our lives. And I never felt more like that was exactly where I belonged.”
His throat tightened—bitter lacing the sweet. “I made a point of memorizing every detail about that moment. The pine trees, the wispy clouds, the smell of the smoke on our coats, the birds just starting to sing. Your head against my chest. It was perfect.”
And you fucked it all up, you complete and utter fool, he told himself. Shadowy regret darkened his gaze as he looked back down to the chess board. His eyes paused on each piece in his onyx army in turn, but his thoughts were miles and months away. He bit his tongue against a desperate apology that begged to take flight from his lips. This was a time for candor, and he had stuck to that promise. No running. Not anymore.
In a move that was less about strategy and more about pointing the spotlight back to the huntress, he took a pawn with one of his own. Swirling the last splash of bourbon in his glass, and with a neutral expression that belied the weight of the question, he asked, “What do you fear the most?”
Madison poured the amber liquid slowly into the glass, a stiff pour without ice to sully the flavor. It was one of Elora’s favorites - a small batch liquor with a heavy bite and a smooth swallow. She held it out to him, careful to make sure that their fingers did not brush one another. The poor woman felt like a young heroine in those novels she read - unsure, eager, pining. Any small brush of their skin would have sent electricity humming through her. Unlike the literary characters, the huntress was well aware of what she was missing out on, what he had denied her. With her mind focused elsewhere, she filled her own glass for a final time and committed to eating more before finishing the contents of the crystal.
The grandiose room grew hazy at the edges, with the doctor the center of her world in vivid, stark contrast. She watched him as he studied the table, before making a move that permitted the capture of another pawn. Stress hovered at the corners of his eyes, the same as it had when Ursulah had discovered him unmarked. The urge to free his mind from the torment clashed viciously with the need to be the cause. She loved him and she was furious with him, to the point she had thought to hate him, thought she had. Again, the physician proved her wrong at every turn. How helpless he rendered her, a fish caught in a fisherman’s net.
And then his response ripped out her heart. She had expected a fond recollection from his childhood, with his mother and sister or the day when the original Dr. Sterling had taken him as a student. Instead, they were his treasured memory. The fated travel to Thebes and he recalled her smile, the bright spring sky, everything so bright and shining that she saw it clearly in her mind as though he painted each brushstroke of that picture just for her. I wanted you to be there forever. For always. The words screamed in her mind while her mouth remained firmly shut, struggling to maintain composure.
She lowered herself back into the chair before him, setting down her wine so it did not tremble into her hand. What she would give to go back to those days of unknown luxury. Even sitting by a roaring fire with more food than she could ever eat with clothes from the finest materials, Madison longed for the enchanting moment he described.
Without realizing it, the doctor set her white pawn amongst his collection. Madison met his eyes, again surprised by the question that he had asked. He never failed to keep her on her toes and she would have smiled if the question alone had not terrified her.
The High Commander. Failing my mission. Dying. Betraying the Terrils without meaning to. I fear losing you, not seeing you again, knowing that you will be subjected to something you hate, not being with you again. Everything swirled and she chewing on her lip again, leaving it red and swollen by the time she decided to respond. Minutes had passed snd she considered lying, hesitating. But so far, so far he had been honest with her this winter evening.
“You.” She breathed, unsure if she said it out loud at first as she stared at the pieces before her. Silence filled that heady moment when the huntress swallowed before continuing. “I’m afraid that...” shimmering cerulean gaze fell straight into the eyes of the storm. “I’m afraid that this is all we have. This night, this serendipitous moment brought about by a storm like the one from before, from our cabin. I’m afraid of how you make me feel, even when I’m by myself. I’m afraid that I’ll never...never get to be with you, to feel you. And I’m afraid of being with you.” She looked away, at the snapping and hissing fireplace. “I fear.... I fear trusting you again.”
Madison couldn’t meet his eyes then, as she made her move and easily took another of the carved onyx pieces. He had not thought his movement through clearly, trying to get to ask her a question without considering the consequences. Cobalt eyes glittered dangerously as she held the question firmly on her tongue. The words stuck, thick and tacky as she held his gaze. The unwavering stare tethered her to him and she fell into the storm, diving down into the depths. Deep and deep until she was so lost in the waves, the turbulence, the agony that her tongue loosened from the roof of her mouth. “Do you think of me,” she did not draw her gaze away, “at night,” her words dropped to a whisper, “alone,” she paused, hoping that part was true and jealous if it was not, “in the darkness?”
“Like I do with you?” The last part fell out of her but she kept her eyes on him.
The physician kept his eyes trained on her face, even as Madison’s own attention flitted down to the board at his question. Adept as she was at schooling those elegant features, he knew her tells well enough to recognize that his query had struck a nerve.
Remy downed the remainder of his whiskey and reached for the decanter, splashing more of the amber liquid into the crystal as she spoke. The burn of the drink on his tongue was nothing compared to the devastating burn of emotion that flared in his chest as her words registered. But this was not the thrilling, desirous sear of desire—no, this was an altogether different heat, a blistering ache that sent a stab of guilt straight through his ribs and into his heart. She looked up into the storm of his gaze, her eyes a bright, earnest blue even in the flickering golden light of the fire despite the heaviness of her confession.
His instinct to reach out to her overwhelmed him as the huntress voiced her fears. But as much as he longed to soothe her sorrows, to wrap her in his arms and press a reassuring kiss to her hair, the very words she murmured were enough to bury that urge. He was the last person in the world who deserved the privilege of helping to piece herself back together, not when he was at fault for shattering her in the first place. He gripped his glass so tightly his fingers went white. She feared…him. And there they were, right back to his greatest mistake, his gravest betrayal.
“I won’t ask you to trust me,” he said slowly, defeatedly, voice low but steady despite the tension held in his muscles. “But I will never lie to you. Never again.” Another swallow of whiskey dulled the sting. “You know, I…everything I ever told you was true, before all this.” He attempted a smile, which helped to brighten the shadows of pain in his eyes. “Whether you choose to believe me is entirely up to you. I just wanted you to know that.”
The doctor cast his attention back to their match in time to watch the huntress add another of his onyx pieces to her growing collection. Something wild and untamed and undeniably familiar glittered in her expression when she looked up at him, and his breath caught at the smolder he found in her stare—a prelude to a question that sent his pulse thundering. The melody of her voice when she spoke at last was almost timid. She drew out a devilishly intimate query in a breathy alto, catching him entirely off-guard.
The invisible but undeniable current of electricity between them crackled to life with her whisper, and he leaned forward into its pull, resting his forearm along the edge of the table. This time, when his gaze darkened, it was not with pain—but rather with something simmering and lascivious. “Do I think of you,” he replied, his voice a silken croon, “when the wind shakes the windows, or the snow falls, or the moon shines through the trees?” He took a long, slow sip of his whiskey, watching her through his lashes over the rim of the glass. “Do I long for you,” he went on, licking the lingering liquid from his lips with slow purpose, “when the fire goes out, and the sheets get cold, and the night closes in?”
Remy didn’t break their stare, not even as heat crept up his neck to bloom beneath the scruff on his jaw. “Do I lose myself completely to the memory of your body moving against mine? And do I crave the taste of you on my tongue like a fucking drug?” His voice dropped lower. “Is the thought of your hands on me enough to undo me, and leave me panting and sweaty and spent?” He lowered his glass, glancing to the crackling fire, then snapped his gaze back to the huntress with a wicked, honest gleam. “Because the answer to everything, all of it is yes, Madison,” he whispered, savoring her name.
Without looking at the board, he lifted a bishop and stole her rook. “Check,” he murmured. It was a reckless move, one she could easily maneuver out of with little consequence, but he didn’t care; he was far more interested in their game of candor than their game of chess. A dashing, crooked smile illuminated his face, but it turned slightly more serious as he shifted farther back in his chair. “What does your future look like?” he asked gently. “What I mean is…how do you envision your future now?”
The promise clung to her skin, like suffocatingly warm air. The doctor -no - the Commander vowed to never lie to her again, never betray her again if she ever chose to give him her trust. A fury of emotion swirled turbulently at the words, longing to find that faith she had once held for him, for them. It flickered like a dying ember deep down inside of her, mingling with that vague hope of being with him once more. The huntress held the bound emotions tightly against her heart. Madison was contemplating all this before he continued with his reply. One that shattered her in all the right places.
Remy, for it was her love that spoke to her now, did not let their eyes part. He held them with all the ferocity that he had when they first came together. If the Terril mistress had thought her body was hot before, the heat that developed now was an inferno. The hairs along her arms and the back of her neck stood on end as red crept up in their wake, settling firmly on her freckled cheeks. The lascivious gaze ignited her desire once again, crackling back to life only to be doused with kerosene at each replied question. Pulse set a rapid thrum in her ears, in her neck, in her core. The salacious lilt of his intoxicating voice pulled her towards him, an invisible thread that she was powerless to fight. Leaning forward, cerulean eyes caught the tantalizing movement of his tongue along his lips with a quick flicker of her gaze downward. Oh to be that amber liquid on his lips, Madison begged whatever omnipotent being utilized them as pawns in its own torturous game of chess.
The answer to all of his questions was yes, yes, yes. He knew what she had been asking, what she needed to know, what she thought about in the dark recesses of her bedroom. She remembered what he was like, panting and spent beside her with a hungry gleam still in his eyes - never satisfied, never enough - twin to her own wicked gleam. Golden gleams of his hair catching flickers of lamplight, of firelight, as a seductive storm raged in swirls of smoke and sky and starlight. The heat was suffocating and her clothes too tight as he broke their gaze. The huntress inhaled slowly.
Quicker than a whip those eyes snatched hers again with words that burned beneath her skin like toxin in her veins. At the husky caress of her name, Madison released an audible, shuddering breath. The sound was deafening as all of his words tumbled in her mind, before twisting into little beasts extracting their revenge. They attacked, clawing and tearing at her defenses. Accelerants thrown onto the raging inferno of lust. Tightly the knot wound itself in the pit of her stomach, twisting and pulling at a release he refused to give. The aching desire was clearly etched on her features, unmasked and pining. Remy Sterling was so fucking handsome. So devilish, so terribly attractive that mere words could bring her to the cusp of pleasure and leave her teetering on the edge.
Lost so completely in her wanton thoughts, she didn’t see him return to the board until check brought her reverie. Bright blue eyes flickered up and then down, fleeing with both surprise and annoyance at the bishop mere squares away from her king. “If you had asked me thirty minutes ago, I would have been able to tell you with near absolute certainty what my future held.” She retorted, inclining her head to the dark alcove that witnessed their tryst. She moved her king away and waited until his next more before she replied. “I do not think beyond your father.” The huntress replied, knowing he would discern her intent. There was no future for her beyond sliding her blade across the High Commander’s throat. It would end in her death and now....now that they were no longer together, she had nothing to make her second guess her plans. It was as much of an answer as she could give him, even thought it lacked sufficient substance. Madison Gallow no longer saw a future for herself, knowing she would not last longer than a few months. The Resistance was putting plans into motion that involved the heir before her, but the huntress thought only of her blade sliding home.
After careful consideration, Madison slide her queen and captured his final rook. “Check.” She breathed, taking a long sip of her wine in hopes that it would quell the tumult of emotions inside of her. It did not. “Why do you do that to me?” Voice a soft inquiry laced with no accusation, no malice. “Why do you say such things to me,” unable to adequately describe his ability to incite a riot of need inside of her, “and leave me so wanting? You know the effect you have. You know you won’t give in. Why torment me with what I cannot have?” Lascivious gaze roved over him, before meeting the physician’s gaze defiantly. “Is it to make me think of you late at night, with only my hands for comfort, knowing you’re imagining me too? Because of a desire to bring me to the verge of madness, hovering hot and desperate for you?” Each word was formed with full, taunting lips. Two can play this game, doctor. Madison reclined in her chair, running her fingers slowly from the hollow of her throat to just beneath her chin as she turned her head to the crackling fire. Cerulean eyes lingered as she watched the flames, wondering if they would feel as scalding as her own skin.
“Is it only to ruin me for anyone else? Knowing that no one’s taste will satisfy me like yours does? Savoring the fact that no hands can find the hidden spots that make me weak like you do?” The huntress turned her face to him once more, golden light illuminating half of her face. The flames flickered and brought out the golden tones to her freckles and gave her eyes a predatory gleam.
It was remarkable how their conversation roiled, how in one moment he found himself drowning in the murky fathoms of his guilt, and in another he was guided back from the crushing depths by a beacon of scorching flame. But despite the emotional whiplash, the shifting course of their exchange kept him from dwelling too long in the darkness in which he was prone to wallowing.
Remy wasn’t surprised at her next answer. Indeed, as she easily maneuvered away from his bishop’s line of fire, the huntress answered what would have been his next question—whether or not her own sights were still trained on the high commander. He suspected the truth of it before she’d even spoken, because he knew Madison Gallow—knew that despite the devastating setback of Remy’s betrayal, she wouldn’t have allowed it to keep her down for long. When he had been her partner, when he’d had every intention of assisting her in ensuring the assassination of his menace of a father, nothing short of her own death could stop her. He knew better than to think the huntress’ involvement with the Terrils would change that.
The doctor’s own stance on the matter certainly hadn’t changed. His father deserved a fate worse than death, and if Remy could facilitate that in any way, he considered it his duty to Northam—and to Madison—to participate. But he also knew it wasn’t as simple as all that, not least of which due to Clover’s involvement. He bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood. He wanted to offer his help. He wanted to tell Madison he was still on her side, if it wasn’t already obvious. But his mind wandered back to Quinn Belvedere’s pale, panic-stricken face as he bled on the bathroom floor…and thought better of it. There was still too much about Clover and the Resistance he didn’t know.
They lapsed into a pause, trading moves as the fire flickered, until Madison declared Check with the capturing of his second rook. He brought his glass to his lips and took a long, leisurely drink, but his pulse accelerated as she fired her questions. Like arrows loosed from her bow, each one flew swift and true—and with an increasing intensity that set him aflame all over again.
Part of him, the piece that burned with wild jealousy over her relationship with the Terril man, was triumphant—and hearing the song of her voice decrescendo, dropping sultry and low, did as much to rouse the inferno of his desire as it did to satisfy a brash, basal masculine pride he hadn’t known he possessed. She might have been with Lawrence, but by her own admission she still imagined Remy—and those thoughts were enough to guide her hand in private pleasure. Which meant her mind, her affection, her desire, was not focused on Lawrence Terril.
“That was more than one question,” he murmured, his voice low and ragged.
As carefully schooled as he managed to keep his expression, his body vibrated with an overwhelming need to be close to her. To hell with the possibility of being discovered, he wanted to throw the table to the floor, the game along with it, and launch himself across the distance as the sculpted chess pieces, forgotten, tumbled over the tufted rug. He wanted to pull her from her perch in the armchair, to march her back to the shadows of the alcove and resume the rendezvous he had foolishly halted. Their mouths would come together with voracious, crushing urgency…and he would press her against the stacks until the tomes on the shelves shook beneath the rhythm of their synchronized movement.
“Isn’t it obvious?” His eyes flitted briefly to her lips, watching as she turned her head to stare at the fire. Its shifting glow painted her complexion gold, saturating the flush of her cheeks, and he had to pause to gather himself enough to continue speaking. “It’s because I want you.” When she looked back to him, blue eyes glinting in the flickering firelight, he felt a burst of electricity throttle through him—a bolt of lightning straight through his core. “But I want you. All of you. The fact that my last name is Walther and not Sterling doesn’t change that.” He found himself leaning forward, if only to be that much closer to her. “The fact that we aren’t partners anymore…it doesn’t change that, either. But that doesn’t mean I want anyone else making you moan.”
He drained the rest of his whiskey, the potent alcohol fueling his fiery desire and loosening his tongue just enough to make the words come a little easier in spite of the ache. “I know it’s not fair. But it’s how I feel, and I promised I wouldn’t lie to you ever again,” he continued, blue-gray eyes narrowing. “But tell me you don’t feel the same way.” A challenge in his wanton gaze. “Tell me that you don’t want your name being the one I whisper, or scream. Because only your touch could drop me right to my knees, and only you can bring me to such ecstasy that I forget the whole world exists.” An impassioned ferocity blazed through the storm in his eyes, and when he went on, his voice rasped. “Because no one will ever make me feel like you do.”
Without thinking much of the game, he moved out of her check by sliding a pawn into her queen’s threatening path. “I’ve hurt you too much already. I don’t want to taunt you too,” he said. “But when I said I want all of you, I meant it. All of you, not just sex. And like this, with everything the way it is…that’s not possible. For too many reasons.” All of which are my fault, he added silently. “I will tone it down, from now on, if that’s what you prefer.”
They traded turns once again. Remy snagged her second knight, adding the ivory equine to his collection on the side of the board. “Will you marry Lawrence?” he heard himself ask quietly, hardly daring to meet her eyes. “If he asks?”
The words he spoke were nothing new. He had said them a hundred times before but they still thrilled her as though she was hearing them uttered from his perfect mouth for the first time. The candor in his speech excited her, creating a thrum of deep need in her core. Before they had been fresh and timid and bashful. Now, brought about my stifling and harsh circumstances, they abandoned that part of themselves to clash with a sincerity that they had no before. The pair of travelers had changed over their months apart, warped by mutual anguish and varied suffering.
His jealousy, as basic as it was for her to admit, delighted her. Madison had never sought to make him so. In fact, she purposeful avoided overt displays of affection with the Terril heir in an effort to seem more genuine. He wanted her all to himself, just as she did. The truth of it was that she was envious of the women she imagined he was with, the ones he took to his bed from the wide variety of beautiful bachelorettes throwing themselves at the heir to Northam. The idea of their hands on him, touching his skin as she had touched him, drove her wild. Did they make him moan by wrapping a leg around his back? Did the physician kiss each of their muscles as he named them in husky, thick tones? Were they able to draw him from those dark recesses of his mind with a kiss to his neck, hands tangled in his hair? They had made love a handful of times but each one burned bright and fresh in her memory. The thought of another in her place haunted her nightmares.
Madison Gallow hated that he was right. It wasn’t just sex, as much as she wanted to writhe against the stacks with him pressing into her. If she could ever overcome his betrayal....but no, the time for such thoughts lurked behind the shadows of her past. There was only her mission now, the murder of the High Commander interspersed with illicit affairs in corridors and alcoves. Nothing physical lay in their future and her stomach constricted at the thought of never feeling his hands along her spine. But if she couldn’t have his touch, she would at least have his words.
“I didn’t say that.” Madison exhaled between them, afraid that he’d never speak such illicit things into her again. The sounds of the rasp in his voice would play in her head, reliving the sound of such ecstasy in her fantasies. Mischievous, wanton gaze held his and she examined the board as he moved so idiotically. She knew that questions lingering in his mind fueled his foolish choices. She looked up at him, surprised by the blantant disregard for the competition of the game before them. She looked down again, quizzically before focusing on the soft spoken question the doctor posited.
“Yes.” The answer immediate, though it’s intent was not to harm him as some of her precious barbs had been. It was the truth. If Lawrence Terril asked her to marry him to help solidify him in a position of power or to mask the true subject of his affections, the huntress would accept his proposal. “If he asked me, I would marry him.” She did not elaborate, because how could she? The man before her was the heir to Northam and Lawrence Terril fancies only his own gender - punishable by torture and death. The purpose of all citizens of the dictatorship was to make more citizens. For all the benevolent munitions heir had done for her, she would gladly bind her life to his in return. Her answer would hurt him, she could already see it at the corners of his stormy eyes. But honesty is all they had left now - their new pact even though their time together was fleeting.
Madison slid her bishop forward, surveying the onyx and ivory pieces of her birthday gift. “Checkmate.” She breathed, before finishing the remainder of her wine. Slender arms rested on the table between them and she leaned forward. Without any effort, fingers could twine in his hair and pull him towards her. She could slide over the pieces, which would clatter to the floor, forgotten. Instead, a whisper escapes her with bright eyes bearing into his. “And as a gracious victor, I’ll permit you one final question.”
There were many ways in which Remy was a fool—he was a fool who had betrayed the trust of the woman he cared for most in the world, and perhaps a bigger fool who still loved her with every cell in his body even when he knew he had no claim to her heart. But he’d voiced his question anyway, fully aware that he might not like the answer…because, indeed, there was no reply she could offer that could soothe his ache.
To marry Lawrence…it was almost unbearable, to imagine her spending her life with the munitions dealer. Committing herself to another man, a man who wasn’t Remy, would shatter the physician in ways he had no right to break. Given the Terril family’s social and political status, the High Commander and his heir would attend the ceremony, and Remy would have to watch stone-faced as Madison promised her life to another as she had once pledged herself to him… He clenched his jaw, gaze straying to the fire.
But what was worse than the huntress saying yes—and what made his chest burn like someone had carved out his lungs—was the prospect of her rejecting the Terril man. She’d managed to discover someone in Thebes’ veritable sea of snakes who, by her own admission, was kind and generous and treated her with the respect she deserved. Remy hated to think Madison’s lingering feelings might lead her to the decision to throw away what she’d miraculously found, when both of them knew what they had together was to remain solidly in the past.
But even knowing all this did little to prepare him for actually hearing an answer from her lips. The physician and the huntress had become the heir and the noblewoman, so at odds with one another they may as well have lived on opposite ends of the world. Remy’s eyes strayed back to her face, heart fracturing at the earnestness he found in her expression. She deserves this, he told himself. She deserves all the comfort and happiness you can never provide. Not anymore.
Yet still he yearned for exactly what he couldn’t have, and the storm in his hurricane eyes raged with love as much as it churned with anguish. “I’m…” Devastated. Wrecked. Inconsolable. He cleared his throat softly and offered a weak smile. “I’m glad.” What else could he say? It was the truth…or at least as close as he could possibly get, given that he still belonged to her wholly. Despite his efforts to keep his tone neutral, an overtone of pain colored his rich baritone. “If it can’t be me, then I’m glad you’ve found a life for yourself here.”
He couldn’t take his eyes from her, didn’t look down even as she slid her ivory bishop to clinch victory. Tinged though it was with sadness, his gaze did not waver even as she concluded their match with the breathy murmur of Checkmate. He’d abandoned any desire to best the huntress at the game the moment she’d agreed to the stakes he’d proposed, a fact that had become painfully obvious the longer their match continued. But winning had never been the goal; the reward, in this case, was candor—and the birth of a new dynamic between them that was as exhilarating as it was agonizing.
Remy leaned forward just as she draped her forearms on the table between them, quickly surveying the arrangement of pieces on the board and confirming her claim to triumph. Deft fingers carefully turned his defeated onyx king on its side in concession, and a good-natured smirk shone on his features when he looked back up. Their faces hovered close again, so near he could smell the rich wine that lingered on her soft exhales. He tightened a fist until his nails bit into his palm in an effort to restrain himself from tangling his fingers in her hair and pulling their mouths together once more.
“I think,” he drawled, tensing against the heat of their proximity, “I will save that question.” He paused, and the fire let out a deafening snap as if on cue. “For another time, a future time. Which means that even if we only have tonight…” His voice trailed off, and he watched as the shadows shifted across her face. “Even if we only have tonight, there will be the promise of more, of at least that, even if it’s just a silly question.” Against every ounce of logic he possessed, his hand reached out around the side of the chess board and found her fingers. “We’ll at least have that.”
The alluring aroma of bourbon wafted towards her as the physician leaned forward. He was close enough to touch, to kiss, if she just lifted herself partially from her seat. Glittering blue eyes flickered over his face, hovering there in heady anticipation at the question that he would ask. Every single one of his inquiries had proved to unsettle, incense and excite her. The tumult of emotions that she experienced over the past several months had only been magnified since his arrival. Anxious gaze flickered down to his mouth as he formed words that once again surprised her. Continued voice drive her attention back to his eyes as the crackling fire threw flames across his face. Madison held her breath at the admission, at the promise of a potential future that they would both foolishly cling to.
Strikingly warm fingers wrapped around her own, opposite the captured onyx and ivory figurines. The contact sent a bolt of electricity up her arm, leaving a delicious trail of goose flesh beneath the sleeve of her sweater. The buzz twisted into a subtle heat along the contour of her spine that’s she relished and loathed at the same exact time. Such a simple little gesture elicited an aching in her that she was powerless to ignore. Beneath his touch, her fingers stretched to experience the gentle caress of his skin against hers. The huntress was at a loss for what to say, hovering between a desire to remove the physical barriers between them and the need to jerk her hand away. Fortunately, Madison was saved the agony of finding words to desire what he was doing to her. A soft knock resulted in her swiftly pulling her hand to her side and rising from the chair.
“Commander. Miss Sterling.” Alice had returned and kept her hands clasped before her once she had opened the door to enter. “Chef will have dinner ready to be served shortly. Where will you be dining?”
Madison’s bright gaze flickered over the Commander, noticing the look in his eyes, the edge of tipsy that hovered there form their extensive alcoholic consumption. Heat flared inside of her without invitation. “The posterior sitting room would be delightful, Alice. I’m sure the Commander would like to see how beautiful the back gardens look covered in snow through the windows.”
“Of course. We shall have it prepared shortly. Another bottle of wine? More bourbon for the Commander?” She kept her eyes averted but attentive.
“No more wine, but perhaps a cocktail. The one that Lawrence made the other week. With rum and bourbon and sugar?” Her tone trailed off, trying to remember the name.
“The expense of honesty?” Alice proposed.
“Yes, that very one. Thank you.” The name made the huntress smile at the irony of it.
“Very well. I will have them reserve your courses until you arrive.” And before the current lady of the house could respond, the servant was gone.
The brunette looked down at the seated man, noted the crumpled nature of his shirt despite his best efforts to compose himself. A soft red mark just beneath the collar was evident in the flicker of the flames. The sight of it gave her not small sense of satisfaction. The doctor may have denied her but he’d have a lingering reminder of what might have been.
“You’re trapped for the night here, Commander Walther.” The words held no venom but not sweetness. “How shall we pass the remainder of the evening after dinner? I’d love your thoughts as we move to our dining parlor.”
The moment his hand entwined with hers, the world seemed to still around him. The drone of blizzard wind softened to a whisper, the torrent of snowflakes beyond the tall windows relaxed to lazy swirls, and the hearth’s furious flames danced a slow waltz upon the smoldering logs. Even his pulse seemed to pause mid-beat as his gaze slid from their knitted fingers to her crystal blue eyes. Reaching for her hand had been automatic, so natural that his arm had moved of its own volition—the easy gesture of a devoted lover, as though he’d done the same thing a thousand times before and expected to do it a million times more. But this time, rather than conjuring a lightning storm of hunger and rage, the touch grounded him; the warmth of her palm pressed tightly against his managed to halt the raging current of his grief, and for a second, just a second, he was no one else but Dr. Sterling again…and Madison was there by his side, his partner, his love, his perpetual beacon in the darkness.
The alcohol smudged the strict lines they had drawn between one another. The huntress was, and always had been, his singular truth in a lifetime of shifting loyalties and deep-rooted struggle. And his body remembered that, even if his logic—steeped though it was in bourbon—knew better.
So Remy savored the fleeting moment, doing his best to memorize every detail of the sensation—the way the firelight painted her blue eyes gold, the pressure of her fingers against his grasp, the stillness of the library air. Because the calm was gone almost as soon as it had settled over him, a warm blanket snatched away in the frigid winter night. Her hand vanished from his touch as she sprang to her feet, dousing him in the chill of her distance and the murky darkness of his own useless longing.
He futilely attempted to smooth the still-rumpled lines in the fabric across his chest before Alice made her reappearance, but he could tell by the girl’s pinched expression and quick glance down his form that she had already duly noted his damning state—as if she hadn’t witnessed enough that evening already. His heart sank. What must they all think of me? It was a question that haunted him most days in this new life, but with the bourbon whispering its languid advice in his ear, the urge to defend himself to this poor girl was almost impossible to fight. It’s not what you think, he wanted to scream to Alice, to the estate, to the heavens. I love her. I am not my father. I am not like any of them.
Instead, he simply offered the distrusting young woman a small smile and nodded at Madison’s suggestion of dining in the sitting room overlooking the gardens. “That sounds lovely,” Remy said, his voice a smooth croon that betrayed nothing of the turmoil bubbling beneath the surface. “I look forward to it.”
The servant inclined her head and disappeared back into the corridor without another word. A heavy sigh escaped pursed lips as his expression fell. I am not like them, came the thought again, defiant. But wasn’t he? He wore the uniform; he bore the weight of the title. The flesh of his back bore the permanent brand of his family crest, as if the blood in his veins wasn’t incriminating enough. What, exactly, had he done to disprove the assumptions? His showy coup de grâce at the firing range? No one but Quinn Belvedere knew that he’d pulled that trigger out of mercy, and surely word of his actions would spread…
The huntress sidled back to him, interrupting his thoughts. He took note of the gleam in her eyes as her stare roamed over his torso and neck; evidently, his efforts to tame his disheveled appearance had fallen woefully short. The small smirk he knew so well, the one that pulled her lips devilishly upward, rekindled the desire he had tried desperately to dampen. His hand twitched as though to reach out for her again, but he kept his arm firmly planted on the chair’s rest, studying her. A long, wordless moment stretched between them.
“Thankfully, I do have some experience being held captive by winter weather,” he said. Where the huntress’ tone carried neither animosity nor sweetness, his was thick with something unidentifiable—too many emotions to parse, yet not a single one distinguishable on its own. He shifted to perch on the edge of the cushion, then rose to his feet at her side.
He trailed behind her slightly as they headed to the broad library door. As they stepped across the shadowy threshold, he reached out to place his fingers lightly on the top of her shoulder, a fleeting brush against the soft red knit. Pausing there in the archway, the steel-blue storm of his gaze searched for the ocean of hers. “I know what I want to do tonight,” he whispered, yearning and desire flickering across his open face. He lifted his hand to brush a loose strand of her brunette hair behind her ear, and his eyes glittered with the faintest edge of inebriation. “Don’t forget just how much I want it.” Want you. Want everything. “But I’ll settle for your company over dinner. At least if we’re stuck here, it won’t have to be my cooking this time. Or yours.”
A wistful smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. He cleared his throat softly and turned, offering her his elbow as they resumed their trek to dinner. The dimness of the inner hallway was almost a relief, even as the heat of her at his side made it easy to ignore the significant chill in the air. “Would you…” he began suddenly, then trailed off, unsure whether his request was a foolish one. “After dinner, would you read to me? Anything you want.”
