“You will be.”
“When I get married, yes, I probably will be excited. I’ll let you know if anyone proposes.”
Ethan humphed.
I sighed, turned in to him again. “It’s been a long night. Let’s go to sleep.”
Ethan wrapped his arms around me, and I instantly relaxed, my lids growing heavier, drifting closed.
* * *
I woke alone in an empty room, with wooden floors and walls of robin’s-egg blue. The bed was tall, with four posters of thick, spiraling wood that rose at least five feet into the air. The bed was down, with its juxtaposing softness and lumpiness, the sheets ivory and soft. Light from a candelabra on a small wooden desk flicked shadows across the wall.
This isn’t my room, some part of me realized, but it was a dim and quiet voice. I sat up, touched the white shift that covered me from neck to ankles, rubbed against bare skin.
“You’re awake.”
The words were spoken aloud, but they also reverberated in my head just as a silent conversation with Ethan might have, and my heart began to pound in response.
I looked up, found him standing in a corner. He wore fawn leather breeches, knee-high boots, a white linen shirt that draped open at the neck. A small book was open in one palm, one knee lifted and a booted foot flat on the wall, as if he’d been lazily reading.
Balthasar.
“Merit,” he said, his smile slow and seductive. “I am so glad we have this opportunity to get acquainted.”
“Where are we?”
Balthasar gestured at the room. “A little place I created. It allows you a sense of how Ethan and I used to live.”
It wasn’t real. Couldn’t have been real. But the scents of beeswax and bay rum belied that belief. Mallory had warded the House. So how was he here? And how was I with him?
Too many questions, not enough answers. But I’d seen enough of Balthasar to know that he’d take advantage of any indication of weakness, so I kept my voice smooth.
“He told me how you used to live.”
Balthasar moved closer. “Did he?”
“I know that you used humans. That you used women. How you discarded them. And he told me about Persephone. How you used her. How you killed her, used her to punish Ethan.”
His expression went momentarily blank. She’d meant so little to him that he hadn’t bothered to remember her name.
“If Ethan was punished, it was for good reason. He was my child, after all.”
“He hasn’t been anyone’s child in a very long time. Where is he?”
A flash of anger. “Not here. This place is for me and you, so that we can become better acquainted. Don’t you want to become better acquainted with me, Caroline?”
“That’s not my name,” I said as Balthasar took a step forward. I scanned the room for an exit, but there was no doorway, only the window across the room, which was covered by slatted shutters that locked in place with metal braces.
If there wasn’t an exit, I’d have to find a weapon. I slid across the bed to the other side, hopped onto the floor, putting the bed between me and him. I walked across rough floorboards toward the desk, hoping to find a letter opener, a dagger. Or if I was really lucky, a sharpened aspen stake.
“I’m not going to hurt you, chérie,” Balthasar said, closing the book and kicking off from the wall. He walked toward me, putting the book on a side table as he passed.
“Then let me go.”
His smile was slow. “You are not here because you are trapped, Merit. You are here because you want to be. Because you are intrigued by me. Because you understand le désir.”
“I’m not intrigued by you.”
He shook his head, smiling softly as if talking to a child. “You were so wonderfully sensitive to me yesterday. I was surprised by the depth of your . . . passion.”
“It wasn’t passion. It was magic.”
“Are you certain of that?” And yet the tendrils of his magic stretched across the room, reached for me.
“I love Ethan.” I said the words with force, like they were a talisman, a charm against Balthasar’s appetite.
“You can love more than one thing, chérie. I am sure Ethan shared his past with you, told you of the women in which we took pleasure. There was always room for more.”
Focus, I told myself. Find a way out. There is always a way out.
I reached the small desk, trailed my fingers across it as if I were just exploring the room. The candelabra was stuck to the surface, and the drawer pulls were decorative. The desktop held only an open notebook, slanted writing across its yellowing surface.
“I don’t want to love more,” I said.
“That is unfortunate, poppet. Because I am owed much by your Master.”
I moved closer to the window, glanced at the shutters. I might be able to pry off one of the braces, but I’d need time for that. “Why would he owe you anything?”
“Because I made him what he is.” The words were heavy, and they fell in the room like thunderclaps.
I glanced back at Balthasar, and the silver in his eyes made my heart hammer against my ribs.
“I made him everything.”
I swallowed, forced my voice to steadiness. “You made him a monster. He made himself a Master.”
Balthasar hissed, teeth gleaming and bared, glistening with hunger for whatever he thought he could get from me. He walked closer, maneuvering his body between me and the bed.
I needed a weapon. My heart sped, and I put my back to the window, using the oversized shift to shield my hands as I tried to work one of the braces loose. To keep him occupied, I kept talking.
Balthasar chuckled, and that was nearly as disturbing as his anger. “Are you seeking escape, Merit? For that is not to be. Our business is not done.”
Damn it, the brace wouldn’t budge. Fear began to tighten my chest, send flutters through my stomach. I had no weapon, and no exit, and an enemy who was eager to hurt Ethan. It was a bad combination.
“What do you want from Ethan? From us?”
“Je veux tout. Everything I might have had. Everything that was taken from me.”
“Ethan took nothing from you. Your captors did.”
Balthasar moved so fast I didn’t even see it. He grabbed my arm, the mere touch enough to send desire rushing through my body like liquid fire, and began to drag me across the room.
I pulled back, tried to free my arm, kicked at his calves, but his grip was steel-solid. “What do you want from me?”