She waited for me to get up, and when I didn’t, she turned her nose up and shot a hopeful look at Miro. “I’m going back to the kitchens, then.”

Do as you please. I’m not your keeper, and you’re not mine.

She left in a hurry, and I ate a bite of the honey-sweetened bread, watching as the smith examined an iron bar. He said something, and then Bane picked the whole wagon up.

His arms bulged, the muscles of his back contracting, and he lifted the entire damn thing and carried it out of the smith’s yard, placing it onto the paved stones of the courtyard where a hostler waited with a mule.

Oh, my.

It was one thing to know that Bane could crush skulls with a single hand or throw a horse, and quite another to see him pick up a thousand pounds or so with all the effort it’d take me to pick up a book.

I blinked, still a little dazed, and found that I was staring at his vast, well-muscled chest, and Bane was grinning a little.

Miro let out a sharp hiss of breath between his teeth. “He’s just showing off now.”

His grumble startled me; I’d completely forgotten his presence. His dismissive attitude towards Bane irritated me in a way I wished I could express in words.

Why shouldn’t he? If you could lift wagons like they were feathers, I’m sure you’d be showing off, too. 

Bane mastered himself as he strode toward us, that hint of grin fading as he approached. He made an effort to enclose his lips over his fangs, his shoulders drawing up ever so slightly.

“Good morning, Cirrien. I hope you slept well.” The echoing grumble of his voice was louder outside, bouncing off the stone walls of the keep.

A little, I signed to him, abandoning my plate to my lap. There was quite a bit to write about. I never even had the chance to properly thank you for the journal. 

His gaze followed my hands, eyes squinting slightly. “‘Write’… I saw that one. And maybe ‘thank’?”

I nodded encouragingly, suddenly feeling bolstered by the decision to come outside, and this time it was easier to smile.

We will practice together, you and I, I told him. I will have you fluent in no time.

Most of that was probably a muddle to him, but I knew he understood ‘you and I’, two sweeps of the index finger between us; his shoulders lowered, the tension running out of him like water.

I stood up, balancing the plate on the barrel where I’d been sitting, and took a step towards him.

I hope you slept well, too, I added, watching his eyes as I signed. I didn’t mean to run from you, I just… it’s something I never expected in my life. I hope you won’t hold it against me, if you give me time… perhaps we can try again one day.

I was in no hurry to feel fangs at my throat again, but to lose any regard he had for me… that would be genuinely painful.

“You might have to write that out for me,” Bane said, but his eyes crinkled at the corners. I was close enough to once again pick out those little star-like flecks of silver in the midst of the gold. “Did Miro tell you what he’s been commissioned for?”

My portrait, I said gloomily, and Bane’s lips twitched at my frown.

“His mother, Edda Kyril, was the court artist, when the last Lord of the Rift ruled here.” Bane gave the young man a sidelong glance. “He’s inherited her talent, and if he can prove himself consistent with any kind of work, perhaps he will earn a higher commission.”

“It would be my pleasure to prove it,” Miro said, bowing a little. There was a sardonic tilt to his mouth.

Well, if he didn’t want to be treated like a child, maybe he should have been a little less open with his disgruntlement and self-professed laziness. But I kept that thought to myself.

“Are your guards… to your liking?” Bane’s expression was veiled, carefully neutral.

Koryek is doing perfectly fine, I said, spelling out the guard’s name phonetically. He doesn’t complain incessantly.

There were a few times that I was spitefully grateful I was speaking a language no one else understood; this was one of them.

Bane watched my hands with uncertainty for a moment; had he understood? But he shook it off, wiping the back of his arm across the sweat on his forehead. My eyes dropped to the brawny slab of his stomach without my permission, and I jerked them back up.

How strange to find parts of him attractive, but be horrified by the whole. But was it horror, really?

Yes, I decided, glancing at his teeth. Some horror, yes. But that was mitigated by the soul inside that blood-drinking shell, which must be why I could not get ahold of myself and keep my eyes where they belonged.

I would have to sleep with him eventually. I wanted to be less alarmed when that time came.

Did Edda ever paint you? I asked, my curiosity still aflame at what Bane had looked like before his choice to become a fiend. I suppose I should ask this in my journal, because you will read it tonight if it’s the last thing you do. There are too many things I’ve wanted to say to you to have them put off any longer.

“I apologize, my lady, but most of that was beyond me.” He looked apologetic enough that I briefly reached out and laid my hand over his. His skin was both velvet-soft and burning hot, running at a temperature much higher than normal for humans. With a quick flick, his bat-like ears swiveled upright and forward, quivering at the tips.

Only for now, I told him with my other hand, spelling it slowly.

Bane’s fingers flexed under mine, twitching ever so slightly, and then he laced his fingers through mine, bringing my hand up to kiss the back of it.

His lips were soft, careful to cover his teeth. I stared up at him, holding my breath, every cell in my body aware of his presence, the strength that had lifted a thousand pounds, and yet he still touched me as carefully as a man with a butterfly cupped in his hand.

My heart raced against my ribs, a rapid clip I couldn’t calm. Could he feel it? Hear it?

Bane stared into my eyes, still holding my hand. This must be what it felt like to be entranced by a predator, a deer with an arrow aimed for its heart… the rest of the world had vanished.

There was only the fiend, holding me in a gaze of soot and gold.

“If you’d like to stay out here with me, I would find your company to be very… very pleasing,” he said gruffly. “I… enjoy being around you.”

I smiled, curling my fingers around his a little tighter.

Yes, I wanted to say, I enjoy being around you, too, but I didn’t want to pull my hand from his oh-so-careful grasp.

So I just smiled at him, telling him with my eyes. Interestingly, his jutting cheekbones had darkened in tone, from ashen to a charred-gray hue. Could vampires blush?

I reached up, wondering what those sharp ridges felt like—were they bone, or as flexible as his ears?—

“By the ancestors, were you going to make me search the entire keep for you?” Wyn’s waspish tones brought me back to reality with an unpleasant jolt. “There’s more preparations to be made for tonight, unless you’d like to be presented to the Rift-kin looking like a country bumpkin…? Also, Bane, two of the horses need shoeing and the farrier’s short a hand today.”

I blinked at the bloodwitch, resplendent in black silk today, a list in her hands. Of course.

“As for you,” she snapped at Miro, billowing towards us in a flurry of silk like a bat out of hell, “If you’re not working on the commission, you might as well attend the drills.”

That sour tilt had returned to Miro’s smile; he bowed again, giving me an unreadable look from beneath his thick brows as he straightened. He left without another word.

I felt the tiniest flutter of shame that I’d managed to forget him entirely, not just once, but twice; but I didn’t think I could be blamed.