Page 66 of To Dance with Death

But then he says, “I will answer what I can for you, if you do the same.” He stands, holding out a hand. “I think a little change in scenery is in order, no?”

I massage my temples, that vicious headache returning. “Now? Sire, it’s late…”

“And you just had a nap.” At my hesitation, he says, “A few minutes’ dip in the waterfall pool. I need it to clear my head after this.” He flicks his glass. “Very few steps required. I promise to have you safe and sound in your bed within the hour.”

Chapter Twenty

I look at him, and I ponder how I’ve managed to refuse him thus far. How I haven’t curled into his sheets if only to drink in the scent of him. To feel close, and wanted, and warm.

I accept his hand when he reaches to pull me up—only to panic when I learn of his intended destination. “What do youmeanthere’re no steps required?” The pool outside at the base of the waterfall is at least thirty, maybe forty, stories below.

His dimples make for a rather disarming appearance. “Trust me, will you?”

A moment later, I understand when he leads me into a small enclosure behind a gold-hammered door in the hallway just beside his room. Glass cocoons the space in its entirety, which is barely wide enough to fit us both. My chin juts toward him when he slides the door shut, then pulls a lever—

We begin to descend.

“A lift,” he tells me. “Much more convenient than stairs.”

Another impressive feat of this place, thanks to Moranya’s power.

“A shame mortals haven’t invented the like,” he muses.

Perhaps you should,I refrain from saying. Yet I can’t seem to focuson anything beyond our proximity, the way he’s almost pressed up against me.

The enclosure speeds slightly and my stomach hitches into my throat. He presses an arm to a rail above my head, the position so similar to how he’d leaned over me underneath a flowering willow all those months ago.

“It’s safe,” he says, grinning down at me.

“Right,” I breathe, holding on to his gaze for the bravery it affords me. The ground rising to meet us through the glass floor is disconcerting and slightly terrifying.

But all that fades to the background when he doesn’t lift his gaze from mine. And when his lips lose their smile, I no longer see the blur of the mountain. Or the waterfall just behind him.

I feel his breath ghost over me.

Warmth sizzles in my belly, threatening to turn my knees into water. His eyes drag a line down the column of my throat, his dark, ridiculously long lashes casting spokes of shadow.

You promised you would not touch me,I want to say.

I want him to break that promise, I admit to myself.

I swallow thickly.

I can’t allow myself to think like this.

But the way he watches me now…It’s as if he’s been shocked into stillness. Like I’m a conundrum. A gadget laid bare and fractured on his worktable, and he is searching how best to reassemble it. To reassembleme.

It’s as if he’s searching for who I really am—even if he doesn’t know it.

Oh, how I wish I could walk into his mind and weave the threads that connected us back together again.

Another rattle and clank, and the door pops open.

“Come,” he says, taking my hand and exiting the lift.

It deposits us onto the walkway leading right up to the waterfall, the gush of it roaring through my ears. There are other figures in thepool—lithe slips of skin gliding in and out of the water. Laughter bounces about. Lights bob in the air, fanning soft glows across the rippling pool.

I follow Anton down the slope to the right, where a large patch of moss lies amid a gathering of rocks. It’s more secluded than the rest, but not secluded enough for my liking. There he shucks off his robe, then his shirt and pants, leaving him in only a pair of thin breeches.