Light from the candles glittered in the gold of her dress as she walked across the threshold and into the dining room. It also painted gilded highlights in her shining black hair and made her piercing eyes gleam like emeralds.
My breath hitched and I suddenly forgot how my lungs were supposed to work. With her spine straight and her chin raised, she looked like an empress of old who had just stepped out of the pages of a history book.
“Hi,” I heard myself saying.
As soon as the word was out of my mouth, I wanted to kick myself. What the hell had that been? I could have said anything, anything at all, and it would still have been better than hi.
But Audrey just gave me a sly smile. “Again.”
Sweeping her long dark hair over her shoulder, she sauntered up to me where I still stood frozen on the floor next to the table. Candles and gleaming plates and utensils rested on the smooth tabletop. The sight of them jolted me out of my stupor.
As Audrey reached the table, I pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit down. Surprise blew across her face, but she recovered quickly and then lowered herself into the chair while I pushed it in. While brushing a hand down my dark dress shirt, I rounded the table.
My place had not been set at the head of the table, but rather on the long side right opposite Audrey.
Once I had sat down across from her, my kitchen staff appeared from the corridor behind me and began serving us food and wine. The scent of rosemary and thyme filled the dining room as they placed braised lamb, roasted potatoes, and warm cheese drizzled with honey on our plates.
After they had poured the dark red wine into our glasses, they bowed to me and disappeared back to the kitchen.
Amusement danced over Audrey’s beautiful features as she watched me from across the table.
“What?” I asked in a voice that I hoped didn’t sound self-conscious.
“First you make me crawl and now you’re pulling out my chair and treating me to a nice dinner.”
I chuckled and then shot her a pointed look. “Well, I went into your room to invite you down to this. You’re the one who decided to challenge my authority.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes. And besides, you needed a lesson in humility after that stunt you pulled at your mansion.”
“I thought you said that you were going to let that slide.”
“I did.” A smirk curled my lips as I cocked my head. “Which is why you’re still alive.”
She let out a huff of laughter. “I see.”
Picking up my glass, I held it out towards her. “To power.”
A knowing smile spread across her mouth. Raising her own glass, she clinked it against mine. “To power.”
We held each other’s gaze while taking a sip of wine. It tasted rich and fruity. She broke eye contact first. Placing the glass back onto the wooden table, she picked up her utensils and turned her attention to the food. I just watched her for a few seconds.
I hadn’t meant to fuck her. Again. But then she put her hand on my cock and baited me into it, and I just couldn’t say no. Every time, I kept telling myself that it would be the last time. But then she would say something witty or bite her lip or move with that precise swishing of her hips, and all of my resolve would just evaporate.
This time, though… This time would be the last time. Henry was right. She was far too dangerous to keep playing this game with. I had to start treating her like a prisoner again. Only as a prisoner. After this dinner… Yes, after this dinner I was going to start doing that.
A drop of honey ran down from the small piece of cheese she had cut off and trickled down her luscious lips. She swiped her tongue over her bottom lip, licking it off.
My breath caught in my chest and I gripped my fork so hard that the metal almost bent. Images flooded my mind. Grabbing the glass of wine, I gulped down far too much of it while trying to get my brain to stop showing me those torturous visions.
“You okay?” she asked, pausing with her knife hovering halfway to the cheese on her plate.
I swallowed quickly, but it only made a few drops of wine escape into my windpipe. While coughing them up again, I set the wine glass down with a thud. “I’m fine.” In order to distract her, I nodded towards the black and golden dress she wore while I speared a potato. “That’s a different dress than the one you were wearing earlier.”
“Yes.” She glanced down at it as if to confirm that it was indeed a different dress. When she looked back up and met my gaze again, there was a mischievous glint in her eyes and a smile lurking on her lips. “And I’m actually wearing panties this time too.”
I choked on the potato. Slamming a hand in front of my mouth, I narrowly prevented myself from spitting it across the table while my chest shook with an unexpected wave of laughter.
After forcing it down in a hard swallow, I took another swig of wine to clear my throat before I looked back at Audrey again. A smile tugged at her mouth as she watched me, and I found myself unable to smother the one on my own mouth.
“Good to know,” I said.
“Yes, I thought you might like that.”
I tore my gaze from the way her lips curved and forced it back to my plate. For a while, we only ate in silence. There was a reason why I had brought Audrey down to this dinner, but I needed a bit more time to get my head back on straight before I broached that subject.
The braised lamb almost melted on my tongue when I popped a bite into my mouth. I tried to focus on the way the herbs complemented the taste of both the meat and the roasted potatoes. Forks clinked against plates, filling the silence. Eventually, I got my heart to stop beating so hard and my mind to calm down. After taking another sip of wine, I met Audrey’s gaze once more.
“If you were in my position,” I began, “what would you do about Malcolm?”
Surprise blew across her face. “You want my advice?”
“Yeah.” I frowned at her in confusion, trying to figure out why that surprised her. “Of course I do.”
She just blinked at me. The piece of potato she had placed on her fork rolled off and landed on the plate below with a plop. That seemed to snap her out of it. While stabbing the escaped potato with her fork again, she let a villainous smile spread across her lips.
“How do you know I won’t give you bad advice to make sure that Malcolm takes you out?” she asked, a teasing note to her voice.
“Because if you did, you would become Malcolm’s prisoner instead. And you and I both know that Malcolm doesn’t actually take prisoners, which means that he would kill you too.”
She sucked her teeth. “Fair point.”
“So? What would you do?”
“What makes you think I even have any advice about that?”
“Because I’ve been trying to kill you for five years, and you’re somehow still here.” After swallowing the last bite of my food, I leaned back in my chair and shrugged. “I figured there’s gotta be a reason for that.”
A curious expression drifted over her features as she cocked her head and studied me with those perceptive green eyes of hers. For a while, she said nothing. Spearing the final piece of cheese, she used it to mop up a little more honey from her plate before putting it in her mouth. She chewed slowly and her eyes took on a distant look, as if she was thinking carefully.
Once she had swallowed, she pushed her plate a bit farther away from the edge and leaned back in her own chair. “I would put on a show. Until I had broken Lance, I would put on a show in front of some people who I knew would report it back to Malcolm.”
“A show doing what?”
“Using the Binder. I would fake some kind of confrontation where I bound someone’s magic using someone who pretended to be Lance. That would make Malcolm wary and stay his hand for a little while longer, hopefully enough to give me time to actually break Lance.” Picking up her glass, she swirled the wine in it and then lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “That’s what I would do.”
I ran a hand over my jaw while considering. A couple of people from the kitchen appeared and silently cleared the table before putting a smaller plate and a spoon in front of both of us. Once they were done, my head baker arrived and placed a steaming apple pie between us. The scent of cinnamon and sweet syrup filled the dining room.
“I see,” I said once all of them had retreated to the kitchen again. “That’s sound advice.”
She just shrugged again as if it was no big deal.
Lifting my hand, I motioned for her to help herself to some pie. For a moment, she just studied the golden pie crust and the baked red apples. Then she tipped her head from side to side and leaned forward to cut herself a piece.
Or so I thought.
After she had cut a piece of pie, she leaned across the table and grabbed my plate. Bringing it closer, she placed the steaming dessert on it before putting it back on the table in front of me.
Surprise bounced through my chest, and I raised my eyebrows at her. But she wasn’t looking at me. Pushing her own plate closer, she cut another slice and lifted it up. She bit her lower lip slightly as she navigated the piece across the shining tabletop and onto her plate without dropping anything.
That small lip bite made a pang of emotion pulse through my chest. I wanted to draw my thumb over her bottom lip to dislodge it from between her teeth. But instead, I gripped my armrest hard.
Her hair had fallen over her shoulder when she leaned forward, and she swept it back again before sitting down in her seat once more. It took everything I had to tear my gaze away from her lips.
“Why did you come back covered in blood this afternoon?” she asked suddenly.
It took me a moment to process her question, so all I said was, “What?”
“I saw you from the window.”
Shaking off the last remnants of her very distracting lip bite, I cleared my throat and ate a piece of pie before giving her a nonchalant shrug. “I went back up to your mansion to kill your guards.”
“I see.”
She didn’t seem particularly upset about that. Picking up her spoon, she ate a few mouthfuls of pie before meeting my gaze again.
“All of them?” she asked eventually.
“No.”
“Ah. So, just the ones who tried to stop the others from handing me over to you, I presume.”
“No.” I studied her face as I elaborated. “Those were the only ones I let live. I killed everyone else.”
Shock flashed across her features, and she paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth. I just cocked my head, watching her. Blinking, she gave her head a few quick shakes as she pulled herself together.
“Why?” she asked at last.
Because they betrayed you. Because I couldn’t stand the thought of letting the people who had sold you out continue to draw breath. Because I couldn’t focus on anything until I had slaughtered everyone who had given you up after swearing to protect you.
But I couldn’t tell her that. So instead, I answered, “Because I have no use for disloyal people. If I had allowed them to serve me, they might have done the same to me eventually.”
For a moment, it looked like she was going to ask something else. But then she just finished her final bite of pie and leaned back in her seat. “True.”
The meal was coming to an end. And I had accomplished what I set out to do, which was to ask what Audrey would have done about Malcolm. There was no reason to drag it out any longer.
But as I watched the way the light sparkled in her eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to stand up and end the dinner.
So I just sat there in silence.
Drinking in her presence.
One last time.
