All for a Rose (20 page)

The sibilant voice came from much closer than it had the last time. Startled, Maribel glared up at the snake. He’d left the bed and was hanging from the dressing screen, translucent wings she hadn’t noticed before open to give him balance.

“Of course I trust her. But even if I didn’t, she couldn’t be the witch who cursed Daman, if that’s what you’re thinking. She would have had no reason to seek him out while we still had money, and she hasn’t left the farm on her own since we’ve been there.” Maribel paused. “I suppose…Mother Briar could be the one. But that doesn’t make sense. I doubt she would come to Daman insisting he marry her so she could have all of his land and money. And if the other story is true and she cursed him for a lack of hospitality, then why wouldn’t she have said that instead of saying she’d heard the same rumors?”

She looked up at the snake, but it’d vanished. She searched around her, even peering out from behind the screen to scan the room, but it was gone.

“That’s getting beyond annoying,” Maribel muttered. She swept out from behind the dressing screen, pausing awkwardly in front of the wardrobe.

“Well, I’m going to get going then,” she told the furniture. She waited, feeling as though it would be rude to leave without…saying goodbye?

The wardrobe fluttered open a door in a wooden wave. “Have a nice day, Maribel.”

Maribel nodded, trying not to feel silly, then left the room. Her head spun with unanswered questions as she strode through the hallway and marched down the large staircase. Between the dreams and the
cuelebre
’
s
frustrating stream of half-information and loaded questions, she was left with the distinct feeling that she was being manipulated, but no idea as to why. She gritted her teeth, grinding them until her jaw ached.
I hate being manipulated.

She stormed out the kitchen doors, heading for the gardens like a black cloud. Apparently, Daman was her only chance for answers, and by the gods, she intended to get them.

A sudden cloud of dirt rising into the air caught her attention. A flash of scales glittered in the sunlight, followed by a dull thud and a litany of cursing that raised her eyebrows. Maribel crept closer to the source of the sounds. Something thrashed around on the ground and she had to clap a hand over her mouth to avoid a squeak of surprise.

Daman was lying in the dirt, staring intently at a hole in the ground. Something moved in the darkness and a creature she couldn’t identify leapt out and skittered across the garden. Daman snarled and tried to snatch the creature off the ground. His movements were too fast for Maribel to follow, but still the creature escaped him and disappeared down another hole.

“Daman?”

“What?” Daman snapped. He looked up then twitched backward as if his brain had only just registered her presence. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bark at you. You surprised me, that’s all.”

A few days ago the very idea of apologizing for being short with her would have been ridiculous to Daman—knowledge she based on having suggested he apologize on more than one occasion. The fact that he’d offered it with no prompting on her part sucked a considerable amount of wind from her blustering sails of a moment ago.

He rose out of the dirt and approached her, the long sleek muscles of his lower body sliding easily through the loose earth. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” Maribel gave up on the shouting she’d been prepared to do—temporarily—and gestured at the holes. “What’s going on here?”

Daman scowled. “Sprites. They’re popping out of the ground everywhere.”

Maribel’s eyebrows rose. “Sprites.”

“Yes. Annoying little pests.” He glared at the ground. “I haven’t seen one since I had to send my gardener away and tend the land myself. I thought I’d scared them off.”

Tiny glittering eyes peered at Maribel from the darkness of one of the holes and she could have sworn she heard something giggle. “But they’re not scared of you anymore?”

“Apparently not,” Daman said darkly. His gaze flicked over the ground as if he could see the sprites moving even through the earth. “But I shall rectify that situation forthwith.”

It took a bit of effort to keep the amusement from her face. The thought of Daman and all his gruffness throwing his weight around the garden chasing after the miniscule sprites did more than a little to leach some of the intimidation from Daman’s presence. Of course, Maribel reflected, it really wasn’t much different than a snake going after small rodents. A large predator waiting with deadly stillness, glossy black eyes unblinking as it waited for its prey. The small furry creatures venturing out into the light, never knowing that their death waited with the patience only a predator could manage…

Unease rolled through her stomach at the imagery her imagination was happily supplying her. Maribel blinked the pictures from her head. She cleared her throat and faced Daman with a weak smile. “Perhaps you’re considering the situation in the wrong light,” she offered. “Perhaps the return of the sprites is a good sign?”

“You have obviously never met a sprite. They are a plague, creatures who have nothing better to do than teach gofers how to steal food.” He glared at the ground again. “How could they possibly be a good sign?”

The end of his tail slid slowly side to side and then his entire body froze, taking on that unnatural stillness that used to unnerve her so terribly. Maribel bit the inside of her cheek, sternly warning her thoughts to stay away from the darker side of nature’s predators and concentrate on the man in front of her.

“Didn’t you tell me once that your temper made you drive people away?”

Daman’s silver eyes flicked to her, though the rest of his body didn’t move. “Yes.”

“Well, it sounds as though it was that same temper that frightened the sprites away. Perhaps the fact that they have returned is a sign that your temper is not as terrible as it once was.”

Daman tapped the end of his tail against the soil. The motion drew the attention of another sprite, and the skinny creature snickered and flew at the scaled limb glittering like precious gems in the sunlight. At the last second, the tip of Daman’s tail slashed through the air, smacking hard into the little fey and sending it sailing through the air like a falling star. A satisfied smirk twitched on Daman’s lips. Maribel chuckled in amusement, but the sound quickly died when she found herself once again the sole target of Daman’s intense gaze.

“You once told me I make you nervous. Tell me, do you find that—like the sprites—you are less…nervous, in my presence now?”

Maribel’s mouth went dry, the rumbling bass of Daman’s voice drawing her attention to his bare chest. It wasn’t until that moment that she noticed he’d removed his shirt—the clothing that he’d started wearing for her benefit—apparently to keep it from getting destroyed as he shot around on the ground after the invading sprites.

Now there was nothing to block Maribel’s searching gaze, nothing to hide the strange combination of unblemished human skin and glittering blue and green scales that traced the ridges decorating Daman’s face and chest before disappearing in the cascade of scales that composed his draconic lower half.

She followed the lines of sinewy muscle over his pectorals, up around his biceps and the sharp lines of his throat. The scales should have given him a monstrous appearance, but at some point in the last week or so, they’d become less foreign. Now they were familiar, a defining feature that only served to decorate the already handsome veneer of the isolated lord. She’d seen them shining in the sunlight during the long days he sat with her in the garden, seen candlelight play over them as they ate dinner together and she happily answered all of the
naga
’
s
questions about what ingredients she’d used, or what she was going to serve next.

The blue and green scales were warm, despite their icy appearance, slick under the pads of her fingers. She trailed a finger over one of the large ridges that traced Daman’s collar bone, turning sharply at the line it met and following it up his neck.

I’m touching him.

Every muscle in Maribel’s body seized at once, shocked and outraged at her own behavior. Tendons whiplashed, recoiling her hand with a speed surpassed only by creatures beyond the veil. She didn’t remember moving, didn’t remember reaching out to touch him. Dear gods, what had she been thinking?

His hand closed around her wrist, keeping her from retreating. She swallowed a squeak, her heart leaping into her throat.

“Maribel.”

His voice was a low exhale that caressed every inch of her skin, even through her clothes. A thousand words rushed up only to halt without leaving her lips, choking her with too many things she couldn’t say. She couldn’t think with his hand on her skin like that, could hardly hear anything past the thundering of her heart. Sparks crackled in the air between them like pine logs baking in an open fire.
Dear gods, he’s going to kiss me.

Damn his eyes, his expression was unreadable, those silver orbs as good as mirrors, reflecting her own turmoil back at her without revealing anything about what he was thinking.

“Are you happy here?”

For a second, she would have sworn she’d heard some hesitancy in his voice, a slight stutter as if he’d been about to say something else and changed his mind in the last instant.

Would you let me go home if I wasn’t?
That was the question she should ask, the question that needed to be asked. After all, shouldn’t that be her goal? Hadn’t she told the
cuelebre
and the…wardrobe, that she was only here to save her father, that if it were up to her she’d go home? Wasn’t that the truth?

The question refused to come out. Maribel’s heart pounded and for a moment she felt she was being split in two. If she had the choice, she would have to go home, wouldn’t she? It was the responsible thing to do, the right thing to do. Hiding here and basking in Daman’s appreciation of her cooking, his attentiveness, his willingness to spend all day outside with her, digging his own hands into the dirt right alongside hers… It would be selfish to stay.

And the moodiness. His appreciation of her cooking and love of basking in the sun aside, more often than not he was short with her, curt, abrupt,
rude
. What sort of woman willingly stayed with a man like that?

Don’t give me the choice.

“I’ve been having nightmares.” She shoved the words out, her hesitation to share the dreams with him overridden by her desire to stop him from offering her the choice she didn’t want to make.

The heat that had been burning steadily behind his eyes flickered, dimming like a lamp’s flame behind a sooty shade. “Nightmares?”

Maribel nodded, the movement too fast, too jerky. She took a slow breath through her nose. “Yes. For a couple of nights now.”

Daman studied her, his fingers still carefully wrapped around her wrist, claws held out so he didn’t accidentally draw blood. The heat remained in his eyes, a faint glowing silver. “I’m sorry you are ill at ease. What is the nature of your nightmares?”

“I think… I think it’s you.”

The grip around her wrist tightened suddenly, a flash of pain shooting through her as a fraction of his strength squeezed her so hard she gasped. Daman released her immediately, the muscles of his lower body contracting and releasing as he backed away from her.

“Me.”

It wasn’t a question.

Unease rolled through Maribel’s stomach and the hairs on the back of her neck rose in mimicry of her dream. She wanted to take her words back, stop this conversation from happening. It was only a dream, a nightmare. But as she stood there facing Daman now, she suspected he would not brush them off so easily.

“Perhaps nightmare was the wrong word,” she said, hating how pathetic her voice sounded. “It’s not a nightmare, not really, just a strange dream—a silly dream, there’s really not even a reason to talk about it.”

“Tell me.”

His tone left no room for denial. She wouldn’t get away from this conversation. She took a fortifying breath and told him about the dream, describing both the man and the dragon, including the chains and the man’s cryptic words. Daman visibly withdrew farther and farther with every word out of her mouth, and she felt the distance like a physical pain, as though there were some bond between them being stretched, thinned to the point of snapping. 

By the time she finished, Daman wasn’t moving. More than that, his body had taken on that eerie reptilian stillness that no human could manage, a state so profoundly still that it was hard to believe he was still alive. Maribel’s chest tightened and she realized she was wringing her hands in front of her. She forced herself to grab a handful of her skirt to stop the nervous motions.

“Daman, it’s only a dream,” she said finally, unable to bear the silence any longer. “I don’t know what it means—”

Daman burst into a flurry of movement. A scream leapt from her lips, cutting off anything else she might have said. His tail lashed at the ground and he shot away from her like a bolt of lightning, his retreat so fast that by the time Maribel registered the movement, he was already gone. The air around her throbbed with lingering tension, her skin buzzing with emotion so strong her knees quivered and she nearly collapsed to the ground.

He was going to kiss me.

He was going to offer to let me leave.

Would I have let him kiss me? Do I want him to kiss me?

Would I have left? Do I want to leave?

Thought after thought swooped down on her, attacking her like screeching birds of prey, there and gone too fast for her to catch. She blinked at the spot where Daman had been, the spot he’d vanished from without a single word of explanation.

Anger cut through her confusion like a battleaxe, heating her blood with the desire to confront Daman, to challenge his retreat, demand answers. What did he think her dream meant? What had upset him so much that he’d fled, run away from…from whatever had been happening between them?

Maribel gritted her teeth. Her emotions were still chaotic, still a tangled web she couldn’t quite see her way out of, but, by the gods, she would not cower away from them. She wasn’t going to get any answers standing here alone. Daman was the one muddling her thoughts this way. It was his fault no one else would talk to her, give her any answers. She needed him to talk to her if she wanted to figure this mess out.