Chapter 274: Morgana, Are You Sure?

He wore only a white shirt, open at the throat, with the sleeves pushed back to the elbow. His dark hair was disordered, as though he had been dragging a hand through it for hours. He had been reading. She could see it behind him, the low lamp on the desk and a scatter of papers and a book left face down. His feet were bare.

He looked, she thought, like a man who has not slept and has not tried.

His eyes found her.

For a moment he did not move. The gold in them went still, and wide, and very bright. His lips parted, as though to speak, and no sound came. His hand, on the edge of the door, tightened until the knuckles stood out white.

Then his gaze shifted, just slightly, past her shoulder.

To the torches.

They were still leaning. Their flames bowed to her, steady and gold, in the empty corridor.

He looked at them for the length of a heartbeat. Something moved behind his face, quick and bright and unspoken.

He looked back at her.

"Morgana," he said.

It was very quiet.

"Hello," she said.

It was the same stupid thing she had said on the ridge. She heard it, and her face went hot, and she laughed, a small shaky breath of a laugh, and something in his shoulders eased.

"Hello," he said gravely.

They stood there.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No."

"You are not hurt."

"No."

"You are not ill. You have not had a...." He stopped. "You are all right."

"I’m all right." She drew a breath. "May I come in?"

He did not answer at once.

She saw him fight for it. She saw the effort in him, the control drawn up like a wall. He did not reach for her. He stood with one hand on the door and the other fisted at his thigh, and he looked at her as if she were a thing that might vanish if he blinked.

"Morgana," he said, and his voice was low and rough, "I need you to tell me why you have come."

She had expected that.

She had rehearsed an answer. She had turned it over on the long walk, shaping and reshaping it until it was smooth. She opened her mouth, and every word of it fled.

"I don’t know how to say it," she said.

"Then say it badly."

A shaky laugh. "That’s not much help."

"It is the only kind of help I have." The corner of his mouth moved. "I am not a man of speeches. Ask Kaelen."

"He says you give very good ones."

"He lies."

She smiled. It helped. She drew another breath and let it out, and held his gaze, and made herself say it.

"I’m not here for the curse."

His face did not change.

"Or the ritual. Or Cedric. Or what anyone wants from me." Her voice shook, and she steadied it. "I know what you said. I know you need to be.....that your dragon needs to..." Her cheeks flamed. "I know all that. I’m not here because of it."

"Then why?"

"Because at dinner, I didn’t want to leave."

The words dropped into the quiet like stones into still water.

She did not look away.

"I stood at the door, and you said you would wait, and I thought, I don’t want him to." Her throat worked. "I walked back to my chambers and lay in the dark and thought about it for three hours. And I realized that every other time, it happened to me. Not in a bad way. Not unkindly. But it came and I was swept up in it. I never once walked up to a door and knocked."

His eyes had gone very bright.

"I wanted to knock," she said. "I wanted to be the one who came. So I came."

Silence passed across the room.

The torches crackled softly. The warm air moved between them. From somewhere deep in the room behind him came the small ticking of a clock.

"You said you would wait for the word," Morgana said, very low. "I didn’t want you to wait."

Draeven closed his eyes.

It was a brief thing, a single slow breath, his lashes dark against his skin. When he opened them, something had broken in his face. It was not the king’s face. It was not the dragon’s. It was only a man’s, naked and unguarded, aching with a thing so large she could scarcely look at it.

"Morgana," he said.

"Yes."

"I must ask you."

"You asked at dinner."

"I must ask you again." His voice was steady, though his hand on the door had begun, very faintly, to shake. "Because I am what I am. Because INFERNUS has wanted you since the first day he saw you Because I have waited longer for you than you have been alive, and I am not certain I will be able to stop, once I begin."

"Draeven...."

"So I ask you." He did not let her speak. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"You are certain."

"Yes."

"You will tell me if you wish to stop. At any moment. For any reason. You will say it, and I will stop, and I will not be angry, and I will not ask why." His eyes burned into hers. "Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Say it."

"I’ll tell you if I want to stop."

"And I will."

"I know you will."

"Are you sure?" he asked again, softly.

She stepped forward.

It was a small step. The toes of her slippers crossed the line of the threshold. The warm air closed around her like an embrace, and the smell of cedar and smoke and hot metal rose up, he was so close that she could feel the heat coming off his skin.

She tipped her face up.

"I’m sure," Morgana said.

The torches behind her flared.

Draeven made a sound. It was low and rough and half a breath, a sound she had never heard from any man, and it went through her like a struck bell. He let go of the door. His hands came up, slowly, giving her every moment to stop him, and cupped her face.

His palms were hot.

They were hot like a hearthstone is hot after a fire, a deep steady heat that sank through her skin and into her bones. His thumbs moved across her cheekbones. His eyes searched her face, one slow sweep, as though he were committing it to memory.

"Come in," he said.