Igniting Darkness (Courting Darkness Duology #2) - Robin LaFevers Page 0,144

is here. Holding me in his arms. My body is so flooded with relief—both at his safety and how things are between us—that it almost washes away the pain.

My heart has never been this full. With the wonder of my gift, the deep satisfaction at saving so many, and now Maraud . . .

“Did you take a blow to the chest?” Maraud asks as he takes my hand from where it was rubbing at my heart.

“No. Just . . . happy.”

He grins down at me. “Me too.”

Sybella clears her throat just then. “Genevieve should rest after her ordeal,” she announces to the others. “There will be time to hear Maraud’s full report soon enough. Have we collected any stray horses? Ensured there are no survivors who could report our identities back to Rohan?”

Beast doesn’t move. “But we have only just found him,” he protests.

Sybella takes his arm. “Others have missed him as well,” she explains gently. “He and Gen have some catching up to do.”

Once we are alone, I become viscerally aware of each breath Maraud takes, which awakens all the nerve endings in my body.

He sweeps my hair back from my face. “Did you think I’d abandoned you?”

“It briefly occurred to me, although I didn’t truly think you would do that. And then Valine found me, and I knew something had gone horribly wrong.”

He tenderly cups my cheek. “Thank you for your faith in me.”

I revel in the feel of his palm against my cheek—the strength of his fingers, the calluses, and the warmth. “I had planned to go with you,” I confess. “That day. When you came.”

His hand tightens briefly. “You had?”

I nod.

His eyes grow darker, filled with shadows of frustration and regret. “I am sorry I let you down. Shall I explain it to you now or when I tell the others?”

“Later,” I say, unwilling to spend what little privacy we have been granted on the tale. He is here now, and that is what matters. “What of the others? Valine? Jaspar?”

He leans down to kiss the tip of my nose. “That, too, is part of the tale, but they are here and safe.” He rubs a thumb along my bottom lip once, twice, and then I open my mouth and gently place my teeth around it. “You are not well enough for this,” he murmurs, but does not withdraw his hand.

“Perhaps it is what will cure me.”

He removes his thumb from my mouth, then brings his lips down on mine, so tender and loving that I nearly weep. “Later,” he promises.

Almost as if he had been waiting for us to finish, Beast reappears at our side and sends me an apologetic look. “I have known him for fourteen years, my lady.”

“By all means,” I say. “I do not mean to keep him to myself.” But I do. At least once the others have had their fill.

The look the two men exchange is so eloquent that it causes my eyes to sting. “Come to tag along, have you?” Beast asks.

“If you’ll have me.”

Beast grins that infectious grin of his. “Always.” Then he sobers. “Through Genevieve, I have learned of your time in prison and the oubliette in Cognac, as well as your subsequent escape. I am eager to learn how you ended up with Rohan’s forces.”

Maraud’s smile is tight and humorless. “Not Rohan. I’m here with Pierre d’Albret.”

Silence fills the cave. Sybella grows pale and briefly closes her eyes, then opens them again before Beast’s gaze lingers too long upon her. She gives him a cocky grin, but it fools none of us. “So that’s why he never showed up for his second audience with the king,” she muses. Then she frowns. “Although I still don’t understand why he chose to leave that day.”

“That I do not know, my lady,” Maraud says.

Beast stares up at the ceiling so innocently that Sybella grows immediately suspicious. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

“Wait,” Aeva says. “Have you not told her yet?”

“Told me what?” Sybella asks.

Beast shrugs his massive shoulders. “There hasn’t been time.”

“We were on the road for eight days, and have been here in Brittany for three weeks. There was plenty of time.”

Sybella looks from Aeva to Beast. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

Beast glares at Aeva. “That was why I was not going to tell her.”

“She deserves to know,” the Arduinnite insists.

Beast heaves a great sigh. “The night before Pierre left, I may have paid him a visit.”

“Alone?”

“No,” he scoffs. “I had