stone-fence-wrapped garden. Weeping willows stood at the edges of the blue-green pond, while a few ducks swam lazily, dunking their heads beneath the rippling surface and coming up to shake the water from their feathers.
Ivory looked around her. "You grew up here?"
He brought her fingers to his chest, over his heart. "It was our mother's family home. We lived here for some time after she passed away. And then my father disappeared and Xavier took us away. But this was where we were together and happy."
"It's beautiful."
"I used to believe it was the most beautiful spot in the world, but I think you managed to create that in your home." Razvan looked around him and inhaled to drag the scent of lavender into his lungs.
"Our home," Ivory corrected. "It is our home now."
He felt the instant reaction in his heart to her words. Home. What would that be like, to feel as if he had a home, a woman to share his life with? They had a purpose for living, for suffering the fires of hell: to rid the world of its greatest evil-Xavier. For a short time he could simply be with Ivory, enjoy walking with her through a beautiful garden.
Ivory glanced sideways at him and then quickly averted her eyes, her long lashes hiding her expression.
Razvan stopped to push the long fall of silken hair from her face and back over her shoulder. "You are hiding from me."
Color rose, turning her pale skin to a soft rose. "Maybe. A little."
"I had no idea you were a little shy. You are such a fierce warrior and wholly confident, I thought you would be that way in all things."
She shrugged. "I have little experience with men-most of it long ago and not good."
He grinned at her, a slow, heart-stopping smile that revealed his straight white teeth, and suddenly seemed a little shy as well. "My body has a tremendous amount of experience, but not my heart-and not me. Truthfully, I feel like a young boy on his first date."
She lifted her chin. "It is my first date."
He regarded her steadily, his dark eyes drifting over the exquisite bone structure of her face. His gaze settled on her full lips. "Then we must make it memorable." He couldn't conceive of forgetting this moment, this one time with her, surrounded by the memory of his garden and so close to her that he could breathe the same breath.
She lifted a hand to his face, worn and lined, as if he still couldn't change that look, even in his dreams-even in his memories. He had forgotten what his face had looked like in his younger days, forgotten being a carefree youth. He could only give her what he was now, and hope that it was enough for her.
"You will always be enough for me," she whispered, meaning it. "I had stopped dreaming of my prince long ago."
"What was he like?"
She smiled, her eyes warming. "Tall, of course, with long, black, flowing hair and broad shoulders. He was a great warrior and he rescued me from my tower where my brothers had imprisoned me. He wanted me to ride beside him on his snorting, rearing steed, a sturdy animal that blew smoke through his nostrils and pawed the ground with impatience to rush headlong into battle." She laughed softly at a young girl's dreams.
Razvan made a face. "I am tall, but my hair is streaked with white, and I cannot say I am an accomplished warrior. But I would surely rescue you and take you off to ride beside me anywhere we went, including battle."
Her fingertips went to one particular thick white streak in his hair. She rubbed the silky strands back and forth between her thumb and index finger. "A warrior is not someone who merely fights, Razvan. You have the heart of a warrior and the soul of a poet. I find you fascinating." She dropped her gaze. "And tempting."
There was a moment when his breath caught in his lungs. Tempting? He tempted her? There was no shadow of evil inside his body. Nothing stood between them and she confessed to him that she was tempted by him? Ivory's stark honesty moved him as nothing else could.
His palm curled around the nape of her neck, drawing her closer to him. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his face, could see-not just feel-the softness of her skin. He had more discipline than any man walking the face of the earth,