“Jane…”
A moment passed.
“Jane. Sweetheart.” Gently he shook her.
“Yes,” she muttered groggily.
“We will talk now.”
Her slight catch of breath was encouraging. “Really?”
“Yes, really. When you first came to me, you mentioned a book. Where is the book now?”
“Oh. That’s what you want to talk about.” She sounded disappointed. “I left it at the palace in Delfina. I don’t think that matters, though. It was the right book, just newer. And blank.”
He frowned. “When you read it, the story was about me?”
“Yes. About your enslavement. There was a pink bookmark in the middle, and that’s the page that told about your imprisonment. Then, written by the same hand, was a note from you, commanding me to help you, to come to you. The rest of the pages were blank, though.”
He’d wondered before if he’d written the thing and forgotten. For all he knew, the witches had cursed him to forget everything but what they did to him. Why had the ink disappeared when Jane had shown up in Delfina, though? Because she’d arrived before he’d actually written the book? But, if he’d commanded her to come here—commanded her specifically—he would have met her already. And she would have left him.
He tensed. He did not like that notion and he quickly discarded it. He hadn’t said “come back to me.” He’d said “come to me.” So…magic might have shown her to him, and like the book, he’d forgotten.
Still, the fear that he could lose her took root and refused to leave him. “Do you want to stay here with me, Jane?” He geared for battle. A battle he would fight viciously to win. She had a life he knew nothing about, and were the situation reversed, were he stuck in her world, he would have to find a way to leave to avenge his family and home. And he would have stolen away with her, he thought.
Now she was the one to tense. “Okay, I could answer your question with a question of my own. Do you want me to stay? But I won’t. Because I shouldn’t have to qualify my opinion. I’m not a coward.” She licked her lips, as she did each time she felt desire for him, and he felt the hot slide of her tongue on his chest. “So. Here it is. Yes. I want to stay with you. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Thank the gods. He had worried for nothing. “I am glad.” Inadequate words. “I want you to stay with me, too.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that?”
“Jane, when have I ever just said anything?”
“Well, men say stuff they don’t mean to get women into bed. All the time.”
Some did, yes, but he never had. He’d always been up front, offering a single night of his attention, his body, but nothing else, and no longer. That was it, the end. Although, to get Jane into his bed again, he’d do and say just about anything.
“I will always be honest with you. Always. As long as you desire me. Stop, and I will change my dealings with you.”
She laughed, the sexiest purr he’d ever heard. “Thank you for the warning.”
Having her near him was arousing. Feeling her lick him, more so. But that laugh…he was hard as a rock in seconds. “I want you with me, Jane. In bed and out.”
A tremor drove through her, vibrating into him, relief replacing her humor. “I don’t know what I would have done if you’d tried to take away my magic green card. And before you ask, that means get rid of me.”
“Get rid of you? Sweetheart, I’m doing everything in my power to keep you.”
“Really?” Another soft entreaty.
He would have rolled his eyes if he weren’t so happy with her. “Really.”
“Thank you. I mean it. Thank you.”
“And now you thank me. I should be thanking you. And I do. Humbly. You have become the reason I live, Jane.”
He thought he heard her sniffle. She buried her head in the hollow of his neck, rubbing her cheek against him. “So what’s next?”
“I need to return to the kingdom of Elden. I think my siblings are there. Trapped, perhaps. I don’t know. All I know is that, deep down, I am so hungry to slay the new king, I tremble. Like eating, this is a need. I must do it.”
She didn’t hesitate. “I’ll help you.”
He did not want her involved in such a violent, dangerous plan, but he did not want her out of his sight, either. “I need to find a way to keep you bound to me and to this land first. Should I write another book for you?” His magic was stronger now.
“If you do, we will be operating under the assumption that I’ll return, no matter what we do or try.”
“And perhaps such an assumption is what would send you back.” Damn this! There had to be a way. “I wonder what spell I used to bring you here. If I knew, I would know if you would leave after a certain time, or after I am truly free. Or if I bound you to the land forever. I remember so many things, but not that, not yet, and I cannot risk another spell. It might interfere with the first.”
She eased up, her hair tumbling over her bare shoulder, golden moonlight illuminating her. “When I first read the book and realized it wasn’t a joke, I wondered how you could have known me when we’d never met.”
“And you figured out the answer.” His words were a statement, not a question. He’d known his woman was smart. She was the perfect combination of beauty and intelligence.
“Yes. I dreamed of you before I ever read the book. Saw you chained, but never spoke to you. Now I think they were visions rather than dreams.”
“But why have visions of me before I used my magic?”
“Maybe part of me crossed into this world long ago. Some things are familiar to me, like the ghost trees and ogres. Maybe you saw me, too, and that’s how your magic knew to focus on me.”
“That makes sense, but I wonder how you crossed over.”
She gulped. “I…I…”
He reached up to cup her cheek. “Don’t fear, Jane. We will figure this out. You won’t leave. I won’t let you.”
“There’s something I should tell you. About me. My job. You might change your mind about me.” She traced the tip of her finger along his sternum. “I said I wasn’t a coward and that means full disclosure, even about this. The things I did, horrible things, to learn about your—”
“I told you before, Jane, that your job—” A pang exploded through his head, silencing him, reminding him of what had happened after he’d fought the ogres here in this very spot. The same spot he’d first drunk from Jane. Pain, then opening his eyes in a new location.
He grunted. What was…? Another pang, this one rattling his brain against his skull.
The cage holding his memories and abilities was crumbling, bit by bit.
“What’s wrong?” Jane eased to her elbow and smoothed his hair from his brow, her expression soft and luminous with concern. “Are you sick?”
Her emotions were in turmoil, yet she cast aside her own concerns to nurture him. No wonder he’d fallen for her so quickly and so easily. “Drinking your blood empowers me as never before,” he confessed, “but as more of my memories and abilities escape, I experience a…wee little pinch of sensation.”
Even as he spoke, one of those “wee little pinches” migrated from his head to his chest, and he hissed a breath. That one had been stronger than any of the others.
“Oh, Nicolai. Now I know why you were reluctant to drink from me. I’m so sorry I made you.”
“I’m not. And you didn’t make me, Jane. I wanted to. Badly. Besides, that isn’t why. Want you healthy.”
A sound of frustration. “Now you’re doing what you said you wouldn’t, and weaving pretty words to make me happy.”
Another pang, another grunt.
“What can I do? Besides never feed you again?”
“Stay with me. And you will feed me again.” Every day for eternity. “This will pass.”
“I’ll stay,” she whispered. “Don’t worry. And, Nicolai, we’ve never talked about my job before.”