“Maybe we’re not so different, you and I.”
It was so far from the truth. So close to what his heart longed to believe. Bastien couldn’t help himself. He shifted a palm to her face, brushing away her tears with his thumb.
“Tell me why you have Anabel’s ribbon,” Celine said, her green eyes shimmering. “Please.”
Bastien’s grip tightened, his hands cradling her chin. He abhorred the need to explain himself. Despised the meaning behind it. “Reach into my left breast pocket.”
Her brow furrowing, Celine withdrew a length of butter-yellow silk from its place over his heart. Stitched on one corner of the worn handkerchief was a set of initials:
ESG
Confusion gathered along the bridge of her nose. “What—”
“It belonged to my sister, Émilie,” Bastien said. “She gave it to me the day she died.” He took a breath, the air burning through his lungs the instant he uttered her name. “I carry it with me always. It gives me strength.”
A moment passed in silence. Celine waited for him to speak, as if she knew no pithy words of condolence would make a difference, even after more than a decade.
“She died for me.” He fought to conceal his pain, as he always did. To make light of it, so no one would know how the memories of his past still haunted his present.
Celine cast him a searching glance. “You shouldn’t hide how you feel, Bastien. Not from me. I promise never to judge you for it.”
“And why would you make such a promise to a boy you barely know?”
“I think you know why.” She did not look away.
Again he was held in thrall. Here was true power. The power to captivate without a word.
In that moment, Bastien no longer wished to hide from Celine. Not anymore. With her, his pain was not a weakness for an enemy to exploit. It was a strength, just as Émilie would have wanted.
“I feel . . . shattered when I think of my sister,” he said, his voice graveled with unchecked emotion. “Like my heart is made of glass, the pieces splintering through my chest.” Each word was an unburdening. A truth longing to be set free.
Celine nodded, her expression wistful. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all have hearts made of diamonds?”
“Unbreakable.” Bastien’s lips crooked into a half smile.
In her eyes, he saw an answered question.
Love is an affliction.
“We shouldn’t,” he said softly.
“But we will.”
“No.” Still Bastien could not stop himself from touching her. From letting his fingers slide along her heated skin. “We won’t.”
“Yes, we will. Just like you’ll help me set my trap at the masquerade ball.”
“I will not.”
Celine leaned into his caress. “Such a liar.” She pressed the full length of her body to his, a flame igniting in her gaze. “And a coward,” she breathed beneath his chin, the sensation curling down his spine.
Before Bastien could offer a rejoinder, Celine surged onto her toes and slanted her lips to his. The instant they met, she softened in his arms, molding against him. He surrendered, the rest of the world melting away. When her tongue brushed across his lips, Bastien groaned, no longer capable of restraint.
This was not a kiss of curiosity, nor was it one of tentative exploration. It was wild. Reckless. And Bastien could do nothing but respond in kind. He’d wanted this the first night they met. When Celine had grabbed his cravat. When she’d stared him down—expecting Sébastien Saint Germain to cower in fear—she’d stolen his splintered heart.
All in one perfect instant.
Bastien lifted her from the floor, his hands hardening as they wrapped her legs about his waist. He pushed through the double doors with Celine in his arms, swallowing them in sudden darkness. Barely aware of his surroundings, he crossed the room toward his uncle’s four-poster bed. Amusement flared through him, hot and fast. Uncle Nico would no doubt rage about this lack of respect.
It would be worth it.
They sank onto the cool sheets. Bastien kissed Spanish words into the skin of Celine’s throat, promises no mortal man could keep, vows of a poetic fool. His fingers loosened the pins buried in her crown of midnight curls, the metal pieces flying free, her hair coiling about them like a cloak of darkness. She tore at the buttons of his shirt, the sound of rending fabric causing Bastien to smile into her bared shoulder.
“I liked that shirt,” he rasped beside her ear.
“Then say a prayer for its immortal soul.”
Bastien laughed. Every touch of her skin, every brush of his hand, sent another wave of desire coursing through his veins.
In the farthest reaches of his mind, Bastien considered what this would mean. He risked little by taking Celine to bed. She risked everything. Her reputation, her future, possibly even her well-being. It was something Odette often remarked upon. The injustice of it all.
He thought about stopping, even as he gathered her skirts in his hands. “Celine.”
“Bastien.” She arched into him, her nails raking down his arms, the sensation turning his sight black. He gripped behind her knees, relishing the shock in her gasp.
He should put a stop to this. He knew he should. “Is this all right?”
“Yes.”
His hands grazed higher. “This?” The blood roared through his chest.
“Yes.”
His thumbs brushed across the soft skin between her thighs. “And . . . this?”
“Bastien.” Celine’s head fell back, her body trembling. “Please, I . . . what?”
The question in her voice caught his attention. She sat up abruptly, squinting through the shadows on the opposite wall. Then she pushed Bastien away, a bloodcurdling scream ripping from her throat.
Bastien whirled to his feet, reaching for his revolver in a seamless motion. Then he followed her gaze.
The darkness across the way was thick and deep. The contrast of light streaming from the open doors at the entrance of the chamber made it difficult to see past the end of the bed. It took a moment for Bastien to detect the source of Celine’s scream. To realize what tore a wrenching sob from her now.
Bastien stumbled to his knees, his revolver clattering onto the Aubusson carpet.
It always ends in blood.
There—along the balcony of books high above head—lay the remnants of an arm wrapped in broken willow branches, blood dripping from its torn socket. Resting atop the banister sat the crimson remains of a severed human head, its features mauled by the claws of an animal.