Wicked as She Wants (41 page)

With every thrust, my breasts pressed into the bench, the velvet raking my hard nipples, making each breath a gasp. When Casper grasped my corset strings and pulled them tighter, I went dizzy for a moment, my eyes rolling up and stars dancing in my vision. I reeled from the pull, the push, his thrusting, the velvet, the wheels grinding below us. I felt like a bludmare running away with the reins pulled taut by a masterly rider.

I turned my head to the other side, and the glittering fall of my dress filled my vision. I was lightheaded, furious, hungry, dizzy, pulsing with sweetness inside, and building again to that same tumultuous crescendo we had found the last time. For a moment, my eyes saw beyond to a snow-covered hill glittering in the moonlight, and I imagined Casper by my side, taking me on the blood altar in the clearing, the most ancient and primal rite of my people and the way it was said the strongest Tsarinas were spawned. For the space of a few frantic heartbeats, I smelled victory, the sugar snow falling like stars, cold and sparkling against the velvet darkness, and then I was there, hot and wet and desperate, taken over with the sweetness, thrumming deep inside, crying out, pulsing in time with Casper’s ferocious thrusts as I shuddered beneath him.

His hand clutched my wrists where they lay limp, pressing them possessively and intimately into my back as
he growled and bucked along with my release. When he finally exhaled and fell across me, I was breathing deep, heavy, and slow, my eyes glazed over as I tried to float back to earth. I felt sated and limp and tranquil. And he was damned heavy.

“Let me get that for you,” he said, and I sighed as he untied the knot and freed my hands.

I sat up on my knees, still reeling, and flexed the feeling back into my fingers. With a shy smile, he handed me a fine handkerchief that matched his coat, and I felt only a little guilty as I cleaned myself off and let it flutter out the carriage window. My necklace had bought it, after all.

“Do you need help with your dress?” I turned to look at him. He sat on the opposite bench, his pants back to rights. It was a little fascinating, how he was an entirely different creature from what he had been a few short moments ago. The tenderness and humor had returned to his eyes, the dimples back in his smile. He was still powerful and confident—that would never go away. But there was just something lazy and calm about a sated hunter. One can’t hold on to the ferocity forever. I slipped my petticoats on and settled back into the cushion to put my feet in his lap.

“I don’t care to put it on yet.” I stretched as far as the carriage would allow. “What’s the point? There’s time enough.”

He leaned back, one hand on my ankle. “I like the way you think, sugarplum.”

I grinned lazily and looked down, and that’s when I noticed that my white corset was covered all over in black smears. I found similar stains on my wrists and hips.

“What . . . have you done to me?”

He bit his lip and tried really hard not to laugh, and I felt my first rumble of anger.

“It was Verusha’s idea. She said my hands weren’t dark enough, that someone might notice. So she rubbed ink into them. And I guess, with the sweat, it . . . rubbed off.”

“Ink. I’m on the way to the Sugar Snow Ball covered in ink?”

He covered a snort of laughter, badly, in a cough. “Isn’t there some way to clean it off? I don’t have another handkerchief. Maybe some snow?”

I shook his hand off my foot and gave him a halfhearted kick. “Idiot. There’s no snow. The first snow comes tonight. That’s the whole point.” I spat on my finger and rubbed at the stains that might actually show, the ones on my wrists. “Ink on your hands. Ink that will rub off. Fools. This is too important to mess up. This is—”

He caught my wrist. I hissed and tried to yank it away, but his grip was stronger than I remembered. His voice was soft and deadly. “I may not have you tied up and whimpering, but that doesn’t mean I’m your subject, princess.”

I went still all over. I had to. Damn him.

I swallowed hard and snatched my hand away, but we both knew it was only because he let me. We glared at each other, the air still between us, the crunching of stones under the carriage wheels the only sound. I rubbed my wrist and narrowed my eyes at him.

“You’re turning into a damned fine Bludman,” I finally said.

He grinned again, ruining the image. “I’ve got a good teacher,” he said.

36

The next time I pulled back the carriage’s curtain, I was surprised to see that it was dark and we were nearly to our destination. It was odd, how it seemed as if we’d been riding together forever, but also as if we’d had only a few stolen minutes. The forest was the last step of the journey. We’d be there soon, provided nothing tragic happened. There was a carriage ahead of us and another behind, so at least we would arrive in a crowd. The less we stood out, the better. Which meant, I supposed, that I needed to put on my dress.

“It’s almost time.” I checked my wrists for more of his damnable ink and started hitching up my dress to step in. “Don’t you dare touch your coat. Do you know any magic?”

He wiggled his black-streaked hands. “Only with the piano and your body.”

I rolled my eyes as I stepped into my gown and gently pulled it over my arms. The long sleeves would cover most of his mess, thank heavens. I tried to think about what I remembered of the Sugar Snow Ball, of the accommodations made for the city guests. There would have to be toilets, of course, and someplace with mirrors and water.
I also knew that there was a way for couples to disappear discreetly, so at least we would have excuses if our behavior was strange or conspiratorial. Still . . .

“We have to do something about your hands.” I wiggled in my dress, unable to reach the tiny buttons running up my spine. “And quickly.”

He grinned, a perfect merging of his old recklessness and his new self-possessed smugness. “I took a lesson from my old rival and stocked my waistcoat.” Barely brushing the fabric, he pulled a bit of cloth from the pocket of his vest, a pair of black kid gloves that I remembered from his room at the Seven Scars. “I hate the damn things, but at least they’re the right color.”

“Try to keep your hands hidden, then. A country rube in gloves is better than an abomination with dirty hands.”

He stilled, his eyes searing me. “I’m not an abomination. I’m a Bludman.”

I inclined my head. “Just so.”

He pulled on the gloves, and I turned my back to him. With a minimum of fumbling, he buttoned up my dress, ending with a searing kiss on the nape of my neck. And it was a good thing, too, as the carriage jolted to a stop, knocking us both over. Casper pulled on his peacock jacket as the bludmares outside screamed in greeting and challenge, their calls answered from nearby rivals. Peeking past the curtains, I was met with the curious face of an unfamiliar girl just a few feet away, leaning out her own lamplit carriage window. With a gasp, she popped back behind her curtain. It had to be her first ball, and I smiled to myself, remembering how excited I had been finally to see what it was that made the adults’ eyes twinkle every year when the air began to turn cold and smell like excitement.

“Your mask,” Casper said, and I growled to myself for being so foolish. I hoped the girl was too young to be as obsessed with my family as the old Muscovy barons had been. I slipped the cool porcelain back over my face and adjusted the feathers above. My best strategy was not to take it off again until I needed my teeth for murder.

Before I could likewise remind Casper, he hissed. He reached beyond me, his arm brushing the heavy beading of my dress with the sound of rustling leaves as he held out his own peacock mask, broken into three pieces.

“You can’t yell at me,” he said with a rueful chuckle. “After all, you were on this bench, so it’s your fault, not mine.”

With a finger under his chin, I turned his head this way and that. “Do you look different now to yourself?” I asked. “Would someone remember your face?”

“I can’t tell. I stopped looking about a year ago. Every time I did, I saw a new person there whom I hated with various levels of regret.”

“And now? Do you hate yourself now?”

He shook my finger off, pretending to snap at it. “Nope. Feels good. Do I look different to you?”

“Always and never the same. I would know better if I’d been awake for the last four years.”

The pieces of ceramic dropped from his gloved hands, and my fingers roved to my own mask, feeling the impersonal smoothness. I had never been one to hide, and I almost envied him his sudden but unwelcome freedom. It was unheard of to arrive at the Sugar Snow Ball without a mask, even if some of the revelers favored dainty lace strips or modified eye patches. We would have to find
something before he made a fool of himself or was refused entry.

“My lord, my lady! Will you descend?”

The voice from outside startled us, and in a fit of inspiration, I said, “Quick. Rub the ink over your eyes where a mask would go. It will have to do. You can’t be seen with your face fully bare. It’s tradition.”

He took off his gloves, licked his fingers, and grimaced at the taste. Rubbing across his temples, over his eyes, and over the top of his nose produced a raw, primitive mask shape in dark hunter green. It made his blue eyes pop, brighter, wilder, and more shadowy than ever.

“Well?” he asked.

I fought the urge to kiss him again and unlocked the carriage door. “It’ll have to do,” I said.

It was easy enough to
blend in with the crowd that strolled leisurely down the paved path and into the shadow of the Ice Forest. The women rustled like birds, their dresses reflecting the shining lanterns and moonlight in startling shimmers that left spots dancing in my eyes. The men were likewise resplendent, if more tame, their waistcoats and cravats shouting with color from staid jackets and breeches of chocolate, navy, and olive. Casper was one of a few dandies, outshone in brightness and glitter only by a tall, thin pair of gentlemen with dashing tailcoats and carefully tended facial hair under their half-masks. I recognized them from past balls, as they were much-celebrated dancers and fashion trend-setters in the city. Feeling their black-painted eyes on me, I turned my mask to Casper, clutching his arm harder than I meant to. It was a credit to him that he didn’t complain.

I had never walked this walk, had never heard the women chatting and gossiping about last year’s ball and how Ravenna’s gown had taken half a year to embroider. If the whispers were correct, Ravenna’s mask had been tatted from a unicorn’s tail hairs, and my brother, Alex, was well enough to attend, which had never happened during my time in the palace. Casper tried to speak to me, but I shushed him and tried not to breathe. Every word I heard was another weapon in my arsenal, another tiny talon to take down my prey. These bright creatures would know things the papers did not.

The forest closed overhead, the ancient trees climbing as tall as the basilica in the city where we’d kissed yesterday, back when things had been easy and before we had lost Keen. The way Casper was scanning the crowd, I could tell he was thinking about her, too. As if maybe she was still trailing us, as she always had, skulking in the shadows and waiting to accost us with her strange accent and odder words. But had she been there, we would have smelled her, as every other Bludman would have. The girl would have been a moment’s work to drain as fortification before the party, much as the gentlemen on the
Maybuck
had taken a shot of whiskey before claiming their women.

The night was even darker under the canopy of boughs. Lanterns hung from the trees, providing an ethereal, bobbing light that reminded me of childhood fairy tales. Some of them were pierced tin, some paper globes, some little braziers on chains. There were even a few Moravian stars that made me smile to myself, thinking of my time with Casper in the inn. I would never look at a glowing star the same way again. He squeezed my arm, and I realized that we shared that memory, that it might possibly mean as
much to him as it did to me. It had been his rebirth, sure. But it had changed me, too, which I came to realize more and more. As if in taking in so much of his blood, I had taken in part of his humanity. My lack of fury at being an object of change was itself telling. His smile told me that perhaps he didn’t regret it so much as he had before.

Ahead, the trail forked, the ladies taking the lefthand route and the gentlemen carrying on to the right. I had only a moment to glance desperately at Casper before we were forced apart around a stone fountain bubbling with blood-tinged champagne. I was caught in a group of about twenty other ladies, but it felt twice as crowded because of the giant bell-like skirts that were fashionable just then. I didn’t see another dress in the clingy fishtail style I wore. Even if they didn’t recognize me immediately, they would one day remember my dress, were I successful.

“Do you think the snow will even fall this year?” a tall lady clad in wine red asked a matron in indigo.

The grand dame bit her lip and sighed, eyes rolled heavenward. “We can only hope Aztarte hears our prayers,” she answered ambiguously, leaving the woman in red sorely vexed.