My body jerked toward him like a puppet on tight strings, as if Baudelaire’s words in Vale’s dusky voice were a command in a language I didn’t know I knew. Tiny steps in satin slippers carried me whispering across the ballroom floor, until the rounded skirt of my gown brushed his knees like a satin jellyfish.

“That’s more like it.”

He whipped his cane around me, holding me caged with both arms tight against my corseted waist and the polished wood at my back. His black tuxedo pants dented my dress, the distorted black-and-white designs briefly reminding me of a zebra that had lost the game and twitched under a lion’s heavy paws.

“But aren’t we fighting?”

“If you wish, bébé. Use your claws to punish me. I don’t mind.”

“The prince—” I started lamely.

“Forget him. He’s been detained.” He looked up, winked at me. “I am a bit of a prince myself, you know.”

“Prince of the brigands?”

“Prince of the Brigands of Ruin. Prince of the wild moors. And my palace is a hell of a lot bigger than his.”

I raised one eyebrow, suppressed a smile. “And how big is it?”

He chuckled. “Enormous, bébé. I’ll show you one day. My palace is as big as the sky.”

“Then why don’t you claim it?”

He shook his head when I broke an unspoken rule of our flirting. But he recovered quickly, a golden fire dancing in his eyes. “Maybe you’re right, bébé. Maybe I should start claiming the things I see as mine.”

He jerked the cane forward and dropped it, and I fell into his open arms as it clattered to the floor. His hands were clever as he spun me, and I ended up sitting across his lap in the black-and-white cloud of my dress, his arm around my back. My mouth was still open in surprise, and before I could close it, he was kissing me, his other hand firm on my chin to hold me, just so.

Oh, God, that kiss. I’d had plenty of blood since yesterday’s absinthe, but I felt suddenly as drunk and dizzy and reeling as if I had just completed a wild tarantella dance, spinning and spinning and spinning. He had kissed me before—rough as the brick in the hallway, soft as the swing of a trapeze in the breeze. But this kiss matched the cozy, heart-red velvet lair that held us, a little world outside of real life.

If Lenoir’s absinthe was glitter and fairies and sunbeams, Vale’s kiss was the opposite: endless star-strewn skies and the intimacy of turning your face away from eternity to steal a moment, dark and secret. His mouth tasted of spices, of cinnamon and chai and mint, of uncut cocoa and bourbon vanilla and not-quite-blood-but-close-enough. I was careful of my teeth despite the furious passion he called forth, desperate to keep the kiss, catch the moment, intent on its path like a comet blazing a sure arc through the night.

He kissed me slowly, and I understood that he knew it, too, knew that it was precious as only stolen things could be. The prince had bought my time and, so far as he knew, my body, but Vale knew his business and would take what others didn’t watch closely enough. He turned his head, his tongue dipping deep to taste me, caress me, heat me from within with the branding burn of cherry-hot iron. But he didn’t taste of metal and blood to me; he only tasted of himself. And I wanted more.

The hand around my waist stroked down to explore my curves through the airy layers of tulle and satin. He groaned but couldn’t reach me, even though he pulled me tighter against his body. My fingers were tangled in his cravat, pulling it untied of their own volition as I gasped into his mouth. The starch of his collar made my fingertips gritty, and I made a little growl as my talon caught in the knotted silk.

“If your hands need work, move lower down, bébé. We don’t have enough time for the grand reveal.” Holding my jaw, he kissed the corner of my mouth and moved down, slowly, softly, his lips murmuring over my throat. “Not that it’s going to stop us.”

“I thought—”

“Dangerous thing, thinking. Just feel.”

He tipped me back over his arm, letting my head fall against the bench to expose my throat and arch my back. He pulled off his glove with his teeth and ran rough fingertips down my neck and over my collarbones, down to where the heart-shaped neckline of my corset forced my breasts up deliciously on a clever little shelf.

“Close your eyes, bébé.”

“Isn’t it my turn to participate?”

“Not yet. You perform for everyone, all the time. Let me perform for you. You’ll get your chance to star, I promise.”

I searched his eyes, but it was as hopeless as hunting for something lost on the moors. I was mesmerized by the hunger and an odd kindness there. Did I trust him?

I trusted him enough with my body . . . if not yet my heart.

I closed my eyes and tipped my head back all the way, giving myself up to him for the second time. He slid me down so my ass was on the bench, my back arched over the bulge in his lap, and my head on the other side of the softly cushioned seat. I didn’t know what to do with my arms, but he placed them, one by one, over my head. My legs stretched out under the poof of the skirt, and I kicked off the little slippers to rub the soles of my feet on the velvet, the closest thing I’d felt in years to walking barefoot in mown grass. My body had never felt so alive, so open, so straining and wanting. I was willing to let him have his way again—for a time.

I thought he would go for my breasts, taking advantage of the benefits of gravity and a supportive corset. I held my breath, waiting for the sweet rasp of fingertips on aching nipples. Instead, his palm cupped my jaw, his thumb tracing my eyebrows. One finger brushed over my false eyelashes like a butterfly kiss, then drew a line down my nose and over each cheekbone. As he traced my lips ever so gently, he murmured, “So beautiful. So beautiful, bébé.”

I lifted a corner of my lip, showing a fang—half dare, half self-pity.

“Even that. Ferocious little tiger. The men of my tribe like fierce women.”

He touched a finger to the fang but didn’t test its sharpness. I could feel my heart beating in my ears, my breath coming fast and forcing my ribs against the corset. I squirmed, wishing for his hands in the places that called for them. All this touching and tenderness was a fine gift, but now was not the time for pleasantries. The beast inside me was done with worship and ready for action.

I sat up, sinuously arching and twisting to straddle him, my knees on either side of his hips.

He laughed and held my hips tight. “Like that, is it?”

“You said you liked fierce women.”

“Did I mention I like them in my lap?”

“You talk too much.”

He started to say something else, but I kissed him first, sloppy and open-mouthed and injecting every single thing I wanted into the way my tongue swirled and plunged against his. He moaned and rocked his hips, and somewhere under the poof of my skirt, I felt his response and settled more firmly down. Oh, yes. That was exactly what I wanted. Knees spread wide, I put weight in my ass and rubbed, slowly, up and down his length. For the first time in Sang, I had cause to thank Aztarte or Saint Ermenegilda or whoever made up the rules that there were no germs and no accidental pregnancies, at least not for Bludmen. My body knew exactly what it was doing, and what it was doing now was getting ready to fuck a brigand insensible.

I took what I wanted, ferociously, unapologetically, and he loved it. His hands clenched my hips, grabbed my ass, helped me move, grinding with me in time with the orchestra’s waltz. I had always liked long hair, but the curves of his skull under my hands had a sensual quality, an intimacy, that I found interesting. I ran a finger along his earrings and captured his jaw to hold him while I changed angles. He lifted me a little, and my hands fell onto his broad shoulders, onto a tuxedo jacket that hid too much of his body for my taste. I tried to pull it off, but he grabbed my hands, one on each side.

He spoke directly into my panting mouth. “Time is short, bébé. Use your imagination. For now.”

When he loosed me, I grabbed the back bench behind his head to steady myself. He used a thumb to flick one breast over the edge of my corset, his lips tightening over the taut nipple. I went still as he sucked, his teeth lightly scraping as he lifted the other breast from the corset, too. I couldn’t breathe as he toyed with one, suckled the other, licked them with wide strokes of his tongue. While his hands and mouth were busy, I reached to the front of my skirt and yanked the ribbons that held it in place. The knot came undone, and the grand skirt billowed away like a magnolia falling to the ground.

Vale whistled low against my chest, making me shiver. His hands ran down the corset and over the skimpy, lacy undershorts.

“Damn, bébé. I like your dark magic.”

“That’s not magic. That’s my ass.”

He gripped both cheeks, kneading for a moment before jerking me close against him, just a few layers of cloth between us.

It was entirely too much of a barrier for my taste, and my hands went straight for his buttons. He caught my fingers, brought them to his face, and ran my fingertips over his lips.

“Kiss me, bébé.”

I took him in another messy kiss, and he reached between us, the sound of crisp suiting and metal buttons shushed in the quiet dark. I knew he was free when he sighed, one hand moving back and forth briefly. I sat down again, savoring the feeling of his body pressing against the ruffles and right over the place he’d once licked me into ecstasy. His fingers ran up the insides of my thighs, dipping with familiar intimacy under the lace edge to stroke me.

“Mon dieu, bébé. So hot and wet. So ready.”

“Je le sais.”

I sat up a little on my knees, and he obliged by pulling the bloomers as far aside as he could and guiding me back down. The press of him, right there, right against me, was maddeningly delicious, and I rubbed, just a little, enjoying the suspense and inevitability of what was to come. With his hands firm on my hips and my fingers gripping the back of the bench to either side of his face, he turned to kiss the inside of my wrist. Our eyes caught, and it was like falling, and ever so gently, I eased down, taking him inch by hot, delicious inch inside me.