Moving her to the side, he stalked past her and grabbed the monster by the shoulders. She should have run. She should have turned tail, forgotten the food she’d left behind, and run back to the boardinghouse. But her feet wouldn’t move. Instead she watched with fascination as the two men fought.

The stranger drew back a meaty fist and punched the monster in the face. The monster fell back, swearing, and then leapt on the other man. The two toppled to the snow, punching and kicking. She inched to the mouth of the alley, ready to run if the monster was victorious. Even though she knew she should escape while she had the chance, she felt responsible for the man who’d jumped into this situation. She’d never meant for him to ride to her rescue and put his own safety in harm’s way. If the monster killed him, his blood would be on her hands.

She needn’t have feared. The stranger quickly got the upper hand in the fight and she watched with horror as he bashed the monster’s head against the wall over and over with a bone-chilling brutality. The monster crumpled to the snow, blood leaking from his head.

That one would not be raping and murdering any other women. Not ever again.

The man turned and pointed at her. Inanely, Evangeline noticed he had blood on his hands. He stalked to her. “You. You did that to me, didn’t you? Somehow you made me insane with rage and called me to you.”

“No.” She held up a hand to ward him off. “I didn’t. Not all of it, anyway. I never called to you. I never meant for you to come charging into the fight. I was just trying to get away.”

He cocked his head to the side. “So you admit you manipulated my emotion. You’ve got some kind of magick, don’t you? You’re Jeweled.” He grabbed her and turned her around, yanking her shirt up to reveal the jewel embedded at the small of her back. He held her firm, despite her squirming.

“Let me go,” she yelled at him.

He let her go and she stumbled forward. She turned, casting him a look of rage and groped for the bread in the snowdrift. “I suppose you’ll turn me in. Have my head cut off on the palace steps. Would that make you happy? Would that give you justice? It’s not my fault, you know. You don’t deserve to die for having brown eyes, do you? Well, I don’t deserve to die for having magick. Do you want to see my blood run just because I happen to have been born with a specific talent?”

The man hung his head, suddenly looking weary. “No. I don’t want that.”

She stilled, holding her half loaf close to her chest. The regret she’d felt from him initially had returned. “Who are you?” Her guess was that he was some animal who’d done horrible things during the riots and now felt guilty. There was something familiar about him, as if she’d seen him somewhere before.

“I’m—” He shook his head. “No. Just go on. Get out of here.” He waved at the mouth of the alley with a bloody hand.

“You’re letting me . . . go?”

“Of course.” He looked up at her sharply. His face was brutal, not quite handsome, though it was compelling. His eyes were keen—intelligent. “What did you think I was—” Understanding overcame his face. “Go. Get out here. I have no quarrel with you.”

Heaviness laced his words. It made her study him a second longer, wonder about him.

“Go!” he barked.

She went.

She shook her head, her teeth chattering. “We already used our water allotment.”

He pushed a hand through his hair in an expression of frustration. “Yes. All right, take off those clothes and get into the bed. Cover up and get warm.”

She handed over the food and started doing exactly what he’d said. “There are stores open now. People are out, but not in hordes yet.” She paused. “The beheadings have been suspended because of the weather, of course.”

He caught her by the upper arms and forced her to look up at him. “What happened to you out there today? Damn it, I knew I should have gone with you.”

She looked down at his feet and licked her lips. She didn’t want to tell him about what had happened because she didn’t want to relive it, but he needed to know. “Let me finish undressing and I’ll tell you.”

He released her and soon she was snuggled deep into the bed, finding all the warmth she possibly could. She sighed, resting her head on the pillow, and ignored the gnawing in her stomach as she told him about cutting through the alley, meeting the rapist, using her magick, and calling that strange man to her.

Anatol listened to it all in silence, stroking his fingers through her hair. “It was risky to use your magick, but I see you had no choice. You were lucky.”

“I just wonder who that man was,” she murmured, nuzzling into the pillow. The worst of her shakes seemed to have passed.

“Can’t know for sure.” He paused. “But it sounds like it could have been Gregorio Vikhin.”

“What?” She raised her head from the pillow. “No, he wasn’t Vikhin. That man was not an intellectual. He looked more like a street fighter.”

“Looks can be deceiving. In fact, Gregorio Vikhin is often described as looking like a knuckle dragger. Big, brutish. Make no mistake, his mind is as sharp as they come.”

“Why do you think it was him?”

Anatol threaded her hair through his fingers and watched it drop to the pillow. “You described him as regretful over your circumstances, as though he’d caused it. I’ve heard that Gregorio is happy for sparking the revolution but not so happy about the execution.” Anatol paused and winced. “That was not a pun I meant to make.”

“So, you think he’s walking the streets in the snow, grieving the fate of the nobility?”

“Maybe not the nobles, per say. More like grieving the loss of his people’s nobility. The ravening mob has turned something that could have been beautiful into a chaotic bloodbath.”

Anger sparked. She bolted upright. “Beautiful? How could you think any of this could be beautiful, Anatol?”

“It’s a beautiful thing to put the fate of the people into their hands, to create a government of the people and for the people. This is a point on which I hope one day we agree. The time of the aristocracy is over.”

She knew her eyes were flashing with rage. “Yes, it’s just the execution that’s lacking.”

He winced again.

“I will never see eye to eye with you on this point, Anatol. If I could go back to the way things were before the revolt, I would.”

“I’m hoping that as time passes you might begin to see life in another way, Evangeline. In a larger way. I know you’re capable of it.”

“Don’t condescend to me, Anatol.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then rose from the bed. “Are you warm now?”

She nodded.

“You should try and take more care with yourself. There’s no physician to treat you if you fall ill. This isn’t Belai.”

“It wasn’t my idea to have my clothes half torn off in an attempted rape and murder.”

“I know. I’m just saying that if you get sick, it could be the end of you.” He looked at her. “I don’t want that.”

“I bet not as much as I don’t want that.”

“Turn over and let me see your jewel and tattoo.”

She gave him a coy look. “Oh, come on, Anatol, just admit you want to see my bare ass again.”

His jaw locked and she had a moment to feel pleased with herself. She liked throwing him off. “Your bare ass is always a pleasant sight, but I’m more concerned with the infection around the jewel setting.”

She rolled onto her stomach, giving a sexy, heavy-lidded look, and shimmied the sheet and blanket down to just below her butt. He watched her with interest he tried to hide, but failed. It was there in a spark of his eyes and the way he swallowed hard. She knew she was provoking him. She was trying to provoke him.

Another woman might shy from sex after the ordeal she’d had, but she craved Anatol’s touch right now. His hands stroked her with caring. He endeavored to please her. She was not just a thing to him. She was Evangeline and he saw her, all of her—even the bad parts. He alone could banish the taint of the monster in the alley and the dark intentions he’d had that still clung to her already battered emotions. She needed them scoured clean in a wash of the erotic bliss she knew he could give her.

But her teasing didn’t work. His fingers were businesslike as they explored the flesh around her jewel. He pulled the covers over her body and paced to the window. She rolled onto her back to watch him. “So, doctor, what’s your verdict.”

“You’re healing fine.”

“Good.” She couldn’t help but be relieved.

He gazed out onto the street. “The snow is starting to melt. By tomorrow the town will be getting on its feet again. I need to find steady work.”

She sat up. “What about me? Shouldn’t I try to find work?”

He didn’t look at her. “Eventually, yes, you will have to. What do you think you can do?”

“The only thing I know is magick.”

“Yes, that’s a problem. I have a strong back and arms, good for building things or loading ships at the dock. We’ll have to think about possible professions for you, however.”

“I know . . . fashion.” It sounded so dumb that she wished she could call back the words. She shrank back into the pillows, waiting for him to make some scornful remark.

He looked at her, nodding. “That’s something. Maybe you could get a job in a dress shop.”

She relaxed at the approval in his voice and then hated herself for her reaction.

Working in a dress shop didn’t sound incredibly exciting to her. Shopping in them had really always been more her thing. But times were changing, and even though she didn’t like it, she knew her survival depended on her changing with them. It would be better than working in a factory. “I can look into it.”

“What about sewing? Have you ever done that?”

“Yes, I’ve sewn a bit, when I didn’t have the money for a dressmaker and needed clothing fit for the palace.”

“Maybe you could build on the skill. You know fashion and you’re also very creative. I remember that you can draw.”

She looked up at him sharply. “You remember that?”

He nodded. “You used to trade drawings back and forth with Annetka. You showed incredible promise as an artist. I was always amazed by it, since you’d had no training.”

She blinked, at a loss for words. He’d been aware of her since childhood.

“Maybe it’s possible you could combine the two things,” he finished.

“You’re saying that I should become a dressmaker?”

“Yes, with your own designs. It’s a possibility. It’s a thing you might eventually find fulfillment in doing.” He pushed a hand through his hair, turning away from her. “I don’t know what the future holds for us. I think that the new government of Rylisk, whatever form it will take, would be foolish to discount the magicked. We are a valuable resource to this country. But last time I checked, they weren’t asking my opinion. I do think, perhaps, that when the smoke clears and the call for noble blood has waned, the Jeweled may be able to walk the streets freely again. So perhaps eventually we’ll both be able to carve livelihoods that involve our magick. That’s what I hope will happen, anyway.”

Her cheeks flushed. “What, exactly, is it you think we could do with our magick in this new world, Anatol? Will you set up a curiosities shop and throw illusions for a few coins? What can I do with my skill? Be a politician’s pet and help him manipulate the emotions of voters? No one wants their emotions tampered with. In fact, I think you and I still run the risk of having our heads separated from our bodies. People with differences like ours tend to be frightening.”

“Of course.” He paused. “Don’t forget the Revolutionaries.”

“Yes, exactly.” The self-proclaimed “Revolutionaries” were a group of men and women who had taken it upon themselves to hunt down all the nobles and magicked who had escaped Belai during the siege. “They would really like to see us dead.”

“This morning I heard they found two J’Edaeii.”

“What? Who?”

“They’ve taken Irena and Aleksi.”

She put her hand to her mouth. They were both older, well-respected. They’d married into the Edaeii family the way she’d wanted to.

“Just be careful, Evangeline.”

She lowered her hand. “Believe me, I’m not going around displaying my magick.” Her head drooped as she remembered Irena and Aleksi. “You see, Anatol? We’ll never be able to be out in the open. There will always be someone or something to fear.”

“I don’t know, Evangeline.” He spread his hands. “The future is not known to any of us. Maybe we’ll always have to be underground. Maybe we’ll be hunted down like dogs. That’s why I’m saying you should pursue a career you can accomplish without magick and we’ll see.”

“All I’ve ever had in my life to use was my looks and my willingness to have sex.” She swallowed hard. “Honestly, Anatol, I should go to the Temple of Dreams. It’s all I’m really suited for.”

His jaw locked and something dangerous flashed in his eyes. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

“Why are you so against the idea of it, Anatol? We could both go there to work. I know you say you’re in love with me, but that’s just silly—”

He rounded on her, arresting the end of the sentence in her throat. Fire jumped in his eyes. “Not silly, Evangeline, true. I don’t want to make love to any woman but you. I couldn’t do it. So you go, if you think that’s what you want.” He turned away. “I won’t stop you.”

She chewed her lower lip and let emotion rise up to swamp her for a moment in punishment. She deserved it; she’d hurt him. Wrapping the blanket around herself, she stood and walked to him. “I don’t want to leave you,” she murmured at his back.

He turned and pulled her into his arms. “Good. That’s a good thing to hear, Evangeline, because I don’t want you to leave me.”

She wrapped her arms around him, letting the blanket fall to the floor and his body heat warm her. Nuzzling her nose into his chest, she inhaled the scent of him. “I want you to . . . make love to me, Anatol. I want to know what it feels like.” The words came out as a whisper, like she was afraid to say them too loudly. She wasn’t sure why.

His body tensed against hers. “Don’t tempt me.”

She gave a soft laugh. “Haven’t you noticed that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed.” He made a tortured sound in his throat. “The scent of you tempts me. The sound of your breath tempts me. You tempt me even when you’re not trying.” He turned her and she saw that the cracked head-to-toe mirror was directly in front of them. “Look at yourself, Evangeline. You’re beautiful.”

She smiled. “Like I said, it’s been my currency in life.”

He moved her closer to the mirror. “I don’t just mean your face, hair, and body. Look into your eyes, hold your own gaze in the reflection.”

She met her eyes, blinked, and looked away. Staring into her own eyes was uncomfortable.

He gripped her shoulders. “No, look, Evangeline. See what I see.”

Her face flushing, she raised her gaze to her eyes again. They were gray, the color of metal. That’s what she noticed first. But if she went deeper, which felt a little like diving into her own soul, she saw . . . vulnerability. Honesty. Emotion. Joshui, so much of it. Her eyes seemed to swim with it. She saw strength, too.

Anatol dropped his mouth near her ear. “Your eyes have always been this way, even when you were at your worst. There was always beauty in you, complexity, empathy, caring, and I always saw that beauty. Always. No matter what you did or what you said to me, it was there.”

Her lips parted as she stared into her own reflection in a way she’d never done before. Anatol was helping her see herself in a way she never had.

His hands rested on her hips as he took a slow sweep of her body. “You are, of course, also beautiful in the more traditional sense.”

“Touch me,” she murmured, meeting his gaze in the reflection.

His eyes went dark with lust. He brought his hands up her abdomen, thick fingers splaying over her delicate, pale skin, bringing them up to cup her breasts. Her breath caught as he rolled her hard nipples back and forth between his fingers until they were bright red against the milk white globes of her breasts. He pinched them a little as he rolled them, making her breath hiss between her teeth and pleasure course through her body, drawing moisture between her thighs.

He drew her back a step and sat down on the edge of the bed with her in his lap, still well within viewing distance of the mirror. His hands slid slowly up her outer thighs.

Her reflection in the mirror almost didn’t seem like her own. Her eyes were larger and darker than she ever remembered seeing them, her face more gaunt. But it wasn’t the weight loss that made the woman in the mirror seem like a stranger, it was the look of amazing passion on her face. Had she ever before looked this way when with a man? Lips parted, eyes heavy-lidded, yearning for more of the touch that he was doling out in little drips and drabs? No, of course not. That only came with Anatol. Only him.

“Part your thighs,” he whispered.

At his instruction, she spread her legs. Her sex pouted in the mirror’s reflection—pink, slick, swollen with arousal and begging to be touched. Anatol licked his finger and brought his hand down slowly between her thighs. Finding her clit nestled in her soft curls, he found the blooming little bud and stroked it. Pleasure blossomed through her body, making her nipples go harder. She sank her teeth into her lower lip, watching him pet her into incoherency. He knew exactly how to touch her, not too hard and not too fast.

He caressed her clit until it was huge, once in a while dipping down to find lubrication to make the pad of his finger slick over it easily. Her head fell back and she moaned as he skated her up to the edge of a climax and held there, suspended in pleasure and with the promise of even more pleasure dangling just out of reach.

“Watch, Evangeline,” he murmured.

Wickedly, before she came, he slid a finger deep inside her cunt, then added another, stretching her inner muscles until she moaned. Rapt, eyes wide and lips parted, she watched his big hand between her slim, very feminine thighs. He thrust in and out exactly the way she wanted his cock. The fact he was denying her what she truly wanted made this even more agonizingly erotic.

His other hand came up to cup her breast, thumb moving over the nipple, keeping time with the thrusts of his broad fingers into her sex. Her body tensed and her gaze went to Anatol’s eyes in the mirror’s reflection. He was watching her face, looking like a wolf ready to devour a savory snack. He ground his hand against her clit as he fucked her with his fingers, the movement causing a friction that immediately put her on the edge of an explosive orgasm.

“Come for me,” he murmured.

Her back arched and she came. His name spilled from her lips as he rode her through it, the muscles of her sex milking his fingers. Pleasure slammed over her again and again, stealing her thoughts and her breath along with it.

He rolled her to the bed, roughly pushing her thighs apart with one hand as he desperately worked the button and zipper of his pants with the other. She yanked at his shirt, pulling it off so she could enjoy his beautiful chest. Finally his pants were off and his gorgeous cock was free. She reached out and took the long, wide length in her hand, stroking it from base to tip. His head fell back on a groan.

He yanked her so her ass was just on the edge of the bed and roughly spread her legs. Standing on the floor, he guided the head of his cock to the entrance of her slick sex and pushed the crown inside.

She gasped at the sensation, her mouth open and her eyes wide in the reflection of the mirror. His buttocks flexed and he leveraged his body against her, driving his cock into her another inch, and then another, until he was seated to the base deep within her.

They stayed that way for a moment. The mirror’s reflection showed her thighs spread as wide as they would go, his cock thrust into her body deeply. He had his arms around her, muscles flexing in his minute movements, his sun-kissed skin looking so dark against her thin, pale body. Anatol was breathing hard into the curve of her neck and trembling just a little.

“Anatol,” she pleaded. Her body shook and she closed her eyes. The sight of them so entwined was going to make her come again without him even making one movement.

He pulled out of her body and pushed back in so slowly she could feel every single ridge, valley, and vein of his shaft.

Evangeline bucked against him, gasping. His cock was wide and long, filling up every part of her. Over and over, slowly and methodically, he pulled out and thrust back in. She watched every movement in the mirror, every flex of his beautiful ass and thighs, until she was incoherent with lust.

He took her slow for a while, and then began to gather pace and force. The bed was high, just the perfect level for him to stand at the side, pull her rear flush up to the edge and fuck her hard and fast. He slammed in and out of her, thumb finding and stroking her extra-sensitive clit. Another orgasm caught hold almost immediately and she stuffed her fist in her mouth to keep from crying out. Pleasure poured through her, stealing everything but her moans, which she couldn’t stifle.

His cock jumped deep within her, he groaned her name, and he slumped over her. “Evangeline,” he kept saying over and over.

Her body trembled and shivered from the force of her climaxes. He was still buried deep inside her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed his temple, not wanting him to leave her.

His hands fisted in her hair. “I love you,” he whispered.

Her body tensed and her breath arrested in her throat. Those were words she couldn’t return. She cared deeply for Anatol, but was it love she felt? She had no idea. What did love feel like?

“It’s all right,” he breathed against the curve of her shoulder. “For now, this is enough.”

Her body melted against his. He found her mouth as his hands began to once again restlessly explore her. Soon everything that didn’t concern the slide of his body against hers was forgotten.