"Stop!" She reached out over the edge of the bath, but he continued on in his methodical destruction even when her fingers brushed the black stone of his armor. All too soon, her clothes were reduced to a pile of rags that he pushed into a corner with his own boot.

Wanting to cry, she glared at him instead. "What am I supposed to wear?" She'd soaked her dress in an effort to remove the bloodstains, and it was still wet.

"Tell me a tale and I'll steal you a dress."

She didn't know whether he was serious - about either part of his statement - but she knew he had her exactly where he wanted her. That would teach her to fence with the Guardian of the Abyss. Blowing out a breath, she drew deeper into the bath and ducked her head under the water to clear her mind, wet her hair. When she rose back out, she made a startled, undignified sound.

He was crouching with his arms on the edge of the bath, so close that she could've leaned over and caressed his face with her lips -  Oh, dear. Swallowing the insane urges that told her to react to him as a woman reacted to a man who looked at her as if she were some particularly delicious treat, she pushed herself through the water until her back hit the wall.

It still left them far too close, no matter that the bath was huge. "Where's the soap?"

He held up a hand, brought the square bar to his nose. "Smells pretty."

She was being taunted again. "Give it to me."

"No."

Frustrated beyond bearing, she splashed water at him, remembering too late that he was a man of power, of strength that could hurt. He drew back in startlement, but when the water hit him, there was no anger. Instead, he wiped the droplets off his face and...smiled.

Her mind simply stopped.

He was beyond anything she had ever imagined as a child when she'd dreamed of being saved by the lost heirs of Elden.

And he was inhaling her soap again, as if it was the best thing he had ever smelled. Would he do the same with her if she bathed with that soap? Biting her lower lip, she pressed them together in an effort to find control. Liquid with shocking desire or not, she didn't want the Guardian of the Abyss sniffing at her. He would only hate her all the more when he discovered whose blood ran in her veins.

That thought should've chilled her, but then he held out the soap...only to snatch it back when she went to reach for it. She froze. He held it out again...a little farther away. Though she knew his game, she kept playing - until she was back where she'd started, face-to-face with him at the very edge. "Give me my soap," she whispered, "and I'll tell you a tale of three princes and a princess." She deliberately left out the name of the kingdom of Elden. That struck too deep, and might make him refuse to hear what she had to say.

He hesitated. "Come closer."

"This is close enough." So close that she could see each separate golden lash that shaded eyes of such vibrant green she could lose herself in the clarity of them.

No.

The word was snapped out by the blood sorcery inside of her, a whiplash reminder that she didn't have the luxury of losing herself in his eyes, of forgetting that she was here to break him out of his prison of ensorcellment, take him home to Elden.

Afterward...

Her heart gave a bittersweet pulse, because she was unlikely to survive her father. Even if she did, she was the daughter of the Blood Sorcerer. If the kingdom of Elden didn't execute her, and perhaps they wouldn't, for she would've returned their lost prince to them, she would be exiled beyond the borderlands of the realm, to the dark empty places where only the stone eaters roamed.

"Liliana."

Blinking at the masculine demand, she reached out to grab the soap. He moved it out of reach so fast that she almost rose up after it, forgetting that she was very, very naked. "Do you want me to be clean or not?" she asked, dropping back down.

His expression turned thoughtful.

The skin on her shoulders tingling from the intensity of his gaze, she folded her arms under the water. "Fine. No tale, then."

He leaned on the rim, satisfaction in the curve of those lips she wanted to taste so badly her toes curled. "You have no clothes." A silken reminder.

Her mouth fell open at the way he was telling her she was effectively trapped until he decided to let her go. "You -  I - " Snapping her mouth shut, she turned her back on him, and began to rub at her skin with the water alone.

"Liliana."

Trying not to think about the fact that she'd just given her back to the man who scared even shadows, she made a face at a speck of dirt that seemed imprinted in her skin. It made her feel sick to think how filthy she was -  Oh. That wasn't dirt. It was a burn scar, an old one, so old she forgot about it most of the time.

Come here, Liliana. The salamander only wants to say hello.

She'd screamed herself hoarse that day, and it had made him laugh so hard tears had rolled down his face. "Liliana."

The way the Lord of the Black Castle said her name was as much an order as her father had made it - except that instead of causing her blood to freeze, the quiet demand of it made the most intimate parts of her flush with sinful heat.

"Liliana."

There was a dangerous impatience to him now. Part of her, the part that had grown up fearing a man's anger, said she should turn around right that second and give him what he wanted. But the other part - the annoyed, frustrated female part - made her keep her head turned to the wall in stubborn refusal. Perhaps it was that simple...and perhaps she did this so he would hurt her, destroying the seed of vulnerability growing within her, a softness that had her panicked.

"Here, you can have your soap."

Wary, she looked over her shoulder to see the soap on the rim and him in the doorway. She went to grab the bar, certain he'd use his magic to push it away before she reached it. However, he did nothing but stand motionless as she picked up the bar and brought it to her nose.

"Glorious." So rich and exquisite that she almost didn't notice he was leaving. "Where are you going?" There had been no hurt, no pain from him in spite of actions her father might have termed "insolent," and that deepened the softness, made her weaker when she couldn't afford to be if she was to kill her father.

"Leaving you to your bath." The words were stiff, the disappointment in his expression cut with anger.

It startled her, the wild clarity of his emotions. This man, she saw with dawning hope, didn't know how to hide his true face from the world, had never had cause to learn...and so she would never, ever have to wonder if he was about to strike out at her even when he looked at her with a smile. "I haven't told you the tale yet."

He hesitated. "You will tell it?"

"Of course. I always keep up my end of a bargain." Then, going with a feminine instinct that was rusty and unused - and though her stomach was clenched tight beneath the water in an attempt to quiet the butterflies - she began to rub the soap down the bare skin of her arm, unable to see a washcloth. "Of course, since you took such pleasure in tormenting me, I shall torment you, too."

There was a luminous spark in his eyes and then he was beside the bath again, his arms - solid, muscled, strong beneath the liquid caress of the armor - on the rim. "You were fighting with me, Liliana."

An odd thing to say, but not so odd when you considered that no one dared argue with him, this dark lord. "A little," she said. "But not seriously. It was almost a game."

He considered that, his expression thoughtful once more. "The children in the village play games."

Placing the soap on the rim beside his arm, she raised her hands to her hair. "What did you do when you were a child?"

"I don't remember being a child."

Fingers caught in the rat's nest on top of her head, she tugged and pulled as she tried to work out what the confluence of his mother's and her father's spells must have done to him for him to have forgotten his childhood so completely. Either the impact had wiped his memories - or perhaps he hadn't had a childhood. It was possible that he'd been held in a kind of limbo until he was old enough to care for himself.

"You'll pull it all out."

"What?"

"Your hair."

"Oh." She dropped her tired arms. "I'll cut it off after I get out of the bath. That's the only way to untangle it."

He made a low sound deep in his throat that had her thighs clenching. "I'll untangle it for you."

Chapter 8

His storyteller laughed.

The Guardian of the Abyss had heard feminine laughter before. Sometimes, Jissa laughed. And he'd heard the women in the village laugh, too, when they didn't know he was near. But Liliana's laugh was different, full of something that made his own mouth want to curve, his chest muscles expand. He didn't give in. But he wanted to.

"Very well," the sorceress said to him, for he knew she was a sorceress. "But how will you work this magic?"

He ran his eyes over the slopes of her shoulders, so silky with water. "Turn your back and wait for me," he ordered, wondering what the water would taste like licked from her skin.

When she raised an eyebrow, then obeyed, he got to his feet. "Start thinking of your tale." Leaving her, he went quickly down to the kitchen using the secret passageways of the Black Castle that opened only for its lord, and found the cupboard where Jissa kept her "pretty-making things" as Bard called them when Bard could be brought upon to speak.

The Guardian wasn't interested in pretty-making, but he'd been curious about the light in Bard's eyes when he'd spoken of such things, so he'd explored. Everything in the cupboard had smelled very nice, and later, he'd caught one of the scents in Jissa's hair. There. Closing his hand around the bottle, he promised himself he would bring Jissa a bar of the special soap she liked when he next went flying over the village.

All the shopkeepers knew to leave a black box with some of their wares out for him in the night. No one dared steal from that which was the lord's, and the shopkeepers made sure of it - for he paid them very well. He wondered if Liliana would like to see his room of jewels and treasures as he retraced his steps to the bathroom. Part of him had expected her to be gone, but she was waiting patiently, her back against the rim.