Shadow's Edge

18

He was close to conceding defeat when she suddenly bent her knees and elegantly slid into the booth next to him. She reached out, picked up the bottle of Latour, and poured it into his glass. A perfect arc of liquid swirled into a pool of smooth claret within the crystal bowl. The color was dark and rich, ruby fading to amber at the edge.

She set the bottle on the table, grasped the stem between her thumb and forefinger, and slid it smoothly across the tablecloth toward him.

“So,” she said, turning to fix him with her sharp stare. “I’m sitting. What is it you wanted to ask me?”

He did his best to ignore her eyes of frost that seemed able to strip every secret from his soul. Instead he picked up the wine glass, swirled the wine around in the bowl, and lifted it to his nose.

He closed his eyes.

First: the aromas of game, smoky oak, herbs, and vanilla, something indefinable, wild and powerful. Next: truffle, leather, mineral, and sweet, jammy aromatics, viscous texture, cedar, blackberries, currant. Finally: the thick and caressing finish, lingering on his tongue like ambrosia. He tasted the sun and the rain that had nourished the vines, the gravelly soil, the wood barrel it had aged in, harvested from an ancient forest in France.

Tronçais, he thought. No–Jupilles. The toasted vanilla flavors had more finesse than wine aged in Tronçais oak.

It moved him every time, this thing of perfect beauty, this work of art, the glory of nature confined within the shape of the bottle.

His father had had exquisite taste. The ’61 Latour was quite possibly proof of God’s existence.

He felt her shift in the booth next to him, heard the rustle of her silk dress against leather and bare skin as she moved, and handed over the glass without opening his eyes. She took it; he felt the sudden weightlessness in his hand.

“What I wanted to ask you is this,” he said quietly. He opened his eyes to stare with full intensity into her pale and unsmiling face. “What do you taste?”

It had surprised him that she was the sommelier, but it gave him hope. This line of work was not for those with dulled senses. It was a clue, a possibility...

Her brows, pale and finely arched, drew together. “Is this some kind of test?”

You’ve no idea, he thought. But he only shook his head no and looked at her.

She licked her lips and swallowed, then let out a long breath through her nose. “After this, you’ll answer my questions.” She lifted her chin, defiant.

He finally allowed his lips to twist into a smile. He nodded.

She raised the glass to her nose and inhaled.

He saw it then, the way it came over her, the way she opened her senses to allow the flavor in. Her eyes fluttered closed, her lips parted. She held the breath on her tongue and stilled, every sense alight, every fiber and nerve attuned with perfect concentration to the bouquet of the wine in front of her.

Ikati, the animal inside him whispered, rising up to strain against his skin. It was a pulsing sting of recognition, hot and strong and uncontained. She is Ikati. Like me.

She took a sip of wine, rolled the liquid over her tongue, paused for one long, silent moment, then swallowed.

“Oh,” she said, letting out a little, astonished breath. “Oh, God.”

“Tell me,” he murmured. He leaned forward on instinct, catching the subtle, feminine perfume of her skin, watching the flush on her cheeks spread down to her neck, her chest.

“I’ve never...it’s...”

She swallowed again and turned to look at him, wonder and reverence evident in every feature of her face. The guarded tension was gone, all the reticence, the quiet melancholy. In its place was amazement, delight, exhilaration. Joy.

He suddenly found it very hard to breathe through the steel band that tightened around his chest.

“It’s magnificent,” she breathed. “After all these years—after all this time it should be faded, it should be...” She shook her head, blinking. “But it’s perfect.”

“Yes,” he murmured, admiring the way the candlelight glowed amber and honey against her hair. Pinned half up, half not, tumbling to her waist, she looked as if she’d just rolled from some very warm bed. “It is. Just at its peak now, I would say. It may even have another ten years ahead of it.”

She set the glass on the table with precise, exaggerated care, then slid it back toward him. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “That was incredible. And very—” She hesitated and swallowed, raised her eyes to his. “Very non-pathetic.” A tiny, wry smile twisted her lips.

Without moving his gaze from her face, he reached for the glass and let his fingers settle over hers, the barest friction between their skin, the slightest pressure possible.

“You haven’t answered my question.” His voice came out just as quiet as before, but now it was shaded somber, almost tense. “What did you taste?”

She held very still, the tiny smile fading as she gazed back at him, and he became abruptly aware of a heat and ache in his groin and the almost overpowering urge to plunge his hands wrist-deep into her hair and pull her hard against him.

“Black currant,” she said. “Toasted oak. Limestone.”