He thought that lowering his tone and producing an old keepsake would be enough to coax me down the steps he'd so graciously laid out.
Where did he get that kind of confidence?
Fenris said his piece and left. The scent of woodsmoke and scorched earth lingered in the room long after the door closed, and beneath it that acrid note of decay I hadn't noticed in my previous lives. My wolf turned away from it.
I picked up the moonstone ring and tossed it into the painter's supply case.
"Miss, this looks far too valuable. I couldn't possibly keep it."
The painter fished the ring out carefully and held it back to me.
I waved him off. "It's yours."
"Do a good job on the portrait. If I'm selected, there'll be more where that came from."
The painter thanked me over and over.
"A beauty like you, Miss, is certain to be chosen."
I smiled and said nothing.
In the days that followed, while I waited for word from the Moonhold Citadel, Fenris came calling constantly.
Every visit, he brought armfuls of gifts.
Moonstone-studded hairpieces, bolts of the finest silk fresh from the southern territory looms, and all manner of rare curiosities, until they spilled across my courtyard in heaps.