by Cate Corvin
Ivy closed the door behind her and sashayed over to Dominic, every move perfectly designed to piss me off. Especially the way she leaned on his arm with a smug grin and stood on her toes to whisper in his ear. He turned his head away from her, only a few inches, but enough that a dark shadow crossed her features.
She knew he hated her, which satisfied me to no end.
The only reason she was here was to show me that she still had a claim on him, whether he accepted it or not. I kept my expression perfectly neutral, closed my eyes, and reached out for my familiar.
Upstairs in my new bedroom, Demonseed stopped his exploration of the massive closet and perked up. It was so easy to slide into his mind now, sinking into the depths of the kitten’s chaotic psyche.
And now I got to urge him to do what he did best: destruction and anarchy.
I’d left the door cracked just for him. He padded down to the lower level, where the pink hallway looked like a gaping mouth from his point of view, and nudged open the Divination door.
Five minutes later, our work was done.
Chapter 2
Lu
The joy of a canceled Divination class dimmed a little by the time we went to dinner that night. The twins sat next to me in their human forms, both of them ripping into rare steaks while I picked at a quiche, and when Daphne joined our table, no one commented.
She was as haughty as ever, but there were lavender shadows under her eyes. I wondered if she was worried about Locke again- she’d confessed to me last week in a rare moment of weakness that she’d been having nightmares about his attack- but despite our burgeoning friendship, she was still stoic when it came to her feelings.
Today she slumped in her seat. “Still no sign of Clarimond.”
The night I’d come up from Grandfather’s lair and had my heart cracked by Dominic, Daphne had been outside bawling her eyes out. Clarimond Jewel had disappeared that same evening. She hadn’t left a trace of where she might’ve gone, but Daphne hadn’t given up, loyal in her own strange way.
“I’ve haven’t smelled her,” Shane said, not unsympathetic.
Daphne raised a hand to her mouth and lowered it, but not before I saw that her usually-long nails were bitten down to the quick. “I was hoping… she was okay, if you got on her good side. She doesn’t deserve to die here. Would you mind running again and sniffing for anything? Even one hint would help.”
It was no secret that when someone vanished here, odds were good they weren’t coming back.
Except for Cad Brand. After seeing Holly’s drawing of him, I’d been sure he was nothing more than a restless spirit, but somehow, he’d become a vampire instead.
There was a chance Clarimond would be back, but not in the way Daphne wanted.
Not even Daphne could keep up the tough-girl act indefinitely. Theirs might’ve been a friendship of convenience, but it was hard to accept friends of any kind vanishing into thin air.
“Of course we will.” Whispers were already starting to spread through the cafeteria as word of Daphne’s weakness- having actual emotions, gods forbid- got around.
Carmen Flora smirked at Daphne. Lissa Clay was stationed by her side, looking down at her plate rather than catch Daphne’s baleful gaze. I glared at Carmen, daring her to laugh. The greenwitch was smart enough to keep her mouth shut.
Daphne sighed, let out a tired ‘thanks’, and strode off to the Moons, where she even let Garth wrap an arm around her shoulder. Daphne had become fiercely protective of Petra, who was still about as catatonic as Beckwith Tatter, since Clarimond had vanished.
“Let’s go outside,” I whispered to Shane, and we finished eating and slipped out the North Entrance.
Once we were safely behind the tall hedges, Roman shifted and knelt, and I climbed on his broad back, wrapping my legs around his barrel-like ribcage and gripping his fur.
The wolves streaked into the forest, Roman taking care not to jump too high or jar me off his back. They ran for ages, ducking away from the well-used tracks and clambering through rougher terrain.
Cimmerian’s wall extended several miles behind the school, encompassing a good chunk of Moira’s Forest. I’d even caught glimpses of a hidden lake the first time we’d come this way.
Eventually they slowed outside a halt outside a natural cavern, a small section of the network that flowed under Cimmerian and its grounds, and I slid from Roman’s back. He shifted and came with me, but Shane remained a wolf and broke away to the forest.
The twins had known about this cave and its man-made amenities for two years, but they’d never had a reason to use it until now. Not even they knew how far down the cavern extended, but several hundred yards in, where the blackness was so complete it felt like it was pressing on our eyeballs, there was an alcove the size of a bedroom.
I used my wand and wildfire to create a light, unable to bring myself to walk into that darkness without one, until Roman flipped on several battery-operated lanterns that revealed the alcove. Dark tunnels- darkness of any kind, really- reminded me of Grandfather’s domain too much these days.
Someone had installed enspelled iron bars and door, turning the alcove into a prison. There was no hint as to who had done it, when, or why.
But regardless of who it had been intended for, Locke resided in it now.
He waited for me, gripping the bars with white knuckles, head ducked and amber eyes aglow. “Sunlight. I’ve missed you.”
Locke had been handsome in his portrait, but now he was breathtaking, vampirism sharpening and carving his features out into pure carnal sensualism. His hair was a dark shadow now, much like the twins’, and when he was well-fed his skin was like bronze.
Now he was ashen, but he didn’t show signs of insanity despite his hunger. The twins had suggested this cavern and cage as the best place for him to hide, where he would be just far enough from the influence of the vampires under Cimmerian or Cadogan out in the forest.
There was always a chance Cadogan would come inside the walls, drawn by Locke’s presence, but it hadn’t happened yet.
I shoved my wand in my jacket and rushed to him, pushing my hands through the metal bars to touch his face, his naked chest and stomach down to the waistband of his stolen jeans. “I missed you just as much,” I said, pressing my face to the bars. He turned his head to kiss my palm like he always did. “Shane will bring something.”
Once Elijah Locke of Lockheart coven, the original owners of the mansion and grounds, my vampire was now the last living member of that family, even though the ‘living’ part was loosely applied. He was frozen forever in this form. Immortal, unchanging, and constantly ravenous for blood.
Locke was always hungry now. It was too dangerous for him, for all of us, to risk him coming across another vampire and forming a mind-to-mind hive.
He’d told me not that long ago that he wished he could make me like himself, so we could be together forever. That my mortal clock was ticking while his had stopped forever.
Now we knew that was impossible, not without both of us becoming blood-crazed monsters.
“The night-creatures have kept me comfortable,” he said, with a slightly-crooked smile. There was a pile of unused and neatly folded blankets in the corner of the cell. Vampires didn’t need to sleep.
“What have I said about calling us night-creatures?” Roman grumbled from somewhere further down the tunnel.
“I could bring you some books.” The feeling of his lips against my wrist sent shivers down my spine. “Or myself, if Shane would ever give me the key.”
He alone knew where it was. If Locke really wanted to break out, the bars wouldn’t hold him forever, but just long enough for us to get away. Mostly, the bars were an irritating obstruction between us.
“Dreams, my Lucrezia.” Locke ran his thumb along my jaw.
I failed to hide my scowl. “Locke, as much as I love our dreams, we’ve already proven that we can be together physically.”
To prove my point, I slid my han
d under my skirt, finding the two perfect, silvery pinpoints scarring my inner thigh, so close to my sex I couldn’t touch the marks without touching myself.
Even though the scars hadn’t been renewed in weeks, Locke still shuddered when I stroked them. He’d claimed me as his thrall when he’d placed that bite on me. It created a connection between us, making my blood far more potent to him, the marks giving him physical pleasure, while his venom gave me a much more intense euphoric high than it would otherwise.
He took a hissing breath that I knew he didn’t need, just to taste my scent. “I was well-fed that night,” he said, but his amber eyes grew darker as his pupils widened. His tongue darted out and ran over his lips, highlighting his sharp ivory fangs.
“And you’re about to be well-fed tonight.” I raised my wrist next, pressing my lips to the more ragged scars he’d left there.
All it would take was a mouthful or two of my blood, Locke could vent the subsequent bloodlust on whatever animal Shane dragged back, and he’d be perfectly fine. He had to be; he couldn’t just starve forever.
For now, the combination of having both thrall-marks stroked and kissed was enough to crumble his resolve. His cock was hard, bulging against the front of his jeans. Locke’s fingers wrapped around the bars again, tightening as he watched my tongue run over the thrall-marks with an intensity that sent a ripple of desire through me.
A powerful hand gripped my wrist and pulled my hand away from my mouth. “Taunting isn’t nice, Blondie.”
Locke let out a low snarl and I glared at Roman over my shoulder. “I was going to make good on it.”
“Have you already forgotten the last time he fed from you?”
“We’re going to have to try again. One way or another, I’m his thrall, and vampires do feed from their thralls for as long as they’re together.” I wrapped my free fingers around Locke’s, holding him tight and gazing into his eyes. “And we’ll be together for as long as I live. We just need to work on your self-control.”
I leaned my face against the bars, and Locke did the same, only an inch of empty air between us.
“Anything for you,” he whispered, and angled his face forward to run his tongue over my lower lip.
“Keep it in your pants or I’m separating you two,” Roman said, but the fact that he was hard, and pressed against my ass, made it a weak threat. “If we’re gonna experiment again, we need Shane here, too.”
Locke wrapped a hand around the back of my head, keeping me near him. I closed my eyes and melted against his kiss. He was so careful to keep his fangs from piercing my mouth, gently sucking my lips between his teeth and flicking his tongue against me.
My heart was pounding, both from my vampire’s increasingly rough kisses and Roman’s hands running over my ass.
“Gods fuck me, I can’t leave you three alone for twenty minutes without coming back to an orgy,” Shane snapped, his deep voice echoing down the tunnel. Locke and I broke apart reluctantly.
“Technically, it isn’t an orgy yet, but now that you’re here…” Roman squeezed my ass and leaned on the bars of Locke’s cage.
Shane had brought an entire doe, which he’d slung over his shoulder. How strong were these guys?
“I want to try giving him thrall-blood again.” He stared at me and I propped a hand on my hip. “Don’t look at me like that. I just had this conversation with Roman and I’m not repeating it.”
“I can imagine exactly how it went,” Shane said dryly. “I’m assuming she won the debate?”
Locke and Roman nodded. “Pretty much, yeah,” Roman said.
I smiled triumphantly at Shane. “So, how do you want to do this? I give him mine first, so he can quench the bloodlust on the deer?”
Shane dropped the deer outside the bars of the cell. “The prison will do most of the work for us, and we’re far enough from any other vampires that he won’t lose his mind while he’s drinking.” I managed to keep most of my surprise hidden. I hadn’t expected Shane to be fine with it at all.
“You don’t have to do this, Lucrezia.” The hint of Locke’s rolling accent always sounded like music to me. Despite his words, his eyes ran over me hungrily.
“I know I don’t.” I rolled up the sleeve of my shirt, keeping the white fabric as far from my wrist as possible. “But I want to. I get to see little enough of you as it is.”
He reached through the bars and ran a single finger down my arm. “Whether chains, or bloodlust, or bars, there’s always been an obstacle between us,” Locke said.
“We’ll just keep chipping away at them one by one.” I gripped a bar overhead and held my wrist up, exposing the underside to him. The twins surrounded me, in a position that they could easily pull me away. “And one day there’ll be no barriers at all.”
Locke’s knuckles went white around the bars, and he turned his head and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. I squeezed my own eyes shut as the first flare of pain shot up my arm and was immediately replaced by a deep, languorous pleasure.
Vampire venom was like a drug that could go one of two ways: if the vampire wanted his victim to feel good, they would ride a wave of the highest euphoria they’d ever felt.
If he wanted it to hurt, they’d wish they were dead until it wore off.
Locke paused with his fangs buried in my wrist, and then eased off to take a long, slow gulp of my blood.
Shane and Roman were as hard as marble statues around me, every muscle in their bodies taut. Locke let out a soft sigh and took another drag that sent a bolt of heat right through me, my knees turning to water as everything seemed to sparkle around me. Even the velvet dark of the tunnels glittered like black rainbows.
He ran his tongue over the holes and pushed me away from the bars. Shane caught me as the wounds healed over, leaving a stronger, deeper thrall-mark behind.
I barely heard Locke draining the deer as the vampire venom coursed through me.
“It worked,” Roman whispered.
“It was easier without the voices of the others,” Locke replied. I opened my eyes to a shimmer of air.
Locke looked almost human again. He neatly licked the last of the blood from his lips, his amber eyes running over me.
“I’d like to see my sunlight now.”
I gripped the stone wall, the rough texture under my fingertips a burst of sensation in my mind, and Shane released me to grab the key.
Roman shook his head when I wobbled to the bars. “If I’m your sunlight, does that make you… my midnight?” I asked, my words a tiny bit slurred at the edges. He must’ve given me a huge dose of venom if touching a rock wall was practically orgasmic.
Locke sparkled around the edges. He tilted his head to the side with a little smile. “I suppose it does.”
Shane returned with the key. The heavy door squealed open on rusty hinges.
I stumbled into Locke’s arms with a sigh, breathing in his spicy, almost floral scent. “I hate those bars so much.”
My fingers found the waistband of his jeans again, but he pulled my hands away and pulled me against him, molding every soft curve of my body to every hard plane of his.
“Just let me touch you,” he whispered in my ear. “I just want to hold you while I’m myself, sunlight.”
Even with the venom coursing through my veins, it felt so good just to have Locke’s arms wrapped around me and his lips on my skin that I caved.
He sat cross-legged on the stack of blankets and pulled me into his lap, running his fingers through my hair and over my face. The sparkles were slowly dimming, but every one of my senses was still heightened.
“I’ve been thinking while I’ve been here. About my missing memories.” Locke’s full lips turned down at the corners when he touched mine. “I know I’m Elijah Locke, and my sister was Josephine Locke. She married into Giltglass over two hundred years ago. I remember parts of Lockheart where I did my work.”
“Like the wall, and the waystone.”
“Yes.” He wrapped a lock of blonde
hair around his finger. “But it’s what I don’t remember that disturbs me. I don’t remember Josephine’s husband, though I have a terrible feeling he had something to do with the downfall of my coven. I don’t remember my sire.”
My entire body froze up, every muscle as hard as a rock. I knew Josephine’s husband. The night of my initiation, Grandfather had mentioned how much I reminded him of ‘his Josephine’.
In the panic of the moment, with his cracking, twig-like hand reaching out to touch my face, I’d almost forgotten that completely.
My teeth ground together. Josephine’s husband, the destroyer of the entire Lockheart line, was Grandfather himself.
How the hell was he still alive after two hundred years? I wasn’t sure that even necromancy could raise a sentient, self-serving spirit back into its original body, and Grandfather wouldn’t have chosen that mummified shell as his spirit’s vessel. He’d been furious that I had to see him in that state- if it was necromancy, he would’ve taken refuge in a fresh, handsome corpse.
I didn’t try to tell Locke. I already knew from constant effort that the geas remained in full effect. Locke heard my teeth grinding, though, and brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. “It’ll come back with time, sunlight. I just wish I had something more useful.”
“You’re already useful.” I touched his chin. “Without you, we would have no way down. I would’ve walked down there blindly and been killed.”
“Now that you’re a Gilt, maybe you can pass the guardians,” Shane said, but Locke shook his head.
“Even Mallory would not be that foolish. She’s blinded by her own pride, but she doesn’t trust easily.”
She didn’t, but now I knew Grandfather was the one who really called the shots, and for whatever reason, he wanted me alive. Would he have a blind spot for me that I could exploit?
But first I needed to be able to reach him.
I spun the ring on my finger, the amber cabochon catching the lantern-light like liquid gold, and sighed. “I’m going to have to talk to Dominic. We need to steal the book of Cimmerian’s history back from Gilt. He said he may have found a way.”
