by Cate Corvin
“I can steal more blood,” I said. Even his broad, dense muscles seemed shrunken now. I’d risk Gilt’s wrath to bring him back to health.
“You already put yourself at enough risk for me, Lucrezia.” Locke slowly licked the last bag like a child savoring candy. It was painful to see how hungry he still looked. “Besides, I will try your plan. I will come outside the walls to hunt animals when you are inside. As long as I stay far away, you should be in no danger from me.”
He pushed his long hair back from his face, revealing more of his chiseled bone structure, the high cheekbones and sharp jawline. I wondered what Locke had looked like as a warlock before he’d been imprisoned under Cimmerian; what century had he been born in?
“So, if you fill up on animal blood, you’d be able to come to me without… being blood-crazed?”
His eyes flashed in the dark like a cat’s. “Theoretically. Keep your window closed at night, Lucrezia.”
“I don’t think a glass window would stop you, Locke.”
He shook his head, and his hair fell back over his face. I itched to push it back again.
“No. So I don’t catch your scent while I am blood-crazed.” Locke’s eyes ran longingly over my bare legs again. “After I’ve fed, the volatility should subside. If it does, I will risk coming to you. If not, I will return to my shackles.”
“I’m not putting you back in those chains.” I sat up, meaning to go to him, but he leaned away a fraction of an inch. It was enough to let me know he was still struggling, even if he’d eaten.
I imagined drinking those three bags was like being a starving man sitting at a feast, and only allowed to take three bites.
“For you, I am trying, sunlight,” he said with a sigh. “But you must prepare yourself for the possibility that you have gambled poorly.”
“No.” I knelt, my hands on my knees, and stared at him across the clearing. The small distance seemed like an eternity away. “I haven’t. I don’t know what they did to you, or why you’re here, but you don’t deserve that life, Locke. Even if it takes years, we’ll find a way for you to live a normal life.”
When he smiled, he didn’t look dangerous or hungry. “I hope so. I would like to someday be able to touch you without being afraid of myself.”
I hoped that someday would be sooner rather than later, but I wasn’t lying.
No matter how long it took, I would fight until Locke understood that he was worth the effort. He could’ve struck me down and bled me dry when I came back for him, but he hadn’t. He was someone worth saving.
“You will be.”
Locke bowed his head. “Go to bed, my Lucrezia. I will try this plan tonight. I miss your dreams.”
I got to my feet and picked up my satchel. I needed to find a new trash bin to dispose of the plastic bags in. Every time I stole blood, I alternated where I hid the evidence.
My heart battered at my ribs like a hopeful bird. “If it works, will you come to my room?”
He looked up at me, and there was something in his features that rang a bell in my mind. “Not tonight. I need to ensure that I can hunt without losing myself.”
I nodded. That was a fair compromise, if he was trying. But I paused with my hand on the wooden door. I’d been so caught up with convincing Locke to manage his bloodthirst that I’d forgotten he was more than a vampire.
He was Cimmerian’s living history.
“Locke? Have you ever met a doctor named Xavier Temple?”
He gazed back at me without any recognition in his eyes. “I… that name is not familiar to me.”
But every muscle in his body had tightened into stone for a split-second after hearing that name, like he’d been jolted with a livewire.
“Oh, well. Good night, Locke.”
“Good night, sunlight.”
I took the dusty, pitch-black corridors back into Cimmerian’s halls by myself, knowing every step by heart now, and almost stopped outside my old room.
Walking into my new bedroom felt like coming home. I didn’t need to worry about Daphne leaving uncovered mirrors lying around or attacking me in my sleep. Now she was free to sleep in her own bed instead of camping out with Lissa Clay.
I didn’t see the folded note on my pillow for another hour, after I’d taken a long, steaming shower and finished arranging my new bookshelf. Shane was almost certainly right about Gilt having an ulterior motive in upgrading me to one of the upperclassmen suites, but I was going to enjoy every minute of it after living on my guard for a month straight.
The note was folded into a small square and surprisingly heavy. It unfolded like a pinwheel, revealing an elaborate pattern of labyrinths and lover’s knots alternated with ropes of gentian, flowering skullcap, and apples.
My breath was already caught before I finished unfolding the pinwheel, reading the symbolism of love in the ink-drawn flora.
The weight in the center dropped into my lap as the message at the heart of the note was revealed.
There is not a moment that passes that I am not thinking of you.
-Dominic
I picked up the ring with trembling fingers. The inside of the silver band was marked with a tiny pattern of thorns and coffin nails, the emblem of the Steelblood coven.
A single ruby, so dark it was almost black, glistened on the band like a drop of blood.
I was almost hyperventilating as I stared at the note. Exchanging family rings was a Great Coven tradition- no one would give a family heirloom to an outcast from a tiny, poor coven.
But here I was, holding a love note and Steelblood ring from Dominic.
I slipped the ring on my right index finger. It fit perfectly, the shining ruby wine-dark.
Like my onyx drop, it was not only a coven signet, but a protective stone. I was wearing more money on one finger than Ashdarke House would see in a year.
Even knowing that Dominic hadn’t just blown me off, I still didn’t sleep well that night, tossing and turning and kicking the sheets down.
It would’ve been nice to open the window, but that would be a stupid idea with Locke hunting in the forest. Cimmerian’s walls wouldn’t be a barricade for him.
I only hoped he was no longer pained and hungry.
I twisted Dominic’s coven ring, an unfamiliar weight on my hand, and stared at the ceiling until I fell into a fitful sleep.
Chapter 5
Lu
In the morning I refolded Dominic’s note with the ring inside, wrapped it in a pair of socks with a protection charm whispered over it, and buried the bundle in the toe of my Docs, which I hid in the back of my closet behind my suitcase.
Around here, I was quickly learning, there was no such thing as overkill.
I added finding a proper hiding place to my list of things to do that week, but that task was at the bottom of the list, somewhere under combat training, passing my current classes, avoiding Roman, finding the hallway where Cadogan Brand vanished into thin air, and helping Locke navigate a new world.
I slipped through dark, silent C Wing and the North Entrance, craning my head as I navigated the maze of the rose garden.
The lace-dressed specter didn’t make an appearance this morning, somewhat to my relief, and I broke into a jog as soon as my feet hit grass.
I didn’t realize how anxious I’d been over Dominic giving me the cold shoulder until I reached the clearing, and my heart jumped into my throat when his broad shoulders came into view. His back was to me, and my jog slowed to a walk as I admired the golden-tawny shade of his skin and his thick musculature.
Dominic held a practice sword, which he dropped into the grass before he turned on his heel and gripped me by the wrist.
I didn’t have time to say anything before he was pulling me deeper into the forest under the cover of trees. At night, in the hour just before dawn, the forest looked like it could be a nightmare or a dream, all dark rustling leaves and the sharp scent of sap and crushed leaves filling the air.
There was nothing to wo
rry about as long as Dominic was with me. His lips demanded mine, our tongues sliding together as I melted into him and let the charade fall away into dust.
I gripped his shirt with nerveless fingers, pulling him closer and sliding my arm around his neck.
He kissed me like a drowning man desperate for air, and stars were bursting behind my eyelids by the time he finally released me, breathing hard. We’d only been in the trees for five minutes, but it felt like a sunlit lifetime.
His finely-shaped lips were swollen from our kiss, hazel eyes heavy-lidded and glittering. “Lucrezia, if I could walk out of here with you right now, I would.” The soaring sensation in my stomach faltered and fell when I took in the darkness in his tone. “I know I’m asking for the kind of trust I haven’t earned yet.”
I stared up at him, my hands still linked behind his neck, but for a moment, it felt like I was holding a stranger. Had I dreamed the letter on my pillow? “What are you saying?”
“If I could do this any other way…” Dominic broke off, glancing through the trees. In the slowly brightening morning light, someone was picking their way through the visible hedges of the rose garden, a glint of caramel hair just visible. His eyes narrowed.
“We must return to training. All I ask is that you trust me for a while longer, and no matter how it appears in front of others, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
My heart soared at his words even as my stomach dropped. He was playing a long-term game, I knew that for certain- but what role did Ivy Bloom have in it?
“Who is she to you?” I asked, my lips numb. I followed him back into the clearing, where he picked up the sword and handed it to me. I wrapped my fingers around the hilt, but Dominic didn’t let go, holding my gaze.
“Part of the charade. Nothing more than a means to an end,” he said, his sensuous lips pressed flat as Professor Bloom picked her way through the trees. His voice dropped before she entered the clearing. “You are all that lies at the end of my path, Lucrezia.”
He released the sword and turned his back on me, picking up his practice daggers as Bloom crossed her arms over her chest and watched us take up our usual stances.
She wore a navy-blue tracksuit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, and looked uncannily like Daphne with her hair pulled back in a high ponytail.
“I thought I’d drop in before my morning run to see how your combat training is coming, Miss Darke.” Her smile wasn’t warm, but it was better than the cool, sneering once-over she’d given me the first time we’d met.
When she’d been clinging to Dominic like a limpet.
I forced my own smile, remembering my resolution to be nicer. Being related to Gilt didn’t automatically make her my enemy. “It’s going well. I’ve never used a sword before, but we’re sure to find my ideal weapon soon.”
Bloom looked at me like I was some sort of alien species. “Never used a- oh. You’re from… Ashdarke. Well, in the Great Covens, rowan swords are family heirlooms. We begin our training as soon as we’ve left the cradle.”
She held out her hand expectantly, and I stared at her for a second longer than necessary before handing over the practice weapon.
“Let Dom and I demonstrate for you,” Bloom said. Her dark eyes sparkled as she took up a guard stance. Dom?
My resolution to be nicer was already wavering.
He held his practice daggers like they were real weapons, not just blunted lengths of wood. “This is my student’s practice time, Ivy.”
My relief was short-lived when I realized he didn’t look at her with the same coolness he showed towards me when we were pretending to be professor and student. He wasn’t exactly warm, but he looked at her like… they were equals.
The ring flashed into my mind. To him it was just a ring, something he could give to a young woman without thinking twice. To me, it was the kind of heirloom my former coven would never see.
We were not equals.
The gulf between us had never seemed so wide as it did now.
“I doubt she’s ever seen proper technique,” Bloom said, raising her chin. “Don’t do your student a disservice.”
I saw Dominic’s acquiescence in the lines of his shoulders before he even spoke. “If we must. Pay attention to Professor Bloom’s stance, Miss Darke. You will be emulating these basic movements.”
I stepped back to the edge of the forest and wrapped my arms around myself. Silence fell over the clearing, and the witch and warlock stared at each other for a moment before the fight began.
When I’d first started training with Dominic, I was aware that I was untrained and gawky, clumsy with a weapon and not sure of my footing.
I hadn’t realized just how bad I was.
Watching them fight was more like watching a dance, unchoreographed but still perfectly executed. Bloom moved like water, the practice sword flashing as she bore down on Dominic with a cruel glint in her eye.
He blocked and lunged, catching the blade of the sword between the daggers and twisting it aside. My stomach dropped when she recovered and struck again, drawing close enough that she was nearly pushed against his chest and smirking up at him.
I was sure she’d done that on purpose just to get close to him, since she’d made the mistake of getting close enough for him to disarm her, drop her to the ground, and kneel over her with a dagger at her throat.
Only someone as amateur as I was would make that kind of mistake, and it put her in the perfect position to touch the flexed muscles of his thigh, laughing breathlessly.
Dominic was on his feet in less than a second, his expression shuttered as he helped her to her feet.
Bloom brushed off her tracksuit and retrieved the practice sword. “There you have it, Miss Darke. Close quarters with a knife-fighter is death for the swordsman, particularly a smaller woman. You’ll need to keep your distance from Professor Steele.”
She handed me the sword and gave me a small, tight smile that made me wonder if there was a double meaning hidden in her words. “I’ll stay for a while and give you pointers on stance and grip.”
My stomach was a sea of bile at that point, but I obediently followed her guide, spreading my feet and squaring them in the grass, and holding the sword right hand over left.
Even though I could’ve happily banished her to an alternate dimension right then and there, I was surprised to find how natural the stance came to me. I felt solid, planted to the ground, and strangely confident in the moves I would make next.
Unlike Bloom, however, my goal was to keep Dominic outside my guard.
Even with her unwanted presence in the clearing, the session went much better than the past two weeks had. Of course, he managed to disarm me every time, but it took him much longer, and I felt more confident in my ability to keep him at arm’s length.
“I believe we’ve found your weapon, Miss Darke,” he said when I took a breather, wiping beaded sweat off my forehead.
I started to smile at him, but the sword was pulled from my grip.
“A final round between friends?” Bloom asked. “I’d like to demonstrate a more direct approach to your student.”
Dominic’s hazel eyes flicked to me for an instant. He looked like he was going to refuse, but Bloom was already striding back out to the center. “Come on, Dom. It’s been years since I met someone who could challenge me.”
With a barely audible sigh he took up the daggers again and followed her. This time, some of the playfulness had left Bloom’s face, and her eyes roved over him with a combination of determination and lust that made me feel a little sick.
She burst into movement, lunging forward in a stop thrust that Dominic barely parried in time. His surprise was short-lived as Bloom attacked, every movement cold and calculated.
Dominic’s entire body was tense, and I found myself biting my lip as he struck and deflected, moving like liquid for such a large man. Even if I hated how close he got to Bloom during the fight, it was difficult to not appreciate how d
angerous he was.
I found it sexy as hell. The only problem with this situation was that it was Bloom against him, not me.
And he was pushing himself to win, sweat pearling on his forehead and his muscles bunching when he drove forward.
Dominic won five minutes later, slipping under her guard to disarm her, but Bloom didn’t look upset at all. She bit her own lip, gazing up at him under her lashes, and my stomach did the slow backwards flip I was coming to associate with imminent misery.
He’d actually had to try to win against her. Training with me must be about as challenging as beating a toddler with a stick.
Bloom tossed the practice sword aside. “I yield,” she said with a flirty smile, still caught against him.
He released her and turned away, but she pulled him back and plucked the daggers from his relaxed grip. I gritted my teeth when she tossed them next to the sword. “Miss Darke can handle clean-up today.”
Dominic looked back at me, his lips parted like he was going to say something else, but she was already tugging him back to the rose garden, her voice echoing back to me: “That was exhilarating! Perhaps finding a worthwhile man to handfast for the sake of my coven won’t be so difficult after all.”
My chest felt hollow and my mouth filled with a sick, coppery taste.
Where humans had weddings, witches and warlocks handfasted, and that’s what Ivy Bloom was looking for: a warlock with the connections and magic to make a worthwhile coven match.
Dominic Steele would be a perfect choice. He was a mirrorwalker with a mastery, from an old, strong coven, and to top it off, he was gorgeous, raw sensuality from head to toe.
He’d said she was a means to an end… but what did that mean, exactly? He refused to tell me what that end was.
How could I read anything into a coven ring when I knew it was probably less than nothing for him to give it away?
I glared at the daggers, wondering if I was being played for a fool, when the world’s most unwelcome voice cut through my tempestuous thoughts.
“Don’t have the stomach for competition, Blondie?”
