by Eva Chase
They exchanged a brief clasping of hands that I guessed was as warm as a high-level fearmancer friendship got, and Lillian strode out with Maggie at her heels. I expected my mother to dismiss me too, but instead she went straight to the windows to peer down at the street. She murmured a few casting words under her breath, her gaze going intent, her posture tensed as if expecting some kind of attack.
“What’s going on?” I asked with a skip of my pulse. When I came over to the window, I couldn’t see anything concerning on the street below.
My mother held up a hand in a request for silence. Her gaze stayed fixed on the street.
Lillian and Maggie emerged and headed to one of the blacksuits’ sleek black cars farther down the block. My mother murmured again, her eyes following them. They narrowed, and then she pulled herself back with a sharp exhalation.
“Have any of your interactions with Lillian made you uneasy?” she asked, searching my expression with uncomfortable intensity. “I understand she involved herself quite a bit in your life before I returned.”
Pretty much all of my interactions with Lillian had unnerved me, but not for reasons I could easily explain to my mother. Where the hell had that question come from anyway?
“Mostly she just told me a little more about the family and then, obviously, got my help in finding you,” I said. “I didn’t see her that often.”
I thought the baron might bring up the murder charges, but apparently she had other things on her mind that didn’t have to do so much with me. “Was there anything unusual she mentioned about the family, or specifically me? Did her approach to my rescue seem at all unconventional?”
I had no idea what a conventional rescue would look like. But those questions made understanding click in my head.
My mother was having trouble trusting anyone around her, from her longtime house manager to her supposed best friend. If anything, she seemed more paranoid now than she had about Eloise back at the house.
Seventeen years in captivity must have taken quite a toll—one she wasn’t shaking off all that quickly.
“I—I don’t think there was anything strange,” I said, not sure what she’d consider strange but not wanting to give her false reassurance either. For all I knew, Lillian did have malicious intentions toward my mother and was hiding them as much as she’d hidden her scheming against me. “I’m not really sure how to judge.”
“Hmm,” my mother said, and turned back toward the window. In that moment, she didn’t look like the cool and collected ruler of mages she’d presented herself as so often. Right then, all I could see was a nervous, worn-down woman.
A nervous, worn-down woman who was nonetheless making decisions that affected not just our society but the Naries’ as well.
It only lasted for a second, and then her expression snapped back into its authoritative calm. “It was good to see you, Persephone,” she said. “I’m sure you have to get back to your studies, but we’ll have to find time to grab another dinner soon and talk more.”
“That would be nice,” I said, and hurried out of the office as quickly as my feet could take me.
Chapter Eighteen
Rory
Malcolm’s text had only asked me to come to his dorm. When he answered the door, the common room on the other side was totally empty, the space silent. He motioned me inside.
“I’ve… encouraged my dormmates to be elsewhere for the next little while,” he said, his voice low. “I might have a way to get through to Connar, but we’ll want our privacy.” He hesitated, his dark brown gaze holding mine. “Do you trust me?”
Four simple words that held so much weight after the history between us. I looked back at him, and found that after what we’d been through in the last few weeks, it wasn’t even hard to say, “I do. What do you have planned?”
“I was thinking that the illusions he has of you are probably set off by triggers his parents were able to observe themselves to work into their casting—your voice, your face. But he’s been a lot more intimate with you than that. So maybe, if we focus on re-establishing that type of connection, it’ll override at least some of the brainwashing.”
Intimate. A tingle passed over my skin at the word and the hint of heat that had come into Malcolm’s expression. I could follow his reasoning, even if I wasn’t sure the scheme would get us very far. “Is he even going to be willing to try?”
“I’ve talked with him. And there are certain conditions that should help him relax. I’ll be right there the whole time in case he gets messed up again—if you’re all right with that.”
“Yeah.” The thought of Malcolm watching only made the idea more tempting.
“It’d be best if you don’t say anything to him, I think, to make it less likely he’ll be set off before we get anywhere.” Malcolm tipped his head toward a door at the far end of the common area. “He’s waiting in my room.”
I nodded, my lips pressing tight together. My hand leapt to my dragon charm. “I should take this off. He associates it pretty strongly with me, and especially after I tried to get him to use it, it might set him off.”
“I’ll take care of it for you.” Malcolm accepted the necklace and tucked it into his pocket.
Anticipation and nerves jittered alongside each other through my body as we walked over. Making appeals through both logic and emotion hadn’t worked to shake Connar out of his magic-induced delusions. Maybe this wouldn’t either, but if the Nightwood scion thought it was worth a try, I couldn’t refuse. All we needed was to restore enough trust with Connar for him to let us do the rest of the work to break the spell.
Malcolm’s bedroom looked nearly identical to mine, only with a slightly different mahogany bedframe and a midnight blue bedspread that was neatly tucked over the mattress. The aquatic scent of his cologne lingered in the space.
Connar was leaning against the desk. His posture tensed the moment we came through the door. I stopped just inside, keeping my mouth shut as Malcolm had suggested, waiting to see how he’d handle this.
“We’re going to unearth those memories I think have been buried,” Malcolm said to his friend. “Rory wants to be a part of this. I know you’re wary, and we both understand that. There’s no way she’ll be able to work any magic on you.” He turned to me, his eyes even darker than before. His voice dropped even lower than before. “You’ll need to take off your shirt and your bra first.”
A heady shiver traveled down my spine. I was really doing this. I pulled the silky blouse up over my head, my skin cooling as I bared it, and set the shirt at the base of the bed. A flush crept through my cheeks as I unhooked my bra.
Connar watched the proceedings without stirring, still tensed, but a flicker of desire crossed his face. It was progress just that he wasn’t telling me off or marching out.
When I’d set down my bra on top of my shirt, I crossed my arms over my chest instinctively. Malcolm motioned me over to the bed. I sat down, and he produced a pair of handcuffs from the drawer on the bedside table. They didn’t look like police ones but like the wide silver ones I’d worn when the blacksuits had first taken me into custody for Imogen’s murder. The ones that had suppressed my ability to cast.
My body balked instinctively with the memory of the powerlessness I’d felt back then. No wonder Malcolm had asked if I trusted him. I glanced up at him, and he gave me a crooked smile, waiting patiently without any pressure.
I could manage this. If it would reassure Connar enough for him to get past his hostility, it was more than worth it.
I held out my arms. “She won’t be able to cast anything at all while she has these on,” Malcolm said as he clicked the cuffs into place.
Nothing changed about the hum of energy behind my collarbone. The cuffs did nothing but add a faint, cold weight around my wrists. I suspected with one word I could have unlocked them. Understanding clicked in my head. He wasn’t really confining me, only convincing Connar that he had.
My anxiety faded a little. Malcolm tou
ched my shoulder, his fingers hot against my naked skin, to ease me farther up the bed. He pulled up one of his pillows to cushion the frame and guided my hands over my head to hook the cuffs’ chain over a little spire in the center of the headboard. I tried to relax into the bed, even though I was totally exposed now.
Malcolm moved around me on the bed to sit at my left and nudged my knees down so my legs were sprawled straight in front of me. He beckoned Connar over. “Touch her. She wants you. See what you feel, what you remember.”
Connar stiffened for a second, but then he pushed himself toward the bed. As he looked down at me, I tipped my head back in the hopes that I could make it easier for him to keep his attention away from my face and whatever illusions that sight might trigger. He lowered himself tentatively onto the mattress beside me. My heart thumped faster.
“Take your time,” Malcolm said, low and smooth as ever. His voice teased over me like a caress in itself. “Some part of you remembers what she likes, doesn’t it?”
He trailed his own fingers over my ribs to the base of my breast, sparking heat in their wake. My nipples pebbled at the contact.
Then another hand came to rest on my torso. Connar’s, broad and solid, and so familiar I had to choke back words of encouragement. He traced his thumb in a slow arc over my skin, and I closed my eyes, remembering the times we’d come together before. At night in the clifftop clearing. In the lake, with Jude. In the back of his car after our first real date. Back on the cliff with Declan. And that last time, right before I’d left for California, the two of us melding together in the darkness of the Shifting Grounds.
His fingers edged up inch by inch to stroke the base of my breast. They followed the curve and just barely grazed the nipple. It hardened even more with a pulse of pleasure that made my breath catch.
“Just like that,” Malcolm said encouragingly, the hunger in his tone turning me on even more. He’d made it clear more than once how much he wanted me, but bringing me back together with his friend was more important to him. He flicked his thumb over my other nipple. I just barely held myself back from arching into their combined touch, not wanting to scare Connar off.
The Stormhurst scion cupped my breast more firmly. He rolled my nipple under his thumb, and I did arch a little then, with a fresh stutter of breath.
“I do remember things,” he said to Malcolm. “But I— She could have persuaded me into going along with it, or—”
Malcolm was shaking his head. “Sink into those memories,” he said. “Give them all room to rise up. You weren’t with her in some mindless haze of lust. You cared about her, and you wanted to show her that. You wanted to offer her all the affection and passion she’d shown you.”
He caressed me again, the backs of his fingers rippling over the peak of my breast to provoke a wave of bliss. There’d been a rawness to those last words that made me wonder how much he was speaking for himself too. What it would mean to him when he and I finally came together.
Connar gazed down at me for a long moment, working over my other breast with a gentleness that was becoming more assured by the second. Then, to a skip of my pulse, he leaned over. As he continued to fondle my chest, he brought his lips to the bare skin just below my collarbone in a ghost of a kiss.
His smoky smell flooded my nose. My own lips ached to meet his, but that might break the counterspell of pleasure we were creating between our bodies.
He lingered there with a few more tentative kisses, and then he dipped lower, pressing my breast upward with his palm the way he had when offering them to Jude weeks ago. This time it was his mouth closing over the peak, his tongue slicking over me so hot and forceful I couldn’t contain a whimper. The giddy heat radiated through me to pool between my legs.
“That’s right,” Malcolm said with a rasp in his voice. As if sensing my longing, he bowed his head too, pressing his lips to my cheek. Longing thrummed through me to have his mouth claim mine, but he held back, maybe worried Connar would feel usurped. The slow path he charted over my jaw and down my neck was blissful enough.
The Nightwood scion eased back as Connar shifted closer to me. Connar reached for the other side of my chest as he continued to nip and suckle my breast. My fingers itched to run through his hair and tease out an answering pleasure, but I didn’t dare move my arms from where they were hooked above me. A tremor of pleasure ran through me, and I bit back a moan.
Malcolm let his hand drift lower to the waist of my pants. I sucked my lower lip under my teeth as he snapped open the fly. He tugged the fabric off me, exposing my dampening panties. Connar raised his head to take me in with a shakily eager breath.
Malcolm grazed his fingers along the top of my panties. “Look how wet she is for you. Are you going to leave her wanting?”
He eased his hand over to tease up and down my thigh as Connar trailed his fingers downward. I was practically dying by the time the Stormhurst scion reached that thin scrap of fabric. He brushed lightly over my mound and below to the evidence of my arousal. Then he pressed harder, right on my most sensitive spot.
Pleasure shot through me like an electric shock. I couldn’t hold back the cry that tumbled from my lips. “Oh!”
Barely a word, one mere syllable. But just like that, Connar’s hand jerked back. His stance tensed all over again.
“No,” he said, wrenching himself away from the bed. “I can’t— This isn’t— It’s all part of her fucking plan.”
He stumbled and spun around, grabbing at the door. I stared after him as he slammed it behind him. A sense of failure coiled through me despite the longing that hadn’t faded.
“Damn it,” Malcolm muttered. “I’m sorry. I was really hoping… I don’t know.”
He sounded so repentant, as if Connar’s departure were somehow his fault, as if his idea hadn’t gotten us closer to some kind of reconciliation than anything else any of us had tried before had. My heart squeezed. I murmured to the cuffs, and they clicked open with a quiver of my magic as I’d expected. Sitting up, I tucked my arm around Malcolm’s.
“It might still have helped,” I said. “He let down his guard—he was remembering things. Maybe he’ll have those real memories stronger in his mind now to challenge the false ones. This wasn’t likely to cure him all in one go.”
Malcolm let out a rough laugh. “True. But I wish I could have given you that.”
A lump rose in my throat. I didn’t know how to answer him, other than by touching his face and drawing him into a kiss.
Malcolm turned so he could fit his mouth against mine at an even better angle, his arm sliding around my waist to tug me against him. So much wanting radiated through the kiss that my body lit up in answer.
I wanted this too. I wanted him, just as much as I’d wanted Connar. I’d wanted him for what felt like forever, but the selflessness with which he’d urged his friend to rekindle what we’d once shared sharpened that desire even more.
Instead of carrying the kiss into something more, Malcolm pulled back with a look of regret as if he thought that was the end of it. I caught his shirt before he got very far, searching out his gaze until it met mine. “There are lots of other things you could give me. You’ve got me practically naked in your bed—isn’t this exactly what you’ve been waiting for?”
His eyes turned outright smoldering, his fingers curling against my back. “Rory, you don’t have to—”
I leaned in to shut him up with a kiss, short and sweet. “You really should know by now that I don’t do things just because someone else expects me to. Did you think I wasn’t wet for you too? I want you, all of you. Or are you going to make me beg now?”
Malcolm inhaled raggedly. “Fuck, no.” Then his mouth crashed into mine with all the passion I’d been waiting for.
He tipped me over on the bed without breaking the kiss, devouring me in the most blissful possible way. His hand stroked over my breast as he braced himself over me. Every movement of his fingers reignited the flames he’d stirred up before, twic
e as hot now that he wasn’t holding himself back.
I fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. I’d only managed the first couple when he sat up just long enough to yank it off. Before I could do more than briefly run my hands over the sculpted muscles of his chest, he lowered his head and sucked the tip of my breast between his teeth with such blissful force I gasped.
“I’ve been waiting so long for this,” he murmured as he moved to the other side of my chest. “You can have the other guys, but I’m going to make you come so hard you forget you’ve ever been with anyone else.”
A tremor of anticipation raced through me. I dug my fingers into his short curls with an encouraging sound that turned into a moan with the swivel of his tongue over my nipple.
My hips lifted toward him of their own accord. He slid one hand down to my ass and massaged the curve of it while he sent another wave of pleasure through my breast. Then he eased up over me to kiss me on the mouth again, fitting me against him at the same time so my core met the bulge in his slacks. I couldn’t hold back my moan. It was a good thing he’d cleared the whole dorm.
I rocked into him, reveling in the pleasure that flared with each moment of contact, kissing him hard and dragging my fingers down his back. Malcolm groaned and ground into me in turn. In a mess of spilled breath and rough kisses, we peeled his slacks off him with only a few breaks in our rhythm. I palmed him through his boxers, and a growl reverberated from his chest.
He caught my hand and pushed it up against the pillow, sliding his hardened cock against me. The friction between those two thin layers of fabric made me shudder with bliss. I raised my hips, urging him onward, already lost in the haze of feeling.
When he reached down to tug my panties off me, I dipped my hand between us for just an instant to murmur the protective spell Declan had taught me. Malcolm’s gaze caught fire, watching. He kissed me again so thoroughly it left my head spinning and sat back on his heels, urging me up with him.
