by Eva Chase
My stomach knotted. She had a point. Every book cautiously published and distributed for the witching community had to go through a rigorous vetting process by the Assembly. And of course the stories collected were edited by the collector. What I’d done with those I’d gathered for my own modern history project was simply removing repetitive bits, but that was because authenticity mattered to me.And the stories I’d gathered were accounts committed to paper, possibly already edited by the teller or by those who watched over us.
I couldn’t say any of the other witching people involved in our record keeping or governance had an agenda to keep information like this secret… but I couldn’t say they didn’t either.
Any editing out might not even have been done by someone currently around. Those towers and the drawings in them had looked hundreds of years old. All it would have taken was one or two people in a position of power back when witches had started to commit the stories of the past to paper, and any aspect of that past they’d disliked could have been struck from the record. A few generations of strict enforcement of one rule or another, and no one would be the wiser.
It could be no one living even knew there was anything to hide at this point.
The Assembly’s archives might have even more books on the subject, older records that hadn’t been printed widely. Dad would have their catalogue of entries around somewhere… Meredith would know where it was.
I headed to her office, even though chances were fairly slim she was there in the middle of the day. I hadn’t seen her since our brief conversation yesterday, but that wasn’t totally unusual, given how much running around the estate she did.
I knocked and then, when there was no answer, tried the door just in case. It swung open—and I froze, my jaw going slack.
The desk and the filing cabinets were still there. But the desk was bare, the photo of Meredith with her husband when they were young gone, her glazed clay pen holder and the usual scattering of papers too. The few pieces of art she’d picked out and hung on the walls had vanished. Even her chair, that leather beast with the wheels so she could roll it out of the way with a shove, was missing. The whole room felt too empty, too uninhabited.
What the Spark’s name had happened here?
I spun around and found Celestine in the hall outside her own office, watching me.
“Did you need Meredith for something?” she asked in her cool voice. “I’m afraid I had to let her go. It’ll take a few days to arrange a new manager. In the meantime, whatever your concern was, I suppose you can take it to the appropriate staff.”
My heart stopped. “What do you mean, you ‘let her go’?” I said, only just managing not to sputter.
Celestine’s eyes glinted icily. “She was no longer a good fit for our household. It isn’t wise to hang on to staff for purely sentimental reasons.”
“She was just here yesterday,” I protested. “You can’t just fire her. When Dad finds out—”
That was why she’d done it now. Dad wasn’t around to argue, and he wouldn’t be back for another three days. A shiver ran down my back.
“Your father will understand perfectly when we discuss my reasoning,” my stepmother said. “He has given me equal authority over this estate, and I will make use of that when I feel I need to.”
She hadn’t even given me a chance to say good-bye. She must have timed it perfectly so that I wouldn’t see it happening—late at night or early in the morning. Sending Meredith off like a stray cat that’d gotten too familiar, not like a loyal employee who was practically a member of the family and had been for generations.
Heat welled up behind my eyes. I strode forward, raising my hand in a demanding gesture. “You have to know where she’s gone to. I want a way to contact her, and—”
Celestine whipped her hand through the air. A magical force slammed into my legs, forcing me to a halt. I swayed to keep my balance.
“Do not approach me like that,” Celestine said, her voice lowering, now frigidly cold. “We won’t be speaking on this matter again.”
My feet wouldn’t move. There was nothing I could do. I gritted my teeth as a sense of helplessness washed through me, blinking back the threatening tears. She’d made her point. I didn’t need her seeing just how upset I was.
My stepmother swept past me in her silk day dress and glided down the stairs without another word. With a swivel of her wrist, the force holding me released. My legs wobbled. I caught myself against the wall with a sharp inhale and swiped at one tear that crept out.
What was I going to do now? With Dad on his trip and Meredith gone, there was no one left in the house I could count on at all. And Celestine had just demonstrated how willing she was to use her magic against me.
My gaze rose to the door to Derek’s room, down the hall. I’d been focused on looking for proof among Celestine’s things, but maybe he wouldn’t have been as careful. He didn’t have magic to help him cover his tracks.
He’d gone out to meet a friend for lunch. I had time. And if he came back and found me, well, I could pretend I’d been waiting to surprise him or some love-struck story like that.
His door opened easily. I crept inside and shut it behind me.
“Not much for neatness, is he?” Philomena said with a sniff, looking at the rumpled duvet on his bed.
A whiff of the spicy spruce cologne Derek wore lingered in the air. My feet whispered across the floorboards as I slipped farther inside.
Nothing stood out on the shelves or the dresser. I peeked under the bed. Tested the baseboards in case one was wobbly like the bottom of my bookcase. Opened his closet and rummaged through his clothes: slacks and khakis, sweaters and polo shirts and button-downs.
Where my shelves held books, his held vinyl records and binders with business notes and architectural sketches. I was flipping through one of those, my chest clenching around the growing possibility that I might leave this room with no more evidence than I'd come in with, when the floor in the hall outside creaked. The knob rasped.
My pulse skipped a beat. "On the bed!" Phil suggested with a breathless laugh. “Sprawl yourself out, get a come hither look ready—"
Her mouth snapped shut. "Come on," Derek's voice said on the other side of the door—and a soft feminine murmur answered, "Are you sure?"
He wasn't alone. My heart outright lurched. I threw myself at the first shelter I could think of: the closet.
I tugged the closet door shut behind me just in time. A giggle carried into the room. I knew that sound.
Polly, from the cleaning staff. Nausea washed through me. What were they doing? He couldn’t really be—with one of my family’s employees, in my own home, while I might be right down the hall…?
A rustling of clothes and a sigh filtered through the closet door. Apparently he could. Oh, snuff my spark, no, I didn’t want to witness this. I drew my knees up to my chest, hugging them.
I’d known Derek couldn’t care much about me, I’d known my stepmother had roped him into her schemes one way or another, but it hadn’t occurred to me he’d flaunt his lack of caring this blatantly.
"Again?" Polly said. "It doesn't seem completely right..."
Her protest was cut off by a startled breath and the squeak of the mattress. Then a gasp of what could only be pleasure.
Derek chuckled. “I should be allowed to have a little fun, don’t you think? Have you seen my wife-to-be? My God, you’d think it’d kill her just to give me a kiss. A man has needs.”
My face burned. I swallowed thickly, clutching my legs now.
“And you have needs too, don’t you?” he went on, his voice slyly seductive. More clothing rustled. Polly whimpered encouragingly. “Why shouldn’t we take care of those together? Lord knows I’d rather have a girl with real curves on her than some waifish thing.”
A waifish thing like me?
Philomena sank down on the floor across from me, her skirts enveloping my feet. “Don’t you dare listen to that bastard, Rose,” she mutte
red. “He clearly doesn’t know the first thing about what makes a commendable woman. Let’s talk about something else. Did I ever tell you the story of that time I had to hide away in a closet? It was all because of Lord Danby’s britches and—”
Her voice couldn’t drown out the conversation beyond the closet completely. “But if someone sees us,” Polly started. “We have to be careful—oh!”
A zipper hissed down. “Don’t you worry about that,” my fiancé said. “Rose doesn’t have a clue, and anyone else who notices won’t give a damn.”
Anyone else who notices won’t give a damn. Like my stepmother? Because she knew he was committed to her scheme regardless of how often and how far he might stray along the way? I might have vomited if my lips hadn't been pressed so tight.
The bed frame creaked and gasps turned into moans. I pressed my hands over my ears. My palms muffled everything except Philomena, who’d given up on her story too.
“We can’t let him get away with this,” she said, her hands balled into fists. “What an utter wretch of a man he is.”
“Maybe I don’t have to,” I said. “Polly hesitated a little bit. If I bring her to my father when he’s back, I might be able to convince her to confess.” I didn’t need a conspiracy to convince Dad I couldn’t marry Derek if I had the other woman testifying to his cheating.
And then what? Dad would send Celestine out to find another consort for me? Beggars couldn’t be choosers. And I could just imagine who she’d pawn me off to with so little time to argue. Some other scumbag who’d bow to her scheme. Unless I found a way to reveal her too.
I bowed my head, leaning my forehead against my knees. Tears scalded my eyes, but the firm pressure kept me grounded. Kept me steady as anger rippled up over the pain.
I’d spent the last week simply trying to figure out how I could survive this, while Derek canoodled with one of our staff right here under the roof of my house, insulted me to her… Laughed about how powerless I was to do anything about it.
My fingers curled into my hair. I set my jaw. I wasn’t powerless, and I wasn’t alone. When Dad got home in three days’ time, I’d have all the evidence I needed. Let Derek laugh. Let my stepmother think herself so above me.
It took a witch to battle a witch. And I knew how to become one, at least for long enough for it to matter.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rose
I stood by the side entrance of the scruffy split-level where Damon lived for a full minute after I’d knocked. My heart started to sink. My fingers hooked around the ribbon that circled my left wrist. I’d worn his tonight, the red one. It seemed fitting. When I’d first thought of Damon with that color, it’d been for his unshakeable daring. Now it matched his anger too.
I could understand anger. Tonight I understood it oh so well.
Shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I knocked again. The shadows were getting long, the sky turning from blue to gray. I’d slipped out of the house right after dinner. But who knew what hours Damon kept? He might not be home until after midnight for all I knew.
I could have texted him first to check, but I’d been a little worried if he’d known I was coming, he’d make sure he wasn’t here. He hadn’t even given me his address. I’d gotten that from his mom.
A pigeon cooed and hopped down to peck at a few pieces of trash scattered along the fence. The cool evening breeze teased through my hair. Then footsteps thumped on the other side of the door.
“Haven’t I told you a thousand times—” Damon’s rough voice said on the other side. The lock jiggled. His voice cut off when he yanked the door open and saw me.
For the first second, we just stared at each other. He was only wearing an undershirt above his jeans, revealing well-muscled shoulders and biceps—a thin line of a scar slanting across one.
I balled my hands in the pockets of my jacket. “Can I come in?”
“What are you doing here?” he said, probably aiming for snark but falling more on the side of shock.
“I wanted to see you,” I said. “So. Can I come in?”
“I haven’t exactly cleaned up for company.”
“I don’t exactly care.”
He glowered at me, but when that didn’t make me vanish either, he sighed and waved me in. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
If Damon ever wrote an autobiography, he’d probably make Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You the title.
Beyond the tiled landing just inside the door, a set of creaky stairs led down to a basement apartment. A bachelor: kitchenette at one end, the narrow counter scattered with ringed glasses and a couple of pizza boxes. Bed in the far corner, the sheets rumpled and the pillow propped against the side wall to face the small TV on its cinderblock stand. A two-seater table stood between them, a deck of cards sitting on it.
The space smelled slightly earthen, like most basements I’d been in, but not in an unpleasant way. And there was no hint of nicotine in the air. No ashtray on the table or on the plywood stand beside the bed. Huh. So Damon didn’t smoke down here. I’d wondered how much that habit was an actual vice and how much just part of The Badass Show he was currently attempting to star in.
“You know, normally people consider it polite to give a person a little notice before you turn up at their door,” Damon said. He’d recovered his snark.
I turned to face him where he’d stopped at the bottom of the steps. “Are you really going to start giving me lessons on politeness?”
His mouth twitched with what looked like a grin he’d caught. His body stayed tensed, though. “Just sayin’.”
I shrugged off my jacket and draped it on the back of one of the chairs, since there didn’t appear to be any coat hooks around. Damon hadn’t moved. “It’s your apartment,” I said. “Aren’t you going to come in?”
“I’m still trying to figure out what you’re up to, angel.”
I inhaled slowly, gathering myself. Then I walked up to him, holding his gaze, and stopped just a few inches away. Close enough to make his breath hitch. My voice dropped. I was nervous as hell, but somehow I managed to keep the tremor out of it.
“A few days ago you were talking about all the things you wanted. I’m pretty sure an awful lot of them, I want too. And I’m hoping you’re as done with waiting as I am.”
The heat radiating off his body rose. He laughed hoarsely. “Do you even really know what you’re asking for, Rose?”
“I think I’ve got the basics and an awful lot of the extras down. You’d be amazed what you can learn from books.”
A glint lit in his dark blue eyes. “What the hell kind of books have you been reading?”
I let a smile curl my lips. “All the best kinds.”
Damon shifted forward, bridging the gap between us. His chest brushed mine. His hand came to rest on my waist. A faint rasp crept into his voice. “I’m not going to give you some kind of fairy tale. If we do this, we’re doing it my way. Are you ready for that?”
When he looked at me like that, talked in that low voice, I felt ready to spontaneously combust. My pulse stuttered, but I found the confidence to set my hand on his chest. And then to trail my fingers down, down, over the solid muscles of his abs, past the hem of his jeans, to the bulge straining against his fly, exactly what I’d been looking for.
He was already hard. As I cupped my hand around his erection, his eyelids dipped, lust turning his eyes almost black.
“I’m sure I can figure out anything I don’t know as we go,” I said. A thrill passed through me, feeling the undeniable evidence of his desire against my palm. Seeing the pleasure of my touch melt some of the defensiveness from his expression. My own desire pooled in an ache between my legs.
Damon pulled me even closer to him, trapping my hand between us. Any nicotine smell from his outside activities had left him too, leaving only a lingering hint of leather and something richly bittersweet, like dark chocolate. His head bowed next to mine. “Have you ever touched a guy like that be
fore?”
I swallowed hard and settled on the truth. “Only in my imagination.”
“Has anyone ever touched you like that?”
A shaky breath escaped my lips. “No, but I figure it’s about time someone did.”
To my frustration, he stepped back at those words. His fingers closed around my wrist, just tight enough to be a little but not overly painful. He studied my face.
For a second I thought he was going to ask me why now, and I wasn’t totally sure what I’d tell him. I didn’t want to talk about Derek. I didn’t want to even think about Derek. That snake didn’t deserve any more space in my mind.
But that question wasn’t where Damon’s mind had gone after all. Or else he’d decided that part he didn’t need to know. “Did you come here because you want to have sex with me or because you want to have sex with someone?” he said.
Oh. That was an easier one to answer. “I want you,” I said. “Very, very much. But if you’re asking whether you’re the only one I want, I’m not going to pretend it’s like that.”
“So why pick me tonight?”
If he’d known how well that question echoed Seth’s the other night, he probably would have cringed.
I gave him a little smile and the truth. “You’re the only one I know won’t shut me down out of some idea about my own good. So are we going to fuck or what?”
The crude words felt awkward coming out of my mouth. But they set off a blaze in Damon’s eyes. “Oh, I’ll make it good for you, angel. I promise you that much.”
I didn’t have time to say anything about that, because the next second he was kissing me. Hard and hungry, his fingers twining into my hair and tensing against my scalp, need vibrating through his body. I gave myself over to the embrace, kissing him back. Whimpering when he tilted his head and his teeth grazed my lip. Wanting this, all of this passion and power, not just against my mouth but over every inch of me.
In the depths of my chest, my spark flared.
Damon kissed me again, walking me backward to the bed at the same time. When the backs of my legs hit the frame, he released my lips just long enough to yank my shirt up over my head. As my hair rained down around my face in its wake, he claimed my mouth again. I ran my hands up over the hot planes of his chest beneath his undershirt, and he groaned.
