Consort of Pain

by Eva Chase

  “Blue and white it is.” There was a click of scissors, and then another, and Naomi handed Rose two lengths of cord about as long as her forearm. Rose set them in the bowl with the other supplies she’d collected.

  “You’re happy with the dress you picked out?” Naomi asked. “If you want to take another look through my things…”

  “It’s fine,” Rose said, smiling at her. “It’s perfect. I just need something simple that I can move in.”

  “Mmhm,” Naomi said with a knowing look. Rose blushed. She was having to do a lot of that in the company we’d been keeping, with the things we’d had to explain to some of them, lately.

  “So that I can cast the parts of the consorting spell,” she clarified.

  “Of course, of course. Is there anything else in here you’ll need?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, if you do think of anything, just let me know.” Naomi hesitated, and her expression turned suddenly serious. “The thought of what your dad did to you, or at least tried to do—snuff my spark, I can’t even imagine it. I wish we’d been there for you earlier. But you’re not getting rid of me now, cuz.”

  She knocked Rose’s arm with her own in playful affection.

  “Thank you,” Rose said, sounding happy and uncertain at the same time.

  Naomi ambled off, and Rose came to stand beside me in the doorway. “What’s up?” she asked, worry shadowing her face. The sight of it made my chest ache. She’d been carrying those shadows for a long time now, but in the last few hours I’d gotten the sense they were weighing on her even more than usual.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I reassured her. “I just wanted to see you. To find out if there’s anything I can do for you. You’ve been wearing yourself out, all this running around.”

  She shrugged. “I needed to prepare for the ceremony. If it’s going to work, I have to make sure I do everything right.”

  “It’ll work.” I touched her cheek, tracing my thumb across her cheekbone. “I can feel it.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me, but the corner of her lips quirked up. “And you’re now the expert on magical possibilities?”

  “I think anything is possible when you’re the one casting the spell.”

  She let out a little groan and tipped her head toward me. I wrapped my arms around her as she rested her forehead on my shoulder.

  “I wish it were that simple, Jin,” she said. “Now I’m getting all these other people mixed up in our problems too. And they’re being so nice to me about it.”

  “You’re family,” I said. “That’s what good families do. It’s just too bad you didn’t know you had one like this over here all this time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You seem to be getting along pretty well with Naomi.”

  “She’s nice too. And she seems to be more excited than judgy about the possibilities of multiple consorts.” Rose laughed against my shirt. “Also, she reads. You should see the bookcase in her room. Not half as big as mine, but—well, there’s a lot of overlap between our collections, let’s just say.”

  “All those romances that have corrupted your innocent mind,” I teased.

  She gave me a little shove, grinning at me. But before I could give in to the urge to kiss her like I wanted to, her expression fell again. She needed more from me than just physical affection. I reached for the right thing to say.

  “You picked the spot we’re going to do the ceremony, didn’t you? Will you show me?”

  “All right.”

  Her hand curled around mine as she led me through the house. After all her bustling around getting ready, she walked through the halls as confidently as if she’d been visiting here for years.

  The gardens out back were as big as the ones on the Hallowell estate, but wilder: rose bushes clambering over random lattices and wildflowers left to bloom around the bases of the pear and plum trees. Together they gave off a pungent floral scent. Rose skirted them on her way into the sparsely wooded area at the back of the property. The longer grass there whispered under her feet.

  She stopped in a little clearing about five minutes from the house and turned around. I turned with her, taking the space in. The trees were spaced far enough apart to let warm sunlight stream down, so grass carpeted the ground beneath us. But we’d come far enough that they hid the house and any sign of what else might lie beyond them in every direction. Privacy without feeling too closed in.

  “It’s perfect,” I said.

  “I thought so too.” She dragged in a breath and let it out slow. Gently, she set down the bowl with her supplies at the base of one of the trees. “I do want you all to be there. I meant that. I think you should be a part of the ceremony just like you were the first time, even if this one is mostly about Gabriel.”

  “Absolutely. You know we want to be a part of this… collective? In every way.”

  She chuckled at my choice of words. “Quite a collective it’s becoming. But maybe once I have that bond with Gabriel, and with Aunt Ginny’s family on our side… Maybe there is a chance we can push back that faction of the Assembly and put down roots somewhere.”

  “I think there’s more than a chance,” I said. “But you need to give yourself space to breathe too, Rose. It’s not all on you.”

  When her mouth slanted down as if she meant to argue, I motioned her closer. “Come here.” Hooking my hand around her elbow, I sat us down on the grass and then lay back. Rose made a vague sound of protest but followed me anyway. I kept my arm looped around hers and gestured with my other hand toward the sky.

  “Look at the way the sunlight shimmers as it passes through the leaves. Look at how fucking blue that sky is. This is yours, right now. Personally, I don’t think there’s any point in even being alive if we don’t stop and absorb the beauty around us when we have a moment to.”

  Rose was silent for a minute. “It is beautiful,” she said. “You’re right.” Some of the tension had ebbed from her voice. She twined her fingers with mine. “And I have a family I didn’t even know anything about a few days ago—a family that wants to support me.”

  “A cousin who likes the same books you do.”

  “I’ll be able to sleep in not just a bed but a comfortable one tonight.”

  “And you have five hot and charming, if I do say so myself, guys who’ll happily share that bed with you.”

  She laughed and rolled onto her side to sling her arm around my waist. “It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it, how much good there can be even when everything seems totally wrong?”

  “You’re pretty amazing,” I told her. But the joy I’d been looking for had come back into her eyes. Her shoulders were no longer tight. The ache I’d felt before dissolved into a wash of warmth.

  I’d worried in the past that I wasn’t taking things seriously enough, that I was focusing too much on how to make Rose happy and not enough on what would keep her safe. But there was room for both, wasn’t there? And this was the part I was good at. This was the part I loved. Bringing a smile to her face, knowing I’d lit a little awe and pleasure inside her.

  Of course, there were ways I could add to that pleasure.

  This time I didn’t hold myself back. I rolled to meet her, capturing her lips with mine. Rose sighed happily into the kiss, her fingers teasing up the back of my neck with a heady tingle through my skin. Her mouth tasted like the fresh pears we’d been eating at lunch time.

  I kissed her again and then trailed my lips down her jaw to her neck, reveling in the hitch of her breath, the scoot of her body to press even closer to mine.

  “What do you say we take this spot out for a little trial run?” I said.

  Her giggle, light as anything, was a victory in itself. “I’d say that sounds like a very good idea,” she said, and pulled my mouth back to hers.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rose

  It felt strange walking out between the trees of Aunt Ginny’s estate under the pale light of the waning moon. So diffe
rent from the first consort ceremony I’d orchestrated. All the fears that had been hanging over me then, all the need for secrecy—that was gone.

  I still had fears, but they were new ones. And this time I walked together with my consorts and the man I’d soon also be consorted to. This time there was no uncertainty about what they’d say, how they’d respond to the idea. The only unknown was whether the great Spark, the light of all our lives, would let me accept another partner.

  Gabriel walked next to me, his hand around mine. When we reached the clearing, I paused. The pleasantly cool night breeze rustled through the leaves overhead and licked over the simple dress I’d chosen, carrying the smell of wildflowers from the garden.

  The other guys came to a stop around us, watching me in the near darkness. Anticipation hung in the air so thickly I could almost taste it, tart and electric on my tongue.

  All that preparation, and I still wasn’t completely sure where to start.

  Gabriel gave my hand a gentle tug, turning me toward him. He bent his head so his forehead grazed mine. His voice came out low but steady.

  “I want this. I want you. I don’t have a single doubt about that. In case you needed to hear it again.”

  I swallowed hard and touched his jaw to bring him in for a kiss. His words and the hot press of his mouth against mine brought a rush of love into my chest.

  The Spark had to see how much he meant to me—to all of us. How could there be anything wrong with making the bond that was already there so much more concrete?

  As I stepped back, Damon coughed. “If you need any help feeding that magic of yours ahead of time…”

  I glanced at him, and he grinned wickedly. Oh, he’d helped feed my spark before our last ceremony quite well. It burned brightly behind my ribs already, stoked by all the intimacies I’d shared with my four consorts in the last couple days since I’d started holding my magicking in check. But a little more couldn’t hurt. They should all be part of this ceremony.

  “Maybe I need a taste from all of you,” I said with a smile.

  I held out my hand, and Damon swooped in, but the others were right behind. As my reckless rebel claimed my mouth, Seth bent to press his lips to the side of my neck. Kyler nipped my earlobe. Jin traced his fingers down my side and leaned in to steal a kiss for himself when Damon eased back.

  My spark danced with a brilliant flare of light and heat that blazed all through my body. I hadn’t needed that extra boost, but my feet felt firmer beneath me now.

  I motioned my consorts to the edge of the small clearing. “I suppose the best thing is for you to make a ring around us. Witness the ceremony. I’ll let you know if I think there’s any other way you should step in.”

  Seth nodded, and they all stepped back. It was just Gabriel and me left in the middle.

  “I just do what we talked about earlier?” he said.

  “That’s all there is to it. Mostly you just follow my cues.” I trailed my fingers down his face, holding those bright blue eyes, for one more moment. Bending down, I found the sticks of charcoal and lengths of cord I’d left there. I handed Gabriel’s to him and tucked my own into my pocket. Then I stepped back like the others had, to give myself room to perform the first of the spells.

  My body moved into the motions even more easily than the first time, knowing the right feel of it, knowing how the magic would come together. I shifted my feet over the grass and unfurled my arms toward the sky, then back down along my body, channeling all the magic I had in me to the edges of my body. Offering it up to the great Spark that warmed us all.

  The words spilled from my lips as if the magic propelled them. “The Spark that guides us, bless this partnering.”

  I swept the bowl Naomi had lent me up from the grass and swiveled as I raised it over my head. My dress swished around me with the slow circle of my turn. My magic tingled up through my arms. I held the bowl toward the sky as if the whole world would fill it. Then I brought it to my mouth as if to taste the magic I’d sent into it.

  That sense of power tingled over my tongue. I offered the bowl to Gabriel. He opened his mouth as I tipped it, drinking in the same symbolic communion. A quiver of energy passed from him into me, and my breath caught.

  That was the first time his essence had touched my spark. My first glimpse of what our bond might feel like. It wasn’t as urgent or heady as the sensation had been during my first consorting, but before then my spark hadn’t been properly kindled at all. Just to feel my connection with Gabriel solidifying made my spirits soar.

  I set the bowl down and whirled again, sending a wave of magic through the clearing, wrapping it around the two of us and touching my other consorts as well. My spin stopped with me facing Gabriel. I took out my stick of charcoal and held it toward him.

  Gabriel had his ready in his hand. He raised it to touch its tip to mine. I stared at the point of contact and willed a flicker of magic through my fingers.

  The charcoal was meant to light with a literal flame. But nothing happened. I frowned and urged another jolt of heat toward the sticks with a wave of my other hand.

  The night air seemed to swallow that energy up. My pulse thumped harder. Why wasn’t this working?

  Gabriel watched me, looking calm and confident as always. He was so sure that I’d find a way to finish this ceremony, to make our connection as deep as it should be. What was wrong wasn’t with him.

  No, it was in me. A prickling crept through my nerves with little jabs of heat as my spark sputtered toward each of the four guys in their ring around us, pulled in four directions at the same time.

  I drew in a breath, settling my thoughts. Maybe I needed them to be more a part of this ceremony than I’d realized.

  “Consorts of mine,” I said, improvising as I went. “Will you bless this union too?”

  I reached my stick of charcoal toward Seth, the closest at my left. He dipped his head, every inch of his powerful body showing nothing but approval. “You and Gabriel have my blessing. Let’s all join together.”

  He was improvising too, but the words echoed the ones we’d used in our consort ceremony. A little of the jittering inside me eased. I pointed to Kyler next.

  “You and Gabriel have my blessing,” he said, smiling. “Let’s all join together.”

  Damon was next. Amusement glinted in his dark eyes. “You and Gabriel have my blessing. Let’s all join together.”

  When I turned to Jin, he was beaming. “You and Gabriel have my blessing. Let’s all join together.”

  The last of that uncomfortable prickling fell away. My spark glowed with an eager pulse and seemed to reach toward Gabriel now. I met my new consort-to-be’s gaze, a smile stretching across my own face. When I touched my charcoal stick to his now, with a twitch of my fingers a flame leapt up between them. A flare of longing shot from my core at the same time. Gabriel’s eyes widened with a glimmer of awe.

  “With you I would kindle my spark,” I said. “Will you join me?”

  “I will,” Gabriel said, with so much weight and longing in those two words that my heart swelled.

  His acceptance sent a thrum of power through the clearing around us. It sang in my ears as I lifted my charcoal stick into the air, stirring up even more desire. Gabriel copied my gesture.

  “We will honor the Spark with our bond,” I said.

  “We will honor the Spark with our bond,” he recited in turn. The flames on our sticks leapt higher, blazing against the dark. Energy raced down my arm and tickled around my torso, hot and needy.

  Now I had to seal that bond I’d opened between us. I lowered the charcoal and snuffed out the flame against my palm. The fire on Gabriel’s vanished in the same instant.

  As I had with the four guys around us weeks ago now, I drew the glyph for joining on my palm and guided Gabriel through its lines on his own. The feel of his skin against mine made me quiver with eagerness. Then I set one end of the white cord Naomi had given me on his marked hand.

  “I, Rosalind Ha
llowell, take Gabriel Lorde as my consort,” I said. He gripped the cord as I did, and magic raced giddily between us. My voice reverberated with it when I added, “I will light my spark by him and never let it burn him.”

  Gabriel held out his own length of cord, the blue one, for me to grasp in turn. “I, Gabriel Lorde, take Rosalind Hallowell as my consort.” He paused, his gaze burning into mine as magic surged through us both. “I will light her spark with my heart and never do her harm.”

  A sharper rush of joy whipped through me. I had to swallow hard to contain the emotion. I hadn’t told him to say that. It wasn’t part of the official ceremony. But the other guys had added it in during theirs. One of them must have told him, so he could become a part of our group in exactly the same way.

  The bond between us snapped into place alongside my joy. Every nerve in my body rang with the magic of it. Heat pooled in my chest and low in my belly, and a pleased laugh fell from Gabriel’s lips as he must have felt the same sensation. Then I was wrapping my arm around his neck and pulling him into a kiss.

  There wasn’t any need to wait this time. No need to hold back from the whirlwind of passion that our joining had stirred between us. I gave myself over to my desire without hesitation.

  “Rose,” Gabriel murmured against my mouth, and then he was kissing me even harder. We stumbled to the edge of the clearing, my back hitting a tree. He pressed me against it, his lips scorching along my jaw and neck, his hands tugging up my dress.

  I wrenched his shirt off of him with the pop of a snapped button. Oh well. I could buy him a new one. Right now I wanted—I needed—to feel all that hot hard muscled body beneath my hands.

  He groaned as I explored his chest. His fingers dipped inside my panties to stroke the most sensitive part of me. I gasped as he flicked his thumb over my inflamed clit.

  My spark was searing through every part of my body now. All I could think of was joining with this man completely, in the most physical possible way.