Consort of Thorns

by Eva Chase

  No, it wasn’t. It was fucking glorious. But if Dad had his own fears, I wanted to draw them out.

  “Oh, lamb,” Dad said. He came around the desk and took my hand with a reassuring squeeze. “Why do you think I insisted on all those lessons while you were growing up? I found the best tutors I could for you. They’ll have given you all the groundwork you need to work with your spark. After all that practice, from what I’ve heard, you should find it as natural as breathing.”

  “Oh,” I said with a little laugh, and my spark danced in my chest. Yes, that described it pretty well. I’d sooner give up breathing than that glow of magic inside me.

  “Your power will take time to develop, too, as you and Derek build the trust and intimacy between you. It won’t hit you all at once. So you’ll have time to adjust as your spark expands.”

  Really? Was that only because I wasn’t all that connected to Derek to begin with, or would the same thing be true with my actual consorts? It was hard to imagine the flame inside me burning even brighter, even headier… But maybe it could. A giddy thrill trickled through me.

  “So you don’t think I have any reason to worry?” I said.

  “Not at all,” Dad said, warmly but firmly. “I’m looking forward to seeing you come into your powers. You’ve waited a long time, but you’ll show the witching world just what a Hallowell is capable of.”

  He sounded so happy about it. So proud. Nothing about his expression or his tone suggested the slightest concern about how I might use that power. I tucked my hands behind my back and curled my fingers in a subtle magicking designed to gauge his mood. I didn’t have any experience reading the impressions that echoed back over me, but I sensed nothing from him that was hostile.

  I knew my father, didn’t I? This was exactly the man I’d thought he was, not the terrifying figure Celestine had tried to convince me of. One last jab to throw me off, to wound me while she still could—was that all her claim had been?

  I was never going to know for sure that his loyalties were with me until I tested him outright, by laying out what I knew. I was going to have to trust him enough to attempt that sometime. And if this was all an act, if he’d played out some master con on me… Well, I had all that magic at my disposal. What could he do to me? None of his connections mattered if I forced him silent the way I had my stepmother. I’d find some way to navigate around the Assembly too, if it came to that. One step at a time.

  Jin was right. I had to remember what I was, what I was already capable of.

  “Dad,” I said. “There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about. I just need to get something from my room first, to show you—I’ll be right back.”

  He looked at me curiously as he let go of my hand. “Of course, Rose. I can wait.”

  I shot him a quick smile and hurried out of the office. In my bedroom, I ran my fingers over the spines of my massive book collection. There.

  The contract between Celestine and Derek that had signed my magic to his control after our consorting lay folded beneath the book’s back cover, right where I’d left it. I exhaled in relief and slid it into my pocket. I was just turning back toward the hall when the front door thumped open downstairs.

  “Mr. Hallowell!” a frantic voice shouted. “Mrs. Gainsley!”

  I darted to the top of the stairs as Dad emerged from his office. The young guy from the garage staff—Tyler—was the one who’d called out. He was standing on the threshold supporting a slumped figure with sandy blond hair.

  Supporting Derek. My heart lurched as I recognized my supposed fiancé. His sandy hair was flecked with blood, his face mottled red, and his hand clutched against his side. As I stood there frozen, his arm slipped from Tyler’s shoulders and he collapsed onto his knees.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rose

  I might not have been feeling the most friendly toward my former fiancé at the moment, but I wasn’t going to leave him to stagger around bleeding in my front hall. I dashed down the steps with Dad right behind me.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Derek was muttering as he pushed himself upright, gripping the end table, but he so obviously wasn’t. His breath was coming with a faint squeak through his bloody nose and he already had a black eye forming. His yellow shirt and gray slacks were mottled with dirt and drops of blood. From the way he held himself, I could tell there were more bruises down his side. He winced as he shifted his weight.

  “Get the first aid kit,” Dad barked at Tyler. The garage assistant ran off. Derek tipped back against the wall with a thump and a grimace. He could barely open that one eye.

  “Sit down,” I said, cringing in sympathy. “You shouldn’t be pushing yourself. What happened?”

  Derek stayed where he was. He swiped his hand past his mouth, which only smeared the grit and blood there more.

  “I’m not even sure,” he said in a raspy voice. This close, I could smell the sweat on him, laced with the faint metallic tang of that blood. “I was driving back here, between towns, and I had to stop for a bunch of guys carrying something across the road. The next thing I know, they’re dragging me out of the car and beating the shit out of me. Took my wallet and left me. I managed to drive back… The Spark only knows what the damned car looks like.”

  Right, because the state of the car was the most important consideration here. I stared at him. What the hell could have provoked an attack like that? “You didn’t know who they were at all?”

  He shook his head and winced. “Not a clue. Never seen them before. They were unsparked, so it’s not like I’d have been doing business with them. They looked like some kind of gang, I guess. Leather jackets, scruffy.”

  “But they left your car,” I said. They hadn’t just wanted to steal from him.

  They’d mostly wanted to beat him up.

  Dad’s jaw set. He must have been thinking the same thing. “There are always murmurs passing between the neighbors about us being a little ‘odd,’” he said. “Maybe a few of the unsparked decided they didn’t like the idea of the Hallowells expanding their strange family.”

  “No one around here has ever hurt any of us,” I protested. The worst I’d ever had directed at me was that jerk’s muttering in the museum archive the other day.

  Dad caught my eyes. “There’s always a first time. And it isn’t the first time, not really. Just the first time you’ve been here to see. We can never trust the unsparked—because this is how they react the moment they invent any reason not to trust us.”

  He motioned toward Derek and then reached to take the younger man’s arm. Tyler ran up with the first aid kit. Dad accepted it and started walking Derek to the still-open front door.

  “I think I’d better get you to the hospital to have you checked out, just to be safe,” he said. “Or to the nearest medic, if she’s around.” A witch medic, he meant, but he couldn’t say that in front of Tyler. Tyler, who was unsparked too. Tyler who was looking at the scene with total bewilderment. He’d never have hurt a fly.

  Dad shot one last glance back at me. “Don’t leave the estate. I’ll tell the staff not to let anyone unfamiliar in. These miscreants might not be finished yet.”

  “But…” I didn’t know how to finish that thought. None of this made any sense to me. Some gang going out of their way to rough up Derek just for the sake of doing it? Why would anyone even care that much…

  A chill washed over me as the door clicked shut. Leather jackets. A gang. Hadn’t Seth or Kyler said something about Damon being mixed up with criminals, doing work for them on the side? He’d hinted at it himself.

  That look he’d gotten when I’d talked about how Derek was getting pushy with me. He’d even texted me last night asking if I knew the next time Derek would be out of the house. I’d thought he’d been hoping to make a surprise visit or something, but no. He’d been asking because of this, hadn’t he?

  My hands balled at my sides. I waited until I heard the car engine rumble away outside. Then I hurried out back and
into the forest, making for a spot on the wall I could slip over without anyone being able to tell Dad I’d ignored his direct order.

  I was almost twenty-five. I didn’t need to follow orders. But I sure as hell could give them.

  Damon didn’t answer my knock. I scowled at the scarred green door to his basement apartment and rapped my fist against it again. He might not even be home. I couldn’t text him on my regular phone. Was there a payphone somewhere I could—

  “Hey, angel.” The man himself came sauntering down the narrow walkway beside the house. “I saw you hurrying by back there, didn’t think you’d want me shouting after you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  He paused, taking in my expression, and the satisfaction that had warmed his own faded. His voice sharpened in an instant. “What’s the matter? Did that asshole—”

  “You’re the asshole,” I snapped. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  Damon blinked, but I saw understanding light in those dark blue eyes. He could put together the pieces. Because he was the one who’d laid them out. His stance tensed. “Not the reaction I was expecting.”

  “Because clearly you weren’t thinking at all,” I said.

  His eyebrows arched. “Why don’t you come in and tell me all about how stupid I am downstairs? This doesn’t seem like a public kind of conversation.”

  I made a face at him, but I held my tongue while he unlocked the door and let me in. I tramped down the steps into the dim, earth-smelling apartment and immediately spun around. Damon stopped at the bottom of the steps, his arms already folded over his chest defensively.

  “Those guys you work for, hang out with, whatever,” I said. “You sent them to beat up Derek?”

  “He was a problem,” Damon said. “I figured a move like that was an easy way to convince him maybe he doesn’t want to stick around here harassing you after all. You can’t say he didn’t deserve it, after what he was ready to do to you.”

  “I don’t care whether he deserved it or not,” I said. “I don’t want you attacking people for me. He’ll get what’s coming to him the official way when I show the Assembly what he was planning. It didn’t have to get… bloody.”

  “So you’re squeamish,” Damon said with a shrug. “That’s okay. That’s why I handled it for you. Now it’s done. You don’t have to feel guilty. You didn’t know.”

  “It’s not okay,” I said, slashing my hand through the air in frustration. “You didn’t make anything better. You made it worse. I was getting ready to expose him to my dad as a villain, and now he looks like a victim. My dad’s thinking we can’t trust any of the unsparked—how am I supposed to tell him I’m consorted to four of them now? That one of my consorts arranged to have his friends kick the crap out of one of us? It was already going to be a hard enough sell without that detail.”

  “So don’t tell him about it,” Damon said, his voice more heated now. “What do you need your dad for anyway? He’s probably in on the whole thing. You don’t need any of them. You’ve got us—you’ve got me.”

  “Damon—”

  “This is how I operate,” he said, taking a step toward me. “This is how I know how to handle things. You knew I didn’t color inside the lines the very first time you came to me. So don’t act like it’s a big surprise.”

  I stepped right up to meet him, setting my hand on his chest to hold him in place and glaring back at him. “I’m not surprised you’d think of doing something like this. I’m surprised that after everything we’ve been through, everything you’ve heard about how my people operate, you still thought it was a good idea to go ahead with this, without even talking to me. Do I ‘have’ you, if you’re going to run off doing shit that makes you feel better without caring how I’d feel about it?”

  Damon’s face darkened. His mouth opened. But as he held my gaze, whatever he’d been going to say faltered. “Rose,” he said, low and rough. “Of course I did it for you.”

  My voice softened. “Are you sure?” I said. “What were you thinking about more—how good it’d feel to know you made Derek suffer, or how I’d react when I found out? Did you really think I’d be celebrating?”

  His jaw worked. “He was coming after you. Trying to force himself on you. I couldn’t just let him—”

  “You wouldn’t have been letting him,” I broke in. “You would’ve been letting me take care of the situation. Which I did.” I touched Jin’s pendant through my shirt. “But now even more people are mixed up in this mess than were before. What did you even tell those guys to set them on Derek?” I paused, a worse thought hitting me. “What do you owe them now?”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Damon said, but I thought I saw a little worry creep into his expression. He pushed past me abruptly, stalking to the edge of his bed and sitting down there. His fingers raked through his dark hair. “Whatever comes up, I can handle it. It’s on me.” He glanced up. “Do you really think… it’s going to screw up your chances of getting your dad’s help? If he even would have helped.”

  My gut knotted. “He’s not going to be in the most receptive mood to hearing about my consorting, even if I manage to leave out your connection to Derek’s attack.” I still had the contract burning a hole in my pocket. Would it be better to throw that at Dad the second he got back or to wait until Derek had recovered a little, until any protective instincts Dad might have felt toward his soon-to-be son-in-law had faded some?

  “That’s not what I was aiming for,” Damon said.

  “I know.” My breath came out of me in a rush. I walked up to him and set my hands on his shoulders. “I know you just wanted to protect me. I know who you are, Damon, and I’m not going to tell you to be some other way. All I’m asking is that you don’t go off doing things like that on my behalf, all right? Or at least ask me first to make sure it’s what I’d actually want?”

  His mouth tightened, but he nodded. He rested his hands on my waist, tugging me a little closer. The heat of his touch bled through my thin shirt.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, looking up at me. “You do have me. Body, mind, heart—soul, if I’ve got one. I’m just… not very good at this yet.”

  Emotion tightened my throat. I leaned over, tipping my face close to his. “I can’t ask for more than that.”

  His hand came up to touch my cheek and guide my mouth to his. The kiss was so slow and gentle and not at all like the Damon I knew that it was hard not to see it as an apology, even if he didn’t want to say it with words. The tenderness of it left me breathless.

  “Is this really what you want?” I murmured when our lips parted. “Hanging out with some gang, helping them do… whatever else it is they do? That’s how you want to spend your life?”

  I felt him start to bristle again. “I’ve done what I have to—”

  “Hey. I’m not telling you that you can’t want that. I just want to know. So I can know you as well as I possibly can.”

  He was silent for a bit. Then he said, “I don’t know. It’s hard to think about what I want separate from what I need, what I can get… I want you. I want my mom taken care of. But if I could have that without all the crap… Hell, sometimes I think there’s nothing I’d like more than for things to be like they used to be, way back when. Running around in the forest, swimming in the pond, just being. Being happy, being a part of the world.”

  His face flushed a little as he admitted that. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “That was pretty wonderful.”

  I kissed him again, my lips lingering against his until a groan worked its way from his throat and he pulled me closer. “Rose,” he mumbled.

  I swallowed thickly. “I can’t stay. If my dad gets back before I do, I’ll have more explaining to do than I think I’m ready for.”

  Damon nodded. “You’ve got no idea how hard it is to keep letting you go, angel,” he said, his thumb tracing over my side.

  I gave a choked laugh. “I do. I have to keep doing it four times over. But maybe it won�
��t be much longer before we can spend more time being together than being apart.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gabriel

  When I saw the estate manager head out through the gardens with one of the staff, I ducked in through the manor’s front door. My legs stalled for a second in the expansive hall: chandelier twinkling overhead, gold-framed paintings on the walls, sweeping mahogany staircase rising up to the second floor.

  It wasn’t that the place was grander than some of the temples and mansions I’d toured around during my roaming across this continent and the next. If anything, it felt smaller than I was expecting based on memories I hadn’t updated since I’d last poked my head in here as a preteen.

  There was just something so stately and snooty about the atmosphere… Like it disapproved of my very existence.

  It reminded me of Rose’s dad.

  Thankfully, he was still off wherever he’d taken that jerk of a fiancé. That was the only reason I was risking venturing in here anyway. In a way I was thumbing my nose at him and whatever he did think of me.

  I climbed the stairs, trying not to worry that I might somehow be getting engine grease everywhere. I’d washed my goddamn hands. In the second-floor hall, I paused to get my bearings. I’d never been up here at all, even as a kid. But I knew which window was Rose’s bedroom from the outside. Over by the big oak tree. Which meant from inside it should be right—there.

  I could tell I’d picked right when I reached the door. A hint of that soft lilac smell that followed her everywhere lingered outside it. I knocked lightly.

  There was a rustling as she got up. The door eased open, and then she was right there in front of me, staring at me, her eyes going wide.