Her fingers curled instinctively over the lip of the top and, to her utter dismay, his hands closed over hers to secure them there as he wedged a thigh between the voluminous skirts of her dress.
She notched her chin to glare at him while she cut him to the quick, but instead found herself shrinking from the impact of those cold, dark eyes boring into her from up close, so close, his breath skimmed her throat.
Her heart thumped, sending shivers along her veins at double speed. She twisted her wrists, this way and that, her arms straining against his strength until pain streaked into the sockets of her shoulders, but he gave no yield at all
As she leaned further back, he leaned in, denying her every inch of distance.
She squeezed her eyes tight to avert that chilling gaze.
“Lily, look at me.”
“Release me,” she countered, refusing to open her eyes. Refusing to let him see the uncertainty lurking there.
She had little experience of men, and none whatsoever of being accosted by a supposed gentleman. And this was Kelan McAllister. What was he capable of?
Time ticked on.
He didn’t move.
His breath was a warm, unrelenting presence near her throat. His thigh an alarming intrusion between her skirts. His scent was rain and forest, damp leaves and malt whiskey, ash and pine and sulphur.
Something stirred deep within, something she determinedly named as fear, overpowering her in a rush of too much male. Her next breath was a shallow effort, a constriction of flustered awareness. It didn’t help that her eyes remained shut, enhancing every small nuance of the moment, reducing the sliver of space between them to static charge. She was a coward, unable to look into the face of her mortification. Was that his heart thudding, or hers?
His eyes were on her, she was sure, absorbing the flush that stung her cheeks and the quiver that seemed to have worked its way to her lips.
She was a wreck. A hot, nervous, tingling wreck.
Kelan was a law unto himself. A self-assured wall of stone without a single crack to catch a trickle of conscience while it rolled off. Consequences were for other people. More than arrogance, it was the absolute authority that might as well have been bestowed on him by the Good Lord Himself.
Would he release her if she begged? “Kelan, please…”
Hard lips met hers, clamping her plea in a kiss that was firm, unyielding and unforgiving. She was being punished. For attempting to slap him? Her blood raced through too narrow veins, pounding a different kind of fear, an unwanted quickening of her pulse. She renewed her struggles, twisting her trapped hands and kicking out, a futile effort on all accounts.
She was caught between the wall at her back and his relentless assault and then the pressure eased slightly. She risked unclenching her jaw slightly and bit into the flesh of his lower lip. The reactive wince was miniscule; the response immediate. He caught her upper lip in slanting strokes that both gentled and intensified and applied sensual to the assault. His bristled jaw scraped lightly, the taste of whiskey on his lips an exotic drug, the raw desire tugging her down a path of total abandonment, and it was too much.
Rage exploded inside Lily, a river of fire, drowning her from the inside out in the liquid furnace.
She jerked her head one way, but he came with. Craned her neck the other way until she felt a bone click, and he came with. The fire danced along her skin and deeper, within, melting her in the oddest places; in the crooks of her elbows, at the base of her spine, in the lowest scoop of her belly.
His hands left hers, sliding all the way up her arms, over her shoulders, his fingers pushing into her hair and tilting her head to expose her mouth more fully to his attentions and the kiss changed yet again. His lips moulding hers, nibbling lightly, suckling the resistance and sending a curious weakness throughout her entire body.
A tiny groan escaped her lips and her hand came up, halfway to sliding through his hair when she broke from the shock dulling her wits.
She was free.
She could move.
She inserted her arms between them and flattened her palms over his chest, pushing with all her might. The heat of skin through the thin cotton of his shirt was far more intimate than his lips on hers. She balled her hands into fists and pounded.
Kelan released her mouth, his fingers untangling from her hair as he straightened. Her eyes flashed open, her punches turned to shoving that didn’t budge him or the thigh wedging her in place.
“How dare you,” she said breathlessly. Her heart beat double-time and her blood was high, a hot molten stream of conflicting energies. Her hand flew up and the sting creased her palm as she struck his cheek.
His jaw glided with the delivery. Too controlled. No flinch. He’d seen the slap coming and he’d allowed it. She saw it in his eyes when he met her glare with mild tolerance. There was something else in his eyes too, a stormy depth that warmed the blue and tugged heavy on his lids.
“I dare,” he said, “because someone had to awaken you.”
Her sight blurred red and her voice pitched unsteadily. “You’re a despicable, arrogant, intolerable, despicable—”
“You already said despicable,” he pointed out. “How about detestable? It was that, wasn’t it?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits.
“And yet you did not die.” Cynical amusement settled in the line of his mouth. The warmer depths fled his gaze. “The entire country stands on the cusp of an apocalypse and the edge is crumbling while you’re fretting about sentiments, confusing your loyalties and dithering over inconsequentialities. You said it yourself. I’ve just saved us precious time by breaking down the walls you were too afraid to.”
“Do not use my own words in your defence,” she said frostily.
“Whether Greyston likes it or not, he is the guardian of that ability to sift time and not the owner with some inbred right to keep it secret. Gentlemen are just as capable of despicable, intolerable acts as the lowest dredges of society and you severely underestimate my arrogance if you think I’ve ever felt the inclination to defend my actions.”
He moved back a step and folded his arms. “Your perfectly ordered world is a façade, Lily, and it’s time you woke up to that fact. It’s time you measured the atrocities in your life by that which will and will not kill you, and act accordingly.”
“That’s what this—” She flung her arms out. “That was all about? I do speak English, Kelan, and a little French. There you have it, two alternative methods to educate me with.” She shook her head, her lips twisted into scorn. “Ah, but then, was the ordeal of that lesson truly as unpleasant for you as it was for me?”
“I wouldn’t describe it as unpleasant,” he drawled. “As a general rule, however, I do not allow my desires to run rampant.”
“Now that,” she snorted as she slipped past him, “I have no trouble believing.”
“Lily,” he called out, “the lesson isn’t over.”
“I’m awake,” she assured him as she stormed across the room without a backward glance. “I’m so wide awake, I’ll never sleep peacefully again.”
She was at the door, reaching for the brass knob, when the brace of large hands came around her waist. She gritted her teeth, and resigned herself to the greater will; the will to survive. Preservation of her family, friends, servants, acquaintances and strangers she’d never meet. Preservation of the life she knew and, quite possibly, any life at all.
“I should warn you,” she said. “If part two of this lesson involves mishandling me in any form or manner, I’ll walk out of this house and away from your war.”
His breath was a warm tickle near her ear. “You’re a quick study.”
The hands at her waist fell away and she spun about. “So are you.”
She met his gaze and held it. She wouldn’t give up until the fight was done, but this war could grow two heads if they couldn’t coexist in one.
“Touché.” The suggestion of a grin softened his jaw.
&nbs
p; Lily didn’t fool herself that he wouldn’t still take exactly what he thought he needed, in any way he deemed appropriate. Now, however, he knew the cost.
“We were looking for the key to your visions,” Kelan said, turning from her in long strides across the room. “And it’s not emotion.”
“It must be. The way Greyston described it to me…” She followed, reluctance dragging at her heels despite her commitment. “I’ve thought about the timing of every vision I’ve ever had and it fits.”
“The coincidence is not surprising.” He was at the cabinet and came back with two glasses, handing one to her.
She wrinkled her nose at the amber liquid. “Do you not keep sherry?”
He raised a brow at her.
Lily scowled and took a tentative sip, grimacing as the whiskey scorched a trail down her throat.
“When you’re in a state of emotion, high or low,” he went on, “you are at your most vulnerable.” He waited until she was seated on the sofa and then moved to the armchair opposite. “Your guard is down and all the bindings of preconceived notions weaken.”
“Precisely.” She’d considered this herself some while ago.
“Emotion triggers sporadic visions.” He settled deeper into the chair and squared one leg over the other, the glass resting on his knee. “We want control.”
“And you suddenly have the answer?”
“You gave me the answer, Lily,” he said. “Reaching. You can reach for a memory, you can reach for the presence of a demon, but you cannot reach for an emotion. It’s either there or it is not. That’s where you’ve been going wrong.”
She watched his forefinger trace the pattern cut into the crystal. The long, elegant fingers of a nobleman, crisscrossed with faint scars of a warrior and no doubt stained to the bone with a hundred ruthless acts.
Kelan had been absent these last six weeks, even when he was physically present.
Tonight, he’d lied to her face.
A few moments ago, he’d as near as ravaged her, scorched every inch of her with fury, desire and shame and the turmoil still roiled within. She hated what he’d done to her, hated it even more when her body had succumbed at those blasted intervals without permission, weakening, heating, wanting. It made her feel uncomfortable, dirty, untrue to everything she was. If that was desire, she wanted none of it.
And yet, when it came to demons, when it came to this bizarre, self-imposed destiny he and his clansmen had adopted, she trusted in him.
“I’m listening,” she told him.
“Even though I don’t claim to know Greyston well, I have a good sense of his nature. He is a smuggler, a pirate, a man accustomed to living outside the law.”
She glanced up. “He has a good heart.”
Kelan ignored that. “Sifting time is the equivalent of an elixir, the golden goblet, and the dark connotations wouldn’t have deterred Greyston in the slightest as he sought it out, again and again. You wonder why he mastered his ability so quickly and easily? He wasn’t—isn’t afraid to embrace the darkness into which he must reach.”
“When we met, he accused me of fearing too much to live,” she recalled quietly. “Clearly, I’ve a lot more work to do in that area.”
“To be fair to you, even Greyston might have found the task more daunting if he’d known he was reaching into demonic energy.” Kelan sipped on his whiskey before stating, “You do not accept your demon blood.”
“I try desperately not to think about it.”
“That’s the source of your visions, Lily. Shove aside your sensitivities of right and wrong, good and evil. You can push through the fear, but the darkness isn’t a place to be reached with distaste. To achieve any measure of control, you must stop rejecting your demon blood and accept it as a part of you; overcome the conditioning that all which appears abhorrent must naturally be repulsive and if you do not find it so, you are wicked.”
Lily’s gaze dropped to the glass she held in her lap as she processed the gaping hole in his otherwise faultless argument. How was she to undo the ingrained beliefs she’d been raised on, to undo who she was? “I want this badly enough to try anything.”
“Start with Stobcross House,” Kelan said. “I have reason to believe there’s a second demon living there. Saloese was here on another’s purpose.”
Her eyes widened on him. “Demons working together?”
Kelan nodded. “Which is why your visions have just become my number one priority.”
“Ah,” she said dryly. “I did wonder at your sudden investment in this matter.”
He ignored that too. “The familiar surroundings should help you get your bearings.”
Lily closed her eyes on a deep breath and pictured the manor’s entrance hall. The hardwood floor, the central stairway, the captivating watercolour—the memory was fresh and the detail vivid.
She put herself in the reception room, imagined she were standing there, looking up the stairway, down the passage, inhaling the scent of polished wood and old house, opening her senses and searching for fragments of lingering blur.
Without losing focus of the scene, she concentrated on the beat of her heart, mentally tracing the flow of blood through her veins, telling herself she could find the right in the wrong, use this demon blood for good, embrace, connect, accept…but it was her abhorrence to the demon in her blood that separated it into a visceral identity. Even if she were able to overcome that, how would she then distinguish it from the rest of her…?
“It’s no good!” Her eyes opened onto Kelan. “My mind’s running in circles. I don’t know how to make myself into this person who must recognise the evil without also rejecting it.”
“Try,” he said firmly.
“What do you think I was doing?” Her gaze turned into a scowling glare. “Taking a nap?”
He threw his head back, staring at the ceiling. When his eyes returned to her, they were filled with cold, hard resolution. “What about when I kissed you?”
Her colour flared. “You’re not suggesting I found anything at all tolerable in your behaviour?”
“You’ve voiced your feelings quite clearly,” he said. “There was a moment, however, where you forgot to resist.”
“When you finally released my hands?” she rasped. “If I didn’t react immediately, it’s because I was shocked witless.”
“Before I released you, Lily. Your lips softened and shaped to mine.”
“You’re thoroughly deluded if—”
“That kiss wasn’t designed to make you swoon with desire,” he said with a trace of irritation. “But as unpleasant, despicable, intolerable and whatever else it was, some spark in you responded on a subconscious level as a woman to a man. If only for a few seconds, you took pleasure from what must by your account be deemed detestable.”
“You’re wrong,” she insisted.
“You needn’t tell me, but be honest with yourself and try again.”
“Being honest with myself is not the problem.”
Arguing with an irrational man was!
Her fingers tightened around the cut-glass crystal as she contemplated the pleasure of tossing the whiskey in Kelan’s face. And she might have gone through with it, if she didn’t know his unnatural reflexes would leave her looking like an idiot and feeling worse. She lifted the glass to her lips instead and emptied the contents in one gulp.
She closed her eyes as the burn hit the back of her throat.
Kelan was delusional if he thought she’d taken any pleasure from his assault. She might have reacted as a woman to a man, some base instinct of nature coaxing brief spurts of desire from her, but she wasn’t an animal, a barbaric beast who could find anything tolerable in being forced upon by his person.
She screwed her eyes shut until her temple throbbed to squeeze him out and placed her mind inside Stobcross House. It was as before, no startling awareness of any demon. The wall was just a wall and the floor was just a floor.
Your lips softened and shaped to mine.
Her spine went rigid. Maybe her lips had softened, but she’d still hated it. She knew what a proper kiss was supposed to be like. Everything about Greyston’s kiss had felt right. She could have stayed there, lost in his taste, wrapped in his embrace and folded against his heart forever. He’d overwhelmed her senses and weakened her knees with a delicious warmth.
Kelan, on the other hand, had exploded her senses and left her scrambling raw nerves in the aftermath. There was nothing comforting in that kiss. It was unsettling and made her feel a mess inside.
The whiskey settled in her stomach, the fiery heat dissipating to coat her veins and thicken her blood with a lingering scent of rain and forest, ash and male. Kelan had a domineering, dangerous quality. He’d never be a man who’d offer a woman comfort in his arms. He’d take what he needed, what he wanted, and he wouldn’t give a thought to her genteel sensitivities.
A hot shiver rippled along her veins and gathered low in her abdomen.
Would it be so very wrong to admit he might also be a man who could whip a woman’s passions into an uproar and yes, the manner in which he’d done so was despicable, but goodness, he’d intoxicated her body with something dark and wicked…and would it be so very wrong if she didn’t hate it all?
Not in reality, of course, that would be unbearable. But, perhaps, in some small corner of her imagination?
Did that make her wanton, or just a woman?
What if she could— Her thoughts dropped off as the interior of Stobcross house faded to a grainy canvas, all around her, a thick, solid fog that was not flat nor had any depth. Still and silent, but she felt it moving, calling to her in a wordless, soundless lullaby. Inside her. Something dark and shifting and foreign, and inside her. A piece of her soul hacked off and orphaned, a castaway creature lost, once part of a whole, endlessly searching, seeking to be reunited. Was this creature part of her soul or the essence of Raimlas?
Innocence or evil?
Neither?
Should a newborn babe bear the sins of the father or be praised for the virtues of the mother?
Perhaps, then, simply a creature.
The Dark Matters Quartet Page 29
