Flashes of memory snatched at me – of Lance Holmes smashing a case of D&D figurines I’d laboriously painted, and stealing my clothes in the middle of the night at a school camp and flying them up the flagpole. “This kid Lance, we used to be friends in junior high, but by the time we went to high school together, he had it out for me. He knew all these stories from when I was younger and I couldn’t control my magic. He spread this rumor that I was a pyromaniac who killed my mother, and that I was unstable. I came into the classroom one day and he was telling people she must’ve done something to me as a child to make me like this, and that I should be locked up, and I?—”
A flame flickered on my palm. Maeve gasped. She reached out to touch it, but I shut my fingers around it, snuffing it out.
“It’ll burn you,” I said. “That’s what being close to me does. It burns people. That’s what Lance found out. Ilostmy shit. The fire burst out of me before I could stop it, and it caught on Lance’s uniform, and he was screaming and thrashing around. He had serious second-degree burns by the time they put him out.”
I searched Maeve’s face for a sign of the horror she must be feeling, for the realization that I was a monster. Her mouth fell open a little, but her bright eyes widened, staring at me with such empathy, I had to fight against an urge to fall against her, to wrap her up in my arms and keep her close forever.
Instead, I sucked in a deep breath, steadying myself against her apparent willingness to accept my darkest secret, and continued.
“They wanted to send me away. The press came knocking at the door, wanting the inside scoop on the ‘Firestarter.’ Dad didn’t even like me that much anyway, and I didn’t think he wanted the press looking into our past in case they overturned his lies, so he left. Just walked out one day and never came back. I had no one to speak for me. None of my relatives wanted me. They thought my mum was kooky, and that she’d made me crazy. I was going to go into the system, but then Corbin appeared with this fancy lawyer from London who somehow convinced the judge that there was no evidence I’d started the fire. So they let me free, and Corbin asked me to come live here. His lawyer set everything up so it was perfectly legal, even though I wasn’t eighteen.”
“And you came, just like that?”
I gestured up at the imposing facade of Briarwood. “Wouldn’t you? You don’t get second chances very often in life. I was lucky enough that Corbin gave me this one.”
“Oh, Arthur. I’m so sorry.” Maeve nestled her head against my shoulder. “I know what it’s like not to fit in. My schoolwas sports-obsessed, too. And Christ-obsessed. My own parents believed the universe was six-thousand years old. Can you imagine what happened when I told them I wanted to be an astronaut?”
I shook my head. Mainly because the idea of being something other than a screw-up who played too many computer games never occurred to me. But something about being close to Maeve made me believe anything was possible.
Every inch of my body demanded that I kiss her. My lips stung with the memory of the taste she’d given me.
But it wasn’t enough. I didn’t just want Maeve’s body. I didn’t just want her because of the magic, because of the need to make the coven whole.
I wanted her because she was amazing, and even if it damn near killed me, I wouldn’t touch her until she thought I was amazing, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MAEVE
Arthur and I lay under the apple trees for the rest of the morning. I thought he’d kiss me again. The hunger in his eyes certainly desired it. But his words and his touches were almost more intimate.
Every time my fingers grazed his, or his breath tickled my skin, I thought of jumping him and pressing my mouth to his again. But something held me back. No, notsomething. Lots of things. The dream. The fact the guys were all hiding something from me, that Corbin at least knew who I was before I arrived at Briarwood. The look on Rowan’s face this morning. Emily’s tinkling laugh.
I thought about what Arthur said to me, about how he’d lost control. My chest throbbed – not with tightness, but with a weird nakedness, as if Arthur’s story had opened a gaping, bleeding wound through which all my pain and grief now poured.
Arthur said Briarwood was a place of healing. I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling the sorrow throbbing behind it, knowing in my heart this was only the beginning of a great unleashing. I felt sliced up, pieces of me chopped offand scattered on the wind. I’d lost pieces when the Crawfords died, more pieces when Pastor Eric took our house away, and more when MIT rescinded my scholarship. Maeve Moore nee Crawford was just bits of flesh and misery, clusters of lamenting electrons floating in the cosmos. But maybe in this place, where fairytales were real and there was a hot guy around every corner, maybe I could put all the pieces back together again.
Arthur placed his arm around me and my body flared with desire. The wound in my chest gaped a little wider as the ache between my legs rose up to meet it.
Oh, bollocks.Such a great phrase. It rolled off the tongue even better thangoddammit. Bollocks seemed an accurate descriptor for this situation I found myself in.
I shifted my weight around, trying to shake away the sensation, but I accidentally brushed my thigh against Arthur’s crotch, and his breath caught on his lips, and that only made things worse.
Great, now I was more confused than ever. What did I evenwantfrom Arthur? He may be Aragorn and Geralt come to life, but he wasn’t the kind of guy I could see myself dating, was he?
I shouldn’t even be dating anyone. I didn’t know how long I’d even be staying in England. What would happen to us if I had to sell the castle? Not to mention the fact that I was a scientist and he was a blond-haired, sword-wielding witch who could shoot fire from his palms.
It would never work.
But the flutter in my chest and the ache in my stomach begged to differ. Maybe it could work for a night, for as many nights as it took to make my heart stop aching.
My parents chastity teachings hadn’t rubbed off on me – I didn’t have to date Arthur to…toshaghim. This heat between us didn’t have to go anywhere. It could be my wild English flingbefore I settled down to a life of equations and working my ass off to get into the space program.
The idea had its merits, but was I ready for sex? Would it tear open the wound in my chest so I bled my sorrow everywhere? Would it break me apart completely? And was Arthur even the right guy for that? He said himself that he burned whoever he touched. And I had so many options at Briarwood…
“What are you thinking about?” Arthur asked, his breath tickling my ear. “Your face went serious all of a sudden.”
I’m thinking about jumping your bones. I’m thinking that you’re the first of the guys at Briarwood to spill your guts to me. I’m thinking that if I let you in, you’ll burn me, and maybe I’ll like it, and maybe it will turn me to ashes.
