“But I didn’t want to give up my magic. I kept remembering your face in the pictures, and that you were somewhere out there without anyone watching over you. I was young and full of griefand anger and testosterone. You might say I turned into a total gobshite.”
“I can’t imagine,” I smiled.
“My parents couldn’t handle me, not with their grief straining their relationship. They wanted me to go to a public school and start getting serious about preparing for university, but instead, I came back here and started searching for the other children of the Briarwood coven.” Corbin’s sad smile nearly broke my heart. “A psychologist would probably say I was trying to replace my brother with the guys. Who knows? Maybe that’s true. Briarwood was a house of nightmares until Arthur showed up?—”
“Corbin.” Fists pummeled the door. “Mate, are you in there?”
Arthur.
I knew I had to talk to him but now wassonot the time. Not in the middle of Corbin’s story. Not when I wasthisclose to cracking the mystery of his broken, kind heart.
I glanced back at Corbin, but he was already on his feet. He grabbed my wrist and dragged me across the room. His posture and the tilt of his shoulders changed from the recollection of our shared grief to his usual take-charge, solve-the-problem stride.
“Should we tell him we’re in here?” I whispered as Corbin pulled out one of the books and shoved his hand into the gap.
Corbin shook his head. A smile broke out on his face as he grabbed the edge of the bookshelf and tugged. To my surprise, the shelf swung outward, silently rolling across the carpet to reveal a small dark hole beyond.
Oh, cool.
Corbin slid into the tiny space, folding his body around the hole and beckoning for me to join him. It would be a tight squeeze, my body pressed tight against his. Desire flared in my veins.Yes, please.
“Come on,” Corbin whispered, raising an eyebrow, his smile widening, lighting the dim space. “The other guys don’t know this is here. I’ve always wanted to try it. Let’s hide from the world for a bit.”
Who could resist that smile? It had been far too rare over the last few days. I slid in after him. Corbin pulled the compartment shut just as Arthur shoved the library door open and entered the room.
Arthur’s heavy boots thudded against the rugs as he searched around the room. “I know you’re in here. You’re always in here,” he mumbled, his voice muffled by the wall. “I wanted to talk to you about what’s been going on with Maeve.”
Corbin pressed his finger to my lips. I stifled the urge to giggle.
A few more moments of Arthur’s boots stomping across the carpet. “Fine, fuck you.”
He stormed out.
My heart hammered against my chest. Adrenaline surged through my body, mixing with the sizzling desire humming in my veins. My back pressed against the side of the compartment, and literally every other inch of me pressed against Corbin, my body firing like an exploding star with every molecule that touched.
“Where are we?” My breath came out husky, deep in the confined space.
“It’s called a priest hole. They were built into grand houses during Elizabeth I’s reign to hide persecuted Catholic priests. The Lord who owned the castle during that time was a Catholic sympathizer, and he had this built to hide priests escaping through the country into France. His grandson hid Charles I in this very hole during the Civil War.”
“Wow,” I said, although I had no idea who any of those people were. History was never my strongest subject. All thedates and names got kind of boring unless they were famous scientists. And if my Christian high school didn’t teach about an earth older than six thousand years, no way would they teach the history of Britain.
But the last thing I was thinking about now was dead priests.
In the tiny space, our bodies mashed together, with no room for breath or grief or regrets. Corbin’s strong arms embraced me, holding me in place. I couldn’t see a thing. His breath fluttered across my forehead.
Corbin’s words from earlier churned inside my head. For the first time, I saw my own grief mirrored in him.
As he sees his grief in me – a visual, visceral reminder of the horror of loss.
I remembered what Arthur told me when he first confided in me about his grief.You have to give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to get yourself through the pain. And then you have to forgive yourself for all the shit you end up doing because of it.
I’d taken that message to heart since I’d arrived at Briarwood, not just by sleeping with my roommates (sorry, my tenants, still not used to that), but by embracing my magic, agreeing to be the high priestess of an ancient coven, and entertaining the dark fantasies that would thoroughly horrify my recently-deceased religious parents.
Corbin, I sensed, hadn’t forgiven himself for his grief, for what he saw as his weakness. His need to save others kept him imprisoned in a cell of his own making.
Imagine being so young and living in this castle all alone, with nothing but the ghosts of the dead for company…
Corbin’s lips brushed my forehead. So soft. So tender. My brain turned to mush. I tilted my head back, my skin alive as he trailed kisses down the bridge of my nose, across my cheek, and then my lips.
