But… thiswasn’tBastien. It was ribbed and warm andby Diana… I was going to come. I worked it in and out until I was sighing and squirming on the floor. All the while, magick tingled beneath my skin.
It was working.It was working.
When I couldn’t take any more, I gave in. With a soft moan, my body released completely, the pleasure stretched and swelled until it spilled through me in a rush. Afterward, I sat there, chest rising and falling. The horn continued to hum in my grip, almost pleased with itself.
But the magick under my skin needed its own release.Proof, I thought hazily. I neededproofthis wasn’t just my body fooling me.
Magick had betrayed me too many times in the past. It hadn’t worked when Hera held a knife to Bastien’s throat. Nor when I was five, and I had stood trembling in the dark at Prideaux Hill, cradling my cheek after Mama struck me with the back of her hand, demanding I try the spell again. I swallowed hard, remembering how small I’d felt afterward. The disappointment. The certainty that I was broken.
I wasn’t that girl anymore. That girl was gone.
Raising my hand, I focused on one of the unlit candles on the nightstand and willed it to light. “Come on,” I urged the magick. A frustrated beat of silence passed. I clenched my jaw, breath hitching, sweat gathering at my hairline as the familiar panic crept back in. Then, a burst of energy surged through my body, and the wickignited.
A laugh broke free. “I did it!” I pressed a hand over my mouth, half afraid the sound would ruin the moment, and watched the candle burn with amazement. The flame mirrored the warm light of hope flickering in my chest. Fragile and fierce all at once. It burned alongside a quiet pride I’d never felt before.
I was right. This hornwasthe answer. And for whatever reason, it worked best when I was right on the edge, when mybody was open and lit from the inside. The flame stretched higher, licking the air, and my heart lifted with it. Until… it flickered.
“No!” I shouted, scrambling to my feet. Rushing over to it, I held out my hands like I could catch it before it disappeared. “You have to stay lit!”
I had no idea how badly I needed this to work untilit did. But despite my pleas, the candle extinguished, along with the light inside my chest. My shoulders sagged in defeat. “Why?” I whispered. “What happened?”
I stumbled back and stepped on something sharp. “By Diana!” I yelped, hopping away. When I looked down, I found a small seashell shaped like a tusk inches away from my foot. It hadn’t been there before. Had it?
A chill crept up my spine. Slowly, I lifted my gaze to where the horn rested on the floor. It was still vibrating. Warm and patient. Which didn’t make sense. If the power had faded, it should have stopped. IfIhad done something wrong, the magick would’ve drained away.
But it hadn’t. It was still humming under my skin.
Maybe the flame hadn’t gone out because the power was gone, but becauseIneeded to go further.
Grabbing the horn, I whispered, “One more time.”
Chapter 4
Contenir
BASTIEN
Sir Gavin was in the middle of explaining the security plan for the city when a stab of pain sliced through my shoulder, landing like an arrow. I tried not to let the shock show on my face, but judging by Sir Gavin’s reaction, I wasn’t successful.
“Your Grace?”
I waved off his concern, the invisible arrow pressed deeper, seeking my heart. My heart was a dead, useless thing, so I took the pain as symbolic. And there was only one person who held my heart.
And that was Claire.
I touched the place where my bloodstone was concealed. A coin-sized gem attached to a thin gold chain around my neck, which I always kept hidden beneath my wool vest and the leather chest rig. Its throbbing red light beat with the heart of my mate, and signaled to everyone that I had found my person.
When the council of witches who created us drafted the Blood Treaty, they knew there had to be limits on the powerthey were giving us. They wanted peacekeepers, not bloodthirsty tyrants. And so, the matebond was created. When we were consumed by it, for the sixty or so years our mate was alive, it tempered us. And reminded us of the humanity we left behind. For love is the most powerful of human emotions.
A vampire’s mate was chosen by Diana and Damien, and said to be born and reborn, again and again. I thought I’d been the one forgotten soul. But then they sent me Claire.
When I’d met her that night at Château Corbin, I thought it had been the end of my well-curated life. But it was only the beginning. However, in an effort to protect my role as Marius’s war commander, I shirked my responsibilities to Claire and took her as my sanguine partner instead.
Another broken law.
Though thoughts of my mate and her safety consumed me, I kept them hidden. My focus had to be on protecting these people and negotiating the peace I’d chased for centuries.
Beat. Beat. Beat.The bloodstone pulsed with the reassuring beat of her heart. I knew she was alive. Well. But the pain that had lodged itself in my heart persisted. I’d been stabbed and pierced with arrows and broken bones, but this pain was unlike any I’d ever experienced.
