She sighed heavily. “I must have had another one of my blackouts, because all I remember is going outside the tavern, and then . . . waking up here.” She nervously fingered the chain of her locket. “Didn’t you bring me back?”
His eyes darkened, swirled. “Is that all you care to tell me?”
She felt her frown deepen. “Have I done something wrong?”
Davien snorted. “Only that I was up all night searching for you when you were here, happily asleep and unaware of my inner turmoil.”
Everything around her came to a screeching halt. Even her movements stilled. “What?”
He pounded a fist on the arm of the chair. “Didn’t you hear me, Cosette?” His voice was harsh, unforgiving. “You disappeared last night!” He stood abruptly, and strode over to her. “And it’s all because of this!” He reached out and grasped her locket. He hissed, before giving it a hard yank, causing the chain to break. She gasped as he threw it against the wall.
“Have you gone completely mad?” she shouted. She shoved him out of her way and went to retrieve the only memento she had of her life before the orphanage. Tears of frustration, mixed with raw emotion, started streaming down her face as she turned back to him. She held the locket in her palm and shook her fist at him. “This is all I have! Don’t you understand? This is the only key to my past!”
“That,” he spat, pointing at where the broken clasp dangled from her fingers. “Is what brought you here last night. Not me, but some other apparition that is more dangerous than anything you might fear from me.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she breathed, although bits and pieces from the night before started to trickle into her memory.
“Is it?” he challenged. His eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling me, Cosette?”
She recalled the strange sensation of magic, the sound of someone calling her name on the wind . . . “I . . . I don’t know.” She touched her forehead as it began to pound.
Davien reached her in two strides and grabbed hold of her upper arms. He gave her a light shake, and demanded, “Tell me!”
Her tears were falling freely now. “I thought it was a dream!” she sobbed. “It was the same the night you found me by the pond. I kept hearing this voice calling my name, over and over . . .”
Davien gathered her into his arms, and let her cry on his shoulder without another word. He merely rubbed a comforting hand down her dark hair until the worst had passed. “Forgive me, Cosette,” he finally said. “I had to know the truth.”
“What’s happening to me?” she asked in such a tortured whisper, that it didn’t even sound like her voice.
“I’m not sure, but I intend to find out.” He pulled away from her and said in all seriousness. “I think the key to all of this is tied to your locket somehow. The magic is strong enough that I could feel it. Whatever, or whoever, is controlling it enjoyed mocking me, and leading me on a merry chase. I don’t want you to wear it anymore.”
Cosette opened her palm and glanced at the simple, silver locket. It sat there as plainly as any other piece of jewelry, cold and inanimate. She rubbed her thumb across the inscription. “To Mine . . . Be Mine.” When she spoke, there was a decided lump in her throat. “I can’t believe something so . . . sentimental in nature would ever hurt me. I’ve always thought of it as something that . . . protected me.”
He held out his hand to her, where a slight oval was burned into his palm. “I beg to differ. The last time I touched your locket it didn’t physically harm me.” He brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I know it’s hard to let go of something that you’ve clung to for so long, but the power within it is growing. It’s dangerous, and I fear that it’s only a matter of time before it tries to consume you.”
She hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “I promise.”
Davien smiled in obvious relief, and then went over to his dressing table. He opened the top drawer and pulled out a small box. He brought it over to Cosette and opened the lid to reveal a black velvet lining. “It will be safe in here. You can even keep it in your room, if you wish.”
She placed the locket inside and closed the lid. She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Davien.”
It was the first time she’d spoken his name when she wasn’t under duress.
Cosette looked into his eyes, and could have sworn that she heard the beast purr in satisfaction. “I’ll go put this away.” She started for the door, but paused and turned back to him. “In light of certain circumstances—” She held up the box that contained the necklace. “—I nearly forgot to ask if you found out anything helpful regarding Charlotte.”
“I regret that my instincts were wrong this time.”
Cosette gave a brief nod filled with disappointment, and then slipped out of the room.
~ ~ ~
Davien didn’t like lying to Cosette, but he told himself he didn’t have a choice. To tell her what he’d found out about Charlotte right after he’d ripped away the only constant thing in her life would likely snap her belief in him. In them.
After Davien had gotten the serving wench alone, he ignored her advances by slipping inside her mind, and coaxing her in other ways. It turned out she was rather forthcoming with information. She told him that she was a new hire, but that a girl fitting Charlotte’s description had last been seen in the company of a jurist with the promise of more ‘gainful employment.’ When Davien asked for a description of the man Charlotte had been seen with, he had felt his stomach sink, for it perfectly fit the description of Robert Vansittart, a long-standing member of the Hellfire Club. It also meant that Charlotte had likely been chosen as one of the possible spring inductees.
Now that the threat from the locket had been temporarily dispelled, Davien wasn’t even sure he wanted Cosette to know about her friend’s fate, for she had surely been condemned to a life worse than death. But there was still time. Until initiation day, she would be treated as little more than chattel in a single cell within the heavily guarded tunnels, but she wouldn’t be harmed. The members of the Club were very strict about their new inductees. They wanted them in the best shape - so that they might break them afterward.
That gave Davien six weeks in which to rescue Charlotte.
