My hands, still trembling from the ward-work, curled into fists on the damp obsidian. In my mind, they weren’t pressing against cold stone. They were tangling in the chestnut waves of Lysa’s hair, gripping tight enough to tilt her head back, exposing the creamy, frantic pulse of her throat to my mouth.
The candles had guttered low, shadows dancing across her face as she backed against the shelves. Rain lashed the windows, and I had pinned her there, my body a cage for hers. Her warmth seeped through my shirt, her curves pressing into me, those full breasts against my chest, hips that fit against mine. I remembered the hitch in her breath, the way her hazel eyes widened.
Gods.
The memory of her scent assaulted me—rain, dried herbs, and beneath it all, the sweet, heady fragrance of arousal she hadn’t tried to hide because she hadn’t known how. That was the thing that nearly undid me. She was untouched. I had smelled it on her skin, tasted it on the air when I’d leaned in close. The door had stayed sealed, wards humming mockery. Lightning cracked outside, illuminating her: hair loose, framing her cheeks flushed. I had leaned in, inhaling her scent. The faint, sweet musk of a woman who had never been claimed, her body a secret garden no one had breached. Virgin. The word slithered through my mind, vile and intoxicating. I could smell it in thesubtle bloom of her arousal, innocent, yet begging to be ruined. And I wanted her.
Gods, what I would have done. I imagined it then, as I did now, this fantasy was tormenting me and wouldn’t go away. I would have captured that lip between my teeth, nipping until she gasped, then soothed it with my tongue, delving deep to taste her. My hands would roam, shoving up her blouse to bare those lush breasts. I would lift her, legs wrapping my waist, and grind against her core, feeling her wetness through those funny trousers she wore, soaking for me despite her protests. Then I saw myself lifting her onto the mahogany desk, scattering my useless research to the floor. Parting her thighs and settling between them, watching her hazel eyes go wide and dark. I wanted to hear the sounds she would make when I claimed that mouth, to feel her nails dig into my shoulders as I entered her.
The image burned, my cock hardening painfully against my trousers even now, in the dungeon’s gloom. I groaned, slamming a fist into the wall. I straightened, breath hissing through clenched teeth. The parasite dragon stirred, a mocking chuckle in my ribs, feeding on my lust.
I could not face her. Not like this. Disgust curdled in my stomach, warring with the lust. I was a monster, a cursed thing rotting from the inside out, held together by failing magic and sheer stubbornness. I had no right to look at her, let alone harbor these depraved fantasies of dragging her down into the dark with me. She deserved gentleness. She deserved sunlight and softwords and a lover who didn’t have to fight a shadow-dragon just to keep from tearing the world apart.
But when she had looked up at me in that room, lips parted, gold magic humming in her veins... she hadn’t looked at me like a monster. She had looked at me like a man. Likeshe wanted me.Then I kissed her and she kissed me back.
The ache in my groin sharpened to a painful throb. If I hadn’t left—if I hadn’t torn myself away from the precipice—I wouldn’t have stopped. I would have devoured her whole, drinking down her light until my shadows choked on it.
I grit my teeth, the dragon fangs aching to descend. I had to stay away from her. The house could throw us together, could lock every door and darken every hallway, but I would not break. I could not be the thing that destroyed her.
Even if every fiber of my being screamed to make her mine.
“Sir.”
I stiffened, dragging myself upright. Mrs. Crane stood at the junction of the corridor, her lantern casting long shadows against the vaulted ceiling. She didn’t look at the stabilized ward-anchor. Her eyes were fixed on my trembling hands.
“I told you the west foundation was secure,” I lied, though the rasp in my voice betrayed me. I tried to wipe my hands on my trousers. “Just a minor fluctuation.”
“A minor fluctuation that shook the kitchen crockery off the shelves two floors up.” Mrs. Crane stepped closer, the keys at her waist soothingly chiming. She set the lantern on a crate andreached into her apron, pulling out a clean linen. “Give me your hands, Fenrik.”
She hadn’t used my given name without a title in years. I recoiled, tucking my hands behind my back. “It’s fine, Helda. The house is unsettled. The ley-lines are flowing heavy tonight.”
“The house is terrified because its master is bleeding himself dry to keep the walls standing.” She didn’t retreat. She never did. She reached out and took my wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. She pulled my hand into the light, inspecting the abraded skin and the sluggishly bleeding cuts. “You cannot be the battery for the entire estate. The anchors were designed to draw from the earth, not from your veins.”
“The earth is wrong,” I snapped, pulling away. “The ley-lines are poisoned. If I let the anchors draw naturally, they’ll pull up whatever rot is infecting the valley. I have to filter it. I have to be the buffer.”
“And how long will that last?” Her voice dropped. “You look like a ghost. A starving one.”
“I am managing.”
“You are unravelling.” She met my gaze, and for a second, I saw the reflection of the beast in her eyes, the silver flash of my own pupils, the shadows deepening the hollows of my face. “Lady Kelda left an hour ago. She seemed quite pleased with herself.”
My stomach turned over.Kelda.The memory of her presence upstairs, that cloying, perfumed magic she layered over everything, made the shadow thing inside me writhe.
“Did she speak to Lysa?” I asked, the question escaping before I could check it.
Mrs. Crane folded the cloth she’d tried to give me. “Briefly. The girl looked as though she’d been slapped.” She paused, her gaze keen. “And then Miss Lysa went to her room and has not come out. The house tells me she is distressed. She is... pacing. Upstairs.”
I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to go to her. I couldn’t. Not like this. Not with blood on my hands and the beast so close to the surface, clawing at the back of my throat.
“Let her be, Helda,” I said. “It’s safer for her if she stays afraid of this place. If she stays afraid of me. Maybe all this is too much for her, I’ve probably been terrifying her since she’d received my letter.” I remembered drafting it in fragments, returning to the page again and again, driven by an urgency I could not fully explain.
“Fear is not what I see when that girl looks at you,” Mrs. Crane said, picking up her lantern. The light swung, illuminating the sharp line of her jaw. “But if you continue to destroy yourself down here in the dark, there won’t be anything left for her to look at.”
“I am not finished,” I said, turning back to the anchor. There was still a smear of something dark on the obsidian, either my blood or the sludge of corrupted magic. I scratched at it with a fingernail. “It’s not clean. The connection is still... gritty.”
Mrs. Crane moved. She didn’t retreat up the stairs as she should have. Instead, she stepped between me and the stone,the silver chatelaine at her waist chiming like a warning bell. She shoved the silver tray laden with a covered bowl and a heel of crusty bread towards me.
It smelled like roast chicken, rosemary, heavy cream. My stomach cramped. I hadn’t eaten in... three days? Four? I couldn’t remember actually.
