She pursed her lips at him in response—only for her mouth to part when he grabbed her chin. He pressed another irritatingly fast kiss to them and made to let her go.
Lux gripped his wrist and held him there. Then she glared until his eyes widened with worry in the soft light. “That’s enough. If you don’t kiss me like youmeanit, then don’t do itat all.”
Shaw’s expression faded into unreadability. Lux didn’t release him, and he didn’t try. She waited to see what he would say; she couldn’t even guess what it would be.
It was her turn for her eyes to widen, as he did not break her stare but set down the candelabra. His voice deepened. “That sounded remarkably like a dare, Necromancer.”
She feigned nonchalance, but really her heart was hammering and even her damnable skin had flushed. She shrugged. “Maybe it was.”
“I haven’t been goaded into a dare ever. I have nothing to prove.” His eyes dipped to her mouth. She could feel every point of pressure from his fingertips like a brand on her chin. “But I think I would like to argue this one.”
She only managed a meager gasp before his lips came down on hers.
Immediately, she thought,I’ve not kissed him enough.
This kiss, again, was new. Not desperate with looming despair, but wild, nonetheless. He’dmissedher. She could feel it everywhere. His hand remained on her jaw and hers on his wrist, but his other had flattened against her lower back and held her flush against him. She wrapped her own around his neck.
Everything burned: her skin, her lips, her heart. He nipped her lip, and she moaned, deciding nothing else mattered. Not the society nor the madness. Neither Riselda nor lifeblood. She would stay here in this moment and be perfectly selfish.
But Shaw, damn him, was the least selfish person she knew—and he began to pull away.
She growled in annoyance and felt him smile against her mouth, drawing the sound in.
“I will alwaysmeanit,” he said, his lips brushing hers with the words. “Even if it’s brief. Or seemingly random. I will always mean it with you.”
“You’re a better person than me.”
He shook his head. “No. And you’ll prove it to yourself before this is done.” He leaned away at last, and also much too soon. His eyes delved into hers. “Shall we keep going?”
Lux opened her mouth to reply when a flicker caught at the edge of her vision. She turned toward it.
A second. A third.
A scraping—of a tinderbox.
At the end of the corridor, a wick burst aflame.
Lux’s heart ceased its hammering. It might have ceased beating altogether.
When the voice behind the candle said, “Welcome to my home, Lucena.”
Chapter thirty-nine
“Well,well.Lookatyou, darling.”
Lux slammed to an abrupt halt in the hall. Shaw’s arm had extended across her body and the impact forced her back a step. She’d been charging forward without realizing it.
Toward Riselda, bathed in candlelight.
Her once-aunt lowered a draping violet hood lined with ivory fur, and when their eyes met, Lux felt like her present collided viscerally and horribly with her past. She could not breathe.
“Are those messy locks trimmed at last?” Riselda smiled. “You look just as I knew you could, nevermind the old, ruined skirt.” Her gaze flicked to Shaw. “Hello, Cockroach.”
Shaw’s hand retracted to Lux’s waist, his other coming to rest on her chest. He ignored Riselda’s jibe. “In and out, love. She won’t touch you.”
But it wasn’t so much the touching she couldn’t manage. It was that Riselda was here. That Riselda was aliveat all.Lux wanted tostrangleher.
“Do it. Do it. Feed her blood to the thirsty mouths. The Grimrooks are meant for the ground.”
