"Rathbourne?"
Lucien stood with his head down, his chest straining within his waistcoat. "It's nothing." Swallowing hard, he fought the violent surge of anger within him. Power trickled along his skin, igniting the hairs on his arms. How easy it would be to punch a hole through the wall right now, but that was Expression tempting him, taunting him. Not sorcery. Not skill. Not everything he'd fought so hard to learn, only to have it vanish from his grasp right when he needed it the most.
A gentle hand brushed against the small of his back. Lucien flinched, his fists curling, but contained it.
"Are we going to discuss that?"
"No, we are not." He let out a shuddering breath and turned around. Violence rode him, tightly reined in but practically vibrating through his muscles. He wanted to kick something, but was thwarted by her presence. One didn't go around tromping through a room in a violent whirlwind, unless one wanted to be considered fit for...
...Bedlam.
His nostrils flared. Strangely enough, that thought jarred him out of his fury. It was done. Neither of them was injured, and he was not some bedlamite, raging against his circumstances. He was better than that.
He would be better than that.
As Lucien turned to face her, his gaze fell on a book on the floor in front of him. It had tumbled from the cut-out hollow of another book.
Rathbourne's grimoire, full of all of his occult writings, including the mysterious link to Morgana, one hoped.
"There it is."
Ianthe's hand paused in the air, halfway between them, as if she'd been reaching for him. It fell. "What?"
"The grimoire! I knew it was here somewhere."
Hidden in plain sight within another book.
Grabbing it, Lucien flicked through the pages of spidery scrawl. Every sorcerer had their own grimoire. They were both a diary and a spell book, showcasing the design of each sorcerer's individual chants, wards, and ritualistic runes. There was enough reading here to keep him entertained for all of the sleepless nights he was sure lay ahead of him.
He shook it at her. "We've found it."
That pillow-lipped mouth curved in a broad smile, as if they both shared the victory. Or perhaps they had. Her blood had to be up - his was. "Time to discover some of Lord Rathbourne's secrets."
"Stimulating reading, I'm sure." He tucked the grimoire under his arm. "Come on. At this rate, it will be dark before we know it." He stepped over a pile of rubble, shooting it a dark look. "That's going to give me nightmares for weeks."
"They were just constructs, Rathbourne."
"You try unbuttoning your breeches with a cockstand, while having a willing young woman on her knees in front of you, and try not to think about what's watching you in the darkness."
Ianthe laughed. A throaty, luxurious sound that made all of the light within her suddenly glow. She lost all sense of decorum, holding her glee within her by means of a clapped hand over her mouth. The sounds she made... Hardly seductive, but it felt like she'd shoved a fist straight into his chest and curled that small hand directly around his beating heart.
I made her laugh. It was the first time he could recall seeing her so abandoned, and the odd flush of pleasure he felt, at knowing he'd brought this about, made him both happy and irritable. She didn't laugh enough. In fact, he'd barely heard that sound at all since they'd met.
Lucien rubbed his chest. Gods, what was wrong with him?
"You'll never enjoy fellatio again without thinking about it!" A strand of dark hair had come free, and she tucked it breathlessly behind her ear, looking both girlish and playful.
"Thank you for the reminder," he drawled.
"Or perhaps," Ianthe's sharp-eyed gaze cut toward him, filled with humor, "we'll just have to see what we can do about that."
Everything in him fluttered. Lucien could do nothing more than stare at her as she gathered her skirts and stepped past him.
Hell.
Chapter Fifteen
'Music is so very much like sorcery. One starts slowly, learning a series of notes, the same as one begins to form conscious pathways to ritual, in order to force the will to manifest. The more one practices sorcery, the swifter those pathways form, until one merely gathers his will together and the will changes the structure of the world around you. The steps in between become invisible, but they are still important.'
