Lucas stills.
It’s a struggle to keep my tone unaffected. “He was trying to convince me back.”
“As in, back together, or back to the Order?”
“Both.” The temptation to sway forward and rest my weight on Lucas is astounding, but I resist. That paper-thin wall I keep him behind for his protection relies on it. And my heart… I don’t think I could stand talking about Valen right now.
My throat tightens and I whisper, “The breakup was messy. I don’t want to talk about it.”
I go to step away, but his hands hold my hips. I look up at him. My pulse quickens.
His face is the most serious I’ve ever seen, his tone flat. “I want to ask you something. Just one question. Then I’ll drop it and never bring it up again.”
I hesitate, but my curiosity gets the better of me. “Okay.”
His eyes burn, betraying the depth of his emotions. “Do you…” He pauses. The silence weighs heavily between us, the dim light of the basement keeping me from clearly reading his face. His lips press together before he mumbles, “I’ve only ever seen you with women, so I never asked if you’re…” He wets his lips. “Are you attracted to men as well?”
My throat dries. “Yes.”
The word slips out from my lips, the weight of the revelation heavy in the air between us. After Valen, I couldn’t stand the touch of another man, not until Lucas came with his playful affection that slowly eased me into what we have today. This strange, gray-area friendship makes me feel alive and I can’t lose that. Not ever. Not after Valen shattered me so completely.
So instead of the truth, I give him a playful smile. “But don’t get any ideas. We have our extremely professional business relationship to think of.” I slip out of his hold and slap his tight ass so hard that my hand stings. “What would the boss think if we started screwing?”
Lucas’ lustful growl echoes down the stone behind me. “I’ll slip Jinx a fifty and promise that she can watch us from the foot of the bed.”
Sarcasm drips heavily in my reply. “Oh, what a tempting offer. Take me now, please, oh gods.”
He laughs and soon I join him. He catches me around the middle, hugging me tightly, while complaining that I’m too slow. I let him hoist me into his arms, too tired to descend all these stairs myself anyway.
The fresh wave of relief makes it easier to wrap my arms around him, press my face into his neck, and breathe in his scent while complaining about his smell. The black flames of his sleeve tattoo lick up the base of his throat and I rest my forehead there, my body going limp. I smile into him.
It feels so good to finally rest.
CHAPTER 4
The basement is as dark and gloomy as the stairs, with only a few glowing crystals to light the cavernous room. On the surface, it’s an unexciting space where I keep the spare iron crates and blessed chains, along with the rows of bookshelves for my ledgers. But to me, the tang of magic is so strong that my tongue clicks against the roof of my mouth. For in the shadows, a whisper of something else shifts in and out of focus.
My vault’s door.
I nearly groan my complaint when Lucas sets me down. My feet ache from standing in the shop all day, but I muster up some dignity as I lead the way across the basement. The seal on the heavy, iron door is even larger and more complex than the one upstairs. Like all my seals, my blood is smeared across it to link the magic to my bloodline, with a rune etched into it as an extra layer of protection. It’s an old priesthood trick that Valen’s mother taught me in secret one winter nearly a decade ago.
My headache is back in full swing. I hold out my hand before the door. Magic crackles along the wards, my soul singing in recognition.
The lock clicks, the seal neutralizing. I pull on the handle with all my strength and the heavy door swings open to revealmy vault’s interior. In the far corner, a magical fireplace flickers merrily along a wall with a plush, ornate rug before it and two armchairs. On more than one occasion, both of us have fallen asleep there after long, harrowing days of black-market business.
In the corner sits my second desk, the one I use to translate the more dangerous tomes. And opposite, a bookshelf that houses all the grimoires I cannot trust anywhere else. They’re dangerous tricksters with Entropy Threads in their spines and always hungry for the easy prey of human souls. The energy powers them to be the deadly guardians of their creators’ secrets.
However, they’re not what catches my eye. The room fades in my vision to tunnel in on one leatherbound book. Simple and easy to pass over when surrounded by such deadly books.
My grimoire.
Too new to have any specific characteristics like the others, I often wonder what my book will act like when it matures into the living relic of my magic. Will it be a creature likeThe Arachnomicon? A scuttling book like the one that snuck through earlier? Or will it take on characteristics of my curse that I bound within its pages, destined to power my revenge long after I am gone from this world?
My lovely book. My sweet magic. My legacy.
My heart pulses and lips part. I yearn to hold it, to press my nose to the spine to breathe in its crisp, papery scent, to run my fingers over the ink- and blood-stained pages. But I mustn’t. Lucas is here and even he doesn’t know of its existence. The best-kept secret is the one never shared and my precious book must never be discovered. Within its pages are the details of my curse and the key to undoing all my hard work. And while it’s young, it is my greatest weakness. The ends of my Soul Threads are vulnerable within its bindings. Until my book is matured,another skilled weaver could use the binding to kill me by ripping out my soul.
My precious book needs protection, tender care, and connection like a hatchling in a nest. Communing with my book is a vital part of it, especially since it already houses my curse. My curse could corrupt if not carefully maintained, something my grimoire should handle on its own eventually. But until then, I feed my curse little droplets of my own magic to keep it content.
