by Sarina Dorie
I closed my eyes, savoring the texture of wet wood kissing my face and the smell of earth. My body responded with yearning while my mind resisted. I had to think. I had to find a way to gain power over myself. But it was hard to focus. My body melted into his vines. My core throbbed with pleasure and pain. My affinity raged inside me like a storm.
Thatch had said it was dangerous to give my pain to someone else. I’d seen as much from what had happened with Josie. He had said I could kill a person if I wasn’t careful. Jeb had feared what might happen if I gave in to carnal desires. The electrical explosion in the tattoo parlor had been evidence of that, as if my sordid past didn’t offer enough examples.
I did the one thing I could do at that moment to combat Julian Thistledown. I kissed him with everything I had in me and sent my pain from my lips into his.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A Merlin-class Celestor’s Divination
As my lips met Julian’s and I gave in to desire, the energy inside me spiked, as did the pain. The air smelled sharp, like ozone right before lightning strikes. I visualized the angry red ball growing inside me. I pushed it out through my hands. Lightning exploded out of my core and through my body. I forced it into him.
He screamed and unfurled to his full height. Light crackled across my skin and shot into him. The magic slammed him hard into the wall. He writhed as pink-and-blue arcs of electricity sizzled into him. Desire was gone. The simmering heat of my own rage was all that remained.
I rammed him into the wall again and again with fingers made of lightning. Even after he was silent, I continued to burn his flesh. His crumpled remains fell onto the stairs. His body smoked.
I shook so hard I could barely breathe. I was smoking too. Slowly I slid against the wall, my knees buckling.
I sat, my legs curled up to my chest. The pain between my legs was so great it felt as though I sat on razor blades. I tried to move, but this only magnified the pain. Bleeding blisters speckled my palms. The charred flesh of my hands looked more like burnt meat than my own skin. My lips hurt. I trembled so violently my teeth chattered. Cold sweat drenched my back. The world was a tunnel closing in on all sides, growing darker. Colder.
The light from the window shifted, the orange rays of sunset falling on Julian’s blackened face. I couldn’t stop staring. His pants were down around his knees. It was hard to see where the shadows ended and the scorched remains of his body began. He no longer resembled the Julian I had known, only remnants of the monster he’d become. Charred vines and dried leaves lay scattered across the stairs.
The light coming in from the window faded, and I was left in darkness. I slumped sideways against the shelves, too exhausted to sit upright. The tremors slowly subsided. What I’d thought had been pain before was trivial compared to the growing agony inside me. The angry stabbing deep in my pelvis stole my breath away. Getting a tattoo was nothing compared to this.
Thatch had showed me how to control pain, to transfer that into energy inside me. But I was too exhausted to concentrate. I had only managed to shift energies when I’d been able to focus on my body without the pain. I didn’t have the willpower now.
Something tickled across my arm. Probably a spider. I was too preoccupied with my misery to care. Every breath stabbed my lungs. The floor I sat on was wet. I wasn’t sure if I sat in a puddle of my own urine or blood. Maybe I was dying.
The hallway brightened. A figure cloaked in shadows came into view.
My gaze fixed on the raven perched on the figure’s shoulder. Someone from the Raven Court? His feet made no sound on the stone steps. I held my breath, hoping to go unnoticed. He crouched and waved a wand over Julian’s body.
In the new light of his wand, I could see what I hadn’t before, how Julian’s eyes had rolled back into his head. Blood smeared the blackened wood of his lips. What remained of his clothes was ash, like mine had been after the affinity fire. The moss and leaves decorating his hair and clothes were brittle and dried. I’d done this. Newfound horror clamped down over me, making my breath come in ragged pants.
The figure stood and turned toward me.
Thatch.
My breath caught in my throat.
He stared calmly and coolly, his face an expressionless mask. He spoke, but no sound came from his lips. He lifted the bird from his shoulder, and it flew into the air. Khaba had been right. Thatch was working for the Raven Court.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Quoth the Raven
Thatch tapped the lightbulb above with his wand. The bulb brightened, illuminating the dust and cobwebs on the scant amount of art supplies more clearly than I had ever seen them. He stepped forward. Even when his foot encountered the scattered color pencils, they made no sound as they rolled out of his way. The entire world lacked sound other than the pounding of my heart. I tried to move away, but my back was pressed against the wall. Pain flashed through me from that slight movement.
Thatch kneeled in front of me. His lips formed the shape of my name, but no sound came from him. “Miss Lawrence? Clarissa?”
His gaze moved from my face, to my hands to the half of the sweater fallen in the puddle. The puddle was pink. The space between shelves felt cramped with the two of us in there. His mouth formed more words, but I still didn’t hear any sound. He stared at me expectantly.
He lifted a hand to my face. I flinched, my head hitting the shelf beside me. The bump to my temple was minimal compared to the new blaze of white burning in my mouth and hands and groin. A whimper caught in my throat. My vision blurred. He cupped his hands over my ears. I pressed my hands to his arms, trying to push him away, but this only brought on more agony flaring up my arms. His lips continued to move. He closed his eyes and chanted in silence.
My ears ached. Pressure increased and then lessened in my eardrum. A high-pitched tone stabbed into the sides of my head. Underneath the ringing, his voice surfaced, muffled at first, and then grew stronger. His words reminded me of a song, lyrical and deep. If I hadn’t been so terrified of what he would do to me, I might have found the melody peaceful.
One of his hands shifted from the side of my head, fingers closing around my throat. I waited for him to squeeze, but he didn’t. He palpated the tender tissue, finding the places under my jaw and tongue where it hurt the worst. His touch was cool, like an icepack on an inflamed wound. It was easier to swallow with his hand pressed against the fire of my skin.
“Clarissa, can you hear me?” he asked.
I’d never noticed how sultry his voice was before this moment. The calm of his tone reassured me. I tried to talk, but the desecrated ruin of my lips split open, and the metallic tang of blood touched my tongue. I choked.
He nodded. “Did you kill him on purpose or by accident?”
Behind him, I could see Julian’s outstretched hand fallen across the steps. Oh God, I had killed someone. On purpose. The implication sank in. The trembling started up again.
Was Thatch going to tell Jeb he’d been right about me—that I couldn’t control myself, and it was only a matter of time before I killed someone? Did he intend to turn me over to the Raven Court? Or drain me? I didn’t know which fate was worse.
“Did you intend to kill him?” His voice was low and soft. The kindness in his tone made me hesitate more than the question itself. “Tell me the truth.”
I stared up into the storm clouds of his gray eyes. I gave the smallest of nods.
“Good,” he said firmly.
I blinked.
“I expect he deserved it.” He lifted my right hand and sandwiched it between his own, more gently than I would have anticipated from him. He closed his eyes and inhaled. “Give me your pain. If there’s one lesson I expect you’ve mastered, it’s that one.”
I closed my eyes. I imagined the pain traveling through my arms and out my hands. I pushed it into him, the red-hot flames and the razor-edged agony. He gasped. Little stinging drops trickled out my fingertips. My palm ti
ngled and numbed.
“Give it all to me. All the pain. Push it out,” he said. “Don’t attempt to protect me from it. I’m not Josephine Kimura.” He smiled at that.
I tried to release it all, but my head felt light. It was difficult to concentrate. The torture between my legs became blindingly strong as the other unwanted sensations left me. His fingers on my skin felt like straws, slurping up the sharp edges of unwanted bite. The blistered surface of my palm didn’t hurt anymore. He set my hand onto my lap and held the other. His thumb smoothed over the back of my hand. A jolt of frigid cold rushed down my spine, making my body go rigid. I anticipated pain, but instead I grew more numb.
I opened my eyes to find him staring intently into my face. His skin was paler than a blanket of freshly fallen slow.
He hovered his hand over my arm and traced it up to my shoulder. The pressure of his touch was palpable even without his hand on me, making me wonder about the time I’d been on the cool steel of the table at the tattoo parlor, and I had thought I’d felt hands on me then. He had said it was all me. Perhaps it was, or perhaps it had been the curse. Julian’s magic? I had seen a green man in my vision.
The pressure shifted over my head and down my abdomen. His gaze flickered to my lap. He lifted an eyebrow.
He shifted onto his knees, ignoring the puddle he kneeled in. One of his hands rested on my hip, his fingers like icicles through my clothes. His other reached under my legs. I didn’t want anyone to touch me. I didn’t want to be like I had been before, helpless to my affinity.
A burst of fury bubbled up out of me in a sob. I brought my elbow down on his hand, the force of the movement tearing something inside my core. My cry came out in a panting shriek that licked against the silence. It took me several moments to catch my breath.
“Miss Lawrence, I should think you would be intelligent enough to know—”
“No.” My voice came out a raspy screech. “Don’t touch me.” My humiliation came flowing out of me. Now that I’d turned on the waterworks, I couldn’t stop. I turned my face away so he wouldn’t see my tears.
“I’m not going to touch you. I don’t need to.” His hand that had been on my hip was planted in the sticky puddle. I couldn’t see the other under my legs.
He closed his eyes. His face was close enough to mine that I could feel the shallowness of his breath. His brow crinkled. My pain eased away. The burnt shards of my body cooled and solidified so that I felt whole again. Numbness washed over me. My own breathing came easier. Now that the pain was gone, exhaustion tugged at my frame.
His breath grew ragged. He leaned his forehead against the wall next to me, his muscles shaking in fatigue. I watched with detached interested. This was my pain inside him. He was willing to hurt for me. That didn’t seem very evil. It didn’t strike me as a Raven Court kind of thing to do. Had Julian been lying about Thatch? I didn’t know what to think anymore.
When his eyes opened, the whites were gone. Instead I found myself gazing into inky blackness. He looked like the Raven Queen, Giver of Pain, when I’d seen her last. Maybe that was what pain did to Witchkin. I wasn’t too out if it not to recognize how creepy he looked or how strange it was to see him resemble the Raven Queen. He blinked and slowly his eyes dilated back to normal.
He exhaled. A well of relief rushed out to him as tangible as water. “That was an incredible amount of pain.” The pallor of his face flushed a healthy pink.
He slid an arm behind my back, the other hooked under my knees. I tensed.
“I advise you to remember, not every touch will be like his.” He lifted me into his arms and carried me down the stairs toward the dungeon.
I leaned my head against his shoulder and sank into the sanctuary of sleep.
CHAPTER FORTY
Prince Charming
My bed felt as though it were made of clouds. I blinked my eyes open, disorientated when I took in my surroundings. Red velvet curtains hung from a wrought iron canopy bed. One side of the curtain was folded back so that I could see the room. Thatch dozed in the chair, a book on his lap. It was a comfortable desk chair, the one from his office.
A sconce on the wall lit the near side of the room, painting his face in a golden glow. His gray waistcoat was unbuttoned, the collar of the shirt underneath also unbuttoned. His navy-blue cravat was untied and loose around his neck. For the briefest of moments, he reminded me of a Gothic Mr. Darcy. I smiled, thinking of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
The room was larger than my own, with half a wall of bookcases. Most were fiction, ranging from William Shakespeare to Alexandre Dumas to Charles Dickens. He even had Wuthering Heights and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I’d never thought of him as someone who read for enjoyment.
An oval mirror covered with a curtain and a wardrobe were pushed against the same wall. The shadows were too thick to reveal what art might be in the frames above the dresser or stacked next to the trunk along the other wall. I thought I remembered from the perspective of the mirror that one painting had sheep with a dragon and the other had unicorns. I’d run through the sheep painting and mucked it all up. Several large canvases were faced away, leaned against a wall.
Thatch stirred and stretched. He scooted the chair closer to me. “How about a drink of water?”
I nodded. He lifted my head and held a crystal goblet to my lips. The water tasted sweet in the desert of my mouth. There was something very surreal about this moment, even more so than walking into a painting. It struck me then.
“You’re being too nice.”
His eyes crinkled up in a genuine smile. “I hope you aren’t going to get it into your head I’ll be a softy later. One can’t ever be nice if he’s the dungeon master.”
I laughed but stopped short when the lance of pain stabbed into my abdomen. I groaned and squeezed my eyes closed.
He smoothed a hand over my forehead. The pain in my abdomen decreased, whether it was because of his touch or because I remained still.
“Josephine Kimura told us about Julian. I wish you would have come to me.”
I snorted. It hurt my throat to do so. “I thought you already knew.”
“Do you actually think I would permit such behavior from one of my teachers?” he asked sharply.
“I didn’t think you cared about anything.”
His chair creaked. I forced my eyelids open.
His arms were crossed, and his nostrils flared. “You think I wouldn’t care about some fertility pervert taking advantage of teenage girls by casting love spells on them? Girls came forward and reported his misconduct the moment he died and the spell was broken. You do realize that’s what he did to you as well? Or what he tried to do. You’re fortunate your magic resisted him. I’m guessing this resistance resulted in an increasing pain in your abdomen, which you neglected to tell me about.”
I nodded in wonder. That’s why I’d been experiencing affinity PMS?
He shook his head at me. “But instead of telling me, you kept this knowledge to yourself. Your reticence could have cost your life or someone else’s.”
“Craptacular. I just made his lordship of the dungeon angry.” I realized too late I’d said it out loud.
“You and your insolence. You make it too easy to dislike you.”
“Ditto.” I closed my eyes again. A memory tickled my brain. Something important. My job. Did I have a job?
“The answer keys,” I said, trying to stay awake. “I know where they are.”
Thatch’s voice sounded a million galaxies away. “Did Julian have them?”
“No. My desk. I found them on the back of student artwork.”
“Bloody hell. You make everything one level more complicated, don’t you?” He kept on speaking, but the lullaby of his deep voice carried me away into slumber. Everything was swallowed by blackness.
I woke again some time later, voices rousing me. I shifted, noticing the soreness in my limbs. The pain was a dull ache
now, rather than the stabbing it had been before. My hands were bandaged. I wondered about the rest of me. Thatch stood in the corner with Jeb.
It was brighter now, the room illuminated with sunshine, though the lack of a light source was disconcerting. Perhaps it came from behind the red velvet curtain on the wall next to the door. I studied the art in the frames. The sheep painting was intact, no sign of students’ misdoings there. One of the other framed pieces was a black-and-white ink drawing of Celtic knotwork. I was pretty sure I had seen the same piece in the lobby of the tattoo parlor, but I was too far away to tell for certain. Surely, this had to be his art. It was beautiful.
I tried to sit up. My insides cramped, and my vision swam.
Thatch appeared at my side, his aspect stern. “Don’t move a muscle.”
“Why am I here?” I could have asked that the first time I’d woke, but my brain felt less foggy now.
“You’re somewhere safe and out of the way,” Thatch said.
“Ah, there she is, the little darlin’,” Jeb said. “How are you feelin’?”
“Like death microwaved with a side of hangover.”
“See, I told you. She’s nonsensical,” Thatch said, a solicitous expression flashing over his face before melting back into his mask of calm. “Would it hurt to give her a few more hours to rest before you start questioning her?”
Jeb chewed on his mustache. “I’m afeared this can’t wait.”
I shifted in the bed, my breath catching at the pain of movement. “Am I in trouble?”
Jeb sat down in the chair next to the bed and patted my hand. “Of course you ain’t, darlin’.”
Thatch harrumphed.
Jeb waved a hand at Thatch. “Ain’t you got some kind of restorative elixir you fixed up?”
Thatch went to the nightstand and held out a crystal goblet of amber fluid. “Drink this.” Light filtered through it, casting golden shards across the blankets. The fluid looked like urine.