She didn’t know what this would prove. But she hoped he wouldn’t stop.
“Tell me how it feels,” he snarled, breath ragged against her ear.
“It feels—”
His hand dipped into her pants. Fingers down the middle. On the point she’d silently begged for.
She gasped. Sparks crackled. More.
“Clarke.” He swore. Swallowed. “Tell me.”
She could only whimper and thrust into him.
His finger slid down her center and plunged into her core. He cursed at her readiness. Paused. Tensed. Another swallow behind her, as though he schooled himself to restrain his own desire. Impatiently, she worked herself on his hand. He muttered under his breath, but then resumed his game of exploration. In. Out. Around. Press down. Dip in. Slide. It was too much. She cried out and arched into him. He plumped her breast, rolling her nipple, reading her mind.
“Clarke,” he growled low. “Tell me how it feels.”
“Great. Amazing. Fucking… insan… hha… God, yes. Rush. Yes. There.”
He increased the pace of his fingers between her legs. “Tight. So tight.”
Her eyes fluttered. She lifted her hips to meet his hand. “Tight.”
“Wet.”
“Hot.”
So hot. She was burning up. It was as though every stroke he made, every squeeze or twirl, was another drop of fuel to the flame. It all coiled tight, flamed brighter, burned darker until she simply combusted. A harsh cry of release tore from her lips. He brought her mouth to his in a punishing kiss. His long, guttural groan of satisfaction fed into her.
“Was it hot?” he asked, voice guttural, fingers still lazily circling, drawing out her pleasure.
“Mm-hm.” So hot.
“Send it to the candle.” He pressed his thumb on her sensitized bud, sending aftershocks rippling through her. “Feel the heat.”
Her slumberous gaze locked onto the candle.
“Or do I need to start the demonstration again.” His voice held a wicked, cruel lilt, and it was everything.
“I’m tempted.”
He smiled against her skin at her neck. “It’s now or never. Don’t think about it. Don’t analyze. Just do it.”
She pushed the heat still simmering in her body toward the candle. Energy hummed and burned through the resistance of her skin. Power ripped out of her.
It wasn’t the candle that set alight. It was the books. The wood. The carpet. Little flickering flames danced and skipped over every surface, rapidly spreading outward.
“Shit!” she shouted and shot forward, trying to smother the sparks with her hands and body.
“Clarke,” he barked, and lifted her from the floor as though she weighed nothing.
He tugged her back to him and patted her smoldering front, smothering the flames. “Never do that to me again. You gave me a heart attack. Fire is... unpredictable.”
A balding Mage in a blue robe came barreling into the aisle. His hand shot out, fingers splayed, and water doused them all. Covered from head to toe in a dripping waterfall that had conjured from nowhere, Clark gaped.
Not seeing Rush, the Mage had missed him entirely with the burst of water.
Rush roared with laughter.
“You practice your elemental fire elsewhere!” the Mage said. “What’s gotten into you—and how did that candle get in here?” He grabbed his head and tugged what was left of his hair.
Clarke couldn’t suppress the laugh. Guess she knew why he was going bald.
Rush took her hand, and the curse must have enveloped them, because the Mage began twirling in confusion, wondering what had just happened.
They ran all the way back across campus to the Guardian quarters. And when they got to their room, Rush made love to her in a way he’d never done before. At first, she thought it was the bright shine of hope burning through his passion, but as she drifted off to sleep and he crawled out of bed to sit on the settee, she knew in her gut that it was not hope.
Forget about the curse.
The memory of his words brought tears to her eyes.
He was different that night because this was good bye.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Without Rush by her side, Clarke’s sleep was fitful and full of nightmares. Dreams within dreams. Meanings turned inside and out.
She saw people frozen in the ice. She saw them thaw. She saw the darkness shroud them and the horror as they rejoined the living. And she saw them die. Every time it was a new person, a new life, a new death. From a stab in the back, to a slice across the throat, to a sword in the heat of battle. Fae. Human. Something in between. It was all order and then chaos until she landed in front of a shadowy figure she knew well. The Void.
Never had she seen his face. Never his skin nor eyes nor mouth, but always she knew it was him. There was a distinct feel to his soul. Because that’s what she saw… the dark void of his soul. That’s why he was a faceless black shadow. A black hole that devoured all life. He didn’t care about the natural order.
And he was coming for them. For her.
Panicked, she wished herself away.
The dream suddenly shifted, and she was at the academy, watching Preceptor Barrow instruct his class as they poured some concoction of liquid into a bowl. With tweezers and goggles, they lowered a glowing ball of mana into the water, and then they added a dull stone. Ripples formed in the water.
Preceptress Dawn’s voice floated into her head. “Don’t look for the stone dropping in the water, look for the ripples it creates.”
So Clarke shifted gears.
She took a step back from the nightmares and watched from the outskirts. To find the ripples affecting her life, she had to look to those she knew.
Clarke dreamed she was a bird.
Under a moonlit sky, she soared through the clouds above the rooftops of an unknown city. Coasting and taking her time, she circled above a particular house and landed on a branch near an open window. She hooted. Once. Twice.
A tall stately figure arrived at the open window. He was tall, golden haired and gorgeous. Square jaw, sensuous lips, and honey-colored eyes that echoed a cold entity inside. Clarke saw the opposite of a void. She saw the chaos of life as it sparked with electricity. Tightness contracted her lungs as he stared at her. His attention suffocated her. Then his lips stretched into a wicked smile, and he stepped back, allowing her entry.
Flapping her wings, she landed gracefully on the red-stained glass floor. The cool surface sent a shock as her talons changed to feet. The hands held before her face were brown-skinned, and so were her feet… and her naked body full of curves. She walked to the golden fae and stroked his unimpressed face. He took her breast in hand and squeezed.
“Prime,” he said, voice smooth like silk.
“King,” she replied, and took hold of his crotch through his pants.
He squeezed her flesh tighter. She wrenched her grip. Neither made a twitch of expression on their stony faces. Then he lowered his lips and slanted them over hers, letting her feel his wolven fangs on her lips.
She pushed him back and squeezed his jaw. “I want the bastard back.”
Fire flashed in his darkening gaze. He cupped her between the legs. “Regret is not a pretty color on you, owl.”
“It is not regret. It is a change of plans, wolf.”
“We made a bargain. I keep the breeding law in place. You give me the bastard.”
“We never said for how long.”
He clicked his tongue with derision. “You made me wait four decades before you handed him over, and now you want him back after a measly one?” He scoffed. “You still owe me another three.”
The king’s jaw hardened and he shifted his hand intimately. He tried to kiss her again. Her talons grew until they pierced the brocade fabric of his pants. He sucked in a breath and studied her face, finally whispering, “You dare threaten me?”
“You are the one with your fingers where they don’t belong.”
; He growled and let go. She held on for a second longer, then let go too.
“Where is he?” the Prime asked. “Where have you put Jasper?”
“I’ll have no bastard of mine impede my plans.”
“And I’ll have no green king impede…”
The Prime’s voice suddenly filtered away, and the sounds of a crowd became a deafening roar. She saw nothing but darkness. She was blind. Clarke couldn’t understand where she was. It felt like the rhythmic beat of a stadium. Roars. Cheers. Shouts. Boos. Stomping on the stadium seating floor. It was the symphony of her broken life. In the never-ending darkness, the symphony was all that kept her company. That and pain.
“Ripples… look for the ripples,” Preceptress Dawn said.
Clarke looked down again and her hands were no longer the talons of a bird, but human. At first she thought it was herself, but then she was being pushed into a cage. A tiny, cramped, ugly smelling and feeling cage she didn’t recognize. She struggled against the bars, trying not to let them push her in, but the force at her back was too strong. It was like death in there, but it was worse outside. Choking on her panic, she tried to scream. She thrashed about.
The dream shifted again.
Clarke wasn’t in the cage, but out of it. Two cages this time, one on either side of a familiar portcullis in Crescent Hollow. She looked further down the wall. Three cages. Four. Five. But who occupied the cages? The pixie? Her lover? No... it was... a tail swished in irritation from behind the body of a female and Clarke stepped closer… or her spectral body, or whatever she was.
“Water,” Anise rasped.
The guard rapped on the wooden bars with his bow. “Not your time yet, she-wolf.”
“It’s been so long.”
“That’s what you get for harboring a human.”
Clarke screamed awake.
“Anise!” she shouted into the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The room was gloomy when Clarke opened her eyes. She looked to the settee for Rush but found it empty. Unease dropped in her stomach like a stone. She’d always assumed he moved there after she fell asleep, but never considered he’d left the room altogether.
Throwing the covers off, she swung her legs over the side and fumbled with her feet until she found her slippers.
An inexplicable feeling of impending doom pulled her skin tight and quickened her pulse. Where was he? Scanning the room, it was clear he wasn’t there.
She had to find him. Had to find someone. So many weird things she’d dreamed, but the one thing that wasn’t murky or hard to decipher was Anise being in trouble. She’d been locked in one of those dastardly cages... all because she’d helped Clarke.
“It’s been so long…”
Anise’s voice was a puncture to Clarke’s heart.
“That’s what you get for harboring a human.”
She’d probably been held captive for weeks.
Thaddeus must have needed to cast blame after he’d come bursting into the inn, narrowly missing Clarke and Rush as they went through the portal. She recalled him asking for more in the next shipment from the human, meaning Clarke had undercut some profit he’d hoped to make. She’d evaded him again. She—a despicable human. He would have assumed Anise knew, or even if she didn’t, he wouldn’t have cared. As long as someone remained locked and suspended in a cage, suffering for his humiliation, then the joke wasn’t on him.
Bastard.
She blinked.
That was another word she recalled from her dream. The Prime had asked for the bastard. Jasper. At first, she’d thought the Prime didn’t like Jasper, but it was more than that. Jasper was the king’s illegitimate son.
God, there was so much of the dream to decipher.
Using her gift, Clarke sent heat to the oil lamps. Or she tried.
“Come on, damn you. Light.” She forced the power welling in her body to spread out and touch the candle, but it wouldn’t light. “No dice,” she mumbled.
Damn it.
“Feel the heat. Don’t analyze. Just do it.” Rush’s voice came to her like a dream.
She conjured the feelings he’d evoked and flames sprung to life in the sconces. She had but a moment to feel proud of herself before she busied herself with getting dressed, intuition taking her straight to the outdoor and weatherproof clothes. Leather pants, blouse, thick sweater, boots and a fur-lined cape. Rush’s old strip of fabric went over her ears. He’d told her she might be able to disguise them with a glamor, but she hadn’t gotten that far in her training. For now, she was going on a journey.
First, she needed help.
Clarke went to leave her room, but then noticed something on the table near the hearth. Two carved wooden figurines and her sundial, now with a leather cord attached. She put the sundial around her neck, and then picked up the wolf pup, turning it in her hands. She picked up the human female who had long hair, round ears and little dots over her nose. Freckles. It was unmistakably Clarke. So if that was her, then who was the wolf puppy? She picked it up again and stared hard, wishing she could get some kind of psychic imprint. But as usual, anything to do with Rush or her was empty.
But these carvings looked familiar. She went to the closet and rummaged in his rucksack until she found the wolf from the cabin. She placed it with the other two figurines. Her, Thorne, and a smaller pup. Her breath hitched and her hand went to her stomach.
When was the last time she’d had her period?
“Shit,” she mumbled, and sat down. But the elixir should have stopped any chance of her getting pregnant. How long had she been awake in this world for? A month? How long prior to waking had it been since… “Double shit.”
All the symptoms had been there. She’d been hungrier than normal. Tired. Occasionally nauseous. She looked at the little carving. Rush knew, and he said nothing. He knew and—wait. Why wasn’t Rush a part of the carved figurine family?
She swallowed.
And then she was up, ransacking the room, looking for evidence that he was still around, but everywhere she turned, she only found more signs that he was gone. The coin in his rucksack, gone. A brand new Guardian jacket from the closet, gone. His sword, gone.
Why don the Guardian jacket now, when he’d purposefully avoided it before?
A well of emotion sprung in her body, mixing and swirling with horror. The way he’d kissed her last night, the way he’d made love… she knew it had felt different. She thought it was because he’d given up, but it was more than that. Tears burned her eyes. He’d left her alone. Alone in this new world.
Why?
He loved her. He may not have said it, but she felt it in her heart. A little voice whispered in her ear, “If you loved someone, you wouldn’t leave them.”
Years of self-doubt pressed on her chest. A mother was supposed to love her child, yet Clarke’s had walked out of her life. All this time Clarke reasoned that her mother didn’t love her, that she’d been disgusted with Clarke’s abilities, or even afraid of them. Rush had accepted that part of her without question. She’d thought, yes, this is love. Unconditional. But maybe she’d had it all wrong. Maybe this was as good as it got, and she’d been too stubborn to accept it.
Forcing the tears away, she lifted the hem of her sweater and created a sling for the carvings to collect in.
The sun hadn’t come up yet. Clenching her jaw, she left her quarters and gravitated toward a particular suite. She crossed the landing of the central grand staircase. Going up to the third door down the corridor, she raised her fist and knocked loudly. Within seconds, it opened.
A very naked Thorne glowered down at her from beneath a mess of white hair. Did no one have decency here? She could put up with the top half nudity, but the rest of it was just plain inconvenient. The past month had been a combination of her sorry hand-signs, and possessive growls and snaps from Rush every time she bumped into one of the half-nude buff residents, or worse, full-nude buff residents.
“What,” Thorne grum
bled.
“Rush is gone.”
He lifted a brow, then tried to slam the door on her face. She stuck her boot in the gap. He made a frustrated sound and reopened it with a snap of his teeth.
It’s okay, she thought. He’s not going to hurt me. She forced the urge to run like prey. Sometimes she thought Thorne was closer to wolf than human. Sometimes he probably did too. His lip curled.
“Crescent Hollow has also been...” She couldn’t even come up with a word for it. She looked at the ground as the vision of Anise almost dead in the cage swung into her mind. It wasn’t only Anise, there were others feeling the wrath of Lord Thaddeus Nightstalk. Air rushed in and out of her lungs, gathering power along with her irritation. “I can’t leave her like that. She was only nice to me.”
“Crescent Hollow is none of my fucking business. Not anymore.” He tried to close the door again, but she let the gathering storm of power go. She blasted the door open with a gush of air and threw a figurine at him. It glanced off his pec and toppled to the floor. He frowned down at it, then locked eyes with her, confused.
God, that felt good.
She threw another one, and then the last.
He snatched both out of the air with a superior look on his face. She couldn’t stand it.
“You think you’re so high and mighty with your sharp claws out all the time, but I got news for you. You’re behaving the same way as Rush.” She changed her tone to mocking. “Oh, we don’t get involved in politics. We’re all about protecting the Well. I’ll give you a well. Well, fuck you all and your high horse. None of you are any better than the greedy assholes who lived in my time. Nothing has changed!”
His eyes glowed from the darkened recess of his room. His alpha fury licked across her skin and grew in power. He spoke through gritted teeth with a gravelly voice, no longer human. “You dare to come into my room, make demands, use offensive magic on me, and then you insult me. Damn straight I got sharp claws, and you’re about to feel their wrath.”
The Longing of Lone Wolves Page 25