by T. S. Bishop
Now, actually finding anything useful was going to be something else entirely.
Luckily, I had three years of experience as a moderately-successful thief to fall back on.
But something was going on with Adrian, and it was making me worried. He was being evasive, sometimes he wouldn’t look at me, and generally gave the impression that he was either hiding something or suddenly had a problem with me.
I just couldn’t figure it out.
So I brought it up one evening, when Noah and Dominic had gone to pick up some materials for the ‘little project’ tomorrow.
“What’s your problem?” I asked fiercely, rounding on him with my usual tact, i.e. of a rampaging bull.
“What?” asked Adrian, reeling back and looking genuinely shocked.
Oops. I might have overdone the outrage there. I wasn’t used to having friends, and certainly not familiar with confrontations with them generally went. Especially when they were friends you not-so-secretly had some not-platonic feelings for sometimes.
“I just mean,” I said in a more normal tone this time, “That you seem like you’ve been avoiding me. Like that day I portaled back from where Eli was keeping me. And recently, I don’t know, it feels like…it’s been different between us. Am I crazy?”
Adrian looked at me, conflicted feelings swimming in his eyes.
“I wish you weren’t so perceptive,” he said honestly, facing me. He stepped closer and leaned forward so our foreheads were touching. “I can’t explain it myself,” he confessed softly. His breath puffed against my cheek with every word and exhalation. “That night when you were gone…I felt like I couldn’t breathe until I knew you were okay. I was just so numb. It scared me. But I don’t expect you to understand, Sophie. You’re not afraid of anything.”
“I’m afraid of lots of things,” I whispered back. I was afraid of raising my voice, in case it broke this moment between us. I felt like we were suspended in time, on the surface of a bubble that was about to break any second. I traced his eyelashes with my gaze. They were long and dark, with the slightest curl at the ends.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“I’m afraid of you,” I confessed, as he rumbled with laughter. “No, I’m serious,” I said indignantly. “You’re so—confident and, and tall, and your hair is…what it is. It’s really distracting—“
Okay. Time to stop talking.
“You don’t know distracting,” Adrian scoffed. “You’ve never had to watch you fight or lead a mission or wear those tight fucking leather pants that drive all sensible thought out of my mind—“
My mouth dropped open. Adrian froze, and looked intently into my eyes.
“Yeah?” I said hoarsely, “I’ll have you know that those are part of a decent witch’s dress code on missions, sir.”
“Nothing decent about you,” he whispered, letting his hand rest lightly on my cheek. I felt it like a brand on my face, like a lick of flame that I didn’t want to extinguish.
His thumb stroked my lower lip as he looked at me hungrily, as though he wanted to devour every inch of me. I couldn’t imagine how I must have looked. My magic roiled with interest, gazing upon the proceedings benevolently. It wanted Adrian to claim me, and for me to take him as mine. It was an old, greedy magic, and made me heady with power as our lips met, desire dripping off us slowly, soft and intent as the slow drop of honey. My body sang as I pressed myself against him.
Yes, I thought, surging against him, yes.
Our mouths met with dark, vicious intent. He slipped his tongue into my mouth skillfully, and didn’t seem to have lost his mind like me. He still had the presence of mind to reach under my shirt and stroke my ribs. We came up for air after what seemed like hours of slick heat and pressure. My mouth was tingling.
“Off,” I said breathlessly, tugging at his shirt.
“Yeah, okay,” Adrian said, looking equally wrecked. His lips were red and his cheeks were flushed. His eyes looked fevered. I could feel our spirits entwining, bolstered by my magic. It was drawing us in, melting us down in its crucible, until we became something pure and almost divine.
No wonder Adele had told me not to have sex with my Bloodsworn. This king of power that my body pulsed with wasn’t to be trifled with. But I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t think of what I was supposed to do, or what my duty was. I just thought about Adrian, and his hot, steady hands on me, and his cock inside my heat.
I stripped off my shirt and stood boldly in front of him and letting his eyes roam over me and take in every inch. I stepped forward, pushing him back inch by inch until he felt back onto the sofa, and stood between the V-shape of his legs, acutely aware of the bulge of his crotch, and of the heat building between us. At least now the height difference between us wasn’t so marked.
“God, Sophie,” he croaked, looking stunned. He shrugged off his own shirt and shivered as I put a hand on his muscled chest.
He ran his hands down my arms and waist, and then slowly down the sides of my thighs, and brought them up to cup my ass. He took me by the waist and pulled me closer to him, so my thighs were brushing his crotch.
He raised his arms to the back of my bra, and with nimble fingers undid the clasp.
“Done this before?” I teased, as he slipped the bra off me, lifted it out through my arms and carelessly threw it somewhere, eyes on my breasts. My nipples rapidly hardened and pebbled in the cool air, and I fought the urge to cross my arms and cover them.
“I’m glad you appreciate my technique,” he murmured, leaning forward to lick my nipple. I jolted as though an electric shock had gone through me. I couldn’t help it. It had been—god, it had been too long since the last time I’d had good sex.
“Gorgeous,” he murmured, and fastened his mouth on my pink nipple and began to suck. I shuddered and clutched his shoulders, moaning. I threw my head back as little sparks of electricity ran from the place where his mouth was to my core. He tweaked and rubbed my other nipple with his fingers, roughly.
It was as though he was devouring me—his sucks and licks were hard, demanding and unforgiving. He even bit me lightly. It made me feel like I was being marked and claimed, and it made me feel light-headed. He managed to do it for quite a while, sucking and nipping at my hardened nubs until they were puffy and swollen and dripping with his saliva. I probably looked like a wreck, I knew, moaning like I was in physical pain.
He removed his mouth for a moment and I took the opportunity to quickly shuck off my jeans.
“We’re not messing around anymore,” I said, with a lot more command in my voice than I felt. “You. In me. Now.”
He chuckled, not seeming put off by my demands. “Come here, baby,” he said, and it should have sounded corny, but it didn’t. It just sounded…affectionate. I went over and straddled him, and he ran his hands possessively up and down my thighs, so lightly that it made me shiver, until one hand rested teasingly on the inside of my thigh.
“Come on,” I said, feeling my clit throbbing with anticipation. “Come on, Adrian!”
The sound of his name seemed to work wonders. He pushed my soaked panties to the side and began to finger me, merciless and thorough. I quivered and shook as he slid one finger into me, but it wasn’t nearly enough. He started thrusting in shallowly, not nearly deep enough to give me anything real.
“Don’t be such a fucking tease,” I said, biting him lightly on the ear. He laughed, but at least he listened to my critique.
He pushed three fingers into me then, and that felt better. In fact, it felt delicious. The friction from his big, thick fingers getting deep enough inside me that I was bucking into them, pleasure building inside me like a lazy, warm wave of sparks and lightning. I came with a cry, and fell bonelessly on top of him with a happy, sleepy sigh.
My muscles felt so relaxed, I could have fallen asleep then and there.
“Wait, what about you?” I said, nudging his cock, which must have been painfully hard by now.
“It’s fine, I do
n’t need to,” he said, clearly lying.
“Like hell you don’t!” I said indignantly, sitting up. But Adrian stroked my bare back soothingly.
“It’s all right, Sophie,” he said gently, voice smooth as molasses. “You shouldn’t—it’s better if it doesn’t go any further between us than this.”
“What?” I said, voice cracking. “Why?”
“You know why?” he said, face dark and bitter. He hid his face in my neck and continued, voice muffled. “Anything intimate between a witch and her Bloodsworn is forbidden. I know you remember what Adele said.”
“Yes, but—it’s us,” I said helplessly. I knew he felt the ‘us’ of it too. The rightness, the feeling of belonging together.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, sounding pained. “We can’t have anything more than this. You understand, don’t you?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound calm and indifferent and not utterly, totally devastated. But he saw right through me, like I knew he would.
“Sophie,” he said pleadingly, catching my arm as I got up to dress.
“It’s fine,” I said, not looking at him. “See you tomorrow. I should get some sleep. Big day and all that.”
I left him there, sitting on the sofa with a lost look on his face, and did the lonely trek to the barracks by myself, feeling like my heart was breaking.
Chapter 28
“What’s our status?”
“Still waiting for the payload.”
“You don’t have to call him the payload Noah, Christ.”
“No arguing on the comms, guys.”
“Who died and made you King, Ade?”
“Shut up!” I said, annoyed. A moment later, Noah’s voice came through again but he sounded excited.
“The eagle has landed! I repeat, the eagle has—“
“We got it, thanks. I’m moving into corridor B.”
“I’m making the distraction now,” said Dominic. “When all this goes incredibly wrong, I hope you guys remember that I objected to this from the very beginning.”
“We must have somehow missed the first twenty times you said it—“
“But we appreciate the reminder.”
“All right, they’re in the commissary. Ingram just sat down to eat. Ugh, mystery meatloaf again.”
“Dom, this would be the time to get your ass into gear.”
“I’m on it.”
I waited, heart in my throat, for something to go wrong. Someone must have sensed that something was wrong, or seen one of us looking guilty or something. I couldn’t believe that this would all go according to plan.
“All right,” said Dominic, sounding slightly out of breath, “I’ve planted it. Now we just wait for someone to trigger it.”
“It’s not going to hurt anyone, right?”
“No, the wards over the commissary doors will prevent anyone from coming to harm.”
“You’re a genius, Dominic.”
“I try.”
“I see someone approaching the entrance door,” said Noah. “It’s Estella. Wow, wouldn’t want her to know it was us to be honest.”
“Well, we’re not exactly jumping around and howling it for anyone to hear,” I said tensely.
“Oh shit!” came Noah’s voice, sounding jubilant, just as a loud boom rocked the speakers.
“Did it work?” I asked frantically, “Did it work?”
“Holy fuck!” yelled Noah, sounding stunned, “Dom, what the fuck did you put in that mixture?”
“It was a magical Molotov, with some of my special secret sauce,” said Dominic, sounding smug.
“You went kinda overboard,” said Noah, awed, “It just activated all the wards in a hundred metre radius, it looks like. I’d like to see Ingram getting out of this one any time soon.”
“Better to overdo it than under,” said Adrian, sounding satisfied.
“I’m proud of you, Dom,” I said, “I never thought you were the most bloodthirsty out of all of us.”
“You’ve made a monster out of me,” returned Dominic, not sounding sorry.
“All right, I’m approaching Ingram’s office now.”
“Is it clear?”
“It looks deserted. Everyone must have gone down to lunch.”
“Where they’re trapped,” said Noah, sounding unmistakably gleeful.
“Noah, focus,” commanded Adrian.
“Right.”
“I’m at the door,” I said nervously, “All right, wish me luck.”
“You’ve got this.”
“Get some, Sophie.”
“Go fuck shit up.”
“Thanks, guys.”
I tapped on the mouth of the walkie three times, to tell them that everything was still good. It was the code we had pre-arranged. Tap three times to confirm that everything was still all right, but five times if things were getting messy. I really hoped I wasn’t going to hear the five taps today.
I eyed the door with trepidation. I didn’t know exactly how paranoid Ingram was, but I wasn’t about to take any risks. For all I knew, he’d booby trapped the door with a hex that would send me flying backwards at the slightest touch.
I had a dagger tucked into my belt, so I held it by the blade and nudged the door handle with the hilt. The reason I held it by the blade was because the blade was made of metal, and the majority of guarding spells were the kind that would give you a good old electric shock. The hilt of my dagger, on the other hand, was made of wood coated with rubber. You wouldn’t find a better insulation material anywhere, and it would protect me if any spells were activated from touching the door knob.
The hilt met the door knob. Nothing happened. But there was more to check first.
I took a piece of rowan tree bark—that Amerhin had kindly provided to me from the Sanctum’s garden—and rubbed it lightly against the doorknob. As I rubbed the bark, it slowly blackened and disintegrated in my hands and turned to ash.
Rowan tree bark was like litmus paper when it came to magic. Just like litmus paper turned red or blue depending on how acidic or basic a material was, rowan bark would turn to ash if defensive magic was present, and catch fire if offensive magic was present.
So there was definitely something guarding the door, but I wasn’t too bothered. A jinx that would give me rashes or make my hair fall out would be juvenile, but easily fixed. The only problem was that anyone who cured me would know that I had broken into somewhere I shouldn’t have, and Nathan Ingram would surely warn Adele to look out for someone with those symptoms.
Luckily, I had an idea.
The way these jinxes worked, was that they were activated at the slightest hint of unauthorized magic, but they had a limited number of uses. Magic wore out, especially if it was constantly in use. Ingram was probably getting one of the Sanctum witches to continuously renew the jinx on his door, and most people wouldn’t have the time to do what I was about to do.
I sent a little spark into the doorknob, and saw it glow briefly. I dodged as it sent something that felt like a heavy blow towards the place that I’d just been. Yeah, so this would have sent me flying back several feet if I’d stayed in place. I kept sending tiny sparks into the doorknob, dodging its retaliatory jinxes and trying to exhaust it.
Around fifty attempts later, it stopped glowing entirely. I could have touched it with my bare hand without suffering any ill effects, but I didn’t want to risk getting my fingerprints everywhere in case Ingram decided to call in regular law enforcement or something.
I slipped on a pair of leather gloves and turned the handle. It turned smoothly and quietly.
“I’m in,” I whispered into the walkie talkie.
Someone tapped three times from the other end. It was our pre-arranged code for ‘everything’s fine’. Noah, Adrian and Dominic were all supposed to have gathered inconspicuously near the commissary to let me know when someone had managed to lift the wards on the place.
I could hear the minutes counting down in my head.
; I looked around Ingram’s office quickly, taking in details and mentally planning strategies in case I needed to get out in a hurry. Times like these, the years I spent breaking into people’s houses and stealing things really came in useful. I couldn’t recommend a life of petty crime highly enough when it came to bestowing life experience on you.
Ingram’s office was old, highly decorated and somehow impersonal.
There were paintings and old photographs framed on the walls that almost certainly didn’t belong to him. The people in them were old and mostly women, with hairstyles I’d only seen in history books, with the same expression of haughty contempt on their faces. They were wearing the same robes Ingram had worn at my swearing in ceremony. They all had two sets of years underneath their frames. I guessed that one set was the their lifespan, and the other must have been the years they’d spent as Pathfiners of the Sanctum. I was looking at the history of the Sanctum itself, laid out before me.
The lady on the left end of the wall must have been the famous—or infamous, rather--Vindicta the Wrathful. It was a painting, and not a photograph, obviously, but it was very well done. It didn’t have the dull, lifeless look of most paintings. Instead, she had a look of alert cleverness. The artist had even captured a scar on her face, and the texture of her hair and skin. It was astonishingly good.
I followed along the wall curiously, until I came to more familiar photographs. They had color, even though they were fuzzy and of low quality. The last few were interesting. The woman who served as Pathfinder in the 90s had lasted all of four years, and died when she was twenty three, which stood in contrast with all the other witches who seemed to retire at around a hundred and die a few decades later. I wondered what happened to her. I looked at her calm, placid face, with its straight nose and slightly sad brown eyes. I had the niggling feeling that someone had mentioned this woman to me. Her frame was crooked, as though someone had dusted it and hung it up wrong.
Oh well. It might as well have been ancient history, for all that it mattered to my current mission.