by Celia Kyle
“You did well,” Dante clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Better luck next time.”
She offered him a weak smile, and he was off. Now, she and Dane were nearly the only ones left in the room. And she was in no state to handle that.
Falling into almost a dead run, she bolted from the room, leaving the handsome werewolf behind her—perhaps forever. He was going back home, and she reckoned she might not have a home to go back to before too long. After this evident failure, she was all but certain she would be fired.
As much as everyone at Hollow House professed to love and support her—as much as the House itself seemed to value her—the plain fact was, there was nothing she could do. She was certain to be canned the moment she returned to the office. With no job, she had no way to pay her share of the rent. And that was that.
The thought pursued her down the stairs like a cloud, pushing her to charge even faster toward the office. By the time she reached the door, her mind was made up. Rather than sitting around waiting for the inevitable, she was going to rip off the bandage herself. At least there was a modicum of control—not to mention dignity—in resignation.
She opened the door and headed straight for Paul’s office, doing her best not to run. Keeping her eyes forward, she refused to look at the hyenas waiting to pick her to pieces.
“He’s not in, I’m afraid.” Cleon’s voice stopped her in her tracks.
For a moment, she stood suspended, but then she steeled herself and turned to face the others. It was a sea of bared teeth masquerading as smiles.
“Do you know where I can find him?”
“Who’s to say?” Cleon gloated. “As soon as word came down about the mistrial, he bolted out of here like his ass was on fire.”
“Probably looking for you,” Heather said, smacking the gum she always chewed when the brass was out. “So he can fire you.”
Heather’s hate carried a brand of laziness that only made it crack sharper against Aurora’s spirit, as if dislike for her was the easiest route to take.
“We’ve got bets on it, actually.” Eric was idling in a chair, his bulk making him an easy target.
All Aurora wanted to do was raise her arms and bring down a clattering maelstrom of paper and fury on the room. The glory of it swelled under her skin, and she had to grit her teeth to keep from surrendering to it.
She needed an anchor. Anything.
Across the room, tucked into his corner, she spotted Gotho. He kept his head down, his eyes averted. In her heart, she knew he would be in her corner. Hell, it was clear he had a crush on her, but silence was the only way to navigate the moment. It might have been safer for him, but it left Aurora without an ally of any kind in the viper pit.
The door back into the hallway seemed impossibly far away. She caught herself willing Paul Keenan to come through it but quailed at the thought of being fired in front of everyone.
“Has anyone bet on me?” It was the most dignified thing she could think to say.
“Fat chance,” Fisher said with a sniff, clearly pleased not to be the one on the receiving end of misery for a change. “We’re taking odds on how long it’ll take.”
“Whether you’ll cry.” Heather cracked her gum again.
The notion of tears had been far away, but now Aurora pushed it even farther into the tiny black hole where all her problems dwelled. She’d be damned if Heather would make a cent off her.
“It’s something you don’t see in this day and age,” Eric said. “Like something out of… Hey, Percy! Who am I thinking of.”
“Shakespeare,” Percival said, fiddling with his glasses.
“That’s it,” Eric snapped his fingers. “Rising stars on their way down.”
“The mighty falling,” Dion chimed in.
They were really having a field day at her expense. All the work she had been putting in since starting had only given them fodder for this moment. Laziness always had contempt for industry, and the air was thick with all their envy boiling over. For these cannibals, a dish like Aurora was too tasty to refuse.
The air grew thick as they kept jeering and laughing, but Aurora stopped hearing any of it. Her ears were ringing, and her pulse was so tight in her neck that she felt like she might split.
And then, she was moving—first one foot and then the other, in a clean, steady progress toward the door. She kept her head as high as she could until she felt the brass knob in her hand. Freedom. Escape.
The door clacked behind her and she was in the cool quiet of the hallway again. She swallowed hard, her throat so stiff it only came with great effort.
“Fuck.”
Even though her voice was low, the word rang out into the silence. She never allowed herself to speak that way, yet the word felt perfect in her mouth, the only expression viable in a moment like this one.
“Fuck,” she said again, a little louder.
She began to stride down the corridor, more vulgar language piling up in her throat so fast that she had to cage it behind her teeth. When she reached the bend in the hall, she could see the sun through the doors leading outside. Looking back, it was as if the whole of the Judiciary was waiting for her to walk out for good.
“Fuck you.”
It wasn’t a shout exactly, but it was enough.
Sixteen
Walking along the banks of the Sanguine Sea, Aurora had managed to get a better grip on herself. Well, at least she wasn’t in danger of swearing the world to pieces anymore. It would have been easy for her to take herself to task for saying such things, but she focused instead on being proud of herself for not losing control of her magic.
It was the longest bit of rope she was willing to offer herself, so she might as well take some comfort in it. She was also relieved that the shoreline was relatively deserted. The solitude gave her plenty of room to obsess over what she was going to do when Paul inevitably fired her.
At least she would get away from that wake of vultures back in the office. Up until her defeat, most of the sniping hid beneath the pretense of being good natured, but the lashing she’d been subjected to had been anything but.
“Jerks,” was the harshest word she was allowing herself at the moment. After finally cutting loose, she was sorely tempted to swear some more, but she held fast. There was no sense in lowering her self-respect just because of their petty hatred. She was better than that.
“What am I gonna do?”
Aurora hated it, but the answer to that was pretty obvious. She was going to have to move out of Hollow House, which certainly meant losing the first people she’d ever thought of as her friends.
Worse, she would probably have to move back in with her parents—at least until she found another job and could afford her own place. After the trajectory she’d been on, that felt like a particularly crushing failure. All the time she’d spent avoiding her family, thanks to her job at the Judiciary, would undoubtedly hang in the air.
Imagining herself back in her childhood room brought bile into her throat. Despite all her time dressing in actual colors, she envisioned herself painting the walls black and crawling under the covers to spend the rest of her miserable life in hiding. At least her parents might take the black walls as a good sign.
Looking up at the sky, she missed the shadow cast by the massive airship the last time she’d been at sea. The thrill of the bungee jump. These were small ways she could allow herself to admit to missing Dane.
The prickle of excitement that came with sitting beside him, and how that had fanned hotter by actually being strapped to him for the dive. Just by remembering, she could conjure the cold lurch in her heart when the cord had reached its limit and yanked them back into the sky.
She could still feel the way his hands had fastened around her as they sprang through the air. They had been the real reason for the thrill searing into her heart, far more than the jump itself.
And then that kiss.
She had wanted it so ferociously and had denied herself the pleas
ure until that moment of extremity. But, when his lips had touched hers, a whirlwind had roared inside her, unlike anything she had ever known. The surrender of it was as dangerous as she could imagine, and at the same time, a realm of infinite safety.
What a shame Theophilus Abernathy had risen to spoil it. What a shame he had risen to spoil everything. Dead as he was, the mistrial would have been called even if he’d never turned up, but still.
It was the closest she had come to raising a human, and even that was a misfire. If only she had been able to keep him reanimated, maybe she wouldn’t be in this situation. Not that he would have made it to court or anything, but at least she might have been able to find out who had taken him out.
All the joy of the kiss soured in her heart when she gave in to the feelings of shame she carried over everything that had happened. Aurora Rhonelle had thrown herself the occasional pity party, but this was something else, and it threatened to swallow her entirely.
“Hey, Aurora!” That deep, sonorous voice washed over her, and she turned to find Dane strolling toward her along the water’s edge. He looked so relaxed it would have rankled her if she wasn’t melting at seeing him again.
“Hey.” Offering a light wave, she let her demeanor tell him she clearly wasn’t as at ease as he was. How could he be, given how ruined everything was? As he got close to her, he had a light frown on his face.
“You’re looking really down.”
“Shouldn’t I be? We both know Griffin Finch is guilty, but he’s walking around free right now.”
It was only part of what was bothering her, but she hoped he would understand. Dane just shrugged and scanned the horizon.
“Sometimes the bad guy gets away with it.” He turned those tender eyes back on her, and they cut through the cloud of her sadness a little. “It sucks. But it’s something you’ll have to get used to in this line of work.”
“If I stay in this line of work.” She dropped her head, doing what she could to shroud herself from him again.
He tucked two fingers under her chin and lifted her face until their eyes met again.
“You can’t think like that.”
“It’d be easier to accept if the whole thing weren’t my fault.”
Dane’s eyes flashed wide at this. “Your fault?”
“Yeah. If I had known I was supposed to be more hands-on with the witness, maybe Mr. Abernathy would still be alive right now. Maybe that scummy thief wouldn’t be out walking the streets if I had done a better job.”
“You can’t think like that.”
“What other way is there?” She looked into his face, desperately wanting a genuine answer. And, for the moment, Dane looked stumped. “At the very least, if I hadn’t let myself get so distracted by kissing you, maybe I could have kept Mr. Abernathy alive long enough to find out who did that to him.”
“Playing the ‘if’ game never does anybody any good. Besides, none of this is your fault. That’s the truth.” The authority in his voice kindled something in her chest.
“Really?”
“Of course.” He looked surprised that it wasn’t plain to her. “How could you know anything about how to manage Abernathy if your boss never told you?”
“That’s true.”
“In fact, if it weren’t for your amazing powers, they would never have found the body. Thanks to you, the Abernathy family gets to have closure instead of spending their lives wondering what happened to him. Not only that, but now we know there’s something bigger to all of this than some simple burglary.” He leaned back, and looked at her with immense pride. “I’d say you’re actually the hero in this story.”
“You know something, Dane? You’re really good at this.”
And he was. In the space of less than a minute, he’d managed to throw light on all of the monsters in her mind and proven them to be nothing but shadows. There was still the residual uneasiness of it all, but the worst of her fears were gone.
“What can I say? I just look at the facts. It’s my job.”
“But what if I decide to keep feeling bad? What if this is one of those instances where the bad guy gets away?”
“Not gonna happen. You’re too smart for that. Plus, we’re both working for the same side.” There was a bright, almost tongue-in-cheek feeling to his confidence that she couldn’t help but giggle at.
“Oh, are we?”
“Yup, and now that there’s no case for us to tiptoe around…”
In a gentle but firm move, he cupped her face in his palms and kissed her. It wasn’t a showstopper that could raise the dead like the one after their jump, but it sent her heart reeling in just the same way.
When his lips left hers, she leaned forward ever so slightly, as if to call them back. She opened her eyes, and found his own reflection. His face was still very close, and a hunger in his look rode beside the deep care he clearly had for her.
“Is this alright? I wouldn’t want to—”
He didn’t get any further. Aurora leapt up and pushed her mouth to his in the first act of abandon she’d ever allowed herself. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and kissed him with everything she had. It was the first time her tongue had ever touched someone else’s, and she went mad with it.
Dane met her every step of the way. She could feel the desire coursing through him, but he was letting her take the lead, which only made her want him more.
“Okay. Um. Hang on.” She pushed herself off him, and Dane immediately ducked his head.
“No, you’re right. I’m sorry. If this is too much…”
She cut him off again. This time, she welled up her powers and cast an invisibility spell around them. The act of it surprised even her. She meant business.
You know what? Eff it.
With another quick spell, she manifested a plush, seaside cabana. The thatched roof cast an inviting shade over the king-sized mattress, and pure white curtains billowed in the warm air. She wanted this more than anything, and judging from the way Dane scooped her onto the bed, he felt the same way.
Their mouths found each other again, and busy fingers tugged at buttons. Each brush of newly exposed skin fueled the fury of their passion. Once Dane was shirtless, Aurora’s greedy hands searched over his body, cataloguing the perfection of it. His own hands were gentle, and she felt herself being savored.
“Dane,” she whispered as his fingers traced along the lace of her bra. “Please.”
Arching her back so she could open the clasp, she exposed her breasts to him. A shudder of something very near weakness came over him, and then he ducked low to take one tip between his lips.
His tongue worked her to a tingling point, the sensation of it plunging her into delirium. She gasped as he set her free, only to feel her body go taut as his mouth discovered the other peak. For once in her life, Aurora’s mind was blissfully quiet. It was filled with only one thing.
“Dane.”
His name was hot on her lips. Her fingers inched down the band of her panties over her full hips. Following the lead in her heart, he freed her breast from the tender assault of his tongue, and slid down over her to strip the fabric past her ankles. Then, before she knew what to do with herself, she felt the heat of his breath where she was most tender.
“Fuck,” she hissed through her teeth, heedless of chastising herself. This was no moment to be polite.
The point of his tongue parted her with a single, firm lick, and a cataclysm broke out under her skin. He barely had to linger at the swelling nub of her desire before a raging climax tore through her, erupting from her lips in a piercing cry.
He held her hips firmly, keeping his mouth glued to her and helping her ride out the storm. When she could see again, she realized he had managed to strip himself as naked as she was. Everything she had missed that first night in the yard was on full display and it was more than she ever let herself dream about.
“Be gentle with me,” she whispered as he climbed over her.
“Coul
d you doubt it?” He took her face in his palms and gazed deeply into her eyes. “You are perfect, Aurora.”
Her heart caught at the words, and then her breath locked in her chest as he nudged his hardness against her. Still sensitive to the point of shuddering, she parted her legs more to receive him.
“You’re sure this is okay?” he asked, the sincerity in his voice quivering slightly.
In answer, she angled her hips up to him, pressing him in just a little further. His eyelids flickered and he breathed out a husky breath.
“God, Aurora.”
With that, his hips began a slow descent, easing into her. He was careful, and she reeled as he stretched her to fit him. When he was fully sheathed at last, the full, firm pressure of him ran deeper than she could have imagined. On instinct, her legs locked around him, squeezing his hips and pulling at him.
“I need you,” she whispered. “God, Dane, I need you.”
“You have me. All of me. I’m yours.”
As if lightning cracked down her spine, she began to rock her hips to meet his. He met her rhythm, gently pushing as he rode her close. The friction of his body at the top of her cleft sent another low shudder spinning in her core.
“Dane.” She reached up and gripped his shoulders. “It’s going to happen again.”
“I’m here, my love.”
And he was. Fully, entirely there.
A spark cracked inside her and another wave began to swell. She spasmed around him and he pulsed in return. His breath came in short bursts, but hers had abandoned her altogether.
A flush ran from her face down to the upper curve of her breasts as she exploded in a shattering burst of wild pleasure. Dane held her close and panted hard in her ear. At the sound of it, her hands rocketed across the plane of his back, searching for anything she could cling to.
It was the purest sensation she had ever felt; devoid of complication or fear, a complete, perfect loss of control. Wound safely in his arms, she was free to let herself slip entirely into abandon.