“If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s reading between the lines.”
Refusing to go there, she said, “Of course you’re not a patient. Nobody said you were.”
“Yet you came back to fix me.”
No, she thought in a frustrated knee-jerk, I came back to fuck you. She didn’t say that, though, because while she considered sex more entertainment than a religious experience, she didn’t like reducing it to that level. She didn’t know whether it was the innate cool reserve of the harvester bloodline, the wisdom that had come from her own experiences, or what, but romantic love wasn’t her thing. Too often in her practice, she’d seen otherwise high-functioning women lose their dreams to love, or because of its loss. The things that love and heartbreak did to otherwise normal people most definitely did not fall within the three “D”s.
Still, as she and Lucius faced off in the darkness, the air thickened with the memory of sex, the anticipation of it.
Blowing out a slow, settling breath, she said, “I came back because you haven’t been able to get into the library, and we’re running out of time and options.” She paused, peering into the darkness and seeing nothing but the shadows. “It’s not your fault. It’s a power incompatibility, that’s all.” He might have spent years collecting the Nightkeepers’ legends and reconstructing their elusive history, despite the derision the hobby had earned in academic circles, but that didn’t make him a mage. Whereas genetics and magic meant that the Nightkeepers were big, strong, and charismatic, Lucius was more angles than muscle. He was human, blood and bone. And the sooner he came around to accepting that the limitations of that had nothing to do with him being Runt Hunt, the better off he’d be . . . and, she suspected, the closer he’d get to gaining control of the Prophet’s magic. She hoped.
“Whose idea was it for you to come?” he asked. He remained hidden in the shadows, but his voice shifted with a thread of what she thought might be acceptance.
“Mine, start to finish.” New heat furled across her skin as the anticipation built.
Their one spontaneous, somewhat rushed coupling in the archive had lit her up like nothing had done before, not even being with the far more polished Michael when the two of them had both been running hot with transitional hormones and their first tastes of sex magic. Where Michael had been skilled and considerate, Lucius had been raw, teetering on the borderline of control. Where Michael had held a portion of himself apart—out of necessity, as they had later learned—Lucius had been entirely there with her, making her feel like he didn’t see her as support staff, a backup, or a fill- in for what he’d really wanted. Unfortunately, that very openness, combined with a Xibalban attack on the antimagic wards surrounding Skywatch, had allowed the makol to briefly emerge from its hiding place and take over Lucius’s consciousness in the aftermath, leading to the near destruction of the archive and beginning Lucius’s downward spiral to makol possession. Despite that terrifying ordeal, though, and the strained “I don’t do love; I do friends with benefits” conversation she’d been forced to lay on him when he’d tried to make their lovemaking into more than she’d ever intended, she wanted this.
She wanted him, though that hadn’t been the argument she’d used on the others. She hadn’t dared.
“Are you doing this because it’s your best chance to finally be on the front lines, finally make a difference in the war?”
“Do you blame me?” It wasn’t really an answer, but she didn’t want him to know that somewhere along the line, duty and desire had gotten mixed together inside her. She wanted to fix him, to help him gain the magic he’d sacrificed for. At the same time, she wanted what they had found together in the archive, when nothing had mattered but the slap of flesh, the rake of nails, the clash of lips and tongues. She missed that, wanted it. It wasn’t magic, wasn’t love, but it was a power she could summon, something she was good at.
“I don’t blame you,” he answered, rasping voice going soft, “but I need you to understand what you’re getting into.”
The night had gone fully dark, and the pinpoint stars did little to lighten the blackness of the new moon. The pool deck at the back of the mansion was unlit; the only real illumination came from a few gleaming windows up at the mansion, and the lights coming from a single cottage off in the middle distance. The darkness meant she felt and heard rather than saw when he moved toward her, closing the distance between them until she could feel the heat from his body, the stir of his breath. Desire tightened her inner muscles and made her acutely conscious of her own breathing, her own actions, as she wetted her lips with her tongue.
“Light a foxfire,” he said. “Just a small one.”
It was one of the few weak spells she could muster, one that had delighted him when they’d first been getting to know each other. His eyes had gleamed with gratifying awe when she’d sent the foxfire dancing from her hand to his and back again, though even that small spell had taxed her.
Thinking that was what he wanted, that this was foreplay of a sort, she turned one palm up and called the magic with a single word in the language of the ancients. “Lak’in.” It meant “east,” the direction of the rising sun.
A tiny light kindled, starting pinpoint small and then expanding outward to a ball of cool blue flame that shed light on the two of them. She looked up at him, smiling, expecting to see his joy in the minor spell, a small connection to better days between them. Instead, familiar hazel eyes looked at her out of a stranger ’s face.
“Gods!” Jade jolted as shock hammered through her, sending her back a step. “Who . . . What the . .
.” She faltered to silence as reality and unreality collided and she recognized the man standing opposite her. Sort of.
It was Lucius, but he wasn’t for an instant the man she’d known. Instead, he was what Lucius would have been if he’d gotten the “big and burly” genes of his massive linebacker brothers and father along with the “tall and borderline willowy” genes he’d inherited from his mother’s side. The combination had yielded a frame that was only maybe an inch taller than that of the man she’d known, but carried twice the muscle, layered onto bone and sinew as though sculpted there. He was wearing new- looking jeans; she honestly doubted his thighs would’ve fit in the old ones. The bar-logo T-shirt was familiar, but there was nothing familiar about the way it stretched across his chest and arms, and hinted at a ripple of muscle along his flat abs. Above the shirt’s neckline, a thin white scar spoke of the attack that had cost him his voice, nearly his life. And his face . . . gods, his face. Features that had been pleasantly regular before were sharper and broader now; his jaw was aggressively square, his formerly overlarge nose was brought into perfect proportion, and his newly high cheekbones and broad brows framed hazel eyes that she knew, yet didn’t know.
Watching her with an unfamiliar level of intensity, he held out his hands and turned his palms up, so the foxfire lit the lifeline scars and the dual marks on his right forearm: the black slave mark that bound him to Anna and the Nightkeepers, and the red quatrefoil hellmark his demon-possessed self had accepted from Iago. Jade had seen the scars and marks before, of course, but back then they had seemed entirely out of place, magic unwittingly imposed on a human, drawing him into a place where he didn’t belong.
Now, though, they looked . . . right. Like they belonged. She didn’t know why the sight chilled her, or how that fear could exist alongside and within the churning sexual heat that somehow flared higher rather than died when she realized this wasn’t the man she’d come to seduce. Not by a long shot.
“Well?” he asked.
“You look . . .” She trailed off, not sure he’d be flattered by her first few responses, which involved steroids and testosterone poisoning, clear evidence that her normally hidden wise-ass side was kicking in, trying to buffer the shock. Nor did she go with the calm, analytical response brought by her cool counselor’s reserve, which often came to the fore when Jade-the-person didn’t know how to respond to
something. But he had called her on both of those knee-jerk defenses in the past, so she paused, trying to find the words. In the end, all she came up with was a lame, “. . . different.”
In fact, he looked amazing, reminding her of the long lunches she’d spent at the Met during her student days, wandering through the Greek and Roman art galleries, and imagining that the carved marble statues and bronze castings could come to life. He was that perfectly imperfect, human, yet something more now. And that “more” had new heat skimming beneath her suddenly too-sensitive skin, making her acutely aware of her own body, and his.
It’s just Lucius , she told herself. Only it wasn’t. This was a new, different Lucius, one who had broken the rule that said people didn’t fundamentally change. Because it wasn’t just the voice and the body that had changed; he had changed. Gone was the endearingly awkward geek who’d made her feel comfortable with herself. In his place was two hundred pounds of raw, potent male sexuality regarding her with hot hunter ’s eyes. And—oh, gods—she’d offered herself to him. More, she’d fought long-
distance for the opportunity, and she’d ignored Strike and Anna when they had tried to tell her that he was different now, that the Prophet’s spell had done something to him. In her rush to finally break free from her backup role, she’d thrown herself headlong at . . . what? What was he now? He couldn’t access the library, yet there was clearly magic at work within him. How else could she explain the added bulk and muscle, and the gut-punch of pheromone-laden charisma he’d lacked before, but now wore as though born with it?
“Not exactly what you were expecting when you volunteered for sex-magic duty, was it?” he asked, his eyes going hooded in intimate challenge.
Heat touched the air between them, thickening her breath in her lungs.
“I . . .” She trailed off. What was wrong with her? Where had her words gone? She was the one with the answers, the cool-blooded harvester who didn’t get rattled. But right now her body was saying one thing, her spinning brain another, and her verbal skills had gotten lost in the cross fire.
His not-quite-familiar mouth curved in a humorless smile. “That’s about what I figured. I wish they had warned you.”
That, at least, she could respond to. “They tried. I wasn’t listening. But . . . you could’ve called me, or e-mailed.” She’d posted her contact info in the mansion’s kitchen, just in case. “I hate thinking of you going through all this alone.”
“I haven’t been in the mood for company.”
It was easier not to look at him as she said, “What are you in the mood for?”
“That, dear Jade, is entirely up to you.”
The way he said her name reminded her of the man who had been her friend. But the unease that coiled through her warned that he wasn’t the man she’d known, wasn’t the man she’d volunteered to be with. He was suddenly so much more. “I . . . don’t know what to say.”
“That’s a first.” There was a little sting in his words, though. How could there be?
She wouldn’t have, couldn’t have known to brace herself for this. Anna had said he’d gained weight, that he’d been working out, but this bulk hadn’t come from protein shakes and free weights. “Magic.”
The word escaped her on a sigh.
Lucius spread hands that seemed wider than they had been before, their tapering fingers stronger.
“That’s the current theory, that either I retained something of the makol, or I’ve gotten something of the Prophet. Either way, I’m a new man.”
Not only that, she realized, he’d become the man his family had expected him to be, the one he’d always wanted to be. Satisfaction gleamed in his eyes as he took in her response, the heat of attraction she didn’t bother trying to mask. But also the nerves. “I don’t . . .” She trailed off, blew out a breath.
“I’m rattled. When I imagined how this was going to go, we were always in your suite in the main house, and you were, well, you.” She’d known what to expect, or so she’d thought.
He covered the last half step separating them, so the tips of her outstretched fingers brushed the taut fabric of his tee. The foxfire that still glowed in her hand lit the shirt’s logo silver-blue. “Tell me what else you imagined,” he ordered, the words thrumming with sensual meaning.
Feeling the small magic begin to drain her shallow power reserves, she let the foxfire go out, plunging them back into a darkness that shouldn’t have been as much of a relief as it was. But she didn’t drop her hand as the light faded. Instead, she flattened her palm against his torso, feeling the faint hollow beneath his sternum, along with firm flesh and a thick layer of muscle that hadn’t been there before. Heat traveled up her arm and across her body; her nipples tightened and her core was washed with a sudden tingling anticipation, like the moment before an orgasm. He was warm and solid, and the strong, steady beat of his heart pulsed beneath her fingertips. She was acutely aware of the press of her clothing against her skin, and the warmth of him, the scent of him, more potent than before, more masculine. “What I pictured was nothing like this,” she whispered, as much to herself as to him.
“I imagined how it would be too, each day the makol held me trapped in the in-between. I imagined what I would say to you if I ever made it back, what I would do to you, with you.”
The humid air went suddenly thin in Jade’s lungs, even though she had imagined the same things, only to have the reality fall far short, as it always did. “It’s only natural to lock onto some sort of goal,” she said, falling back into quasi-therapist mode when all her other options were too complicated, too revealing. “You needed to feel like you had something to come back to, something more personal than the war and the magi.”
“Maybe.” Something hard and hot flashed in his eyes. “And you don’t need to worry about me getting clingy this time. I know this isn’t about a relationship, or love, or anything beyond expediency.”
“It’s not . . .” she began, but then trailed off as he leaned in and her brain shut down: click, gone.
One heartbeat she was thinking, and then the next, cognition disappeared and she became a creature of pure sensation. She felt the steady thud of his heartbeat beneath her scarred palm, along with the warm strength of his chest and the play of strong muscle, and she suddenly wanted, with a pure intensity of being that she didn’t remember ever experiencing before. She wanted his body against hers, wanted them both naked and straining together, finding the power of flesh and fire. And in that moment, what had started as duty morphed to pure desire.
His words feathered across her lips as he said, “Expediency or not, there’s no reason we can’t enjoy ourselves. Which brings me back to those fantasies I was talking about. They all started something like this.”
He closed the last few inches separating them. And kissed her.
Jade was dimly aware that a small sound escaped her, part surprise, part invitation. Whereas the old Lucius might have paused a moment, as if questioning whether it was really what she wanted, this new version of him bypassed the niceties and went in deep, long and wet, kicking the heat inside her even higher and sparking an inner moment of holy shit as she was assaulted by a barrage of sensations, both familiar and unfamiliar.
A stranger’s muscular arms banded around her, pressing her to a stranger’s wide, hard chest. But although the angles and pressures were different, and the smell and very energy of him were more potently masculine than before, she recognized the man she’d known in the earnestness of his kiss, his sense of focus. For a fleeting second, she thought this was what it must be like to kiss a first lover years later, after he’d matured. It was as if the old Lucius had been her high school sweetheart, not yet grown into his body, whereas the man who slid his hand up to her nape, gathered a handful of her hair, and used it to change the angle of their kiss, bringing it deeper and wetter—that man was the fully grown version of him, the fulfillment of the young man’s promise. Except that the Lucius she had known had been a man already, fu
ll-grown and genius-smart. Which meant . . . what? Who was holding her now?
That thought brought a kick of nervous heat. Or maybe—probably—the heat came from the way his lips slanted across hers, the way his tongue touched hers, stroking, bringing sensations that were familiar, yet not. His bulk and strength both excited and intimidated her as he caught her up against his body, their clothing creating crazy-hot friction as he lifted her to her toes, letting her feel every muscled inch of him. She felt the hard ridge of his erection straining behind the fly of his jeans, and a spurt of hot, heady desire pounded through her at the thought of straddling that place, riding it, taking him within her. This was about the two of them now, about the pleasure they could give each other without expectations, hurt feelings, or recriminations. Heat flared in her bloodstream; she poured herself into the kiss as energy coursed through her—maybe magic, maybe pure lust; she wasn’t sure she knew the difference anymore, wasn’t sure she cared.
On one level, she remained dimly aware that she was there for a reason, that the kiss was about far more than two people—former lovers, former friends—turning each other on. Yet at the same time it was just the two of them. Friction was a delicious incitement as he got a hand between their bodies and cupped one of her breasts, rubbing the nipple to a point while kissing her with the same raw intensity she remembered from before, yet bringing a response that was so much more than it had been. His new bulk made her feel small and delicate, while the focus of his concentration made her feel that she was, at that moment, the center of his universe.
Yes, she thought as a moan hummed in her throat. Yes, there.
She wasn’t thinking of the Nightkeepers now, wasn’t pursuing her promise to her king or her opportunity to be on the front lines of the war. Her whole world had coalesced to the sensation of his body against hers, the drag of his hands down her ribs and back up again, and the hard press of his mouth as they twined together and kissed, hot, wet, and deep. Her response spiraled higher; she fisted her hands in his hair, trying to get closer to him, plaster herself against him, hell, get inside the jeans and tee that barred her hands from the body she felt beneath. More, she thought. I want more. Or maybe she said it aloud, whispering it in one of the brief interludes when their lips parted for a breath.
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