Consort of Thorns

by Eva Chase

  I saw his tall, broad form silhouetted in the moonlight on the small stone bridge where I’d met all of them the night before. Seth turned at the rasp of my feet through the brush, but the forest was too dark for me to make out his expression. I hopped across the stepping stones in the burbling stream and walked up the path to meet him.

  “Hey,” I said, a smile stretching across my face.

  “Hey,” Seth said back. He reached for me and tugged me to him.

  I loved how easy it was to slip into his embrace. How right it felt leaning against his solid chest, soaking up the smell of his skin like sun-warmed bronze. The heat of his body tingled over me, a far more effective covering than the light jacket I’d pulled over my dress. My spark danced with joy inside me.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said, keeping my head tipped against his shoulder.

  “Of course.” He slid his hand up and down my back. “Just me?”

  “I didn’t want to make a big thing about it. I just… Everything was so chaotic this morning, with Gabriel showing up, and trying to explain to him what was going on.” I hugged him tighter. “It doesn’t feel right being apart from my consorts this much. I had to see at least one of you again. And you always make me feel like whatever’s happening, we’ll get through it.”

  Seth hummed in agreement, but he eased me back enough to look me in the face. His gray-green eyes searched mine in the dimness. “Did something else happen? With your father—or with Derek?”

  I shook my head. “That’s all the same. I talked to my dad and he seems to be acting normally, but it’s already a weird situation with Celestine gone, so… I don’t know. It’s so hard to judge. I feel wound up, having to walk on eggshells around him too.”

  “No wonder,” Seth said, stroking his thumb over my cheek. “You thought he was going to help you stop your stepmother, not be part of her plot. Have you come up with a plan for going forward?”

  I nodded. “I’m just going to have to push harder. Throw evidence of what Celestine was planning in his face without showing I’m aware of it and see how he reacts. It’ll be easier to do that once the new estate manager arrives and we’re going through Celestine’s rooms. And I’m going to see how long my supposed fiancé will stick around if I’m giving him the cold shoulder. If Derek is willing to leave, and Dad is willing to let him, that’ll prove something.”

  And if they weren’t, I’d have to hope I could uncover some concrete evidence I could take to the Assembly before Dad realized I was onto him. And then I supposed they’d take Dad away, imprison him? I’d never known anyone who’d conspired to enslave their own child’s magic to be sure what would happen to him.

  I sucked my lower lip under my teeth, resisting the urge to outright gnaw on it. For now, here in the shelter of the forest, I wanted to set that aside and focus on my consort.

  I reached up to touch Seth’s face, tracing my fingers along his broad jaw and up to the short waves of his tawny hair. “How have you been feeling? No regrets?”

  My gut tensed as I asked the question. Seth had been the last of the guys to decide he wanted to go through with the consort ceremony. What if the doubts he’d seemed to set aside had come back now that everything was so much more complicated?

  “Not a single one,” Seth said, so steady my worries washed away. He leaned against the stone railing of the bridge and collected me against him again. “You know how I feel? Like this is where I was always meant to be.”

  “It feels that way to me too,” I murmured.

  “And part of that is protecting you any way I can. If there’s anything else I can do to make things easier for you…”

  It meant so much just to hear him offer. The Spark only knew what he and the other guys were making of this crazy witching world I’d only just started to introduce them to. The world even I hadn’t realized was quite so crazy. Maybe he was still okay now, but soon they’d all be wishing they’d never agreed to tangle themselves up in my life.

  My throat constricted at that thought. “What you’re already doing is more than I’d ever want to ask. Most of this—it’s my world. I’m the one who has to navigate it.”

  “As long as you know we’ll be right there with you,” Seth said.

  His hand came to my cheek again. He caressed my skin from cheekbone to jaw, and then he tipped up my chin to kiss me. I kissed him back, softly and then with growing hunger. Gabriel’s interruption had also put a stop to any more intimate activities my consorts and I might have gotten up to today.

  I turned in his arms to kiss him more deeply, clasping my hands behind his neck. Seth’s fingers slid into my hair. Giddy tingles ran through my body as his mouth moved sure and hot against mine.

  Even when we stopped for a moment, I kept my head tucked close to his. “There is something else, actually,” I murmured. “I really don’t think you got to have enough of the fun last night. It would mean a lot to me to make that up to you.”

  Seth chuckled roughly. “Believe me, I enjoyed every minute of last night. You don’t owe me anything.”

  I looked at him with an arch of my eyebrows. “Are you trying to say you don’t want to have sex?”

  His expression was normally so cool and collected, but the heat that flared in his eyes then was enough to melt me. We hadn’t yet. Hadn’t done more than make out, even though it had felt as if I’d opened myself up to all the guys last night.

  “I definitely didn’t mean that,” he said. Then he glanced through the trees. “Are we far enough from the house that you’re not worried about someone wandering out this way?”

  We were a lot closer than we’d been last night. And being interrupted would definitely ruin the mood.

  I took a step back, raising my hands. “I can make sure even if they do, they won’t even know we’re here,” I said with sly smile.

  Now Seth’s eyebrows jumped up. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Witch, magic…”

  He still sounded a little wary. Seth had always been the most careful of our group, the most worried about what could go wrong. But this time, I was taking care of us.

  “Just watch,” I said.

  I stepped away with him, swiveling on my feet and swaying with arms extended, drawing magic through the air with the movements of my body. Calling up a barrier all through the forest to repel anyone who might take a midnight stroll out this way. Hiding our presence and shutting us off from outside sight and hearing.

  As I moved through the form, Seth’s gaze followed me, full of nothing but awe and desire now. My own desire flooded me. The moment I’d completed the shell of privacy around us, I caught his hand and pulled him to me.

  Seth was no witch. He couldn’t see or feel the barrier I’d drawn. But he didn’t hesitate now. He believed in me, in supernatural powers he’d known barely anything about a month ago, unwaveringly.

  His mouth collided with mine, taut with wanting. I hummed eagerly as I kissed him back. He stripped off my jacket with a careful but insistent jerk. Then he was palming my breast, rolling the heel of his hand against my nipple, making me whimper. And I could. I could do whatever I wanted here, just a short distance from my own home. Anyone who’d ever tried to keep this man away from me could be damned.

  I slid my hands up under his shirt, reveling in the solid muscle beneath that hot skin. Seth’s tongue parted my lips to tangle with mine. He gripped my waist and hefted me up onto the top of the stone railing with one smooth movement.

  My legs splayed around his waist. As I hooked them tighter, kissing him harder, his hand traveled down to cup my sex. I whimpered into his mouth. My panties were already damp with need. Seth groaned.

  “Next time,” he muttered in a voice so desperate it turned me on even more. “Next time we can take things slow.”

  “I’m not complaining about this time,” I said, and lost my voice to a moan as he stroked me between my legs. Every particle in my body was calling out to take my consort in every way I hadn’t yet. I needed this man inside m
e.

  I fumbled with the zipper of his jeans and grasped the hard length of his cock through his boxers. Damn, he was big. Bigger than either of the guys I’d been with this way before. A tremor of mingled apprehension and excitement shot through me. I stroked him, familiarizing myself with the feel and size of him, and Seth groaned again.

  He yanked at my panties, easing away just far enough to send them slipping down my legs. As I tugged his jeans and boxers down, he hitched up my dress. Then he was catching me by the thighs, bracing me against him as I balanced on the stones, the head of his cock teasing over my core.

  “Rose,” he said, like a prayer. His body tensed for a second. “I don’t have—”

  “We don’t need anything, remember?” I said, rocking toward him. “My spark keeps me safe unless I tell it I’m ready.”

  “Thank God for that,” he said in a strained voice, and aligned his cock with my slick entrance.

  He eased into me, inch by thick, glorious inch. No, he wasn’t too big at all. He was just perfect to fill me, to send bliss tingling through every nerve.

  A sigh escaped me. My spark flared to welcome him, the passion between us igniting the power inside me even brighter than before.

  Seth held me in place as he sank into me, withdrew, and plunged farther into me. A wave of pleasure rolled up from my core. I moaned, grasping at his shoulders, seeking out his lips. We kissed roughly, our bodies shaking with each thrust of Seth’s hips, with the pulse of bliss spreading through us.

  Seth trailed his mouth across my cheek and nipped my earlobe. His breath stuttered. He drove himself even deeper, and I gasped as he hit the most sensitive spot inside me. Pleasure shot through my veins. I cried out, so loud I was briefly afraid Seth would stop.

  He only drove into me more eagerly. “I’m sure of your magic,” he said. “I’m sure of you.” His lips grazed the crook of my jaw. “You’re everything I could have wanted, Rose.”

  With those words and another pump of his cock, I started to shatter. Bliss radiated over my body and my spark sizzled like a firework. I came with another cry, pressing myself toward him to take him into me as deeply as I possibly could. Seth’s breath stuttered. With a jerk of his hips, he came with me.

  He leaned over me, sliding in and out with a few last gentle strokes. I touched his cheek and brought his mouth to mine. We kissed so long and so intently my head started to spin, but I wouldn’t have asked to be anywhere else, with anyone else.

  I’d come a long way from the woman I’d been when I’d come back home a month ago. I’d gained a lot. And I wasn’t letting any of it go. Least of all this man and the other three I loved.

  Chapter Six

  Gabriel

  There weren’t a whole lot of things that scared me in life anymore. So the sinking in my gut as I rode my Triumph up to the gate of the Hallowell estate had to be something else. Trepidation? Sure, that was possible. Maybe indecision over whether I was making the smartest move I could have or the stupidest—because it had to be one or the other. The feeling was nothing worse than that.

  The intercom was mounted in the exact same spot it had been the last time I’d been out this way, years ago. I parked the bike where I could to push the call button, pulled off my helmet, and waited out the faint whir of the moving camera mounted on the post overhead. The wind licked over my hair, damp enough with humidity that it actually felt like a lick. Leaning back against my bar bag, the sum total of my possessions at the moment, I shot a smile at the camera.

  Whoever was keeping an eye on it today opened the gate. I rode on up the drive to the garage that had been my home for the first fourteen years of my life.

  They’d repainted it. The old deep green was covered over with a dark maroon. Otherwise it looked pretty much the same: a low building with a slanted room broken by three dormers, long enough to house the family’s primary cars and Mr. Hallowell’s small collection of older classics. I could picture the row of hoods in my mind’s eye as clearly as if all those doors had been open.

  As I stepped off the bike, the side door that led up to the overtop apartment opened and Rose stepped out. She smiled at me, a little proud and a little shy. The wind made her long black hair dance around her pale shoulders. She was wearing a casual tank top and jeans, but I couldn’t imagine her looking any more gorgeous to me if she’d been decked out in an Oscars-caliber gown. My heart just about flipped over, seeing her.

  If there was anything I was still scared of, it was this woman. I could admit that. I hadn’t been able to resist her call. Hadn’t been able to resist her suggestion that I take this job—working my way up to the position I should have inherited from my father, if things had turned out the way they should have.

  Which also meant, if I’d never beckoned a lonely little girl over to play with me and the other boys. If I’d grown up just watching the girl of the house from afar as she transformed into the woman she was today, without ever knowing what it was like to find the right words to make her laugh, to accept a hug from those slim but strong arms. If I’d stood back and let her marry some asshole “witching” guy who’d have turned her life into hell.

  No, what really scared me was that I wasn’t sure I regretted anything, despite what had happened because of my decision all that time ago.

  “Hey,” Rose said. “We just finished cleaning things up upstairs.” She swiped her hand past her cheek, a smudge of dust on her wrist suggesting she had literally been part of that we. “Do you need help carrying anything?”

  “I’ve just got the one bag,” I said, smiling back at her. It would have taken a concentrated effort not to smile at Rose Hallowell. I hefted the bar bag off the bike and followed her up the stairs.

  I couldn’t let her be more than a distant friend to me now, not in any way I showed. I had to remember that. It was better for both of us.

  The second I came through the upper door into the apartment, my knees jarred. A wobble filled my chest, potent enough that I set down my bag before my arm wobbled too.

  Fuck. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that no one would have lived here while Rose’s family was out in Portland. No one had lived here since Dad and I had left.

  The living room looked exactly the same: a big square with hazy light trickling past the moss-green curtains over the windows on either side of the angled ceiling, black-and-green striped sofa in the corner, birch-wood tables and bookcase scattered around it. A thick gray rug covered the floorboards between the sofa and the two matching armchairs. Someone must have replaced the batteries in the round clock that hung on the wall, but the second hand still clicked faintly when it passed the six at the bottom.

  All furnishings had belonged to the Hallowells. We hadn’t even been able to take the dishes, the ones we’d been using for as long as I could remember.

  The place even smelled the same: like the clover from the little lawn beside the drive and a hint of gasoline and engine grease seeping through the floor.

  It was too easy to picture Dad sitting on that sofa with diagrams spread all over the coffee table, beckoning me over to show me some improvement he wanted to make to this engine or that exhaust system. Too easy to imagine the scent of his coffee—dark roast, preferably Colombian—wafting from the kitchen as he hummed an off-key tune and threw together a meal.

  “Gabriel?” Rose said tentatively.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and jerked my head around to meet her gaze, recovering my smile. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s just been a long time.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t really think about…” Her gaze darted around the room. She’d never been up here before that I could remember. The similarities couldn’t have struck her. “If you want to change things up, switch out the furniture, it really wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Most of the memories here were good.” We wouldn’t talk about the memories after.

  “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me. I think my dad will be coming o
ut to officially welcome you and introduce you to the other garage staff in a few minutes. He just got caught up in a call about some big deal he’s helping finalize.” She grimaced.

  Right. I hadn’t really expected to get first priority with the old man. I knew me being here, getting this place and this job, was all Rose. Worrying about me, trying to set things right, even when she had so much to worry about for herself already.

  “Things have been okay with him so far?” I asked.

  “I think so. It’s so hard to tell.” She paused, her gaze turning searching. “Are you completely okay with this, Gabriel? If being back feels too weird, or whatever…”

  She’d already reassured me over and over that she only wanted me to take the job and the apartment if I really wanted it. That she didn’t mean to pressure me at all. As if she should be the one taking responsibility for my history in this place.

  She’d opened herself up to me so much from the moment I’d come back, trusted me with so much of herself. I’d known there was something magical about the girl I’d known back then, but I’d never realized quite how literal that was.

  The thought tugged at my heart. I forced myself to ignore the sensation. I had to be worthy of that trust.

  “Hey,” I said. “I told you it’s fine. It’s perfect, really. I can help keep a closer eye on things for you, keep myself out of trouble, and avoid imposing on Jin’s hospitality any longer. Thank you.”

  “Okay. I promise to stop asking.” She gave me a quick grin. “I guess I’d better let you unpack. I shouldn’t be sticking around the garage too long anyway. But if you ever want to talk, shoot me a text, and I’ll conjure a little stealth.”

  Then she was gone, slipping out the door. The room felt dimmer in an instant.

  I hauled my bar bag over to the bedrooms—almost veering into my childhood room before remembering I should take the master. To my relief, the bed was made up with a new duvet and sheet set, breaking that feeling of stepping back through time.