by Eva Chase
A whimper spilled from my lips at the fullness of him inside me. He braced one hand against the ground to hold us steady while the other stroked over my breasts. We kissed harder, faster, as I rocked over him, urging him deeper. Soon I couldn’t do much more than moan with the pleasure flooding my core.
As my thighs started to tremble, Connar returned his hand to my hip, lending his strength to my rhythm. As we sped up together, he groaned. Fresh bliss blazed through me with each thrust up into me. My lips collided with his one last time just before I shattered. Connar clutched my hip as he came with me.
He caught me, tipping back so I could lie over him in the ecstatic afterglow. I tucked my head under his chin, boneless and sated, and he caressed my hair.
“You can ride me any time you want,” he said with a smile in his voice.
I giggled and nuzzled his chest. “Believe me, I’ll take you up on that offer.”
As long as I returned from California in one piece.
Chapter Sixteen
Rory
The blacksuits obviously had a certain sense of discretion concerning our mission. I’d half expected a stretch limo to be waiting for us at the Sacramento airport to take us to our hotel, but instead we piled into a series of regular cabs. To Malcolm’s obvious chagrin, I ended up in one with Lillian and Maggie rather than him.
“The hotel will be very comfortable,” Lillian assured me, as if she thought I might mind the method of transportation.
Her assistant, who was sitting between us, gave me a look I couldn’t read. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want anything but the best, after all.”
If that was intended as some kind of jab, I didn’t follow it. Lillian didn’t remark on it, though, so maybe it wasn’t such an odd comment. It might sound odd if I emphasized how little I cared about fancy accommodations.
I gazed out the window at the California landscape we were cruising past. Even with the windows closed, I could taste the warm dry air. My stomach tightened. No matter where I’d been born, no matter what legacy awaited me, I wasn’t sure anywhere but this state would ever feel completely like home.
Deborah shifted in her perch beneath my hair at the back of my neck. I’d smuggled her along on the airplane without mentioning her presence to any of the blacksuits. Malcolm had needed to leave his familiar behind, but there was no way I was going to risk the unsettling sensation of being thousands of miles apart from mine for who knew exactly how many days.
She hadn’t said anything since we’d left Blood U, because we’d been in the company of blacksuits the whole time and she wouldn’t want to risk revealing the unexpected aspect of our connection, but I suspected she had to feel some sort of homecoming too. As far as I knew, she’d lived in California her entire life, which’d been a heck of a lot longer than mine so far.
Of course, it was hard to feel totally at peace when I knew the company I’d arrived with was already making violent plans.
“It’ll take us some time to confirm we have an appropriate location for the next locating spell and get it set up,” Lillian said, flicking through information on her phone’s screen. “You should take that time to relax and enjoy the hotel so you’re calm and centered for the ceremony. Just keep your phone on you and don’t wander too far.”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” After the long drive to the airport and the longer flight after that, I was looking forward to crashing on my hotel bed for at least a little while.
“Hopefully we won’t run into any of the problems we had with the first locating spell, now that we’re so much closer to the joymancers,” Maggie said. “It’d be a lot more of a setback if we had to delay here—and possibly put the whole operation in danger.”
Her tone stayed mild, but Lillian shot her a curious look that told me she hadn’t expected her assistant to be worrying along those lines. My back prickled. I suspected the supposedly stray comment was meant as a warning to me.
Especially with Lillian’s next remark. “We should be able to catch any joymancer interference and neutralize it before it can affect our casting because we’re so much closer now,” she said confidently.
In other words, if the spell got screwed up, it’d be much more obvious I was to blame. Well, it was a good thing I didn’t have any intention of throwing it off, then.
“I’m glad to hear that,” I said, ignoring Maggie’s insinuation. She couldn’t know that the first failure had been my fault, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to confirm it for her. “It takes enough out of me just doing it once.”
Lillian smiled at me—the first truly warm smile I’d seen from her in a while. “We really do appreciate how much you’ve given yourself over to the process, and I know your mother will be grateful for your efforts too, when I can tell her about them. Thankfully the locating spell here should be much less of a strain because we’re searching across a much smaller distance, much closer by.”
That really was a relief. “I’m very glad to hear that,” I said with a little laugh, and even Maggie smiled. Maybe she had just been expressing a general worry, not aiming her remark at me? The longer I spent around her, the less I felt I really knew about her.
But since she was only a blacksuit’s assistant and not even a blacksuit herself, I didn’t have to care what she thought of me as long as Lillian was happy.
The taxi pulled up in front of a broad white building with a huge wall of windows around the front entrance. Oh, yeah, that looked a lot more posh than our transportation had been.
Lillian ushered us into the lobby with its leather seating and tall potted plants. She handled most of the conversation with the staff at the front desk while I gazed around. Off at the back of the lobby, a couple of hallways branched off with a sign in between them, arrows indicating which direction you wanted to head in for which feature. Business center, pool, sauna, spa, exercise room… arcade? My lips twitched. I’d have to check that out if I got the chance.
Lillian had produced fake IDs for all of us including me, since obviously I couldn’t go waltzing into joymancer territory declaring myself a Bloodstone. I signed a fake signature on the paper the concierge nudged toward me, and a bellhop came around to collect our bags. The number of the keycard I was handed didn’t mean much to me until we got into the elevator and I realized we were going all the way to the top floor.
We’d gotten the penthouse suites. Apparently the blacksuits were as flush with cash as most of the fearmancer families appeared to be.
Lillian and Maggie’s room was to the left of the elevators, and mine was to the right. Lillian gave me a brisk nod as they set off. I ambled down the hall with its few doors to the one that held my number.
The room on the other side wasn’t exactly luxurious in the way the Bloodstone manor was, but everything about it screamed modern sophistication. I had a balcony with a sweeping city view, a huge soaker bathtub, and a king-sized bed that gave me more space to stretch out than the one I was used to in my dorm.
I left my suitcase by the foot of the bed and flopped onto the covers. Deborah scrambled off and came to crouch by my hand.
Well, they certainly don’t skimp, do they? she said in her dry voice.
“At least I can sleep between soft sheets while I worry about impending catastrophes,” I muttered, and burrowed my face into the duvet.
Your plan used to be that you’d escape back here when you had the chance. You could get away from the villains now. The Conclave’s headquarters aren’t far from Sacramento and these people aren’t expecting you to make a run for it.
My entire body balked at the idea. “That was before,” I said. “I didn’t see the way I could help change things without anyone getting hurt. And people who don’t deserve it would almost definitely get hurt if I sent the joymancers off to Villain Academy. Not that I have any more idea how to dismantle the wards defending it than I did before.”
Deborah made a humming sound in my head. I still think you’d be better off on the joymancer side o
f things. I could tell them how well you’ve handled yourself—they could use their version of insight on me to see you haven’t given over to fearmancer ideals. Surely they wouldn’t need more proof than that.
“Well, we’re not going to find out.”
My familiar dropped the subject, but I still couldn’t relax, even with the extra comfy bed. I squirmed onto one side and then the other, closed my eyes and then gazed out the window, but a thread of restlessness kept running through my chest. Finally I pushed myself upright.
“Will you be okay in here on your own for a little while?” I asked. “I’m going to check out the hotel facilities. I’ll bring you some food when I get back.”
I’ll be just fine, Deborah said, tucking herself out of sight under one of the pillows. I could use a nap.
Lucky for her that she could manage to take one. Rolling my shoulders to try to release some of the built-up tension, I left the room and headed back to the elevator.
In less than a minute, I’d arrived back in the lobby. Right where Malcolm Nightwood happened to be standing, frowning at his surroundings. Or maybe at the number of Naries occupying them.
He raised his head with a hint of a smirk when he saw me. “There you are. I didn’t figure they could have lost you.”
“If you wanted to know where I was, you could have texted me,” I pointed out, and brushed past him.
He sauntered after me to the back of the lobby. “Where are you off to, Glinda? Going to take a swim?”
The comment and the slight dip of his voice made me remember the very interesting swim I’d taken in the campus lake at the same time as him—when we’d teased each other with magical currents of water to total distraction. A flicker of heat shot through me, but I willed it away.
“I was going to check out the arcade, actually. It’s been a long time since I’ve played at one of those.”
There’d been an old one down at the beach I’d sometimes gone to with my parents—the joymancer ones—when I was a kid. I’d never really thought about it until now, but… we’d stopped making those little trips right before I’d turned fifteen. Right before they’d needed to start worrying about whether I’d come into my fearmancer magic.
At the time, they’d talked about me growing out of the beach-side activities, and I’d accepted that because I had started to get a little bored of the strip. But maybe they’d just been nervous about having me a greater distance from whatever support systems they’d been able to count on back in the city.
I shook those thoughts away too. What my parents had or hadn’t thought, I’d never know, because they were gone. Slaughtered by the same people who’d brought me here. I had to focus on doing what I could to reduce how many more people might die while we were here.
Which I’d be able to focus on better once I burned off some of this restlessness.
“An arcade,” Malcolm repeated, his forehead furrowing.
I blinked at him. “Yeah, you know… Video games in cabinet-like consoles you can pop coins into to play. Don’t tell me you’ve somehow completely missed out on them?”
He made a face at me. “If it’s a standard Nary form of entertainment, there’s a good chance my parents would have felt it beneath us. I’ve never happened across one on my own.”
I guessed that was believable. The industry had been dying out now that just about everyone had game consoles at home.
I waved for him to follow me. “Come on, then. I’ll show you what you’ve been missing. If you don’t mind lowering yourself to my level.”
“It’d take more than video games to ruin my opinion of you,” Malcolm said wryly.
It looked as if the hotel’s arcade might be on the verge of dying too. It definitely could have used some life support. Maybe fifteen consoles stood along the walls of the small dim room at the end of the hall, and a third of them had Out Of Order signs taped to their screens. The hotel must only keep the room open for the occasional visitors with younger kids. But I still spotted a few old favorites, and it looked as if they were set up to be free, no coins required.
I tugged Malcolm over to the Street Fighter unit. “Here we go. Let’s see how quickly I can kick your ass in digital form.”
Malcolm guffawed with mock indignance, which quickly turned into actual exasperation when I dealt a match-finishing blow to his character within less than a minute of starting the fight. He glowered at the knob and buttons in front of him. “I’ve played a newer version of this game, but with a proper controller. A magical battle would be better use of our skills, you know.”
“Yeah, but for once I can challenge you at something where you don’t have years more experience than I do.” I elbowed him. “Or are you afraid to find out I’ll beat you even faster the second time?”
It was way too easy to provoke him through pride. Malcolm bent over the controls again, his gaze flicking between his hands and mine and the screen, watching my technique as much as coming up with his own. This match, he got in a few good strikes before I pummeled him to the ground.
“Damn,” he muttered. “Apparently I should be glad that your aggressive streak seems to be restricted to animated characters.”
I laughed, my spirits already lighter. “I’ll give you a few more rematches to catch up. It’s only fair. You did the same for me, didn’t you?”
He shot me a look as if to check whether I’d said that last bit with any bitterness, but I wasn’t here to think about our history. We could goof around for a bit and have fun without the past hanging over us the way it so often did, couldn’t we?
After a few more rounds and a couple of character switches, the Nightwood scion was giving me more of a challenge, but I was still crushing him in the end. I glanced around for something else to try before he got too beaten down.
“Maybe racing is more your speed than physical combat?” I suggested, nodding to the Mario Kart cabinet with its two steering wheels farther into the room.
Malcolm cracked his knuckles. “It’d better be.”
The controls mustn’t have been that different from what he was used to, or else it was simply that steering was more a matter of reflexes than remembering specific combos. His kart zipped ahead of me before I’d even warmed up. I let out a yelp of dismay and tore after him, grabbing a bonus that let me lob a bomb at him.
“Oh no, you don’t,” he said with a grin. His kart spun, but he splattered digital ink at my screen a few seconds later.
By the time we’d zipped around the track a few times, always neck and neck, we were both laughing between crows of victory as we took our turns in the lead. Malcolm edged ahead just in time to soar across the finish line.
“I hope you’re not a sore loser,” he said with an arch of his eyebrows.
“Nah. It’s a lot more fun when you’re actually giving me a challenge.” I smirked right back at him and took another glance around. “Ah ha. You need the full range of experiences, since who knows if you’ll ever be in an arcade again. Ever play Dance Dance Revolution?”
“I’ve heard of it. I grew up with fearmancers, not in a hole in the ground. But I don’t play video games to dance.”
“You do now,” I informed him, and hauled him over to the platforms. “It’s almost like spellcasting, you know. Follow the steps, stay focused, link up elements for a stronger effect… And it’s a decent workout too.”
He looked skeptical, but he climbed onto the platform next to mine and copied my position on the squares. “Why do I feel like I’m going to regret this?”
“Hey, have you got anything better to do?”
He considered me for a long moment, the vibe between us turning suddenly serious for reasons I didn’t totally understand. “No,” he said, the smirk coming back. “You want to dance? We’ll dance.”
The game kicked off with simple steps we both followed without any trouble. I could already feel that my rhythm was a little rusty after the years away from the game. As I got into the flow, Malcolm appeared to as well, his eye
s narrowing with concentration. He was fast on his feet, I’d give him that. I found myself wondering if he did much actual dancing. What it might be like to face off with him on a club floor.
As the game sped up, I couldn’t watch him anymore. All my attention had to stay on the screen and my feet. I stomped out a combo, grinning as I nailed it—and a current of magic tingled over my shoulders.
I caught myself before my head jerked around. Of course it was Malcolm. It wasn’t even a new trick. He sounded like he was still keeping pace, but obviously he was aiming to get an advantage by distracting me. Well, we’d already seen that two could play at that game.
I worked through another combo and murmured a casting word with my breath. My hand swiveled in the air in time with my next few steps. A magical touch should have brushed down Malcolm’s back.
His conjured current shifted a second later, dipping over my shoulder to lick my collarbone. My heartbeat thumped faster than I could blame on the exertion of the dancing. I teased my magic across his abdomen. He retaliated by sending his farther down to ripple across my breasts.
Heat flared all through my chest. I barely managed to complete the next few steps. With a twitch of my fingers, I sent my magic rushing down past the waist of his pants.
Malcolm’s feet stumbled. He fell out of the pattern completely. Rather than try to recover, he spun around and grasped my arm—carefully, but abruptly enough to throw me off too.
I turned to face him, wrinkling my nose in annoyance and doing my best to hide the physical desire our game within the game had stirred up. Malcolm set his hand on my other arm, but he held himself apart from me, a foot between us, his dark brown eyes gleaming and his divinely handsome face lightly flushed.
“I think this game would be better played somewhere more private,” he said. “Come up to my room?”
I couldn’t lie—some part of me screamed Yes! at his invitation. But a larger part of me knew the second we stepped out of the arcade, all the past I’d been able to set aside would descend on me again… and I wasn’t sure I was ready to throw caution to the wind.