The Dark Matters Quartet

by Claire Robyns

  “Or you could wear a mask,” Evelyn said enthusiastically.

  “A black cape and a mask. That won’t just start tongues wagging, it will cause a riot in the hallways.”

  Evelyn’s mouth formed a moue as she reluctantly conceded, “That would be going too far.”

  “You don’t say,” Lily drawled. She considered her reflection for a moment, then did an experimental jump. Some slips and slides with her upper body. A double skip combined with a partial backward bend to avoid an imaginary bolt of fire.

  “What on earth are you doing?” said Evelyn.

  “Training.” She grinned at Evelyn in the mirror, trying a few more loose-limbed moves. Her initial hesitancy faded to a distant niggle as she relished the ease of movement.

  “Training to do what?” Narrowly missing a flying elbow, Evelyn retreated to the opposite edge of the bed. “Dance a local country jig you picked up in Scotland?”

  “Armand has a strobe machine at Cragloden Castle that generates flashes of electric light,” Lily explained. “It’s excellent practice for avoiding demon bolts.”

  “So when you said training, you meant training to fight!”

  Lily turned to her. “As opposed to?”

  “Improving your grasp on those demon visions.”

  “Why would I need a special practical outfit to look through the demon glass?”

  “Life would be incredibly boring if one needed a sound reason for everything you choose to do,” Evelyn declared. “I certainly hope Kelan doesn’t intend to send you up against actual demons.”

  “Both he and Greyston would sooner chain me to the floor than allow me anywhere near a demon right now,” Lily answered truthfully.

  Pushing aside the unpleasant reminder of Kelan’s reaction to her recent adventure, Lily jabbed one leg out in a series of small foot punches. Not practising any move in particular, but simply because she could. If she had to take on Armand’s strobe machine in this garb, she might even beat it.

  She gave another kick, this one with too much spirit, and all at once she was tottering off balance. Before she could bring her foot back to the ground, she was flailing backward in an awkward pirouetting spiral. Her shoulder crashed into something hard on the way down.

  “Lily!” shrieked Evelyn.

  Lily met the carpeted floor with a muted thump and a breathless grunt. The free-standing cheval mirror she’d knocked off base, unfortunately, hit the wall behind with a fanfare of shattering glass and the ringing sound of solid brass impacting.

  “I’m fine,” she called out, picking herself up off the floor.

  Evelyn started toward her, then froze with another high-pitched yelp, this time as the inter-leading door burst inward with enough force to bang the wall.

  Kelan poured inside, sword drawn, that hawk-like gaze sweeping across the room. There was a stillness about him, even as he moved, an intensity that consumed his surroundings until there was only him, a predator designed to strike. The man was enough to make any lady scream. Not to mention his unbuttoned shirt hanging open over dark trousers.

  Cheeks stinging, she blinked her eyes straight back up again. “It was only an accident,” she said. “Everything is…”

  She lost her voice beneath his deep blue study: he’d gone from absorbing every detail of the scene to absorbing every detail of her. She felt every place his eyes touched with acute awareness. She’d lost her hat in the tumble, leaving her hair a tangled mess.

  Now his gaze raked the flushed skin of her throat, heat tingling over her breasts and further, nestling low in her abdomen as his attention lingered there for a long moment. Her shirt tapered over the waistband, accentuating the flare of her hips and all those other exposed curves.

  And then his gaze was moving again, tracing the shape of her thighs, and every breath seemed a little heavier than the last, the air growing steadily sluggish, her blood flowing a little slower, as if she were slowly being pulled into a web spun by his intense appraisal.

  “I should…” Evelyn gave a small cough. “I should be on my way.”

  Lily snapped out of the trance.

  “There’s no reason to leave,” she quickly told Evelyn, panicked at the thought of being left alone with Kelan.

  Goodness, did he really need to take quite so long to judge her outfit? Why didn’t he say something? He hadn’t uttered a word since barging in the room and his face gave nothing away. Whatever he was thinking lay buried beneath that map of rugged features, harsh angles and arrogant lines.

  Evelyn’s gaze skipped over his near-nakedness to find Lily. “Oh, I can think of a good number of reasons. Trust me, darling,” she added as she made her way to the door, “in this instance, you’ll fare better if I leave the two of you to your own… um…” She left on a saucy wink and a silently mouthed, “….devices.”

  Lily turned a blushing scowl on Kelan, but he’d gone down to sheath his sword in his boot and didn’t seem the least concerned at Evelyn’s abrupt departure. “You didn’t have to chase Evelyn away,” she blurted.

  Slowly straightening, he raised a brow at her.

  “Barging into my bedroom in that state of undress,” she expanded crossly. “Waving swords about and—”

  “I thought you were being attacked by a demon,” he sliced through her accusations.

  “A demon?” Lily forgot her outrage. She also momentarily forgot why she shouldn’t drop her gaze and was rewarded with an eyeful of rippled muscle. His chest had the same golden shade as his face, as if his skin had retained growing up beneath the Florentine sun like a childhood memory.

  “But, I thought…” She dragged her eyes up again with more reluctance than any lady should. “Isn’t Lark House protected with runes?”

  “The protection isn’t infallible, not like the runes carved into the foundations of Cragloden Castle.” Kelan came a step closer, and then another, driving her back until she bumped up against the wide ledge of the window. “When it comes to you, Lily, I’m learning to expect the worst.”

  “Are you still harping on about Timothkin?” Lily exploded. “Do stop fussing. I’ll find you more demons and, if I can’t, that’s even better news, surely!”

  “There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance—”

  “You would know,” she scoffed, “since you habitually straddle it.”

  “My arrogance isn’t misguided—”

  “And now you’ve just hopped right over that line.”

  “Agares is still out there, plotting God knows what, whether you see it or not.” He started moving again, closer, and she had nowhere left to go. “Which, and please do correct me if I’m wrong, you haven’t done since Glasgow.”

  “Maybe Agares isn’t out there.” Lily tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “Maybe the reason I can’t see Agares is because it somehow banished itself when it froze over Winterberry’s household.”

  “And maybe we wouldn’t have to stab at guesses if you hadn’t blatantly ignored my orders.”

  “I can’t decide what you’re more angry about,” Lily said. “That I banished Timothkin or that I disobeyed you.”

  “Why choose?” He looked at her, his gaze softening with each passing moment. “I have every right to be equally furious at both.”

  “You cannot possibly believe you have a right to my blind obedience,” she spluttered, perfectly capable of imaging he did and thoroughly confused at the way he was looking at her.

  “You vowed to do no less not so long ago.”

  “Don’t you dare.” Her hands curled into fists. Did a day go by when she did not have to restrain herself from slapping him? “I’m not your wife, not in any true sense.”

  His gaze roamed the full length of her. On the return journey, the suggestion of a grin smoothed the hard edges of his face. “An oversight easily corrected.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but in all honesty, had no idea what she was protesting. What did he mean?

  Then his eyes dipped to her lips, and she
knew exactly what he meant. But in the next breath he’d closed the last step between them and she’d put a hand out to stop him and her palm flattened on his bared chest.

  Her breath caught, her fingers grazing rocky contours as she meant to yank her hand away but got distracted halfway. His skin was hot, slightly rough. A slow charge pulsed through her fingers and up her arm, spreading through until her entire body seemed to be pulsing to his touch.

  He didn’t press closer, just lifted his eyes, unmasked and unshuttered. Desire warmed the arctic blue, tugging at his lids, feeding that hunger into her until she ached.

  His hand came up, cupping her jaw, his thumb tracing her lower lip. And all the while, his gaze burned into her, filled with naked longing that overpowered her senses.

  She couldn’t think.

  Didn’t want to think.

  The way he looked at her, holding back nothing, all she wanted was to feel. To give in. To abandon herself to the raw, messy sensations he’d left inside her the last time, the only time, he’d kissed her.

  Her hand slid over his chest, finding the trim of his shirt, twisting the cool cotton in her fingers with a desperate, flustered energy that brought his head down, finally. His lips brushed hers in a series of slanting kisses that sent waves of heat straight to her blood. Again and again, stealing her breath and awakening a wicked, restless urge that didn’t belong in her structured, pragmatic world.

  If she’d been thinking straight…but she wasn’t, she wasn’t thinking at all. She slipped her other hand up between them, her fingernails scraping over short hairs.

  A groan escaped her lips at the foreign, forbidden sensations of rough skin, hard muscle, hot male. It took her a moment to realise her exploration had stopped Kelan. His lips stilled on hers. The muscle beneath her fingertips tensed. The pulsing charge paused, as if time itself had frozen.

  And then time rushed forward at a dizzying speed.

  “Lily…” A fevered whisper across her lips as long fingers wrapped around the back of her neck. Another set pushed through her hair.

  His mouth opened over hers, his tongue parting her lips as he deepened the kiss. A kiss that filled every inch of her with Kelan, and still left space for more. He pressed closer, forcing her arms around his waist, and one thigh nestled between hers with an intimacy that rippled fire to her core. Her blood thickened with his taste, with his imprint, and it wasn’t enough. She was burning, melting, kissing him back with the same urgency. Her arms tightened around him, her nails digging into skin as their tongues clashed. Claiming and demanding, devouring each other until she could no longer tell where his essence ended and hers started.

  It could have been minutes, hours, forever, before he pulled his mouth from hers and stood back. A storm raged in his gaze as he looked at her, darkening the shadows that lived in his face. But it wasn’t fury. At least, she didn’t think so. Her own breaths were ragged, her body tense and aching.

  She wasn’t done.

  They weren’t done.

  Except, it seemed, Kelan was.

  Slightly shaken, completely boneless, Lily watched the storm clear from his eyes.

  “I’m afraid the business of our marriage will have to wait for later.” His jaw was rigid. The smile he gave her softened nothing. “Armand arrived a short while ago. I was just changing and on my way down to meet him in the library when I was interrupted.”

  He turned, moving to the door between their rooms. “Feel free to join us, Lily. I’m hoping he’s brought valuable information with him.”

  Lily lurched after him, her tongue stumbling over the waves of incredulous anger and frustrated longing that rose and clashed in the valley of her breasts like the slap of symbols; she couldn’t get a word out. Heaving useless, wasted breaths, she grabbed the first thing she could lay her hands on and flung it at his departing back. The pillow hit the door already closed behind him and bounced to the floor on a barely audible poof of duck feathers, Egyptian cotton and delicate lace frogging.

  Reason returned and she sank onto the edge of the bed.

  This was Kelan, after all

  He had priorities in his life, and she’d never belong on the top of that list. That was okay, because she suspected he never put himself on the top of that list either. He’d never let her inside, he’d never permit emotion to sway any of his decisions and he simply wasn’t a man to be overrun with desire to the exclusion of all else.

  She knew all that. She knew that when it came to Kelan, she would get only what he was prepared to give, and it might not be all that much.

  But if what he’d just done to her was any measure, it might well be enough.

  Her fingers went to her lips, stinging and swollen from his hard kisses. When she closed her eyes and inhaled, she breathed in the scent of rain and forest that still clung to him, even here in the city. This was the problem: Kelan’s kisses didn’t leave with him when he walked out.

  She felt ripped inside out, burning up with the fires he’d started. She felt alive, messy, on edge. Intoxicated on the fumes of a chemistry she barely understood. Kelan was a man of courage, honour and conviction, ruthlessly devoted to his cause. She admired him, but more often than not she didn’t really like him. Especially of late.

  With a sigh, Lily stood and set about changing back into her day dress. Hearing the news from Glasgow, good or bad, had to be better than stewing in her thoughts. Besides, was her attraction to him truly such a mystery? He wasn’t handsome, but in Kelan, all the harsh edges and leashed power—even that arrogance buried into every ridge and crevice—combined into something that was darkly beautiful.

  He was a man who could stun hearts if he so chose. What woman wouldn’t catch fire beneath the intensity of that hungry gaze he’d turned…on…her…?

  Dear Lord!

  Lily paled. Her fingers shook as they worked the ribbons of her dress, and the tremors weren’t from the aftermath of passion.

  Had the hunger and longing in that look been contrived with the pure intention of melting her? Could a man even do that? Generate desire, manufacture unbridled lust from thin air? More importantly…would he?

  There was no debate. Of course Kelan would, and he wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it either.

  The last time he’d kissed her, had been to shake her up. To show her life was more honestly served in shades of grey instead of black and white.

  Today’s kiss wasn’t about teaching her any lessons. It was a prelude to tempting her into his bed. A proper wife, a real wife, would be an obedient wife.

  A proper wife also meant no annulment. He’d be stuck in this marriage, and what did that make her? The lesser of two evils, that’s what. The greater evil being her unruly independent decisions that he deemed an impediment to his precious victory in the demon war.

  What did Kelan think? That once he’d taken her into his bed, she’d lose all her own convictions and her mind would reset in perfect harmony with his? That she’d honour and obey without any silly questions?

  He’s delusional!

  She shoved her feet back into her slippers and reached for the brush beside her bed. She’d already turned to the mirror when she remembered it was smashed. Her eyes fell on the broken pieces scattered by the corner and tears threatened. A weakness hit behind her knees.

  Tears of anger, she decided, but she blinked them away anyway. She wasn’t broken. She wouldn’t give Kelan McAllister the pleasure.

  She ran the brush through her hair, each sporadic stroke a fresh attempt to build on her anger. It wasn’t working.

  She wasn’t broken and she wasn’t angry.

  And she wasn’t sure she wanted to delve any further into the butterflies swarming the hollow in her stomach. She tossed the brush aside but, as she made her way downstairs, it came to her anyway.

  She was scared.

  Kelan had ignited a sensory explosion that was both riveting and shattering. What if no one else ever made her feel so vividly again? Could she settle for less?

/>   She didn’t think so, and that scared her. She didn’t want Kelan. Or rather, she didn’t want to want him.

  Greyston was just coming in when she reached the bottom of the stairs. He studied her a long moment, a grin tugging at his mouth. “You look as if you’ve been having far too much fun without me.”

  Her hands flew to her hair. “Merely in a hurry,” she said quickly. “Armand has returned. We’re to meet in the library.”

  “Excellent.” Greyston flipped his hat onto a nearby hook with perfect aim on his way to her. “Let’s go hear what the man has to say.”

  “I need to find Ana first,” she told him. “I somehow managed to break the mirror in my bedroom.”

  “Should I ask?”

  “No.”

  His grin turned roguish as he stopped in front of her. “Was it at least worth the seven year’s bad luck?”

  Her mood tilted in a less miserable direction. “Ask me again in seven years.”

  “Intriguing.” He chuckled softly, amusement creasing the corners of his warm brown eyes.

  A pang of longing swept through her. She and Greyston weren’t meant to be, she’d accepted that. But a longing for something close to what they’d had. Pure and honest instead of this impossible craving for a man who’d only give her flawed, dark and angry.

  Now Kelan had ruined even that for her.

  Unless…

  The sum of her experiences over the last few months had changed her. Looking death in the eye had changed her.

  Her attitude.

  Her outlook.

  Her worries and her fears.

  She saw the world in all its shades of grey. She’d embraced the demon in her blood, sought it out every time she searched the demon glass.

  She was bolder and brighter on the outside, harder and darker on the inside.

  Maybe that was the reason Kelan had swamped her body with an intensity that was bolder, brighter, harder and darker than anything she’d ever felt before. Maybe all that vibrant passion had nothing to do with Kelan and everything to do with her.

  “Greyston, wait.” Her hand shot out as he made to walk on, her fingers pressing on his arm. “In here,” she said, leading him into the parlour that opened onto the entrance hall.