Spark of Sorcery (The Firestone Academy Book 2), page 33
“Briony,” I say, interrupting her mid-flow as she ponders whether Blaze’s wings have grown again. She looks up at me abruptly. “I may not be able to help you in the trial this time. I’ve tried to gain some insight as to what they have in store for us, but I’ve failed.” My jaw tightens. I don’t like to fail. I especially don’t like to fail her. “If there is the opportunity to help you I will, but there may not be that opportunity.”
She stops walking and places her hands on her hips. “I don’t want you to help me, Thorne. Even if there is the opportunity to do so. It’s too risky.”
I stare back at her and she reads absolutely in my countenance that I will ignore this order.
“Thorne, I’m serious.” She lowers her voice. “You were lucky not to be caught last time. You might not be so lucky again and I won’t be responsible for you being banished!” She flings her hands up into the air.
“I need to protect you. I need to keep you safe.”
“You need to keep yourself safe, Thorne Cadieux,” she says.
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Well,” she says, shifting on her toes. “I do. Actually, I worry about you a lot. And it isn’t just the guilt I’d have to endure that makes me say I don’t want you to be banished,” she smiles at me teasingly, “I don’t want you banished because I’d miss you.”
I can’t help but snort at that. No one has ever missed me. There’s no one left. Only my bond brothers. And they simply endure me.
“Thorne,” she says, more softly and with no more teasing, “I’m serious. You’re important to me. And I don’t want to lose you.”
I stare at her, wondering how exactly I am important to her. Because I’m useful? Strong? Powerful? Or could she possibly mean … I shake my head.
“Briony, you already forced me to make one promise I’m unhappy about. I won’t make another. If I can help you, I will and there is nothing you can say that will dissuade me.”
She examines my hard features and then sighs.
“I’d better make sure I don’t land myself in any trouble then, so that you won’t have to help me.” She starts walking again. “Do you have any idea what this trial could be?” I shake my head. “No, me neither. Clare’s had us studying loads. Researching as much as we can but none of us has a hunch about this one. Still,” she inhales and straightens her shoulders, “I feel prepared.”
“Good,” I say, although that unease still lingers in my gut.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Fox
The knock on my door is not unexpected. The question is, which of the Princes have come to see me?
“Enter,” I say, watching as the door draws back and I find Beaufort Lincoln standing in the doorway.
He ducks inside, eyes scanning the darkened classroom, finding me, sitting at my desk.
“You’re here to ask me if I will keep an eye on her,” I say.
“It’s your job to hook kids out of the trial if they’re in danger.”
“Last time, yes. This time, no.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“That compensation is reserved for the early trials. To give the … less able students a chance to gain their stride before things get more difficult.”
“So there’ll be no help this time?”
I shake my head.
“Fuck,” he says, running his hands through his dark hair.
“Can’t you get her to wear that damned collar?” I say, appreciating how hypocritical I’m being, because I, right from the start, have loathed the idea of her wearing one.
“What do you think?” he says, pacing. “Besides, I wonder how effective those things are anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just something Briony said,” he mutters, “about hitting the Hardies’ little bitch while she was wearing her collar.”
“That shouldn’t be possible.”
“Yeah, maybe she misunderstood.” He glances around the classroom, then back to me. “What do we do?” he says. “How do we keep her safe?”
“If you’re worried about her being attacked again, I’ve dealt with that. It won’t happen.”
“I’m worried about her getting hurt in the trial,” he says.
“She won’t,” I promise. “I’ll be watching her.”
“But you just said–”
“I’ll keep her safe.”
He examines my face. Somewhere in the depths of these dungeons water drips rhythmically and a door rattles.
“Last time, someone manipulated the trial,” he says, “she was in that maze for two hours.”
“I know.”
“Were you watching over her then too?”
“I … yes,” I admit. “But this time is different. This time I’ll be on the look out for things that aren’t quite right. This time I’ll be expecting an attack – even if I find it unlikely that individual will strike again.”
Beaufort blows out air through his teeth.
“There isn’t a way to get her out of doing the trial?”
I look him in the eye. His irises are a pale silver color that catches the light like lightning streaking across the sky. “You tell me.”
He pauses. Then shakes his head. “No exceptions.”
“Yeah,” I say, “no exceptions.”
When he’s gone, I walk over to the shelves at the back of my classroom and lift down the small bottle I’ve hidden behind a set of books.
I hold the little bottle up to my face, peering through the glass at the contents. The concoction inside has been brewing for a week now, slowly changing from a clear liquid to a dark brown sludge.
I think it’s ready.
I yank off the stopper and give it a sniff anyway. The acidic aroma catches in the back of my throat and I cough, push the stopper back into the neck and take it over to my desk.
The piece of paper Briony gave me lies flat on the surface. Although I’ve tried several ways to remove the black bars censoring the words, it remains as bold as ever, the words underneath still completely hidden.
However, tonight might be my lucky night. I hope so because I’ve scoured my books for other methods of removing the dark magic that marks this page and this is the only one left to try.
The potion itself took me an evening to combine – and that was after I’d spent two days gathering up the unusual ingredients. It’s been brewing for a week.
I sit at my desk and arrange the implements I need neatly alongside the piece of paper. A fine paint brush. A muslin cloth. A scalpel. Tweezers. Blotting paper.
I remove the stopper once again and the acidic smell swims into the air, a fine curl of dark mist rising from the bottle’s neck. I dip the paint brush into the sludge and then carefully apply it to the dark mark on the page.
Almost immediately, there’s a hissing sound as if the dark mark itself is hissing at me. The sound reminds me of her – fangs bared, eyes cruel – and for a moment, I wonder if she was the one who censored these passages. The hissing noise is accompanied by bright sparks and vibrant red smoke that shoots from the page.
I halt. Has it worked? Or have I messed this up? Damaged the paper, removing the hidden words forever?
I take the cloth and dab at the page. The hissing sound fades, the smoke dies away.
I squint at the page. A piece of black – no bigger than a full stop has vanished and under it the partial line of a letter.
It worked.
Dipping my paintbrush back into the bottle, I repeat the action – pausing when the hissing and sparks start again, blotting it.
I do this over and over again. Not willing to go too quickly in case I damage the fragile piece of paper. It’s painstaking and dull. If I weren’t so eager to learn what lies underneath, I’d push the paper to one side and resume again tomorrow. But gradually letters appear. One. Then another. And another. Then a word. Two. Three. Half a sentence. A complete one. Until finally, all the black markings are gone from the page, lifted as if they never existed at all and the writing beneath is revealed as it must once have been laid out across the page.
I stopper the bottle, placing it in my desk drawer. Then I wipe the paintbrush clean with the cloth and place those away too.
My gut is churning with curiosity and I run my hands over my face, rubbing at my tired eyes.
Then I lower my gaze to the passage and I read it.
Maybe I half-suspected what I find there.
Perhaps not. Perhaps it isn’t what I expected at all.
Either way, I have some questions for Miss Storm.
I peer down at my wrist watch. It’s late and tomorrow is the day of the next trial. Briony needs her sleep.
Those questions are going to have to wait.
Chapter Sixty
Briony
I wasn’t entirely honest with Thorne. I may be better prepared for this trial than I was the last two – Clare’s made sure of that with all the studying we’ve been doing – but I’m not one hundred percent recovered from that attack, even after all the healing. My legs are a little more unsteady than they were and my head is just a tad fuzzy. It’s not the best way to be going into a potentially life-threatening trial.
I debate spending the entirety of the night tossing and turning, unable to sleep, but there’s nothing tying me to my room now. No egg to guard, no baby dragon to tend to. Which means …
The door to the Princes’ tower stands wide open and he is waiting there in the doorway as if he was expecting me.
“Hey sweetheart,” he says softly. “Couldn’t sleep?” I shake my head. “Me neither.”
He holds out his hand and I take it, marveling at how nice the simple act of having my hand wrapped in his feels. It’s like a promise – I will take care of you, you are safe.
I stare down at our joined hands as we walk through the dark hallway, up the empty staircase and into his bedroom. His fingers are long. His fingernails are blunt. I can see the crisscross of veins beneath his fair skin. The tips of his fingers are not calloused but there’s a strength in his grip and a magic that tingles against my skin.
“Where are the others?” I ask.
“Dray’s out running somewhere with the other shifters. Thorne’s already asleep.”
“So it’s just us?”
“Just us.” He brushes a loose strand of hair away from my face and strokes his knuckles down my cheeks, sweeping them under my jaw and into my hair. He sweeps my braid over my shoulder and then he’s untwining the band at the base and uncoiling my hair, shaking out the braid until my hair is loose.
“You know I’m going to ask you something.” He runs his fingers through my hair.
“And you know the answer is going to be no.”
“It would keep you safe.” He cups my jaw, and this time runs the pad of his thumb against my throat, tracing the place a collar would sit. “And it would look so beautiful.”
“I’ll be okay,” I say, even if I don’t feel sure of that.
“I can’t lose you, Briony,” he whispers.
“You’re not going to lose me.” I take his hand in mine, lift it to my mouth and kiss the palm where the lines of fate traverse his skin.
“When I thought we had … when I thought we’d lost you …” He swallows hard. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it, Briony.”
“It would probably be a much more straightforward one,” I tease. “Imagine, you could have had a thrall like Odessa – very obedient and more than willing to be your little pet.”
He frowns. “I’m serious. I want you just the way you are.”
“Even though I drive you crazy?”
“Especially because you drive me crazy. There’s no one else I want, Briony. There’s no one I’m ever going to want. Only you.”
“Because fate has chosen me for you,” I say, turning his hand over and peering down at his wrist.
“Because I love you.”
I gaze up at him, utterly amazed by his words.
Love me? Beaufort Lincoln says he loves me?
A million thoughts crash through my mind. That he must be lying. That this must be a trick. That there is no way someone like him could love me. That this has always been about sex, hasn’t it?
But as I stare up into his silver eyes, I can see he isn’t lying. Sure, there’s lust and longing in his gaze, but there is more there too. So much more.
“I …” I mumble.
“You don’t have to say it back,” he says softly. He knows me well now. He understands these things are hard for me. “Not if you don’t feel it.”
“Beaufort,” I say, “I’m falling for you. I think I could fall head over heels for you. But that feels so dangerous.” Even more so than the trial tomorrow. Because where does that leave us? Fate wants us together. But there are forces even stronger than fate out there and will they pull us apart? “Loving is difficult when you risk losing the thing you care most about in the world. I’ve learned that the hard way.”
“Which is why I’ll never stop asking you to wear our collar.”
I place my hands on his broad, reliable shoulders and kiss him. He hooks his arms around my waist and pulls me flush against his chest, kissing me back.
Somewhere in the room a watch ticks and the fire crackles. But all I hear is the thud of his heart.
I kiss him for what feels like an eternity. Softly, serenely, saying with the actions of my lips, the words I find so hard to say with my mouth. He scoops me up into his arms, carries me to the bed and lays me out gently on the mattress.
“You’ll stay tonight?” he asks. “The whole night with me, Briony?”
“Yes,” I say and then we’re wriggling out of our clothes, and I’m in his arms again. His body is heavy and warm against mine and I open my thighs, allowing him to lie between them. He kisses me, cradling his arms around me, brushing his fingers over my cheeks again as if he wants to map the contours of my face. He nudges at my entrance and I open my thighs wider letting him sink into me; an action that has us both groaning.
“You’re so beautiful,” he tells me over and over again as he fucks me slowly, languidly, as if we have all the time in the world and tomorrow isn’t looming over us like a thunderous cloud.
I trace my hand up and down his strong back, lift my hips to meet his tender thrusts, whisper nonsense words in his ears, kiss his cheeks as he kisses mine, hold him close like I don’t want to let him go.
Because I don’t.
I want to stay here in this perfect moment, with him buried inside me, with his weight pressing me into the mattress, with his mouth on my skin. I want to stay suspended in this paradise and never ever leave.
I wake early next morning with Beaufort’s arms still wrapped around me.
“Hey,” he says, yawning as I stir. “You okay?”
“Uh huh.” I peer towards the murky light filtering around the gaps in the blinds and roll up to sitting, stretching my arms above my head. “It looks like it’s time for me to go though.”
“Urgh,” he groans, “don’t go.” He pulls me back down and kisses my mouth. I sigh because this is bliss. But unfortunately I can’t stay. I squirm out of his arms and sit up again.
“I really do have to go. There’s no other choice.”
“At least stay for breakfast.”
I shake my head. “I promised I’d meet my friends. But I will take advantage of your warm shower.”
“Ahhh so this is the real reason you stayed the night.”
“Absolutely,” I say, bending down to kiss him again before I dart towards the bathroom.
“Can I join you?” he calls after me.
“I think that would be a bad idea. You’d make me late.”
“I can behave.”
I peer over my shoulder at him, catching him in the middle of ogling my ass. “Can you really?”
He grins at me and flops back down on the mattress. “Nope.”
I race into the bathroom, locking the door behind me – not that a locked door would stop Beaufort Lincoln if he wanted to come in – because I don’t want to be late for my friends today of all days and Beaufort is too much of a distraction.
When I emerge ten minutes later (after a shower that was ten times longer than my usual freezing cold one), I find him sitting on the edge of his bed, dressed in a pair of boxers.
“I made you a coffee.” He points at a steaming mug on the bedside table. “And found all your clothes.”
“Coffee?” I say. Just like chocolate, coffee is prohibitively expensive. We never had any back in Slate and the commoners’ canteen certainly doesn’t serve it. The bitter aroma wafts across the room towards me and tickles my nose.
“Does it taste nice?” I ask wrinkling up my nose as I slide on my panties and hook on my bra.
“Don’t tell me you never had it? I couldn’t live without this stuff.” He picks up the mug and carries it over to me. “Here, try.”
I give it another sniff. “Ewww.”
“Seriously, it’s good stuff and it’ll wake you up better than a bucket of cold water thrown over your head.” I do feel sleepy after that warm shower – and because I spent half of the night fucking Beaufort – although it didn’t feel like fucking last night. It felt much deeper than that. I may even understand why they now call it making love. My cheeks warm at the idea – it sounds so cheesy and yet so true.
He holds the mug to my lips and I take a sip. The taste is dark and bitter, but I like it. I like it a lot, especially the way it has my head buzzing almost immediately. Maybe my taste in hot beverages is not that different from my taste in men.
“Mmmm, actually that is good.”
“Told you,” he says, settling back down on the mattress and watching me dress.
When I’m dressed completely, I tip back the mug and swallow the last remaining dregs, then hand the cup back to Beaufort.
“I guess I’ll see you after the trial.”
He nods and we stare at each other. My heart suddenly feels heavy. What if I never see him again? But I push that thought aside. The Princes are the most powerful shadow weavers in the academy. They will breeze through this trial, whatever it may be.
