The Coveted, page 23
I cried out in response, grasping at his hand that held my bound wrists, my fingertips only able to lightly graze his skin. He tightened his grip, reaching his other hand to move through my long strands of hair.
“Fuck, Áine,” he cursed. He untied my wrists and pulled me up and against his chest, wrapping his arms around my torso. His lips were at my ear, nestling into my hair and then tugging at my earlobe with his teeth. “Do you even know how perfect you are? And how mine you are…”
His breath hitched as his hips thrust deep, forcing another moan from me as I lay victim to his claiming. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more he finished, pulling me into his arms as we fell back into the sheets.
He kissed my ear and then my shoulder, both of our breathing ragged as we lay close together. “You okay?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” I managed, and he chuckled, the sound tickling my skin and sending a shiver down my spine.
I relaxed into his chest, still lost under his command—his hold on me like an invisible bondage of its own. I resisted the heavy pull of reality, wishing instead to stay just like this, forever.
Chapter 21
I was back in my own chambers far too soon. Lucius had returned from wherever he’d gone with the resurrected witch, so Daelon and I were forced to go our separate ways. Nathaniel had survived, unfortunately, and if I’d thought his hatred for Daelon and me was palpable before… it had shifted into a full-blown wrath after my fireball sent him through a glass door. Lucius was still distant and up to something sinister. He visited Amos so frequently now that it was unsafe for Daelon and me to risk a visit of our own, which was more than frustrating. It was also extremely suspicious. Amos was a powerful psychic who was able to access the same depth of energy and wisdom as I could, just without the ability to channel it into magick. Whatever Lucius needed from him and the old ways surely had to do with me and his new scheme to make me Queen. With our plans to visit the Akashic Records at a standstill, Nathaniel still angry and on the prowl, and Lucius’s new fascination with me, Daelon and I had barely seen each other in days. And despite the mind-blowing sex, our separation only spelled trouble for the unfinished arguments, unanswered questions, and tension left festering. I worried that we were both using the physical side of our connection as a shield of its own.
Taryn had also been noticeably absent, probably because she had already fulfilled her duty to acclimate me to court. And, of course, the fact that my power had shown her something I figured had to do with her homeland and my purpose, similar to what the secret coven had seen. I wouldn’t know because she was still avoiding me like the plague. Actually, the whole of the elite had been suspiciously quiet and inactive since the ball.
Lucius had entered my chambers just moments before, much to my displeasure. I decided to at least use the opportunity to ask some questions.
“They’re recovering,” Lucius explained in response to my first question, his tone a mix of disinterest and condescension. “They do so at a much slower rate than us, obviously. What goes up must come down, and all of that energy sharing and elixir comes at quite a cost.”
Oh, so like the aftermath of a witchy drug bender. Got it. “Where’ve you been?” I asked from my seat on the couch. I’d been zapped from my deep trance by the awareness of Lucius at my door. Ever since I’d left Daelon, I’d been meditating in my ocean of magick and taking my meals in my room, save for the occasional walk in the gardens. Not only was it deeper and even more vast than before—with these curious invisible threads tethering me to the witches who’d brought me back to life in the servants’ quarters—but there was also something dark in the waves, like an omen. A warning that something wasn’t quite right in the delicate balance of our natural reality. And I knew it had everything to do with Lucius and the resurrected witch.
“Why? Did you miss me?” he fired back, plopping down in the chair across from me and flashing me a smile that didn’t quite reach his darkened eyes. He wore mostly black, this time with deep purple accents instead of the usual gold.
I stared at him blankly. “Considering that the last time I saw you, I almost died, I’m not sure how to answer that question.”
He sighed with great exasperation, absent-mindedly playing with a gold ring as he tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “But you didn’t, did you? Like I said, it was a side-effect I’m working on eliminating. Permanently. I’m just glad Daelon volunteered to take care of all the… unpleasantness.” He grimaced, as if recalling the black bile on his precious carpet. “Don’t look so glum. Your moodiness is of great annoyance considering the lengths I am going to in order to free you and promote you to royalty.” He narrowed his eyes, leaning back to rest his head on the back of the chair.
“Free me from what, exactly?”
“Your chains and obligations to the old ways, of course,” Lucius said slowly, once again employing a voice much more suited for talking to children. “Have you not listened to a word anyone has said since you’ve arrived? Your connection to the inferior, conquered losers of history and their false, obsolete gods and rituals has only made you ignorant and weak. You have a great capacity for power. Don’t you want to be able to use it again? I’m offering you the chance not only to live within my Kingdom, but also to rule it… in some capacity. And yet you pout and fight and question me,” he admonished. I struggled to block out the sour, putrid nature of his energy as it grew heavy and potent all around us.
“Let me get this straight. You want to cut off my connection to natural power, in favor of connecting it to wherever the hell your power comes from?”
“Watch it,” he spat, rising from his chair. “You do not have immunity just yet. And if you refuse me in any capacity, then you and your heretic tongue will shrivel and perish. Is that understood?”
Oh, I understood it perfectly. Lucius couldn’t be threatened by me if he controlled my power, and, by extension, controlled me. My birthright was a threat because it was the last bit of resistance between him and total, unchallenged domination of the realm and all magick contained within it. He wanted to be a god, and I was standing in his way. He also wanted to show the last remaining dissenters that I was nothing compared to him, and that our fight was hopeless and futile.
Lucius wanted to win this war, once and for all.
“I understand,” I said, because I was still reeling from the pain of our last confrontation. I forced all of my anger down, holding Lucius’s gaze with as much passivity as I could muster.
He hesitated, no doubt surprised by my sudden lack of resistance. He moved closer, towering over me. “You tasted it, before the heretic side of you spit it out. That feeling like no other. And you loved it. I could see it on your face. Imagine living on a high like that for all of eternity, where nothing and no one could bring you down. You could have anything you wanted, or anyone. You could live in a state of pure creation, pure power and will.” His eyes were alight, and when he crouched down next to me, I had to fight hard not to recoil. “Us, together… it would be like no other. We would have everything—don’t you see that? Our power wouldn’t just double. It would be infinite.”
“How do I know you don’t just mean your power? Sharing doesn’t seem to be in your repertoire,” I muttered, sucking in a breath when he slowly pulled my hand into his icy grip.
“You will see, in time. I am not who you think I am.” He looked pensive for a moment, as if traveling somewhere else, far away from here. When he brought himself back, he glanced down the length of my body, sending a cold shiver along my spine. “Maybe fate is not just the superstitious ramblings of mystics. Maybe you were sent here as a gift rather than a weapon,” he whispered.
I stared back, incredulous. Did he really believe all of the delusions he spun? Or did he just say and think them so often that they became their own kind of truth over time, obscuring reality behind the veil of his stolen power?
“You will see. You will learn to trust me and believe in the path I have laid out for us. And when the time comes, you will accept my guiding hand and become my Queen,” Lucius mused, finishing his demented monologue. “Thoughts?”
Oh, I had plenty. I just shook my head. “How you’ve treated me over the course of my stay hasn’t exactly been conducive to building trust.”
His eyes darkened. “I’ve treated you just fine, all things considered. Someone else in my position would’ve had you hanged the moment he found you. You live in luxury. I don’t think you can even fathom the jealousy of everyone in the castle once they discover my plans for you,” he spat. “Every action I have taken has been justified and of equal proportion to your treatment of me.”
I gritted my teeth, looking away. He pulled his hand away from mine, hesitating for a moment as something flashed in his energy, nearly imperceptible. It was similar to what I saw lurking there when he killed the man who assaulted his wife. It was something… vulnerable, or even witch.
“You don’t like me very much, clearly,” he said, which almost made me snort with laughter. “And maybe part of that was my own doing. But everything is different now. You’ll see,” he repeated. His new favorite phrase.
I looked back to him, just in time for him to straighten and stalk out of the room, the door slamming behind him.
I pulled my knees to my chest, sighing in relief as Lucius’s dark energy left the room as he did. We were running out of time, and I would sooner die than be his Queen.
I made sure the gallery was empty when I arrived, slowly making my way to the so-called Heretic Room. The way the statues came to life under my gaze never failed to send shivers across my skin. My eyes welled with emotion and a great longing. I moved to the artifact case at the far end of the room by the tall glass panel windows facing the gardens. The afternoon sunlight was warm on my skin, collecting in the red hues of my matching corset-style, fitted top and loose skirt that flowed around my ankles. The castle was just starting to come alive again; I had caught glimpses of many of the elites roaming the halls and out in the gardens on my way to the gallery. They had eyed me with lingering curiosity as usual, though I wasn’t sure if anyone knew yet that I’d been at the center of the mysterious mayhem from the night of the ball. Apparently, my ailment had caused all manner of technical difficulties and strange goings on, from a magickal power outage to unnatural weather patterns, to even black water coming through the plumbing. But, just like anything else that happened under the court’s nose, it was ignored or drugged away with power and elixir.
I winced, remembering the horror of Lucius’s pollution of my magick as I looked down to the stolen artifacts, really inspecting each of them for the first time. There weren’t any placards or explanations, and each was haphazardly placed on a thin white cloth inside the glass casing. There was a black bowl with the moon phases painted in gold just below the outer rim, a stunning ruby pendent whose magick awakened beneath my fingers pressed up against the glass, a quartz instrument that was long and pointed, a dagger engraved with symbols that felt terribly ancient and powerful, and what appeared to be a gold-encrusted, thick brown book of spells and rituals—as sacred and well-preserved as any holy book or seminal text. The swell of immense longing rose in this place, like the plea of great magick sentenced to die and rot away.
A shift in the energy directed my gaze out to the gardens, where Taryn now stood staring at me, her hands clenched at her sides. I could nearly sense her spitting red aura from here, as she craned her head to look behind me. I quickly turned, gasping at the sight of the sculptures. They were sobbing, pain racking through them that I could feel pressing against my own body like a weight. A woman clutched her child, and a man seemed to be cursing something silently, his stone figure shaking as his lips moved animatedly.
I hurried out of the room as the bodies reached toward me, pushing open the wooden door to the gardens. I glanced around just in time to see Taryn storming away to a cove of blossoming red trees.
I teleported, and in a blur of motion we were suddenly face to face. Her green eyes widened as she took a step back, her long, dark waves of hair whipping around her. I could feel the heat of her anger rolling off of her body in waves, blooming electricity in the air between us.
“Do you have to do that?” she flustered.
I crossed my arms. “We need to have this talk, and you’ve been avoiding me.” I begged her with my eyes not to run. “I think I know what you saw, now. Before the ball. You saw your real parents and home, before you were taken to the castle.”
Taryn raised a finger, her face contorted with rage. “As if you didn’t already know what I saw.” She straightened her back. “You’re so—so arrogant. Like you knew what this would do to me. And you never worried for one second that I’d go to the King. You just carried on like nothing had happened.”
“I wouldn’t say I wasn’t worried,” I said, parsing through her words. It was more like I’d been heavily distracted by balls, sex parties, and Lucius’s reign of terror. “Taryn, I know it’s a lot, and I’m sorry, I never meant—”
“And there’s this power, growing inside me like a cancer. I’ve never had a talent for magick, and I’ve never wanted it. Take it back,” she hissed, and her aura flashed bright white once more, just like the servants. They were all connected to me, and apparently now so was Taryn. We all strengthened each other by means I had yet to understand. It must’ve been similar to how Lucius fortified his loyal subjects with dark power.
I shook my head. “Why haven’t you gone to the King if you’re so angry with me?”
She hesitated, her lip twitching. “Because he would have killed us both, for starters.” She looked away, her energy cooling slightly. “I just want you to change me back. I’m sure you could wipe my memory or something, since you’re just so damn powerful. I don’t want it,” she repeated, her eyes faraway and fearful.
I reached out for her, but no sooner had my fingers brushed her arm when a voice sounded behind me.
“I hope you’re not fighting over me,” Sebastian said, palpable unease simmering just below the surface of his dimpled smile. He wore his usual baby blue color, bringing out the blue in his eyes and accentuating the cool blond tone of his floppy hair.
“We’re not,” Taryn snapped.
Sebastian’s face fell like a wounded puppy, and I had to bite back a smile. I could always count on Taryn to take people, usually men, down a peg. And Sebastian’s timing was as horrible as always. I wasn’t even close to convincing Taryn of anything.
“Áine, I just wanted to, um, apologize,” he said, unbothered by Taryn’s presence for this awkward display. He scratched his head, not-so-covertly giving me a once-over. “My memory is a bit hazy, but I know that you left and I—well—ended up with…” He glanced at Taryn, something imperceptible passing between them as he cleared his throat. “You can really get lost in that place. But I am sorry if I caused any hurt feelings.”
I shook my head. “It’s really okay. No hurt feelings.”
“None?” he asked, his voice a slightly higher pitch as he searched my eyes. He was clearly disappointed by the notion.
Oh, dear. I wasn’t sure if Taryn coughed or laughed, but I assumed the latter. She shook her head at me and then gave Sebastian a pitying smile. “Not everyone can be wooed by your charms, Sebastian. But hey, we had fun, didn’t we?”
He frowned and then blushed. “I—”
“I think I can answer why Áine can’t be wooed,” a sinister voice spat, and just like that our little gathering went from awkward to awful. Nathaniel reached us, the dark, sour energy of Lucius now swirling around our huddle like a cyclone.
Taryn groaned. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
He straightened and smoothed down his black uniform. “Let me guess, it didn’t work out between the two of you?” He gestured between Sebastian and me.
Sebastian raised a brow, oblivious to the undertones of this current tension. It was reassuring that Taryn was shooting daggers at Nathaniel now rather than at me. I wasn’t sure how far he was going to take this tirade, and I also wasn’t sure if the moratorium on my use of power had been lifted yet by Lucius’s new plans, which left me in a precarious position to defend myself against Nathaniel’s predictable next words.
“See, now that’s very unsurprising,” Nathaniel continued, licking his venomous lips. “Considering she’s still fucking the Commander.”
I bristled. There it was. I felt my power rise up all around us, begging to be used. It would seem that my magick wanted to knock him on his ass just as strongly as Lucius’s magick had. What could I say? Nathaniel’s face was more punchable than most.
“Is that true?” Sebastian asked, his features painfully transparent.
“No,” I lied. “It’s just a delusion Nathaniel believes for whatever petty reason.”
“Why does it even matter?” Sebastian asked. “Why hide it?”
A very good question, Sebastian. And one that Nathaniel knew he couldn’t answer without revealing secrets too dear to the King. Taryn stayed silent for once.
“Yes, Nathaniel—why would I hide something like that?” I asked calmly, watching the angry crimson of his aura deepen in saturation.
Before he could answer, a low-pitched, deafening frequency attacked my eardrums like an ethereal crash of lightning. I winced and noticed that Taryn had doubled over, covering her ears. Sebastian and Nathaniel considered us, confusion covering their features. A scream erupted from further into the gardens, and visions flooded my perception—visions of an omen in the waves, of Lucius raising the dead, of Seraphina’s suspicion that the borders between dimensions were growing weaker as our natural magick did, and of that white marble sculpted figure, not cursing anything, but warning me. Something was terribly, cosmically wrong.
I felt myself moving toward the scream on autopilot. Nathaniel grabbed my arm in a painful grip. “Let go of me,” I bellowed, my voice growing unrecognizable as I leaned into pure channeling for the first time since I’d fought Lucius in the woods. In this headspace, I became Magick—not separate—infinite and whole and guided by that otherworldly invisible thread of knowledge, order, and instinct.
