Consort of Thorns Read online

  Call me weak, but I couldn’t resist him. Not when he looked at me, talked to me, like that. My fingers curled into his shirt as he kissed me. He parted my lips with the press of his, and his tongue stroked over mine. I yanked him right up against me, my spark searing with desire.

  With a hungry sound, Damon grasped my waist and sat me on the edge of the table with one smooth movement. He followed, capturing my mouth again as he pushed between my splaying legs. A whimper crept from my throat as the bulge inside his jeans grazed my core. I kissed him back, hard. His hand crept up under the thin fabric of my shirt, heat washing over my skin in its wake, and—

  The basement stairs creaked.

  We jerked apart with a stutter of breath. I only had time to gesture a hasty spell in the air before a hand closed on the knob of the archive room door.

  The figure on the other side paused. Then they headed back up, struck by the sense that they’d forgotten something.

  My gaze met Damon’s. Both of our breaths were coming a little ragged. Longing coiled in my belly and ran with an ache down to my core, but I knew better than to take too many risks myself.

  “I’d better go,” I said. “But… later?”

  A smile curled his lips. “Later, for sure.”

  “And be careful,” I called after him as I motioned him to the door.

  “If I have to be,” he replied, and ducked out.

  I sent up a brief prayer to the Spark that blessed all witching kind. Please, by all that is lit and warm, let him mean that.

  Chapter Eight

  Rose

  Gabriel knew I was coming. No one could have noticed me leaving the house in the deepening evening, not with the magic I’d cast around me. So there was no reason to feel nervous climbing the stairs to the garage-top apartment.

  No reason except I still wasn’t totally sure how to talk to this grown-up and stunningly handsome version of the boy I’d once caught salamanders with.

  Outside his door, I summoned the energy of my spark and drew it around the apartment with a few sweeps of my arms to mute the sounds of our conversation to anyone outside. Then I knocked.

  “Come on in,” Gabriel said from the other side. “It’s not locked.”

  I found him flipping through the row of old CDs he and his dad had left behind on a shelf. It’d been a hot day and the heat lingered in the apartment, so Gabriel was only wearing an undershirt with his jeans. He might not have been as brawny as Seth, but there was ample musculature on display as he pulled one case off the shelf and turned toward me. Suddenly I was feeling a little hot too.

  “We only took our favorites,” he said, looking up from the CD. “I forgot about some of these albums.”

  “Anything worth listening to now?” I asked.

  He chuckled. “From my contributions, only if you’re into very dated pop-punk and hip hop. My dad had some new country stuff that might not be bad. Is it better if we have something playing to cover up our voices?”

  “My magic will take care of that,” I said. “But if you want to put something on…”

  “Maybe later.” He slid the case back into the shelf and flashed his easy grin at me. “I’m supposed to be listening to you.”

  The heat I’d felt earlier gathered in my cheeks. “I think it’s more the other way around,” I pointed out, moving to the couch.

  “Right.” He ducked into the kitchen. “Do you want anything to drink?”

  Already the perfect host, even though he’d hardly have had time to stock his fridge. I didn’t think he’d like it if I acted like he was some kind of charity case I couldn’t bear to take anything from, though. “What have you got?”

  “So far just beer and lemonade.”

  Getting even a little buzzed around him didn’t sound like the wisest idea right now. “Lemonade would be great. Thank you.”

  He came back out with a bottle of beer for himself and a glass bright with lemonade. I accepted the drink and tipped back a gulp of the sweet-and-sour liquid.

  Gabriel sat down at the opposite end of the couch. He leaned one of those well-muscled arms across the back cushion, stretching his feet out toward the coffee table, looking totally at home. Which I guessed he had a right to.

  “I’m not sure I have much to report yet,” he said. “I guess you know your dad and Derek went out for a drive today.”

  I nodded. “They were going to check out a property Derek thought might fit what one of the investors Dad works with is looking for. Derek’s kind of… half architect, half real estate agent.” In a community as small as ours, if you wanted to mainly work for witching folk, you had to be pretty flexible. “Did you overhear anything?”

  “Just some general business talk,” Gabriel said. “They didn’t mention you or your stepmother while they were by the garage. They seemed friendly enough, though.”

  I made a face. “The two options are that they’re plotting illegal magic together or that Dad still thinks Derek’s his future son-in-law. Either way, there’s no reason for them not to be friendly.”

  “Yeah. I’ll continue keeping an eye out. And it’s not as if I’m confined to the garage. I can always take a little stroll through the gardens on my time off, maybe conveniently when they’re out there, if you text me a heads up.” His grin turned sly.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “It’s not a problem.” The grin faded. For a second, his bright blue eyes were completely serious. “I came back here because I was worried about you, Rose. It seems like I had good reason to be. I wish I’d already found out something you could use.”

  “You only got here a couple days ago,” I said. My throat tightened. I took another gulp of lemonade. “And I asked my dad about giving you this job to help you more than to help me.”

  This time his smile was softer. “I know that, Rose.”

  That look, that smile, made my heart flutter in a way it hadn’t earlier. I groped for a change of subject. “I didn’t come out tonight just to get a report on what you’ve seen either. How are you doing? It looked like you were getting along okay with the other staff.” I’d seen him laughing with Matt, who managed the garage and served as our main driver, when I’d headed out to town this afternoon. “I guess you get along with just about everyone, though, don’t you?”

  He laughed. “I do meet the occasional person who just won’t warm up to me.”

  “Oh, yeah? I’d like to see that just to know it’s possible.” I gave him a playful nudge with my foot. “But I guess you met all kinds of people with all that roaming around you did. Do you still keep in touch with anyone you met in all those places?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “Not really. I’m not the best pen pal. More of a face-to-face guy, you know. But the ones I got along with, they know they could hit me up if they were passing through town.”

  I wanted to ask if he’d hit it off with any women, but that felt too personal somehow. Maybe because I’d have been asking with more than just innocent curiosity. “Is there somewhere you’d want to go back to? When everything has settled down for me? I know it must be hard, being back here again.”

  Gabriel was already shaking his head. “No,” he said, lightly but definitively. “There are places I’d still like to see, for sure. Things I’d like to experience that I haven’t gotten to yet. But I’d be happier sticking to shorter travels with somewhere definite to come back to in between. I think I was always missing things about this place—the estate, and the town—while I was on the road. Missing just having a home base that felt like it was mine. I guess this isn’t really mine, so—”

  “It is,” I broke in. “As long as I’m here on the estate, as long as you want a home here, you’ve got it.”

  He paused, gazing back at me, as if he hadn’t expected to get that much vehemence in response. Then the corners of his lips quirked up. “And how could I leave for very long when you’re here now? If you’d been here back then, I don’t think I’d ever have taken off.”

  The fluttering c
ame back, stronger this time. I wet my lips and made myself focus on my glass for a moment. “Keep flirting like that and you’ll put Jin out of a job.”

  Gabriel laughed again. “That’s not flirting,” he said. “That’s just telling it like it is. I’m not asking for anything from you, Sprout. But even before I left here, I was missing you. You’re part of what makes this place home.”

  He said it so straightforward and honest an ache formed in my chest. I swallowed my lemonade, but the sensation didn’t leave. I made myself look up at him again. “It didn’t feel right without you here, either.”

  Our gazes stayed locked for a long moment. Gabriel cocked his head. “Good thing I came, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  He turned his head—casually, but I thought his shoulders had tensed a bit. “So you and the other guys… That whole ceremony you did—it’s pretty serious, isn’t it.”

  The ache turned sharp. I didn’t know how to tell him that I wished he’d been there then without it coming out all wrong somehow. Pressuring him or presuming too much.

  “We’re basically married,” I said. “In the witching sense of the word. Which is a little more serious than the regular sense, since we’re sort of tied together now.”

  “Four husbands.” He glanced back at me and raised an eyebrow. “You never did back down from a challenge, did you?”

  I had to smile back. “It’s not like that. I… I love all of them. I couldn’t have just picked one.”

  I wanted to say, “I love all of you,” but I couldn’t really, not yet. Not with Gabriel just back. I’d meant what I’d said to Philomena about us needing to get to know each other again. We were only just getting started.

  But it already felt like it would be so easy to fall back into loving him.

  “So how is that all going to work once you’ve gotten the ‘marriage’ all approved or whatever?” he asked. “They’ll all move in, and…”

  “And I guess we’ll have to get a really big bed,” I said without thinking, and my face flushed hot. Gabriel choked on a laugh, but something in his eyes made me feel even hotter and more pained at the same time.

  Before I could figure out how to recover, an engine growled outside. The electric gate hummed open. I frowned and got to my feet, catching myself from pulling back the curtain.

  Gabriel went instead. He peered outside. “Dark sedan. Looks like a Lincoln. You weren’t expecting company?”

  “No.” But someone had been, or the gate wouldn’t have opened so fast.

  “I’ll have to go down and park the car.”

  “Right. Of course. I’ll wait here.”

  I stood near the open window as he went down. Voices filtered in from outside. Dad had come out to meet our guest.

  “Matilda,” he said in his warm, even voice. “I’m glad you were able to move up your schedule.”

  “It sounded like you were in dire straits, Mr. Hallowell,” a dry female voice responded. “Frank will be coming along tomorrow as planned.”

  Matilda. My body froze. Matilda Gainsley. The new estate manager Dad had hired. She wasn’t supposed to be arriving until tomorrow morning.

  I should have been glad. With her here I could go forward with my plan to surreptitiously present Dad with evidence of Celestine’s treachery, to see how he’d respond. But now she was between me and where I was supposed to be.

  Luggage thumped out of the trunk. The engine started again as Gabriel must have brought the car around to the empty spot that had used to belong to Meredith’s pale green Chevrolet. The voices faded as my father escorted Mrs. Gainsley to the house.

  Gabriel came hurrying up the steps a minute later. He took one look at me and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s the new estate manager,” I said. “She’s a witch. I don’t know… If I use magic to slip back into the house, she might notice.” I hadn’t gotten much practice at hiding it. I’d never done any major magicking in front of a fellow witch yet.

  If it’d only been myself I had to worry about, I might have marched right over there without magic and let them think whatever they wanted about my visit here. But it wasn’t just me. Dad still controlled the estate. In a lot of ways, he controlled Gabriel’s fate. If I brought magic to bear against him over a matter like that, I could be the one who ended up imprisoned by the Assembly.

  Gabriel rubbed his jaw. “You could stay here until— Oh, damn. Your dad will want to introduce you, won’t he?”

  I nodded, calming my breath. I was a witch. I was alight with magic. There had to be a way.

  My mind leapt back to an urgent trip I’d made a few days ago, to listen in on a conversation between Celestine and Derek. I’d pulled my magic around me and let it transport me right from one room to the next.

  From the garage to the house wasn’t that far. I thought I could do it. Dad might be calling for me to come down even now.

  My gaze darted to Gabriel. “This is going to look strange,” I said. “But I have to go right now.”

  “Rose?” he said. I was already moving. I swiveled on my feet, faster and faster, picturing the comforting glow of my reading lamp, the rows of built-in bookcases, the cozy four-poster bed. My spark blazed up through every nerve. Then I whipped my arms around my body.

  My skin went cold. The world went black. With a snap, I was lurching on my feet across the hardwood floor of my bedroom.

  I’d been right. “Rose?” Dad’s voice carried up the stairs, through my locked door, sounding puzzled.

  “Coming!” I hollered back and combed my fingers through my hair, finding my balance. I could do this. I’d already done it. I was here. No witch could tell I had magic when I wasn’t using it.

  I hurried out and down the stairs. Dad and Derek were already standing in the foyer. And so was Matilda Gainsley.

  She was a short, knobby-chinned woman with a bun of pale orange hair. Her dark eyes considered me as I descended. Moldy cinders, I already didn’t like her, if only because I had the feeling she didn’t miss much.

  And also because she wasn’t Meredith, who should have been here. I swallowed hard.

  “Hello,” I said. “Sorry, sometimes I get wrapped up in a book and just tune everything else out. You must be Mrs. Gainsley. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Hallowell,” Mrs. Gainsley said. She clasped her hand, as dry as her voice, around mine just for a second.

  “Well,” Dad said, “let me show you to your rooms. You should get some rest after that trip. We can get started going over your duties in the morning.”

  “I’ll be up bright and early,” Mrs. Gainsley said. “I always am.” The smile she gave me looked a little bit sharp.

  I trailed after them as they headed up, and Derek came along behind me. He stopped beside me when I reached my door. Dad pointed out the estate manager’s office to Mrs. Gainsley and then directed her down the rightward branch in the hall toward the adjoining sitting room and bedroom that served as the private quarters for the resident estate manager and her consort.

  “Well, maybe things can start to get back to normal,” Derek said in a hesitant voice. “As normal as they can be with your stepmother missing.”

  How had he been feeling about that—not knowing where his accomplice had run off to? I’d have taken more pleasure from his uncertainty if he hadn’t turned to me right then. Turned to me and leaned his hand against the door frame so close it brushed the side of my arm.

  “Rose,” he said, leaning his head closer too. That was the same tone he’d used on Polly, the girl from the cleaning staff I’d heard him fooling around with and insulting me to. Apparently my previous coldness hadn’t quite put him off.

  How dare he think he had any right to get intimate with me after everything he’d done to me and planned to?

  I pressed my hand against his chest and pushed. “Not right now. Back off.”

  Derek’s eyes darkened. He didn’t move, only dipped his head even more. His nose g
razed mine, and my stomach flipped, threatening to eject the lemonade I’d been drinking all over his nice linen shirt.

  “I think it’s about time we started acting more like two people about to be married,” he said, with an edge in his voice that sounded almost like a threat.

  My fingernails dug into my palm. Every inch of my skin screamed to shove him away with a burst of magic. But I couldn’t reveal that much to him. The Spark knew I couldn’t trust him with the knowledge that I’d somehow come into my magic.

  “If you’re going to act like this, I’m thinking we shouldn’t get married,” I said, letting acid creep into my own tone, and pushed harder with just my arms.

  To my relief, the comment and the shove was enough to dislodge Derek. For the moment. He took a step back and looked at me narrowly for a second before he relaxed his expression.

  “I’m sorry if I overstepped,” he said. “I wouldn’t want anything to interfere with our consorting. Not with your birthday coming so soon.”

  He said it calmly enough, but that was definitely a threat. He thought I still needed him to kindle my spark.

  I couldn’t reveal to him that I didn’t.

  “Of course not,” I said. I gripped the doorknob and ducked away into my bedroom. As soon as the door was closed behind me, I sagged against it, clutching my queasy stomach.

  I needed him out of here, out of my life. But how could I convince him to leave if he didn’t care how willing I was?

  Chapter Nine

  Seth

  When I’d texted Damon asking if I could stop by his place to talk, I hadn’t expected him to suggest the Bluebell Café as an alternate meeting spot. It didn’t seem to fit his current image. But when I came out to the back patio with its picnic tables under bright gingham umbrellas, lilting piano following me through the screen door, he was sitting there already halfway through a slice of peach pie, looking satisfied if not exactly relaxed. When did Damon ever look really relaxed?

  I started to think this conversation might go better than I’d hoped. My mistake.