Chapter 18
Clio had completely forgotten why she was supposed to seduce him.
Something about discovering his secrets.
But secrets didn’t matter when she was drowning in delicious need.
Power pooled in her core, liquid and molten and beyond her control.
The silken glide of Thomas’ velvet tongue swiped over her slit, and she cried out.
‘So fucking delicious.’ His words vibrated against raw nerve endings, scattering a million sparks through her veins.
He delved deeper, so close to the cluster of nerves where ecstasy waited. And then in a fiery swipe, he found her secret centre, and she burned in an inferno.
‘Goddess… yes!’ She writhed, wanting to bury her fingers in his hair, needing to push him harder against her, desperate to ride him, wrap her body around his like a siren pulling him into her depths.
But she couldn’t do any of that. The leather ties cut into her wrist, and the bite was as delicious as his teeth scraping her clitoris.
She could do nothing but feel. It was glorious. It was torture. It was everything.
He flicked and nipped. Sucked and licked. Wet need washed through her, soaking into her soul.
She felt the hard penetration of his thick finger, pushing past swollen flesh into her tight cove. His sweet invasion only heightened the tension coiling inside, heating like glass, ready to shatter.
He sucked her clitoris harder, his finger curling as her channel clenched in aching spasms. Her world imploded into a supernova as she screamed his name.
Clio came back to herself in slow degrees.
The bed hadn’t burned into charred cinders, so that was a relief.
One of her legs fell free as Thomas untied her, then the other.
When he unbound her right wrist, he rubbed it gently, then leaned over her to release the last leather strap.
Before he could pull away, she caught him, wrapping her arms around his chest and pulling him against her.
His linen shirt scratched against her naked flesh.
‘Hold me.’ It wasn’t a request. It was a command.
Thomas’ rough chuckle unwound some of the tension still coiled within her. The solid weight of him held her steady, reminding Clio she was flesh and bones, not just flames and ash.
She could feel the hard ridge of his desire. The poor man had tended to her needs without seeking his own relief. A problem she would happily remedy.
‘Are you well?’ His deep voice rumbled against her ear.
‘I am… remarkably well.’ She gave in to temptation, her fingers tangling in his thick hair as his flat chest pressed against hers. Heartbeat against heartbeat.
And then the vision took her.
She was in a room. Not a bedroom. A sitting room.
It was a bright summer day, and the windows had been opened to relieve the staggering heat.
Thomas sat on a settee in cream breeches, a blue coat, and white shirt.
He looked young, and handsome, and devastated.
His elbows were braced on his knees, and he held his head in his hands.
‘What the bloody hell is this?’
Clio turned to her right as alarm, bright and sharp, zinged through her. Because Thomas also stood next to her. Not the memory, the reality. Older. Harder. Far more devastating to her heart.
Clio parted her lips but couldn’t speak. He was in her vision. With her. Standing on the edges of his own memory as it played out before them. It was impossible.
Lissa walked in front of them, her sprigged muslin gown almost brushing over Clio’s bare feet. ‘I’m sorry, Thomas. I know you didn’t want things to be this way, but I won’t be denied a family because of your failing.’ She stopped in front of where Past-Thomas sat on the couch.
Clio realised she was still naked and crossed her arms over her chest, horribly exposed in front of Lissa and two Thomases, even if only one Thomas could see her.
Real-Thomas turned to Clio, his eyes darting over her naked body.
Gone was any hint of desire. In its place was fear and quickly growing anger.
He whipped his shirt over his head and handed it to her.
After she donned it, grateful for some kind of shield, he grabbed her arm.
‘Whatever sorcery this is, you must stop it. Now, Clio.’ His rage dissolved into unhinged panic.
‘I beg you.’ His voice broke on the last word as he darted his gaze to his other self sitting on the settee.
Clio’s heart cracked. Because she would have pulled them from this private moment if she could. It wasn’t hers to witness. But she had never been able to control when her visions came, or when they ended. ‘I can’t. It must play itself out…’
Past-Thomas looked up at Lissa. Tears streaked down his face, and his lips trembled before he pressed them tightly together. ‘You are…’ He cleared his throat, wiping the wetness from his cheeks with the back of his hand. ‘You are certain?’
Lissa nodded, her bright hair catching the sun and shining like a halo.
‘It’s been three months since my last courses.
And there are other… signs. I’m pregnant, Thomas.
’ Though her voice was serious, it was impossible to miss the joy shining in her eyes.
The glow of love suffusing her skin. ‘I’m going to be a mother. Finally.’
Past-Thomas stood. He pulled down his vest and straightened his shoulders like a soldier preparing to enter the fray. ‘And you’ve gone to the courts?’
She put her hand on his sleeve, but he jerked away as though her touch burned him. ‘It’s the only way. How is any other option fair to me? I am not at fault here, Thomas. I don’t deserve to be punished because of you.’
Anger washed through Clio. She stepped forward, sparks tingling in her palm. She’d never tried to push her power at the memory of a person. Not until this moment. Lifting her hand, the embers turned into a fireball of blue and white. ‘How dare you!’ she hissed.
Lissa’s gaze remained steady on Past-Thomas. Because she couldn’t see Clio. Nor could Clio’s power have any effect on a woman encapsulated in a memory. But that was no reason not to try. Clio pulled back her arm and, like cracking a whip, she threw her magic at Lissa.
The room disappeared in a swirl of colour, and the sweet scent of summer roses dissolved into the acrid smoke of burning paint. Clio stumbled back, blinked several times, and realised the screen protecting Sir Robin was on fire.
‘Damnation!’ she screamed, rushing for the pitcher of water next to a washstand by the bed. Sir Robin screeched in alarm, flapping his wings, feeding the flames with the wind he created as he flew over the burning silk and wooden frame, landing in a flutter of feathers on Thomas’ shoulder.
Clio tossed the pitcher onto the screen, muttering a spell to triple the water and douse the flames.
Thomas, seemingly unaware of the heavy raven perched on his shoulder, looked from Clio to the charred screen and back again.
Clio wiped a strand of hair from her forehead. ‘I—’
‘What just happened?’ His voice was tightly controlled.
Clio’s belly flipped nervously. She was never nervous. But a host of thoughts were trapped in Thomas’ head, and she guessed several of them were about her. Likely, they were not good thoughts.
She had always been comfortable with who she was, what she wanted, and how she planned on getting it. If other people had opinions about her, she didn’t give a fig. Unless they were her family.
But now… she gave quite a few figs. An entire orchard’s worth, actually. Never had someone been a part of her magic outside of her coven. Until Thomas. And now she risked losing him.
In the most exposing, vulnerable, violating way possible, she had somehow pulled him into her sphere.
He hadn’t given her permission to see his memories.
He hadn’t asked to share in her abilities.
But it had happened. And he was understandably upset.
She couldn’t forget what she’d seen. Or how it felt to stand with him in his memory.
It had brought a sense of comfort to know she wasn’t alone. Clio doubted it felt the same to him.
‘Thomas, I’m so sorry.’
He shook his head, his high cheekbones flushing with anger. ‘Save your sorrow. What happened, Clio? That was my past we just saw. My memories. How?’
She felt the sting of tears before a hot drop rolled down her cheek. ‘I don’t know. I mean, I have always been able to see the memories of those departed, but never the past of someone living. And no one has ever been in the vision with me.’
‘How, Clio?’ He was almost shouting now, and Clio was grateful they were the only two guests on this side of the manor.
She took a deep breath and tried to make sense of things. ‘It’s unheard of, unless you believe in the silly fantasy of spirit matches. A witch’s magic is hers alone. And I’ve only ever had visions of the dead until I met you and started seeing your memories.’
His head cocked to the side a second before she realised her mistake. He prowled towards her. ‘Memories? You’ve had other visions about me?’
Holy Hecate. I’ve really spilt the potion now.
But the least she could offer him was some truth. ‘Yes.’
Thomas strode to her in two powerful steps. Sir Robin flapped his wings to keep his perch on Thomas’ wide shoulder. He reached up and put his hand over her throat, his fingers gentle even when his gaze was fierce enough to shred her soul to ribbons. ‘And you didn’t tell me?’
Her eyes widened, and she swallowed, but her voice remained steady. ‘The first time, I barely knew you. I could hardly tell you I saw your past. You would have thought me mad.’
‘What did you see, Clio?’ His words were dangerously soft.
Her mind worked furiously but she couldn’t focus as he stroked over her pulse point.
‘I fucked my way through half of London. Did you see that?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Just you and… her. Or you alone, but thinking about her.’
His brows raised. ‘You can hear my thoughts?’
‘No, not normally.’ She was quick to reassure him. That wasn’t her gift. It was Helena’s. Though it didn’t seem the time to talk about the powers of her coven. ‘But when I have my visions, it’s like I’m in your head. I hear your thoughts, feel your emotions.’
He leaned closer. ‘If only you could feel my emotions now, Clio. You would run from this place and never return.’ He drew his hand down her neck, over the hollow of her throat, down her chest to her sternum, before he stepped away.
‘What happened between the two of you, Thomas? I know you loved her very much. Why did you agree to seek your pleasure with other women?’
‘Haven’t you put the pieces together yet, my clever Clio?’
She swallowed and shook her head.
‘Still looking for all your precious evidence before you form a conclusion. All right. I shall give you some. When Lissa and I first married, it was a love match. We were mad for each other. Couldn’t keep ourselves from the bedroom.
Lissa wanted children, and I was happy to oblige.
But as the months passed, and her courses came without fail, our passion dwindled along with our hopes.
We saw doctors. She worried that perhaps the injuries I sustained in the war damaged me.
But all the doctors said the same thing.
I could engage in sexual relations. So, the fault must lie with Lissa.
She was devastated. Then she became angry.
She insisted we seek out other bed partners. ’
Clio shook her head. ‘But why?’
‘She told me if I could get a bastard on some other woman, she would take the child. Raise it as her own. As ours. And so, I did as she asked. Even though it nearly killed me. I fucked any willing woman trying to prove that I was worthy. I gave those women my soul. My honour. My dignity. But do you know what I never gave them? Not a single. Fucking. One?’
‘Bastard!’ Sir Robin’s timing couldn’t have been worse. For the first time, Clio wished her familiar was anything other than a raven.
Thomas’ green eyes grew bright with pain even as he stretched his lips into a smile.
He reached up, offering his forearm to the raven, who obliged.
‘Exactly, Sir Robin. I couldn’t give them a bastard.
And so instead, I became one.’ With exquisite care, he held the bird to Clio’s shoulder, and Sir Robin hopped to his favourite perch.
The raven rubbed his head against her cheek, but she gained no comfort from her familiar. ‘And she fell pregnant with another man’s child?’
‘She did.’
‘Thomas. I’m so sorry.’ But her words were not enough. Not nearly enough.
He swallowed as tears glistened in his beautiful green eyes.
One fell, and she reached up to catch it, but he pulled away.
‘Don’t.’ He sniffed, cleared his throat, and took another step backwards.
‘She was right. After so many years of being told she was the problem, Lissa proved that it wasn’t her failure.
It was mine.’ The words ripped out of him like shattered pieces of his soul.
Clio’s heart bled with him. ‘I could never provide her a future. I have nothing to give, Clio. Except for the one thing she asked of me. The only thing I have left to offer. Freedom.’ He backed up another step, only a few feet from the door.
He was going to walk away. He was going to leave Clio, just as he left Lissa. But she wouldn’t let him.
She moved to block his path. ‘That’s not true. Freedom isn’t fear. And that is why you’re leaving. You’re afraid.’
He smiled then, a cold expression threatening to freeze her fire.
His jaw could have been granite, his body stone, and his heart, cold steel.
‘Maybe I am. Maybe I’m scared of a witch who steals the secrets from my soul.
I think our games here are at an end.’ He stepped around her, walked to the door, and twisted the knob before Clio could process what was happening.
‘You can’t leave.’
Thomas turned, his face in profile, refusing to look directly at Clio. ‘You might control everything else, but you don’t control me. I cannot stay here with you. I will not.’
He stepped out of the door as Clio’s world erupted into flames.