Chapter 4
FOUR
LANZ
Camlann House is in a fucking state.
The door swings open to a foyer cluttered with gear and clothes, stacks of mail and papers overflowing the letterboxes, muddy boots cast in unmatched pairs and dirt ground into the Oriental runner.
But then again, nothing compared to the state of my head.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
“Not here, I’m afraid,” comes a voice from the parlor. “But I can take a message.”
“Shove it, Kai.”
I drop my case by the door and kick off my own shoes in whatever direction as Kai cackles. I ignore him and flop onto one of the parlor couches, head on the armrest, hand covering my eyes. Even the oil portraits look disdainful.
“So Freudian,” Kai remarks from the other corner of the room. “Do you need me to analyze your psyche?”
I pull my hand away and stare at him. If things are a mess, then Kai is undoubtedly the cause.
“Does King know about this?” I say, sweeping an arm around to indicate the general…everything of it all .
Kai doesn’t look up from the paper he’s grading. “What Kingston doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
You have no idea , I think.
But just thinking that makes my head swim even worse.
I can’t stop thinking about her.
I sink back into the couch and let the calm of the parlor wash over me, pressing one hand to my sternum as I feel the jittering of my pulse slowly, slowly start to quiet.
Does she know?
No. There’s no way. I mean, she doesn’t even know me , or didn’t, until about an hour ago.
The odds of her just knowing that I’m under a stupid, generations-old family curse…
But she did ask about your name , part of my mind reasons. Maybe she does know.
Or maybe she was just curious because it’s a weird-ass name, another part retorts. You’re not the center of the universe, Lanzelin.
“He’s downstairs, by the way,” Kai goes on, answering my next question. “Drilling.”
“Mm.” I return my hand to my face, rub my temples. That’s no surprise. If Kingston’s not eating, sleeping, or in class, he’s drilling. Or conditioning. Doubly so after what happened on Wednesday.
Open exhibition, a bunch of teams from our league. Scrimmage against St. Ignaty’s Seminary.
Kingston lost.
“Did he remember it was just a practice match?” I ask rhetorically, still not opening my eyes.
Kai snorts. “He wants that Moroslav bastard skewered. I’d do it in two parries if he’d just fucking let me.”
I open one eye. “Moroslav fights saber?”
Kai slams his book on the table. “ I fight foil.”
Right. Not a single day can pass without Kai bitching about not being team captain, not fencing foil, whatever else is eating at him. It’s pathetic, if I’m honest, and Kai seems to realize this, too, because he backs off, a faux-sympathetic expression on his brow.
“What’s wrong with you , Pretty Boy? Tummy ache?”
I rub my stomach self-consciously. I don’t not feel nauseous, but I’m not about to admit that to Kai. “No.”
“Tough class?”
I shake my head. “Just French.”
That’s another thing, I realize. Love and death?
Sure, it’s an eerie echo of the exact meaning of the curse that I’ve known about since I was old enough to understand what death was.
But then again, what poems aren’t about love and death, especially French ones?
A coincidence—one with extremely high odds.
But if it was just a coincidence, then why do I feel…like this?
“Oh ho ho.” A wicked smile curls over Kai’s lips, and he catches his teeth in his lip ring. “Struggling with your vows?”
“What?” It takes me a minute to even process who he’s talking about.
“Girl trouble,” Kai says. “That brunette with the tight ass barking up your tree again?
“Oh, Elena?” I flutter my eyes shut. Shake my head. “No.” Not even close. “I mean, yes.” She certainly is attentive. It’s like she doesn’t remember that I’m even on the damn fencing team, the way she’s trying to hang all over me. “But…no.”
Irksome or not, Elena Shalott is not even top five in the Lanz problem leaderboard right now.
And I’m not about to tell Kai, of all people, what’s top-ranking.
My whole body feels warm, flushed. Aching.
It’s not just horniness, either. I almost wish it were; that’d be easier to deal with. It’s something else. Something more…feral, almost. My protective instincts, my inner golden retriever clawing to get out, a pull so compelling it feels borderline pheromonal .
And that’s the heart of the whole problem. I am, in fact, doomed.
The Dell’Acqua curse.
Love shall claim him once, then again;
Death shall come with a heart split in twain.
Doomed to fall in love, easily and over and over, and then die with a broken heart. That’s me. That’s all the men in my family, apparently—if you believe in those sorts of things, and I sure as hell do.
Because I’ve seen what they can do.
Magic is real. Good, bad, everywhere in between. It was just my bad luck to be born into a family with the deadly kind ready to wipe out every one of its male descendants whenever he falls for the right—or wrong—girl.
And until then, there’s nothing I can do about it but ride the wave.
Except…
Except if that’s her, if that is the girl, well…
I saw her for all of, what, forty minutes, and I feel like this? How am I supposed to survive a semester?
Forget riding the waves. She’s a freaking tsunami.
“ Fuck .”
I hear the sound of a book slamming shut, a few footsteps, and open my eyes to the tip of Kai’s foil.
“Jesus,” I croak. He took the safety button off; this is pure, sharp metal, inches from my flesh.
“As I said before,” Kai says, grinning. “He’s not here. Just me.” He nudges the foil a millimeter closer. “Spar with me.”
I pull back, climbing up the arm of the couch so the tip’s out of range.
“Not right now.”
“Seriously? Come on.” Kai jabs the foil, and I duck—as best I can, still on the couch .
“No, Kai!” I yell. “Go…fight with your brother if you’re so horny to spar.”
Kai licks his lips. Both of us know him and Kingston sparring is a recipe for disaster, especially with King in whatever sour mood he’s in post scrimmage.
Still, Kai withdraws.
“Pussy,” he mutters.
I wince as he sheaths his weapon and flings it down by the fireplace, grumbling about being bored out of his skull, and I’m just about to close my eyes and rub my pounding temples when I hear my name.
“Lanz.”
I look up. It’s Callahan, wild-eyed and staring.
“I need to talk to you,” he says.
His voice is that low and gravelly sound that strums a chord buried deep inside me.
Which I try not to let show. Just swallow hard and nod. “Sure.”
“God, you are all so fucking morose, ” Kai complains. He slams his book shut and shoves it into his bag. “I’m going to grade these somewhere less tomblike, ” he announces. “Come by Holy Grounds if you change your mind about sparring, pretty boy.” He glares at Cal. “You too, Virgin Mary.”
The front door bangs shut after him, leaving me and Callahan and the mess of a place that is Camlann House.
We stay like that a beat, silent, both listening for the departing thuds of Kai’s footsteps, waiting to see if Kingston emerges from downstairs. When he doesn’t, Cal jerks his head to the door, and I follow, flexing my hands as I go.
For a fencer, Cal’s big and broad—his past as a swimmer more than evident—and I always feel slight walking next to him. King and I are both tall, but more on the lean side, classical fencer build. Kai’s more muscle than anything, but Callahan’s six-six still has a few inches on even him.
I studiously avoid the Knights of Caliburn crest carved on the first landing of the stairs as we take the right-hand split, and we stop at the first door on the second-story landing: Cal’s room.
Inside, it’s tidy—especially compared to downstairs—but not just in the militarily-regimented way that Kingston does his hospital corners or the psychopathic way Kai racks up his blades.
It’s…cozy, I guess, and that’s what I’ve always liked about it.
Mixed in the with the same things we all have at Camlann—deep red bedspread, wooden cross on the wall, armchair and corner desk and window seat—Cal’s arranged little pieces of thoughtfulness: old maps tacked on the wall, postcards from Italy and Lake Geneva, an amberglass diffuser wafting the light scent of sandalwood.
The door closes behind us. And when it does, Cal seizes me by the shoulders, slams me against it, and claims my mouth with his.
God. It’s good, the taste of him, the warmth, and I moan against his lips as my fingers find their way to his hair, pulling him into me with desperate force.
This , I realize, this is what I need right now, body and soul.
But too soon, Cal pries himself away.
“I think he knows,” he says. “King.”
My heart stutters in my chest. “What?” I give my head a shake. “Why?”
Even as I ask, I am begging, pleading for it not to be true. Not now. Not this. Every inch of me, and especially the eight inches now straining hard in my boxer briefs, just wants to be lost in him, taken over. Thinking about Kingston at all is literally deflating.
Especially if he knows.
Cal licks his lips, rubs his fingers together—the thumb and index, where he wears his rings. “He went to chapel yesterday. Did you know that?”
“Oh,” I say, feeling the smallest burst of relief in my chest. “Well, that’s just King’s way of?—”
“ And to see Morgan.”
Oh. I draw in a deep breath through my nose, trying to calm my electric nerves. “What’d she give him?”
Cal shakes his head. No idea.
Fuck.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” I say, after a moment. “Or, no. It does.” I snap my fingers. “The scrimmage. Moroslav’s in his head. That’s probably it. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” Cal repeats, incredulous. And I know what he means.
Caliburn is undefeated so far this year.
So is St. Ignaty’s.
But Caliburn always wins. Always.
“King’ll get back on track,” I say, and hope I’m telling the truth. “He always does.”
“Mm.” Cal considers. Rubs his chin. His warm eyes find mine and the concern in them, the angst, leaves me feeling ready to either melt or burn up in shame.
What are we doing , I think, not for the first time.
This whole thing started as a…loophole. A technicality of hermeneutics, a selective but valid interpretation of the vows.
No blade drawn in anger,
no blood spilled in vain.
No knight lost to passion,
no honor profaned.
The traditional read is a vow of celibacy, obviously. No women, period. Keep your focus. Retain your energy. Don’t get lost to passion. For me, and my stupid family curse? Win-win. I couldn’t be tangled up with women. Couldn’t risk it .
But that’s the problem with an oath written centuries ago. Back when women were the only speakable option.
It leaves a hell of a loophole.
You can’t be lost to passion if your passion’s right there with you, right? That doesn’t count. Not if it’s another one of us. Not if it’s another knight.
I didn’t think so, anyway.
Neither did Callahan.
Callahan, the only one of us to take the vows as an actual virgin, the quiet, hulking giant, the one with lips that taste like blackberries and salt and whose fingers can do things to make your head spin.
The first time was an accident, unpremeditated, a late night and a dip into the wine cellar that led to a brush of fingers and ended with a bite mark on my neck placed just where my lamé collar would cover it.
After that, it became a habit. A secret, but not one either of us could give up.
Assuming, of course, we don’t get caught.
“Well, if you’re sure…” Cal takes a step back towards me, grips the frame of the door with one hand so I’m half-pinned under him. His eyes lock on mine, golden and pure, searching.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” I say.
Sure enough, anyway.
Sure that I’m trembling being this close to him now and not touching him.
And that must be enough, because by way of response, Cal ducks his head to my neck, the nip of teeth followed by a sucking, bruising kiss. The twinge of pain makes me stiffen, and Cal draws back.
“You all right?” he rumbles. His golden eyes are bronzed over with desire, a lock of sandy hair fallen over his forehead .
And for a moment, I want to tell him.
About her.
The girl in class.
The one who…knew me.
Even if she didn’t know me.
But just as quickly, I know I can’t. I know this is something I have to lock deeply, firmly inside me, and let it eat away at my soul until there is nothing left of me.
Because that is who I am, and that is what I do.
I nod—“perfect”—and clutch for him.
We kiss, and kiss, and kiss, harder and harder and firmer, until Cal is pushing me to his armchair and tugging up the hem of my sweater.
I work at my belt buckle, frustration and need prickling all over me as his lips feather against my chest until finally the damn thing is gone and I feel the sweet press of his hand around me.
One long, slow stroke, and then another, and already my hips are bucking and tensing with the need for release.
I grit my teeth, fighting for control as Cal rips away from a kiss to sweep his tongue over the callused skin of his palm, and shudder as he returns it, slick but gentle, to my cock.
“Why do you make me wait like this?” I grumble hoarsely.
Cal’s eyes flash. “Because you like it.”
He slides to his knees, and?—
God, but he’s right.
The undeniable truth about me is that I am an A-plus yearner. I can pine for years —decades, if I had to, although at twenty years old I haven’t had the runway to test that out yet.
Coming to Caliburn, to Camlann House, should have changed that, should have cut off the neural pathways or whatever and redirected my energy to where it’s best used. Our practice. Our honor. Our brotherhood.
I haven’t been perfect at our vows. Obviously.
The hot flat of his tongue runs over my length, and I shudder .
“Please,” I whisper.
And this time, he obliges.
God forgive me.
It’s Cal’s hair that I grip with my fingers. Cal’s lips sending me over the edge and Cal’s mouth that I flood with heat.
But it’s her face that burns in my mind.