Chapter 19 #3
He drew a slow breath and gently smoothed the lock back into my hair.
“She realized what she truly wanted when a boy engaged to a village girl rebuffed her advance. She wanted what wasn’t freely offered.
She broke him, broke the girl, and moved on, voracious in her new quest. She wanted strong boys, ones she could trap, who had no choice just like she didn’t have a choice in her marriage.
Under her complete power, the more subjugated and unhappy, the better. ”
I pressed a kiss against his chest.
“She enlisted other women with similar interests, vain or vicious, and formed a little club.”
“And then you…”
His chest surged beneath my cheek twice. The clock ticked in the background, the only sound in the room for thirty ticks.
“My fate was sealed the day I denied her, though she later said she would have kept me regardless. She let me see it—wanted me to—the way she looked at Lucian, only eight at the time, staying with me while mother was seeking care. I told her not to touch him.” He laughed, an ugly laugh.
“Naive. Father was traveling with Steelcrest to his various estates, mother was ill, and Melissande Nightshade made a…deal…with me.”
“Deal?”
“I would do whatever she wanted, she would pay the herbalist to give mother the most expensive treatments, and she would leave Lucian alone.”
I didn’t need him to say that the opposite was also implied—that the herbalist would not treat his mother with safe things at all.
“Mother would get better and Lucian would be safe. That is what mattered. Still is. I would do whatever it took to keep Lucian safe.”
“But you weren’t.”
“Three reasonably attractive women, two lauded among the gilded, one held as goddess above all the rest. Any boy or man’s dream.”
“No.”
A laugh shook his chest, short and cold. “Young bodies don’t always agree with the mind. And magic can do much to remove any will that remains—not every type of magic exchange has to be consensual—more’s the pity.”
I curled my fingers into a fist. “What made you finally decide to leave after…after being there for so long?”
“Allowing it for so long?”
I stiffened and tried to look at him, but his arm held me in place. “That is not what I said.”
“Mother died.” His voice thinned, so soft I could barely hear the words.
“Lucian would be at the estate permanently. I couldn’t let that happen.
And something was off with their...club.
I never found out what, but they had gained a new intensity.
A different madness worked their eyes. I let a few things slip to my father in a moment of rage.
Mother was dead, out of their reach, and my father could fend for himself. I couldn’t risk Lucian.”
“Your father—”
“He figured it out quickly enough with what I said, with the oddities on the estate he had chosen to ignore. He found me packing and gave me everything he had on him, which unfortunately wasn’t much. Lucian and I left that night.”
“The women didn’t try to find you?”
“Oh, they did. I can only imagine their initial response. But the servants’ network takes care of its own sometimes.
We hid in Gildon, as I said. I started doing odd jobs, tutoring Lucian.
A questionable opportunity fell in my lap, and I parlayed it.
It gave me access to grimoires, to knowledge, to cultivation techniques that the gilded keep tight.
Eventually I earned enough money, gained enough power, to take revenge—to put their club down.
Either by bleeding them dry or ruining them socially.
I made sure they stayed ruined and poor.
..all except the High Lady of Steelcrest and Nightshade, who hid in her veiled kingdom, behind a shield even I couldn’t pierce.
I just made sure she stayed there and that every servant on the estate knew they had a way out. ”
He absently rubbed the wooden token on the band that I had removed in order to touch the marks that were his. The world shifted as he rubbed the surface and sparked the charm. With what he had just shared...with how the magic of the tokens always felt so familiar...
My fingers curled against his chest as I thought of every tavern, every street corner, every working man and woman I’d seen wearing the plain wooden charms. Protection they could afford. Protection on simple charms that wouldn’t invite a thief.
Protection from people who could bind you with a touch, force a contract, take what they wanted because they had power and you did not.
Powerful people who could do to them what had been done to him.
My throat tightened. At the revelation of what had been hiding in plain sight this entire time. At the scope of it. Not just helping me, not just his network of favors and information—Gabriel was protecting an entire class of people who couldn’t protect themselves.
Protecting them with the same power that I was surrounded by now. His protection. His magic. In his sheets and every part of me he touched.
“You were very brave.” You were magnificent.
“Bravery had nothing to do with it. I survived.” He drew lazy patterns on my back.
“They underestimated you.”
“Most people in the upper classes think any non or estate-lacking mage can never rise. They deliberately hoard knowledge to make it so. They underestimated you, as well. Practicing the magic that you naturally feel in a place where you are free to do it has made you stronger. You will take them by storm when you return.”
“It is doubtful I will return.” And who would want a partner who could make herself or others forgettable? Society was about golden feathers spread wide.
“They will clutch you against their generous bosom as soon as your brother is released. You’ll be able to have anything you desire as long as you grab it quickly—society is nothing if not fickle.”
“What if I don’t want to grab some fickle fate? It has held me powerless for so long.”
“Take the opportunity when it presents. Always. And society will present one. A marriage proposal or five wouldn’t surprise me. Take the control when you can in a situation where you are otherwise at the whim of others.”
I chewed my lip. “Am I at your whim now?”
His fingers skittered across my back. “Are you?” he asked instead of answering.
I turned my cheek so I could meet his eyes. “Yes, I do believe I am.” I pressed a hand against his chest as he moved to rise. “Bending me to your will is a pleasure I will never deny. Do not read into it what I do not intend.”
His gaze turned unreadable. Had I lost him? The second turned into two. His eyes switched back to the watchful, slightly wary look he had worn for so long, but there was something else there too that I couldn’t read. Trust?
“Then bend me to yours,” he said. “Show me the pleasure you won’t deny.”
I blinked. “I don’t know how.”
“Do you not? Come. Make my body yours, Marietta. Make me obey your will.”
“But…” I bit my lip. “Won’t that be—”
“No. Didn’t you say it is the will that is important? The intention behind the action. Pleasure, not guile? If I put myself in your hands, I trust you to take care of me. When I look in your eyes, I see you too.”
Shock, love, something wild and immense worked up my throat.
“You will go back to society, and things will change, but tonight…tonight is ours.” He rubbed his thumb along my cheek, directing my movement as I leaned in.
He abruptly snatched his hand away as if burned.
“Do you see? It is hard for me. Second nature to try and take control. Take it away.” He moved beneath me. “Free me.”
Love me.
Everything culminating in this one moment, I reached for him, my hand heavy and trembling.