Chapter 19 The Devil is in the Detail #2
Lilyanna should be okay. She was wrong about Clement. He was a good man. He took his job seriously and would guard her until I returned. Even if he was involved in the other grisly deaths, I’d now discovered the secret lair above his room, so he couldn’t use it. That was logical thinking, right?
I hovered under the fangs of a large demon. Its eyes sparkled like shattered glass, drops of rain oozing from its bared teeth. One alighted upon my hand. It sizzled, dim red smoke smelling faintly of roses wafted from my flesh.
Lilyanna would be asleep in bed.
I leaned upon the stone wall, and it shifted beneath my hand.
A crack barely wide enough to creep through emerged before me.
The scent of roses became overpowering, gusting through the crevice as if luring me back.
My feet swayed, hands clutching at the rough stone for balance.
I forced myself through the hole, ignoring the tugs and scratches as if the creatures living in the walls were trying to trap me midway.
I broke through into a passageway and heaved a breath. I was in the servant's corridor, barely feet from my own private door. Was the castle warning me? Or maybe helping me get to Lilyanna as fast as possible?
My heart thumped. A spurt of adrenaline chased the wooziness from my legs.
Moving quickly, I passed through my lower room and staggered up the winding staircase.
I thrust open the door to the sitting room and almost impaled myself upon Clement’s saber.
I lurched backward, arms pinwheeling at the top of the open staircase, and Clement dropped his sword to grab my cloak, tugging me toward him.
“What are you doing?” he hissed.
“Is she alive?” I pushed away, beelining for her door.
He grabbed my shoulder and swung me back to him. “Of course, but she’s going to wake up screaming if you barrel in there like that.”
He reached for my face, his hands skimming my cheek as he lifted the mask.
He turned it over in his hands, the porcelain surface completely white except for delicate red letters embossed upon the forehead.
‘Three weeks to go. If you want out, as you surely know, the name you must say and the debt you will pay.’
I snatched it back and threw it into the hearth. The fire roared, green-tipped flames incinerating the mask within seconds. Clement’s mouth hung open, the question obvious on his lips.
“In a minute.” I stumbled toward Lilyanna’s door and fell. Somehow, he moved much faster than I did, his body dulling my impact which otherwise would have left me crashing right through her door.
He steadied me, hovering his hands inches from my arms in case I wobbled over again and quietly turned the doorknob for me. I peered past, clawing at the doorframe for balance. Lilyanna slept soundly, the silk covers flat, her golden hair unbound and unruffled.
I let out a burst of laughter, and he quickly shut the door. I clapped my hand over my mouth and sank to the floor.
“Did you not trust me?” Clement slid to the floor beside me, his arms hooked over his knees.
“Of course I did.” I shuffled closer, leaning my head on his shoulder. I took a deep cleansing breath, inhaling the scent of pine that lingered on his skin. “It’s the castle I don’t trust.”
He nodded.
“Thank you for doing this.” I reached up and kissed him on the cheek.
His stubble tickled my skin, sending shivers of pleasure down my body.
He turned to me, his breath heavy, his eyes hooded.
I leaned into him, meeting his warm mouth with my own, threading my fingers into his hair to pull him closer.
His tongue parted my lips, roving around my mouth to taste every inch.
His kiss was different to every one that had come before.
For a moment I lost myself, forgetting to be distant, forgetting to keep that one piece of my soul apart.
He tugged me onto his lap, my thighs spread wide around his hips.
He ground against me in slow, sultry pulses, hardening fast, and oh, the sound that he coaxed from my throat.
I wanted to tell him everything, to have him tease every confession from my lips with his clever mouth, but I couldn’t.
We were still working against each other, our goals opposite.
“Clement,” I whispered. He murmured an acknowledgement, his kisses moving down my chin, my neck, his teeth nipping at my collarbone. “I want you, but you can’t stay afterward.”
He pulled away with a short bark of a laugh. “You’re forward today. First, you don’t trust me to look after Lady Lilyanna, and now, you’re thinking of excuses to kick me straight out after you're done.”
The buzzing resumed in my brain, heat redistributing to my cheeks. “It’s just the sleeping part. Not the sex. Afterward.”
He took my hands in his and cocked his head slightly. Then he pinned me with his dark gaze. “Why?”
“Because that’s when things happen.”
His thumbs stroked the delicate skin of my wrist while a small smile curved the edges of his mouth.
That same mouth that still glistened, smelling faintly of cherries and vodka.
“Okay, Tamara. So, number one”—I wrinkled my nose at the edge of laughter in his voice—“we are not going to sleep together because you are very drunk.”
I opened my mouth to protest but ended up nodding in agreement.
He laughed, kissing me softly on the cheek.
“And two.” He kept his face close, his eyes heating, breath caressing my lips.
“When it does happen, it’ll be somewhere private.
Somewhere where I can take my time. I’m going to touch every inch of your body.
Kiss and lick and nibble my way, explore you…
fucking devour you.” I realized I wasn’t breathing and gasped in air.
“I’ll find the spots you love the most, the sensitive areas that make you writhe and moan and beg me for more, and I’ll push and tease and play until you come so hard you forget where you are, who you are. You forget everything.”
My heart thrummed, my body milliseconds away from claiming him right there on the floor. I shifted against his rigid length, causing his breath to catch. “I want that now.”
He leaned closer, brushing past my lips to bestow a chaste kiss upon my other cheek instead. “Tell me why you’re here. Let me help you.”
I rolled off his lap and slumped next to him. He tugged the thin duvet I’d piled upon the chaise down and tucked it around us. Sliding his arm across my shoulders, I drooped into him, defeated. There were some parts to my story I could tell him without endangering either of us.
“I grew up on the outskirts of town, this is the first time I’ve been back since.
..well…when I was younger, I couldn’t sleep one night.
There was a raging storm catapulting branches against the house and slamming the window shutters against the glass.
It felt as if the whole world was about to crumble.
“So, I crept into my parents' bed and nestled in between them, cocooned within the warm goose-down and fell into such a deep sleep I didn’t wake for almost a day.
I never slept in. We were up at dawn and awake until dusk, working on the small farm, but that night, it was late afternoon by the time I finally crawled out from under the covers.
The clouds hung low and heavy in the sky, the sun obscured, so for a while I thought it was dawn.
“But the smell.” I shuddered, and his fingers stroked circles on my arm, keeping me tucked closely beside him. “I knew what clotted blood smelled like and the acrid ammonia of spilled urine that infiltrates your sinuses. Before I even looked, I knew. I’d slept through everything.”
I sighed. “Anyway, it was always the same. If I let my guard down, it was always at night that things happened. My money stolen, my bounty nabbed. I was stabbed once. Okay twice.” His hand tightened on my arm.
“But it never happened when I slept alone because you don’t truly sleep.
Your senses never turn all the way off. And then here, the other night, I fell asleep with Lilyanna and woke up in that mausoleum you keep above your room. ”
“It’s not mine.” He bent and kissed my hair, gently pushing my head back upon his shoulder. “And why are you always in danger?”
I gripped the edges of the duvet, slowly ripping the threads beneath my fingers.
“I was roped into a deal with the devil. It wasn’t mine to make nor mine to refuse.
My life was tied into those of two others, the Collectors.
They were saved from death and allowed a second chance at life, but they must collect the bounties I find.
” My eyes drifted closed as his fingers stroked through my hair, my grip on the duvet weakening.
“If a Collector or their bounty hunter fails or is caught, the Collectors die, and the hunter takes their place. So if I fail, I become a Collector and am then at the mercy of another. Simple.”
He gently untangled my fingers from the covers and held my hand within his. “Might be simple, but it’s not fair.”
I snorted an agreement. We remained in comfortable silence, my breath deepened, matching the sonorous rhythm of his.
“Why are you here, Tamara?”
“For the Sheriff.” I yawned. “I was supposed to have a free ride with his capture but then was given another job.” The lie came easy.
I’d already told him more than anyone before.
Only Siobhan knew the intricacies of my deal, the story of my life so far, and that was because she orchestrated it all.
“But I can’t leave Lilyanna here.” Over the years, I’d found that the best lies were always laced with the truth.
Clement murmured his agreement, resting his chin atop my head.
My stomach churned. Bile laced with sickly cherries inched up my esophagus.
What I would give to tell him everything, to have him help me get to the prince and complete my mission.
But he’d never agree. His whole life had been protecting the prince.
He knew the risks of working in this castle, he knew what really lived and breathed in the walls more than he let on.
“I don’t feel well,” I whispered. “You should go now.”
He shushed me, keeping his head pressed atop of mine. “Try and sleep. Nothing will touch you while I'm here, Tamara.”
“Don’t call me that,” I mumbled.
The room spun around me as my eyelids slid closed. But with every loop, I nestled closer into his embrace, tucked tightly against him. Don’t go to sleep, echoed in my churning body, fading with every ricochet until I passed out.