Chapter Thirty #3
His hands similarly explore my body, the ridge of my spine and the curve of my hips.
He smooths my skirt over my thighs, and I shudder, my hands knotting in his hair.
My knees fall apart, and he fills the space between them, and still, still it is not enough.
I need him closer. Warm and dark as embers, his eyes trace my features as if I were the first human he has ever seen and my every change of expression were a wonder to him.
I have never been touched like this. Held so tenderly, so intimately.
It is the sort of thing the older girls whispered about in school, between giggles and blushes.
Those were never the sort of conversations I felt part of, for I could never imagine being wanted in such a way.
I closed myself to the possibility of it, resigned to a life that would be as solitary as its beginnings.
But oh, Fates, the possibilities that flare in my mind now.
They bring heat rushing to my cheeks and neck and stomach, my skin drawing tight with feverish want.
I pull him closer until his body folds over mine, and I am enclosed in his arms with his mouth on my neck.
He kisses my throat, and a soft sigh slides from my lips.
His nimble fingers trace up the buttons on the back of my dress, undoing buttons one by one, until the fabric parts and I feel his palm against my naked back . . .
When the time is right, hisses Lachlan in my memory, all you’ll have to do is ask.
The faerie’s voice strikes me like an arrow, and I gasp.
Fates damn me, I never meant for any of this to happen.
How was I to know, when I found him unconscious on the side of the road weeks ago, that I would become his undoing?
How was I to know that as our souls were slowly being knit together, that I would be the very instrument by which Lachlan destroyed him?
Everything was so much clearer before. I knew what I wanted. What I needed. And I wasn’t going to let anyone get in my way.
But now here I am, with him looking at me as if he were the desert and I the rain. And there he is, ready to give me the world if I asked for it.
It is just as his lips bump softly to mine, the first, tender invitation to a kiss, that I push him away, my hands on his chest.
Conrad blinks, his brow knitting inquisitively. “Rose . . . ?”
“The Briar King sent me here,” I whisper. “He sent me to help him destroy Morgaine.”
Conrad doesn’t move; not a single feature on his face changes.
He only stares at me in exactly the same way, as if he’s been turned to stone.
For half a heartbeat I think perhaps he did not hear me, that I only thought the words and never spoke them.
Fates damn me! I did not intend to blurt the truth out like that, but to ease into it—to explain my reasons, my desperation, to make him understand I had no other choice.
I was driven by forces more powerful than me. I am no more than a pawn.
But then, I know these would only be more lies, as much to myself as to him.
I had a choice from the very beginning, the moment Lachlan put his cold hand on my shoulder in my uncle’s study and told me his terms. I had a choice then, and fear made it for me.
Years went by and I thought I would escape the consequences of my choice, but when he appeared in my boarding house, I’d made another choice, and again fear spurred me in the wrong direction.
The entire road from there was paved with wrong choices and I, driven by fear, leaped headlong from one to the next.
I cannot put all the blame on Lachlan. As he has told me time and time again—I chose all of this.
When the change in Conrad does come, it is slow and terrible, like watching the sun go dark at midday.
The corners of his mouth sink lower, and shadows crawl into the hollows of his face.
The very room seems to darken around him, the fire in the hearth shrinking to embers and the candle flames flickering.
A shudder rolls through him as he steps back, his hands withdrawing from my waist.
I see every moment we ever spent together scroll through his mind, every touch between us, every soft word, every lie I told.
I can see his opinion of me shift like a rockslide, slow at first, a few loose stones tumbling, but then faster and faster, until it is a thunderous roar echoing through him.
He inhales sharply, the first breath he’s taken since I spoke, and steps back again. He looks at me as if I’d stuck a sword in his belly, with my hand still upon the hilt, twisting.
“I have no excuse,” I say, hot tears burning in my eyes. “Only my story. I was eight years old when I met him. I was alone and terrified for my life, and he helped me. He offered me a bargain and I took it. And now he’s come back for his due and I—”
“The truth knot,” he says, his voice a strangled breath. “No one could have beaten it.”
“I did tell you the truth then, or at least . . . enough of it. I didn’t know who you were, Conrad, I swear. He never told me about you being the Gatekeeper, or that he was this Briar King. He intended it that way, so that I would win your confidence even without realizing I was doing it.”
“My confidence,” he scoffs, in a horrid dry voice, his hand dashing caustically through the air. Here is a Conrad I’ve never met before, not even the morning after the faerie revel. He is wholly the Gatekeeper now, defender of Elfhame and bondsman of the faerie queen.
He is her weapon as I am the Briar King’s; we are the swords they raised against one another.
I slide off the bed and raise my hands beseechingly.
“Conrad, I regret every second of it. I know it is no excuse. I deserve every ounce of your hatred. I know that I am the villain here. But I swear, had I known the depth of Lachlan’s—the Briar King’s—cruelty and cunning, I would never have agreed to this. He is not what I thought him to be.”
Conrad’s acidic laugh underlines the irony of that statement. He turns away, his anger an iron rod down his back. Around him, the air simmers, and a candle at his elbow flickers out with a sputter of hot wax.
He’s drawing in energy, just like that night in the stable.
“Did he send you here to kill me?” he asks.
“No! In fact, if I fulfill my mission, he’s sworn that you and Sylvie—”
“Sylvie!” He whirls, and the door creaks and slams against the wall; the drapes around the bed and windows gust as if on a strong wind. Sparks dance from the fire and skitter over the carpet, singeing the fibers where they land.
“Conrad, be careful! You’re channeling—”
“What of Sylvie?” he demands. “What business does he have with her?”
I open my mouth to tell him how I found her with Lachlan only this morning, but then clamp my teeth together.
That will only make him lose control completely; he’ll burn up this room and Ravensgate itself, all that wild magic rushing into his veins.
I have to calm him down, get him to release it safely.
My hands fumble for a spool from my pocket, but he knocks it away as he advances on me.
I back up until I hit the wall, and he looms terribly, his eyes burning with golden heat, his teeth bared.
“Tell me what he wants with Sylvie.”
“Nothing!” I say. “He swore to not harm her or you if I bring him a branch of the Dwirra Tree by midnight. Don’t you see? We could set you free for good!”
He lets out a short breath and steps back, still staring at me as if I’d stabbed him. The room settles slightly, the candle flames still fluttering but the drapes falling still.
“A branch from the Dwirra. Why? How does that help him?”
“He said it would restore his power. And, Conrad, if he dethrones Morgaine, you and Sylvie will be free. You won’t be the Gatekeeper anymore. You can leave this place.”
“And you trust this creature to keep his word?” He says it as though I would be a fool to do so, and I suppose I have proved myself to be no more than that. But I nod anyway. What other choice do I have?
“Help me,” I whisper, my heart pulsing as though Lachlan were listening in on us now, approving my words. I feel like a puppet as I step forward—his hands lift my hands in supplication; his whisper in my ear softens my gaze; his magic pulls a tear from my eye and sends it rolling down my cheek.
“We can all be free,” I say. “If you’ll just help me.”
Sweat dampens his collar. His face, his neck, even his lips have gone pale, those lovely, soft lips which only minutes ago had been about to open to mine.
How terribly the wicked truth cuts; how mightily it transforms.
He will do it, I think. He will see the same path I see, leading us all out of this land of fae and duty and curses. Together we will find our way out.
But then, “No,” he says. “You understand nothing. Not about me or Sylvie or Morgaine or the Briar King. He is not trustworthy. And Morgaine is not the monster you think she is. And Sylvie . . .” He shakes his head. “No.”
“Conrad!”
“Enough!” he roars, and suddenly he channels into a knot he had hidden in his pocket. Somehow he’d woven it there, one handed, while I was too distracted to notice.
It’s an immobilization spell, one I taught him, and it pins me to the wall, my hand slamming into the wainscoting.
A brass sconce unfurls to wrap around my wrist and hold it fast above my head.
The other is seized by a peeling of wood trim from the mantel, secured wide from my body.
The magic releases then, but though I can twist and buck, I cannot pull my hands free.
He watches me struggle with a strange look on his face, half fury, half regret. Perhaps there is a part of him which does believe me, but it is not strong enough.
“What is his plan?” he asks.
“I don’t know! He tells me so little. Put a truth knot on me if it will convince you.”
He shakes his head, his eyes going to the window and the black velvet moors.
“When you get yourself free,” he murmurs, “you should leave. This time, I mean it, Rose. Get away from this house.”
“But—”
“You don’t understand, do you?” He looks back at me, his eyes agonized. “What you’ve done, what you’ve cost me? I put myself on the line for you. I gave her my word.”
I stare at him. “What do you mean?”
“I must go to Morgaine,” he says. “If the Briar King has been behind our defenses this long, she needs to know. She needs time to prepare.”
“No! Wait! Conrad—”
“I have a job to do. I never should have thought that I could . . .”
“There’s still a way out,” I whisper.
“No. Mrs. MacDougal was right,” he murmurs. “You were trouble all along, and I . . . I wanted too much.”
He sweeps out of the room, still drawing in ropes of energy, and with his exit, every candle in the room and even the fire goes out, as if he pulled out all the air with him. He leaves me in darkness, tethered to the wall, my heart ripping in two.