Chapter 9
ERYX
The dressing room was elegant, the ceilings lower than out front, giving the room a more intimate appeal.
Sparkling wine was laid out on a low brass table with a glass top, and a lush velvet settee sat behind it, giving me a view of the curtained space Rhiannon had disappeared behind.
Dim light from crystal sconces hanging on the walls reflected from the gold-leafed ceiling, giving the room a soft glow.
It was difficult to believe Magnus and Cassandra had come here for romantic trysts as a married couple.
That didn’t seem much like my uncle, who had never been interested in anyone romantically, unless he had complete control of them.
But perhaps that was the answer—he’d wanted her to be uncomfortable trying on the lacy underthings he bought for her. My stomach turned at the thought.
“Is everything all right?” I asked. She’d been in there for a while.
“Oh yes,” Rhiannon answered, from behind the curtain. “Everything is beautiful.” For a long moment, she was quiet. My heart began to beat faster. “I think I have to show you, though, for this to work.”
I almost asked what made her think that, but then the crushed velvet seafoam curtains opened.
Every thought I’d ever had left my body.
Rhiannon wore a light pink camisole, edged with the finest lace I’d ever seen.
There was a matching set of little shorts.
Her skin glowed like a pearl in the soft light.
“Fuck,” I breathed. There was nothing else to say. I couldn’t find words anyway.
“Do you think it’s nice?” she asked.
I nodded, unable to say more, but there was a shade of disappointment in her wide blue eyes, a slight knitting of her brow. “Let me try another. There are eight.”
Eight? I had no idea how I would make it through this. My cock strained against my jeans. I readjusted slightly, but there was no hiding it. She’d seen me at breakfast when she picked the scarf up, anyway. Surely, she knew by now that she had an effect on me.
The curtain opened again. This design was similar to the last, but this time the silk was ivory and the lace was a soft green. “What about this?” she asked, her voice low. “Is this better?”
Had she thought I didn’t like the first set? Saints. “They are all very good,” I managed to spit out. Without thinking, I asked, “Are they comfortable?”
Now she smiled. She knew she had all the power here—she had to. “This is the softest silk I’ve ever felt.”
Yes, Rhiannon knew exactly how hard my cock was for her. She was staring right at it. It was so easy with other people. So easy to say all the cheeky things that made them want me even more than they already had. But now it was me who wanted her. It was me who was unsure.
And I didn’t want to play with her. Not that way. I wanted whatever she would give me, and I’d meant what I said at breakfast. I would take care of whatever needs she wanted met, in any way she wanted.
And I would be grateful for the opportunity.
Rhiannon took a step outside the curtain, towards me. “Would you like to feel the fabric? Make sure it’s to your taste?”
Heat rippled through me. There was only one answer to that. “Yes.”
She took two more steps and then she stood between my legs. Her nipples were hard under the thin silk of the camisole, and up close, I saw that the fabric wasn’t exactly sheer, but it was not opaque either. The shadow of her nipples showed through, the hint of the hair at the apex of her thighs.
“Feel how soft,” she said.
I sat up, my hands curling around the back of her calves. If she wanted this, I would give it to her. “So soft,” I said, sliding my hands up the back of her thighs, pulling her towards me.
And then I saw her face. The faraway look. The way her muscles had gone suddenly too loose, even though tension strung through every line of her body. It was one of the first signs of possession.
“Rhiannon,” I barked. She swayed a little. “Rhiannon!”
She blinked again. This time, the light in her eyes was her own. “What just happened?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. Something in me moved, shifting without my permission. I touched her cheek; she was still disoriented from whatever spirit had its fingers in her. “I want you to go get dressed. We’re leaving.”
It didn’t matter to me if we were on the right track.
I wanted her out of here. Rhiannon was more affected by the haunting than I’d have expected.
Until I figured out what was happening to her, I wasn’t willing to risk a possession.
I didn’t have Ares’ power with aura, which meant there was only one avenue I had if she were to become truly possessed, to use the vox spiritus on her.
And that was a risk I truly wasn’t willing to take. The spirit voice was not meant to be used on the living. There were consequences for that. Ones I wasn’t willing to risk Rhiannon’s immortality on without knowing the intricacies of why the Maere didn’t die.
“The attendant,” she breathed. “She said there was something behind the mirror.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked. “To come get it, and to get dressed?”
She frowned up at me, her beautiful face narrowing with suspicion. “Just what is going on here?”
I swallowed hard. “I am not sure that now is the time to discuss this.”
Rhiannon crossed her arms, her hip bumping out to one side. She looked so wholly herself. So self-possessed that it was hard to imagine there being room inside her for a spirit to take hold. “Tell me what you’re worried about. Now.”
Saints alive. I loved the way she bossed me around. And from the way her eyes dragged over me, lingering just below my belt, she knew I loved it. It was a dangerous game we were playing, but I was determined to win.
I straightened up a little, flexing my hips, just slightly. A flush crept over her
moonstone skin, but her eyes glittered with wicked power.
She liked the way it felt to be in control of a situation she could understand, and I wanted her to feel powerful.
I wanted her to use me like a tool in her arsenal, to give her every moment of control she needed in private to be able to carry that confidence into her public life.
I made a choice. “I’m worried you’ll become possessed. Whatever this is—this place, this haunting—it’s having a different effect on you than it is me.”
She nodded once, but didn’t say anything.
Clearly, she waited for me to say more. Something coiled tight at the base of my spine, sending warmth through me.
The way she nodded was so imbued with natural power that I was desperate to get on my knees for her, to serve her in whatever ways she wanted.
It was the nod of a General to her Executive Officer, and there was nothing I wanted more than to be Rhiannon’s XO.
“I want you to let me protect you in here,” I explained. “I want you to trust what I tell you.”
Her eyes narrowed as she licked her lips. She stepped forward, pressing a hand to my chest. “And when the time is right… Do you want me to…” Her eyes flicked up to mine, her silk-clad body pressing into me, “...do what you tell me to?”
I stared down at her, relishing the way her soft breasts felt pressed against me. My cock hardened, pressing into her belly. She stood so still, those azure eyes locked onto me. And then I felt it. The way her back arched, so slowly, her lips falling open as her breath quickened.
Without thinking, I slid one hand onto her back. She took a sharp breath in and it seemed that the world disappeared around us. The lights had dimmed in the dressing room, down to a glow so dim it might have been night. This wasn’t the effects of being aroused, though we both certainly were.
Whatever this place actually was, it was reacting to us. I pulled her against me hard, letting myself get swept up in it for a moment. “Yes,” I hissed. “I want you to trust me enough to know when it’s time to let go and let me tell you what to do.”
“Give it a try,” she breathed, arching further into me. “Now, just to see how it feels.”
“Kiss me,” I said without thinking.
And before I could consider the wisdom of what I’d just said, she did. She was up on her tiptoes in an instant, her arms around my neck, her body melting into mine as her mouth claimed mine.
Rhiannon’s mouth was exactly as I had imagined it would be; silky and soft, with a wicked tongue that made promises I was desperate for her to keep. Every moment drew us deeper together. My eyes fluttered open and the entire store had gone dark.
Outside, it was night. It had barely been lunchtime when we came in. She noticed at the exact moment I did, and pulled away from me, but just slightly. “What is going on?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I think you should go see what’s behind that mirror.”
Slowly, she unraveled her limbs from mine, still in complete control. Still watching me watch her. But she nodded, slipping away from me to disappear behind the curtain. She left my heart racing and my cock hard.
Whatever this place was or was not, the thing happening between us was real.
When she walked out of the dressing room, she was fully dressed again, and she carried a small jar and a slip of paper.
She handed the jar to me first. I frowned as I opened it, then brought it to my nose.
The scent was familiar to me, after years of getting patched up after a fight.
“Arnica, I think, but something else as well. Definitely a healing salve,” I said, setting it down next to the champagne.
She handed me the note, her eyes wide with worry. “There was also this.”
I opened the note. It’s not in the crypt any longer. Search the house. On the next line it read, This should help if things get too bad. –L
Her voice was quiet as she asked, “Do you think Magnus was hurting Cassandra?”
Old fear thrummed through me as I sank onto the settee. “I don’t know.” I shook my head, covering my mouth with my hand, averting my eyes from hers. This was what I’d feared, and eventually she was going to know it all. This place was dragging things out of both of us. “Probably.”
She watched me carefully, and I watched her right back. Fury rose in her eyes, as she searched my face for clues. “Okay,” she said, a forced steadiness in her voice. “That’s information.”
I nodded, my mouth pressing into a grim line. “I’m sorry.”
She sat next to me on the settee, angling her body towards mine. The lights had come up, but it was still dark outside. “For what?”
I wasn’t sure why I’d apologized, and I was suddenly unable to look at her.
“I don’t know… It’s just…” My molars gritted together, all the old fear rushing in.
Of childhood, of what happened after Frannie.
Of all the ways I’d changed in the years after, of the man I’d become. “What if I’m just like him?”
She stared at me, her eyes widening. And there it was. The same fear I felt, reflected in her eyes. “You see it, don’t you? What I do? My job? The only reason I can do it is because I’m just like him.”
“It isn’t the same,” she breathed, but the fear still lingered on her face. “Surely you know that.”
Some part of me wondered if it was about something else, not me. Some part of me warned not to jump so quickly to conclusions, but that would be embracing hope, and I learned from Frannie not to hope. “Isn’t it, Rhiannon?” I got up, stepping away from her. “I don’t see how it’s any different.”
She sprang up behind me. “Then what about me? Am I the same as your average serial killer?”
How could she say that? We weren’t the same. And she wasn’t some common killer. She had a mission. It was one of the first things you learned as a parapsych kid. The Maere had a mission from the Saints to protect us. To save us from the Authority in whatever ways they could.
How dare she speak about herself that way? “No,” I shouted back. “What you do is sacred.”
“Sacred?” she hissed, mad as I’d ever seen her. “It is murder.”
“The Maere are blessed by the Saints,” I ground out, wishing she would let me cling to just one Saints-damned notion. “I am cursed.”
“Horseshit,” she practically screamed. I looked at her, amazed by the power of her rage.
She was all grace, even in her fury, all controlled rage, thrumming against her guardrails, begging to be set free.
And then she let all her walls down, yelling, “If I’m blessed, then so are you. Tanith’s fucking favorites, that’s us.”
“Tanith’s fucking favorites?” I spat out, getting caught up in the river of her anger. For a moment, I thought I might stay there, but the humor of our situation hit me. We were yelling at each other over what exactly? Who was the worst between us? Who was the best?
My shoulders began to shake, laughter bubbling out of me. It was all just so ridiculous. We’d come to a haunted house for her to relax—not just any haunted house, the most haunted site in Orphium—and the two of us had the audacity to be shocked by all the shit it was stirring up in us.
Rhiannon crossed her arms, glaring at me.
“You’re something else, you know that?” I finally said.
“I could say the same about you,” she spit back. Her shoulders slumped a little. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything else out tonight.”
“I agree,” I replied. “Let’s get some rest.”
She rolled her eyes, but her hand slipped into mine as I picked up the shopping bags she’d left in the dressing room. We were damn well bringing the lingerie back with us.