Chapter Twenty
CHAPTER
TWENTY
“Melisandre is a gossip,” Lute told Aurelie as she hurried her out of the tavern and down a gravel path through the village. “Severin will try to keep her distracted, but you’d better pray to your angels that the barmaid keeps her mouth shut.”
“We don’t pray to the angels,” Aurelie said almost automatically.
“Are those not the ones you call Divine?”
“They are, but even the angels have a leader. The Divine Ruler. That’s who we pray to.”
“Ah, of course,” Lute said dryly, propelling Aurelie through wrought-iron gates that led to the largest home in the village.
It was two stories and built from pale stone, featuring a steep roof and smoke curling from a narrow chimney.
The shutters were painted a dark green, and the iron-braced door had been oiled recently enough to shine in the fading light.
A short set of steps led to the porch, which appeared to have been recently swept.
That, however, was where the cleanliness ended.
Severin’s home could have been beautiful, but it looked as if it had seen war.
Bottles lay scattered across the surfaces, some half-empty, others crusted with the remnants of whatever had been inside.
Parchment was strewn about in disorganized piles—maps, sketches, and notes scrawled in a language Aurelie didn’t recognize.
Warmth clung to the air, heat from the hearth’s snuffed embers mixing with the sour tang of spilled wine and crushed herbs.
She couldn’t say how or why, but the house felt alive.
It made every step feel all the more perilous, and Aurelie held her breath as she took care not to knock anything over as Lute motioned for her to have a seat in the parlor.
The demon’s shadows stretched around her, slamming every shutter closed and sealing their latches.
“Don’t go anywhere, understand?” Lute demanded. “Don’t leave. Don’t decide you’re hungry. Don’t open the windows. Just sit here and read or something.”
Aurelie turned to the demon, eyes narrowed. “You’re not staying?”
“Do I look like a nursemaid?” The heat in her glare was enough to ignite flames. “I’ve better things to do than watch over a damned human. If you need something, call for Severin. Though I imagine he’ll be distracted.”
Aurelie grimaced, not wanting to imagine what Severin and the lustborn might be getting up to.
Lute didn’t give Aurelie a chance to protest her escape. The demon vanished through the front door, the lock clicking behind her.
For a moment, Aurelie didn’t move. The quiet pressed in, heavy and strange. After all she’d endured over the past two days—the blood, the battle, the noise, the terror—silence was disorienting. In it, her body grew too antsy, refusing to sit still.
She stood and took immediately to wandering, her steps light as if the house itself might protest her presence. If she was going to be stuck with this man, she might as well learn more about him.
Books were stacked in careless piles on every surface of Severin’s floor. A few were written in languages she couldn’t read, and there were countless logbooks strewn about the desk, some of them opened to notes written with such fervor that the ink had bled, smearing the words.
The blood of a saint, she thought it might have read. Holy water, in its purest form.
It seemed to be an ingredient list.
For the cure? she wondered.
She was about to begin investigating the bookshelf when she noticed a vielle resting atop a box in the corner. Beside it lay a lyre, and Aurelie’s chest felt infinitely lighter at the sight of it.
Normally, Aurelie would never dare touch another musician’s instrument. However, this lyre was practically being abused, its case covered in a thick layer of dirt. She pried it open, determined to revive the poor instrument that had been left for dead.
It was gorgeous. Older than her mother’s, and shaped with the kind of care that suggested someone had once loved it dearly.
The wood had aged to a soft, silvery hue, smooth along the frame where countless hands had cradled it.
A simple winding motif had been carved into the outer rim, and the bridge looked like it might’ve been bone, fitted cleanly into place.
Aurelie sat without thinking, lowering herself onto a stool beside the hearth. The fire had burned to embers, casting the room in a dull amber as she cradled the instrument like it was something precious, letting her fingers brush the strings only to wince.
Light, when was the last time he tuned this?
It was no matter. One by one, she began adjusting the pegs until they rang true. The second string was closer. The third, almost right. She was halfway through the fourth when it hit her.
A sudden heat unfurled in her lower belly—sharp, consuming, and wholly uninvited. It moved through her like smoke through a hollow chamber, curling around her spine and winding between her ribs. Her breath caught, fingers slipping from the tuning peg as an awful note rang out.
Severin. He was with that demon.
Until now, Aurelie had never given thought to what it might feel like if her bonded took a partner. With Yuri, it wasn’t in the realm of possibilities. But Severin was no angel, and in the span of a breath Aurelie was feeling every ounce of the passion that consumed him.
She couldn’t feel his hands on Melisandre, but she sensed the electric jolt of skin meeting skin and the way his pulse quickened.
Her body betrayed her before her mind could catch up, heat rushing to her cheeks as she pushed the lyre aside, steadying herself against the slow, searing warmth overtaking her.
Aurelie had often wondered what it might feel like to lose herself in another’s touch, though she’d never allowed herself to act on such curiosities.
Passions of the flesh were sacrilege for those who followed the Divine.
There were, of course, some knights who conveniently overlooked that, but Aurelie wasn’t just any knight.
All her life, she’d had the angels to impress and the heat of passion to keep far away from.
Now, however, there was no escaping it.
She tried not to picture him—tried not to imagine Severin’s hands, his mouth, the low rasp his voice might make when desire overtook him. She felt an unbearable awareness of just how attentive he was, not only basking in his own pleasure but wanting so badly to please.
Severin’s desire surged through her like a tide, and despite herself, Aurelie’s body answered. She pressed her thighs together in search of relief, the ache sharp and insistent.
It wasn’t enough.
The bond thrummed between them, persistent and pulsing, and her hand drifted lower, fingers pushing through layers of cloth. A sharp gasp broke from her lips at the first brush of contact, so overwhelming that she bit her cheek to stifle the sound.
She shouldn’t.
Light, this was his tryst, not hers.
And yet it all felt the same through the bond—his pleasure bleeding into hers until she couldn’t tell where the line had been drawn. Try as she might, she didn’t know how to shut it out. Didn’t know how to stop feeling him.
Tentative fingers brushed across aching flesh.
Her touch was cautious at first, but the pleasure urged her deeper.
Her hips lifted, slow and seeking, chasing each wave as it built.
Her other hand reached blindly for something to brace herself on as the bond pulled taut.
Severin’s hunger spilled into her, searing through her veins like molten wine.
His rhythm became hers. His want tangled with her own until she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.
She hated him.
And yet, some traitorous part of her now hungered for his touch.
The pleasure sharpened, building toward something wild and fevered. Her breaths came fast and uneven, her whole body straining for the peak she already felt rising. Severin’s release surged first, hot and consuming, and it struck her with the force of a crashing wave.
Aurelie cried out, her voice cracking on the sound.
Her limbs went weightless, trembling, her vision blurred as release tore through her.
Her pleasure tangled with his and left her hollowed, shaking and undone.
The bond throbbed like a second heartbeat, settling into a hum of warmth that lingered between them.
Aurelie lay still, her skin flushed, her body trembling from the aftershocks of a pleasure far stronger than anything she’d ever known—amplified, it seemed, by the bond itself, as if it had taken both their desires and fused them.
Light, what was wrong with her?
Severin was a demon. No amount of pleasure changed that, and yet her thighs still trembled. She pressed the heel of her palm to her eyes, willing the sensation to drain from her skin. But the bond lingered, coiled and content. It pulsed softly beneath her sternum, as if pleased.
Her stomach turned.
She thought back to her outburst in the tavern. To the way her control had unraveled, her tongue sharp, her temper unchecked.
This wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. It had to be another symptom of this wretched bond.
She lurched to her feet, shame prickling hot beneath her skin as she sought the familiar weight of her dagger.
She needed to get out. To get away from this corrupted bond and back to Yuri.
Aurelie could still feel the pulse of Severin’s hunger even then, far from satiated. She moved quickly, drawing up her hood.
If she hurried, she could retrieve the alchemist’s chest and vanish before he even noticed. And once she’d left—once she’d put plenty of distance between them—she could pretend this bond had never been made.
Aurelie moved to the front door and tried to yank it open. The blasted thing wouldn’t budge. She tried again, this time bracing her foot against the floor for leverage.
The hinges didn’t so much as creak. It was as if the wood itself had somehow been fused to the frame.
Wretched demons and their awful magic. Still, there had to be some way out.
She turned, scanning the room. One shuttered window sat left of the hearth, its wooden slats weathered and bound with a rusted iron latch. She dragged a chair beneath it and climbed up, wrapping her cloak around her fist before slamming it into the slats.
The wood cracked on impact, breaking clean through. Aurelie slipped her dagger from her belt and wedged it into the gap, prying until the rest of the frame groaned open. Cold air rushed through, damp and biting against her flushed skin.
Aurelie pulled herself through the opening and dropped into the grass below, knees hitting earth hard enough to bruise.
She wiped her hands on her skirts as she pushed to her feet, skin raw from her efforts. She could only pray that Severin wouldn’t notice.
The tavern loomed ahead, its raucous noise spilling into the street.
Securing her hair beneath her hood, she made her way around the back and to the cellar door, listening for any signs of movement.
When all that came was the faint sound of laughter from the front room, she jammed the butt of her blade into the latch.
Once. Twice … The metal cracked on the fourth strike, breaking loose with a reluctant snap.
Aurelie slipped inside, easing the door shut behind her.
The cellar was nearly pitch black, forcing her to move by feel. One palm pressed to the stone wall, the other curled around her dagger as she stepped around barrels and between stacked crates, each breath sharp in her throat.
A shape caught her eye beneath a cloth draped across a side table. She peeled it back, only to find a tangled mess of rags.
She swore softly under her breath, frustration flaring hot.
Where are you, you blasted thing?
Something glinted in the shadows, a flash of gold drawing her attention—the alchemist’s chest.
Aurelie didn’t waste time trying to unlock it. She hoisted the entire thing into her arms, clutching it tight, and retraced her steps to the cellar door.
She slipped out into the courtyard, heart hammering, but didn’t make it three steps before a blade slid between her ribs.