Page 62 of Wicked Bonds
Twenty-Nine
Lucien
The chamber exists, but Rose won’t find it. I say the words and watch her process them see the way her knuckles go white around the edge of my desk, the way her teeth grit tight enough to crack them. If I were a less self-aware creature, I’d think my confession a mercy. But I am nothing if not aware. I know exactly what I’ve just done.
She doesn’t scream, though she wants to. I can hear it building, the way her pulse has quickened and how the blood is rushing through her veins. I can hear each pump of her heart.
“You know.”
“I do.”
She stares at me, eyes full of loathing. “And you wouldn’t tell me, of course.”
I keep my voice level. “You would have been caught if I hadn’t intervened. Wickersly’s familiar would have caught you on your hands and knees.”
She doesn’t thank me, and I don’t expect her to. Instead she launches herself off the desk, strides across the room, and jams a finger into the center of my chest. I let her. She doesn’t move me an inch.
“So you’ve just been sitting on this? Why? Why wouldn’t you just tell me?”
“Because it’s futile. All you’ll do is bring your life to an even earlier end.”
She laughs, one sharp bark. “Nice to know your expectations for me are so low.”
“That’s not—” But she cuts me off, her slapping against my breastbone.
“You think because you’re immortal you know better than I do? You think living a few hundred years makes you some kind of authority?”
“I think,” I say, trying to keep my voice quiet, “that every single witch who’s tried to break their contract before you has ended up dead. Or worse. I think you’re different, and that difference might actually make a difference, but not by breaking the contract.”
She pushes me, hard. It should be laughable, the idea of someone as fragile as Rose Smith moving a creature like me. But she’s got righteous anger on her side and I let myself roll back a step. She’s surprised, but pleased, and then she’s on me again, hands balled in my shirt.
“Who are you trying to protect?” she snarls. “Because it sure as hell isn’t me. If you gave a shit about me at all, you’d help me.”
“I am helping you. I’m keeping you alive.”
She shoves again, and this time I let her drive me back until my back bumps into the bookshelf. “Yeah? For what? So I can be a battery for your precious Coven until they drain me dry? What’s the point of surviving if it’s not my life anymore?”
My patience cracks, just a little. “You think you’re the only one who hates this system? You think I enjoy acting as Wickersly’s lap dog, as you put it?”
She’s so close now that I can feel the heat rolling off her skin, can see the vein throbbing in her neck. “Then do something about it.”
“Like what?”
“Help me. Help me find the chamber. Help me break the Accord. Help me find a way to take away the Coven’s power. Unless you’re too much of a coward.”
The word lands exactly how Rose wants it to, and for a moment I want to shake her. Instead I pin her wrists, fast enough that she gasps. She tries to pull free, so I tighten my grip just enough that she knows she can’t. We stand like that, the tips of our noses almost touching, her breath coming in quick little huffs against my lips.
“Say it again,” I dare her.
Her eyes flash with something feral. “You’re a coward, Lucien. A fucking?—”
I kiss her, and it’s not gentle, not sweet. I sink my teeth into her lower lip, just enough to taste her. She makes a sound like pleasure mixed with pain, then bites me back. I feel her knee move, and I twist to avoid the collision, but she’s not going for my groin, she’s trying to climb me. I let her think she has the upper hand.
She scrambles up, legs around my waist, and I can feel her whole body trembling from fury. It’s the rarest thing, to have someone want to destroy me and fuck me at the same time, and I am helpless before it. I shift my hold to her hips, pinning her to the wall, not because she would fall but because I want her there, I want to see what she does when she’s finally got both hands free and nothing to lose.
She punches me, twice, in the chest. I realize, dimly, that I’ve never wanted anyone to hurt me before. That I’ve never wanted anyone to leave a mark.
The sound she makes when my lips find her throat is close to a sob, and it’s all I can do not to open her up and drink her down. I want her so badly it’s a sickness, a fever in my bones that’s as powerful as any blood contract. I want her angry, I want her clawing at me, I want her to punish me for every lie, every omission, every fucking time I did the Coven’s bidding.
