Ritual Magic

“It’s just a headache. Humans get them, you know. If—”

“—and you are exhausted and determined to make yourself more exhausted. You are setting yourself up to make mistakes. Mistakes can get you killed. I understand why you’re doing this. You’re determined to shut out everyone and everything but the investigation because that’s the one thing you think you can control, but—”

“Thank you so much for your dime-store psychology, Dr. Turner.” She planted both hands on his shoulders and shoved. He let go of her, but didn’t allow the shove to move him back. He still loomed over her, and it infuriated her. “And thank you for making me so mad I feel downright bright-eyed and bushy-tailed now. I think my headache’s on the way out, so if you’ll just get out of my fucking way, I can get back to work.”

“Your headache is better?”

“Yes, though you don’t get the credit for that. Contrary to what you seem to think, I am not a child. I took some ibuprofen, so you can take your orders and—”

“Good.” He seized her head in both hands and slammed his mouth down on hers.

Apparently he was done being careful with her.

The kiss startled her, but the real surprise, the thing that undid her, was the wash of heat that rolled up from her belly, liquid fire that lit up every nerve at once. Like plugging in a Christmas tree, she thought dimly as she grabbed him back and dived into that kiss. Every nerve at once, all of them singing and stinging, and oh yes, that’s good . . .

He was sucking and licking at her neck. She arched into him and got the first button undone on his shirt. “This is not makeup sex.”

His mmm sounded vaguely inquiring.

“I am still mad at you.”

This mmm suggested agreement.

“And you have too many buttons on this shirt. You don’t need all those buttons.” She tugged, but her angle wasn’t great and Rule bought quality clothing. No buttons popped off. “Dammit.” But she had opened up a bit of chest with that first button, and she wanted it. Wanted the taste of him on her tongue, so she aimed her mouth there.

This dislodged Rule from her neck, but his gasp suggested he didn’t mind. She couldn’t reach his neck very well—he was too tall, dammit—but she could get to the little hollow at the base of his throat. A thought intruded. She paused with one hand at his waist, the other headed south. “Did you do that on purpose? Make me mad on purpose?” He’d done it before, hadn’t he? Tripped her into temper because he thought she needed the outlet.

“No, that was unpremeditated assholery. I . . . mmm.” That low hum came from what she did next, not what he was saying or thinking. Or not thinking, she hoped. “This is not an order, absolutely not an order, just . . . ah, that’s good, that’s lovely. But unless you want to do this on the table—?”

Wrong room. They needed to move this one room over. “They’re all downstairs, right? The guards?”

“One downstairs. The rest outside, patrolling, or at the barracks.”

“Let’s go, then.” And not worry about the bits of clothing undone or . . . wait, when had he done that to her shirt? How could she not have noticed? Hastily Lily tugged it back down and grabbed his hand.

The hall was dark. Rule flicked off the light in their makeshift office, and the whole house was dark. Dark and silent. Though his eyes would find light hers didn’t, and his ears probably picked up all sorts of small sounds from the others in the house. Who were all asleep, but . . .

“You’re thinking,” he told her and lifted her into his arms.

“Bad habit,” she agreed, and now she could reach his neck just fine. She did that as he carried them into their bedroom, closing the door behind them.

It wasn’t as dark here. The blinds at the windows were old and ugly as sin, with bent and missing slats, so mostly they left them pulled up. Outside, the sky was full of stars. No moonlight, but enough starlight to lessen the dark. It was just as quiet, though, so quiet she could hear the slight rush of Rule’s breathing as he set her on her feet and the rustle of fabric as he slid his hands up her sides beneath her shirt.

Rule would hear the catch of her breath. Did he hear her heartbeat pick up, too? Could he hear those sleeping nearby? Grandmother and Li Qin and Toby and the woman who wasn’t a woman now, but a young girl . . .

“Shh,” Rule said as if she’d spoken that thought out loud, and he stroked soothingly down her hips.

. . . her mother, who wouldn’t wake to hear her daughter having sex because she didn’t have a daughter, and besides, she’d been placed in sleep by the black dragon after he knit together her fraying mind. She wouldn’t wake for hours. Julia Lin—no longer Julia Yu; there was no Julia Yu—would not be sleeping in this house now, her plundered mind wandering whatever dreams were left to her, if not for Lily. Her destruction might be no more than a pleasant perk for Friar on the way to whatever goal he’d set, but she had been included among the victims on purpose. Because of Lily.

A shudder took her.

Rule’s hands paused. “Lily?”

“Don’t let me think.” She pulled his head down and kissed him hard, and if there was more desperation than desire in the kiss, she didn’t care.

Rule did her bidding, but not as she expected. Instead of a hot, hasty race to the top, he was thorough and deliberate and ruthless. He stripped her quickly enough and laid her in their bed, but then he wanted to taste. With mouth and teeth and touch he took her up and shoved her off that high sensory peak—then dragged her back up the cliff so he could do it again. This time with him inside her.

Oh, he was ruthless, all right. And deliberate and thorough. Also effective. For a long time she didn’t think of anything but sensation, need, and Rule.

In the cool, close darkness afterward, with her skin slick with sweat and her breathing beginning to steady once more, she lay with her head on his shoulder. “I’ll probably go back to work in a minute.”

He was stroking her back. “Will you?”

Her head moved in the tiniest of nods. Her eyes were heavy. She’d rest them for a bit. “She never wanted me to be a cop, you know.”

“So you’ve said.”

“She wanted all of us safe, but also . . . prestige. Wanted us to have prestigious careers.”

“Many parents do want that for their children.” He kept stroking in long, slow slides.

“For us or from us. Do right by the family, y’know.” The outer darkness was seeping in, dragging her down, making a mumble of her words. “I never thought about the price. The price to me, yeah, but my choice, so I pay the price, that’s okay. Didn’t think about the price others would pay. Expected them to pay it, but didn’t think about it.”

“No one could have thought this would happen. That it even could happen.”

“Not the point.” What was the point? She couldn’t remember, not with all that heavy darkness dragging her down . . . oh, yeah. “Can’t face her. ’S my fault. Can’t look at her like this.”

“Okay.”

That roused her. “What d’you mean, okay? I’ve got to. She’s my mother, and she’s here.”

That soothing hand never stopped petting. “But you won’t be, most of the time. You’ll be busy working yourself into exhaustion again. That’s why Madame Yu and Li Qin are here. Let the rest of us deal with her. You don’t have to.”

There was a flaw in that reasoning. She was sure there was a flaw, but the relief was so intense it unmoored her. With a sigh, she let go and fell off into sleep.

NINETEEN

SHE lay in an exhausted heap against his side, and even now, flattened by a succession of climaxes, the warmth of his breath on her skin made her tingle with longing. It took so little for her senses to be overwhelmed by him . . . all of them save one. His skin was smooth and warm and slightly damp with sweat, but