The guard, noticing that I was no longer following him, returned and caught my arm. He marched me along the hall as I tried to process the scenes that were flooding my mind. Before I quite got a handle on it and was enough in my right mind to run back to Marcus, I was pushed into a room, and the door slammed behind me. I tried the latch but it wouldn’t budge.
I needed to get back to Marcus. I looked around the room in which I was now locked. There was a decadent four-poster bed and a heavy brocade curtain on the other side of a room. There must be a window. Could I get out that way? I crossed the room quickly.
“Cass.” A warm voice alerted me to the presence of another person in the room. I paused to take in the sight of Devyn Agrestis sitting in a large chair, his features highlighted by the play of the shadows cast by the fire. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
What was he doing here? Ignoring him, I crossed to the curtain and pulled it back to reveal a lead-lined window. I opened the antique catch and leaned out into the night. My stomach dipped. We were many storeys above the ground. I looked out across the glittering lights of the glass and steel towers, the multi-levels of the city to my left. The old wall, low and wide, ran along to the right, and beyond that was the teeming warren of the East End. I could also see the crenellated walls on the far side of the cobbled courtyard below. I appeared to be in the White Tower. I had never been inside before. The lack of building in the air above us confirmed it; only a few of the oldest buildings in the city were so privileged.
I didn’t understand what was going on. I wrapped my arms about myself. They had brought me here after the Mete, I recalled. The Mete where I… I stepped back from the cold air coming in through the window. None of this made sense. My progress was halted by a warm body behind me. Startled, I turned into a wall of bare chest. I looked up and my lips were caught. My hands came up to push him away but ended up tangled in black curls. My head tilted back to allow him access to my neck and the décolletage on display as a result of my wondrous dress.
His name was a sigh leaving my lips as his proximity worked its magic and reality returned. I turned into him. Kisses rained down on my bare flesh, my lips captured once more by his. It was like a spark catching on tinder, a kind of blue and red flickering passing across my skin, lighting me up from the inside out. He walked me backwards until I found myself folded onto a bed. A bed with a beautifully embroidered canopy. Devyn. Calchas. I was myself once again.
“Devyn, wait.” I tried to catch my breath.
His fingers found the catch at my waist and the silken dress unhooked and fell off my body, allowing Devyn greater access. His skin, his torso were against mine, warm velvet heating me in the darkness of the room which was lit only by the flickering open fire. By the fire sat the remains of the apple cake, the cake Calchas made certain only Devyn ate. I could taste its heavenly flavour on the lips that danced with mine.
I tried to think. I needed to stop him, didn’t I? But did it matter now? Why stop? I felt what Devyn felt, the fire, the heat surging through him. I could practically feel how delicious my touch on his skin felt to him, the drugging pull to surrender entirely to sensation. Need. Want. Our connection was oxygen to the flames, our bodies the fuel. We were here together. That was all. That was everything.
My fingers came back around to Devyn’s face, so exquisitely lit by the firelight, his dark eyes gleaming. The fire licked through me, the heat swooshing through my blood, stoked by the touch of his hands sweeping across my bare skin, touching my leg and following it up under the blue satin. I moaned at the blaze that swept through me. Deeper, deeper, I felt Devyn, his complete focus on me, on us, on this.
Something wasn’t right. I arched back as Devyn kissed a trail down my skin. Our lives were in danger. I needed to think. I opened my eyes wide, trying to focus on something, anything, outside of my body and the maelstrom of sensation whirling within. The canopy… there was a canopy over our heads. Because we were in the White Tower, enjoying the hospitality of the praetor. We weren’t locked in a cell; surely the security was laxer here. We needed to escape, or tomorrow we would die. Tonight was our only chance. I attempted to pull away and Devyn swooped back up, skin sliding on warm skin.
“Cass,” he murmured as he caught my lips in his, his kiss deep and possessive, fresh fuel on the fire sending sparks flickering through my body. I couldn’t breathe; I didn’t need to. Devyn was my breath. I fell into his kiss, the drugging sensation bringing me back down, stealing my consciousness. I was mesmerised by the flame towards which he was drawing me. I no longer wanted to see. My pupils felt dilated by the sheer magic he caused within me. I looked up into the midnight eyes above me. Devyn’s pupils were glazed, unfocused. I looked over to the blaze in the fireplace. My eye caught again the remains of food there.
Calchas sent me in here after taking the protection of the triquetra charm from around my neck. Devyn’s kisses were mindless, fevered, as if passion were the only thing that drove him. The only
