Lydia is at the front entrance, “You’re back earlier than I expected. Was the trip worthwhile?”
“It was,” Lucas answers shortly. “Summon Monroe and Reese to my study within the hour.”
“Alright.”
She disappears. Lucas turns to me in the corridor and brushes his lips against my forehead. The press of his mouth is brief, distracted, his thoughts already half in his study—which he then leaves for.
After the dark line of his shoulders disappears past the staircase, I climb up to our suite and shut the door quietly behind me.
The travel clothes peel off in stages. Forest dirt at the cuffs of my trousers, dust in the seam of my collar. Everything goes in a pile by the bathroom door before I step into the shower and twist the dial as hot as the pipes will allow. Water hammers the back of my neck. My shoulders unlock by degrees, the long hours of tension draining off me.
When I come out wrapped in a towel, the bedroom is still empty. The afternoon sun cuts a long, bright wedge across the bed.
My satchel sits on the chair by the window, and I cross to it.
Beneath yesterday’s travel clothes, wrapped in two sheets of pale tissue paper, are the three sets of lingerie Violet picked out for me at the shop in the village. I still feel guilty about buying them, but she had a point. Life is going to keep happening around us, and if things don’t work out with the curse, this year may very well be the only one I have with my mate. It’s a weird thought, and I shake it off. I won’t think about it. I have to focus on the now.
I lay out my purchases on the bedspread.
The first set is black silk, the bra cut low and the matching piece below it so absurdly small that I hold it up against the light just to confirm what I am looking at.
Cream lace comes next. Softer, more delicate.
Last is the wine-colored satin with thin ribbon ties at the hips. I stare at it for a full ten seconds wondering when in my life I would actually put on something held together with bows.
I’ve worn plenty of tiny clothes in my life to parties and clubs, but lingerie is a whole other ball game. You wear lingerie for your partner. I’ve never had a steady boyfriend. A few flings here and there, but no one I wanted—or needed—to seduce.
My stomach does a slow, ridiculous turn.
The image of Lucas in the bed at the inn last night comes back to me. Hands behind his head, eyes on the ceiling. Then, the deliberate space he keeps between his body and mine when we sleep. The week of his back turned to me.
I start to think seriously about modeling some of this lingerie for him.
Tonight, I tell myself. I will think about it tonight.
The wine-colored set folds back into its tissue under my hands, then the cream, then the black. I open the second drawer of the dresser, and all three get pushed to the back, behind a shirt that has not been worn since Moonvale.
A clean blouse and trousers come out of the closet next, and I think I look like I have my life perfectly together.
By late afternoon,Monroe and Reese are about to leave Lucas’s study. In the corridor, through the half-open door, I hear their voices, low and clipped, wrapping up the briefing. I wait until their footsteps recede before I push the door open.
Lucas is at his desk. The lineage book is open in front of him. A pencil rests under his fingers, and his eyes are fixed on a point past the page, in the middle distance behind the desk lamp. He does not look up as I cross the room.
I come around the desk and sit on the edge of it in front of him without invitation.
His head lifts.
“Stop reading,” I tell him.
He leans back in the chair and drags both hands down his face. The skin under his eyes looks bruised, and there’s a small, tight movement in my chest at the sight.
“I keep trying to imagine her,” he murmurs against his palms.
“Meera?”
“The one before her. Or whoever wrote down the first name.” He drops his hands. “Four generations of witches walking into a human town to confirm the death of a stranger’s mate. Coming home and crossing him out. The discipline of that, Sienna. I cannot put a face on her.”
Lucas closes the book. He reaches across the desk and pulls my hand into his. His thumb finds the inside of my wrist, where the pulse runs close to the skin, and he lifts it to his mouth. He kisses it slowly, once, with his eyes closed.
