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“If wehadn’tbeen there for her, she’d be chained to that prick of a fiancé now,” Damon had said, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “If you think Rose would prefer that to dying, you haven’t been paying much attention.”
“I know,” Seth had said to both of them. “I know.” He’d shoved his hand back through the close-cropped waves of his hair, looking so grim I’d wanted to shake him.
Rose had magic. She had four consorts’ worth of magic—four incredibly devoted consorts. What she needed was us holding her up, not fretting about things we couldn’t change anyway.
So I’d shooed them out of the gallery and gotten to work on the project she’d given me.
I brushed my fingers over the little bulge in my hip pocket as I came to a stop by the towers. It had taken me half the night to perfect the pendant I’d made for her, but I didn’t think anyone could look at it and decipher the glyph hidden within the lines and colors now. I’d picked vibrant yellows and greens and blues—light and life. That was the kind of energy I wanted to give her.
My gaze fell on the arch between the towers. I couldn’t see the log that lay in the clearing beneath it, the log where we’d eased Rose down that night and she’d pulled me to her—
I was half hard just remembering it.
Twigs crackled in the forest behind me. I turned to see Rose herself emerging from the depths of the woods. A leaf had gotten tangled in her black hair. As she joined me, I reached out and plucked it free. Then I bent in to kiss her.
There was something magical, no question, about the way her body instinctively melded into mine. About the thump of her heart that seemed to echo my own pulse. Her fingers slid around the back of my neck, gentle but insistent, and I kissed her harder. That faintly sweet lilac smell drifted off her, mingling with the taste of strawberries in her mouth.
She drew back far too soon. “Did you finish it already?” she asked, worry crinkling the corners of her eyes. My stomach squeezed, seeing that concern. Goddamn it, if I could have blotted that fiancé of hers right out of the picture of her life, I’d have done it in an instant. No one should be allowed to make her this scared—scared enough that she’d felt she needed a permanent shield against him.
“I knew you wanted it as soon as possible,” I said. “He hasn’t hassled you again, has he?”
She shook her head. “I managed to keep my distance all last night. But he’s been watching me like he’s figuring out his best strategy for trying again.”
“I hope this works to repel him, then,” I said, pulling out the pendant. I’d fixed it on a fine gold chain.
Rose’s eyes widened when I handed it to her. She traced her thumb over the swirls of color, like bits of filigree bleeding into each other. “Jin,” she said. “It’s gorgeous.”
I had to grin. “I’m glad you think so.”
“Not that I’m surprised,” she said, grinning back.
There. That was the Rose I wanted to see. The Rose she deserved to be, happy and carefree.
Her cares came back a moment later with a darkening of her expression.
“Your art has always been so important to you,” she said. “You mean to keep working on it for the rest of your life, don’t you?”
Was she thinking about how short that life might be if we were found out? I grasped her hand, closing her fingers over the pendant. “My heart’s in my work almost as much as it’s with you,” I said. “The way you can call up feelings, thoughts, with the right combination of colors and textures… But there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to keep at it.”
Her mouth twisted. “I want to think that. I started wondering, last night… if maybe we should all just run away. Find some place to live where no one will know us, where the witching folk will never find me. Does that sound silly?”
Oh, my Briar Rose. “Not at all,” I said gently. “But I think you deserve more than that. This estate is yours. You shouldn’t have to run away from your home.”
“You and the other guys shouldn’t have to worry that one careless comment could ruin everything,” she said. “I don’t want you to have to live the rest of your life being constantly on guard. I doubt you’ll create very inspired art feeling like that.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” I said. “Besides, your dad managed to find your stepmother how quickly? And she’s just one woman. Do you really think we could hide and feel completely secureanywhere?”
“No.” Her brow furrowed. “That’s why I stopped wondering. I just wish I had a better solution already. I guess this is a tiny start.” She squeezed the pendant and glanced around. “This is the best place I can think of to cast the spell. I want to imbue it with all the power I can.”
“Do you mind if I watch?” I asked.
She hesitated, just for a second. “Of course not,” she said, with a little laugh, but maybe those old instincts, the ones that had told her she had to hide what she really was from us when we were kids, still had a hold over her. I hoped she’d be free of that worry soon too.
The warm breeze drifted around us as she stepped into a clear space amid the trees and foliage. Her skirt rustled around her knees. She clasped the pendant in both hands and raised them up toward the sparkling of sunlight showing through the leaves overhead. Then she started to cast her spell.
The best I could describe it was a dance. Precise but graceful movements, flowing from one position into the next, in time with a music I could almost hear just watching her. I could feel it, deep in the center of me where I’d felt the bond between us snapping into place: the tremor of charged magic.
I’d be damned if that didn’t turn me on too.
