A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(33)

“I was driving past Saint’s house on the way here,” Becket explains as he walks over to the drinks bar, “and it just seemed like such a waste not to have us all back together again.”

I don’t need to remind him that the last time Saint was here—yesterday—it ended with Saint fleeing out the side door like a fugitive. Becket clearly remembers this, and it’s in the look he gives Auden before he starts pouring a glass of wine. A calm, blue-eyed gaze that says behave.

I still have an arm around Saint’s waist, and Auden’s eyes light on it as he says, “I think I’ll have a drink too.” And he abruptly turns and walks away to the drinks bar.

“That went better than I thought,” Saint mutters to me, and I laugh. He looks surprised, as if he weren’t trying to be funny, but my laugh seems to make him happier. He studies my face for a minute; his own mouth eases around the edges a little.

I want to run the tip of my tongue over his lip ring so badly that I’m worried I might do it, everything else be damned. Just once, just to feel if it’s cool, if it’s warm, if his lip gives under the pressure of my kiss.

“Why did you come here if you thought it would go badly?” I say, trying to tear my eyes away from his mouth.

“I wanted to see you,” he says. “I shouldn’t, because—well, I just shouldn’t.”

He said something like this the other night, like he thinks Auden will fire me if I’m too friendly with him. Which is unfair to Auden, because he may be a spoiled princeling, but I don’t think he’s vindictive. Or at least if he is, he saves all his vindictiveness for Saint.

I’m about to say just that when Saint reaches up and brushes the hair away from my face, his fingertips ghosting warmth across my skin. His dark eyes follow his own movements, the path of his fingers along my temple, the places where the silk of my hair sifts through his fingers. A slow-rolling shiver moves down my spine, settles low in my belly.

“When Becket gave me the choice to either see you or not see you, I realized it wasn’t a choice at all,” he says, his eyes still on his fingers in my hair. He meets my gaze. “I had to see you again,” he finishes simply. “I had to.”

“And Auden?” I ask, and when I ask it, I mean what about Auden, I mean is it okay that you have to see him in order to see me?

But that’s not what Saint hears, I think, because he closes his eyes for the briefest of seconds, and when he opens them again, they’re full of deep, frozen pain. “I lost the right to have any choices about Auden a very long time ago,” he says.

My lips are parted. I have a thousand things I want to say, a thousand questions I want to ask, but nothing will come, nothing makes it out.

Saint misinterprets my silence for something judgmental. “Don’t worry,” he says, dropping his hand away from my face and looking across the room at the fireplace, where the lord of Thornchapel himself leans against the mantel and scowls into the fire. “Auden’s been punishing me for it ever since.”





Dinner is predictably awkward, but the more we eat, the more we drink, and the more we drink, the looser the noose around the room becomes. The conversation slides from the usual dinner chatter to something freer and more intense. Becket and Rebecca begin debating the purpose of labyrinths and mazes and whether they have any secular use, and Delphine waves us around the room like we’re mannequins so she can take pictures of us or the food or the fire or whatever strikes her fancy.

Before Abby leaves for the evening she brings in a tray of delicious little tarts and hot coffee and tea, and clears away the old food. The fire continues to burn, and outside the massive library windows, the wind whips through trees and a cold rain begins spattering at the glass.

I go over to one of the long tables to refill my drink, but I’m arrested by the sight, by the black trees and the black rain. By the contrast of the winter night with our fire and food and loud debates about architecture.

“You need something stronger than coffee now,” Rebecca says from behind me, and when I turn, she hands me a glass of something amber-colored. I take a deep gulp and then sputter helplessly.

“A nice Speyside,” she says as I cough. “It’ll warm you up faster than anything else.”

I take a second, more cautious sip. “Thanks.”

Both of us angle toward the rest of the room, watching Saint and Auden doing their very best not to watch each other. Watching Delphine animatedly tell a story while an amused Becket teases her.

“I don’t know what Becket was thinking,” Rebecca says, quietly so that only I can hear. “Bringing that boy here. He hurt Auden so badly, so fucking badly, and I was the one who found him. I was the one who had to—”

She breaks off, clearing her throat. “Well, I haven’t forgotten what happened, even if I did promise Auden I wouldn’t do anything about it.”

I glance over at her, her profile lovely against the rainy glass behind her, her high cheekbones and delicate jawline burnished with the fire’s light. She looks every inch the Domme right now as she gazes over at the others. Serene and perceptive.

If anyone would tell me the story, it would be her.

“What happened between them?” I ask.

She turns that Domme’s gaze on me, and like any good submissive, I instinctively lower my eyes, then raise them back up when I catch myself. That earns a small laugh out of her at least.