An Enchantment of Ravens(35)

“You’re looking very well to me. If you insist that you’re in pain, however, I ought to take another look at your wound without your glamour on. The inflammation may have returned.”

His eyes narrowed. Then he extended his hand. Unthinkingly I reached for it to help pull him up. But as soon as our skin touched he clasped his fingers around mine and pulled, and I landed on his chest with a thump. The coat drifted down after, settling neatly over our legs. Rook gave me a charming smile. I glared back at him.

“I’ll use iron on you!”

“If you must,” he said sufferingly.

“I really will!”

“Yes, I know.”

I became conscious of the fact that his chest felt very solid, and I was straddling his slim waist. Our uneven breathing rocked us against each other slightly. Molten heat pooled in me again, ebbing lower.

I didn’t use iron on him.

Instead, I leaned down and kissed him.





Ten


THIS IS a terrible decision, I thought. I’ve gone completely mad and I need to stop this instant.

But then Rook made a sound and parted his lips beneath mine, and I’m afraid that for a time I ceased listening to my brain entirely.

I lost myself in the hypnotizing press of give and take, the odd but intoxicating feeling of joining my mouth with his. Soon I felt Rook’s palm slide down my back, and in one graceful, powerful movement he swept me up in his hands. I automatically tightened my legs around his waist and hooked my arms around his neck, boggling at how high off the ground he’d lifted me. It was almost like riding him as a horse again—a thought that made me turn red as a tulip. He took a few steps across the clearing, and a tree’s rough bark pressed against my back. That touch was enough to jostle me partway back into reality.

Even though Emma had been careful to educate me on the specifics of this sort of thing (or perhaps because she had, quite frankly), a surge of nervousness warred with desire in the pit of my stomach. Noticing how rigid I’d gone, Rook drew back. He waited, his breath soft on my face. His lips were flushed, almost bruised. I wondered what I looked like and, recalling the pimple, instantly wished I hadn’t.

“Um,” I said. “I’ve never . . . that is to say . . .” I completely lost my nerve. “Are your teeth still sharp, technically? Because they don’t feel sharp at all. I don’t understand how that works.”

He was breathing heavily, eyes unfocused. He frowned a little, coming back to himself as he processed my anxious carrying on. “I’ve never made a study of glamour’s properties. All I know is that it isn’t the same as shapeshifting, but it’s more than a mere illusion. I won’t harm you.” My reluctance dawned on him. His shoulders stiffened. “If you’d rather not—”

I swooped in and silenced him with another kiss. I moved too fast and our noses bumped together, which hurt a bit, but he didn’t seem to mind. My heart still hammered like a frightened rabbit’s. By reflex I tightened my fingers in his hair, and again he made that noise—the one that pulled me taut as a bowstring inside. I flexed against him without meaning to, and both heard and felt his braced palm slide down the bark next to my ear.

Fascinated, I studied him. He met my eyes. I gave his hair a second, experimental tug. He let his head fall a little to the side, in the direction of my hand. Somehow I knew what that meant: he’d give me complete control if I wanted it. A rush of pure unadulterated want knocked the air out of my lungs and, ironically, knocked some sense into my brain.

“We can’t do this!” I exclaimed. “We’re stopping. Now. Oh, god.”

I loosened my legs and gripped his shoulders to let myself down. He got the hint before I took an ignoble drop, and lowered me to the ground. His face had gone a bit gray, and his expression was stricken.

I demanded of him, “Have we broken the Good Law? Did that count?”

“No,” he replied hoarsely. “Not unless—” He halted and shook his head. “No,” he repeated, in a surer voice. He cleared his throat. “If fair folk and mortals broke the Good Law every time we—ah—kissed each other, suffice it to say there’d be few of us left.”

“Sex really does turn people into imbeciles,” I said, amazed at having committed yet another base human error to which I’d somehow thought myself immune. “Rook, we can’t do that again. I’m really using the iron next time. That isn’t a bluff.”

White-lipped, he went over and claimed his coat from the ground. “Good,” he said. And he seemed to mean it.

I tugged my dress straight, tightened my bootlaces, and yanked a bunched-up stocking back over my knee, wishing I had more to do to keep my hands busy so I didn’t have to look at him. What I’d just done was so unlike me I could hardly believe it. The autumnlands’ magic wasn’t affecting me in some way, was it? I couldn’t shake the feeling that something dark lurked at the periphery of my recent memories—an unsettling experience I’d forgotten somehow, like a bad dream. And as soon as I thought that, one of the shadows that had been haunting me all morning sharpened into focus.

“Hemlock!” I blurted out.

Rook whipped around with his sword drawn.

“No, not here. Not right now, at least. I think I saw her last night, or maybe I just dreamed about her.” Already I’d begun doubting myself. The image of Hemlock perched in the branches was intangible, slipping away the harder I held on. “I’m not sure. If it had been real, I wouldn’t have just rolled over and gone back to sleep.”