CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

If I had known the night Thoran put me in his lap and tore my world apart for what felt like hours that I wouldn't see him again for two weeks after, I probably would have begged him to take me to his bed for the rest of the evening. But that was our fate immediately the next morning.

He arrived at my door, a delicious sight of hard, toned muscles clad in a soft, white dress shirt and black trousers. His hot, greedy eyes took me in the way they always did with a ravenous hunger that made my toes curl in my flats.

"Hello love," he'd drawled with the warm husky rasp of someone who just got out of bed.

But his dark curls were damp. His lethal jaw shaved smooth and his smell ... it circled my throat until I couldn't breathe anything but spices and musk and man.

God, he was beautiful, and I wanted him so badly I could hardly contain the urge to just jump him.

He'd broken something in me.

Maybe he'd fixed it?

It was impossible to tell when that faint tickle I used to get at the back of my belly was now a screaming demon begging for him to touch me.

I blushed at the raw ferocity of my own rampant desires and replied softly, "Hi."

He claimed ... dominated the single foot between us and stood over me, a commanding force of blinding beauty with eyes that practically stripped me naked on the spot.

His arm snaked around my waist, and I was lured into the warm heat of his chest. His face found its favorite spot against my neck, and he breathed me in.

"I woke up all night reaching for you," he murmured into my skin. "I could smell your pussy on my hands. In my mouth. On my fucking dick where you were grinding your little ass on him all night." His deep, guttural growl vibrated against my frantic pulse. "You have no idea how badly I want to rip your clothes off right now, spread you across the bed, and eat your pussy until your legs are trembling and you're begging me to stop."

My knees quivered at the vibrant warning in his gruff voice. My stomach seized. My core that had been wet since I opened my eyes panged. Viciously. Brutally. I moaned and pressed my face into his shoulder.

"I would let you," I rasped into the soft material of his top.

His arms crushed my bones. Folding me too tightly into him. Hurting, but still not close enough.

"Fuck, Blue." The doorframe came up against my back. His knee wedged between my thighs, and I regretted the long skirt I'd chosen that morning. "The things I want to fucking do to you ... the things I want to make you do..." he inhaled deep and drew back his head to bore into my eyes. "We'll need ice packs."

I burst out laughing and got a kiss on the tip of my nose. I kept my face up, hoping the lips mere inches from mine would finally dip just a little lower...

Cyrus appeared in the corridor and took him, and I didn't see Thoran again outside of rushed dinners that also mainly consisted of business. Even the odd moment our eyes had a chance to brush, it was from a distance as he was being pulled away.

I was raised for this life.

I was trained to accept that I would seldom see my partner for days, weeks, even months at a time. That was the catch. But it was never supposed to matter. I was supposed to be with someone like Jarrett whose absence would be a relief. A gift.

But I wanted to see Thoran.

I wanted his arms around me.

I wanted our walks after dinner.

I wanted our conversations and the way he made me laugh.

But also, I wanted his lips on my neck and his knee between my thighs.

I wanted his fingers rolling over my clit and down to my center.

I wanted his dark and dirty whispers in my ear, painting a world of possibilities.

I missed having another person to be with, but loneliness was no stranger. Even Malcolm only ever had a few spare minutes to spend with me. I grew up in my room watching the world pass outside my window and in the pages of my books.

I pressed the hard cover of a book of poetry into my chest as I watched the clouds drift across the first clear sky I'd seen since my arrival. The light blue yawned into the distance, teasing the naked branches below. It wasn't completely spring yet. The ground was a soggy terrain of sludge, but it was dry. Drier than it had been in days.

I looked down at the book in my hand. The black cloth with the gold script barely had any weight but held so much within its faded pages. There was a tiny tear at the top corner where I could just make out the cardboard underneath.

My room at Lacroix draped around me, heavy with silence. Shadows had begun to pool in the corners where the daylight didn't reach.

It was much cleaner since my initial arrival. I swept the floors and washed the windows. It wasn't something I did at Mother's house, but I found I enjoyed the routine of making my own bed and paying attention to the little things like dusting the large, ornate portraits lining the far wall and changing the linen.

Thoran had a flock of men in white overalls March through the place twice a week to clean everywhere else. Even the chandeliers were dusted and freed of their cobwebs.

The place resembled nothing like it once was.

Book in hand, I pushed off my bed and slipped my feet into my flats. I located my long, wool coat and decided to take myself for a walk. Normally, I wandered the familiar corridors Thoran had shown me, but they all circled back to the office and the magnificent doors were forever shut now. I wasn't even allowed inside. Vance had made it painfully clear that he did not trust me, and I had no business sitting in.

He was right.

It wasn't my place. I had no useful information to add and had no interest in listening to endless chat about whatever it was they did.

But I tiptoed near the doors. Not to listen but to see if I could catch a glimpse of Thoran.

The barriers stayed firm. Not a peep could be heard.

I sighed and hugged my book closer.

"Miss Smith?"

I spun at the crack of words and sound splintering the echoing chamber around me. I faced the man bleeding out of the shadows as if created by them to stand before me in attire as dark as his hair.

"Mr. Cyrus." I put a hand over my startled heart. "I didn't see you."

He crept close. Large frame dominating the wide corridor. "Did you need something?"

I shook my head. "I wanted to take a walk. I was hoping Thoran was finished."

Eyes that were normally the navy blue of the night sky drifted up over my head to the door just behind me. "It won't be for a while still."

Biting back the disappointment pushing down on my excitement at seeing Thoran, I offered the other man a small smile. "I see. Thank you."

I started further along the hall. Following the familiar path towards the courtyard. I hadn't taken a dozen steps when Cyrus's voice brought me up.

"Don't wander. It's not safe."

I assured him I understood and continued.

I wasn't entirely honest with him. The last few days out of sheer boredom, I had taken to exploring the endless maze of corridors and rooms. I avoided anywhere the cleaners had dusted, an indication in my mind that those rooms were occupied.

The abandoned places were cluttered spaces brimming with boxes, old furniture, and the overpowering stench of mold and water damage. The whole place reeked of swamp.

But there were the occasional rooms with wardrobes brimming with clothes that belonged in a museum and gorgeous, leather chests with bronze locks and tidy labels. I recognized a few of the names from the wall of portraits.

I told myself they wouldn't mind. I wasn't normally a nosey person, but the stories confined in the cases fascinated me. It was things Thoran could probably tell me but learning them through little pieces left behind just felt exciting.

I was careful not to touch any of the lace or satin folded neatly amongst tissue. It all seemed so fragile I didn't want to wreck anything. But I would thumb carefully through journals and old photos. I would examine Vittoria's elegant bone structure and Delphine's golden eyes.

Thoran's eyes.

It was hours of time that kept me busy until dinner where I would wash off the dust and grime and hurry to the dining room in hopes that Thoran would finally be free.

But the day was too nice. Too inviting. I didn't want to be closed up with memories and dust.

Mother didn't allow us in the gardens. I wasn't allowed out of the house unless I was being taken somewhere by Mother to entertain potential allies.

To distract a rival.

My job was always to create a diversion while my parents got something out of someone else. I was the pawn. The shiny object to get pulled out when it was necessary and tucked away when I was no longer needed.

I got sunlight from my window seat. The breeze from the open window. I touched grass when there was a garden party at one of Father's client's houses. But I often wondered what it would be like to read outside. To be left alone in peace without worrying I wasn't sitting properly or behaving appropriately. A place like Lacroix House was the ideal backdrop to my quest.

Driven by my newfound endeavor, I slipped out a set of side doors and out into the afternoon chill.

The grounds of Lacroix House unfurled in every direction, a landscape of wild brush kept barely at bay from overtaking the house. The winding path surrounding the house had overgrown weeds breaking through uneven stones and a tangle of gnarled branches twisting across the trail.

My gaze lingered over the glass and stone fa?ade of the house, and I tried to recall where I was as I made my way towards the back. The house was too large to get my bearings, but I knew if I could just find the lake, I would have a better chance.

Determined, I picked my way carefully across slabs of rock slick with moss and puddles of stagnant rain. The scent of wet dirt and foliage hung heavy with the pungent stench of swamp, lake water, and something I couldn't put my finger on but reminded me of the weeks leading up to a big event when Mother would hire a crew of cleaners and the entire house would stink of ammonia.

I cradled my book closer, partially considering turning back when the path became overrun with tangled branches forming a web of sharp thorns knotted together before a high, arched gateway.

It was curiosity that propelled me forward.

It was the need to know what lay on the other side.

It was the flicker of a figure drifting out of sight when I glanced away that I would have missed if I hadn't just caught the movement out of the corner of my eye.

"Hey!" I called, hurrying forward to peer past the wall. "Hello? Can you tell me if...?"

I let my words trail off when only my voice echoed around me, and no one came to investigate. Thoran's guards left me alone, barely acknowledging my existence, but I doubted they would blatantly ignore me. My only other guess was a trick of the light or a bird.

Taking a deep breath, I crouched. Kept my head down and squeezed through a tiny section near the bottom where the thorns hadn't yet found each other. Unforgiving barbs caught my coat. Tangled into my hair. Clawed at my face. One cut deep enough that when I emerged on the other side, droplets of crimson stained my fingertips when I touched my cheek.

"Damn it," I mumbled, lips turning down.

There was no way Thoran was going to miss the scratch. He would ask how I got it, and I knew I couldn't lie.

I'm not in the garden,I reminded myself. He said I could go anywhere, except the garden.

But I had no idea where the garden with the silver roses even was. The night I arrived, it had been pitch-black, and I'd been running wild and frantic. Even when Thoran hauled me away, I couldn't have found my way back even if I tried.

Still, I told myself that if I saw a garden, I would turn the other way. My goal was the lake and nothing else.

Satisfied with my own plan, I stepped through the archway and found myself lost on a silver path surrounded by walls of brittle shrubbery. It wound in and parted in two different directions about six feet in. Part of my brain, the part not in awe of my surroundings, was more certain than ever that the figure I thought I'd seen had in fact been a figment of my imagination; the direction I was sure it had taken went straight into a short alcove and a dead end. There was no way a person could simply vanish.

I glanced back at the archway and my last chance to go back.

The open maw seemed to be urging me to leave. To run. But I'd already gone that far and had the battle scars to prove it. Leaving seemed so cowardly when I was fine. It wasn't as if I could get lost. Thoran would notice my absence and he'd come to find me.

Comforted in that knowledge, I pushed forward. I followed the curving path through towering greenery broken up by the occasional fountain or statue. A marble carving of two little girls holding wicker baskets nearly cost me ten years of my life when I rounded a bend and came face to face with their blank, milky eyes.

"Oh my God!" I gasped, hand clutching my chest where my heart had nearly leapt out.

The pair stayed still and silent as I scooted around them and continued.

I found a well, moss covered and endless as I peered over the edge into a dark abyss. A hollow hum seemed to come from somewhere deep at its core. Parts of a wheel and bucket remained mounted to the sides, but the pieces lay in splinters across the path. Nature had already begun to take claim of the wood. Weeds and decay fused it in place.

"Hello?" I called into the void.

My voice tumbled into the darkness and reverberated back to me, tinny and warped. The unnatural cadence of it had me drawing back and away.

Something snapped behind me.

The distinct crack of a twig splintering beneath an approaching weight.

I spun, already expecting another person, and finding an empty path.

"Hello?" I ventured.

An eerie silence crept into the clearing with me, distorted only by a ping ... a plop of something moving in the belly of the well.

Heart palpitating, skin both chilled and sweaty, I hurried away without looking back. My feet quickened until I was practically sprinting, taking random curves, and dodging the unseeing eyes of weeping angels. I didn't stop until I was sure I'd put as much distance between me and that well as possible.

Panting slightly, I slowed as I came to a break in the maze and took it. The opening offered freedom and escape, and I didn't hesitate.

Solid ground vanished.

Stone became liquid as my feet sank to the ankles in murky sludge. My cry of panic went unheard as I tried to scramble back. The muck claimed my right shoe and I stood a moment, balanced on one foot, debating whether or not I was willing to reach in and rescue it.

I wasn't in the lake, but a whole field submerged in water as if flooded. I whined deep in my throat, knowing I couldn't stand there forever, and I couldn't leave without my shoes.

Accepting my fate, I sunk a hand into the water and hooked a finger into the slipper. I drudged it out and waded my way back to the maze and the safety of the path.

Maybe it was time to turn back, I thought miserably to myself. This had clearly been a terrible idea and I wasn't sure I wanted to continue. Even then, standing in there, freeing sludge out of my shoes, I could barely make out the tops of Lacroix House in the distance.

How far had I gone that a building the size of Lacroix House was a mere outline against the horizon?

Frantic, I shook out the rest of the water and started my way back but stopped.

The path was different.

Maybe I hadn't been paying attention, or maybe I'd taken a different turn somewhere, but there was a bench rotting to one side and I had no memories of passing it.

Willing myself not to panic, I kept going, certain that if I moved towards Lacroix House, I would eventually find a way out.

Regretting all my choices leading to that moment, I wove my way forward, eyes scanning for familiar markers and not seeing any. I even paused in the center of a four way and bit back a sob as I realized I never passed a four way on my way through.

"Thoran..." I moaned weakly, terrified I was lost in that place with the thing following me and the eyes I could feel burning into the back of my neck.

Desperate to get back, I pushed forward. My shoes slipped around my feet. Water squished between my toes. The back rubbed against the damp skin of my ankles. My skirt, wet and heavy with filthy water slapped and clung to my legs with every stride. I held tight to the book digging into my palm and clasped it to my chest as I tried to find my way out.

It was several minutes of wandering that I began to notice the dip in sunlight. The heavier canopy of shadows following at my heels. The sky overhead was no longer clear or blue but dull around the edges where the night had begun to bleed towards me.

Oh God, I couldn't stay there overnight.

I couldn't stay there when it was too dark to see the things shuffling through those corridors with me.

My heart was hammering even as I fought not to cry. The burn was jagged at my throat, stinging my eyes.

"Thoran, where are you?" I sniffled.

As if summoned by the sheer strength of my prayers, I heard him. I heard the sweet bellow of his voice carrying across the settling cold and dimming light.

"Naya!"

"Thoran!" Heart leaping in my chest, I gathered up my ruined skirt and began to sprint in the direction of the voice yelling, "Here! I'm here!"

The voice, distinctly male, painfully close, shouted back, "Naya, where are you?"

I opened my mouth to call back when a chilling bolt of horror slammed into me.

My entire body catapulted to such an abrupt standstill, I nearly crashed to the floor. I barely managed to remain upright even as I stumbled backwards, away from the voice that was so much like Thoran's my brain couldn't register that it couldn't be. My chest was no longer alight with joy but screamed in terror as I stared towards the bend only feet away. Feet from whoever was just on the other side.

Whoever that was, wasn't Thoran, because Thoran didn't know my name.