A Stroke Of Midnight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I gazed up at his face, and said, “You’re shielding your magic from me, why?”

“Barely touching, and our magic caused the healing spring to appear and run with water again. What will happen if we do more?”

I studied his face, his eyes, and saw… fear. Not cowardice, but fear of the unknown, and something more. That fear that you feel at the top of the roller coaster, when you’re afraid of it, but excited about it, too. You want to do it, want to give yourself to the experience, but the desire doesn’t make it not frightening. Less frightening, maybe, but not without fear.

“Not to put too fine a point on things,” Rhys said, “but the queen’s summons could come at any time.”

“Not until she’s done torturing Lord Gwennin,” Frost said.

We looked at him. “I met one of the queen’s maids on the way up from the kitchens. She and Ezekiel have taken a personal interest in Gwennin.”

“Poor bastard,” Rhys said.

Even knowing he’d put a spell on me and Biddy, using our human blood against us, I couldn’t do anything but agree with Rhys. Torture was one thing, being at the queen’s mercy was another; to have both her full attention and her pet torturer’s attention, that was an entirely new level of pain. One I had no wish to contemplate.

“But there is a little more time,” Frost said, “that is all I meant.”

I gazed up at Adair. “Lower your shields for me, oak lord. Let your magic call to mine, and make light and shadow dance upon the walls.”

A look of something close to pain filled his eyes. He whispered so low that I think none but me heard. “I am afraid.”

I didn’t ask him what he feared, for to do that would risk the other men realizing what he’d said, and he obviously didn’t want that. “Kiss me, Adair, just a kiss.”

“It will not be just a kiss with you,” he whispered.

I smiled at him. “Do you want me to make this offer to Ivi or Hawthorne instead of you?”

He lowered his face, almost making the top of his head touch my body. “No,” and that was almost a shout. He raised his face to me, and there was that look of determination, anger, pride—all the things you usually saw in his eyes. “No,” he said again, and he let go his shields.



CHAPTER 38

HIS MAGIC TREMBLED ABOVE MINE, SHIVERING OVER MY NAKEDNESS. I writhed under just a touch of his power, and the power wasn’t even manifesting. He had simply stopped shielding as hard as he could. My voice came breathy. “Why does your power feel so different to me?”

He was still just above my body, on hands and toes. He had to swallow twice to say, “Our magic is similar.