“You still haven’t told me what you were looking for.”
Lucan’s voice cut through the charged silence between them, low and even, though his eyes hadn’t left her mouth in several long seconds.
“I already told you.” Ren forced her voice steady.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“You said that about the walk. Not about the locked drawer.” He braced one hand against the desk beside her, effectively caging her against it, the portrait of her old face still lying between them like evidence neither of them could look away from.
“Try again.”
“Does it matter what I say? You’ve already decided I’m lying.”
“I’ve decided you’re interesting.”His voice dropped lower.
“There’s a difference. Try again, Lady Caelia. Why does a pristine Saintess candidate move through a locked study like a gutter thief in the dark?”
Because that’s exactly what I am.
“Perhaps,” she said instead, “I wanted to know more about the man who inspects me every night with his bare hands.”
Something flickered behind his eyes — surprise, maybe, or the ghost of it.
“That’s a bold claim.”
“You’ve been bold with me for three days straight. I’m simply matching your energy.”
“Are you.” His mouth curved, slow and dark, closer now than it had any right to be.
“Then let’s see how far that matching goes.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I don’t believe you.” His free hand came up, tracing one slow line down the side of her throat, and she hated how her pulse leapt to meet it.
“I think you came here looking for something specific. Leverage. Answers. A weapon.”
“And if I did?”
“Then you’re smarter than every other candidate who’s ever stood in this Citadel.” His thumb pressed against her collarbone, right over the place where her pulse hammered loudest.
“And considerably more dangerous.”
“Is that meant to frighten me?”
“No.” His voice had gone rough, close enough now that his breath ghosted across her lips.
“It’s meant to tell you I noticed. And that I don’t particularly mind.”
“You should mind. I broke into your private study.”
“You did.” His hand slid from her collarbone up to cup her jaw, tilting her face into the low light, studying her the way he always did — like a man hunting for a seam in something too perfectly made.
“And instead of calling the guard, I’m standing here wondering what else you’d be willing to steal if I let you close enough.”
Ren’s breath caught.
“That’s a strange thing to admit to a suspected heretic.”
“I’ve admitted stranger things to you this week.” His gaze dropped to her mouth again, lingering, and the air between them thickened until it felt difficult to breathe at all.
“Tell me the truth, Lady Caelia. Just once. I’ll know if you lie.”
“Would you?”
“I always know.” His grip on her jaw tightened, not painful, but absolute, holding her exactly where he wanted her.
“So don’t waste both our time.”
She held his gaze, heart hammering, and reached for the only truth close enough to the real one to be safe.
“I was looking for information. About my own file. About what happens to candidates who fail their inspections.”
It wasn’t a lie.
Not entirely.
Something in his expression shifted, searching her face for the crack that would give the lie away — and finding, apparently, nothing solid enough to accuse her with.
“You could have simply asked me,” he said quietly.
“Would you have told me the truth?”
“No.” A ghost of a smile, sharp and humorless. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“But I’d have respected the asking.”
“Then consider this me learning your preferences.”
“Careful.” His thumb brushed the corner of her mouth, slow, deliberate.
“Learning my preferences tends to end badly for the people who try it.”
“You keep threatening me, Grand Inquisitor. And yet.”
“And yet?”
“And yet you haven’t let go of my face in almost a full minute.”
Something dark and hungry flared behind his eyes at that, like she’d said exactly the wrong thing, or exactly the right one.
His grip on her jaw firmed, tilting her face up another inch, and when he spoke again his voice had dropped to something low and rough enough to make her shiver.
“You’re right,” he said.
“I haven’t.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t know yet.” His gaze dropped to her mouth one final time, lingering there like a man standing at the edge of something he knew he shouldn’t cross.
“You still smell like a grave beneath all that holy light, Lady Caelia. I still don’t know what that means.”
“So find out.”
It was reckless.
It was exactly the kind of thing that could get her burned at the stake if she’d guessed wrong about how far his obsession actually ran.
But some old, defiant part of her — the part that had never once backed down from a fight even with a blade at her throat — refused to let the fear win.
Lucan’s breath went ragged.
“Careful what you offer a starving man,” he murmured, and closed the last inch of distance between them.
His mouth met hers, hard and sudden, and Ren gasped against the kiss as gold light and dark ash sparked violently where their lips connected, a shock of heat and cold tangled together so fierce it stole the breath straight from her lungs.
He caught her bottom lip between his teeth, sharp enough to draw blood — her blood, gold and divine, blooming bright against his tongue.
He froze the instant he tasted it, entire body going rigid.
“There it is,” he breathed against her mouth, voice wrecked.
“There it is.”
He didn’t pull away.
Ren felt him shudder against her mouth, felt the low, broken sound that tore out of his throat as her blood hit his tongue — not pain this time, nothing close to pain.
His hand fisted in her hair, holding her in place like she might vanish if he let go, and when he finally drew back his eyes had changed.
Violet gone molten, pupils blown wide, a thin ring of red creeping in at the edges like embers catching in dry grass.
“Lucan?”
“Say that again.” His voice had dropped to something rough and unrecognizable, stripped of every ounce of Inquisitorial cold he usually wore like armor.
“Say my name again.”
“What’s happening to you?”
“I don’t know.” He pressed two fingers to his own mouth, staring at the gold smeared there like he couldn’t quite believe it was real.
“The pain. The corruption. It’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“For the first time in five years, I can’t feel it.” He looked at her like she’d handed him something he’d stopped believing existed.
“Not the ache in my bones. Not the rot creeping through my chest every time I use my magic. Nothing. Just this.”
“This?”
“This.” His hand slid back into her hair, tilting her face up, and this time when he kissed her it was slower, deeper, deliberate in a way the first kiss hadn’t been — like a man savoring something he was terrified to lose too fast.
Ren’s whole body lit up traitorously, holy light answering the pull of him even as some smaller, wiser part of her screamed that this was exactly how prey got devoured.
She kissed him back anyway, fingers curling into the front of his tunic, and felt him groan low against her mouth like the sound had been dragged out of him against his will. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“Lucan.” She pulled back just far enough to breathe.
“Your eyes.”
“What about them?”
“They’re glowing.”
He blinked, and for a moment something like alarm crossed his face — quickly buried, replaced by that same dark, hungry focus he’d worn since the moment he tasted her blood.
“Does it frighten you?”
“Should it?”
“Probably.” He dragged his thumb along her bottom lip, wiping away the last trace of gold, then brought it to his own mouth and licked it clean without an ounce of shame.
Ren’s breath caught at the sight — utterly obscene, utterly unhinged, nothing like the cold, composed Grand Inquisitor who’d knocked on her door three days ago.
“I want more.”
“More of what? My blood?”
“Everything.” His hand slid to her throat, not choking, just resting there, feeling the pulse hammer beneath his palm.
“I’ve spent five years in constant pain, Lady Caelia. Every hour of every day, rot eating through my chest like acid, and I told myself it was the price of the work. The Ash-Binding demands its due.” His eyes darkened.
“And then you touched me, and for one second, none of it existed.”
“That’s dangerous. For both of us.”
“I know.” He didn’t sound like he cared.
“I don’t think that’s going to stop me.”
“Lucan—”
“Say it like that again.” His grip on her throat tightened, just slightly, just enough to steal her breath.
“I like the sound of my name when it comes out of you scared.”
“I’m not scared.”
“You should be.” His mouth dropped to the curve of her throat, teeth grazing skin without breaking it, a promise rather than a threat.
“I don’t think I know how to stop wanting this now that I’ve had a taste of it. And I’ve never been a man who denies himself things he wants.”
Ren’s pulse hammered under his lips, and she hated — hated — how much of her own reaction wasn’t fear at all.
“What happens now?” she managed.
He drew back slowly, studying her face in the low candlelight, something calculating creeping back behind the hunger in his eyes — the Inquisitor reasserting himself even as the addicted, unraveling man beneath him fought to stay in control.
“Now,” he said quietly, “you go back to your room. Before I do something we’ll both regret.”
“Regret?”
“Or don’t regret at all, which is worse.” His thumb traced one last slow line along her jaw before he finally, finally stepped back, putting space between them that felt like it cost him physical effort.
“Go, Lady Caelia.”
She hesitated at the door, some reckless part of her wanting to stay and see exactly how far his unraveling would go.
But she made herself turn the handle, made herself step out into the cold hallway.
Behind her, she heard him exhale — long, shaking, nothing like the composed monster the entire Citadel feared.
“Lady Caelia.”
She paused.
Looked back.
He stood in the candlelight with gold blood still staining his lips, violet eyes burning that same feral red, watching her like a man who’d just discovered the one thing in the world capable of unmaking him completely.
“Sleep well,” he said softly.
“I doubt I will.”
He lifted his thumb to his mouth one final time, licking the last trace of her blood clean, eyes never leaving hers — and Ren fled down the corridor with her heart slamming against her ribs, unable to tell anymore whether she was running from him, or from how badly some traitorous part of her wanted to turn back around.