Adrian chuckled and took a step closer, hands coming up to cup my face.
“If it helps you obtain your greatest desire, then you will learn,” he said and bent to kiss my forehead. My face warmed as his lips touched my skin, and when he pulled away, I stared into his eyes.
“Do you have your greatest desire?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, his thumb shifting to brush over my lips.
“Then what are you looking for now?” I whispered.
“Anything that makes us more powerful,” he said. Then he kissed me, and I opened for him, his tongue plying my mouth as he bent over me before lifting me onto the desk. I reached for his hands as they gathered handfuls of my skirt, stopping him.
“I have more to tell you,” I said.
“Does it involve how you would like me to fuck you?” he asked, kissing along my neck. I let him, allowing my head to fall to one side.
“No,” I breathed.
“Then I do not wish to hear it,” he said.
“I think you will want to hear this,” I said.
Finally, he paused and pulled away, meeting my gaze.
“Ana and I are going to cast a containment spell for the crimson mist,” I said. “We have only a short while to prepare. We must cast tomorrow night.”
He studied me for a moment. “Explain.”
I told him about how Ana and I had arrived at our plan and how we needed to cast beneath the moonlight in the water. I also told him about Lothian and Zann’s theory regarding the mist and how it might have transformed into the blood plague, which unsurprisingly he already seemed to know.
“Where will you cast?” he asked.
I noted how he spoke—as if he already approved.
“Ana says there is a lake fed by a spring.”
“Galat,” he said, pausing, as if he were recalling a memory. “We used to call it Green Lake because of its color. It is near Gal.”
“Do you think it is safe?” I asked.
“The lake or your plan?”
“I suppose I wonder about both.”
He tipped my head back. “I will not let you go to Galat without an escort.”
“I did not expect to go without you,” I said.
He seemed relieved, and I guessed that he had anticipated an argument, but I did not wish to do this without Adrian near, even though I would have Ana and Violeta.
“As far as your plan, are there consequences if it goes wrong?”
“It cannot really go wrong. It can just fail,” I said, especially if we did not have enough strength between the three of us to call Ravena’s magic to us. “But…if it goes right…then it is possible I will have the ability to control the mist, possibly perhaps also the blood plague.”
Though, it was hard to say how the magic would work once it was contained.
Despite this, the thought still thrilled me, especially given Adrian’s words the night before.
There is no one else here to protect you.
If I had Ravena’s magic and learned how to shift with only a thought, I would never need protection again. I wanted that, desperately.
Adrian was quiet for a moment, and then he brushed his thumb over my cheek, pressing into me, still wedged between my thighs.
“I want that for you too,” he said.
I met his gaze, and before I could confront him about listening to my thoughts, his mouth closed over mine once again.
This time, I did not stop him.
Eighteen
Isolde
I could not remember a time as Yesenia that I felt uncertain about a spell, but I felt uncertain about this one, though we had done so much to prepare over the last two days. We had meditated, drawn warm energy into our bodies as we chanted, matching our words and cadence like a well-rehearsed song. The more we practiced, the more hopeful and confident Violeta and Ana grew.
On a technical level, we were ready, but the closer we came to nightfall, the more I felt like something was wrong. I did not share my feelings because I could not pinpoint why I felt this way. Perhaps it was only anxiety, but the dread inside me only deepened as the sun began to set.
I had just begun lacing my boots when Adrian entered my chamber.
He was dressed in black, his overcoat threaded through with gold, and he had tied his hair at the nape of his neck. The angles of his face were harsh in the warm light. His serious expression only added to my turmoil.
Perhaps I was just too desperate for this to work.
Adrian knelt and took over lacing my boots, his fingers working fast.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
Frantic, I thought.
“What if this doesn’t work?” I asked.
“Then we will try something else,” he said, echoing my words, though I wasn’t certain it was so simple. Even if we managed to succeed with our spell, would Ravena retaliate?
“What if we cannot stop her?” I asked.
It was likely that Ravena had the bones of my coven, and I knew she would use them for their magic, to heighten the strength of her army, an army that could literally be anything—another mist, another monster, another disease, or something we had yet to see.
“If you do not think we should do this…”
“I do not doubt the spell,” I said quickly.
His brows furrowed. “Then what is it?”
I stared at him, trying to think of words to use to explain how I was feeling, but I couldn’t.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Adrian’s hand tangled in my hair, and his head rested against mine. “It will be okay.”
Our lips met, and it was a simple touch, a soft caress. The second time was harder, the third deeper. A familiar and fluid heat gathered between my legs, and as much as I wanted to press them together, Adrian kept them apart, his body wedged between them as he kissed me. I pulled at his shirt as he buried his face between my breasts, kissing and nipping through my shirt. Then I stood suddenly, my fingers threading through his hair as he pressed his mouth into my heat, and I gasped at the feel of him sucking my swollen clit through the fabric of my clothes.
Adrian met my gaze from where he knelt on the floor, and I knew we were both unhinged. I could see it in his eyes—he looked the way I felt, but I had enough awareness to worry over this desperation. It was as if I would never have another moment like this in my life.
Adrian’s grip tightened and he pressed a kiss to my stomach, then my hip, then my inner thigh. I kept my hands on his head, preparing to descend into a brief and utter madness, when a knock sounded at the door.
I froze, and even Adrian, who was not usually disturbed by the presence of another, went still.
“My queen,” Violeta called from the other side of the door. “May I come in?”
Adrian and I stared at one another for a brief moment before he rose to his feet, pressed a kiss to my forehead, and turned his back to the door.
I cleared my throat and answered, “Yes, Violeta.”
When she entered the room and I saw her expression, I knew she was just as anxious.
She curtsied.
“I am sorry for interrupting,” she said.
“You aren’t,” I said.
Adrian cleared his throat, and I glared at him, but he wasn’t looking at us. He had moved to the window and stared out into the fading twilight.
“I…wanted to give you something,” she said.