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Before, there had been a tourniquet on it. Now his emotions came pouring out of him. The rush of them hit me like a weight, driving the breath from my chest.

He wanted me so much it was excruciating. I could feel his ache to hold me right the way through my body, as strong as my ache to be held. I didn’t understand how he was standing there like a statue, keeping that much passion out of sight.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I had to be certain you wanted my touch,’ Arcturus said quietly. ‘Before I let you understand how much I wanted yours.’

‘You would have known that if you’d let the cord breathe.’ I stared at him. ‘You pushed me away in Venice. I thought you didn’t want to be touched – that or you were angry with me.’

‘Never.’

‘Then why?’

‘Fitzours took your form in my dreamscape,’ he said. I flinched. ‘The first time, I believed he was you, in my exhaustion. I warned you to stay away, betraying the depth of my care for you. He tried to extract information, and when that failed, he preyed on the vulnerability I had revealed. It was a crueller torment than anything else that Nashira could inflict – to hear you taunting me, telling me that you despised me. He tortured me that way until the end, when I was sealed into the coffin.’

Cade had lived alongside me before. He must have observed me with care, allowing him to mimic me.

‘When I saw your face again,’ Arcturus said, ‘I believed that you were Fitzours, returning to goad me. And then Nick was there, and I realised it truly was you I was holding, as if on a waterboard.’‘You didn’t know.’‘I still hurt you. I sensed your fear of me for the first time since Oxford,’ he said. ‘I shielded you from my emotions at the cost of knowing yours. All I could do was interpret your actions. I saw you trying to ease my burden, but every time I came too close to you, you moved away. I had … thought that you no longer wished for the intimacy we shared in Paris.’‘I was trying to give you space. You didn’t explain what you needed, so I had to guess. What was I supposed to think after you cut me off ?’‘You have your own dark room to bear. How could I bring you into mine?’ he said. ‘How could I touch you again, knowing my touch had caused you pain?’

‘A chroí,’ I said, ‘I’m not afraid of you.’

I took him by the hand and pressed it to my heart. As he looked at his own scarred fingers on my skin, I let him sit with my nearness, my pulse rising.

‘It’s easier to live with a dark room if you have company. You taught me that in Paris,’ I said. ‘And I’ve never stopped wanting you, either.’ For a long time, Arcturus just stood there, looking down at me. His other hand came to my waist, and at last, I let myself embrace him.

‘We’re both such fools,’ I said thickly. ‘Maybe we deserve each other.’ I pressed my forehead to his chest. ‘Your dreamscape. The red drapes. How could you have ever felt that safe with me in Oxford?’

Arcturus tipped up my chin, just as another tear seeped down my cheek.

‘For two centuries, my existence was stagnant. I was a shade in Magdalen, following the same paths each night.’ He brushed the tear away. ‘And then you came, angel of vengeance.’

I clung to his shirt. He lifted me on to the counter, and I draped my arms around his neck.

‘The night you left Oxford, I watched my prison burn,’ he said softly, eyes locked on mine. ‘You were in that fire – your wrath, your strength, your refusal to be tamed. And when it finally went out, the world lay absolutely still, just as it did before you came. For some, there is safety in stillness, in certainty. But you have ruined me for stillness, Paige Mahoney.’

An urgent chill was spreading in me, sharpening my senses. Our gazes held for a long moment, and then, all at once, our lips came together.

It was fragile at first, searching and cautious, even as my bolder instincts told me to drag him right on to the counter with me. My entire body revelled in his touch; it reverberated through every inch of my skin, and every part of me remembered. As the kiss deepened, his warm hands went under my singlet, baring the burning skin of my thighs.

‘I want you.’ I breathed the words against his mouth. ‘I want all of you.’

‘Good.’ He looked me in the eyes. ‘I owe you a duet.’

25

DUET

In Ireland, there is a story of the féar gortach, the hungry grass. It grows in all manner of places, sown by the wandering souls of the starved. If you step on that cursed ground, you will never be sated. No matter how much you eat, you will feel empty for the rest of your days.

I had wished that eternal pain on the soldiers. And yet I carried it myself, in so many ways, deep in my bones. A hunger for justice. A need to be seen. Most of all, a yearning for home.

But I was still far away from that land, and martlets could have no home but each other.

Arcturus had lit a fire in his room. In Paris, we had been in the dark, with only the waning moon to reveal us. This time, I wanted to see all of him.

I had rarely been able to dwell on his body. His face, yes – I must have spent hours trying to read it – but most of the time, he covered the rest of him, leaving me to imagine. Now I watched as he undressed.

The glow of the fire limned his powerful frame. By the time he stood naked before me, my skin was so hot, I thought I would burstinto flame when he touched me. I drank in his defined muscles and the pure artistry of his chest and shoulders, too aware of my own shape, trying my utmost to keep my eyes above his waist. I wondered if all Rephs emerged with that much strength, or if he worked for it.