Page 54 of Soulbound

"I take it your acquaintance with Lady Beaumont is not a happy one."

She raped me. Sebastian ran a hand over his mouth instead, swallowing down the bile. Worse than that, she got a reaction from me. "No."

"Do you want me to evict her from the manor?"

The offer shocked him a little. He barely knew this brother. All his attention had been focused upon Bishop, and Lucien... Lucien had more cause to hate him than even Bishop did. "Won't it cause a commotion?"

"Probably." Lucien shrugged.

"But isn't tonight meant to allay the Order's concerns? Won't it fracture Ianthe's support base if they see us casting one of them out?"

"Haven't you heard? I'm the mad, bad Earl of Rathbourne, fresh out of Bedlam. They'll expect that sort of thing from me." Lucien's amber eyes locked on his. "And the Order's not as unstable as all that. Ianthe's worried, for she wants everything to be perfect. Yes, it will cause gossip, but I can quell it. Or threaten to set Lady E on any rabble-rousers."

"Thank you." He barely breathed the words. The bubbles in the champagne fizzed down his dry throat. "I wouldn't take your eyes off Lady Beaumont though. She dabbles in the Black Arts, and she's enjoyed my mother's games in the past."

"I won't." Lucien hesitated. "I don't know everything that's happened to you, but I'm an Empath. Your emotions when you saw Lady Beaumont... they sliced right through me. I would have said you were screaming on the inside."

Sebastian cringed internally.

"She was my mother's ally," he said hoarsely, looking across the gardens. "She did nothing more than any other young lad might have dreamed of."

"But you didn't."

"I never had a choice in the matter," he said softly, oh so softly. "They used to have auctions...." He couldn't say any more, but there was one question that was bothering him. "Why are you doing this? I helped kidnap your daughter."

Lucien remained silent. Then a hand clapped on his shoulder and squeezed. "Did I ever tell you about my father?"

"Which one?" he asked. For Lucien was secretly Drake's illegitimate child.

"Lord Rathbourne," Lucien replied. "The earl despised me for most of my life, and it wasn't until recently—a year or so ago—that I finally realized why. Rathbourne claimed he needed my help to perform a great working. He'd neglected me for so many years it never crossed my mind to question him. Or maybe it did, and a part of me didn't care. I wanted to please him.

"And he brought forth this... this sort of metallic link he claimed could increase my powers, and help us to link. There were runes in each link of the metal, and it gave me an odd sensation when I touched it." Lucien released a sharp breath. "A sclavus collar is illegal. It's forbidden to have anything to do with one. We don't speak of them anymore. We tear pages from books that show you how to make one. And it wasn't until I put it around my throat that I even knew what it was."

Sebastian's head jerked toward the other man. "You wore a collar?"

"Out of all of us here, perhaps I alone know what it feels like to be bound to another's bidding." Lucien looked up at the night sky. "The sensation as your will is turned against you.... There's nothing you can do. Nothing you can say. Your body's no longer your own, nor your mind. And it hurts to fight it, fuck it hurts. It felt like every nerve in my body was on fire. There comes a point where you don't think you can survive, and you give in." He glanced down at his feet. "And afterwards you wonder: did I fight hard enough? Did I surrender too early? Did I have anything left to give?"

Sebastian's mouth felt dry.

"You want to know why I can forgive you for your role in Louisa's kidnapping?" Lucien's voice firmed. "It's because I know there's nothing you could have done to have stopped it."

And they weren't merely speaking of Louisa anymore.

Nor were they speaking of Lucien's forgiveness.

* * *

Something was wrong.

Cleo smiled at everybody who greeted her, but she couldn't help craning her neck to try and find Sebastian. The bond between them was fiercely shielded on his end, but she felt as though something had happened to him. Her skin was itchy—not quite Premonition—but more an innate sense of Sebastian's emotions.

Excusing herself, she went to find him, brushing through a pair of dancing sorcerers, and slamming directly into another woman's shoulder.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, as the pair of them staggered apart. "I didn't see you there."

Premonition lit through her like wildfire.

The other woman—wearing black silk from head to toe, with a ruff of black swan feathers around her neckline—sneered a little at her. "Quite all right, considering the circumstances."