Page 97 of Storm of Shadows

I wrinkle my forehead and try to make it out but I’ve never been any good at that. I pick up the next scroll and the next, finding them all much the same.

It’s nothing that will give me answers about Amelia. Not unless I can crack the code. I consider pocketing one of the scrolls and taking it back to Clare to see if she can do it, but I’m worried Beaufort might notice it missing. He’s already accused me of stealing once.

I flop back in the chair and rock it side to side, eyeing the drawers that run down the side of his desk to the floor. I try each one. The first three are locked with magic. Not something my pin skills can overcome. The last is unlocked. I draw it open carefully, half expecting it to be booby-trapped. All I find inside are some sheets of paper stapled together in the corner. I draw them up onto my lap.

It’s a list of all the students at the academy with details of their Quarter and their rooms. I run my eyes down the details. Beaufort has marked a handful of names with different colored symbols. A couple of the shadow weavers as well students from the other Quarters.

My name. Stanley’s. The quieter of the Smyte twins.

Why? What does it mean?

I stare at the names, trying to commit the ones he’s marked to memory. Then I return the list to the drawer, close it andscurry downstairs. There’s no way I want to be caught snooping a second time.

Back in the lounge, I snuggle under the blanket again and open the book. The fire burns warm right by my toes and soon my eyes are drifting closed.

I wake to the sound of the front door clicking open. I peer through the open doorway and watch Beaufort step through into the hallway and halt outside the lounge. His shoulders rise and fall, and even across the distance I can see the tension riding through his body, can feel the crackle of his magic.

I push away the blanket and climb onto my feet as he swings his gaze my way.

His silver eyes have my heart stopping abruptly in my chest. They brim with something indescribable and they are focused entirely on me.

No one has ever looked at me like that before. With such raw longing, with such blazing heat, with such undeniable need.

We stare at each other and we’re back there again, on the platform, the moment our eyes first met. Time sweeping away.

“Enough,” he says lowly, and before I have a chance to wonder what he can mean, he’s closed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms, and then he’s kissing me, pressing his mouth hard against mine, and whipping my breath right away.

I don’t know what is wrong with me. I don’t understand myself. But I don’t struggle. I don’t slap him. I don’t tell him to leave me alone.

I melt into him like he is a flame and I am nothing more than wax.

No, I do more than that. As he coils his arms around my waist and drags me closer, I wrap my arms around his neck, bury my fingers in his thick brown hair and press his mouth even harder against mine.

Everything in my body is liquid and heat.

I’m no longer thinking, only feeling.

I am just as needy as he is. Just as desperate for it.

He pulls away and I’m so damn dizzy, I hardly notice him twine his fingers through mine and lead me up the staircase and into his bedroom. As he does, my senses snap back into place.

He’s my enemy. They all are. They killed my sister.

“I don’t want–”

“I think the lady doth protest too much,” he whispers, “I think you do want this. I think you’re fighting goddamn hard to deny it.”

Dray’s words from earlier float through my mind – his description of eating me out was fucking graphic, it also stirred something inside me. Something that’s been stirring every time any of them is close, something that’s been stirring since Beaufort caged me on the ground. Something I’ve been trying to repress and control for such a long time.

“I’m not,” I say, denying the truth.

“I think you want this so damn badly. The way you just kissed me – you wouldn’t kiss me like that if you didn’t want this ... I think you’re just longing for me to touch you.”

He tugs me closer and rests his other hand on my waist. It does feel good to be touched. I can’t deny it – even if it’s a betrayal – to her, to me, to everything I believe in.

“You could just … stop fighting. You could surrender.” He lifts our hands to his mouth and kisses the end of each of my fingertips. “You could surrender to me.”

“Never,” I whisper, feebly, weakly.