Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

“I don’t know where he goes exactly,” Lucie said. “But I know he’s trying to find out more about what happened to Annabel Blackthorn.”


“Oh, his great lost love?” Jesse said, and when Lucie looked surprised, he smiled. “Malcolm told me a bit. That they loved one another when they were children, and her family disapproved, and he lost her tragically, and now he doesn’t even know where her body is buried.”

Lucie nodded. “He always thought she had become an Iron Sister, but it turned out that never happened. That’s just what her family told him, to stop him looking for her.”

“He didn’t tell me that part. He did tell me that I shouldn’t worry, because the Blackthorns who lied to him were only very distant relations of mine.”

“Oh, dear. What did you say?”

He gave her a wry look. “That if I were to be responsible for the poor behavior of my relatives, I had bigger problems closer to home.”

The reminder of Tatiana made Lucie shiver. Jesse looked immediately concerned. “Shall we go into the drawing room? There’s a fire on.”

This seemed a fine idea to Lucie. She had brought her notebook and pens down from the trunk in her bedroom and had thought she might try to write a bit after dinner.

They went into the room, and Jesse busied himself finding Lucie a shawl to wrap herself in, before going over to the fireplace and kneeling down to prod at the glowing embers with a poker. Lucie, for once feeling no desire to pick up a pen, curled up on the settee and watched him. She wondered if she would ever stop marveling at the realness of this new Jesse. His skin was flushed from the heat of the fire; he had pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, and the muscles in his forearms flexed as he moved.

He rose and turned toward her. Lucie breathed in sharply. His face was beautiful—she had known that, of course she had, it was the same face as always—but before it had been washed out, faded, distant. Now he seemed to glow with a pale fire. There was texture and depth to him that had not been there before, the sense of something real, something that could be touched. There were the faintest of shadows below his eyes, too—had he not been sleeping? Sleeping must be so strange to him; it had been so long since he’d done it.

“Jesse,” she said softly. “Is something wrong?”

The corner of his mouth curled a little. “You know me so well.”

“Not that well,” she said. “I know you seem bothered, but not why.”

He hesitated a moment, then said—in a reckless sort of way, as if he were throwing himself headlong into an unknown darkness, “It’s my Marks.”

“Your—Marks?”

He held out his bared forearms to her. She stood up, throwing off the shawl; she was quite warm enough. She came closer to him; she had not really noted the Marks before, since nearly everyone she knew bore them. On the back of Jesse’s right hand was the old scar of a failed Voyance rune, and inside his left elbow, a rune of Angelic Power. There were four more, she knew: Strength, on his chest; Swiftness and Precision, on his left shoulder; a new Voyance rune, on the back of his left hand.

“These are not mine,” he said, looking at the Voyance and enkeli runes. “They belong to dead people—people Belial murdered, using my hands to do it. I always wanted runes, since I was a child, but now I feel as if I am wearing the marks of their death on my body.”

“Jesse. It’s not your fault. None of it was your fault.” She took his face between her hands, forced him to look directly at her. “Listen to me. I can only imagine how awful it must feel. But you had no control over any of it. And—and when we get back to London, I’m sure the runes can be removed, and you could have new runes put on, ones that would be yours, that you chose.” She tilted her head back. Their faces were inches apart. “I know what it is like, to be gifted by Belial with something you did not ask for, did not want.”

“Lucie—that’s different—”

“It’s not,” she whispered. “You and I, we are alike in that way. And I only hope—that I can always be as brave as you have been, bear up as well as you have—”

He kissed her. She gave a little gasp against his mouth, and her hands slipped down to his shoulders, clutching at him. They had kissed before, at the Shadow Market. But this was something else entirely. It was like the difference between having someone describe a color to you and finally seeing it yourself.

His hands slid into her hair, tangling in the thick strands; she could feel his body change as he held her, feel the tightening in his muscles, the heat blooming between them. She opened her mouth to him, feeling wild, almost shocked at her own lack of restraint. He tasted of cider and honey—his hands moved downward, cupping the wings of her shoulder blades, following the arch of her back. She could feel the racing beat of his heart as he rocked her against him, hear the deep groan low in his throat. He was shaking, whispering against her mouth that she felt perfectly perfect, perfectly alive, saying her name: “Lucie, Lucie.”

She felt dizzy, as though she were falling. Falling through darkness. Like the visions, or dreams, she’d had in her half-consciousness in bed. It felt like it did when she had raised him, like she was losing herself, like she was losing anything that connected her to the real world at all.

“Oh—” She drew away, disoriented and blinking. She met his blazing green eyes, saw the desire darkening his gaze. “Bother,” she said.

Flushed, and very disheveled, he said, “Are you all right?”

“I was just dizzy for a moment—probably still a bit wobbly and tired,” she said disconsolately. “Which is dreadful, because I was enjoying the kissing a great deal.”

Jesse inhaled sharply. He looked dazed, as if he’d just been shaken awake. “Don’t say things like that. It makes me want to kiss you again. And I probably shouldn’t, if you’re—wobbly.”

“Maybe if you just kissed my neck,” she suggested, looking up at him through her lashes.

“Lucie.” He took a shuddering breath, kissed her cheek, and stepped back. “I promise you,” he said, “I would have a difficult time stopping there. Which means I am going to now pick up a poker and respectably tend to the fire.”

“And if I try to kiss you again, you’ll hit me with the poker?” She smiled.

“Not at all. I will do the gentlemanly thing, and hit myself with the poker, and you can explain the resultant carnage to Malcolm when he returns.”

“I don’t think Malcolm is going to want to stay here that much longer.” Lucie sighed, watching the sparks leap up in the grate, dancing motes of gold and red. “He will have to return to London at some point. He is the High Warlock.”

“Lucie,” Jesse said softly. He turned to watch the fire for a moment. Its light danced in his eyes. “What is our plan for the future? We will have to go back to the world.”