Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

She let her hands run over him, over his lean body, the arms she had admired before, the planes of his chest through his shirt, his skin burning feverishly at her touch. She sank her fingers into his thick hair, rougher than James’s, cupped his face in her palms.

He had discarded his gloves and was touching her, too, hands against the thick velvet of her dress, a finger tracing her collarbone, the neckline of her dress. She moaned softly and felt his whole body shudder. He buried his face in the side of her neck. His pulse was racing like wildfire.

“We have to get back to the hotel, Daisy,” he whispering, kissing her throat. “We have to get back, my God, before I disgrace myself and you in front of all Paris.”

Cordelia barely remembered the trip. They retrieved their coats, left Matthew’s weapon, and made their way back in a sort of dream state. They paused several times to kiss in shadowed doorways. Matthew held her so hard it hurt, his hands in her hair, winding the strands around his fingers.

It was like a dream, she thought, as they passed the clerk at the hotel’s front desk. He seemed to be trying to flag them down, but they ducked into one of the gilt-and-crystal lifts and let it carry them upward. Cordelia could not stop an almost hysterical giggle as Matthew pressed her back against the mirrored wall, kissing her neck. Fingers in his hair, she looked at herself in the glass opposite. She looked flushed, almost drunk, the sleeve of her red gown torn. In the fight, perhaps, or by Matthew; she wasn’t sure.

The room, when they came into it, was dark. Matthew kicked the door shut, tearing off his coat with shaking hands. He, too, was flushed, his spun-gold hair disarrayed by her fingers. She drew him toward her—they were still in the entryway, but the door was locked; they were alone. Matthew’s eyes were their darkest green, nearly black, as he pushed the cloak from her shoulders. It fell in a soft, whispering heap at her feet.

Matthew’s hands were skilled. Long fingers curled around the back of her neck; she raised her face to be kissed. Let him not think James has never kissed me, she thought, and kissed him back, willing thoughts of James out of her head. She looped her arms around Matthew’s neck; his body was slim and hard against hers, his mouth soft. She flicked her tongue across his lower lip, felt him shiver. His free hand drew down the sleeve of her dress, baring her shoulder. He kissed the uncovered skin, and Cordelia heard herself gasp.

Who was this, she thought, this bold girl kissing a boy in a Parisian hotel? It couldn’t be her, Cordelia. It had to be someone else, someone carefree, someone brave, someone whose passions were not directed at a husband who did not love her back. Someone who was wanted, truly wanted; she could feel it in the way Matthew held her, the way he said her name, the way he trembled when he gathered her closer, as if he could not believe his good fortune.

“Matthew,” she whispered. Her hands were under his jacket; she could feel the heat of him through the thin cotton of his shirt, feel the flutter in his stomach when she brushed it with her palm. “We can’t—not here—your room—”

“It’s a mess. We’ll go to yours,” he said, and kissed her hard, swinging her up in his arms. He carried her through the French doors into the living room, the only light a spill of illumination through the window. A mix of moon and streetlight, turning the shadows a dark gray. Matthew stumbled against a low table, swore, and laughed, setting Cordelia momentarily down.

“Does it hurt?” she whispered, holding tightly to his shirtfront.

“Nothing hurts,” he assured her, pulling her close for a kiss so yearning, so hot with desire, that she felt it down to her toes.

It was such a relief to feel, to lose herself in sensation, to let the weight of memory drop from her shoulders. She reached to touch his face, a shadow in the darkness, just as the lights went on.

She blinked for a moment, her eyes adjusting to the new illumination. Someone had switched on the Tiffany lamp in the reading corner. Someone who was sitting in the plush velvet armchair beneath the lamp, someone in a black traveling suit, pale face a smudge of white between his shirt and his crow-black hair. Someone with eyes the color of lamplight and fire.

James.





7 BITTER FRUIT




Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?

I will pluck it from my bosom, tho’ my heart be at the root.

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”



Thomas had never masterminded a secret mission before. Usually it was James who planned the secret missions (at least, the important ones; Matthew often planned secret missions that were entirely frivolous). It was a mixed experience, he decided as he and Alastair trotted down the steps outside the Institute doors. On the one hand, he felt guilty that he had misled his kind aunt Tessa as to the reason for their visit. On the other hand, it was satisfying to have a secret, especially a secret shared with Alastair.

Especially, Thomas thought, a secret that was not weighted with emotion, with longing and jealousy and family intrigues. Alastair seemed to feel that as well; while he was not exactly buoyant, he was quiet, without his usual snappishness. That snappishness, Thomas had always thought, came reflexively to Alastair, as though it were necessary to punctuate anything good with some bad temper, to maintain balance.

Alastair stopped at the bottom of the Institute steps and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “It’s a good hiding place, Lightwood,” he said, without the gruff tone that he normally used to disguise being in good spirits. “I would never have thought of it.”

They were both bundled against the cold, Thomas in a tweed overcoat given to him years ago by Barbara, and Alastair in a fitted dark blue paletot that showed off the lines of his shoulders. Knotted around his neck was a dark green scarf. Due to the winter and the vanishing English sun, Alastair’s skin was a few shades lighter than usual, which made his eyelashes look even darker. They framed his black eyes like the petals of a flower.

Petals of a flower? SHUT UP, THOMAS.

Thomas looked away. “So what happens if demons come looking for it now? You tell them you don’t have it and they go away?”

Alastair chuckled. “I think they can sense where it is, sense its presence somehow. If they keep turning up at my house and don’t sense it, they’ll stop. That’s my theory, anyway. Which is good,” he added, “because the last thing my mother needs right now is demons frolicking in her herbaceous borders.”

Thomas could also hear the genuine current of worry in Alastair’s voice, under the easy dismissiveness. Sona Carstairs was pregnant, due to have her child very soon. It had been a difficult pregnancy, not helped by the death of Alastair’s father only a few weeks past.

“If there’s anything else I can do to help,” Thomas said, “do please tell me. I like to be of use.” And at the moment, there’s no one to be of use to besides Christopher, who considers me another lab implement.