Heart's Blood(64)

Foyer. Entranceway. Not a good place. Bedroom? Upstairs, too far.

Parlor. Two steps. Door. Close door. Curtains? Closed enough. Sofa. There. Ah.





24




GREY LAY ATOP Pearl who was kissing him back as furiously as he kissed her, tearing at his clothes as frantically as he shoved at hers. A button hit the floor. That's what maids were for, or valets. And then he was inside her.

He had to take a moment, a quick one, to revel in the sensation, the warm, tight, wet grip on his most personal part. And then he was moving, driving into her.

He thrilled to her passion as she met him thrust for thrust, clutching him, pulling at him, crying out his name and urging him on. She froze, pulled taut beneath him, and she screamed, pulsing around him as she found the pleasure he gave her. Grey cried out, taking what she gave in response.

When he returned to himself, Grey realized two things. Three. First, his arse was cold. He'd only shoved his trousers down far enough to get inside her. Second, Pearl was stroking him. His hair, his shoulders-whatever she could reach. And third- "It's not the same."

"No." Pearl kept stroking him.

He thought perhaps she would, as long as he remained within reach. But his backside was cold and it wasn't gentlemanly to remain on top, crushing her. He was that much of a gentleman, if little more. Grey pulled up his trousers, flipped down her skirt and petticoats, and sat on the sofa beside her, resisting the urge to pull her into his arms. She folded her hands in her crumpled lap, as if to keep herself from reaching out.

She tilted her head, watching him. "I thought you'd be angry."

"I am. I think." He watched her in return as he tried to sort the jumbled mess in his head. "Angry with myself mostly. We probably shouldn't have done that."

Pearl gave a one-shoulder shrug. "Probably not. But I'm not sorry." Her eyes were intent. "Are you?"

"I don't know." He shook his head. "Why was it different?"

"We're not bound anymore. You're not my familiar." She took a deep breath. "We told you sex makes magic. Sex between a sorceress and her familiar makes more magic. A great deal more. Heaps and piles more. Mountains m-"

"I understand." Grey cut her off.

"But it's not just the amount of magic. I can't share it with you, either." She turned to face him on the sofa, folding her legs up beneath her mounds of petticoats. "Before that first time-we were already a little bit bound, maybe half. The blood oath started it-and I'm sorry for that, truly I am. I didn't know it would do that, and Amanusa said if you would swear-swear on your spirits and on the blood-not to betray any sorcery guild secrets, I can tell you everything, if you want to know."

"You knew I would ask?" Grey felt a little wild-eyed again.

"We didn't know, but we thought you might ask. And if you did, the magister said I could tell. If you swear."

"What does this swearing on blood and spirits entail?" He looked at her sideways, suspicious, but perhaps a little less so.

Should that make him suspicious?

"Grey." Pearl huffed out a breath. "If you look for plots and evil intent in everything, you're going to find it. Even if it isn't there. And no, I'm not reading your mind or riding your blood or using magic at all. I am reading your expression."

"I have no expression." He prided himself on his blank face.

"Exactly. When you are wary, you don't." Her voice held triumph. "The rest of the time, you're perfectly expressive."

Which meant that when he had lived with his family, he'd been steeped in suspicion at every moment. Truth, that was.

"The spell is just the tiniest drop of your blood on this rice paper-Jax supplies it to all of us-and a tiny drop of mine, and perhaps a sigil, or whatever it takes to swear on the spirits. Then you burn it. After you swear."

If he could call a spirit at this time of the afternoon. Nearing the dark of the moon. But he could try. "Blood on the paper only." He waited for her nod. "And then it's burned?"

"Yes. You can hold the paper if you like, and burn it yourself." Pearl gave a long, sad-sounding sigh. "I never meant you any harm, Grey. I never did you any harm. The familiar bond helped you more than hindered."

"It bound me to your will," he snarled.

"It did not. The kind of bond we made couldn't do that." Now she sounded annoyed. "Grey, just swear and I'll explain everything."

Pearl removed a crumpled square of rice paper from her pocket and spread it on the serving table before them. "There." She laid her lancet-the lancet he'd given her-on top. "It's your move."

He looked at the items on the table, then looked up at her. Did he dare? Was this another plot, or part of the same one?

"Grey." She still sounded annoyed. Somehow that reassured him more than if she'd been soothing and sweet. "I will swear on blood and spirits to speak only truth. Blood never lies. You know that. You only have to swear never to tell sorcery guild secrets, and I'll tell you which bits they are. If you can't trust my spell, then send for Amanusa and have her do it. But I never thought you were a coward."

"I'm not." The denial snapped out of him by reflex. But it was true. He was no coward.

"Then what is holding you back?"

"I don't trust you."

"Isn't that fear? Because you fear what I might do? You fear being in someone else's power, not in control of your own fate." Pearl gave him a small smile. "It's a bit like marriage feels for a woman uncertain of her husband's love."

Grey stared at her. "Good God, it's a wonder anyone ever gets married."

Pearl's laughter pierced the shell of his suspicion. "Exactly."

He remembered things anger had blocked from his mind. How she'd argued, repeatedly and vehemently, against marriage, for one. She had been sincere in her argument, he'd have sworn. If she had had the courage to give in to his persuasions, surely he could have courage to . . .

Grey picked up the lancet and held it out to her. "You've had more practice."

He chose a pencil from his pocket set and drew a sigil on the paper. Oath. He paused a moment, then drew Truth. Conjury wasn't a truth-seeking magic, or a truth-telling one. Not like sorcery. But it had its truth-testing side. The old spirits could tell when someone lied. He spoke in Latin, calling his oldest, most powerful spirits. He felt the stirring of power that meant Varus and Polonia had both consented to appear.                       
       
           



       

"Do it." Grey extended his right hand, giving her a choice of fingers to lance. She took his smallest, pierced it quickly, slightly, and wiped, as she had said, the tiniest drop of his blood across the oath sigil.

Power shivered through the spirits when she did. Grey could almost see them glow. He'd never seen them take form before. The oldest ones rarely did.

Pearl lanced her own finger, the smallest left-hand one to match his, and squeezed out a slightly larger drop of blood, which she dabbed onto both sigils. "I swear by the spirits present, and by the blood we both have shed, to speak only truth in this matter of the familiar bond which was made between us, Grey Carteret and Pearl Parkin." She looked expectantly at Grey.

Right. His turn. "I swear by the spirits present and by the blood we have both shed never to speak the secrets of the sorcerer's guild to anyone who is not an initiate of that guild, or in the presence of those not so initiated." Was that sufficient? He looked at Pearl for her agreement.

"Now, burn it," she said.

Agreement enough. Grey laid the spelled paper in a cigar dish, lit a paper spill from the fireplace, and set the spell afire. As it burned, he could feel the oath magic settle around him. Did the truth magic do the same for Pearl?

He looked at his spirits. Varus somehow spread himself and surrounded the two of them, Grey and Pearl. Polonia seemed to surround Varus, or perhaps permeated him. Grey didn't understand how they did what they did. He was merely properly grateful when they did it on his behalf, as they did now.

"All right." Grey fastened his gaze on Pearl, sitting cross-legged on the sofa beside him. "Tell me how it happened. It began with the blood oath, you said?"

"Yes. But that didn't create the familiar bond. It only made it possible. Created the potential." Pearl shifted position, turning to face him, and caught his gaze. "This is the secret of the sorcerer's guild. It is the blood of the sorceress that carries the power."

Grey looked at her, waiting for the secret part.

"That's it," Pearl said. "That is the secret. The blood of the sorceress carries the magic. We work magic with our own blood, not yours. When we ride the blood-It was my blood inside you that I rode, not yours inside me. That is the secret of the sorcerer's guild, and you are sworn by your magic and ours not to reveal it."

"But-" Grey shook his head. "Of course your blood would carry the most magic. Why is it such a secret?"

Pearl gave him a look, one of those that meant he was being more than usually idiotic. "People already fear our magic. If they are afraid of us, and they think if a little of our blood will work some magic, then a great deal of our blood-or all of our blood-will work a great deal of magic . . ."