Chapter Two
THE LOFT ABOVE St. Maria’s Catholic Church was inhabited by a necromancer. Some people thought it was riddled with bones and corpses. Other witches thought they’d find skulls and black candles and cobwebs if they ventured inside. Most counted on the irony of the situation to mask the urban legend. A few dismissed it, thankful they’d never needed to knock on a necromancer’s door in search of assistance to begin with.
White witches who weren’t versed in dark magic thought it would swallow them whole if they even looked in its direction. But that wasn’t quite the case.
Ryder stood at the top of the steep, narrow staircase in front of a thick wooden door. His fist hovered inches from its surface, but before he mustered enough courage to knock, the door opened.
Jordan Wolfe shared Ryder’s sharp, fine features. Her cheekbones were prominent and her chin pointed. Her dark, sultry eyes were the same shape as his, tear-dropped and sad; sexy in a way that shouldn’t be, but still was. Except Jordan had Wolfe eyes—brown that was almost black, under gold that was almost yellow.
Ryder had his mother’s, Lewellyn eyes. They were canopy-leaf green, vibrant and startling in the light.
His Lewellyn eyes didn’t make him any less Wolfe, though. But no one needed to know that.
“What’re you doing here?” Jordan asked playfully. Her nose scrunched when she grinned, and she wrapped her arm around his shoulders to pull him into a hug. He’d forgotten how alike they sounded, raspy and graceless.
“I can’t come see my sister?” Ryder mumbled.
Jordan’s ashy blonde hair tickled his nose, swaying in loose curls over her shoulders. She smelled like lilies and blood. “You can, but you never do. What’s up? What’s going on?”
Ryder wanted to tell her, but everything lodged painfully in his throat. The reading. Liam. What it meant. If it even meant anything at all. His magic going nuclear more often than he was comfortable with. Him being a necromancer, but not. Him being a Fire witch, but not.
“Hey.” Jordan sounded sad. She brushed her knuckles across his cheeks. “Hey, no, I don’t like this. You feel like…” Her words were lost somewhere between them.
He stepped inside, and she closed the door. The loft was spacious and lulling. Candles were lit on the nightstand and the dresser. Runes and sigils were carved into the vaulted ceiling beams. A white-chalk circle decorated the floor beneath a round window on the far end of the room. No skulls, no rotting bodies, just odd purple plants, a stereo, and a rumpled bed.
Ryder paced back and forth, free to let his magic spark on the tips of his fingers now that he was with someone who understood it. “What happens if I choose to die?”
Jordan gave him space. She stood next to her bed, swathed in a long black dress. A fresh sigil was carved onto her arm. Part of it might’ve matched the one he’d seen on Thalia at the café earlier.
“If I go through with the Wolfe ceremony, if I die and come back, what then?” Ryder asked. He shrugged off his peacoat. It hit the floor, exposing pale, lean arms. His magic went every which way, abandoning the glamour he wore daily on his chest. The scars didn’t bother him, but it didn’t hurt to cover them either.
“God, look at you,” Jordan said, exhaling on the end. “You look wonderful, Ryder.”
“That’s doesn’t answer my question,” he said. He stopped and stared at the ceiling, reining in the grate of his voice. “Thank you, yeah, whatever, but—”
“If you decide to die, you become a necromancer.”
“And what happens to my elemental gifts?”
“I’m not sure. You’re the first Lewellyn-born Wolfe we’ve ever seen.”
The magic writhed against Ryder’s bones. It thrummed under his skin, loud like gunshots inside him. “What would Dad say?”
“You can ask him yourself,” Jordan said, her tone matter-of-fact. “I’m only a year older than you; it’s not like he listens to me more than he listens to you.”
“Yeah, okay, but you’re…” Ryder gestured up and down, from Jordan’s head to her toes. “You. You’re the darling dark daughter.”
Jordan rolled her eyes. “Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?”
“I drew The Magician and The Tower today.” He paused and licked his lips. “Liam pulled The Devil and The Lovers. Something came for us, and it was dark. Wolfe dark.”
“Ancestors make appearances all the time with young alchemists. What’s the problem?”
“We both felt it. I felt it, Liam felt it. We…”
“Tethered.”
“Yes.”
Jordan sat down on the edge of her bed. “Have you told him yet?”
“Which part?” Ryder sat down on the floor in front of her and hugged his knees to his chest.
“The part about you being fond of him?”
“Fond of him? Just say it, Jordan, Jesus Christ.”
Jordan scoffed. “We’re in a church, young man.” Ryder choked on a pained laugh. The audacity. Jordan continued. “The part where you tell him you have feelings for him.”
“He knows that.”
“Does he know the extent of it?”
Ryder’s magic thrashed about. It collided with Jordan’s and the room heated. Steam leaked from between Ryder’s lips, hot and scalding in his mouth. “I don’t even know the extent of it!”
Jordan wasn’t fazed by Ryder’s outburst. “Has he acted on it?”
“Neither of us have! We haven’t even talked about it; it’s just there, all right? He… I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how the fuck he couldn’t know. But we’re friends, and we’ve been friends for two years. I can’t screw that up.” Ryder swallowed a mouthful of steam and closed his eyes, hoping the unnatural magic coming to the surface would die down. “None of them know about me. I haven’t told the circle.”
Jordan went quiet. She slid off the bed and sat in front of him on the floor. Her lips parted and she reached out to touch his knee. “About you as in you, or you being a Wolfe?”
Ryder shook his head. “Neither.”
She fidgeted. Her black painted nails clicked together, hands decorated in an assortment of jewelry and ink. “You still injecting once a week?”
Ryder held up two fingers. “Twice a week. I moved up eight months ago.”
“And you’re okay doing it by yourself?”
He shrugged. “It’s been a while. I’m used to it now.”
She gestured to his chest with a flick of her wrist. “Dad told me you healed up really well.”
“That was two and half years ago, Jordie,” Ryder scoffed.
Jordan’s lips twitched into a smile when he used her nickname. “Yeah, I know, and I was dealing with my own bullshit back then. We haven’t actually talked about everything, not since we were in high school.”
Three years ago, Thalia had left. Six months after that, Ryder had top surgery. Another six months and he’d joined his own circle. Everything in between those specific markers was blurred and distorted, a mess of circumstances Ryder didn’t want to pick apart. “Do we need to start now?”
Jordan shook her head and sighed, swiftly changing the subject. “You don’t have to tell them about the Wolfe stuff until you’ve figured out what you want to do. But that—” Jordan gestured to Ryder’s eyes. “—won’t go away. Your magic will keep going nuts if you don’t do something about it.”
“What can I do?” Ryder pawed at one of his eyes with the back of his hand. Black fanned away from his pupils, covering the whites of his eyes. It took a minute, but slowly the inky black crawled back to the center.
“Practicing would help. You don’t have to take life, but you need to at least work with blood on some level.”
“Tyler would never approve of blood magic.”
“Whether you choose to die or not, you’re still the child of a necromancer. You’ll always crave it.”
Ryder nodded. He couldn’t disagree with her; she was right. His thoughts circled the last few months, how quickly his necromancy had manifested within him. He couldn’t tell her about the dreams he’d had, the ones that involved his teeth in Liam’s skin and Liam’s blood coating his tongue. He couldn’t tell her how often he’d caught himself wondering what it might be like to feel Liam’s heart beat in the palm of his hand.
“Can you translate something for me?”
“What is it?” Jordan tilted her head back against the bed.
“Latin for a spell Tyler and Donovan are working on.”
“Donovan still can’t cast?”
“Not well. He has a hard time focusing. He can’t find his element.”
Jordan barked a laugh. “He’s Earth! It’s right underneath him!”
Ryder’s lips quirked into a smile. “I know, but he’s just starting out. They want to give an offering to the woods and see what the trees have to say.”
“Careful,” Jordan purred. “Those trees will rat you out.”
Ryder arched a brow questioningly.
“They call us bone benders,” Jordan said. “Sometimes, darklings.”
Ryder’s magic settled. He could finally breathe without feeling like he was on fire, or going to start a fire. He noticed one of the basket plants hanging from the ceiling curl its tendril and sway back and forth. Their violet and teal leaves glowed prettily in the dark.
Jordan translated the part of the spell Tyler needed and made two cups of lemongrass tea. Since alchemists were the only clans who still used Latin for spells, they were typically the only ones who needed it. Jordan taught Ryder a few phrases and laughed at him when he couldn’t pronounce ignis. The night quieted, and they sat in companionable silence for an hour, then another. It was half past eight before either of them mentioned leaving. Jordan worked in her grimoire. Ryder scrolled through his phone, avoiding Liam’s social media at all costs.
Sometime during Ryder’s second cup of tea, he realized how much he’d missed her. Just as Ryder’s resolve crumbled, and Liam’s Instagram loaded, Jordan grabbed her coat and keys off the dresser.
“Where are you off to?” He swiped the app away and slid his phone into his pocket.
“Thalia’s meeting me for pizza,” Jordan said. She smiled gently and arched a brow. “You can’t avoid going home forever, Ry.”
He nodded, a dark blush tinting his cheeks. “I’m not ashamed of it. The magic. Our magic. You know that, right?”
Jordan narrowed her eyes and held the door open with her foot. Ryder walked down the stairs while she trailed behind him. A nun dipped her fingers into a bowl of holy water by the last set of pews. She clutched her rosary and scurried toward the front of the church at the sight of them.
“I know that,” Jordan assured. “But you’re scared of it.”
Ryder didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Jordan brushed past him. Her expensive perfume left a trail of vanilla and musky cinnamon. “As you should be,” she quipped, rosy lips spread into a grin.
PORT LEWIS WAS a rainy little town on the coast of Washington. Ryder liked the way the streetlamps that lined the sidewalk illuminated the fog, and how mist dampened his face. He walked through downtown past the movie theaters and shopfronts. Water beaded up on the glass, and when he caught glimpses of himself, it was Jordan staring back at him.
He stopped in front of a deli. The glass window was dark, but the glow of the “closed” sign made it easy to trace the line of his nose, dainty like Jordan’s, and his mouth, full like Jordan’s. But there was no mistaking their striking differences: His buzzed head and stretched earlobes. His brow, as fair as hers, but stronger, the angled line of his jaw, more defined—harder.
You look wonderful, Ryder. Jordan’s voice crept into his thoughts.
His peacoat wrapped around him and was buttoned tight up his chest, highlighting the cut of his shoulders. He shifted until his combat boots scraped the sidewalk, and ducked under an overhang as the rain started to fall faster. A taxi careened down the road toward the movie theater, and a few people hurried across the street to the 24-hour diner. He glanced at his reflection once more and kept walking.
Ryder trudged down Main toward his apartment building. Two left turns and a block past Crescent Coffee brought him to his neighborhood. He smiled at his neighbor Lucy who walked three yappy Chihuahuas, and fumbled with his keychain as he bounced up the stairs to his door.
A soft meow pulled his attention from his keychain to the entryway to his apartment.
Liam sat against his front door, his sweater replaced by a loose T-shirt, showcasing the bold oceanic tattoo on his left arm. Ryder’s familiar, a yellow-eyed black cat named Percy, watched him from his place in Liam’s lap.
“I’ve told you how cliché it is that you got a cat as a familiar, right?” Liam asked. His large hands stroked Percy’s back, and the cat purred loudly.
Liam had teased Ryder about that weekly for two years.
“Once or twice,” Ryder said. He swallowed hard and fiddled with his keys. His magic jumped under his skin, clawing its way through ligaments and joints to get to the surface. “It’s not like an owl’s any less cliché.”
As if on cue, Opal landed on the railing of the outdoor staircase. She chirped at them pleasantly, ruffling her cream feathers to shake off the rain.
“He didn’t mean that,” Liam said to Opal. He lifted Percy into his arms and stood, gaze lingering on Ryder for long enough to make his heart beat a little bit faster. “You gonna stand there or can we go inside?”
Ryder offered his arm to Opal. She hopped onto his forearm, then his shoulder. “Do you want tea?”
Liam didn’t answer. He followed Ryder into his dark apartment. The smell of sage and wax filled the space, left over from their reading that morning. Opal flew off Ryder’s shoulder and landed on the bookshelf next to a thriving green fern. Percy’s paws hit the wood floor. Ryder turned the lock on the door and hesitated, staring down at the doorknob while he tried to gather his thoughts.
There was breath on the back of his neck. Liam’s energy squirmed around them, frantic and busy. Heat bloomed in Ryder’s stomach, but he could barely control it.
When he finally mustered enough courage to turn around, Liam’s wide hand hit his chest and shoved him against the door. Ryder reached for his magic and stitched it into a glamour, covering the pink scars that curved from his sternum over his ribcage on either side. A coat and shirt covered them, but his glamour was an old, comfortable habit.
Everything narrowed down to the sweep of Liam’s dark eyelashes and his mouth tightening into a thin line.
“We tethered?” Liam snapped. A card was pinched between his thumb and index finger. He flashed it in front of Ryder. The Lovers. “I’ve pulled this fucking card three times today.”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Ryder said softly. He tried to look elsewhere, but Liam wouldn’t permit it. Every time Ryder turned away, Liam leaned into his line of sight.
“Our reading isn’t a joke. We’re going to do something terrible together. Don’t you get that?”
“How do you know it’ll be terrible? What makes something terrible?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” A breath left Liam, winded and small. He pressed harder on Ryder’s chest.
“You have eyes, don’t you? C’mon, I wasn’t that subtle.” Ryder’s blush betrayed his attempt at confidence.
“No, you weren’t,” Liam agreed. One brow quirked and he licked his bottom lip. Ryder pretended not to notice. “A fatal union, Ry. A shift in your magic, a partnership that will result in chaos or…”
“Or,” Ryder purred and tried to smile.
Liam snarled. “This isn’t as simple as that. We’re going to… This is dark, Ryder.”
“You scared?”
“Maybe.”
“Of which part, me or the magic?”
Liam’s lips pressed down and his brow furrowed. “Do you understand what this could mean? What you could be? What we’re going to—”
Anger flared in Ryder. His magic burst from him, crackling in the air, turning the static energy upside down.
“What I could be?” Ryder hissed. A thousand cries and screams erupted beneath his voice. They slithered from him, haunting and horrible. The voice of a necromancer. He felt the moment his pupils bled over the rest of his eyes, showing the truth of him, the dangerous, wicked, unnatural part of him. Steam built in his mouth and drifted over his lips. “We’re going to what, Liam?”
Liam’s eyes widened. His magic surged like a crashing wave. It was cold and ancient, pure and protective. Ryder wanted to tear it apart. He wanted to hide, to push Liam out the door and lock himself in his room. Everything inside him twisted and roared, looking for a way out. He’d never wanted Liam to see this; he’d never wanted anyone to see it.
“You’re…” Liam stepped back. His throat bobbed when he swallowed.
Ryder’s chest was cold where Liam’s hand had been. “Yeah,” he spat. He shouldered past Liam and unbuttoned his coat with trembling fingers. The heat on his skin made his head spin. “Yeah, I am.”
“But you’re a Lewellyn,” Liam whispered.
“My mom had an affair with Gerard Wolfe.”
“Jordan’s dad? So, Jordan’s your…”
“Yeah.” Ryder snapped his teeth down. He didn’t bother turning the lights on, and draped his coat over the back of the couch once it was off. He walked past the kitchen, down the hall, and into his bedroom. Percy watched from the ottoman. Opal cooed curiously and flapped her wings.
Liam didn’t immediately follow.
Ryder’s lungs ached. His mouth quivered as he paced back and forth in front of his disheveled bed. Clothes were piled in the corner. A few plants sat in baskets next to the window. His altar was on the other end of his room, a repurposed vanity crowded with half-burnt incense, different colored candles, sage leaves, and open spell books. He snapped his fingers and the candles lit.
His skin still burned. “Fuck,” Ryder panted. His magic raged in the room and inside him. He ripped off his shirt and tossed it away before snapping his fingers again. The tip of two incense sticks smoldered.
“Ryder.” Liam’s voice sounded from the doorway.
Ryder dipped into the attached bathroom and flicked on the light. The brightness stung. He winced at his reflection in the mirror, black-eyed, with steam rising from his skin. His palms hit the countertop and he exhaled a deep, hot breath.
Liam’s reflection appeared behind him. His expression hardened and he tilted his head, eyes darting across Ryder in the mirror.
“Just go,” Ryder said, whimpered and tender.
“Your magic is at odds with itself. The fire in you is fighting with the…”
“You can say it.”
“Necromancy in you.” Liam said necromancy carefully, sounding out all four syllables with the utmost respect. The carefulness was expected, the respect was a surprise. “Have you… Did you…?”
“No,” Ryder whispered. “Do you see any sigils?” He gestured over his bare torso. “Jordan said if I don’t start bloodletting, this will get worse.” He blinked at himself and flexed his jaw.
Liam’s water magic was fluid and coaxing. It drifted around them, rippling the energy. The familiarity made Ryder’s shoulders droop. His body unwound and he decompressed, trying to even out his breathing as the darkness inside him continued to make itself known.
“Just go,” Ryder repeated, exasperated.
The exposed bulbs above the mirror flickered. Liam’s fingertips touched the base of Ryder’s spine.
Everything was brilliant and blinding.
“When I pulled The Devil, I didn’t think it’d be you,” Liam said. His tongue ring clicked against his teeth.
Ryder’s eyes cinched shut. His voice grew into a symphony of voices. “Fuck you.”
Liam’s hand crept along Ryder’s vertebrae. “But then I pulled The Lovers.”
His hands shook on the countertop, knuckles white where he gripped the edge. Ryder chewed on his lip and resisted leaning back when Liam’s hand climbed up his spine.
“What do we have to do for the bloodletting?”
Ryder’s eyes snapped open. “We don’t have to do anything.”
“We’re tethered. I’m still your best friend, for one. And I’m your circle-mate.”
Ryder caught Liam’s eye in the mirror. The steam had dissipated, but Ryder’s eyes were still ink black.
“We’ll keep it between us,” Liam added. “Tell me what I need to do.”
“Cut me.” The words edged between Ryder’s teeth. His brows knitted, and he chewed on his lip until it hurt. The idea of Liam dragging a blade across his skin sent a shameful thrill through him. “Carve a spell into my skin.”
“Dark magic,” Liam said.
“The darkest there is. That’s why I said you should just go.”
Liam disappeared into Ryder’s bedroom. Ryder’s magic flared again. The lights in the bathroom popped and went out. His head spun as he stepped into the shadows of his room, elongated and flickering in the glow of the candles on his altar.
“Where?” Liam asked shakily. He held Ryder’s black-handled athame, a curved silver blade, in his right hand. “Where do you want me to cut you?”
“Anywhere,” Ryder said. He narrowed his eyes and glanced from Liam to the bedroom door and back. “You’re serious?”
“Get on the bed.”
“You don’t have to do this with me.”
“Get on the bed,” Liam seethed.
Ryder sat on the edge of the bed. Liam knelt in front of him. Ryder had imagined this scene before, but differently. Desire pooled in his gut. Ryder ignored it.
The tip of the athame touched Ryder’s hip. Desire bloomed into something far harder to ignore. Liam’s whiskey eyes flashed to his face, and he asked, “Here?”
The blade was cold. It vibrated with purpose against Ryder’s skin. He watched the tendon in Liam’s neck flex, and nodded. “Sure, Princess.”
Liam knocked him backward with one hand on his chest and dug the blade cruelly into Ryder’s flesh. It stung. The darkness expanded around them. Ryder could hear Liam’s racing heart. He listened to the sound of the knife cutting through his skin, smelled his own blood, coppery and rich and heady. Time paused to watch them.
“You should’ve told me,” Liam hissed. He sliced another line across Ryder’s hip.
“I didn’t know how to. You’re my best friend; how do I tell you something like that? Hey man, yeah—” He paused to suck in a sharp breath. “I might be in love with you. No big deal. Oh, and I’m a necromancer, also no big deal. And I’m—” Ryder stopped speaking altogether when Liam’s mouth covered the bloody wound on his hip.
A strangled moan was torn from Ryder’s throat. He threw his head back and tried to catch his breath, enduring the surge of shared power as Liam pressed his tongue against the new rune.
Fire set Ryder’s veins ablaze. Liam ran his hands up his stomach, over his ribcage. One thumb traced the raised scar on Ryder’s right side. His focus had been stolen, disintegrating the glamour, but he didn’t care. His senses sharpened and his back arched off the bed. Everything became the movement of Liam’s mouth and Ryder’s blood coating his tongue.
The candles on the altar sparked. Ryder couldn’t catch his breath.
“Stop,” he said suddenly. He pawed at Liam’s shoulders.
Liam stopped. He crawled over Ryder the same way Ryder had seen in dreams and nightmares and daydreams. His hands settled on either side of Ryder’s arms and he looked down at him, handsome and powerful, with blood on his mouth and a pale tint to his eyes, his pupils and irises replaced by translucent gray.
“You have too many secrets,” Liam said. His voice was every raindrop that had ever fallen, and every storm that had ever raged.
The athame sat on the bed next to them. Ryder grabbed it and pressed it hard against Liam’s throat.
Liam craned into it, an encouragement. The tip of the blade nicked the flesh below his ear. He said, “You taste like power.”
Chills coursed Ryder’s arms. His stomach leapt into his throat. He pulled the blade back and tossed it to the floor. Liam leaned down, but Ryder turned to catch the cut on his neck rather than his lips. He pushed Liam onto his back and pinned him to the bed, teeth set around the cut, one hand clutching the sheets, the other pushed up Liam’s shirt.
Liam’s blood tasted like the ocean. It was clean and delicate, crowded with urgency and youth and vitality. Everything Ryder had kept at bay rushed from him. Every feeling became too potent, every ounce of magic became too electric. He licked across the cut, and Liam’s breath hitched. Ryder dug his fingernails into Liam’s ribs and Liam sighed.
“Ry,” Liam whispered. “Ryder, stop.”
Ryder didn’t stop. He bit down until another spurt of blood warmed his tongue. Liam whimpered, and Ryder loved the way it sounded. He pressed his body down against Liam’s, fit their hips together and nudged his thigh between Liam’s legs.
“Ryder,” Liam snapped. He wiggled his hand between them and tugged Ryder’s jaw until he pulled back, only to be pulled in again.
Ryder didn’t know if it started as a kiss. Their mouths met in a hurry, and Ryder’s lips parted for the stroke of Liam’s tongue, wet with his own blood. The stud was smooth as Liam licked into Ryder’s mouth. It turned into a messy, rough, starved kiss that sent Ryder spinning inside himself.
Ryder had imagined kissing Liam every day for two years. His imagination couldn’t have prepared him for this.
Their magic clashed. Cool water met a wildfire. Liam’s elemental magic tangled with Ryder’s necromancy. Their energy stitched together, weaving and tightening, and Ryder couldn’t keep up with any of it. Not Liam’s lips, insistent and demanding, not his heart beating fast in his chest, not Liam’s hands low on his back, or Liam grinding shamelessly against his thigh.
Ryder wanted to sink his teeth into Liam’s skin again. He wanted to tear his clothes off, and raise the dead, and set fires.
A hum built in Liam’s throat and he moaned, breath hot in Ryder’s mouth. Ryder wanted to hear it on repeat. He wanted to make Liam sound like that for hours, desperate and worked up and reckless.
It turned into Liam’s mouth on his over and over, kissing that turned violent before it became tender. They bit each other’s lips. Liam scraped his nails up the back of Ryder’s neck and their teeth clanked when Liam tugged him down, forcing them to kiss harder and deeper.
The magic settled as they did. The quieter their breathing became, the calmer their magic was. Ryder’s heat turned into a flush across his cheeks, and his eyes unclouded, the black sliding back to the center. Liam’s hips pressed against Ryder’s in slow, tentative rolls.
When the darkness dissipated, it left Ryder shaken. His body trembled. His lips slid away from Liam’s and tried to catch his breath.
“You’re…” Liam sucked in a breath and touched Ryder’s jaw. His body stilled and relaxed into the bed. “Did you know you could do that?”
“Do what?”
Liam pushed Ryder onto his back. He leaned over him, hand firm on his chest. Ryder closed his eyes and felt the drag of Liam’s hand down his sternum, across the flat expanse of his stomach, until it reached the line of his black jeans.
“Syphon power like that.” Liam nodded toward the plant by the window. It was shriveled and wilted. His fingertips fluttered over the top of Ryder’s pants and slipped between his legs.
Ryder’s gasp was loud in the stillness. His hand shot down to latch around Liam’s wrist.
He’d explained too much in one night to have to explain another secret.
“No,” Ryder whispered. “I had no idea. I didn’t mean to.”
Liam took the hint and moved his hand to Ryder’s thigh, then to his hip. The quiet was heavy, reminding Ryder that Liam could change his mind. That he probably would. This was just the magic, the leftover bits of it that made them hungry for anything and everything. Ryder had always been hungry for Liam, but he doubted Liam would stay hungry for him.
Even after tonight; even after what they’d done.
“They say it’s addictive,” Liam said.
“Magic like this?”
“Yes. We can’t tell Tyler.”
“We won’t.” Ryder sighed. “Don’t worry; this won’t soil your pristine reputation. No one has to know you did blood magic with a necromancer.”
Liam’s silence held weight. Ryder didn’t have the courage to look at him, so he kept his eyes closed, and memorized the outline of Liam’s hand on his hip and the taste of him in his mouth. He tried to focus his energy on the plant by the window. He reached for its life-force, for the pieces of it that still lingered inside him.
The flames atop the candles grew smaller and smaller until they faded. Ryder’s energy drifted from him, as if he was shedding a second skin.
Liam stopped breathing.
When Ryder finally opened his eyes, he looked at the plant and watched it unravel. Its leaves filled with color, muted violet and dark teal. It was alive, but changed.
“You brought it back.” Liam’s voice was equal parts disbelief and awe.
“Looks like it.”
Liam smoothed his palm up Ryder’s side. His thumb stroked one of the scars on his chest. Before he could ask about it, Ryder slid off the bed and headed for the bathroom. He shook out his hands and glanced at his reflection. The symbol on his hip was a small upright triangle, the elemental emblem for fire. Half-moon indentions from Liam’s teeth curved above and below it.
“I’m taking a shower.” Ryder glanced over his shoulder.
“Do you want me to stay?” Liam adjusted his shirt as he got off the bed. He stood in front of the altar with his hands shoved in the front pockets of his blue jeans. He looked dismantled and beautiful and utterly confused, as if a thousand questions were ringing loud in his ears and he couldn’t discern them. The tiny cut on his neck was covered by a blooming purple bruise.
“Do you want to stay?”
Liam shrugged one shoulder. “Up to you. Do you need some space?”
No. Ryder licked his lips. Space was the last thing he needed. “If you stay, there’s tea in the kitchen. If not, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Liam’s jaw tightened and a pained smile twitched on his mouth. He nodded and looked from Ryder to the floor. One hand pushed his hair back, the other squirmed in his pocket. He blinked and gave another curt nod, as if he’d decided but kept it to himself.
The pipes groaned when Ryder turned the shower on. He sensed Liam as he stood under the water, but a few minutes later his energy was gone. Ryder wanted to be surprised, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t blame Liam for leaving. Ryder hadn’t asked him to stay.
He scrubbed his body until his skin was pink, and stood in the shower until the water ran cold.
When he stepped out, Percy meowed at him from the entryway to the bathroom. His big yellow eyes blinked, long black tail swaying to and fro.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Ryder mumbled. The ghost of Liam’s lips and fingertips and magic tiptoed across his flesh. “He kissed me.”
Percy purred at him and flopped on his back.
Ryder swiped his hand across the fogged mirror so he could see his reflection. His body hadn’t changed under Liam’s hands. He was still lean and strong, with narrow hips and bare, soft skin between his legs. He was still smooth with tight muscles, and had the angled face of a Wolfe.
Now that he’d noticed it, he’d never be able to unsee his black eyes, his darkness. The necromancer in him had risen to the surface.
When he checked his phone, he had a message from Christy.
Bring beer tomorrow. And maybe the truth.
Ryder rolled his eyes.
He’d bring the beer.