CHAPTER 33
IF YOU’RE NOT GOING TO TRY, then maybe we should just stop.”
“Oh, please spare me, Rosewood.” Larissa slouched in her chair with a harsh look. “Perhaps you’re an awful instructor.”
Briony crossed her arms. She couldn’t believe she’d worried about Larissa in her absence—that she’d actually wanted to see her at one point.
They’d been at this for two hours already. Earlier this morning, Briony had been woken from a fitful dream, full of soft white sheets, long muscular thighs, and warm hands. Larissa had been pounding on her door, claiming that it was nine o’clock and she’d be down in the drawing room waiting for her.
Toven had yet to make an appearance, and Briony wondered if he would.
She had considered asking about the meditation chamber near the kitchen for their lessons, Larissa was nowhere near ready to stare at blank walls all day. And Briony was in no hurry to return there.
Larissa let her head drop on the back of her chair and breathed deeply.
“We have to go faster,” she said. “This is taking too long.”
“If you don’t comprehend the basics, then how can you possibly expect to master the advanced?” Briony stood from her chair and walked to the window.
They’d been facing each other in armchairs on either side of the coffee
table, meditating for hours. As someone who’d never even practiced it, Larissa needed to understand where mind magic was drawn from. Briony couldn’t just tell her to reach for that thread if Larissa didn’t know which one.
And of course, it was possible Briony was a bit distracted herself.
Whenever she let her mind drift, she’d see her lips, pink and full, closing over the tip of Toven’s cock.
And speaking of, he must have a much more powerful mastery of mind magic than she thought in order to conjure an image of himself that must have been...enlarged. Exaggerated, perhaps. The version of Toven that he had supplied for instructional purposes had been quite imposing. True, she had never seen a man’s cock before, but she couldn’t possibly imagine that he was quite so...stately.
“I’m tempted to learn mind magic just to know what’s gotten you so upset over there, Rosewood.”
She looked at Larissa, finding her with legs crossed, elbows draped across the arms of the chair, and a wide smirk on her face. Briony realized she was running her fingers over her lips, staring off at the Hearst grounds with a flush to her cheeks.
Shaking off her thoughts, she said, “Nothing. Are you ready to begin again?”
Briony returned to her chair, but Larissa just kept smirking at her.
“So,” Larissa said, “how often do you and Toven get into it like that? I must admit, I’m surprised he allowed you to strike him, much less speak to him in that manner, seeing as you’re supposed to be his captive.”
“And you’re supposed to be dead,” Briony said with a shrug. “We’re all
playing roles, aren’t we?”
Larissa sent her a catlike smile.
Briony tilted her head. “Why do you want to attend the Biltmore parties this badly, Larissa?”
Leveling her gaze on her, Larissa responded, “Revenge.”
Briony stared back. While she still didn’t know what had caused Larissa
to be put up for auction with the rest of them, she’d certainly seen her beg her own father for her life. She’d witnessed Hap Gains claim he had no daughter.
Nodding at the answer, Briony took a deep breath. “Ready to begin again?”
“I’m curious how this whole thing works?” Larissa said slyly.
“What whole thing?” Briony assumed she was talking about the mind magic.
“Toven Hearst and his golden heartspring.” Larissa examined her. Briony waited, wanting Larissa to do the talking. “I mean, he clearly isn’t interested in taking advantage of”—she lifted her brows—“all you have to offer.”
Briony didn’t know if she meant as a heartspring or as a woman, and she wasn’t about to ask for clarification.
“So what does he do with you all day?” Larissa continued with a shrug.
“Generally, he ignores me,” Briony said.
“Does he?” Something glinted in her blue eyes. “Yet you feel comfortable pounding on his door at two in the morning? Do you visit each other in the dark often, Rosewood?”
Briony’s memory snapped to Toven standing in the middle of her room in nothing but pajama bottoms, Toven’s eyes drifting over the front of her blood-soaked nightdress.
“No,” she said. “I was just watching from my window for him to come
home last night, that’s all.”
Larissa tilted her head. “Your window.”
“Yes, I’m in the room next to his.”
Larissa went very still, and for a moment, Briony wondered if she was supposed to be lying to her about sleeping in a dungeon. But then the corner of her mouth ticked, and she breathed a loose laugh.
“Right,” Larissa said quietly, turning her head to look out the window.
Briony had just begun to wonder if she’d said something wrong when there came a knock on the drawing room door, then Toven stepped through.
Seeing him again after last night was like a lightning strike through Briony’s body.
He stood just this side of the entry, as if he wouldn’t dare come closer. He
wore black trousers and a black shirt, and his eyes were empty.
“Come to check on us?” Larissa said when it was clear he would not greet
them.
“I have news.”
Briony stared at him, thinking it odd that he kept himself so far away. She couldn’t even tell if he was looking at Larissa or her when he next spoke.
“Canning Trow’s elixir has been outlawed from Biltmore Palace, by order of Mistress Mallow,” he said, and Briony struggled to hear him with how low his voice was. “It is also no longer allowed on any heartsprings who are being held as political collateral.”
Briony and Larissa glanced at each other.
“What happened?” Briony asked.
He began fiddling with the ring around his middle finger.
“Finn and I just returned from an audience with Mallow that I requested, so I could speak to a guilty conscience I had for something that transpired last night.”
His tone was cold and his volume low, and Briony watched his eyes —unblinking. Larissa sat at attention, hanging on his every word.
“I told her that while it was indeed my idea to host a smaller gathering away from Biltmore last night, it was not my intention to expose the president’s daughter to such vulgar festivities. We knew it couldn’t be Mallow’s strategy to instill such fear in a woman who would be returned in one piece one day.”
Briony lifted her brows, and Larissa sat back in her chair with a deep, satisfied breath.
“Of course,” Larissa said melodically. “It hadn’t been your intention at all.”
There was something in the way Larissa emphasized “your” intention.
Something in the way Toven had phrased everything so carefully to them.
Because if it hadn’t been Toven’s or Finn’s intention, then the blame lay somewhere.
Briony’s lips parted, and she almost smiled.
Toven had found a way to get one over on Canning. Just as she’d told him
he should.
He’d also found a way to keep Briony from ever taking the elixir. She was relieved: He had no reason to fight her about going back to Biltmore any longer.
She cleared her throat. “Were either you or Finn punished?”
“No,” Toven said. “Mistress Mallow was extremely grateful for the update and appreciated our acknowledgment of guilt.” He nodded at Larissa.
“Finn will be allowed to continue bringing Juliana to Biltmore, but as his guest only.”
Which meant, Briony inferred, that Larissa could still go to Biltmore in Juliana’s place, and she wouldn’t be forced into demeaning sexual situations in the process.
Politcal collateral. That’s what Toven had called the president’s daughter.
Briony thought it over for a moment. Was that how the Hearsts saw Briony too? Was that how General Tremelo of Daward saw her? Something to be kept healthy and unharmed until a safe return?
She tried refocusing, but something was niggling at her.
“Finn is trustworthy in all this?” she asked.
Both of them looked at her as if she had sprouted a third arm.
She hurried to explain. “I just mean, he knows quite a bit of information, such as Larissa’s true fate and this plot with the president’s daughter.
Couldn’t Mallow find these things in his head?”
Toven glanced at Larissa before responding. “Finn isn’t important enough to Mallow for an interrogation like that.”
Briony narrowed her eyes. “He had an audience with her just this morning,” she pointed out. “And he’s now a successor, so wouldn’t more opportunities arise—”
“Finn’s mind is safe,” Toven said, finality in his tone. “Your concerns are warranted, but you’ll have to trust me.”
Briony looked over at Larissa. She was examining her nails. Briony would drop the subject for now.
Toven took his first steps forward into the room, and something about
seeing his body move made Briony’s mind conjure up the image of his naked chest, his muscular thighs, his head thrown back on a sigh.
“Making progress here?” he asked them, but he kept his gaze on Larissa.
“No,” Briony said as Larissa said, “Of course.”
They sent each other narrowed gazes.
“Rosewood is being needlessly thorough,” Larissa said, flipping her hair for Toven’s benefit.
“Good,” Toven said. Briony’s eyes went to him, but he was staring at Larissa and Larissa alone. “You need to plan for hours of deception. There may be no way to give you privacy at Biltmore for a break.” Toven pulled up a chair across from the two of them and sat. “I won’t be allowing you to go
until you are proficient.”
Larissa snorted. “‘Allowing’ me.”
“Yes,” Toven said, without warmth. “Only when you’re ready. The person to decide that will be Briony.”
She blinked at him. The rare sound of her name on his tongue conjured the sounds from last night, the way he’d moaned her name as he finished, the way his lips had formed around the vowels, the way his throat had bobbed with the deep sound of it.
She stared, waiting for him to realize it, too. But he kept his gaze on Larissa as if they were in a staring match.
Larissa clicked her tongue, and Briony met her gaze. “Well,” Larissa said.
“Let us continue then.”
Briony flicked her eyes to Toven, who seemed to be making himself comfortable in his chair, lifting his calf to rest on the other knee.
“Right.” She cleared her throat. “We left off with the clearing of the
mind.”
“Can we skip forward?” Larissa said.
“No.” Briony let her hands drop to her knees, pointing her toes forward.
“First we come to a neutral posture, finding a place for our eyes to rest.”
Just as she let her gaze relax a few feet beyond Larissa’s chair, she saw from the corner of her eye that Toven was uncrossing his legs, mirroring her pose.
Her heart skipped. He wasn’t just observing; he was here to learn.
From her.
She swallowed down her nerves and continued.
“There will be plenty of distractions in real-life situations, so now is the time to take in everything—every sense you have. What do you hear, what movement do you see, what do you smell?”
Briony smelled Toven’s aftershave—but this was a familiar distraction to her at this point.
“Feel the chair beneath you. Feel your feet on the ground.”
There was a symmetry here that hadn’t been present earlier. And she wasn’t sure if Larissa was taking it more seriously now that Toven was in the room, but Briony suddenly sensed, with perfect clarity, three people breathing in tandem.
“Move your toes in your shoes. Pay attention to your ankles and calves.
What muscles move there?” Briony’s voice had dropped low and smooth.
“Feel where your calves connect to your knees, your knees to your thighs...”
Unbidden, Toven’s thighs came into her mind. And the image of her bracing her weight on them as she used her mouth on him. She breathed deeply.
“Distractions are normal,” she said to them, but mainly to herself. “Focus on your being. Your hips, waist, and chest. Feel your blood flow—the vein you tug when you use heart magic. Find that in your chest.”
Before Toven arrived, she had been checking with Larissa every few seconds to make sure she was paying attention, but now she knew from the three layers of breathing in the room that they were all ready. This next part was key to the difference between heart magic and mind magic, and the first thing one learned in the study of mind magic.
“Imagine it as a thread that slithers through your veins. It connects your blood to your intentions. As that thread moves upward, into your shoulders, your neck, it rounds the back of your head and connects to your forehead.
Right between your eyes. Because blood moves everywhere in the body.
“This thread, attached at the center of your forehead—imagine that it has the most power of anywhere in the body. It connects your mind to your
blood. Let yourself find this thread. Become acquainted with it. If you lose it, start at your heart again and sew it through your neck and shoulders, around the back of your skull, to the place between your eyes.”
Briony allowed her instruction to come to an end. This was the area on which mind magicians spent most of their education prior to school—the communion with the thread. She knew it was important to just let Larissa be in silence.
She lifted her eyes slowly from the floor. Larissa was sitting perfectly still, eyes unfocused and breath slow. Briony was careful not to twitch a muscle, so as not to pull Larissa’s attention.
She flicked her gaze to Toven and flinched—he was watching her. She looked away, checking on Larissa again. Her attention was focused still.
Briony wondered if Toven would have ever come to prefer mind magic as a root source if he’d learned at a young age like she had. He clearly had some experience with mind reading and barriers, but he didn’t use mind magic for casual casting. He still relied on his familiar daily, like most heart magicians.
Briony let Larissa meditate for another half hour before finally pulling her out of it with quiet instructions. When Larissa’s eyes finally lifted and met hers, she looked exhausted.
“Were you able to connect with the thread?”
Larissa nodded. “It slips out of my grasp a lot.”
“Yes, it will,” Briony agreed. “There are two parts to it. You have to meditate to find that thread and keep it for hours on end. And then to cloak, you begin to tug on it when you cast. Only a meditated, clear mind can do it.
Apologies that the beginning is so boring.”
Toven cleared his throat, and Briony looked over at him. “Only a meditated, clear mind,” he repeated. His brows were drawn together. “This is incongruous with mind barrier magic, is it not?”
“It is,” Briony agreed. When his confusion didn’t clear, she said, “There is no known mind magician who has been able to cloak while keeping up mind barriers. Not even Vindecci could do it.”
Toven’s lips tightened. “So if you are in the presence of a mind reader, such as Mallow...”
“You can either cloak your mind or barricade it,” she said. “In our history texts, many spies were executed for transmogrifying into another person, only to have their thoughts read as their mental defenses were down.”
“Invisibility is the only real power then,” Larissa said shrewdly. “If they don’t know you’re there, they can’t read your mind.”
Briony shrugged. “Possibly. I suppose it depends on your intentions.”
Larissa stared back at her, giving nothing away. When she glanced at Toven, he was staring out the window, looking displeased.
* * *
They kept at it for another hour before Larissa developed a nasty headache.
Briony knew it wasn’t fake. She’d had her own headaches back in school.
But when Briony released her for the day, and Larissa said, “I’m going to lie down. Maybe I’ll try again in the afternoon,” Briony realized something for the first time.
“You’re...” She glanced at Toven, then back to Larissa as she rubbed her temple. “You’re staying here?”
“Just for the week,” Toven said quickly. “While she’s under your tutelage.”
Briony’s throat was dry. “Ah. Well, that’s helpful.”
There were eels swimming in her gut as she thought about Larissa in Hearst Hall. Larissa accessing Toven. Larissa sharing meals with him, even.
Briony stood and put her chair back where she’d taken it from.
“Don’t worry, Rosewood,” Larissa said loftily from the doorway. “You’ll still be the only one visiting him at two in the morning.”
Briony snapped her eyes to her just as Larissa smirked and walked out.
She glanced at Toven. He was in profile, twisting his ring around his finger, shoulders tense.
“Speaking of last night,” Toven said softly, and Briony’s chest clenched.
“I apologize. Nothing like that will happen again.”
He kept his gaze on his ring. Briony felt an emptiness in her stomach.
“All right,” she said, uselessly. “I suppose I did ask for an example of what would be expected of me on the elixir. And you...provided an example.”
His gaze lifted to her. “‘An example,’” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said, fiddling with the teacup she’d let go cold on the side table. “You conjured a scenario, detailed though it was...” She coughed, feeling her cheeks heat. “It was...It was much softer than I expected, though I’m sure you were diluting the scenario for my benefit.”
She should stop talking. She drank her cold tea to silence herself. When the teacup clinked back down on the saucer, she turned to face him.
He stared at her, his lips attempting to form words. Then his jaw closed with an audible click, and he cleared his throat.
“Right. It was...softer. If anything were to happen in that vein behind the locked door at Biltmore, it would be much different.” He took a deep breath and stepped back to face her fully. “But we were playing a dangerous game last night, and I should never have entered your mind.”
She snorted. “Please. You’ve been entering my mind for years without permission, Toven.”
His brows twitched in surprise, but he stayed silent.
“How else would you know about Didion and me at the lake? And the laces,” she said, crossing her arms in a way unbefitting a princess. “Not to mention the pains in my legs all throughout year three. You knew all about them without me supplying the information.”
Toven stared at her from across the room. “Ah,” he said slowly. “Yes, I suppose I did know all about that.”
Briony narrowed her eyes at him. “But fine, yes. I accept your apology, and we shan’t be entering each other’s minds without permission again.”
He nodded. “Fine.”
Shifting on her feet, Briony said, “I don’t think Larissa will be ready to cloak on Friday unless she gives it her full attention this week. What is it that you hoped Larissa would ‘teach’ me for Friday night?”
He looked away from her, over her shoulder. “We can worry about that later, now that Canning’s elixir has been eliminated.”
She lifted a brow. “Please don’t tell me you intend to send me into the lion’s den without any more knowledge than last time.”
He sighed. “What do you want to know?”
She threw her hands up in the air. “You’re so frustrating. You say I need help from Larissa, but when I ask you outright what that is, you refuse to tell
me.”
“Perhaps it is awkward to tell you—”
“This entire situation is awkward, Toven. Just trust me to be an adult in this,” she said. “I have seen many examples of the heartsprings’ behavior at Biltmore. Just tell me if I should be more like Cecily Weape or like Phoebe.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not as simple as that—”
“Tell me what’s so complicated—”
“You must become adjusted but not comfortable,” he said, raising his voice. “You can neither be a vixen nor a victim. A vixen will be more desirable to them, but a timid girl crying all night long like Cecily will only attract their attention in a different way.” He paced away from her. “If we are to give the impression that I am fucking you often—daily, twice a day, whatever.” He waved his hand in the hair noncommittally and turned to face her, walking closer. “Then we need a passing understanding of each other’s
bodies.”
He came to stop in front of her.
“And you...you think Larissa is the one to teach me a passing understanding of your body,” she said acidly.
He narrowed his eyes at her, as if to say of course.
She put her hands on her hips. “And how often have you been fucking me, Toven?”
His eyes flickered before returning to gray. “What?”
“Shouldn’t you know?” she said “You certainly had an active imagination at dinner last week. You were well acquainted with how to unravel me, how to use your tongue on me. So how often does that all happen? Daily? Twice a day? How often do you fuck me just for your own satisfaction, and how often do you make me quiver for you?”
His jaw ticked as he glared down at her.
“You see,” she said, stepping closer to him until her head had to tilt backward to see him. “It seems to me I’m not the only one who needs to get all my details straight. Perhaps we should work on this together.”
He scoffed, and the air puffed across her face. “How in the stones should we do that?”
She shrugged. “You tell me. But honestly, I don’t know how introducing your ex-girlfriend into this mess is supposed to make it better.”
He breathed deeply, as if bracing himself. “She can inform you of...things you have less experience with—”
“Why don’t you inform me?” she said, with more bravery than she thought she contained. “Come on, Toven,” she continued, goading him. “Tell me how often I’m on my knees for you, and how often you’re on your knees for me.”
His gaze danced across her face, his pupils sinking into blackness, but she wasn’t done.
“Candles lit or snuffed out?” she said, repeating things she’d heard the maids talk about. “Do you bother to take your shoes off—?”
“Where do you hear these things?” he whispered, breath across her face.
“What sinful conversations have you been listening to, Rosewood?”
“Do you call me Briony when you finish?” she asked, voice loose and chest tight. “Like you did last night?”
His face seemed to freeze in a smirk. She could feel the heat of his body just inches from hers. He breathed in through his nose, as if he was memorizing a scent, and suddenly he was even taller, forcing her head to tilt further backward.
“Generally,” he began, “I like to take you in the mornings. I’ll wake you by climbing into your bed. I find that you’re more pliable then.”
His voice was gravelly, and his eyes were black. Briony stared up at him without blinking.
“I push you on your stomach, or I curl around your side, and make you take me slowly, softly. Where you can pretend I’m your lover. You always come in the mornings.”
She swallowed, taking in the scene he was painting. Her heart pounded.
“I’m in only my pajama bottoms, you’re in a soft silk nightdress that slips down low over your breasts. If I find you wearing underwear beneath it, I don’t let you come.”
She felt the rumble of his words straight to her core. His voice was steady, and his eyes were even.
“Then sometimes in the afternoons I’ll find you in the library,” he said.
His voice took on a musical quality. “I’ll remind you that it’s forbidden, but I’ll let you stay there and finish your book if you take off your dress.”
Her mind flashed to the time when Canning and Liam were there, when she’d spilled the whiskey on herself. But his words were painting a different picture.
“I’ll bend you over the table, or a chair, or just press you up against the window that overlooks the ponds, and I’ll tell you to keep reading as I enter you. I’ll make sure you get to finish the chapter you’re on before I spend myself inside of you, then I’ll slap your ass and call you a good girl. You collect your dress and leave.”
Briony’s stomach was swirling with things she’d only felt rarely. Usually when this man was involved. She focused on his eyes, letting the images and sensations wash over her.
“But at night,” he said. A smirk graced his lips. “At night, that’s when I kiss you between your legs for hours. No matter how devious you’ve been throughout the day, I make you come on my tongue three or four times. And when I’m done with you, I lie back on my bed and watch your mouth sink on my cock. And yes. When I come, I call you Briony. And you love it.”
She shivered, and she knew he saw it. She felt her breasts pull into tight peaks, and her breath caught in her throat.
Could he possibly have these thoughts? Was he describing more than just a scene to her? A desire?
His head dipped down, and she thought he would kiss her. She thought she would let him.
“Does that make things clearer, Rosewood?” he whispered, breathing in her air.
She didn’t know what her face looked like, what kind of emotions were on display for him. She had no shields to protect her from Toven Hearst’s seduction.
“Crystal,” she said, her throat tight and her skin buzzing.
She stepped back and around him, heading for the door on shaking legs.
