Chapter 1: The Morning After
The first thing Adam registered was the scent—clove and orange, and beneath it, the sharp, electric ozone of spent magic. It was tangled in the sheets, in his own sweat, in the warm skin of the woman pressed against his back.
Lucy.
He didn’t open his eyes. He let the reality of it, the guilt and the fierce, screaming satisfaction, wash over him in the quiet solar. Sun streamed through the high windows, painting the faded hunting tapestries in gold. A boar frozen mid-charge, a deer with wide, stupid eyes. He felt a kinship with them now.
Her fingers traced a old scar that cut across his ribs, her touch light as a moth. “You’re thinking too loud,” she murmured, her breath hot against his spine. “I can hear your teeth grinding from here.”
“Just counting my sins,” he said, his voice gravel from sleep and other things. “Ran out of fingers before dawn.”
She laughed, a low, rich sound that vibrated through him. Her body shifted, silk sheets whispering, and then she was draped over him, her auburn hair a fiery curtain around their faces. She’d used a simple glamour to mute the sounds last night, a shimmer in the air by the door he’d barely noticed, so intent was he on the curve of her mouth. Now, in the harsh morning light, he could see the faint shadows under her clever green eyes. He’d put them there.
“It was just a dream, brother,” she lied, her lips a breath from his. “A very vivid, very sweaty dream.”
He knew what she was doing. Making it a game. Easing the weight. He let her, because the alternative was to look at it directly, and he was a coward. He brought a hand up, tangling it in her hair, and crushed her mouth to his. It was less a kiss and more a claiming, a desperate anchor. She met him with equal hunger, biting his lip, her tongue delving deep. The taste of her, of them, was addictive.
His hand slid down the arch of her back, over the swell of her hip, and grasped the firm flesh of her thigh, hiking it over his waist. She was already wet against his stomach. He was already hard, aching for her again. It was a sickness.
“Adam,” she gasped, breaking the kiss.
“Lucy.” It was a prayer and a curse.
He rolled, pinning her beneath him in the tangle of linen. The morning sun gilded her skin, made the freckles across her chest look like scattered gold dust. He took a nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, and she arched off the bed with a sharp cry, her fingers clutching at his tousled hair. He worshipped her breasts with his mouth and hands, leaving possessive marks, knowing the magic she’d later use to hide them from her husband’s kindly, oblivious eyes.
He moved down her body, pushing her thighs apart with his shoulders. The scent of her sex, musky and sweet, filled his senses. He didn’t tease. He licked a broad, flat stripe through her folds, then fastened his mouth on her clit.
“Fuck!” she hissed, her hips bucking.
He fucked her with his tongue, relentless, driven by a need to erase everything but this, the taste of her, the feel of her coming apart against his mouth. She chanted his name, a broken litany, her hands fisting in the sheets. When she came, it was with a silent, shuddering scream, her back bowing, her magic flashing in the air like static that made the hair on his arms stand up.
Before the tremors had even subsided, he was moving up her body, sheathing himself in her with one brutal, perfect thrust. They both groaned, a ragged, shared sound. He was too far gone for finesse. He set a punishing pace, each drive of his hips slamming the carved headboard into the stone wall with a solid thump.
“The… the spell,” he gritted out, thinking of the silence-glamour.
“Sod the spell,” she panted, wrapping her legs around his waist, taking him deeper. “Let the whole keep hear.”
He fucked her like that, like they were trying to destroy each other, skin slapping, her cries loud and unfettered in the sunlit room. He was close, so close, the coil in his gut winding tighter—
The solar door swung open.
“—and then I used the bastard’s own spoon to dig under the stockade wall! Took me three nights, but by the gods, the smell was worth it! Lucy, my love, are you—oh!”
Adam froze, buried to the hilt in his sister. His mind blanked, sheer animal panic flooding his veins. Lucy went rigid beneath him, her eyes flying wide.
Jim Ashford stood in the doorway, his clean-shaven face cheerful, one hand holding a slightly stale pastry. He blinked, his gaze traveling from the half-eaten cold breakfast on the table, to the rumpled bed, to Adam’s bare, scarred back, and Lucy’s flushed face just visible over his shoulder.
A beat of silence stretched, thick enough to choke on.
Adam’s hand twitched, instinctively reaching for a sword that was leaning against the wall six feet away. Useless.
Jim’s oblivious grin didn’t falter. It widened, if anything. “Adam! Didn’t know you were up here! Couldn’t sleep in your own chambers? The rats again?” He took a hearty bite of the pastry, crumbs dusting his tunic. “Don’t let me interrupt your… wrestling. I was just looking for Lucy to finish my story. I got to the part with the spoon!”
He leaned against the doorframe, comfortably, as if he’d found them playing chess.
Beneath him, Adam felt Lucy’s body begin to shake. With laughter. Silent, hysterical laughter. She buried her face in his shoulder to stifle it. He wanted to strangle her. He wanted to laugh himself, a wild, despairing sound.
“Uh,” Adam managed, his voice strangled. He couldn’t move. Physically, metaphorically. He was trapped.
“The spoon was brilliant, really,” Jim continued, warming to his theme. “A bit bent, but it did the job. Dug right through the muck.” He took another bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Lucy, dear, when you’re done… helping your brother with his morning exercises, meet me in the yard? I want to show you the new mare.”
He waved with his pastry hand, turned, and ambled back out, whistling a off-key tune. The door swung shut, not quite latching.
Adam let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He collapsed onto Lucy, his heart hammering against hers. The absurdity, the sheer, breathtaking danger of it, crashed over him.
Lucy’s laughter burst free, bright and unhinged. “Morning exercises?”
“He thinks I have a groin strain,” Adam muttered into her neck. The heat between them was still there, but the moment was broken, frayed into jagged edges.
“He thinks you’re fucking your sister,” Lucy corrected, still giggling. She shifted beneath him, and he slipped out of her, the loss feeling profound and filthy. “He just doesn’t have the vocabulary for it. Sweet, simple Jim.”
Adam rolled off her, staring up at the canopy. The cold reality seeped in, colder than the forgotten sausage on the table. “One of the maids will have heard. They’ll have known he was coming up the stairs.”
“Mira knows,” Lucy said, sitting up. She stretched, a languid, unashamed movement. “She brought the breakfast up. She just looked at me, looked at your boots by the hearth, and put the tray down extra quietly. She likes me. She thinks Jim is a bore.”
“This isn’t a game, Lucy.” He sat up, raking a hand through his hair.
“It is,” she said, her green eyes glittering. “It’s the best game. And you love it.”
He couldn’t meet her gaze. He looked at his hands, the swordsman’s calluses, the nicks and scars. Hands that had just been clutching her hips. He stood, walking naked to the washbasin. The water was cold. He splashed his face, trying to scrub the scent of her from his skin, knowing it was impossible.
As he dressed, pulling on his breeches and tunic, he saw Lucy watching him from the bed, the sheets pooled around her waist. She didn’t cover herself. She was a vision of ruined innocence and fierce power.
“Will you come to me tonight?” she asked, no trace of jest in her voice now. It was a direct challenge.
He fastened his belt, his fingers fumbling with the buckle. He looked at the door Jim had left open. He thought of the maid, Mira, turning a blind eye. He thought of his vows, the rusted honor he carried like a shackle.
He reached for his sword, sliding it into its scabbard with a definitive click. The weight of it on his hip was the only thing that felt right.
“You know I will,” he said, and the truth of it was the heaviest weight of all.
“You know I will,” he said, and the truth of it was the heaviest weight of all.
He found Jim in the lower yard, practicing cuts against a pell. The former knight’s form was sloppy, his movements broad and energy-wasting. He beamed when he saw Adam. “There you are! Sleep well?”
“Like the dead,” Adam lied, hefting his own blade. “Show me this spoon-digging stamina.”
They trained for an hour, the clang of steel on wood a clean, simple sound. Adam lost himself in it, in the burn of muscle, the sweat stinging his eyes. Each parry, each lunge, was an attempt to hammer the feel of Lucy’s body out of his own. Jim talked the entire time—about the slavers’ camp, about the mare, about the tart he’d had for breakfast. His openness was a kind of violence.
“You’re distracted,” Jim panted, lowering his sword. “Worried about the northern reports?”
“Yeah,” Adam grunted, grateful for the excuse. “The northern reports.”
“Leave it to the lords, I say. We’ve got peace now. Time to enjoy it. Family, hearth, a good meal.” Jim wiped his brow, his grin effortless. “Speaking of, I told Cook to roast that boar the tenants brought. We’ll feast tonight.”
Family. Hearth. The words curdled in Adam’s gut. He needed the sweat off him. Now. “I’m for the bath,” he said, sheathing his sword.
The bathhouse was a small, steam-stained room off the keep’s main hall. A large wooden tub dominated the space. It was empty, waiting. Adam barked an order at a passing stable boy to fetch the kitchen maids with hot water. He peeled his sodden tunic over his head, the air cool on his damp skin. He stood in just his breeches, leaning against the rough stone wall, trying to steady his breathing.
The door clicked open. He expected a servant with a bucket.
It was Lucy.
She slipped inside, closing the door softly behind her. She’d changed into a simple, thin shift of grey linen. It did nothing to hide the silhouette of her. The damp heat of the room seemed to coil around her instantly.
“Jim’s in the cellar, choosing wine,” she said. Her voice was a low thrum. “He’ll be ages. He gets poetic about vintage.”
Adam stared at her. “This is stupid.”
“Probably.”
She crossed the room, not walking, gliding. The shift whispered against her thighs. She didn’t stop until she was pressed against him, her palms flat on his chest. She could feel his heart hammering. “You’re filthy.”
“So make me dirtier.”
He grabbed her, his mouth crashing down on hers. This kiss was all teeth and need, a direct line to the frantic energy still buzzing in his veins from the yard. She yanked at the laces of his breeches, her fingers nimble and urgent. He shoved the linen shift up over her hips, the fabric gathering at her waist. There was no patience, no preamble. He turned her, bending her forward over the cool rim of the dry tub. She braced her hands on the opposite edge, her back arched, that perfect ass offered to him.
He spit into his palm, slicked himself, and drove into her from behind in one brutal, bottoming stroke.
Lucy cried out, a sharp, guttural sound that echoed off the stones. He set a ruthless pace immediately, each thrust punishing, the slap of flesh on flesh loud and obscene. He fisted a hand in her auburn hair, pulling her head back. “This what you snuck in for?” he growled, his hips pistoning. “To get railed over a fucking washtub?”
“Yes! God, yes, just like that!” she screamed back, pushing against him, taking him deeper.
The door opened.
Two kitchen girls, Mira and a younger one with wide eyes, entered carrying heavy buckets of steaming water. They stopped. Their gazes flicked from the lord’s sister, bent over and impaled, to the lord’s brother-in-law, fucking her like a man possessed, sweat gleaming on his scarred back.
A beat. Two.
Mira’s face was a mask of practiced neutrality. She nodded to the younger girl. They walked, without a word, to the far side of the tub. They began pouring the water in. The splash and gurgle filled the room, mixing with the raw sounds of Adam and Lucy’s sex.
Adam didn’t stop. If anything, the audacity, the sheer degenerate exposure, fueled him. He watched over his shoulder as the servants worked, their eyes carefully averted. Lucy was tight and wet and clutching around him, her moans crescendoing. The younger maid’s ears were bright red.
“Faster,” Lucy begged, her knuckles white on the tub. “Oh, fuck, Adam, I’m there.”
He hammered into her, the angle brutal, perfect. Her orgasm ripped through her, a series of clenching spasms that milked him desperately. He followed her over, slamming home one last time as his own release tore from him with a choked roar, spilling deep inside her.
For a moment, the only sounds were their ragged breathing and the gentle slosh of the full bath.
Mira cleared her throat softly. “The bath is ready, my lord, my lady.” She didn’t look at them. She took the empty buckets and herded the stunned younger girl out, closing the door with a soft, definitive click.
Adam pulled out, his breath heaving. Lucy slumped forward, resting her forehead on the edge of the now-full tub. The steam rose between them.
Slowly, she straightened. She turned, her shift still rucked up around her waist, the evidence of their coupling trickling down her thigh. She looked at the water, then at him, a slow, wicked smile spreading across her face.
“Well,” she breathed. “Now we’re both dirty. Get in.”