Kissed by Moonlight Read online

  Kissed by Moonlight

  THE CIMMERIAN CAGE BOOK 2

  CATE CORVIN

  KISSED BY MOONLIGHT

  Cate Corvin

  All Rights Reserved © 2019 Cate Corvin. First Printing: 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover Design by Melody Simmons

  Author's Note: All characters in this story are 18 years of age and older, and all sexual acts are consensual. This book is a work of fiction and liberties may be taken with people, places, and historical events.

  Dedication

  To Mel, here is your personal real estate in every book I write.

  “A prayer for the wild of heart kept in cages.” -Tennessee Williams

  Table of Contents

  Kissed by Moonlight

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Thanks for Reading!

  Chapter 1

  Lu

  “How is this possible?”

  Locke took my face in his hands, almost close enough to kiss. His dark hair brushed my cheek.

  Cimmerian’s cursed wall was only twenty yards away, the cobblestone barrier like an enormous scar cutting through the forest. The periapt in my arm pulsed with a dull pain, but I’d passed beneath the wall completely unhindered. I rubbed the aching pockmark in my arm where the cursed charm lay dormant.

  How much of our imprisonment was a lie?

  I pulled Locke’s hands away, meaning to go to the wall, but the ache became a sharp pain.

  The periapt was still active, even outside the wall.

  “I… how?”

  A gentle thumb touched my cheek. “The tunnel was built many years ago for my keepers to use, but it’s been mostly forgotten.”

  I gazed up into his smoldering amber eyes, no longer afraid that he might use his Compulsion against me. “What keepers?”

  His handsome face tightened, distaste and self-loathing flashing across his features, and I realized who he meant.

  “The ones you… fed on.” And fucked while he fed, until they died. He bore the guilt of their deaths like permanent weight on his shoulders.

  “The ones whose duty was to keep me alive,” he said, his jaw tightening. “Yes. This was a secret path in and out.”

  I rested my hand over his. “You weren’t sane yet, Locke,” I reminded him.

  He turned away, staring into the twisted depths of Moira’s Forest. “There are no excuses, Lucrezia. Some days I feel a terrible crushing weight for what I’ve done… and other days, I feel joy for taking a few small vengeances against the witches who did this to me. My satisfaction disgusts me when I come back to myself.”

  Locke shook his head and touched a single sharp fang with the pad of his finger. “But if they had not kept me alive, I would never have met you. You alone had faith that I was more than a simple beast.”

  Locke was in front of me again in the blink of an eye, moving in his preternaturally fast way. “The way is open to you, Lucrezia. As long as you don’t return to the wall, you will be free. We can leave tonight and never look back.”

  My breath was shallow, a tide that went out and never came back in. Cimmerian was behind me, the periapt slept, and I had Locke. All we had to do was walk into Moira’s Forest and never look back. We could travel a thousand miles away and never even say the name Cimmerian again.

  But Dominic Steele had sunk his hooks into me, body and soul, and kept me tethered here a thousand times stronger than any ropes he could tie around my wrists.

  I needed Shane’s serenity, the steadfast confidence he had in us. He kept my feet on the earth when my mind wanted to fly away from it all.

  Locke was mine. He had far more good in him than the atrocity he believed himself to be.

  And then there was Roman, who had just ripped my heart out and served it back to me on a silver platter just to defy his twin’s visions.

  For a moment, my humiliation was overshadowed by a rush of boiling anger, but I pushed it aside. Anger wasn’t going to be my deciding factor now.

  I needed to go on the gut instinct I felt when I was in Cimmerian with them.

  My revelation disturbed me.

  I didn’t want to leave.

  I’d witnessed a girl disappear into a wall, a girl lose her mind and savage herself, a boy vanish into thin air. There was the mysterious threat of the Hole hanging over our heads. A hundred asylum inmates had died on these grounds. A graveyard of forgotten cairns dotted the forest floor only a few miles away from where I stood.

  For all that, the old mansion that smelled of beeswax and wood polish felt like home to me in a way Ashdarke House hadn’t. Walking through its doors was like being enveloped in a warm embrace by the mother I never had.

  Somewhere beneath Cimmerian was a magical cornerstone, the fount of the covenstead’s magic and power. I suspected that warm feeling was the cornerstone reaching out to me.

  But why, I had no idea.

  I took a deep breath of the forest air, sorting through the clean, fresh scents of pine and earth, and closed my eyes tight. My mental wards against magic lowered and unfurled, opening me to the ambient magic of the forest and the wall. I felt I was far enough from Cimmerian’s magical heart to risk opening myself.

  I was, but just barely. Even over a mile away from the academy, the cornerstone was clamoring for help, and it felt me just like I felt it. Like the day I had touched the walls and opened my mind, it tried to reach in again, but that sticky, lurking blackness clung to the magic and I drew back. Whatever it was, it was hungry, and it wouldn’t discriminate against who it swallowed whole.

  Locke watched me, calm and serene, as I rebuilt my mental wards and blocked off the ambient magic once more.

  Even with my freedom dangled in front of me, my path was clear. Walking away with Locke now simply wasn’t an option.

  I needed Shane and Dominic by my side. They were as important to me as Locke. I shook off the thought of Roman being part of us, even though he flashed into my mind.

  I needed to make sure Holly was safe.

  I needed to drag Cimmerian’s dirty secrets into the light and free the covenstead from its torment.

  And if I tried to slip out under Gilt’s watchful eye, the brutal Wardens would be on me like a pack of ravening wolves. She owned me now.

  “I can’t go,” I said, and Locke’s amber eyes didn’t so much as flicker. He only touched a finger to my lips. His fangs were hidden behind his own. If it weren’t for those teeth and the slit-pupiled eyes, he could have passed as a mortal man.

  “I would never cage you here, my sunlight. There are no obligations more important than your freedom.”

  “I know you wouldn’t.” My words came out in a cracked whisper. While turning my back on a clear escape was the hardest thing I’d ever done, it was the right thing for us. “But I need you, and Shane, and Dominic. I think I’m here for a reason, and I can’t leave yet.”


  His gaze was shadowed, the faintest creases of tension at the corners of his long-lashed eyes, but he only inclined his head. “If you change your mind, I will keep the way open. You need only ask.”

  I pulled his fingers to my lips and kissed them, hoping he could read all the deep affection and appreciation I put into it. “But we can come outside together. This will be our place. Just for you and me.”

  When Locke smiled, it was like being touched by a warm ray of sun on a cloudy day. It was almost easy to forget his nature when his eyes sparkled like that. “Just us,” he agreed. “Just like your dream. That will always be ours.”

  I wanted to rise on my tiptoes and kiss him, but I brushed my lips over the soft skin at the base of his throat instead.

  “But I will always ask you, every time we come to this place together,” he said. I felt his deep voice vibrate in his chest. “If you want to leave. And if you ever do, I will be ready.”

  “That’s fair.” I rested my cheek on the hard plane of his chest and wrapped my arms around his waist.

  But I knew the answer would never be yes. There were too many chains anchoring my heart to this place.

  ***

  “Harder, Lucrezia.” Professor Dominic Steele’s long-lashed hazel eyes gazed up into my face. His rough, handsome features twisted as he strained against me. “Push like you mean it.”

  Every sinew in my body was taut. I gasped, sweat beading on my forehead as I tried to force the blunt wooden dagger towards his chest. He gripped my wrist and seemed to barely flex the dense muscles of his forearm.

  The next thing I knew I was lying on my back in the dewy grass, the dagger five feet away, completely useless to me.

  Dominic offered a hand, which I took with a sigh. Lightning zipped up my arm everywhere he touched me, but right now I was less inclined to moon over him. It was barely the crack of dawn and he’d already laid me out six times.

  “If I were a revenant, you almost certainly would’ve died. Did you receive any combat training at all in Ashdarke?”

  Even when exasperated, his butterscotch-and-rum voice with that deep British accent was like a shot of adrenaline straight between my thighs.

  I could happily listen to him talk all day while he lamented my total lack of training and every possible way a revenant might kill me.

  “We already discussed that, sir,” I reminded him. I scooped the dagger from the wet grass and wiped the damp blade on my cotton shorts. “My matriarch couldn’t have cared less about my training. Even if I wasn’t afflicted with wildfire, my education would’ve been subpar at best.”

  Dominic wasn’t even breathing hard after the thrashing he’d just given me. “It’s not an affliction, Lucrezia.” He circled me, his bare feet soundless on the lawn. He wore soft black pants, and a shirt with the Cimmerian Reform Academy crest emblazoned in gold over the heart.

  Since Headmistress Gilt had assigned him as my combat training master, he’d taken me out of Professor Sweet’s Physical Training class and instituted what I thought was a completely draconian schedule: a five a.m. wake-up call that started with five laps through the forest trail and half an hour of nonstop calisthenics, followed by an hour of repeatedly kicking my ass with a variety of practice weapons.

  The only good thing about it, I thought as I raised the dagger, was that I had an ironclad excuse to be all over him.

  In the two weeks since Dominic’s reign of terror over my mornings had begun, he’d taught me a basic fighting stance, several holds, and how to sweep my opponent’s feet out from under them. I had the gist of the movements down, but unfortunately, I still sucked at executing them.

  “Well, it definitely isn’t a blessing.” I swiveled carefully, keeping my stance wide. “I can’t fathom why Gilt would want me to be an even deadlier threat to everyone else. Professor.”

  It was becoming difficult to keep that teacher-student line between us. Even in private I kept calling him professor. One of these days I would slip up in front of the wrong person if I wasn’t careful.

  “An untrained witch is far more dangerous than one with control over herself.” Dominic’s features didn’t give away so much as a hint of his inner thoughts. “A dull blade causes more damage than a sharpened one.”

  He was in front of me in a flash, yanking my right arm forward as he hooked his shin around my left foot. I went down hard but kept my grip on the dagger and jabbed it against his thigh.

  Dominic looked down at the blunt dagger dimpling his muscular thigh. “A moderate improvement. You didn’t drop your weapon, but I don’t think daggers will be your forte.”

  I wasn’t sure any weapon would be my forte. My matriarch had never given me anything but the rowan wand I carried in the lining of my uniform jacket, but it was more of a training-wheels tool than an actual weapon.

  Dominic used his daggers like he’d been born with them in his hands. “Was this what training was like in your coven?”

  He offered me his hand and I got up again. This time he let me take a breather, his gaze running over my body and lingering on my bare legs.

  A wave of heat gushed through me that had nothing to do with wildfire. If we weren’t out in the open where anyone could walk over and see us…

  “More or less. Most of what I learned came from my mastery apprenticeship.” My breath caught in my throat at how casual he was about it. “You can always learn to fight later. Steelblood placed a higher emphasis on mirrorwalking.”

  I’d had a suspicion but hearing from his own mouth that he’d achieved a mastery was a little breathtaking. If he wasn’t a professor and went back to Steelblood, he could claim the title as Lord of the covenstead.

  Most witches knew when to cut their losses and rested on their laurels after completing their initial apprenticeship exams. Mastery exams had killed plenty of overconfident witches and warlocks.

  I’d once harbored a dream of Lord Ember taking me off my mother’s hands and training me through the mastery exams, but I knew that would never happen now. Gilt was my legal conservator, and I would need to pass a mastery exam under her care to win my freedom.

  I had a snowball’s chance in hell of that ever happening.

  Irritation intruded on my good mood. If I’d had the good luck to be born to a coven with more money or a more caring covenmistress, I wouldn’t be under Gilt’s thumb at all.

  “Lucrezia?” Dominic threw caution to the wind and cupped my face in one large hand. I tried my hardest to shove back the irritation and slid my fingers over his. If my life had been any different, I never would’ve met Dominic, Shane, or Locke.

  A distant howl echoed over the forest and my fingers tightened. Or Roman.

  I could’ve done without that last one.

  Dominic’s face tightened. He’d heard the wolf as well. “Will you tell me what happened between you and Mister Frost?”

  I shook my head, gazing up into his eyes. I could drown in those green depths. “No, sir.”

  His eyes flicked over my shoulder to the forest line, a deadly calm coming over him.

  “Dominic. There’s nothing he can do to me that would make a difference. Let’s just train.”

  He leaned in, brushing a kiss over my lips that made my nerve endings sizzle like a livewire. “As you wish, Miss Darke.”

  To nobody’s surprise, I ended up in the grass five more times and lost the daggers at least twice.

  Dominic ended up straddling me on the last round, his powerful thighs holding me in place. My ponytail had come undone, the dew soaking into my hair.

  I was barely breathing as his fingers slipped under the hem of my shirt and glided over my stomach. “Anyone could see, Professor.” My voice came out in a ragged, breathless whisper.

  But my hands were locked around his neck, pulling him closer.

  “Let them see.” His words were muffled against my skin. Dominic kissed my jaw and trailed down my neck. Even in the sultry humidity of the morning, goosebumps rose on my limbs.

  He stop
ped himself with a groan. “Why don’t you set something on fire so I can assign you a week of Counseling sessions?”

  “Isn’t the goal to prevent me from setting things on fire, sir?” Had he just made an actual joke?

  Dominic sighed, burying his nose in my hair and breathing deeply. I closed my eyes and lowered my mental wards, letting his psychic signature fill my mind: the sensation of tension and strain, knots and rough hands.

  My body yearned towards him even as he drew back, his eyes filled with regret. “I forget myself, Miss Darke. I’d never do anything to compromise my time with you.”

  He was off me in less than a second, offering a hand with the cool, stern expression I’d come to realize was the mask he wore around everyone else here.

  Around me, it was slowly starting to slip, and I saw bits and pieces of the real Dominic underneath.

  The training grounds he’d chosen were far from the mansion, Gilt’s carefully manicured rose gardens, and the skeleton of the new conservatory Professor White was building. If I did accidentally explode into wildfire, the only surroundings I would hurt was the forest.

  Dominic walked with me back to the academy, maintaining a careful distance between us. If anyone watched us approach, they’d think us nothing more than a stern teacher and an exhausted student.

  “You need to practice your stance outside of our morning sessions, Miss Darke,” he said. The practice blades clacked woodenly in his grip. “Combat training isn’t a part-time goal. It should occupy your mind, every second of the day, until it becomes second nature to you.”

  The only thing occupying my mind right now was the daydream of Dominic taking a shower with me. My muscles felt like butter, worn out from incessant training and the languid desire to wrap around him. “Yes, sir.”

  The thick, sweet scent of roses overtook the smell of the forest as we re-entered Cimmerian’s grounds, and an unwelcome sight waited for us at the North Entrance.

  Headmistress Gilt’s heels were planted firmly on the flagstone entrance, flinty blue eyes watching us approach. As always, she wore a perfectly tailored suit, the golden crest shining over the heart, and black onyx drops gleamed on her earlobes. Carrot-red curls were pulled back in a neat chignon.