Clare, Cassandra - The Dark Artifices 01 - Lady Midnight by Clare Cassandra

Author:Clare, Cassandra [Clare, Cassandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471116643
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2016-03-07T05:00:00+00:00

“What are you doing here?” Mark hissed into the darkness.

He was standing in the coat closet, surrounded by racks of expensive clothes. The temperature dropped in Los Angeles at night, even in the summer, but the coats were light: linen and seersucker men’s jackets, silk and gossamer women’s wraps. There was very little light, but Mark didn’t fight it when a pale hand reached out from behind a leather trenchcoat and yanked him through a coatrack.

Kieran. His hair was the darkest of dark blues today, almost black, the color of waves during a roiling storm. Which meant he was in a vile mood. His silver-black eyes glowed in the darkness.

“How else am I supposed to see you?” he demanded, shoving Mark up against the wall. There was little space behind the coats; it was close and hot. Mark felt himself gasp, and not just from the force of the wall hitting his back. Rage was rolling off Kieran in waves that he could feel; they twisted inside him, deep down in a place where the cold waters of Faerie had once chilled his heart. “I cannot enter the Institute, save the Sanctuary, and I would be killed if I was found there. Am I meant to spend every night waiting in the desert shadows in the hopes that you might deign to visit me?”

“No,” Mark said, even as Kieran pressed him farther back, his knee wedging itself between Mark’s legs. His words were furious but his hands on Mark’s body were familiar: thin, cool fingers working the buttons of his shirt, slipping between them to brush his skin. “We’re supposed to stay away from each other until this is over.”

Kieran’s eyes blazed. “And then what? You will come back to the Hunt voluntarily, for me? You think me such a fool. You have always hated it.”

“But I did not hate you,” Mark said. The coatroom smelled like a million perfumes mixed together: colognes that clung to coats and jackets tickling his nose. They were synthetic smells, not real: false tuberose, false jasmine, false lavender. Nothing in the mundane world was real. But then, was anything in Faerie any realer?

“Did not hate me?” Kieran said in a cold voice. “What an honor. How complimented I am. Do you even miss me?”

“I miss you,” said Mark.

“And am I meant to believe that? Remember, half blood, I know well that you can lie.”

Mark flicked his eyes up to Kieran’s. He saw the storm in those eyes, but behind the storm he saw two boys as small as stars in a distant sky, locked together under a blanket. They were the same height; he had only to reach across slightly and press his mouth to Kieran’s.

The faerie prince stiffened against him. He didn’t move, hesitant rather than unresponsive. Mark’s hands came up to cradle Kieran’s face, and then Kieran did move, pressing forward to kiss Mark with an intensity that sent Mark’s head flying back against the wall.

Kieran tasted of blood and cold night sky and for a moment Mark was flying free with the Hunt.

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