DOOR OF BRUISES (Thornchapel #4) by Sierra Simone
Release Date: November 30th
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START THE SERIES TODAY WITH
A LESSON IN THORNS (Thornchapel #1)
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Blurb:
Twelve years ago, our fates were sealed with a kiss.
We are all, for better or worse, doomed to love each other until death do us part. My heart belongs to Proserpina and St. Sebastianโeven if he no longer wants it. Even if she has left it behind to follow him.
Delphineโs fled back home, and Becketโs holy calling is in peril.
And now only Rebecca and I remain at Thornchapel to face the unknown.
The door is open. The door that shouldnโt exist; the door that people have died to close. I donโt feel like the lord of the manor…I donโt feel like a king or a wild god. I am a friend and a boyfriend and a brotherโand a failure at being all of these things. But the door doesnโt care about my guilt. It only cares about the sacrifice Iโll make to close it.
As the bruising dark of Samhain approaches, so does the fate of our circle, of Thornchapel and the village and the valley beyond it. And I must don the crown, because one thing is still true, even if I must face it alone.
Here at Thornchapel, the kings must go to the door.
Here at Thornchapel, all kings must die.
Excerpt:
He lifts his head; the deep brown of his irises is almost obsidian in the barely-lit foyer. They remind me of the earth at Thornchapelโnear-black and wet, filled with secrets. His eyes could eat bones.
Theyโre already eating mine.
He draws in a breath. โYou knew,โ he says in a juddering kind of voice, โbecause you always know. Do you know that I donโt want to leave? Do you know that I want to go back upstairs with you? Do you know that Iโd let you do anything to me right now? Anything you wanted, Auden, anything at all.โ He steps closer, his lips parted, his hands slowly turning so his palms face me in offering.
Outside, I hear the trees lashing and fretting in a sudden, gusting wind.
โAnything,โ I echo.
His pulse thrums just above the collar of his borrowed shirt. โAnything.โ
I could have him now. If I wanted.
If I pushed, heโd break. If I pulled, heโd fall. All I have to do is say yes to this churning, crashing need inside me, and I could have him at my feet, I could have him on his stomach and I could be inside him with my palm against his throat and this blazer crushed between us.
And heโs looking at me like weโre sixteen again and about to kiss in a bed of flowers, like weโre starting over at the very beginning and thereโs nothing between us, nothing but delirious, innocent lustโI could have him.
I could have him.
But having and loving are only sometimes the same thing.
I take a step back. โYouโll be late if you donโt go now,โ I say. The words come out gentler than I feel them; they feel like razor-wire leaving my mouth.
โAuden . . . โ he says. Pleads. โBut IโI miss you.โ
He says it like I donโt miss him in return. He says it like Iโm the bad guy here, like Iโm the one who left, and maybe this is the hardest part of loving someone, maybe this was always the test. Not letting him leave, but making him go.
I take his hand, wrapping my fingers around his so that my thumb rests on the Guest family ring. My hand is shaking. My entire body is shaking.
Grab him.
Bite him.
Bruise him.
Outside the trees are thrashing and behind my eyes it feels like all I can see is forest and rain. I drag in a breath, forcing the feeling down inside me, as if I can tamp whatever it is back into my belly, as if I can pretend that I donโt want to run and chase and hunt. Iโm not a king, Iโm not so twisted up in Thornchapel that even the trees feel my lust and my pain. Iโm just a London boy with a non-Smythson bag and good hair. Iโm just a friend and a brother and Iโm going to do the right thing, because Iโll pay any price not to have St. Sebastian look at me like he did at Lammas.
Because Iโve finally, finally learned that I canโt choose us for him.
He has to do it on his own.
โListen,โ I say. โYou and Proserpina will always be my air and my waterโthe very things that make up my bloodโand that hasnโt changed, because it will never change, it canโt. I canโt.โ
I put my free hand against his stomach, pressing the ejaculate-damp shirt into his skin. Mine, the gesture says. My own thing.
โThis is me. But you are you, and I love you as you are, and donโt you see it? Donโt you feel it? You were right about me. A few minutes alone with me, and I have you dressed like a doll and wearing my cum, and if you spend the night with me, Iโll have you shivering and spent and marked all over. If you come back to Thornchapel, I will never stop looking and reaching and wanting. I canโt be trusted.โ
Heโs shaking his head, even though Iโm only repeating his own words from Lammas back to him. โYou canโt be trusted,โ I remind him gently. โYou had your reasons for leaving. Have they changed so much that you can abandon them all now? Truly?โ
Heโs stopped shaking his head now, and heโs staring up at me with a look so hopeless I canโt stand it.
This is what no one told me about love, about being the Thorn King, about everything.
You can be broken, and still you must let people break you again and again.
You must help them break you, if necessary.
You must allow your own sorrows, your own torments and regrets, to be subsumed in the face of their own.
You must cut yourself apart piece by piece and plant those pieces far and wide in the lives of those around you, and then you must not lament when they donโt take root. You must cut yourself apart and do it all over again. As many times as it takes.
As many times as it takes.
โGo, St. Sebastian,โ I say, letting go of his hand. I can still feel the worn crest of his ring against my thumb. The G surrounded by twining, twisting thorns. โJust go.โ
He swallows. Whispers, โIโm sorry.โ
And then finally, mercifully, he turns and opens the door. I watch him take the steps with the vague stagger of a dying man, and then I watch him slope off into the night, shoulders hunched forward and head down.
I think heโs crying.
I know I am.
About the Author:
Sierra Simone is a USA Today Bestselling former librarian (who spent too much time reading romance novels at the information desk.) She lives with her husband and family in Kansas City.
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