Beloved BookTok star Stacey McEwan has been teasing her latest novel, A Forbidden Alchemy, for a while now. After much anticipation, the spicy romantasy tale has finally arrived, kicking off the Australian author’s new series.
Before you pick up a copy for yourself, meet protagonists Nina Harrow and Patrick Colson (and get a taste of their steamy dynamic), and take a peek inside McEwan’s magical new world.
Warning: Spoilers for A Forbidden Alchemy by Stacey McEwan ahead.
Chapter 48
Nina
I awoke wrapped in Patrick.
His breath on my neck, my back to his chest, his hand on my stom- ach, my nightdress bunched indecently high. I felt all the hard planes of him against me and had never felt as restful. How little it would take to shut my eyes and sleep another day.
My stomach, however, would not be ignored. It growled insistently.
I rose with the intention of finding food for the both of us. Surely Patrick would be hungry when he woke. God knew when he’d last eaten.
His discarded pocket watch on the bedside table read just before six. Dawn broke beyond the rooftops; I would likely meet no one but Sam in the stairwell, nor in the pub or the kitchen. I slipped a coat over my clothes without bothering to dress properly.
Sam was snoring with his head lolling on his chest. The stairs creaked as I descended but the rooms on each landing were quiet. Barely any sounds from the street permeated.
I was almost to the bottom when I heard a thundering from above. Feet pounded the steps as they descended, intensifying as they neared. I frowned at the way I had come, watching a window shudder in its frame.
"He remained shirtless, as he had been in sleep, trousers unbelted and hanging loose on his hips"
Patrick appeared, barreling around the banister. His hair stuck up at every angle. He remained shirtless, as he had been in sleep, trousers unbelted and hanging loose on his hips. The way he panted made the muscles of his chest and stomach expand in distracting ways. Truly, I had never seen a man more magnificent.
I swallowed, blinked rapidly. Then said, “Is someone chasing you?”
He braced his arms against the wall and hung his head, cursing. “God almighty, Nina. It’s barely daybreak. I thought . . . I thought—” “What?” I asked. “That I’d left?”
His cheeks hollowed and filled. “No, I—”
“I’m only finding breakfast,” I told him, trying not to stare at his body. Trying to ignore the warmth pooling low in my stomach at the sight of him. “I’ll return soon.”
But Patrick shook his head, descending the last of the stairs. “I’ll have it brought up,” he said. “That’s what I pay the cooks for.”
“I’m capable of procuring some toast,” I argued. “And I’m hungry.” “You aren’t even properly dressed,” he countered. “And your feet are turnin’ purple with the cold.” “So are yours.”
“Come back upstairs with me.” He drew closer, and I stopped breathing. Like all his commands, this one was difficult to ignore. He was close enough that I could feel the heat emanating off his body. His fingers reached and threaded slowly with mine, tempting me back to him.
But I was, in fact, very hungry. “I’ll only be a moment.”
“I can think of better ways to fill the moments,” he said in a voice like smoke. His other hand wound gently around my lower back.
I inhaled sharply, my thighs squeezing together as he closed the space between us, and his scent overwhelmed me. It felt like coercion — a very effective coercion. “I realise that everyone else around here does whatever you ask of them, Patrick, but if you think I’ve agreed to stay here just to fall in line and obey orders, then — ”
He sighed at the ceiling, cursed beneath his breath.
“Then you’ll be disappointed to learn that I’m not that kind of woman. And — ”
He kissed me. Took my waist in both hands and pressed me back against the wall. His lips covered mine, stunning me, and then unraveled me entirely.
The seam of my lips parted on a gasp, and he took advantage. His tongue stole my breath in long, luscious sweeps, forced a gasp from my chest. Then his hips pinned me there, and hot, liquid wanting filled my core, disintegrated every other thought.
Somehow, my legs found his waist and wound around him. My hands delved into his hair. The coat I’d thrown on puddled around my elbows, and when his lips disentangled from mine, a sound of longing escaped me.
“It’s early,” he murmured. And his voice was thick with need, heavy with it. The hard ridge of his arousal pressed into me. “Come back up- stairs with me.”
I nodded, not caring much if he took me here in the stairwell.
On the top-floor landing, Patrick barked at Sam to go home, and the boy went wide-eyed and fled, possibly mistaking the urgency on Patrick’s face for something else.
"As he spoke, a finger glanced the column of my throat, drew a line down my chest to the ribbons of my nightgown, pulled them free"
Patrick pulled me back into the room I’d just escaped, and it seemed we were both taken by something uncontrollable. A spring tension, pushed to the limits of its constructs before it broke, gave way. He pulled me off the ground and onto his chest so that my mouth was aligned with his, so that our lips could connect again. We were drunk. Desperate. I let my coat fall to the floor, then wrapped my arms around his neck, urgently pressing my body against his. He cursed against my lips.
I found my back pressed onto the bed, the wide span of his chest hovering above my own. He braced his arms on either side of my head, and my fingers found the valleys between the panes of his chest, then his stomach. I felt him shiver.
“Last chance to change your mind, Nina,” he said, drowning me in perfect blue. As he spoke, a finger glanced the column of my throat, drew a line down my chest to the ribbons of my nightgown, pulled them free.
I watched those eyes turn wild, ravenous. “You’ve got this one last second to tell me to leave.”
In answer, I kissed him. Amid all the noise, the endless machinations of this world, there was little else I knew better than that I wanted Patrick Colson. That I was willing to do whatever it took to stay here, like this. I’d traveled to every village and parish on the continent, but that any other man might have captured my attention seemed unfathomable to me now. None came close. There was only Patrick and his secrets and these walls.
This is an excerpt from A Forbidden Alchemy by Stacey McEwan, published by Simon & Schuster.
A Forbidden Alchemy By Stacey McEwan
$34.95
“Nina Harrow and Patrick Colson are only twelve years old when they are whisked from their disenfranchised mining towns to dazzling Belavere City to be tested for magical abilities. Nina’s lifelong dream is to become an Artisan, a powerful elemental mage who fulfils the city’s grand ambitions, while Patrick wants only to return to his family of Craftsmen.
Together, they discover a devastating secret: Artisans aren’t born, but chosen. With this information, they take their future into their own hands. Patrick departs for home, while Nina finds her place as one of the rarest, most coveted types of Artisan.
When a Craftsman revolution ignites years later, Nina is captured by Patrick’s rebel group – and despite the years, he hasn’t forgotten her. In fact, he needs her help for a mission that could shift the tides against Belavere City, which she reluctantly accepts, battling the sparks between them. But when Nina’s first love reappears, asking her to betray Patrick for the Artisans, she faces an impossible choice that will determine the fate of their world.”
