by Ana Calin
“Don’t waste time, because I don’t have much. I already know he is a monster.” One of my eyebrows rises of its own accord to emphasize the meaning of that last word. Nothing in Jeremy’s eyes changes. There’s only a steady glimmer in their otherwise opaque brown, as if he’s seen too much, and nothing can surprise him anymore.
“He’s one of the world’s most dangerous killers,” he says. “A devious beast that has taken down mighty men, and made their power his own.”
All his business partners ceded him their wealth before they died, people had whispered on the Night of Venice.
“How much do you actually know about the Marquis?” Maybe I can finally share this dreadful burden.
“More than you, Saph, of that I assure you.”
“I’ve seen him,” I whisper, looking deep into Jeremy’s eyes. “Changing.”
Jeremy grabs me around the arms, his hands so big that the tips of his fingers and the heels of his palms meet. He bends his head, looking me hard in the face.
“Believe me, Saphira, you’ve barely scratched the surface. ”
CHAPTER X
THE VILLAIN’S MOTIVE
I can’t contain myself any longer. Tears well in my eyes, and I spill the truth.
“He’s using me. He’s making me do things, Jeremy.”
“What things?”
I decide to start at the beginning so he can understand. “I saw the Marquis kill a man at the Royale over a month ago. I ran away, but he followed me to the banquet room, got acquainted with Father, later bought this manor from him to impress with his wealth, and then later asked for my hand in marriage. He killed Simon Pukov before my eyes, turning into ... into ... into,” I choke on my words.
“Yes?” Jeremy invites gently. I look straight into his face. My chin trembles in a last attempt to keep back the tears and the words, an attempt that fails.
“The night we announced the engagement at my house, after we left, he brought me here and he... ” I hesitate, but I’ve come too far with the confession, I can’t stop now. “He took me, and filmed it. Then he had me tempt a man he wanted revenge on in a pub. He had me dress like a... ” I find myself unable to describe, and I swallow my words.
“Before the bastard actually got to touch me, the Marquis killed him just inches away from me. The blood squirted out if his jugular right into my face.” My fingers tremble as they wipe imaginary blood off my cheeks. “The Marquis threatened to have the recording of us make the rounds all over Northville and beyond if I refused the engagement or cooperation. He threatened he would... ” No, I can’t tell him about his little sister Jeanie. It might drive him to do something reckless. He’s already furious, it shows red and bustling in his face. He yet manages to control his voice, his hands tightening their grip on my arms to make me stop the compulsive wiping of my face.
“Why use you, of all people? What reason did he give you?”
I realize what the truth means for a number of important men in Northville, especially my father, but I decide to go all the way. I tell him the entire story. Jeremy’s eyes narrow.
“The Marquis was an orphan abducted and used for experiments. Now he wants revenge, and he’s using one of the bad guys’ daughter to get it,” he summarizes the story in a tone that leaves no doubt, he’s heard it before. “That’s Basarab’s version too.”
“Basarab?”
Jeremy’s jaw tightens as he looks to the ground. He’s searching for the simplest way to put it, I gather.
“Ivan Basarab is a Slayer, he can destroy engineered serpent-men like the Marquis. He can free you of him, he can free all of Northville from him, but it’ll take time.”
Free me of him. My chest tightens. “Why will it take time?”
“Basarab keeps in the shadow. He uses the element of surprise on the ones he hunts. None of the serpent men, except the ones he killed, ever saw his face, and the Slayer uses that to advantage. He cooperates with us at the Investigation Brigade in London, but remains anonymous, sending us recorded material, always wearing a mask. Says we stand better chance of taking down the Marquis if we work together because the Marquis is the strongest serpent ever created. London sent me here for him, Saphira, that’s why I returned.”
My head spins. “A Slayer. Take down the Marquis,” I repeat like an idiot.
Jeremy pulls me closer to him. “But I discovered Basarab wants more than just to eliminate the Marquis because there is more to him than his murders, motives, or his serpent skin.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
He takes a deep breath. “It’s hard to explain.”
“I need to hear it.”
“We don’t have time for a full backstory, but I’ll tell you this. A long time ago, the Marquis was an orphan working as a stable boy at the Lancaster family’s manor—”
“Stable boy? But that’s—”
Jeremy holds up his palm. “Hear me out. He was a good-looking lad, and Miss Catherine Lancaster was a hormone-driven young lady. So they soon ended up rolling in the stable hay together. Catherine’s father caught wind of it, and decided to punish the boy, severely. The boy’s name was Kieran Slate,”
Something stirs inside me at the sound of the name. Finally, his name.
“Kieran,” I whisper, just to feel it on my tongue. By the look on Jeremy’s face he doesn’t like the sound of it, or the emotion I display. I’m aware I sounded like a crack whore in love with her dealer.
“So Lancaster had Kieran Slate brutally beaten and sent to the people who made him what he is today,” Jeremy continues. “Overwhelmed with grief, Catherine Lancaster left Northville and never returned. Word has it she married a merchant somewhere in Italy, years later. As for the Marquis,” he says darkly, “he proved to be his makers’ best creation, and they used him as an assassin. In time, his hits brought him wealth and influence. I was assigned with investigating him, but he has so much power and money he’s impossible to catch off guard. I haven’t been able to get much on him so far. Luckily, Basarab the Slayer soon offered help, but there’s something he wants in return. He demands that we don’t put the Marquis behind bars.” Jeremy’s whole face turns darker. “He needs the Marquis dead. So he can dissect him.”
I shudder. “Dissecting as in—”
“In the most literal sense.”
Horror makes sweat break through my skin. “What can possibly justify that?”
“The experiment that has been done on Kieran Slate had side-results, Saphira. It is these side-results that Basarab wants, and the only way to demystify them is this.”
His eyes darken, and I can tell this is the point he’s been wanting to make all along.
“You observed correctly, Saphira. ‘Stable-boy.’ The last family that had a stable boy in Northville were those Lancasters, thirty years ago.”
Blood drains from my face as I make the connection.
“They lived in this very house,” I whisper, the stories from when I was a kid coming back to me. “Lord Lancaster burned down half of it after his daughter got involved with—Oh. My. God. The stable boy!”
Jeremy nods, holding my gaze. “That’s right.”
“But this happened so long ago. How could—Oh!” I gasp, my eyes popping out as I understand.
“Yes. Decades ago.”
“But that’s impossible! The Marquis barely looks twenty now.”
“And that is the side-result Basarab is after. He tried discovering this secret by opening up other serpents, his victims, but all in vain. The Marquis, being the strongest of all, is special, and the only one whose body chemistry can provide answers. At least according to the information the Elite has.”
Moments pass with me blinking and opening my mouth several times to speak. I clear my voice and finally manage, “Do you think –” that he’s immortal would’ve been my question, but steps shuffle from the stairs, making me stop.
Jeremy glances above my head in the direction the shuffle comes from, then looks at me focused and tens
e. “Meet me tomorrow, any time after noon, at Billy the Notary’s. Tell the Marquis you need to see to the formalities for when you become his Mrs de Vandenesse.”
He turns and disappears in the darker depths of the catacombs. Draught blows in the now seemingly empty dungeons, but soon I feel his presence. Chilling, slithery and compelling. Kieran.
CHAPTER XI
THE VILLAIN’S MISTRESS
The Marquis approaches from the darkness of the tunnel, a tall and looming shadow. My heart drums with anxiety that he might have known all along I was down here with Jeremy, that he might know exactly what was said between us. Showers of ice seem to roll down my back.
His steps pat the floor, bringing him closer, the rhythm of my heart going crazy. He draws nearer, now I can make out the ivory skin stretching on his perfect cheekbones and jaw, those haunting black eyes glinting in the weak light of the dungeons as he stops before me. My eyes lock on the lips of a sensual devil.
“What are you doing here, Saphira?” He switches on his hypnotic powers, only this time he doesn’t use them to make me comfortable. The lower vibrations in his voice drive the fear deeper into my bones, paired with the chill of the dungeons, making it impossible to lie.
“I needed to escape the party. I needed away from the fakery.” My voice is shaky despite my telling a truth, only not the truth about why I’m here. I pray the strategy works.
The Marquis takes a couple of steps closer. His suit jacket is open and the upper buttons of his shirt loosened, his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He’s sexy as vice.
“There is danger lurking in these catacombs,” he says.
His face lowers close to mine, the contrast between the ivory of his skin and the black gems of his eyes knocking me back. He winds an arm around my waist, slowly and flowingly like the snake he is, pulling me close to him. His flat abdomen is stone hard under his shirt that smells clean and fresh, mingling with the bittersweet scent of his skin. It gives me sensations I have no chance to repress. His power over me grows, and I lose a faint sigh. I feel my lids fall heavy to hood my eyes, unable to look away from his lips. Ashamed of my reaction, I struggle to speak up.
“There isn’t any danger greater than you, Marquis.” I’m tempted to say his name, Kieran, but that would expose my new access to information. I bite the craving to allow his name to roll off my lips, and sense his desire grow like thickening lava as he watches me do it. He presses me harder to him, my breasts swelling almost completely out of the corset and coming into contact with the fabric of his shirt.
“You were down here with a man, wacky tongues murmur up in the ballroom.” His voice is an eerie whisper, his mouth touching my ear as he speaks. There’s threat slinking in his words.
I can’t speak, intoxicated with his touch and his scent. His free hand brushes my locks aside, his lips trailing down to the curve of my neck, touching my skin only so lightly as he talks.
“Was it Jeremy Simmons? Are you still into your ex?”
“No.”
“Are you into me?” After that last word I feel his tongue warm and wet on my bare shoulder, licking it in one pressed stroke like a predator licks the blood off his kill. I shudder and wonder if it’s still human, or if it’s the split serpent tongue that had pulled out Simon Pukov’s stomach. His power on my senses increases, making my brain swim.
“Yes,” I whisper and moan as his lips close on my skin, both his hands caressing my arms downward. But then the sharp sound of drawing metal penetrates through the blood thumping in my ears. I look down to see a curved dagger in his hand, his jacket and the lower part of his shirt now tucked behind a leather holster at the side of his waist. I should be afraid, but his power keeps me in a haze.
His arms go around me, and I feel the tug of the blade as it slits open the laces of my corset. My dress pools at my feet. Slowly, his black eyes wandering hungry all over my body, the Marquis guides me backwards into a cell that’s carved into the dungeon wall.
I only stop when my naked back bumps into what feels like chipped stone, bits of iron pushing into my flesh—a chain, I soon realize by the feel of it.
The Marquis’s eyes seek mine, compelling me to look into them. I’m an obedient slave as he stretches my arms to the sides and closes rusty iron cuffs around my wrists, the clang echoing in the dungeon. The cuffs are loose, but the iron bites into the heels of my hands when I let my arms slump. Struggling out of them would surely leave me bloody.
He looks down at my bare breasts, my nipples hard in the chill. Once again I find myself before him in stockings and high heels, only that I’m hanging in chains, and only retain enough wit to feel ashamed for my goose bumps.
But they don’t seem to bother the Marquis. Licking his lips he looks hungrily at my body and begins unbuttoning his shirt, which he then loses in one smooth move. He stands bare-chested before me, the leather sheath of his dagger strapped close to his hips. He seems made of marble with perfectly defined sinews, his skin glinting hairless and shadowed only by the contours of his athletic muscles. He’s broad-shouldered and obviously strong.
His eyes seem to devour me as he unfastens the holster, drops it on the floor and undoes his trousers. Every last inch of his revealed body is beautiful, and I hear myself sigh with desire as his fingers stroke the sides of my torso. He presses his lips on mine and parts them in a full, rich kiss. He enjoys it, I can tell by the way his body pushes into me, a low purr escaping into my mouth as he crushes me between his chest and the wall.
I can’t keep from manifesting my delight, arching into his touch and sighing and moaning as he covers me with kisses.
“Do you ever miss Jeremy Simmons’ body, Saphira?” he says against my breast.
“I only want you,” I reply, unable to keep back the pure truth.
He now stands on his feet at his full height, his eyes burning like coal. I cry out as he enters me, reaching deep, the pain mixing with pleasure.
“And you’ll have me.” He groans as he grinds powerfully into me, making my feet lift off the ground and my toes curl. “You turn me on so bad, Saphira, it’s insane.”
I fight myself, trying to keep the reply on the inside of my mouth, but I lose the battle. “You’re a god!”
The Marquis takes me vigorously, thrusting hard, groaning and kissing me wildly as he finds release. We climax at the same time, my legs flexing, my hands gripping to the chains. As soon as his mouth frees mine I can’t hold back and say his name like a prayer. Kieran.
When I look into his eyes they’re serpent slits. I freeze.
“Where did you hear that name?”
I’m so, so, so busted, and yet the first thing that takes clear shape in my mind is a painful question: has his passion been for me or for the memory of Catherine Lancaster?
CHAPTER XII
A DARK LOVE
“Who told you?” the Marquis demands.
“It was—” I wish I could brace myself and hide. But I stand naked and with my hands cuffed to the sides before the Marquis, the stockings and high heels making me feel like a cheap prostitute. He shuffles his shirt back on, buttons up his trousers and tightens his belt, his pitch black eyes striking on his ivory face. He’s taken me just moments ago, and now he interrogates me like an inquisitor.
“It was Jeremy Simmons, wasn’t it?”
“Up in the ballroom,” I attempt a lie, but the grin crooking on his face tells me he’s not buying it. He pulls me hard to him. The chains holding my hands rattle, and my breasts crush into his chest, him being dressed and me naked making me feel vulnerable and worthless. His eyes are now close, defiant and even angrier than before.
“You were down here with him, weren’t you, Saphira? Did he give you my name along with the sob story of Catherine Lancaster and the stable boy?”
“Is that sob story not why you seek revenge?” I whisper.
He bares his white teeth in a grin that’s as threatening as the split serpent tongue that moves between them as he speaks.
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“If you ever see Jeremy Simmons alone again, I’ll make his head a trophy on my wall.”
“Jeremy is an inspector. His murder would have the police all over you.”
“The police are already all over me, Saphira. But they have nothing except stories, like your ex, the inspector boy.”
His serpent tongue slithers out of his mouth, making the finest hairs stand on my arms as it licks my cheek in a cold, dry stroke. He takes distance again, his black eyes nailing me in place. A patch of skin on his face seems to peel off like burning paper, revealing thick serpent scales the colour of ash as he lifts my chin with two fingers. It hits me—uncontrolled anger triggers his transformation.
“Don’t betray me, Saphira,” he warns, his voice deep but silvery. “Or you’ll know a new measure of my wrath.”
I’m afraid of antagonizing him. He presses me harder to his body and lets out a sharp, piping sound that pierces through my eardrums and makes me scrunch my eyes. It reverberates through the dungeons. Steps march down the catacombs in response.
The Marquis holds me crushed to his chest, covering my nakedness as his men appear at the grated entrance, wearing dark suits and grim faces. It’s clear to everyone what happened between us, and it’s especially humiliating since my arms are still spread open and in cuffs.
“A new dress,” he orders. “A comfortable one.”
One of his men hurries to carry out the command, while the Marquis unchains me. I fall in his arms, my legs weak and my will numb. The hard sinews beneath his shirt feel like steel on my flesh, his glinting black gaze making me all too aware of the power he has over me. I’m stripped of clothes and of options.