The Curse of the Brimstone Contract
Page 23
“Did anyone ever show you a life without guns?”
He raised one of those perfect eyebrows, oozing more confidence than ten men. Who wouldn’t have that confidence, if fire literally danced to their command?
“You know, I thought Lansing agreed too quickly to send you. Did he want you to check up on me?”
“No.” But it would be like Lansing to say that he had.
“Hah. I think you’re a bad liar, counselor. A life without guns? That’s the kind of leading question that he uses to test me.”
“I’m not lying.” Not about that. “No, it’s the first time I’ve seen you prepare for a mission. It worries me.” She looked down at the dark carpet and scuffed her feet. “I have doubts about what you’re doing. I think you’re not seeing the big picture.” Like how your foster father is using you to gain power and influence, at the risk of your life. “You don’t have to put your gift to this use. There are so many other things you can do that don’t involve violence.”
Or the possibility of being killed.
Philip had been terrified at letting her walk into danger. Looking at Alec, she knew how Philip felt. Just how dangerous was this mission tonight?
“Only I can do what I can do,” Alec said.
“Which is all the more reason not to risk your life so recklessly.” She was pushing too hard, out of fear. No choice now. She’d run out of time.
“I’m not reckless,” he said. “I’m as careful as I can be.”
“With weapons and body armor? If you’re doing something careful, you don’t need them.”
He buckled on the body armor and walked over to her, so that they were only a few feet apart. He towered over her, even more than Lansing, but she didn’t feel the least bit afraid of him, not since their first meeting. He wouldn’t hurt her. Despite his work as a soldier, there was no meanness in him. She rubbed her arm, remembering Lansing’s anger. Alec wasn’t like him at all.
“I like doing this,” Alec said. “I make a difference. It’s what I’m trained for.”
“Yes, I know. But you never had a say in any of that training. You’ve told me that.”
“Fighting the bad guys is family tradition.” He straightened. “Lansing’s too old now, so it’s my turn. It happens all the time. Daz has the same deal, on both the American and the Filipino sides of his family.”
“Daz didn’t grow up isolated in this place.”
“Yeah, well, Daz didn’t have to worry about accidentally burning down the schoolyard as a kid. I did.” He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you seriously trying to talk me out of going tonight? C’mon.”
“I’m trying to get you to reconsider what you’ve been forced into doing for your entire life. There’s a whole world out there you haven’t seen.”
She walked over to the coffee table, reached down and brushed her fingertips over the gun. Her hand trembled. The gun looked like the same kind that her kidnappers had used, years ago. If he stayed with the Resource, Alec might become like those men, using any ends to justify the means.
“Hey! What’s with the nerves? Where’s my competent, no-nonsense counselor?”
The gun rose from the coffee table, floating in air. She turned and followed its flight. He snatched the gun out of midair with a smile and holstered it.
“See?” he said. “I control the guns, not the other way around.”
“And who controls you?”
His chest, Kevlar vest and all, rose and fell in a deep sigh. “I know someone in this room who’s trying to control me. What’s wrong, Beth?” He walked to her and lifted her chin with two fingers, his dark eyes crinkling around the edges.
“This is not a life you chose, this is a life that’s been imposed on you, from birth.”
“And?” His fingertips moved along her jaw, in a soft caress. I should move away. It feels too good. But he’s listening.
“I’m scared. About this mission, about you being locked up inside the Resource forever.” Deathly afraid, so afraid her stomach felt like a heavy lump of coal. “There’s so much you don’t know about the Resource and about Lansing, so much you don’t understand. And you need to know it before it kills you.”
“Hey, I know Lansing can be a bastard. And that he’s overprotective and controlling. I’m working on it. But it doesn’t change the fact that this is my job.” Alec leaned closer to her face. “We can talk about that another time.”
“Do you really think there’s going to be another time?” Her voice rose, almost panicked now. She wasn’t getting through. “What if you get hurt tonight?”
“Look, this cell might have a dirty bomb. They need to be stopped, and I’m the one who can do it. I have to do this, right now.”
“Just that simple?”
“Yep. I walk away, people get hurt. I do my job, people are saved. That’s the deal, that’s my life. You analyze things too much.” He cupped her face in his hand. “But if it took this mission to find out you care, then good.”
She shuddered. Wrong, wrong, she shouldn’t let him touch her like this. Yet it felt like he touched her somewhere far deeper than her skin. A shiver, like the one from their first meeting, traveled from her neck to her toes, setting her nerves jangling. “This is wrong.”
“The mission isn’t wrong,” he said, misunderstanding her. “Relax.” His face was less than an inch from her lips and his breath fell on her cheek. Her skin felt inflamed, sensitive to the slightest movement of his hands.
He kissed her.
His lips were softer than she had expected, tender, not at all like his casual, even macho, confidence. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck, feeling those strong muscles and pulling him against her, intensifying their contact, even as her mind screamed in protest. This is not what I came for!
Her body became enveloped in that strange energy, alive as never before. It was like the kiss had a second level, one which she responded to instinctively, creating a living connection between them. He drew her lips apart with his tongue, still tender, still allowing her the chance to back away. But she opened her mouth to him instead, her whole self consumed with wanting to touch him, her face flushed with desire. She grabbed the buckles of his body armor for balance, her equilibrium lost along with her reason.
He crushed her against him, no longer tender, a bruising kiss demanding conquest. She allowed him full control, despite the buckles digging into her shoulder. He lifted her completely off her feet and brought her up to his eye level.
“Beth,” he breathed, brushing his lips against her neck before moving back to her mouth.
Her mind whirled, too lost to remember that she should stop him. She wanted him too much. The air heated up, warming them. The papers on the coffee table began to smoke.
Startled, she broke the kiss. There was a momentary disorientation, like a soft mental slap. The tingling stopped. Her skin went cold.
She let her head fall to his shoulder and closed her eyes. Her last chance to reach Alec and she’d blown it. More, she’d crossed all ethical boundaries. Yet his arms around her felt so right.
Alec spun around and set her into his easy chair. He swallowed, breathing heavily, his face and neck flushed. Staring at the papers on the table, he reached out a hand and they burst into real flame. He twisted his wrist, calling to the fire. It came to him, wrapping itself around his wrist like a bracelet. He smiled, blinked, and the fire vanished.
He whistled through his teeth. “Wow. You are some kind of hot, counselor, to set me off like that. I usually have to think about creating fire.”
Love as strong as the tide. Betrayal as cruel as an undertow.
The Deepest Ocean
© 2014 The Deepest Ocean
Eden Series, Book 2
Moments before he sets sail into pirate waters to rescue prisoners, Captain Darok Juell receives additional orders—to take a mysterious woman on board who will help him in his mission.
When she arrives, she is unlike
any woman he has ever seen. A cold, controlled operative of Seawatch, Yerena Fin Caller wields an iron hand over her emotions, and an almost magical control over a great white shark.
On the surface, her orders are simple: use her shark to guide Darok through dangerous waters, attack any pirates who interfere. Her emotions must remain under lock and key, lest they travel along her delicate connection with the finned killing machine below.
As she and Darok navigate the Strait of Mists into the Iron Ocean—and evade a killer-whale-controlling traitor—Darok’s generosity and warmth coax Yerena to give in to desire. But they have no future together. Especially if Darok’s legendary recklessness forces her to obey a secret order to send his ship to the bottom of the sea…
Warning: Contains naval battles, a shark that enjoys winning races, a woman who can control the shark—sometimes, the captain who wants her in his bunk, and hot sex on the high seas.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Deepest Ocean:
Behind the oarsman stood a figure wrapped and hooded in a grey cloak. Darok couldn’t tell if the figure was female, but when the barge drew up to the hull and the oarsman called for a ladder, he knew it had to be her. He wondered what her duties on board would be, since Daystrider already had a full complement. It would not be beyond the Admiralty to plant an agent on his ship, but this was too obvious by far.
The ladder unrolled and Darok put a hand on the rail, trying to get a good look without actually leaning over. It wouldn’t do to appear interested. The figure began to climb.
Even at that distance, with the hood falling halfway over her face, her arms were too slim to be mistaken for a man’s. The crew continued with their work—those on deck were mending sailcloth or polishing the brass, and ship’s discipline would not have tolerated any open slacking as they stared—but everyone was aware of the new presence.
Since Darok didn’t move to acknowledge her arrival, no one else did so either. Unassisted, the woman climbed over the rail.
The bell tolled the twelfth hour as she set foot on the deck, though Darok doubted he would have heard her if the harbor had been completely silent and the water frozen. Her grey shoes were made of some soft cloth, and her cloak wrapped her like smoke. Not someone who wanted to call any attention to herself, except she had done so only too well by being assigned to his ship and by boarding it so late.
He crossed the deck and approached her. Her head lifted, the hood slipping off to reveal her face.
“Captain?” Her voice was low, devoid of accent or emotion.
She has a tattoo. Darok barely noticed anything else about her face, because all he saw was the black triangle that completely surrounded her left eye, curving slightly at the peak. He had seen tattoos before, but on men, not women, and it was jarring compared to the traditional and trying-not-to-be-noticed quality of her clothes.
Abruptly he was aware of the silence on the deck. “Yes. Captain Darok Juell.”
He’d spoken more tersely than he’d intended, but the full formal introduction which included his ship’s name and status as a Weapon of Denalay would have accorded the woman too much importance. Besides, he didn’t need to impress her—it was the other way around.
“My name is Yerena Fin Caller,” she said.
Obviously that wasn’t her real name, but before he could say anything, the woman shrugged her cloak back. A small pack rode between her shoulders, leather straps crossing over her chest, and she swung the pack down, pulling it open at the same time. She drew out a folded piece of paper and extended it to him.
Darok took it, noting with dismay the seal of the Admiralty in blue wax. He broke the seal.
The Admiralty of Denalay hereby charges, in the name of the Unity, all loyal men of the Guardian Fleet to give their aid and assistance to Yerena Fin Caller, a Weapon of Denalay and bearer of this letter.
He read that twice to be certain he’d understood it. This woman, with her strange appearance and stranger, concocted name, was a Weapon of Denalay? She enjoyed the same status as his warship, which was second only to the flag of the fleet and had sunk four Turean galleys? He still had no idea what on Eden she could do for his mission.
Lady Lisabe drew closer and Alyster came up from the lower deck. Darok would have preferred they found some activity more gainful than being spectators, but he paid them no attention as a new possibility occurred to him. No one on the ship knew what Yerena Fin Caller was supposed to look like, and the woman who stood before him had arrived late.
“How can I be certain you are who this claims you are?” he said.
The woman had waited with no change in expression, and there was none even after he spoke, not so much as a furrow touching the smooth skin between her brows. She seemed completely indifferent to everything, and to his annoyance, Darok had difficulty holding her gaze. The black wedge of her tattoo kept making him focus on one eye rather than both of them, and the tattoo itself reminded him uncomfortably of a shark’s fin.
“I am an operative of Seawatch,” she said, “and my duty is to guide and to guard.”
Seawatch.
In the near-silence on the deck, the men who were closest heard that, and a whisper swept through the crew. Seawatch served the Unity but did so in secret, through sabotage, assassination and other methods less savory. That explained why the letter was from the Admiralty, since Seawatch would not have put anything in writing.
Though unless the tattoo washed off, this operative would make a very obvious assassin. Darok doubted the little pack she carried held much in the way of secret devices or equipment, and her only evident weapon was a knife at her belt.
“How exactly will you guide or guard anyone?” he said.
“I have a mental link to a shark.” The tone of Yerena’s voice didn’t change. “The shark may be used to scout ahead, to transport and to attack.”
That explained the tattoo. And her name. A shark would come in useful for scouting, but he didn’t think it could ram a Turean galley and live to swim away.
“What kind of shark?” he asked.
“The white death.”
That time the crew’s murmurs were a little louder, and a few of them traced a protective circle over their hearts. Darok wished he had questioned the woman in private, but taking a stranger—and he didn’t trust her, no matter what documents she carried—to his quarters wasn’t a good move either.
“Can you prove it?” he said.
A flicker of emotion disturbed her composure, and she looked at him as though not sure she had heard correctly. “How do you want me to prove it?”
Darok shrugged. “Show me this shark.”
Her dark brows came together, but she spoke quietly. “Captain, it’s a shark, not a dog. It can range a hundred miles away, and I don’t summon it unless that is absolutely necessary.”
The Curse of the Brimstone Contract
Corrina Lawson
Magic—and love—balanced on the tip of a needle…
The Steampunk Detectives, Book 1
Magic existed at the fringes until Prince Albert discovered he was a mage. Now he and others like him are leading a revolution in steam technology that’s held tight in the grip of the upper classes.
A man of half-Indian heritage, rejected by his upper-crust, mage-gifted family, Gregor Sherringford lives in working-class London, investigating cases involving magic among the lower classes. But he’s never met a client quite like spirited, stubborn Joan Krieger.
Joan’s dream was to lead a fashion revolution designing women’s clothing suited to the new technology. But when her richest client mysteriously dies outside her shop, it deals a mortal blow to her dreams.
She hopes the handsome, enigmatic detective can prove the death a magical murder. She never expected a dark plot would be woven right into the fabric of her family. Or that cracking the case will mean merging gifts, minds—and hearts—with the one man who could be her partner in every way. If they survive the release of a soul-binding curse.
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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The Curse of the Brimstone Contract
Copyright © 2014 by Corrina Lawson
ISBN: 978-1-61922-067-6
Edited by Jennifer Miller
Cover by Kanaxa
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First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: April 2014
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