No, that wasn’t right. Someone had told him where to find the reclusive Miss Evernight. Only he could not remember who.
Gods, his head felt brittle, as though it might shatter. His clockwork heart clicked a steady rhythm. Did she hear it? Did she remember the apparatus she’d foisted on him? He needed to get free and rip out the fleshy heart of the beastly woman who’d ripped out his. He tried to move again. A failure.
“You are wasting your energy.” Her voice was all cool tones and dark shadows. She did not even look at him. “Calm, and we can have a chat when you are settled.”
Have a chat. Perhaps over tea? He’d cut her tongue out first.
They turned down another corridor. Far above him, the ceiling turned from dark, coffered wood to high, graceful arches of white. Arched ceiling. Lying helpless on his back as they rolled him along. Panic blackened the edges of his sight. And with it went his hold on the pain. It crested over him, a violent wave that crashed down and made him shudder. Too much. Too much.
Inside himself, he thrashed, trying to get away from it. A whimper broke from his unmoving lips.
Midnight blue eyes glanced down at him, and the faintest of furrows wrinkled between the dark wings of her brows. Lovely and heartless. A cold diamond of a woman.
She brought him into a small, wood-paneled room, strangely warm and cozy, when he’d expected an icy cellar like the one she’d inhabited before. A fire crackled in the hearth, and he craved its heat. The world spun as she turned him, and he caught sight of the matronly lady who he’d all but forgotten about at his feet, her plump face drawn in a scowl. Then his captor set him down on some sort of high table. But she did not remove her hand.
He hated her touch. Hated that she could control him in this, when she’d already destroyed his life.
Like a giant insect, she bent over him, inspecting his face in her detached manner.
“You are in pain.” She leaned closer, and her loose, inky hair swung down, the strands cool silk against his neck. “Where does it hurt?”
Everywhere. Another strangled sound escaped him. He fought to keep silent.
But as if she’d heard his internal thought, she nodded brusquely. “I am going to attempt an experiment.”
Like hell! He strained, tried to thrash, and got nowhere.
“I will stop if I notice any damage.”
Hateful woman. I’ll kill you.
A flicker of sympathy went through her eyes. Hate that as well.
“Leave us,” she said to the old woman. The woman drifted off like a ghost, out of his line of sight. Out of the room.
Then Evernight took a deep breath, her pert breasts rising beneath her frumpy grey housecoat. He didn’t want to notice her blasted bosom. Any other thoughts he might have had about the matter fled on a tide of liquid warmth that rushed over him. Relief. A soothing balm.
He shuddered as it sank deeper. The horrendous pressure that constantly weighed down his flesh eased, and he breathed deep. God. His vision blurred. God.
“It’s all right.”
Evernight’s voice.
He turned his head towards the sound and realized that he could move. Absolute lethargy weighed him down. Warm all over for the first time in his memory, he could do no more than blink up at this strange woman who still had a hold of his cheek. Touching him. He could not remember the last woman who’d done so. He knew he’d had many women, but the particulars were lost in the dark mire of his thoughts.
“What did you do?” His voice was rust and cobwebs. It’d been so long since he’d used it. With a shaking hand, he touched his jaw. Flesh there. Not cold, hard metal.
Evernight’s wide eyes did not blink. “Drew the metal back.”
He took another breath, his chest hitching. “I’m going to rise now.”
Her lips thinned. “I expect civil behavior, Mr. Thorne.”
A rasping laugh made him wheeze. “Do you now? A word of advice. Become accustomed to disappointment when dealing with me.”
She pressed her fingertips into his cheek with just enough force to make her point. “Shall I reverse the process?”
Cold, calculating insect. “You have intrigued me sufficiently that I will withhold execution for the moment.”
Her perfectly sculpted face stared down at him without any inflection of feeling. “Generous of you, Mr. Thorne. I shall do likewise. For I too am intrigued.”
Slowly, she removed her hand. He felt the loss immediately, a spot of cold on his cheek and a slight increase in pressure on his chest. It worried him. More so when fingers of pain started to spread from the cavern surrounding his clacking heart.
She frowned down at her hand, rubbing the tips of her fingers together as if they bothered her.
“What did you do to me?”
“Why do you want to kill me?”
They spoke over each other.
When she simply stood there, her delicate features unmarred by an expression of feeling, he huffed. “Well?”
“This is my home, Mr. Thorne. You answer my questions first, and then I shall answer yours.”
Had she not relieved his pain, her neck would be twisted and her blood oozing down his throat this instant. But in truth, he might have wept for joy for the mere fact that he could once again speak in coherent sentences. He needed an answer, and he’d played enough card games to know when an opponent would not fold.
“You do not strike me as obtuse, Miss Evernight,” he said. “However, if that is how you want to play this, then fine.” He grabbed the front of his woolen tunic and ripped it open, exposing his chest. “Here is your answer.”
There was no satisfaction in seeing her flinch as her gaze landed upon the tangle of platinum threads that ran from the top of his sternum to the bottom of his ribs. It only fueled his rage. “Here, where your pretty work began and my happy life ended.”
Her slender throat worked on a swallow. “What do you remember?”
Will’s clockwork heart whirred audibly within his chest. “Every damn moment. Right up until you and that thing ripped the beating heart out of my chest.” Things had gone hazy after that, for which Will was grateful.
The pink bow of her mouth tightened. “His name was Amaros. He was a fallen. Diseased and mad. He thought he would prolong his life with a clockwork heart. Only he was too much of a coward to try one out before the operation was perfected.”
After he’d been freed, Will had experienced a few moments of lucidity before the dark, confused state he currently lived in had descended. His friend Jack had explained what happened, and that Will had been given a clockwork heart as if he were a fucking machine. Will knew that much, but no more.
Oh, but he never forgot her. Evernight. His true creator. “You were his pet.”
“Pet.” Her mouth took on a bitter slant. “I suppose you could say that. Bound hand and foot, and his to command.” Her dark eyes flashed with pain and anger. “Yes, I was his pet.”
“Forced? I saw you standing there. You did not help me! You did not fight. Sell me another story, for this one wears thin.”
She held his gaze as she lifted her arms, holding her delicate wrists out before her. “Chained. And soul sick to watch what he did.”
Will glanced down. Thick, pale scars marred her skin. He forced himself to meet her gaze again. “Did you or did you not create this heart that beats in me?”
“I did.”
“And did you or did you not know what it would do to a demon should that bastard play mad scientist with it?” To put a machine into a demon was an aberration of nature. Everyone knew this.
“It was my intention to create a heart that worked well enough for Amaros to put one within his own body,” she said. “That was his ultimate plan. Once he did, it would have made him weaker. Then I could kill him.” The little line between her brows returned. “Yes, sacrifices had to be made. But, had I not tried, the death toll would have gone higher. It was an unavoidable consequence of an unfortunate situation.”
&nbs
p; “You are a cold little thing, aren’t you?” He leaned closer, wanting to see her flinch and disappointed when she didn’t. “Unfeeling and detached from any trace of humanity.”
“What would you like me to say, Mr. Thorne?”
“Show some bloody remorse!”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “You came here to kill me, and you speak of remorse?”
On a curse, he stood, needing to get away. But it was as if she’d attached steel hooks into his ribs, and with every step he took to distance himself, the hooks dug in deeper, his pain intensifying. He stopped short and rounded on her. “For the last time, what did you bloody do to me? Why do I feel this way?”
Her head tilted. “I don’t understand.”
“Here.” Will slapped his chest. “It hurts here when I draw away from you. I crave your touch, and not in a pleasant way, but as if I will soon be crippled with pain if I do not feel it.” It burned to admit this, but the truth could not be contained. “Why? Why is this so?”
Evernight frowned down at her hand before her expression went completely blank. She stood stone still, oblivious to him, studying her palm.
“Answer me,” he snapped, coming up close to her. Hell. Even that was sweet relief. The heaviness around his heart eased a touch. He had to fight the impulse to grab her hand and press it against his chest.
“Hush,” she said, not moving. “I’m thinking.”
“Oh, well, jolly good. I’ll just sit here in silence, shall I?”
She ignored his sarcasm. “Please do.”
Will’s fangs erupted, the sharp points puncturing his bottom lip. He tasted blood, and his nostrils flared. One long suck at her neck, and she’d be unconscious. Another few deep pulls and she’d be dead. His cock stirred at the thought of breaking her skin, cracking through it like the delicate shell of a Trinity cream. Delicious.
Hands low on his hips, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, fighting his baser urges. Not that she even noted the danger. She merely stared at her hand with blank dispassion. Then, as if breaking from a trance, she drew in a breath and lifted her head. Before he could say a word, she moved closer and pressed her smooth palm to his scar.
He nearly swooned. Clutching the chair at his side, Will swayed into her space, lured by the luscious heat and pleasure that she gave him with that simple touch. A moan escaped him.
“Interesting,” she murmured.
He would kill her. Just for that. “I do believe I hate you, Miss Evernight.”
Firelight caressed her skin as she gave him the smallest of smiles. “Your sense of humor is odd.”
He hadn’t been joking.
“It appears, Mr. Thorne, that your clockwork heart is a constant poison to you.”
“Oh, well, brilliant.” And not at all a shock. He slapped the back of a nearby chair, sending it teetering.
“Your demon makeup sees it as an unwanted host—”
“Stating the obvious, darling.”
“But instead of trying to fight it, your body is attempting to reorganize itself, transmuting on an intracellular level.”
“Plain English would be preferable.”
“In short—”
“Too late for that, I’m afraid.”
“To survive, your body tries to accept your platinum heart by letting the metal take over your flesh. Which only succeeds in driving you to madness and giving you great pain.”
“Another obvious statement.”
Evernight let out a small huff. “Do you always interrupt people?”
“I cannot remember. If they were as pedantic as you, I’m certain I did.”
Her black winged brows snapped together. “Fine. I shall use small words and simple phrases.”
“At this point, I shall be thankful if you can manage as few of them as possible.”
A small click sounded in the silence, as if she’d snapped her teeth together. He couldn’t be sure, for her calm tone did not change when she spoke. “I can control metal. When I touch you, Mr. Thorne, I can tell the metal to retreat. I can ease your pain. When I do not interfere…”
“I am buggered,” he finished, feeling ill.
“In a word, yes. Yes you are.”
As expected, Thorne reacted as if Holly had struck him. He reared back, his white hair swinging over his shoulders, and snarled, showing the tips of needle-sharp fangs. “Fucking hell.” It sounded more like fook-hen ’ell to Holly’s ears.
It was strange hearing him speak now. In all their time together in the nightmarish imprisonment, he’d never uttered a word. But she knew the sound of his screams quite well. Suppressing a shiver, she pushed that thought aside. His voice was pleasant, smooth as cream, but with the sharpness of a proper, upper-crust London accent. Well-raised, then. But beneath it, there was a thread of something deeper that came out more when he was agitated, such as now. It wasn’t Scots, more like what one would hear in Northern England, with the dropped “h”s and breathy endings of words as if he were swallowing them. Exotic and dark. Holly had heard the like before in other demons. Notably the Sanguis who were believed to come from the north.
Sanguis. The blood drinkers. Fiends who thrived on blood and sexual relations. Logically, Holly knew that it was wrong to fault someone for something they have no control over. Sanguis were as their creator made them. And yet, even though she tried to see it that way, a shiver of disgust over their choice in libation came over her just the same. Nor did she particularly trust demons. Far too many of her colleagues had been hurt or deceived by them.
She wondered idly if he spoke demonish. But then swatted that thought away as he stalked about the room, his muscled arms gesticulating wildly. “Am I to be this mad thing? Incapable of a rational thought unless you,” his lips curled on a bitter face, “are near me?”
Thorne halted and strode back to her, the torn ends of his tunic flapping, displaying a well-defined torso and that scar.
That scar had haunted her deepest dreams. Nearly a foot long and comprised of gnarled platinum threads, like a tight network of tree roots. From that scar spread a small lake of platinum, washing over the expanse of his upper chest. It radiated ever outward as he moved.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice still dark and strange, his eyes flashing black and silver, “why shouldn’t I kill us both now and take you to hell with me?”
“Can you destroy yourself, Mr. Thorne?”
The taut wall of his abdomen clenched as he glared down at her. “No,” he shouted. “No, I can’t. Satan knows I’ve tried. But I simply dissipate. To shadows! Fuck.” He pushed off again, a mass of restless energy. She envied that. She was so weary at this moment. Using her power on Thorne to that extent had utterly drained her. Holly braced her hip against the edge of her desk and hoped he would not notice.
“You say you turn to shadows. Have you the ability to leave your body in spirit as the GIM do?”
GIM, or Ghosts in The Machine, were spirits that refused to move on once dead. As lore went, an extremely old and powerful Primus demon named Adam could be called upon to restore the spirit’s body and give them immortality. There was a price, however. Adam gave the body a clockwork heart, and the soul was contractually indebted to him for a time of service. Should the soul fail to comply, Adam simply stopped the heart, and the body would die.
With his clockwork heart, Thorne was modeled after the GIM. Only he was a demon, whereas GIM were once human.
“No. I am either lamentably solid or mere ether.” He made it sound like a fault, but Holly saw a greater advantage in his ability. For at least his body was never left empty and vulnerable.
“There is something I do not understand,” she said, watching him prowl.
He snorted rudely.
“You say you are here to kill me as revenge against what was done to you. Did you send the others?”
Thorne pivoted on his heel. “You mean to say there are others who yearn to wrap their hands about your pretty neck?” His smile was not nice. “Why a
m I not surprised?”
Really, the man was most amusing. “Mr. Thorne, did you come here of your own accord or did someone send you?”
He paused and peered at her. “I… Hell, I don’t know.” On a sigh, Thorne tossed himself into a chair and grasped his hair with both hands as he hunkered forward. His voice came out muffled and pained. “I don’t even know how I got here. Or what I’ve been doing since I was freed. How long has it been since that night?” He lifted his head and looked up at her.
Really, his eyes were most beautiful, almost feminine with their long, dark lashes and the slight tilt at the corners. With his smooth, unlined face, he appeared nothing more than a young man, lost and frightened. “You’ve scars upon your wrists,” he said. “Time to heal at least.”
She found it an effort to speak. “It is nearing on a year. It is the first of October, in the year eighteen-eighty-six.”
“A year.” He winced before letting out a chuff of air. “Why did it take me so long to come for you?” He did not speak to her, but scowled down at his large, clenched fist. “You are the only thing I have thought about.”
She was sure many women would love to hear such a sentiment, if it weren’t for the “so I could kill you” that was left unsaid.
A soft blanket of silence fell over the room. Enough that she noticed the gentle patter of rain coming from outside the windows.
Thorne ran a tired hand over his face then straightened. “Just how many have tried to kill you, Evernight?”
“Including you, four attempts thus far.”
“And you truly have no notion as to why?” He appeared highly skeptical.
“You are the only one I’ve had an opportunity to ask. The others died.”
His elegant brows lifted. They were not white as his hair was, but a dark bronze color. Holly forced her attention away from silly things and addressed the matter at hand.
“I have excellent security in place, Mr. Thorne.”
“No doubt,” he muttered then rose. He was not a great hulking brute like his friend Jack Talent, but lithe and lean, and above average in terms of height. Perhaps an inch over six feet, which made him a foot taller than Holly. His eyes, beautiful though they might be, were also those of a predator. They glinted now, calculating as he came close.
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