Half Past Dead

by Zoë Archer

  “We’re to find him together,” she murmured, understanding.

  “I’ve been chasing Broadwell for two years,” he rumbled, “but now he won’t escape me.”

  “You mean,” she corrected, “he won’t escape us.”

  “Us,” he repeated. He tested the word in his mouth and seemed to find it…not altogether unpleasant. “Been a long time since I’ve been part of an us.”

  Cassandra valued her independence, but—being a member of the Blades, and working for factory reform—she knew the value of having someone watching her back, gaining strength from others. Only a fool rushed into danger entirely unprotected and alone.

  And perilous danger lay ahead. The cruel Broadwell had a fearsome Source in his possession, and she must get it away from him, secure it from further exploitation. Her only ally in this fight was Sam. An undead soldier who, for many years, had known only a thirst for vengeance. He could be trusted as a warrior, but could his need for retribution imperil the mission and the Source? Would he be an asset in this fight, or a liability? And could she separate herself from her dreams of the past in order to succeed in the present?

  Cassandra suspected that the biggest uncertainty was her own heart.

  Chapter Three

  Considering that he was not only a veteran, but one of the living dead, Sam didn’t think much could surprise him any more. He’d witnessed and fought in battles that would make most men curl into shivering, weeping heaps. He had been raised from the dead, and forced to engage in unspeakable acts. And he’d seen his share of beauty, too. Sunrise over the gleaming domes of Constantinople. A gypsy dancer covered in glittering coins, spinning in front of a fire as wild fiddles poured songs of dreams and desire.

  Safe to say, Sam wasn’t a boy anymore, with a boy’s sense of wonder.

  Yet Cassandra amazed him.

  She walked beside him now, her hand securely tucked into his arm. He kept glancing down at her, waiting for her to suddenly realize that he was truly a monster and that she should run from him as fast as she was able.

  She didn’t do either of these things. She did not know precisely what he was—he couldn’t disgorge that kind of wickedness to her, staining her with his corruption—but she had enough knowledge to deem him an unnatural fiend. He’d only sketched what he’d been made to do—even that should be enough to send her running far and fast. Despite all this, she looked into his eyes, touched him, and accepted. He could not even endure himself, yet Cassandra—the coltish, headstrong girl who’d grown into a slim, unconventionally pretty but still headstrong woman—accepted him. Not one woman, not one person, out of a thousand would do the same. And she was a member of these Blades of the Rose, protecting magic from bastards like Broadwell. Her strength awed and humbled him.

  Just the same, she was still human, and as her footsteps dragged on the cobbled streets, Sam realized with a start that she’d been up all night and into the morning without sleep and without food. He needed neither. She did, however, and so he guided her into a tea shop. All his instincts roared at him to leave a place of such close habitation—people were sitting at tables, chatting over breakfast, reading their newspapers, the bustle of the servers—but Cassandra needed to eat, and the instinct to care for her overrode his demand for seclusion.

  She smiled wearily at him as they sat down at a small table. “Exactly what I needed,” she murmured.

  He only nodded, strained by the warmly ordinary scene within the shop, at the simple pleasure of sitting with her at a little table and seeing her smile at him as if he was still the kind of man who could be in tea shops and receive her smiles.

  When a female server hurried up to their table, Cassandra ordered a pot of tea and scones, “with lots and lots of jam,” which made him chuckle. But he lost his humor when the server kept glancing at him uneasily, and seemed relieved to leave their table.

  “What do people see when they look at you?” Cassandra muttered irritably.

  “A monster,” he answered. A simple statement of fact.

  “You’ve no fangs,” she said, surly. “Or fur. You look like an ordinary man. An extremely handsome man,” and she blushed a little before rushing on, “but ordinary, not monstrous.”

  That blush intrigued him, and the fact that she found him extremely handsome. Yet he wouldn’t be sidetracked by his need for her admiration.

  “Look at them,” he said, nodding toward some of the other patrons. “Truly look.”

  She followed his gaze, studying the people.

  “You can see them breathing,” he noted. “When they laugh, after they take a sip of tea or a bite to eat. You might not be fully aware of them breathing, but you sense it, nonetheless.”

  “Perhaps,” Cassandra allowed.

  “It’s the same with everyone’s pulse.”

  Her gaze flew back to him. “I can’t see their pulses all the way from here.”

  “Maybe not in their wrists or their throats,” he permitted, “but the movement of their blood through their veins…it creates a kind of…energy around them. An animation.”

  Frowning a little, she studied the people in the tea shop, trying to see what he meant.

  “Now,” he said, “look at me.”

  Cassandra turned to face him. Both a torture and a blessing to be the object of her frank study.

  “I’m different, aren’t I?” He watched, forcing himself to be indifferent as her eyes grew round with understanding. “No breathing, no pulse. You might not know any of that consciously, but you can feel it. So can they.”

  Sam waited. Terror would come into her gaze, a true comprehension that he was no longer alive, that he was a monster. Horror eventually emerged with everyone else who beheld him in full daylight. She would be the same.

  Yet, as he waited, her fear never surfaced. She looked thoughtful, sad, a touch angry, but not fearful. Not of him.

  He couldn’t have been more amazed if she suddenly began levitating.

  To hide his shock, he continued. “During the day, it’s not so easy to hide. That’s why I usually keep to the night, and away from places like this.” He glanced out the shop window to the bustling street, full of sunshine and life. “Haven’t been out this hour of the morning, with so many people, in almost three years.” He turned back to her. “In three years, I haven’t spoken to anyone as much as I have with you in the last few hours.” The loneliness of that statement hit him like a fist of ice.

  The sorrow for him in her amber eyes made him study the tea-stained tabletop. He didn’t know how to act, what to think, when she offered him true compassion. And he hated to think that she pitied him. He was a barely contained beast who could tear this shop and the people within it apart if he let slip his control.

  All he wanted to do was bolt from this tea shop, this bastion of normalcy where he stood out like a bloodstained saber amongst butter knives. But Cassandra needed food, needed rest, so he forced himself to stay.

  “My conversation isn’t precisely the height of pleasant banter,” she said with a wry quirk of her mouth. “Always scared off would-be beaux and horrified the matrons. My mother said I was too forthright with my opinions.”

  “No such thing,” he said.

  “That’s what I believe! I can’t help it if talking about lack of sanitation in factory towns gives some puff-brained swain the vapors.”

  In spite of himself, Sam felt a smile tug at his lips. He wished he could have seen Cassandra cut a swath through the polite ballrooms of London. “That might scare off a few lesser suitors.”

  “I don’t suppose you might like to discuss sanitary conditions in factory towns?” she asked.

  “We could try,” he offered, “but I don’t know anything about that topic. How about siege techniques?”

  She grimaced. “I’m at a loss there. But,” she brightened, “I recall you and Charlie could discuss horse racing for hours.”

  “Fishing, too,” Sam added.

  “And wenches,” added Cassandra.
>
  He sat up even straighter. “Little eavesdropping minx!”

  She tilted up her chin with bravado, even as a fresh blush stained her cheeks. “I was curious what boys talked about on their own.”

  “I’m not talking to you about wenches—women,” he corrected. Sitting with Cassandra at this little table reminded him that he hadn’t touched a woman in those three years, either. He had thought that being undead meant all his physical needs would disappear. And they had—until now. Looking at her, the graceful curves of her shoulders, her slim neck and generous mouth, desires long buried now revived. Desires he had no right to feel. She may accept him as he was, but he would never pollute her with his touch. “We haven’t time for horseflesh and angling. Or wen—women.”

  “Not with Broadwell at large.” She switched immediately into clipped efficiency, which, as a soldier, he appreciated. “The Blades were alerted to his presence when it became known that he was traveling to England with a Source. That Source must be what changed you.”

  “He’ll use it again, just as he did in Crimea.” The idea that Broadwell planned on desecrating other men turned Sam’s vision to a furious haze.

  Cassandra placed a hand atop his, where he gripped the edge of the table. “Sam,” she said quietly. “You must control yourself.” She glanced quickly toward the other tea shop patrons, who were staring at Sam with agitation. Sam blinked, realizing that he held the table so tightly, it shook.

  He forced his fingers to uncurl from their grip, to relax his body.

  The server gingerly approached and set down a pot of tea, two cups, and a plateful of warm scones before scurrying away. Sam was grateful to see that Cassandra poured him a tiny amount of tea before filling her own cup, knowing without being told that she would have to perpetuate the illusion that he was a normal human. He pretended to sip from his cup—but the action sent a dart of ice through him. Playing at a world he could never have, and forcing her to help maintain the deception.

  She started in on her breakfast with a good deal of eagerness. Just as she’d said, she did love jam, and often licked it from her fingers when she grew enthusiastic in its application.

  The sight made him involuntarily groan.

  She looked up at him with a mouthful of scone. Swallowing, she looked remorseful. “Does this bother you?” She waved her hand to his largely empty cup, then looked meaningfully at her breakfast.

  He hated to see her ashamed, especially on his account. “No—I like watching you eat, your…eagerness.”

  She chuckled. “My manners are slightly better than a soldier’s.”

  “Barely.” When she made a small sound of outrage, he said, “You actually remind me of a mountain cat that was kept by a Prussian countess.”

  “A pet?” Her nose wrinkled.

  “More than a pet. A fierce little creature that bent to no one and refused a chain. Clever and sleek.”

  Delicious color flooded her cheeks. He wanted to put his mouth there, to feel her skin warm against his own.

  He couldn’t act on that desire because of what Broadwell had done, which made Sam’s need to find and punish that son of a bitch all the more demanding.

  “I’ve been tracking Broadwell for two years,” Sam said, curtly changing the topic, “and during that time, I’ve seen him make more…things like me. He’ll do it again. Here, in England.”

  Cassandra’s blush faded as she, too, considered Broadwell’s next move. She moodily crumbled some scone between her fingers. “The question is, where is he heading?”

  Frustration welled in Sam. He knew the bastard was close, but while Broadwell’s agenda was clear, his whereabouts were elusive. Before Sam’s anger could overwhelm him again, he calmed himself by watching Cassandra decimate a scone.

  What agony. It was so like a typical morning, the kind he knew he would never have. Ignoring the pain, he indulged himself in imagining what it might have been like if, after he’d been wounded, he would have been shipped back home. Cassandra would be waiting for him. As he healed, he could have called on her, courted her, won her. They could have had mornings just like this one, following a night of fiery lovemaking. His cold body almost heated at the thought. To have Cassandra as his own, to give her children and watch them grow, together. A man’s true life.

  But Broadwell had stolen that from him, too. Just as he’d stolen from all the other men in Sam’s company. Another reason why that bastard would pay, and pay in pain and blood.

  Suddenly, Cassandra stiffened in her seat and gave a low cry, alarming him.

  “What is it?” He sat up straight, alert.

  Her eyes widened. “Only a few days ago, a transport ship full of Royal Marines sank just off the nearby coast. No one has been able to reach the wreck or the…the bodies. They’re still out there.”

  Understanding hit Sam and Cassandra both, and, wordlessly, they stood. She’d lost all interest in her breakfast, but stared at him with horror, the same horror he felt like acid in his veins. They both knew what had to be done. Sam threw a handful of coins on the table, and they left the tea shop quickly.

  “Horses,” he gritted. “Have to hire some.”

  “The stable’s back this way.”

  As they hurried down the street, Sam became aware that the tea shop patrons had followed them out and now trailed some thirty feet behind them. He took hold of Cassandra’s arm and hustled her even more quickly, so that he practically carried her through the street. Confused, she started to glance over her shoulder, but he growled, “Don’t.”

  “What’s going on?”

  More people joined the shop patrons, drifting away from their storefronts and wagons as Sam and Cassandra passed. They all wore matching expressions of distrust and a kind of bewildered antagonism. Some collected things as they joined the group—heavy boards, a poker iron—makeshift weapons.

  “Arming themselves,” she muttered. “I don’t understand.”

  “They probably don’t even know why,” Sam rumbled. “Primal instinct. Something unnatural is in their home, and they want it out.”

  “But you haven’t done anything!”

  “Doesn’t matter. You should run from me, get yourself to safety. They won’t bother with you.”

  “Get it through your undead head,” she gritted, “I’m not leaving you.”

  Without looking back, Sam knew that the crowd had grown even larger. He heard its restive muttering, the gathering consciousness of a mob. He’d felt this before, in armies turned loose to pillage. After his transformation, he also felt how he made the living uncomfortable. Yet he never truly believed their fear could lead to something like this. Something that could hurt Cassandra, because she insisted on staying with him.

  The thought infuriated. He was angry, with the mob and with her. Why did she have to be so damned brave?

  “Down here.” He rounded a corner, then sidestepped into a niche between two buildings, pulling her with him.

  In the narrow space, their bodies pressed tightly together. He felt her breath, the movement of her slender body wedged against his own. Deceptively fragile. Unmistakably female. She smelled of vetiver and warm oranges, and she stared up at him through long lashes, her soft pink lips parted.

  Incredibly, for the first time in three years, Sam hardened. And she knew it, too, even with layers of clothing between them, for her eyes widened. But she didn’t push away from him or edge farther into the niche. She stayed exactly where she stood. She even—he stifled a growl—moved closer still.

  The mob surged past, not seeing them in their hiding spot.

  Yet, even after the street was clear, Sam and Cassandra remained pressed against each other, bound by the close walls and a sudden, intoxicating desire. He forgot that he ever knew her as a girl, knowing her only as a woman. An astonishing, formidable woman with whiskey-colored eyes and unmistakable hunger—for him.

  His hand came up as if obeying an unheard summons. He reached out and, with the very tips of his fingers, brushed alon
g the column of her neck. The softness of her skin nearly made his knees buckle, and the quick flutter of her pulse let him know his touch excited her. Her lids lowered, and she tilted her head back, a gesture of acquiescence, of demand.

  He let his palm touch her, stroking her neck more fully, then moving up so that he caressed along her jaw, up to her delicate ear, along the feathery wisps just at the base of her head, where she had pinned up her hair. He swallowed hard. Everything he touched was so goddamned silky, so incredibly tender, warm, and alive. He hadn’t known sensations like this in many years, thought they were lost to him forever. The cold flame inside him blazed.

  His other hand stroked her waist, and, though she wore a corset, he knew the slenderness of her waist was hers alone. Yet he wasn’t content with this. He needed more, with the sudden hunger of a man who hadn’t known he was starving until given a taste of nectar. Drawn up by a force greater than history, he traced up over the rise of her ribs, higher still, and then he palmed the curve of her breast. A perfect little breast, one he needed to touch beneath her corset and the fabric of her dress.

  Her breathing hitched. And her hands moved, too. They slid up over his arms, testing the solidity of the muscles there, then played across his shoulders, his back. Wherever she touched, he came to life, the icy mist around him burning away under the sun of her caress. His cock ached, the concentration of all his needs. His body, his self. All wanted inside her.

  He bent his head as she raised hers. For a bare second, he held himself back, allowing the tiniest space between them. Against his lips, her breath came quick and warm. Her eyes drifted shut. And he couldn’t wait anymore. He kissed her, fully. Some part of him believed she needed gentleness, sweetness, but moments after their lips touched, she urged them closer, hotter. She opened to him, touching her tongue to his.

  Lost. Her bold demand decimated his control, his sense of self. He wanted, wanted, and took. They came together in fierce need, lips and tongues and the liquid strokes of their hunger. She tasted of tea and jam and Cassandra, and she was unafraid, and he craved her, devouring. Her fingers wove into his hair, holding him tightly, as tightly as he gripped her, a cascade of light he’d somehow managed to grab and refused to surrender.