by Kim Lenox
Archer leaned forward. “What happened, Mark? What happened to all the arrogance and the bravado? The determination to be the greatest immortal legend in Amaranthine history?”
“I am immortal.” Mark smiled. “Immortal in the only way that matters to me. I’ll live on in the hearts and the minds of my wife, and my children and their children. It’s enough, Archer. It’s more than enough.”
“Then you’ve succeeded in this life.” Archer clasped his hand, gripping him hard. His brows went up. “But you don’t think a little thing like mortality will keep you from doing your part . . . do you?”
Mina walked past the door of the study and took to the stairs. She smiled, hearing Mark’s boots on the carpeted steps behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she returned his smile. In their room, she considered their delivery from the Savoy.
“A gift? For me?”
“For us.” He grinned.
“Whatever could it be?” She tore at the brown paper, revealing the ottoman on which they’d first made love.
“Such a thoughtful gift.”
Mark bent to press a kiss to her lips. “I thought you’d enjoy it.”
“I think we should put it to use immediately.”
“I concur, sweetheart.” With another kiss, he eased her down onto the striped brocade. “I wholeheartedly concur.”
Read ahead for a sneak peek at Kim Lenox’s next novel, DARKER THAN NIGHT
Coming from Signet Eclipse in April 2010.
The discordant moans, formed by a host of voices, grew louder until they transformed into a thin, unified scream. Selene shuddered. The tiny hairs along the back of her neck stood on end.
“In all my life, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard wind like that before,” she murmured low in her throat. “It’s almost disturbing.”
Reclining on the sofa with her bruised and sprained ankle bandaged and propped on a large, square cushion, she stared out the stone-framed window. Intermittent flashes illuminated a roiling purple sky and the distant crags. She shuddered again.
“You’re cold.”
“I . . . suppose I am.” Amaranthine blood flowed in her veins, and because of this she’d never been sensitive to changes in temperature. But this was not the only change in her normally infallible constitution. She prayed the effects of the vaccine would soon subside, and that she would find herself returned to perfect health. Vulnerability was not something she did well.
Bracken rose from his place beside the fire, a leonine tower of leather knee boots, trousers and a white linen shirt. In one elegant movement he claimed the folded blanket from the high back of his chair. The fire blazed behind him. Other than the sharp angle of his jaw, his face was blacked out by shadow.
She welcomed the weighty drape of wool around her chilled shoulders—and the pleasant wave of spicy male scent that accompanied his movement. Inside its slipper, the toes of her unsprained foot curled with girlish pleasure, a reaction she had not experienced in ages. The only thing better than a blanket would be if he—Lord Avenage, a man who had never been more than a looming shadow atop the Tower of London—sat beside her. Without a doubt his lean warrior’s body would be hard all over and deliciously warm. The perfect cure for a bone-deep chill and a near-shattered heart.
He backed away as quickly as he had come. His gray gaze flicked over her, his eyes bringing to mind those of an enormous wolf she’d once observed skirting along the edges of a desert encampment. Eyes that had conveyed both interest and feral mistrust.
“More whiskey?” He lifted the bottle from the table.
Anything to draw him close again. “Yes, please.”
A moment later, still woefully alone on the sofa, she swirled the amber liquid in her cut-crystal glass. The wind groaned and the windows rattled. She drank the whiskey in a single gulp. “I suppose this will go on all night?”
She meant the wind, but also the tense air of discomfort between two strangers.
A wry grin turned Bracken’s lips. “The villagers tell stories of those driven mad by the sound of it.”
In the firelight he appeared as nothing more than a normal mortal man. A very handsome mortal man, but no more than a man. So different from the black-winged warrior with brimstone eyes who had captured her so easily two nights before.
Selene wrapped her hands around her empty glass. “Do you think I am mad?”
The smile slipped from his lips. “If I did, I would not have agreed to bring you here.”
She burrowed deeper into the cushions. “You didn’t agree to bring me here. You were commanded to do so by the queen and the Primordial Council, for the sole purpose of making sure I haven’t turned into some sort of murderous monster.”
The dark line of his brow rose. “You overheard.”
She shrugged and set the glass onto a circular side table. “I was in the next room, and you are all rather loud conversationalists.”
Shadows painted the hollows beneath his cheekbones and the taut flex of his jaw. “You’re not mad.”
His solemn declaration soothed her fears more than she cared to admit. “How can you be sure?”
“It’s just a feeling.”
“I had a feeling today,” she responded softly.
“About what?” he inquired.
She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “About that ravine. The place where you found me.”
A fierce stiffening rippled through Bracken’s shoulders, and his neck and face, as well.
Selene prodded softly, “The bridge, and that broad stone plateau. What happened there?”
Curse the shadows—shadows that used to hide nothing from her Amaranthine vision. They obscured his expression. But just as telling was the way he sat taller, more imperiously in his thronelike chair, leveling his shoulders against the seat back. “There are no stories or legends to be told. It’s just a dangerous place.”
“But—”
“Don’t go there again, Countess.”
Selene bristled, unaccustomed to being told what she could and could not do. Though Avenage was her host and observer, he was not her master.
“I think I’d like to retire,” she whispered.
“Very well.” He stood, looking both tense and relieved. “I bid you good night.”
Silence hovered between them as he, she supposed, waited for her to stand. At last, he glanced to her ankle on the cushion.
“Oh, yes,” he muttered. “I see.”
He did not hesitate in his duty. With strong arms he lifted her off the sofa. Selene bit her lip at the sudden shot of pain through her ankle.
“I’m sorry.” He shifted her in his arms, gently canting her toward him.
By necessity, she looped her arms around his neck. Her corseted breasts crushed against the solid plane of his chest. The feel of him . . . the scent of him . . . sent her thoughts into an unfamiliar blur.
“Don’t be,” she murmured, staring at his ear, which was encircled by a mahogany swath of his hair. He had small ears. But not too small. Delicious ears. Perfect for kissing.
He conveyed her from the room and down a narrow hallway lit by flickering caged lanterns on either side. She was no delicate flower. She stood taller than most mortal men, and yet she—who had never wanted or needed a protector—felt safe and softly feminine in his arms. The muscles of his neck and shoulders flexed under her palms as he proceeded up the stone stairs without a single curse, groan or glimmer of perspiration at bearing her weight. All too quickly he’d twisted the handle of her door and pushed inside. Neither his touch nor his glance lingered as he deposited her on the bed.
“I’ll start a fire.”
“Thank you.”
He knelt at the hearth. It seemed only a moment later that flames leapt above the brass firedogs and he repeated his good-night. With a curt tip of his head, he moved toward the door.
Realizing her predicament, she called out after him. “Avenage.”
“Yes?” He turned, one dark eyebrow lifting hig
her than the other.
“I’m afraid I require further assistance.” She touched the buttons at her throat.
His gaze swept over her bodice and skirts. Perhaps the dimness of the light played tricks on her mind, but a flush appeared to rise to his swarthy cheeks.
She offered a woeful smile. “I might as well be wearing a suit of armor. If I can’t bear weight on both feet while I try to remove it all, I’ll surely topple over.”
He swallowed visibly. “All right.”
Selene almost laughed aloud. Avenage was so handsome . . . so powerful and desirable. He seemed the sort of man who would have vast experience with women. And yet he stared at her and her garments as if they were on fire. In that moment, he became even more attractive in her eyes, although she felt rather certain the infatuation was one-sided. Regardless, she did need help getting out of her blasted garments.
“There’s no need for either of us to feel awkward,” she assured. “We’re peers, both Shadow Guards. You wouldn’t hesitate to offer the same assistance to one of your fellow Ravens, would you?”
“Of course not,” he answered, his response registering somewhere between a growl and a hiss.
“So why should it be unsettling for you to assist me?”
“It isn’t unsettling,” he retorted tightly. He stared at the space just above her head.
“Then help me.”
“By tomorrow I’ll have hired a woman from the village to assist you.”
“But tonight, Avenage—”
“Yes, of course.” His lips compressed into a thin line.
Selene shifted, giving him her back, careful not to jar her leg. “If you can undo the buttons to start with . . . I believe that once everything is unfastened, I can manage on my own.”
His boots shifted quietly on the carpet. She tilted her head and waited.
A low, rough sound issued from his throat.
“What is it?” she inquired.
“Your hair.”
The rich timbre of his voice reverberated through the room. Through her. She reached behind her neck and twisted the length of her hair so that the weighty mass draped over one shoulder and down between her breasts.
He plucked at the first few buttons. To Selene’s surprise, she heard him chuckle. The sound inspired a shocking wave of pleasure that rolled from the top of her head, down through her toes. An effect of her quickly downed whiskey, no doubt.
“They’re so damn small,” he said.
He worked his way from her neck, down her spine, to her lower back. Bit by bit, the heavy wool sagged open and cool air touched the bare skin of her neck and shoulders. She felt the gentle tug of her overskirt being untied.
“And this?” he murmured, touching her corset fastenings lightly.
“If you please.” Selene closed her eyes and bit into her lower lip.
He moved even closer. She heard his trousers brush against the counterpane and felt the sensation of his heat against her back. Tiny pricks of awareness rose upon her skin. She resisted the urge to rub them away. Instead, her breath hovered in her throat, captured there by an anticipation so strong that she feared she might actually scream at the first brush of his fingertips against her skin. His fingers dragged, ever so softly, across the center of her back.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“Why would you ask?” she whispered.
“You gasped.”
“Don’t be silly,” she retorted. “I’m not a gasping sort of woman.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“In pain.”
“I . . . well . . .”
His hands slid into her gaping bodice to firmly press against her corseted torso. Even through the silk and boning of her corset, she felt the imprint of his hands like a searing brand.
Selene squeezed her eyes shut and braced her palms against the mattress. “Perhaps a little pain.”
It was true. Being this close to him, having his hands on her was pure, wicked torture. No . . . pleasure.
Pleasure-torture.
He said, “Perhaps in the fall you broke a rib, and because of the tight structure of your undergarments you simply did not realize—”
Cursed, passion-inspiring hands. They skimmed over her rib cage, just beneath her breasts.
She exhaled sharply.
“That, my lady, was a gasp.”
“It’s not my rib.”
“Then what is it?” he demanded gruffly.
She gripped his splayed, long-fingered hands with both of hers, halting their movement, and stared down at the swirling pattern on the counterpane.
“If I must explain that to you, my dear Lord Avenage, then you have kept to your Raven’s perch inside the Tower of London for far too long.”