by Alexa Egan
“Second thoughts?” he whispered now, brows furrowed, confusion flickering in his bright gaze.
Drawn back to the present, she shook her head and smiled as he drew her toward him for a long, deep, toe-curling kiss.
“I can’t offer cheroots, but I do have brandy,” he said as if reading her thoughts. He guided her up the stairs to the attics and his whitewashed garret far from attentive ears or nosy neighbors.
The room was small and sparse, making the bed loom large as a ship of the line. Gray poured her a drink which burned all the way down. Another which made her woozy and warm. She noticed absently that he merely sipped at his, swirling the liquid round and round just as he’d watched the water in the glade, curling back in upon itself in an endless set of ripples.
She took the glass from his hand. Stepped close so that their bodies touched, her breasts pressed against his chest, her chin tipped to meet his gaze. He stood, arms at his side, pupils black as sin surrounded by glacier-blue irises. An expression of mingled desire and determination so obvious it made her want to laugh—or weep.
She touched the scar at the edge of his mouth. First with her fingertips, then with her lips. “It frightens me to think what might have happened had I been even a few minutes later.”
“I’m not sure which shocked me more, the fact that you stopped me or the fact that a thirteen-year-old girl had a right cross strong enough to fell an ox.” He closed his hand around hers, drawing it gently away from a reminder of an old shame, slanting his gaze from her face to the window and the shadows beyond the glass.
“Killing yourself wouldn’t have brought them back, Gray,” she said. “It wouldn’t have changed the past.”
“It would have ended the pain and the guilt. Penance for my sins.” His eyes burned, but no tears blurred his vision. No useless weeping or pointless sobs, though he shuddered with more than the breeze on his damp flesh.
“Your only sin was being fourteen and impatient for a promised birthday excursion.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you? I wonder.” She traced the brittle lines of his face, the tight seam of his mouth, the hard edge of his jaw. “Your grandfather refused to let them go. You refuse to acknowledge they ever existed. Neither way seems to have brought anything but grief.”
He drew a breath into his lungs, clearing away the ache. Turned his shaky sigh into shaky laughter. “Trust me, Meeryn. No more knives.”
She lifted a brow in question as she traced a fingernail over the silver scars on his palm.
“A different case entirely,” he said, closing his fingers around the evidence of his deadly addiction. “That knife saves me.”
“And kills you at the same time.”
His lips curved in an acknowledgment if not a smile.
She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Listen to me, Gray. You can’t forgo your life to atone for Ollie’s death. You can’t simply ignore the truth about who you are and about . . . about what we meant to each other because of a tragedy that happened almost twenty years ago.”
He placed his hands to either side of hers, palms roughened by work and by battle, a pulse beat in his neck, his jaw tightened under her touch.
“And now that I’ve got you treed and trapped, I refuse to let you escape me so easily a second time,” she added. “I’ve waited a long time for this, thank you very much.”
“So have I.”
This time he bent down and kissed her. A stomach-plunging kiss that exploded through her like lightning. She melted into him as if their bodies had fused, no part of her wanted space or air or inches to separate them. Just before she must breathe or faint from suffocation, he backed up a step, leaving her body chilled, though sweat dewed her skin. He reached around her to unclasp the buttons of her gown . . . one . . . two . . . three . . . she shivered at each inch of skin he exposed. Each kiss he dropped behind her ear, the base of her throat, her collarbone, until her bodice and his lips ended at her waist, skirts sliding off over her hips to puddle on the floor. He stood once more, cupping her breasts, the pad of his thumb running over the sensitive flesh, budding her nipples until they ached. His kiss was sweet and tasted of the brandy they’d drunk and he smelled wild of the glade and the summer heat and the masculine scent of his golden skin.
She skimmed his coat from his shoulders, pulled free his neckloth, started on his waistcoat when he turned her so that she stood facing the bed. She braced her arms against the bedpost as his breath fell warm on her neck and her shoulders, his cock nestled against her rear. She gasped, moving into the feel of him, but he held her away, his fingers deftly unlacing her corset. She had never realized how erotic being undressed could be. It was like being unwrapped a delicious inch at a time. Every sensation heightened, every moment increased to a seismic shift. The slide of the loosened cord, his fingers against her back, the ripple of pleasure up her spine and into her scalp, the small gasps escaping her lips, the roaring of blood in her ears—all worked together to push her temperature higher. She felt her face go hot, her body ignite, her sex contract in a sweet throbbing pain.
The corset ended atop the gown, followed quickly by the chemise. Gray took his time as he traced the crescent of her clan mark, his hand slipping up over her shoulder as he followed the curling tattooed spiral of the N’thuil. Sweat sheened her skin and she shivered as he licked it from her neck. He lapped down the column of her spine, his tongue gliding long and curving sweeps of desire down over her buttocks, his hands coming around to touch her breasts, skim her ribs, brush the hair between her legs before his fingers plunged deep.
She gasped, arching against him. Flames erupted along her nerves. She gripped the bedpost, knuckles white as she dropped her head back against his chest, her hair loosened to spill around them both. Clothes . . . damn clothes . . . take them off . . . NOW . . .
He chuckled. I love a woman who knows what she wants, he pathed, straight from his mind to hers on a ribbon of steamy thought. His sultry, deep voice acted like molten honey melting along her already boneless limbs. She could ride that voice all the way to damnation.
The scrish of fabric and the rising scent of man, and the air grew hot as a furnace. He stood behind her, body like an inferno. Nothing between them but their own ghosts. He nuzzled her as he cupped her close, his erection sending jolts of wild electricity along every frazzled nerve ending. She wanted him inside her, wanted him deep and fast and hard. She let him know with a shift and wiggle of her hips that left him panting.
He obliged, bending her over the bed, taking her from behind, thrusting until she moaned his name. Until the animal inside her writhed, biting and clawing to escape. She felt claws and fangs extend, felt blood boil in a wild lava flow that pooled deep in her knotted stomach. His teeth grazed her shoulder, sank into her skin. He thrust harder, every push weakening her knees, weakening her hold on the human part of herself.
Her heart stopped. Her breathing stopped. She paused at the topmost swing of the pendulum before exploding outward along rivers of fire. She was falling, knees buckling, body tumbling, pleasure something she could touch and feel.
He dragged her onto the bed, rolled her onto her back, and paused above her. Now the glacier blue was swallowed by the black of desire. He was as much animal as she. The spirit of the Imnada burned like a flame under his skin. He spread her legs and took her again. Watching her, face intense and unblinking as an eagle’s. His predator stare moved over her like the killing edge of a sword, searching for weakness, tempting her with its danger.
She smiled, feeling a wickedness she never knew lived inside her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, tilting her hips to bring him deeper, the friction winding her tight as a watch spring or the cock of a pistol. They found a rhythm of escape, of desire, of need, of lust. He groaned her name as she arched once more, and he spilled himself inside her. A thrust and then another, and she was with him, driven up then crushed beneath the same cresting wave.
After
shocks sizzled through her, giddy reminders of her climax, and she held him close as her brain was poured back into her lifeless, spent body.
They lay quiet for a long time until finally, when she could move again and her limbs stopped wobbling and her head stopped spinning, she kissed him, her hand splayed over his chest where she might feel his heart like the steady beat of a drum. “I should go before anyone wakes.”
“And if I don’t want you to leave?” His arm tightened around her.
“Gray . . .”
“Right. Proprieties must be met. We’re not on holding lands anymore and this world is unforgiving of such lapses.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He skimmed his knuckles up and down her rib cage, sending new shivers along her spine. “Then stay at least until dawn, when I know . . .” He looked to the window where the dark crouched close. “Stay until the sun comes up.”
She sensed his uneasiness and nodded.
Gray’s body moved beneath hers, just that slight brushing of skin on skin enough to set new fires where the old ones still smoldered. His gaze lit with something alive and mysterious as if he meant to speak. But the voice erupting like a volcano in her head was that of Badb, shrill with anxiety and alarm.
He is here! He needs help! He needs you!
* * *
He was twice as formidable and three times as frightening as Meeryn could ever have imagined. It was as if a page from Gray’s moldy history had taken human form. Lucan Kingkiller, the Traitor Lord, radiated power and strength and wisdom in equal measures, but it was the sadness she saw in his eyes that kept her from shrinking into a corner in abject awe. He might be a legend sprung from her darkest nightmares. He was still a man who’d suffered loss and agony enough to turn most people to jabbering idiots. Yet he stood proud and tall and untouched by madness.
At least she hoped he was sane.
Blood-streaked and vibrating with unspent rage, it was difficult to determine.
“I found the boy high in a tree hidden among the branches. He must have climbed there, hoping the fight would pass him by. There was no sign of Kelan.”
Gray ran tired hands down his face before plowing them into his hair. And for a moment, the sadness in his eyes matched those of the ancient war leader Lucan. “They wouldn’t have been merciful to an Ossine caught in such treachery.”
“No,” Lucan replied.
Meeryn offered a silent prayer to the Mother for the repose of the young enforcer’s soul.
“A party of Ossine backtracked, and I was forced to flee with the lad. They thought they had us cornered south of Okehampton but I drew them onto the moors and sprang their trap. None are left to report back to Sir Dromon. The Gateway swings wide tonight.”
The way he explained bloodshed and battle was like listening to a recounting of grain prices or the latest rainfall predictions. The gore and the violence, the blood and the horror fell between the syllables, but Meeryn felt them tremor the air just the same. He spoke none of it. He felt it all.
Badb moved from the corner where she’d settled like a black wraith amid the gloom. “And how do you think you would have fared had the Ossine captured you? The boy wasn’t worth your life, Lucan. He wasn’t worth the enforcer’s life,” Badb complained, her cloak of feathers a restless cloud around her white face, black eyes shot with anger.
“For once, I agree with Badb. It was needless risk for little reward,” Lady Delia said, managing to look coquettishly beautiful even dragged from her bed at two in the morning.
Lucan offered her a tired smile. “Yet, how do we know who will play the greatest role in this story unfolding? A kingkiller . . . or a ragged broken boy?”
Badb sniffed, displeasure evident. With a shimmering sparkle and a furl of feathers, the girl was gone; all that remained was the Fey’s magic lifting the hair at the back of Meeryn’s neck and along her arms. The Fey’s answer tingled uncomfortably across the surface of Meeryn’s mind. The answer’s in the blood.
“Should you go after her?” Gray asked.
“It’s best to let her be for now. No matter how long she has lived within this world, we must remember she is not of it. And to her, the emotions bound up in our existence are difficult to comprehend.”
“Or just maybe, she’s lived so many eternities in this world, emotion is all she understands,” Lady Delia suggested with an arch look toward Lucan. “What do you suppose she did for all those centuries you were lost in the prison of the void between realms? A thousand years of going without is bound to tie anyone in knots.”
“Delia,” Gray warned.
“Yes, Major?” She sat back, her robe sliding free to expose one long leg and the curve of her hip. Her gaze passed between Gray and Meeryn with a knowing lift of her brows and cynical twist of her lips. “As I was saying, going without can tie anyone in knots.”
Meeryn refused the blush stealing to her face. She would not be ashamed, and she would not show this harpy of a woman she cared what she bloody well thought.
Thank the Mother of All, Lady Estelle bustled into the drawing room and the moment passed, though Meeryn caught a continuing look of both consternation and irritation on Delia’s face. Another fuse lit, another bomb tossed. But who would suffer the most when the unavoidable explosion occurred?
“He’s sleeping.” Still dressed in wrapper and nightgown with her hair in a loose plait over her shoulder, Lady Estelle wiped her hands on a towel, face pale but satisfied. “Imprisonment has left him weak, but he’s young. That should count in his favor.”
“Does anyone know who he is?” Meeryn heard herself ask. “Or if he has family we should write to?”
“I do,” Gray said wearily. “His name’s Jamie Wallace. His father’s Imnada. His mother’s human.”
“An out-clan marriage.”
“A loving marriage. He left home last winter, and wasn’t heard from again. His father came to me for help but there was little I could offer him but hypotheses.”
“Sir Dromon had him imprisoned all this time?”
“His insignificance worked both for him and against him. As an unmarked rogue, he was nothing to the Ossine. Not even worth killing. They must have tossed him into the catacombs assuming he might give them information and when he didn’t . . .”
“They left him to rot.” Shivers hunched her shoulders. An hour spent in those catacombs had been too much time. Imagining Jamie’s horror at being sent down there to die brought tears to her eyes.
“He bears the power of the Imnada,” Lucan’s voice was deep and gruff as if unused to speaking. A thousand plus years alone would make anyone tight-lipped. “Like the Flannery’s baby, he’s one of us no matter his lack of mark or signum.”
Gray leaned against a table, boots crossed at the ankle. Arms crossed at the chest. “He’s stronger in some respects, for he bears new blood carried through his mother. Young Declan is the same. This is what the Imnada lost when we retreated behind our walls. This is the legacy of generations in hiding.”
“We all used to look like him?” Meeryn asked skeptically with a sideways glance at the dark Goliath standing in the corner.
Lucan’s face softened. “Even in my time, I was considered a bit beyond the ordinary. But it is true what de Coursy claims, the Imnada clans lose much when they cut off the outside. Even one who considers himself the most pure of blood probably has an out-clan ancestor somewhere in his roots. The walls had yet to be built when I led the clans. Fey, Other, Imnada, human, all moved within each other’s lives.”
“Until the massacres of the Fealla Mhòr,” Meeryn said.
His eyes clouded. His softness vanished back into a granite indomitability. “Aye. Until the Fealla Mhòr. That’s when the peace unraveled and the world shattered. I would give all to restore what I tore apart.”
“Penance for your sins,” Meeryn muttered under her breath.
Gray turned toward her. Her legs nearly buckled under the weight of his spearpoint stare and her skin pric
kled with icy goose bumps until she had to look away.
It was then she noticed Lady Delia watching them—or rather watching Gray—her arms wrapped tight around her body as if warding off a chill, though the house was stifling even in the cool of predawn. The self-satisfied expression was gone and her golden eyes dimmed with some unknowable emotion. “Then again, there are some sins no amount of atonement can wipe clean,” she said.
Lucan opened his bloodied fists, dropping his hands to his sides in surrender. “No, those we must simply endure.”
11
“Can you really read this?” Meeryn studied the soggy, ink-smeared parchment spread on the table between them. Turned it upside down. Cocked her head to the left . . . to the right. Squinted at it. “It’s just squiggles and lines.”
Gray pulled the parchment from her with a sideways cut of his eyes and a smirk. “So is English when you come right down to it.”
She sniffed. “Don’t be obtuse. Just answer the question.”
“Grandfather slipped up. He hired a weapons master to drill me in small arms who also happened to be a scholar of dead languages. This one was dead, buried, and forgotten. I learned how to shoot the spot off a target at twenty paces and to read and write ancient Carspethic.”
“Lucky you,” she said with a grimace.
The late-morning sun beat through the dusty windows, throwing golden squares across the table, sculpting the bones of Gray’s face into sharp relief. The swoop of his dark brows drawn in concentration, the smudge of ink alongside his nose, the curve of his sensual lips as he felt her stare.
“Did you come to gawk or do you have a reason for being here?” he asked without looking up from the pages of scribbled notes.
“I came to inform you that Lady Estelle says Jamie’s awake and eating. He still resembles a walking bag of bones, but the corpsish overtones are definitely receding.”
The muscle tightening his jaw jumped, and he closed his eyes for a brief moment.
“He’s yet to speak of Kelan or . . . or what happened up on the moors,” she continued.