by M. J. Scott
“Any idea what his views on the treaties are?”
“Ignatius or Christophe?”
I held out a hand, trying not to look at the tattoo snarling at me. “It’s not exactly a secret that Lucius would’ve been happy for us to return to the old days.” Where the Blood could feed at will and had come close to enslaving the humans entirely. “Does Ignatius share his politics?”
“I don’t know,” Holly said, biting her lip. “No one who was trying for such a thing would talk about it.”
“And Lady Adeline?”
“Adeline has always been . . . courteous to me. Don’t get me wrong, she’s Blood, but I can’t imagine her wanting to return to a dog-eat-dog world. She’s too fond of her comforts.”
“So you trust her?”
“Trust might be too strong a word. But she’s definitely not on Ignatius’ side.”
“I see.” My head was throbbing dully. Too many threads to try and pull together. The noise of the orchestra and the audience grated on my nerves. “What about the man you asked her about . . . Cormen, was it? Who’s he? A Fae?”
Her face returned to that careful stillness. “Yes, he’s Fae.” Her voice sounded slightly hoarse and she didn’t say anything else. Instead she looked down at her hands where they’d twisted together in her lap.
Nervous? Or no, not nervous. Scared. A connection finally clicked into place. “Wait. Is he the one you think took your mother and your friend?”
She nodded slowly. “Maybe. Yes.”
“Why? What does he want?”
She flinched. “I’m not sure. Not yet.” Her voice still sounded rough, as if she’d been shouting. Which she hadn’t.
“Do you need a drink?” I looked across to where our abandoned bottle of champagne sat in a bucket of half-melted ice.
“No. No, I’m all right.”
She didn’t sound convincing. She’d turned pale. Too pale. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who needed rest. I suddenly remembered that I’d dragged her out of St. Giles too soon.
“Do you want to leave? How long does this thing go on for anyway?”
“A few more hours,” she said, sounding slightly more normal. “We can’t leave until interval at the earliest. It would be very bad form.”
I shrugged, an escape plan forming rapidly in my head. There was information to be learned here at the Gilt, but I knew when to retreat so as to refine a strategy.
“Guy, I was serious,” she said. “If we go, everyone will notice.”
“Isn’t that half the purpose of us being here? To be seen.”
“To be seen, not cause a scene,” she retorted.
“Darlin’, no one expects a drunken, lustful ex-Templar to behave.” And before she could protest, I bent, scooped her up in my arms, kissed her soundly when she gave a surprised shriek of protest, paused so that everyone could turn and see exactly who was interrupting the show, then swept her out of the box.
* * *
Holly was still giggling when I put her down, finding myself strangely reluctant to let go as she found her balance. So I offered her my arm as we walked down the steps toward the street.
The courtyard outside the Gilt was strangely quiet. It had bustled with ’cabs and hackneys and private carriages when we’d arrived. But, as Holly had pointed out, we were leaving early, so none of the drivers would be expecting customers just yet. The night air was warm, so it wouldn’t hurt to wait for a while.
“Told you we were early,” Holly said. As she spoke, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. A small red light flared in the darkness to the left of the stairs, and a waft of cigar smoke curled into the air.
Just a theater patron who’d stepped outside for some fresh air? Maybe. But I pulled Holly a little closer, and felt for the pistol at my hip.
Where were the damn ’cabs?
The smell of cigar grew stronger and then someone walked into the light, heading toward us. No, not someone. Henri Favreau. Holly went stiff beside me.
Henri smiled, too-white teeth flashing like knife blades. “Good evening,” he said. “Is the show not to your taste tonight?”
He was looking at Holly. Which didn’t ease my nerves any. She was the more vulnerable target.
“It wasn’t their finest production,” Holly said. Her voice was vaguely bored, a good imitation of a pampered society girl unimpressed with the entertainment on offer. She slipped her arm free of mine but didn’t move away.
“True,” Henri agreed. “But it’s always interesting what one can see at such things, isn’t it?”
“I guess.” Holly shrugged. “But if you’ll excuse us, we have another party to attend.”
Henri tossed his cigar down onto the stones, grinding it with his foot to extinguish the glowing end. “For instance,” he said as though Holly hadn’t spoken, “it’s very interesting to find a Templar at the Gilt.”
“I’m no Templar,” I said. I put a little growl into the words. A clear enough “back off” signal if he wasn’t a fool.
“A Templar only a few days clear of the order is still a Templar.” A second voice came from behind us. I twisted to see Antoine Delacroix standing a little above us on the stairs. Damn. I’d forgotten that Beasts move almost as soundlessly as Blood when they want to. I moved back a pace, taking Holly with me.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to tell us that,” Antoine said easily. “After all, a Templar has protection. A curious disgraced knight, however . . .”
“I’m not curious,” I said flatly. “We came to see the show.”
Antoine tilted his head. “You were watching us, Templar.”
“Everyone watches everyone at the Gilt,” Holly said. Her voice was perfectly calm.
“Anyway, why should we watch you?” I said. If this was going to end badly, might as well make it quick. “Were you doing something noteworthy?”
Antoine bared his teeth.
“Not a smart place to start a fight,” I said to him. “There are plenty of people around.”
“Not near enough,” Antoine replied. A knife suddenly glinted in his hand. “It wouldn’t take long.”
The pistol appeared in my hand before I realized I’d drawn it. “Think you’re fast enough?” Beside me, Holly sucked in a breath and I saw the glint of metal in her hand too. The pistol she carried was smaller than mine, but it was pointed across me at Henri.
I hoped she had silver bullets.
Antoine had gone very still, but his knife was still held at the ready. Beasts are fast. He could throw it before either of us could react. I risked a quick glance at Henri. He looked worried. A smarter man than his companion, then.
“Do you think you’re fast enough to get both of us?” Antoine asked, his hand beginning to move.
“Maybe not,” I said. And I fired just as his fingers loosed the blade, sending it winging toward me. Antoine jerked backward and collapsed as the bullet tore into his chest. I threw myself into a crouch and the knife cut the air above my head before clattering to the cobbles. There was another shot and Henri yelped too. I didn’t stop to see what Holly had hit, simply fired another shot into Antoine’s knee, grabbed Holly’s arm, and started to run.
We ran for a block or so before it became clear no one was following us. Still, I maintained our speed, heading toward the nearest station, praying that a cab or hackney would come into sight soon.
Holly kept pace, her face grim. When a cab finally did rattle into view, the driver had barely pulled to a halt before I bundled Holly inside, climbed in after her, and yelled for the driver to get moving.
HOLLY
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said as the autocab jolted and hissed to a shuddering halt outside the Swallow. Beside me, Guy’s expression was alert but unworried. As if nothing had happened.
I shivered beneath my light wrap. Beasts. We’d shot two Beasts. There’d been silence between us during the journey here, both of us watching for pursuit. But now that we were safely back under the gas lamps o
utside the Swallow, I wanted to talk.
“It was us or them,” Guy said. “Besides, they’ll live. Antoine was still breathing. You didn’t kill Henri, did you?”
I shook my head as I shivered again. I’d never shot anyone before. Slashed a few with my razor to get out of a tight spot, but I’d never actually fired my pistol at someone and seen the bullet pierce flesh. “No,” I managed. “I hit his shoulder.”
Guy nodded. “Good. Then they’ve learned a lesson.” He opened the door and swung himself out of the ’cab.
“Or we’ve earned ourselves two enemies,” I muttered, but I let Guy help me out of the ’cab in turn and stood blinking and still shivering as he paid the driver.
“I have plenty of enemies,” Guy said easily. “Two more won’t hurt me.”
I wished I shared his confidence. I did my damned best to stay neutral. I didn’t go around shooting Beast Kind in broad moonlight. And we’d left them alive and knowing who we were.
“Let’s go inside,” I said. I wanted my rooms. My bed. My wards. Safety.
Guy’s arm came around me. “All right,” he said. “But smile, please. Or everyone will want to know what’s wrong.”
I summoned a smile from somewhere. “I just want to be in bed,” I said as we walked toward the Swallow.
“Hear, hear,” said Junker, from a few feet away where he stood at the main door. “You treat that boy right, Miss Holly.” He coughed, elbowed Benny beside him, and winked ostentatiously.
I managed to smile back while Guy made a noise suspiciously like a laugh hastily turned into a cough and tucked his arm around my waist. “I’m sure she will,” he said with a half bow at the boys. “You heard the man, Holly darlin’, time’s a-wasting.”
Play the game. “No good ever came to a girl from a man in a rush,” I said, tapping him on the nose with my fan. As his expression turned indignant, I wriggled out of his grip and beat a hasty retreat through the door.
Unfortunately, the first person I saw was Fen. Who frowned thunderously, put down his glass of brandy, and stalked toward me.
“We need to talk,” he said, taking my arm just as Guy came through the door behind me and joined us.
Guy looked at my arm, then at Fen, and scowled. Fen scowled back. Wonderful. The last thing I needed right now was the two of them butting heads in the middle of the Swallow.
“Not now, Fen,” I said.
His hand stayed firm on my arm. “Yes, now.”
His tone was so flat I glanced involuntarily down to his wrist. The chain was still in place. Still, had he had another vision? If he had, I needed to hear what he had to say. “All right,” I said.
“No,” Guy said firmly.
Fen and I both looked at him.
“I said no,” Guy said, blue eyes chilling rapidly. “It’s late. And you’re tired. You need to sleep.”
He and Fen glared at each other. Just what I needed.
“She won’t admit she needs to rest, she’s stubborn,” Guy said. “You know that.”
Fen nodded. “All right, tin man. In the morning, then.”
He and Guy exchanged another long inscrutable-male look and I knew fought the urge to knock their heads together. Guy held out his arm and we left Fen behind.
Chapter Fourteen
HOLLY
“You’re making me dizzy,” Guy said. “Stand still.”
I paused in my pacing. Guy half sprawled on the edge of the bed looking far more relaxed than I felt. Then again, he was probably used to shooting people.
I wasn’t. Every time I stopped pacing, I saw Henri’s face again and felt ill. And when I did pace, my brain was a whirl of Cormen and my mother and Adeline and the geas and—
“You’re thinking so hard your head might explode. How am I supposed to explain that to Fen?”
The lazy drawl was back in his voice. The extremely sexy lazy drawl. The one that did nothing to ease the tension driving me to pace in the first place. It did, however, refocus it slightly on him.
“This isn’t a joke, Guy. What we did could cause trouble.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“It’s not just me!” I heard my voice go shrill and clamped my teeth together.
Guy frowned. “You’re overreacting.” He studied me for a moment. “Oh, hell’s balls, you’ve never shot anyone before, have you?”
“N-no.”
“Fuck.” His tone was gentle despite the language. He stood and crossed to the mantelpiece, poured a glass of whiskey, came back, and held it out. “Drink this. It will help.”
I looked down at the whiskey. What the hell, it couldn’t hurt. I tilted my head back and drained the glass. The whiskey hit my stomach in a fiery rush, making my eyes water even as warmth bloomed through me. I coughed.
“I didn’t say drink it all at once,” Guy said, still using that gentle tone. He led me over to the bed. “Here, sit.”
I sat, leaned into him. He was warm, like the whiskey heat spreading through me. “How many people have you shot?”
“Too many,” he said. “Don’t think about it.”
“How do I do that?”
He laughed, a soft rumble. “More whiskey?”
“Not a good idea.” Whiskey had never been my drink. Spending half the night vomiting wasn’t going to make me feel better about what I’d done.
What we’d done. I closed my eyes, trying not to think. The scent of warm male mingled with the faint scent of the liquor and the lingering traces of the perfumes and greasepaint smell I associated with a night at the Gilt floated up around me, soothing somehow.
Not just soothing. Enticing.
I moved a little closer to Guy, felt him tense.
“Darlin’, unless you want a whole different kind of distraction . . .”
My eyes flew open. Something wary yet wicked glinted in Guy’s eyes. Did he mean what I thought he did?
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Was he flirting with me? Here where there was no need for pretense? Flirting deliberately? Surely he hadn’t had enough champagne at the Gilt to make him do something crazy? Or was he reacting to the aftermath of the fight as well?
Or just to me? My pulse stuttered.
Guy cocked his head. “Do you really want to know?”
My heart bumped. Don’t be stupid, Holly girl. But it seemed I wasn’t listening to myself. “Yes.”
“You really want me to . . . distract . . . you?”
I froze again. There was no mistaking the invitation in that sentence. I knew the sound of a man who was asking to put his hands on you. Perhaps he was drunk after all. And maybe I was because I wanted to accept the invitation. “Yes. But it’s not a good idea.”
“Right now it sounds pretty good to me.” Smoke and night and heat tinted his drawl now. It made my skin prickle hotly.
“After all, everyone thinks we’re sleeping together. If our reputations are going to be ruined, we might as well enjoy it.”
“You think sleeping with me will ruin your reputation?”
He laughed, then shook his head. “Darlin’, I think it can only improve my reputation. You know what I meant.”
I bit my lip. “I don’t know—”
He pushed off the bed. “Neither do I. But it seems today’s the day for the world to be a little crazy. And I don’t see why that crazy has to be all bad.” He stopped when he was maybe half a foot away, so that I had to tilt my head to keep watching his face. “Want to make the bad things go away?”
I swallowed as a shiver ran down my spine. Actually I did. Quite desperately. Wanted to let him take me over to the bed and then just take me over. But I didn’t know if I wanted all the associated complications that would come with that choice.
“Holly . . .” He reached out and drew one of the pins from my hair. “It’s been a hell of a day. And you’ve been the only good thing in it.” Another pin and a lock of hair fell down against my shoulder. The shiver in my skin blossomed into a shudder as his f
inger traced the place where it lay. “Come to bed.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It could be.”
I looked away. Ah, it would be easy to let myself believe that, but Guy wasn’t the usual sort of man I took to my bed. And I wasn’t the sort of woman he took to his. Not for more than a night anyway.
I wasn’t fooling myself that one night with him would be enough for me. Which was exactly why I should be running in the other direction. If I wanted him again before I’d even had him the first time, what hope did I have of keeping my head around him?
How to explain what I was feeling? “Guy—” I lifted my head.
Then he kissed me and I forgot.
Forgot anything but the feel of his lips on mine. Sweet lords of hell, the man could kiss. A bloody Templar knight and yet he kissed as if he’d done nothing but practice kissing women all his life.
Sweet, hot, drugging kisses that stole through my veins as though he were the whiskey I’d poured into him. Making my skin heat and my resolve melt until I was pressed against him, hands pulling him closer, one word swirling through my head.
Inevitable.
That’s what we were. I’d known it from that first time I’d kissed him at St. Giles. I wanted him in my bed and he wanted to be there. If I was going to have to watch him walk away from me when all this was over, then at least I wanted to have the memory of him to keep me warm.
I pulled my hands from around his neck and pushed on his chest. Back toward the mattress, trying to slow my breathing and the reckless ache under my skin. I could sleep with him, but I couldn’t let myself think it was anything more than that. I needed to keep some last piece of control. Anything else would be true madness.
“I’m your one good thing?” I asked as he broke off the kiss in response to my hands.
He nodded slowly.
“Well, I think we can improve on that score.”
“Does that mean what I think it means?”
I let myself smile at him, at the heat in his eyes and the way it made my stomach curl and twist in time with the ache that was starting to beat lower down. “Do you need me to spell it out?”
His smile widened even farther. “I think a gentleman should always make sure that he understands what a lady desires.”