He retrieved his knife. Shoved it back into his belt. “You weren’t meant to.”
“But how? You didn’t learn that stalking deer.”
“Forget it. It doesn’t matter.”
“But, Cam. That was amazing. It takes a hell of a—”
“I said forget it.” He clenched his jaw, his tone curbing further questions.
She sat up, wincing as she felt the lump on the back of her head.
“Are you bleeding?” His hand stole around her neck, probed her skull as he checked to make sure she hadn’t received anything worse than a goose egg.
She closed her eyes. Giving in would be easy. He held her in his arms. His hands were in her hair. What would he do if she kissed him? And expanding that thought, how would she react to his reaction?
Not exactly normal thoughts to have after an almost-death experience by an ex-lover, but she’d passed far beyond that about a week ago when she’d walked into General Pendergast’s office.
“I could have killed you,” he muttered. Low, apologetic, and thoroughly, completely annoyed.
She opened her eyes, her erotic fantasies shriveling under Cam’s steel-edged gaze. Those were fighting words. “Do you think so?”
He sat back, checking her challenge with a raised hand. “No. You don’t understand, Morgan. I…could have…killed you. It’s what I do. What I did.”
He dropped his head, his chest heaving as if he’d been the one to have the air punched out of him.
“Well, I’m still breathing. I guess you’re stuck with me, killer.”
Cam didn’t seem to appreciate her attempt at humor. Ignoring it, he stood, helping her up after. “What the hell were you doing skulking around anyway?” he asked. “Playing cat and mouse? Your little joke on me?”
“No,” she defended herself, though without much conviction. That had been exactly what she’d been doing. A stupid effort to prove something.
She’d proved something all right.
She still had it bad for Cameron Sinclair.
Now she just had to decide what to do about it.
“I understand, Morgan,” he fumed. “You’re Miss Warrior-woman. You don’t have to ram the point down my throat.”
Knowing he was right, she held silent, gritting her teeth, slapping at the mud on her breeches. Her scraped hands stung, and her legs felt wobbly, although whether her unsteadiness was a result of being plowed over or—more disturbing to her peace of mind—not being plowed at all, she couldn’t say.
She swallowed hard, taking a few shaky steps.
“The inn’s the other way,” he said, the temper drained from his voice. Now all he sounded was tired.
She bit back her rude comment, especially when she noticed the shake in his hands as he guided her shoulders in the opposite direction.
“Don’t ever…Morgan, just…” He stumbled over his words. Blew out a frustrated breath as he combed a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
So much in those six little words.
She turned back, fixing him with a level stare. “Too late.”
Cam pushed the door to their room wide, motioning Morgan through first. Not out of any gentlemanly attempt at gallantry, but because it kept her from seeing what a mess he was. The slender thread of her neck between his hands slithered through his mind. The ease at which he could have slashed the knife across it crawled over his palms, making him break out in a cold sweat.
Cameron Sinclair had become Sin. Again.
The present had faded. He’d forgotten where he was, who he was. He’d reacted on pure instinct. Pure survival. The need to eliminate the threat. The training of the Serpent Brigade living in his actions.
He’d recovered in time. It took only a moment before he’d recognized the cloaked figure and realized she wasn’t a danger to his safety.
To his sanity? Very much so.
Morgan unclasped her cloak, threw it across the bed, revealing her plain linen shirt worn over a pair of hip-hugging, leave-nothing-to-the-imagination leather breeks. Her hair, she’d plaited in intricate braids caught up with silver and bone combs. At her waist, a bone-handled dagger. Nothing soft about her. He should have been horrified or offended at her brazen appearance. Instead, reckless arousal flared through him.
Dainty. Sweet. Delicate. Words he’d once have used to describe how he liked his women seemed ridiculous now.
She lit the lamp by the bed, its glow illuminating the red-gold fire of her hair, bringing a dusky flush to her skin. “About following you tonight”—she plucked at the blanket’s fringe, uneasy, awkward—“it wasn’t the most intelligent of ideas.”
Morgan? Apologizing? She must be as rattled as he was. Or else he’d cracked her head harder than he’d thought.
“Forget it,” he said. “It was as much my fault as yours. More, because I know what I’m capable of. You don’t—didn’t.” He busied himself undressing. Boots kicked off. Jacket flung over a chair. Shirt buttons one by one. Mundane tasks he could accomplish without thinking. Because thinking meant acknowledging what had just happened. He’d almost killed Morgan. And then he’d almost kissed her—again.
The second time in as many days.
Morgan’s tempting presence. Devil’s sidekick Rastus resurfacing. And a crazy, sword-wielding murderer with a taste for soldiers. This assignment was hellish in so many ways.
“So what are you capable of?” As if she knew how close he’d come—and maybe she did—Morgan rose from the bed, the only woman he knew who could dress, talk, and fight like a man and still carry herself like a queen.
Albeit a queen with attitude.
Mayhap the Celtic Boudicca who spent her days slaughtering Romans. He could definitely picture Morgan riding roughshod over a few dozen legionnaires.
Just before reaching him, she stopped, one hand poised to caress his bare chest, her eyes black with desire.
Meeting her gaze, he knew he hadn’t imagined it. She’d been ready for him to kiss her back there in that alley. Had wanted it as much as he did.
And, damn, he wanted it. Bad.
Was this meant as punishment? To tease him with what could have been if only he hadn’t been a rat bastard and told her up front about Charlotte? Did she wait for him to call her bluff so she could react like a wronged virgin? What did she want from him?
Did he care?
He needed an outlet for the crazy pressure building inside him, the tension banding his shoulders, tightening his gut. If Morgan was willing…
“Just so we’re open about what we’re doing here,” he started, fumbling for words.
An embarrassed smile hovered at the corners of her lips. “No tricks. No strings. But I’m tired of pretending I don’t want you in my bed. This way, I call the shots. I’m in control.” Her hand splayed over his chest, cool against his burning skin. She ran her fingers over the thin chain, her touch featherlight as it brushed the cross.
He fisted his hand protectively around the necklace. “Is this a good idea? You’re upset, maybe a little confused by the knock on your head.”
What was he doing? Was he actually trying to talk her out of sleeping with him? Was he completely insane? Just the touch of her hand had his body reacting, the pressure reaching dangerous levels. One more provocative move on her part and all hesitation would be over.
Her gaze grew serious, almost sad. “Please, Cam. I know it’s mad. I know it’s probably the worst thing I can do, but”—her lashes swept down, hiding the ache in her gaze—“this way at least, I’m making the mistake eyes wide open.”
He tilted her chin up so that she had to face him. “So you admit it’s a mistake?”
She moved into him, pressing her body the length of his, letting him feel the soft crush of her breasts, her lean muscled legs, the luscious V of her crotch. “The most perfect mistake I could make.”
All it took was one rub of her body and Cam’s restraint erupted into white-hot need.
Gods be praised. If he’d le
ft her standing there after she’d done everything but strip and stake herself out for him, she’d have felt a complete fool.
Morgan knew she’d snapped. Cam blamed it on the blow to her head. But it was more complicated. She couldn’t say why she threw caution and her better judgment to the wind to follow the more elemental pull of her body. She just knew now she couldn’t move forward unless the drive to find out if he’d been as exquisite as she remembered was put to the test.
And so far exquisite didn’t even come close.
He devoured her with his mouth, his hands playing her body, awakening parts of her she thought dead forever. He smelled of sweat and strength, and she clung to him, her hands curving under his shirt, finding the broad, corded muscles of his back while she drowned in the wild power of his lovemaking.
Cam shoved her back against the wall, the swollen ridge of his erection jammed oh so deliciously between her legs. His hand dropped to the waist of her breeches. With an ex pert flick of his fingers, he’d opened the fall, dipped lower, tracing the folds of her woman’s place, teasing the nub that lay hidden there.
She gasped, rocking forward against him. Her body nearing the edge of no return as he answered her thrust with his own, his fingers pushing deep inside her. She clutched his back at the savage need that tore through her with each stroke, the building ecstasy narrowing her focus to this room, this man, this moment.
The laughter when it came never registered. It was only the sneering contempt of the voice that followed that tore her out of her bliss. “Now, isn’t this romantic?”
Then all hell broke loose.
Chapter 10
Cam reacted before she did.
In one sweep of motion, his hand slid to her waist, unsheathing her dagger, and, pivoting, he let it fly toward the man standing ten feet away at the open window, all while shoving Morgan farther behind him. As if that would help.
Any other time and with any other target, the dagger would have ended buried hilt-deep and dead-center. Instead, the blade sank quivering only an inch into Doran’s metal breastplate.
“Am I interrupting?” He plucked her blade from his armor. Dropped it to the floor, kicking it into a corner. “You had me fooled, Bligh. I always imagined you the frigid man-hater type.”
Humiliation and fury shriveled Morgan’s insides, her earlier runaway need frozen needle-sharp in her veins.
Beneath her hands, Cam went completely still, his whole body coiling tight as a wire just before he sprang.
Caught by surprise, Doran allowed Cam to close the distance between them. The Amhas-draoi outstripped him in sheer bulk, but Cam’s speed and ability made up for it. He swept under Doran’s guard, landing a chop across his neck that carried enough force to crush his windpipe.
Doran fell to his knees, his hands grabbing at his throat as Cam dove for the corner and the discarded knife.
Weapon in hand, Cam adjusted his grip. Prepared to drill the blade into Doran’s hunched, exposed back.
Then dropped to the floor as if his legs had been pulled out from under him.
At the same moment, dark mage energy ripped through Morgan, cramping muscles, numbing senses.
Cam groaned, rolling into a ball, his face blanched white, his jaw clenched in a grimace of agony.
Morgan shouted, casting her personal wards as wide as she could, praying her shields would be enough to protect them both from Doran’s curse. Pain knifed through her, but she held steady, Doran’s spell dulling to a roar in her ears, a twist of her insides.
Doran unfolded from the floor. Stood to tower over her. “Nice try, Bligh, but did you really think you had a chance in hell? Join me and I might let you live.”
“Never happen, you son of a bitch,” she spat. “I’m no traitor.”
Her eyes darted around the room, searching for anything she could use as a weapon. Cam’s knife was across the room. Her knife still lay clutched in his twitching fist. Both impossible to reach. Cam carried pistols. Useless to her unloaded and packed in his saddlebags. So now what?
“Implying that I am?” Doran’s voice oozed menace. “You’re the traitor. Betraying your race to uphold Fey supremacy. Doing their bidding like some groveling errand boy.”
Did he hear himself? Did he hear how insane he sounded? “You’re mad.”
“Am I?” His expression seemed glazed with insane purpose. Alight with the rightness of his zealous obsession. “The true Fey have spent millennia gathering all the power for themselves. We Other left with the dregs and expected to be satisfied. No more. With the goddess blade, I’ll create my own race. A power to rival the Fey.”
His words echoed in her head like a pounding surf. Over and over. Pushing their way past her defenses. Was he right? Was she really only a lackey for the Fey? A cat’s paw doing work too menial for the true Fey to bother about?
He nodded toward Cam. “Should I begin with lover boy here? My first Undying?”
Panic snapped her gaze to Cam. “No!”
The one word crashed through the fog of Doran’s spell.
She shook her head violently. Pounded her forehead with her fist to jar the overpowering persuasion of the leveryas from her skull.
He sought to try his tricks on her. And naive her, she’d almost fallen for it. “Andraste will never allow it. She’ll send her forces over. Drop the walls between worlds to stop you.”
“Let her try.”
“You’d doom us all to death?”
“Join me and there will be no death. No defeat. Only domination.”
“I don’t deal with traitors or murderers.”
Doran’s lips twisted in a smug, cruel smile. “A shame. But have it your way.”
His words barely ended before his spell flung her backward like a puppet on a string, smashing her against the wall, lights bursting in her head for the second time tonight.
If Doran had been formidable before, now freed of the constraints placed upon him by the Amhas-draoi, he’d become unstoppable. The black magic he drew on could only have come to him through the Morkoth, the blade a conduit for their evil sorcery.
Blood dripped from her nose, her mouth. She wanted to scream, her body slowly breaking down under the force of Doran’s power. But she refused to drop into the deep well rushing to meet her. Instead she met and matched Doran’s attack with her own, stunning him with a counter spell, disrupting his hold on her.
It lasted only a moment, but long enough for her to throw herself across the room. Sweep the lamp off into the drapes. Feed the flames with a quick bit of household magic until they roared to life. Climbing the curtains. Spreading over the bed. The crackle growing to a roar.
She crouched by Cam’s side as the flames rose around them, lapping at the rug like an orange-red tide, waiting for her moment. It had to come soon. Or by flame or by Doran, she and Cam were dead.
Her chance came as the fire leapt from the window to the ceiling beams, devouring the old wood in seconds. Smoke and ash floated into Doran’s eyes, caught and smoldered in the wool of his coat. The flames forced him back, and the pain in her body eased, the poison of his magic withdrawn.
It was now or never.
Using both the invisibility of the feth-fiada and the sleight of hand of the sprys-maclioar, she hugged Cam to her while projecting the illusion of them both prone on the floor as if Doran had struck them down.
Screams and running footsteps sounded in the corridor and the rooms to either side, muffled by the snap and snarl of the growing blaze. Black smoke clung to her hair, her face. Singed her lungs with every breath she took. Blisters rose on her arms, her cheeks. Self-preservation hammered at her will as she dragged Cam through the heart of the inferno toward the window.
She’d never attempted anything like this before. Her brain felt split in half, thinned to a veil’s thickness. One miscalculation and the weaving of spells would unravel. Their attempt to escape revealed.
Men pounded on, then forced open the door to the room. Shouting. Cursing. Buckets lo
ng past being useful.
Doran spun around, meeting them head-on. “Quick. There are people trapped in here. I’ve tried getting to them, but the fire’s too hot.”
Alarm and terror, grit and desperation. The emotions swirling through the inn stole between the cracks of her consciousness as the firestorm rose higher. Yet Doran stood, silent after his initial outburst, content to watch the figure he thought was her burn, his pale eyes empty of all but death.
The ceiling buckled as the window behind her shattered, sending shards of glass into her face, slicing her hands and arms. But no one saw that. Or heard her shout of pain. They saw only the bodies she wanted them to see, blackened and withered. They heard only the groan of the floor beneath their feet as trusses weakened and snapped.
At last, Doran lost himself among the crowd just as Morgan shoved Cam over the windowsill. Out the window. His body slid free into the darkness, and she slithered after.
The roof sloped low into a stockyard. Air boiled with soot and embers. Flames shot skyward through the roof of the inn above their room. Below in the yard, panicked neighbors rushed like ants to and from the building as contents rained from windows or were carried out to safety in bags and boxes.
Free of the rending of brain and body the dual magics imposed, she fell exhausted to her knees. Blood and smoke blinded her. She coughed until she heaved, her ribs straining. But she couldn’t rest yet. They still weren’t safe. Doran might be gone, but the fire still raged.
Taking Cam beneath the arms, she scrambled over the slates to the roof’s edge. Judged the distance to the ground, then praying it wasn’t too far, pushed him off. He fell spread-eagle amid a heap of dung and garbage. She groped for purchase with her legs, reaching out for a handhold. The slates gave way, broke like scree, tumbling toward her. Dragged her with them into the dark and the bricks of the yard below.
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