Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3)

by Margaret Foxe

The carefully measured look he gave her made it clear that he doubted her. And she couldn’t blame him for that. She’d never given him much indication that she wanted anything to do with “together” when it came to him. But she did, damn it, and that was entirely the problem. He’d disarmed her from the very beginning. She’d just tried to protect herself the only way she knew how.

  She was beginning to suspect she’d made a terrible mistake.

  “You said my name,” she said softly into the salty air, her chest tightening with anxiety. “When you came out of the tomb, you said my name.”

  He studied her intently in the moonlight. “But I’d never met you. Had I?”

  She winced at the suspicion in his voice. But she’d expected no less. She’d not exactly presented herself as the most honest person in the world. “No. You’d never met me,” she said. “At least, you’ve not met me yet.”

  “Do you think I know you in the future?” he asked softly, turning his head back to the stars.

  She shrugged. “It sounds insane, I know,” she allowed.

  He was silent for a long time. Then he said, softly, “I hope I do.”

  “What?”

  He gave her a tentative smile. “Know you. In the future,” he said. “Or wherever I came from.”

  Something melted inside her at his words. Oh, he was dangerous, all right. So very dangerous, and she had been right to keep her distance all along, for he could do real damage to her heart.

  Could? Who was she fooling? He already had. She’d rejected him so she could avoid all of these messy feelings, but it seemed those messy feelings had been there already, for her heart felt as if it were cracking in her chest whenever she so much as thought about him.

  She’d assumed, perhaps foolishly, she’d have time to sort through her feelings, but it seemed that time was the one thing she did not have.

  A day and a half, at most. And then…

  Well, she had a fairly strong suspicion that things were not going to end well.

  She’d known from the moment Simon had opened his mouth that Rowan would leave her the same way he’d come into her life: abruptly and inexplicably. But she’d been subconsciously bracing herself for it long before that. It was why she’d kept pushing him away.

  Perhaps the inevitability of his loss had struck her first when the Swede had spoken his poisonous words. Or before that, in the palace library when he’d hurled Vasily across the room with impossible strength, once again reminding her of his otherness.

  She must have known it on some instinctual level even when she’d cast him away a month ago. Even then, she’d sought to guard her heart; even then, she’d known he was dangerous. Too brilliant, too strange, and entirely impossible…and so damn beautiful with his open, earnest, and entirely too noble heart.

  It had been too short a time for her to feel so strongly, but nothing was ordinary about Rowan. Why should falling in love with him be any different? Follow any conventional rules? She had seen his true mettle just hours after their first meeting when he’d taken a bullet meant for her with no expectation of survival himself. Just hours, and already she’d known he was the best man she’d ever encounter.

  Loving him was inevitable.

  But she’d be damned if she told him any of this. It would only make things harder for the both of them when the time came.

  While she could deny herself the words, she couldn’t deny her body’s corresponding need to seek him out. And damn it, she’d have these few remaining hours with him, if nothing else. She didn’t care how selfish she was being.

  She put her hand over his and edged a little closer, until their sides were pressed together. He radiated heat like a furnace, and she soaked it in, along with the scent of spring that always seemed to cling to him, verdant and clean. At first he stiffened, but gradually he relaxed, shifting so that he could wrap an arm around her shoulders and tuck her against him even closer.

  She sighed in satisfaction at his surrender.

  “I wish I could hold you like this forever, Hex,” he whispered into her hair. She wasn’t sure if he meant for her to hear the words or not, so softly were they spoken, but she had, and her heart wrenched painfully. She turned into his embrace and wrapped both her arms around his torso, silently wishing for the exact same thing.

  IT WAS ALMOST dawn. Already the first hint of the approaching storm danced in the air of Hex’s cabin, minute particles of sand seeping in through the closed doors and windows, pirouetting in the soft morning rays. Next to him, Hex coughed lightly from the dust and stretched languorously on top of rumpled sheets, naked and warm and fragrant, before fitting herself once more against his side. As if she belonged there.

  He wasn’t complaining. They’d not spoken much since she’d led him back to her cabin the night before. At least not out loud. But it certainly seemed as if Hex had decided not to push him away any more. She’d not let him out of touching distance since.

  Again, he was not complaining.

  But his contentment was overshadowed by what the next day would bring. He knew that part of the reason why Hex cleaved to him was because she was scared of what was to come, but he hoped her feelings went deeper. His certainly did, but he knew better than to voice them aloud, especially now. For not only was Hex as skittish as a colt, he might very well be forced to leave her forever, if Simon’s outlandish predictions proved to be true.

  He just wondered if Simon were insane—if they were all insane to believe such a harebrained theory.

  “I hope we’re doing the right thing,” Hex said, as if reading his mind. She ran her forearm over his chest in a gentle caress, static electricity sparking at each pass, and he closed his eyes and concentrated on memorizing the feeling. He wanted to remember it long after this moment was lost.

  “Yet you trust Simon,” he finally managed to say.

  “Implicitly.”

  He hesitated, not knowing whether to bring up the subject at all. But his curiosity won out. “He said he owed you a debt.”

  “Did he?” She sounded surprised.

  “Was he lying?” he asked.

  She frowned. “No. It’s just something we don’t discuss.”

  He tried to shrug off her obvious attempt to dismiss the subject, but he couldn’t help the small part of him that was still irrationally irked by her relationship with the other man. He felt her eyes on him and turned his head to find her smirking.

  “You’re jealous,” she accused.

  He rolled his eyes and tugged at the ends of her hair playfully. “I am not.”

  “You’re definitely jealous. But I swear we’re just friends.” She pushed herself up by one elbow and studied him soberly. “I would tell you about the debt, but it involves talking about…well, about my hands, and it’s not exactly a pleasant memory for me.”

  He slid his hand down the skin of her right forearm and over the tattered black leather glove that she still refused to remove. He could feel her stiffen against him. He knew she preferred it when he pretended like her Welding hands didn’t exist. But he had so little time left, and he couldn’t bring himself to ignore a single part of her. To him, her hands were just as beautiful as the rest of her.

  He entwined their fingers together and raised their joined hands between their bodies. He felt her slowly relax beside him when he made no move to take off her glove.

  “These hands saved your life yesterday,” he reminded her gently.

  She sighed, and he could almost feel her capitulation. “It’s a long story.”

  “It is a long journey,” he reminded her.

  She buried her head in the juncture between his neck and shoulder, hiding her expression. “Not long enough,” she whispered.

  His heart clenched, and a knot lodged in his throat. He too closed his eyes to hide his tumultuous emotions. He didn’t know how he was going to leave her. Yet he was beginning to doubt that he’d ever had any choice in the matter.

  It was a long time before he was able to speak with
out choking on his sorrow. “Tell me.”

  She nodded, then turned on her back and stared up at the ceiling, as if contemplating where to start. “Since I could walk,” she began, “my father trained me in the family business.”

  A long story indeed. And no doubt quite unpleasant if Hubert Bartholomew were involved. “What was that?” he asked, though he had a fairly good idea.

  She looked loath to answer him. “Thieving. Pickpocketing, housebreaking, confidence games,” she finally admitted. “The latter was my father’s specialty, but I was particularly good at housebreaking. I could climb higher and faster than an adult and sneak into smaller, tighter spaces. We did very good business between the two of us for a while.”

  Her eyes landed on everything in the room but him, and her expression grew defensive. “It was the only life I’d known since the cradle, and without thieving, I would have died on the streets long ago. I don’t feel guilty for doing what I had to do to survive, so you can save your moralizing…”

  “I’m not judging you, Hex,” he interjected softly, covering her flailing hand with his own, drawing it back to his chest.

  She jerked her eyes to meet his, and she looked surprised at whatever she read on his face.

  He smiled wryly. “I’ve met your father, remember? I’m a bit shocked you survived at all.”

  She snorted and rolled her eyes. “So am I.”

  “What of your mother?” he asked carefully.

  Something raw contorted her features, but only for a moment. If he’d blinked he would have missed it. She undoubtedly wanted him to, but he was beginning to know her all too well.

  “She left after Helen was born, moved back to Baltimore and her family,” she explained. “She was sick with the same illness that Helen now has. She wouldn’t have lasted much longer, the way we lived.”

  “She didn’t take you with her?” Rowan asked in surprise.

  Hex’s expression shut down completely. “I made Hubert money, and that was all he really cared about. He would have come after her if she’d taken me. She had enough to deal with, between the baby and her illness. I never blamed her for it.”

  Rowan managed to hold his tongue, but it was a near thing. He felt a burning anger toward the woman who had sacrificed her own child to a man like Hubert Bartholomew. But he knew Hex wouldn’t want to hear anything against her mother. It was obvious she’d loved the woman.

  He would have never abandoned a child, no matter the circumstances.

  Though what if he had inadvertently? What if he had children out there somewhere but just didn’t remember them? A family, despite what the Swede had said? The idea made his righteous anger shrivel and his skin crawl with shame. What right had he to judge anyone?

  He’d thought that he would remember if he had a wife, at the very least, but now he wasn’t so sure. He’d not even known what year it was. He’d made love to Hex without any sort of certainty he was truly free to do so. What sort of man did that make him? What sort of man did it make him that he didn’t care?

  Hell and damnation, how he hated his broken mind. Hated it more than ever.

  “What is it?” she asked him.

  He shook his head and moved his hand down to touch her inner wrist—one of the softest spots on her body, he’d discovered—trying to muster up an encouraging smile. Even if he had a family out there—a wife, even—he didn’t want to give Hex up. Perhaps he was the one in need of a moralizing lecture, yet how could he mourn what he couldn’t even remember? And if Simon were to be believed, how could he mourn something that hadn’t even happened yet?

  How could he regret this intimacy? This one moment of peace in this awful nightmare? He’d do it again, he’d have her again, and he didn’t think he could ever choose any differently.

  “Nothing,” he finally said roughly. “Your hands?”

  “Right,” she said. “I was thirteen. Hubert and I were housebreaking in London. We started making a name for ourselves. Too much of a name. The authorities began to figure out our game, and it became more of a risk every time I broke into a house. I wanted to move on, but Hubert wouldn’t listen. We were making more money that we ever had, and he didn’t want to give it up. On my last job, the police were waiting on the rooftops for me.”

  She huffed out a breath as if bracing herself for the rest of the story. “They chased me. One of them finally managed to clip me in the arm,” she said, pointing to an old scar. “I fell off the rooftop, broke some ribs, a leg, and nearly all the bones in both my hands. Or so Hubert told me.”

  She stopped and drew a breath as if fortifying herself. “I don’t remember anything after the fall, but Hubert must have found me before the police could. When I woke up, my hands were…like this.”

  Rowan’s blood ran cold, nausea sweeping through his stomach. “How?” he bit out.

  “Hubert talked about enhancement long before the fall. Said he knew this Welder who could ‘fix’ my hands for a song. He said I’d climb higher and faster, be ten times as strong, and I always refused. But after the fall…well…” She shrugged. “I wasn’t capable of refusing, was I?”

  Rowan wanted to hit something. Hard. “Be glad your father is in Scotland, Hex,” he said, “for I don’t think I could restrain myself should I see him again.”

  Hex’s eyes looked desolate, but she laughed lightly. “I don’t think I would stop you.”

  “And Simon?” He almost didn’t want to ask, for he liked the tinker despite all of his impossible words.

  “Ah. Yes. Simon,” she said, suddenly sober.

  “Please tell me he wasn’t the Welder,” he bit out.

  She patted his arm consolingly. “He wasn’t the Welder.”

  He exhaled in relief. He was glad he wouldn’t be throwing any genius tinkers overboard today.

  “He was the Welder’s apprentice,” Hex continued.

  Rowan immediately changed his mind about throwing Simon overboard. Hex must have sensed his sudden intent, for she rolled until she was half on top of him and put a hand on either side of his face. She stared down at him sternly. “Don’t you even think about hurting him, Rowan.”

  “He hurt you.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “He didn’t. He had nothing to do with the operation. He wasn’t even there. He designed the hands, yes, but he did so with the intention of helping people who had true need of them. He had no idea his boss was using his work to perform back alley operations on the side. He was the one who helped me get away from my father afterward. He felt responsible for what happened, and he still does, even though it wasn’t his fault. So you won’t kill him?”

  “I won’t kill him,” he agreed grudgingly. “But your father, Hex. How could he do that? How could anyone do that? What sort of world is this?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t despair of all of humanity on account of Hubert Bartholomew.”

  He fixed her with a sour look. “For the past month, I’ve met nothing but thieves, murderers, and criminal masterminds. And vampires. I am hardly filled with optimism.”

  She looked surprisingly dissatisfied with his answer. “Can you not remember anything different? Anything better?”

  “Better? No. I can’t remember, and I can’t imagine it. Why would I want to imagine a life without you in it?”

  Her eyes widened and her lips parted, as if she would have said something had she been able to speak. It hadn’t been his intention to strike her dumb, but the words had just slipped out of him before he could think them through.

  She turned her head away, her cheeks blooming with color, her eyes suspiciously damp. “You should write poetry, you know.”

  “Maybe I will,” he countered, smiling gently at her blushes even as his heart ached for her. He doubted anyone had ever bothered to treat Hex so tenderly in her short, difficult life. It made him want to keep on doing so for an eternity. “But only if you like poetry. I’d do anything to make you happy, Hex.”

  She laughed lightly and punched him in t
he shoulder, her face now a truly impressive scarlet. Then, all of a sudden, she turned back to him and threw her arms around his neck, pressing her body as close to his as possible and placing teasing kisses all over his face.

  He hugged her back and gladly endured her assault, his heart light for the first time in what felt like centuries.

  “That’s nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she murmured.

  “It’s the truth,” he said firmly, swallowing past the damnable lump in his throat that just wouldn’t go away.

  “For now, maybe…”

  “Always,” he whispered. He lifted her chin with his fingertips so that he could look her in the eyes. She was still flushed, her blue eyes luminous with what looked very much like hope. He’d never seen it in her eyes before, and it made his heart soar even higher. “It will always be the truth. No matter what happens next.”

  Her expression clouded a little at that, and he wished he could take back his last words. He didn’t want reminders of the world outside these four walls any more than she did.

  He cradled the curve of her face in his palms. “Hex, I think I lo…”

  “Don’t say it,” she interrupted, panic flitting over her features as she guessed his next words. “This already feels unreal enough.”

  Her refusal to accept his confession stung, but he understood. “Too soon?” he murmured.

  She smiled tremulously at him. “Much too soon,” she agreed. She wasn’t ready to hear the words. He wondered if she’d ever be.

  He wondered with a sinking feeling if he’d ever get to find out.

  After they’d made love again, he held her close to his chest as she drifted off to sleep. He stared at the shifting shadows on the ceiling of the cabin, his mood, so briefly buoyed by their intimacies, darkening by the minute. Hex had been right to guard her heart. He just wish he’d done the same.

  THE AMUN RA could go no farther. Nearly two days of flying blind through the sandstorm that had engulfed the Western Sahara had taken its toll on the ship, even at its high altitude. Sand and grit clogged the engine, the fragile membranes of the ballonets peppered with slow-leaking holes from the bullet-like momentum of the wind-blown sand. Two of the solar panels had been destroyed completely, rendering their energy reserves dangerously low, and all of the electricals were fried to high hell.