Winterblaze

by Kristen Callihan

  For a taut moment, he could only gape at his wife. She was poetry in motion, moving in a way he’d never before seen. One thug made a grab for her, and she struck the crook of his elbow with the blunt end of her fan. Two more moves, and his arm was broken. The fan snapped open, and Win realized that the slats were actually steel blades. With a whirl of red hair and blue skirts, the silver fan sliced through the thug’s neck, and his head hit the ground with a thunk.

  It happened in the blink of an eye, and then Win had his hands full. Bloody hell but these things were fast, and strong. One struck him on the side of the head, and he saw stars. Win reacted, his training setting in. Then it was a blur. His body moved through the macabre dance without forethought. Kick, swing, duck, step, swing. He decapitated an undead, and then there were two.

  Poppy moved behind him, working in tandem with her back to his so that they were a singular force. A blow to his guts had Win tasting bile. He punched back, his fist connecting with cold, dead flesh. Behind him, Poppy staggered as one thug smashed his massive hand into her. She did not make a sound, but black rage took hold of Winston. With a roar, he swung around, moving Poppy out of the way as his sword cleaved the undead’s head from its neck in one clean swipe.

  He might have roared again in victory were it not for the shadow bearing down behind him. A knife headed straight for his heart. He had no time to move or block the blow. Win braced himself, but the hit never came. His wife snarled like an enraged cat and lashed out. Her slim arm deflected the hit. Another blow and she decapitated the thug with her clever fan.

  And then it was over. Winston was battered. Every inch of him ached as he took in the carnage. Four undead lay sprawled on the ground. All were missing their heads.

  His chest heaved as he straightened and looked at his wife. She was panting as well, her hair in a red tangle about her slim shoulders. A smear of blood marred her cheek, but the cut was shallow. She was glorious. He glanced about one more time, making certain they were well and truly alone. Nothing stirred.

  “Are you harmed?” he asked. “Did they hit…”

  “The child is fine.” She smoothed hair back from her face. “You?”

  “Not yet.” His sword clattered to the ground. He took the two steps to close the distance between them and hauled her against him. Lust slammed into him at the touch of his lips to hers. Hard enough to make him stagger, taking her with him. He fell against the brick wall of the overpass as he cupped her cheeks with his hands and devoured her mouth, needing to touch her, taste her, more than he needed to breathe. This was what he’d been missing. This was what made him feel whole. Her fingers tangled in his hair and tugged hard as she kissed him back, biting his lower lip.

  His head spun with want, and he took a shuddering breath to ease the tightness in his chest. He had to stop. He knew this. But for the moment, he closed his eyes and simply reveled in her. His tongue played with hers, a slow, torturous slip-slide, and he groaned. Then he let her go. And it was painful.

  They panted for a moment, and her eyes were wide with surprise and wonder as he tenderly caressed her bloodied cheek.

  “What was that for?” she said after a moment.

  He rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip and told her the truth. “For being alive.”

  With the heat of battle still running riot through her veins, Poppy’s hands were unsteady as she started to go through the undeads’ pockets. Win had kissed her. She knew enough of combat to understand that the need for physical contact, or a sexual release, went hand in hand with the aftermath of getting one’s blood up. She ought not make anything of it. Only her heart pounded, and she couldn’t think straight.

  He knelt next to her, his trousers straining against his powerful thigh muscles. How he had moved in the fight. She had never seen him like that, his body a lethal weapon, gliding and striking as though he owned the very air around him. It made her dizzy with lust.

  “What are you looking for?” His smoky voice was low and even.

  She reached into an inner coat pocket. “A guide. The undead cannot think for themselves. They’d need something to guide them to us. Something that identifies what victim they sought.”

  Beside her, Win began to do the same, his shoulder brushing hers as they worked. He sat back on his heels as he pulled out a folded piece of what looked like sheepskin paper. Poppy stopped and leaned into his shoulder to watch him unfold it. A coil of red hair fell out and onto his roughened palm.

  “Well, that explains it,” she said through her teeth. “They have my hair.”

  Win clutched the clump in his fist. “How?”

  Poppy rested an elbow on her thigh. “Taken from my hairbrush? I do not know.”

  Win rose to his feet and held out a hand. Poppy did not need help, but she took it because she wanted to keep touching him. Foolish. She could not afford to be so weak. She let go as soon as she stood and then glanced down at the undead. “I would say it was Isley, but this is not his modus operandi.”

  “Do you believe someone else wants to hurt you?” His cool eyes grew hard and angry. “Have you an idea of who it could be?”

  A short laugh escaped her. “The list is long, dear husband.”

  His jaw tightened. “You find this amusing?”

  No. She found it wearying. Worse, she wanted to punch something, for he had been in danger too. By associating with her. Damn it all. She glanced up to find Win watching her. She’d seen the soft heat in his eyes just after he’d kissed her. The tenderness. He’d looked at her as he used to look at her. Before. This was her life now. Before discovery. After discovery. She wanted that look back.

  “Why did you pull away?” She hadn’t meant to ask, but now that she had, she would not flinch from it.

  His expression closed down. “What is it that you want me to say, Poppy?” The scar on his lip was white as he searched her face. “That I am human? You know that all too well.”

  Her breasts lifted and fell as she fought for breath. “Perhaps that you wanted to kiss me?” That you miss me the way I miss you. So much that it hurts.

  His expression was so stern that he might have been a marble carving. “I wanted to kiss you.” He backed her up against the stone wall leading onto the Embankment. “I want you every thinking moment I have. I want you near. I want to hear your voice. Feel you.” He leaned in, drowning her in his scent and his heat. “I want to take you hard, slow, every way in between. And the piss of it is, it’s always been this way. From the moment I saw you.”

  She gaped up at him, and his scowl grew. “I want you always. In all things. I want…” He exhaled unsteadily. “It is pain, this wanting you. And I wish it were gone.”

  Her breath left in a sharp rasp. But he was past hearing. “Because it isn’t about wanting, is it? A man gets to a point in his life when he realizes wanting isn’t everything. There needs to be more.”

  “You will never forgive me, will you?”

  His head snapped back, those deep eyes of his clouding for a moment. And then he sighed. “It is not a question of forgiveness. I lied, you lied, we both lied.”

  “Are you conjugating? Or is there a point? For I confess, I cannot understand what you are about.”

  His mouth twisted as he leaned in. “It isn’t real. What we had was never real. It was an illusion. Our life. Our love.”

  “How dare you say that! How dare you belittle all that we had.” He might as well have punched her in the chest.

  “How can I not? Everything we are is a result of my folly and Isley’s bloody machinations.”

  She hit his shoulder. Hard. “Fool! Your bargain reset your life’s course. It did not make me want you afterward. It did not make us happy. It did not make me lo…” She swallowed. “It did not make me love you, Win. You did that, you ass.” She shoved him again, hard enough to make him step back, which was good, for she could not stand another moment in his presence. “And if you cannot see that, cannot accept what we were, then our continued association is point
less.”

  He grabbed her upper arms. “It is you who cannot see!” When she tried to move, he held fast. “You kept turning me down when I first proposed. Do you remember that at least?”

  Stiffly she nodded, not liking the hard, black feeling swelling within her chest.

  His grip tightened, his eyes wild with pained frustration. “I thought you did so because of who I was. But it wasn’t that, was it? I understand now. It was because of who you were.”

  The blackness turned to pain and pushed against her ribs, filling up her throat. “I did not want to love you. I did not want to risk you.” She still did not want to face that risk.

  Redness swarmed in his eyes as he looked at her. “I know, sweeting. I know it now. Can you not see it? I took away your choice.” Softly, his thumbs caressed her. “Ask yourself this. Would Boadicea, Mother of the SOS, have given in and said yes to me?”

  A garbled sound broke from her lips as all that black, raging pain became too much to hold in. She sucked in greedy pulls of air, but it was no use. The truth came whether she wanted to say it or not.

  “No.”

  And then she was running. From him. From herself.

  He watched her go. Every forceful stride she took drove a stab of pain into his heart. He bit his bottom lip to keep from calling her back. To keep from shouting out the truth. That he did not care if she wasn’t truly his. He loved her. He always had. He’d die loving her. But she’d said her truth as well. She would not have chosen him. Absently, he rubbed his chest.

  “You did the smart thing, Lane.”

  Hands fisting, he glanced down at the street urchin who had appeared by his side. A grubby little face blinked up at him, innocent, sweet with his button nose and too big eyes that flared with an inner fire. It took all Win had not to smash his fist into that face. “Did you do this?”

  Jones looked down at the bodies littering the ground. “I thought this was your handiwork.”

  “You bloody well know what I mean.”

  “You’ve no sense of humor, Lane.” Jones shrugged. “As she said, it is not my style. The woman has more enemies than the devil.” His little face turned to watch Poppy go, and he grinned. “Ah, but she’s glorious when she fights, isn’t she?” Icy eyes settled on Winston. “She won’t be talking to you for some time, though, will she?”

  “I swear to God,” Winston ground out, “I will find a way to destroy you, Jones. Even if I have to go to hell to do it.”

  The urchin adjusted his cap and spat on the ground. “Sweet words will get you nowhere.” He shoved his small hands into the pockets of his short pants. “I’m doing you a service, really. Fate never meant for her to be yours.”

  “And what if I don’t believe in your version of fate?” Each word was a razor dragged along Winston’s throat.

  “Then you wouldn’t be here.” A little foot kicked at a broken clump of paving, and the clump bounded away. “You’d be running after her.” Hard eyes leveled on him. “Now, stop wasting time. You’ve got three days left. Then I come to collect.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A man could make himself weak at the knees giving in to anticipation. Especially if gifted with a healthy imagination. He could watch the object of his desire and wonder. What would her lips taste like? Would they be tart and sweet like berries? Or warm and smooth like sherry? Would she willingly tickle her tongue along his? Or make him work for an entry? One glimpse of the shadow of her breasts and he could be hard, contemplating the shape of them once set free of their confinement. Pointed? Tear-dropped? Round? What color would her nipples be? Would they be big? Small? Pert? Or flat? It was an agony of delightful possibilities. A game of wondering how much torment a man could take before he acquired the knowledge.

  Win had played that game before. He remembered the sharp sweetness of it. And he almost laughed now at the memory. For he now knew there was another far crueler sort of pain. That in knowing precisely, with vivid recollection, just what a man was missing out on. Imagination was a shadow of reality. Win knew what Poppy tasted like. That her breasts were small yet shapely little handfuls. He knew the exact shade and texture of her nipples. The very color her skin would flush when he pushed into her.

  Ignorance was, as they say, bloody, buggering bliss. Knowledge, on the other hand, was an acute pain. A pain, to be precise, in his cock. Stuck as he was in a small coach with the object of his desire as they made their way to Farleigh, his cock was none too happy. Discreetly as he could, he adjusted himself and forced his gaze away from the cool length of her throat. He wanted to lick that expanse of skin, feel the throb of her pulse against him. He craved her flavor as a man imprisoned craves a juicy bite of meat.

  He was an Englishman, for God’s sake. He’d been raised on the denial of pleasure and control of one’s wants. Only he’d never been able to master those things in regard to Poppy. Now, he’d cut himself off entirely. Like a bloody imbecile. At the very least, he ought to have joined Talent in the servants’ coach and had Mary Chase ride with Poppy.

  No words were spoken as they rode onward. Which was for the best. He couldn’t think of what to say that would not draw himself closer into her orbit. And that was the problem: he wanted to be in her orbit. To be around her was the difference between going through the motions of the day and feeling every breath.

  Poppy’s stomach made a little growl, pulling him from his self-pity. Her lips flattened at the sound. He almost smiled, save her posture grew so rigid and the clench of her hands upon her lap so tight, that he knew she would not welcome it. Instead, he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small bag of chestnuts.

  Her eyes went round as he handed them to her. But she did not refuse. Her nimble fingers worked in a near greedy fashion as she stuffed a chestnut into her mouth. “I didn’t know you to carry food around in your pocket.” She munched industriously on another nut. As they hadn’t spoken more than a few sentences since their argument, her words came out stilted and awkward.

  “I don’t, generally. Here…” He pulled a flask filled with cool apple cider out of his other pocket. She snatched it up and took a deep drink. “Save I’ve heard from some of the chaps that ladies in your condition are apt to need more sustenance.” And if Poppy’s appetite for the last few days was any indication, she needed a bit more than most.

  Slowly she lowered the flask and peered at him. “These things are for me?”

  “Of course.”

  It was clear that she did not expect him to look after her needs. Her hands fell to her lap, one hand clutching the chestnuts and the other the flask. She stared at him for a good moment, in which he had the irritating urge to look away, then she tucked the flask at her hip and ate another nut. “Thank you, Win.”

  “It is the least I can do. After all, I wouldn’t want you to become irritable with hunger.” He gave her a tight smile, for he didn’t want her to see how much he enjoyed caring for her just now, not when she obviously believed it was no longer his duty, or his right. “A man learns to fear for his life when that occurs.”

  “Ha.” She said it shortly, but good humor crinkled the corners of her eyes. The empty chestnut bag crumpled in her hand, and then she peered at him again, a thorough inspection that had him resting one arm casually over his lap to hide certain evidence.

  “What else have you got for me, then?”

  His breath hitched before he realized she was referring to food. Perfect. He gave her another smile. “A few meat pies in my satchel.” And that did not sound at all like a double entendre. He cleared his throat. “Perhaps you ought to pace yourself? Not devour all and sundry in one sitting?”

  Her warrior’s brows snapped together, and her hand shot out. “Hand them over, Lane.”

  He laughed, because he could not hold it back, and then gave her the food, because he was not a complete fool. When she had settled back with her feast, he took hold of her legs and propped them on his lap. She squeaked in protest, and he gave her shin a light slap.

/>   “Hush.” His fingers went to the tight laces of her half-boots. “I’ve also been informed that a lady’s feet may swell and become pained.”

  She shifted, finding a more comfortable position, and then regarded him with amusement. “I do not believe that occurs until I am a bit larger. However, I shall not complain.” She took a bite of pie. “Wouldn’t want to injure your tender feelings, after all.”

  “Gracious girl.” He eased one boot off, noting her small noise of pleasure, before moving to take off the other boot. “Why did you not use your power on the undead we fought?” He had been wanting to ask, yet oddly had not been quite ready for the answer.

  When she spoke, her words were measured. “The undead are magically manipulated, which means the rules of nature do not apply to them. At any rate, the degree of cold I would have needed to freeze bodies so large would have hurt you more than them.” She shrugged and broke off a crumpling edge of the pastry. “Sometimes it is more practical to simply fight hand to hand.”

  Indeed. He kept his eyes upon his work as he dug his thumbs along the bottom of her foot. She sighed, the sound zinging through him, but the tension did not ease along her leg.

  Poppy’s voice was soft as it drifted across to him. “I knew it would bother you.”

  When he wrenched his head up, he found her blinking down at her clenched hands. A sad smile played about her lips. “I understand that a man wants to be the protector, to know that he can keep his wife from harm. What man in his right mind would want a woman who can freeze him solid with a thought?” She laughed weakly. “Who is versed in multiple weaponry and proficient in six forms of physical combat?”

  Six forms? Hell, Archer and Ian had only taught him four. He looked down at his hands gripping Poppy’s narrow foot. They were strong, capable hands. He’d just beheaded two undead thugs, though he took no pleasure from it. If he were honest with himself, he’d rather best a man with knowledge, not tear him apart. Still, as normal men went, he could easily hold his own on the physical field. Unfortunately, normal had long since left the station.