by Zoë Archer
As a gambler, he knew that the odds were against him. He had his ability to manipulate the odds—though that could not be relied upon—and his own skill as a fighter.
He also had, as an ally, Zora.
They shared a meal in the tavern’s lone private dining room. They were both famished, and the mad Roman ghost—a ghost, with whom he had conversed—had exhausted her supply of energy. The spirit had winked out suddenly. Whit and Zora had been left alone in the room, and the air had shimmered not just with the ghost’s residual magic, but also with the tangled desire he and Zora felt for one another. A meal was a much easier and less complex hunger to satisfy.
More curious and suspicious gazes followed them as they moved through the inn’s main taproom. Whispers buzzed like dung-loving flies around the fine gentleman and the pretty but certainly devious Gypsy. Considering that not twelve hours earlier Whit had battled with genuine hellspawn, such petty comments by rustics ought not to trouble him.
“You and I have far greater enemies to contend with than these baulos.” Zora kept her voice low, her words only for him.
Yet it did trouble him. As he guided Zora through the taproom toward the stairs leading to the first floor, he sent every one of the whispering fools his coldest, sharpest, and most aristocratic stare. It was a look that said, quite plainly, You are nothing. You are all nothing.
The taproom fell silent, and many pairs of eyes returned guiltily to contemplation of shoes.
He wrestled with the notion of standing in the middle of the room and announcing that Zora had shown more valor and character in a week than any of those miserable curs might demonstrate in the course of their entire lives. She had claw marks from demons on her flesh. The best the patrons of The Red Hart might claim was a gouty leg or an abscess from a rotten tooth.
“Come upstairs,” Zora murmured. “These situations get dangerous quickly.” She glanced around the room. “Outnumbered, our chances here are bad. Wafodu guero isn’t the only creature with darkness inside.”
He let himself be led, her fingers threaded with his. Followed her up the stairs, where shadows were thicker and smoke from the taproom hearth gathered. Voices downstairs recommenced, first with trepidation and then returning to usual levels. Gossiping, no doubt. Speculation. Whit decided that he didn’t care. There was far too much at stake besides the good opinion of The Red Hart.
At the top of the stairs, in the dark hallway between rooms, Whit stopped. Zora, feeling the tug on her arm, also stopped walking. She half turned to him, and he saw in the dim hallway that she raised one questioning brow.
“Zora,” he said, because saying her name gave him pleasure. It was so like her. Hard and soft. Exotic yet accessible.
“Whit,” she answered.
He went to her. Stalked her. She kept her ground until their torsos met, and they moved together—he forward, she backward—stopping when her back met the wall. She tipped her chin up, keeping her gaze locked with his. Enough firelight filtered up from the stairs that he saw the gleam of her eyes, as dark and alluring as secrets. The light also revealed tantalizing glimpses of her throat, her upper chest, and the delicious rise of her breasts above the neckline of her blouse.
They pressed close together. He felt the rise and fall of her breath, a counterrhythm to his own. His hand rose up to trace from her jaw to her neck to just above her breasts, then back up again. She felt like hot silk.
He lowered his head. Their lips met, mouths opened. Their tongues stroked against each other.
Her lips were silken beneath his, full and warm. Within, she tasted of wine and her own flavor. Spicy and lush. His head spun, and he let himself spin with it.
Their hands still clasped, and he brought his other hand down to claim hers. Arms straight down at their sides, bodies pressed fully against each other, chest to chest, stomach to stomach. Her thighs beneath his. Her hips cupping his. Only their mouths moved, drinking deeply of one another.
Need for her spiraled through him in torrid currents. He had wanted her from the moment he had seen her. Beautiful girl. Wild thing. Dark hair and dark, taunting eyes. It had been a covetous wanting, based on instinct. He saw. He wanted.
Now ... now he knew her. The cutting edge of her temper, the forged steel of her spine, her clever mind and pleasure in cunning. And it stoked the fire of his desire, for she was not a novelty but a woman, with the depth and frailties and strength of a woman.
Balance shifted, and she met his power and insistence with her own, her body alive and demanding. An unexpected equality.
He deepened the kiss, and she made a sound, part moan, part growl. The sound traveled directly to his groin, drawing on his cock with invisible velvet hands.
All he wanted was to be inside her, yet the sound of a footstep on the stairs below caused him to break the kiss.
Her eyes were heavy lidded, her mouth was swollen. They walked together to their room. Hand shaking, he found the key and unlocked the door. As he did so, he calculated the number of paces from the door to the bed.
The door unlocked, he slipped inside, Zora right behind him.
Livia, the mad Roman ghost, waited for them.
A week earlier, Whit would have disputed the very existence of ghosts. Now, he not only believed in ghosts, he hated them.
“Is there a rule that ghosts must appear at the most inopportune moments?” Zora demanded as Whit lit the candle.
Livia eyed both Zora and Whit, her gaze lingering on Zora’s swollen lips and mussed hair, then traveling down the length of Whit’s body, dallying at his groin.
Zora risked her own peek and wished she hadn’t. The bottom of Whit’s waistcoat perfectly framed the thick length of his erection pressed tightly against his doeskin breeches. A mouthwatering sight. She tore her gaze away, knowing that she would be denied use of that gorgeous cock for the foreseeable future.
“The heat of them,” Livia murmured to herself. “The brand and the girl of flame. They draw me.” Her eyes closed in misery. “Remind me what I cannot have, what I crave. Flesh to flesh. I cannot remember their names, those men I took to my bed, but I remember their bodies. Memories ... all I have. Not even a body. Nothing. Only deprivation and want.” She pressed her knuckles into her eyes.
Zora understood the priestess’s torment. Livia had no physical body, but Zora did, and it literally ached with need that, once again, would go unsatisfied. An ongoing condition, ever since she had met Whit.
He appeared no better, looking as though on the verge of leveling the inn with his bare hands. Yet he seemed to gather his focus through force of will. “You said we cannot summon the geminus. Yet we need a means to locate it without Mr. Holliday knowing.”
Livia lowered her fists. “Magic finds magic.”
“A spell?” asked Zora.
The ghost glanced around the room, the trappings of mundane life. Bed, washstand, chamber pot, curtains to block the morning sun. “Not here. Heavy and small. Too much mortal incredulity.”
“Behind the inn stands a forest,” Whit noted.
This seemed to satisfy the ghost. “There it shall be, in the shade of night.” Her shape dimmed, and just before she vanished, she called, “It seeks to drag me back into oblivion. We must act quickly, quickly before—”
And then she was gone.
Whit and Zora stood alone in the bedchamber. She glanced longingly at the bed. The bedclothes lay in twisted heaps, holding the patterns her and Whit’s bodies had made as they had writhed together. By gorgio standards, it was not a large bed, but it would be more than sufficient for two to lie close together, if not atop one another.
“Don’t,” Whit warned lowly.
Muttering curses in Romani, Zora gathered up her few belongings. She had not taken much, only changes of clothing, needle and thread, small mementos of home such as her mother’s hairbrush and her grandmother’s ebony fan.
Whit also had a pack, which he slung over his shoulder after buckling on his curved sword.
“You did not take
any of the gowns I had made for you.”
“Impossible for me to accept them.” Though it had been torture not to do so.
His face was carved of candlelight and shadow as he stared at her. “I cannot help but picture you in that golden silk dress. How like an otherworld enchantress you would have looked, all dark and gold. I would have been the envy of every man who beheld you.”
She fought against a surge of longing, not just for the beautiful gowns, but for a path she and Whit could never walk together.
“Envy is a sin,” she said, hefting her satchel. She stepped back when Whit tried to take the bag from her. “I carry my own burdens.”
He sent her a speaking glance but did not again attempt to take her satchel. They exited the chamber and moved quickly through the hallway, past the memory of themselves kissing passionately, then down to the main floor of the inn. Silence from the taproom greeted their reappearance. Whit did not bother to settle with the landlord. Instead, he left a pile of coin on the desk.
They left the inn without speaking, and the ostler soon brought their saddled, rested horses from the stable and secured their baggage. Whit handed the man more coin, which the ostler received gratefully.
Whit turned to her, but Zora had already swung herself up into the saddle. Rom men were most adept with horses, and many Rom women knew their way around the animals. Zora had been riding soon after she learned to walk. Her cousin Ajan had even secretly taught her a few trick riding moves, though he begged her not to tell anyone lest he incur ridicule, a thrashing, or both.
She watched Whit leap into the saddle with an agility and speed any Romani chal would envy. Once he was mounted, they walked their horses out of the yard and toward the forest.
Had she been inside too long? Trapped within gorgio walls? For she never did find the woods a frightening place, not until this moment. They loomed dark and sinister just beyond the ring of light thrown by the inn. To her, the trees were tall skeletons rattling their bones in anticipation, expecting her.
She began to talk. “I saw a play about a knight and a lady at a fair. A wicked sorcerer kidnapped a lady and had her guarded by a pasteboard dragon. The knight killed the dragon while the lady screamed.”
They guided their horses off the main road and onto a lane that led toward the waiting forest. Wind stirred the branches, and they scraped against each other like fingernails scratching the inside of a coffin.
“What good does screaming do?” Zora could not stop her tongue. She talked to beat back her fear, though it was a paltry defense. “At the least, she could have distracted the dragon so the knight could get a decent shot with his lance. But no, she just stood there and shrieked while the knight defeated the sorcerer, too. Then he brought her the dragon’s head and she still spurned him for letting her be kidnapped in the first place. He lay down on the floor and died from a broken heart. Then she died. It was the most ridiculous spectacle I’d ever seen.”
Whit had been silent, but as they entered the forest, he spoke. “The world is not so easily divided into heroes and villains.”
“No,” she said. “Not so easily divided.”
Deeper they went. The woods were not particularly dense, but night made the shadows thicker and the path soon disappeared. Darkness engulfed them. Zora glanced over her shoulder and could still see the lights of the inn, and hear the laughter and voices within. When the trees swallowed the last of the light, she had no choice but to face forward and peer into the darkness. Her prattling had done nothing but make her feel silly and small. Anything could be lurking in the shadows, and she had been fool enough to let whatever was out there know she was coming.
She could just make out Whit at the lead, his wide shoulders and straight back. From the sound of his horse’s hooves, he was not that far ahead, yet the distance between them felt huge. If something happened to her, could he reach her in time? She had her fire magic—and hoped it was enough.
The horses shied. Zora fought for control of her mount as she reached inside herself for the flame of her magic. Whit’s sword hissed as he unsheathed it, and dull moonlight glinted off its blade.
Livia flickered into being, standing in their path. The horses’ panic grew. Both Zora and Whit grappled to bring their animals under control while the ghost stared at them coldly.
Zora felt the horses’ fear, shared it. To be trapped between the mortal realm and the infinity of death was profoundly wrong, a state in which no one should ever dwell. Would Livia remain trapped as a ghost for eternity, watching the world change around her, but never being a part of it? Denied human comfort, human touch? The possibility horrified Zora. She patted and soothed her horse as a means to calm herself.
Livia turned and sped away.
Quickly, Zora and Whit dismounted and secured their horses. They trailed the ghost yet deeper into the forest. The night was thick around them, and Zora found herself keeping close to Whit, her eyes on his broad, strong shoulders.
Finally, Livia stopped in a small clearing, with Zora and Whit facing her. “Now. Before I am dragged back into nothingness ...” She turned to Zora. “The girl of fire. She shapes the spell.”
Before Zora could protest that she knew nothing of creating actual spells, the ghost fixed her barely lucid gaze on Whit. “Something from the brand, as well.”
“Tell me what I must do,” he answered.
“Geminus. The dark self. Feed the spell with something of the body.”
“Blood,” said Whit.
“Blood,” echoed Livia. “Hair. Seed.”
There was a very long pause. Finally, Whit said, “Hair it is, then.” He pulled a small knife from his boot and quickly cut a lock of hair from his queue.
“The fire must burn,” the ghost intoned.
This was Zora’s part. She shut her eyes and reached for the source of fire within, a strange inward spiraling. At the encampment, she had the campfire from which to draw, but now she had to locate its heat and strength inside herself.
“The girl must make haste,” Livia cried, her voice thinning as she dimmed.
“The girl is trying,” said Zora through clenched teeth.
“You’ve the power, Zora.” Whit’s words were grave but assured. “All along it has been in you.”
She steadied herself, focusing on the gleam of flame that burned inside her. Yes. There. It illuminated the darkness, beat back the shadows. She reached for it, her hands cupping together. Heat filled her and the space between her palms.
“Yes,” said Whit.
Opening her eyes, Zora saw flames gloving her hands. The forest’s gloom retreated as firelight painted trunks and branches. She glanced at Whit, and he, too, was bathed in light. He did not smile, but his eyes shone with admiration. The flames in her hands burned brighter. She expanded with power. This is mine. This is me.
Urgency gathered Livia’s scattered mind. “In the fire, now!”
Whit strode forward and dropped his shorn lock of hair into Zora’s hands. The acrid scent of burnt hair rose up as the lock swiftly burned. At the same time, Livia chanted in that strange language, her words coming faster and faster until they blended into formless sound without end.
With a gasp, Whit suddenly doubled over. He toppled to the ground, his body rigid with pain.
Zora fell to her knees beside him. The flames surrounding her hands vanished. Darkness engulfed them. She gripped his shoulders, trying to ease the tremors of pain that rocked through him. His face contorted as he struggled against an unknown, unseen agony.
“Livia, what is this?” Zora cried. “What do we do?”
But no answer came. The ghost had disappeared.
Chapter 10
Zora held Whit’s shoulders as he writhed. As she knelt beside him in the darkness, she felt how agony tightened his features, his long body, his eyes shut as if to block out the pain wracking him. Most frightening was that he made almost no sound, just a barely audible groan through clenched teeth.
Damn that mad ghos
t, leaving Zora without any means of helping Whit or knowledge of what was happening to him. Seeing him in such pain tore at her own heart, made worse by her complete helplessness.
Perhaps there was a canteen in his satchel. She didn’t know what a drink might do for him, but it was better than the nothing she offered him now.
She cursed. The satchel remained with the horses. If she went to retrieve it, Whit would be alone. She could not abandon him, not for a moment.
The tremors harrowing him suddenly stopped. Her pulse stuttered as Whit went lax beneath her hands. Was he ... ? No. He breathed. Deep, even breaths. He groaned softly, coming back from that place of suffering.
Thank God. Relief turned her bones to jelly.
She brushed back strands of hair clinging to his damp forehead. “Whit,” she whispered. “What do you need? Are you well?”
“Perfectly well,” he said after a moment. His voice sounded oddly distant, and darkness cloaked his expression.
“What happened?”
“Something quite extraordinary.” He moved to get up.
“Don’t tax yourself,” she admonished. “You’ve just gone through ... I don’t know what ... but it scared the hell out of me.”
Despite her warning, he rose to standing. Against the inky night sky, he made a large shape of deeper shadow. “No call to be frightened. Everything is exactly as it should be.”
Unease plucked at her. She needed to ensure that Whit truly was unharmed by that horrible seizure. Kneeling, she gathered some twigs and bound them together with a vine. She found the gleam of fire within herself, nurtured it like one might tend a smoldering ember. This was not the heat of battle, but deliberate intent. It took her a moment to grasp the fire. Concentrate. A quick spark of triumph when flame appeared on her fingertips, and she touched them to the torch. The twigs were dry and caught quickly, flaring.
Red engulfed her vision as her eyes adjusted to the light. She stood, her legs unsteady beneath her, and turned to Whit.
He looked exactly the same as he had a few minutes earlier. Same sharply handsome face, same lean strength. Even his clothing remained unchanged: dark green coat, plain doeskin waistcoat and breeches, cuffed boots that came to just above his knees. His hair had come undone from its queue, fell around his shoulders.