Dark Embrace

by Eve Silver

  Beside him, Layla’s every breath was too fast, too shallow. He could hear her pulse, the racing of her heart, the pounding of the blood in her veins. Sweet blood, hot and alive. After this night, her blood, her heart, her very physiology would be permanently altered.

  It was an easy matter for Killian to enter the cell, to hunker down by the prisoner’s side, to ask him, “Why do you beg to die? I heard you as I passed by, calling out for a merciful death.”

  The man’s lips were dry and cracked and it took him a moment to manage a reply. “Are you an apparition?”

  “I am not.” Killian rested his hand on the man’s injured shoulder and held his gaze, willing him to feel no pain, no fear. He supposed this ability to lull mortals into a state of calm repose was a handy thing when his survival required him to kill them. A calm victim was far easier to drain than one who struggled. And for the victim, it was far easier to die without fear. “Tell me why you wish to die.”

  “They will burn me at the stake on the morrow,” the prisoner said, his words even and soft now. “They have denied me death by garrote before burning. They will burn me alive.” He closed his eyes. “Kill me quickly. Kill me now. Deny them their pyre. Show me mercy.”

  Layla made a low moan, and Killian looked up to find that she had moved to the door of the small cell. “Hurry,” she said. “Bring him and let us be away.”

  “You think I brought you here to save this man from his fate?” Killian asked. “After my warnings and admonitions, you believe I brought you here for that?”

  Layla wrapped her arms around herself, resting her shoulder heavily on the bars. Her eyes were liquid, the shadows and dim light making them larger and darker, like the hollowed sockets of a skeletal skull.

  Killian shook his head. “I brought you here to watch me feed, to understand what fate you beg for. I told you that your life would be purchased with compromises, with the need to do things. Disturbing things.”

  “Feed?” she whispered with a glance at the broken man who lay on the floor.

  “I am here to kill him,” Killian said. “A kindness, in truth. Mercy.” He said the last though he was not certain there was such a thing as a merciful monster.

  “A kindness?” Layla took a step back, horror etching her features.

  “Death at my hand will be swift and painless.”

  “We can take him from this place. We can save him,” Layla said, but the words wavered and dipped, as though she already accepted that she argued against the inevitable.

  Killian made a gesture to encompass the cell and the hallway beyond. “I cannot save them all.” He had learned that long ago. He had learned that humans would die and he would not. He had learned not to let his hunger grow to the point that he fed indiscriminately, a feral creature driven by need. He had learned to kill those who were evil or those on the brink of death. His conscience sat better on his shoulders that way. This kill was a mercy.

  “Watch now,” he said. “Learn. You will need these skills.”

  She sank to her knees on the cold stone, as though his words stole the last of her strength. “What are you?” she whispered.

  He had not expected it, her horror and revulsion. But he saw now that he should have. He thought back to the human boy-man he had been before the stranger came to his family’s home. He had not been offered a choice between death and monster. The monster had bred a monster and then walked out to burn in the sun.

  Would Kjell have chosen life if the creature had let him choose?

  Killian did not know. He was Kjell no longer, and he had not been human in a very long while. He was Killian now, and Killian needed to feed.

  A warning of the coming dawn crawled across his skin; it was less than an hour away. If he tarried here any longer, the dawn would flay his skin and burn hotter than the pyre this wretch feared. He needed to finish here and seek the darkness.

  He lifted the man’s head to his lap. He pulled his knife free. He no longer gnawed open a vein to feed. He was a civilized monster, one that made use of a utensil. With a deft slash, he severed the carotid artery in the man’s throat and sealed his lips to the wound as the blood spurted free. And he fed.

  When he was done, he wiped the blood from his lips and went to kneel by Layla’s side. She flinched away.

  She cried out in protest as he lifted her in his arms, she was light but his heart was heavy. He had miscalculated and he suspected that this foray would not end as he had planned. He carried her to her home, to her bed, and when he set her down he asked, “Do you want to live?”

  “Not like that. Not like you.” She scrabbled back, as far from him as she could. But he expected that. She had held herself stiff in his arms, trembling and sobbing the entire way home.

  “Where is the woman who said, ‘I want to live, whatever the cost, I want to live’?”

  She came up on her knees, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, her skin white, traced with blue veins, her eyes burning and wild. “She would rather die than be like you. You are a monster.”

  “I am.” A foolish monster who had dared hope he could create a monstrous companion.

  She looked at him now with only terror and revulsion. Gone was the clever wit and laughter.

  Gone was his hope.

  “Get out. Go!”

  He went without looking back.

  She died not long after. He was not there for her passing or her burial. But he had paid a man to report back and so he knew that she had not been alone, for she had a brother who loved her as Kjell had loved his sisters so very long ago.

  Killian was glad she had not been alone.

  11

  Sarah stared at Killian where he stood under the street lamp. Had he followed her? Had he been the one stalking her—hunting her—in the dim alleys?

  Her pursuer had been behind her, yet Killian had arrived here before her, an unlikely outcome if he was the man who had chased her—unless he had taken to the skies and flown like a bat. His breathing was slow and even while her lungs sucked in great gasps of air, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm thanks to her flight through the poorly lit streets.

  “What are you doing here?” The question she had meant to speak in ringing tones came out shaky and weak. “What are you doing here?” she asked again, strident now, her breath blowing white before her lips.

  His brows drew down as he straightened, lifting his shoulder from the post.

  “Do not come closer,” she said, holding her cudgel before her.

  He stilled. His head was uncovered. Her gaze dropped to his hands, searching for a low-crowned hat like the one her pursuer had worn. But his hands were empty, his skin bare. He did not wear gloves, though the wind was bitter. Her pursuer had worn gloves; she was certain of it.

  “Do you have a hat? Gloves?” she demanded.

  “Sarah,” he said, his brow furrowed in concern as he took a step toward her. Not Miss Lowell. Sarah. The way he said her name in his warm-chocolate voice made her heart twitch.

  She held up one hand, palm forward. Again, he stilled. “Do you?” she asked.

  “No. I have neither hat nor gloves.”

  She exhaled, forcing her shoulders down, unclenching her fists. She studied his face and her emotions danced from fear to elation. Because Killian was here, waiting for her, staring down at her with unwavering intensity.

  Then anger crashed in a wave, dampening her terror and panic and unreasoning joy. Anger at Killian, though she could not say why. Anger at the man who stalked her. Anger at herself, at her circumstance, at the way her heart lifted simply because Killian was here.

  She did not know herself in that instant. She was not this girl.

  “What is it?” he asked, lifting one hand as though reaching for hers, then dropping it back to his side before he made contact. She yearned for that contact even as she drew back to avoid it.

  “I was—” she glanced over her shoulder, almost expecting a second man to materialize behind her, one with black gloves and a b
lack hat. When she saw no one there, she turned to face him once more “—followed. Someone followed me from King’s College. A man. Tall. Garbed in black. He wore a low crowned hat. He chased me through St. Giles.”

  “Chased you?” Killian’s gaze flicked along the empty street and something in his expression gave her pause. She glanced back, but the street behind her was empty.

  “It was not the first time,” Sarah said. “He follows me all the time but this is the first he has come so close. He knew my name. He said my name. At least…I think it was my name.” She pressed her lips together, stilling the flow of words.

  Again, Killian looked to the street. She followed his gaze. The night was dark, save for the twinkling stars and a thin sliver of moon. The shadows were darker still. Only the one lamp shone, casting its glow in a circle some ten feet across, then fading away to nothing at the periphery.

  Yet Killian perused the dark street as though he could see things that were veiled from her sight.

  “He is not there now,” he said. From a distance, a faded cacophony of laughter and shrieks carried to them through the cold air.

  “But he was. Has been. In the mornings. At night. He is always there. My shadow.” She did not doubt her own perception of that.

  Killian tipped his head toward her. “I believe you.”

  His simple assertion summoned a flood of relief, vindication, though it should not matter if he believed her or not. Nonplussed, she waved a hand toward his dark spectacles. “I cannot imagine that you can discern anything wearing those. The street is dark as Hades, and your spectacles make it more so.”

  “I see as well with them as without. Better, in fact.” He offered a one-shouldered shrug, the casual gesture out of keeping with his normally reserved manner. “My eyes are sensitive to light.”

  She stared at him, thinking his comment a jest. But his expression showed him to be in earnest. “But it is night. There is little light.”

  “I see what others do not.” He studied the street a moment longer, and then he turned toward her and smiled. Despite everything—her breathless run, her fear, her disorientation—that smile touched a place inside her, making it crackle and flare like a spark roused to flame.

  “Hades,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said the street is dark as Hades. Do you refer to the Greek god of the Underworld or the shadowy place itself?”

  She blinked. “The place.”

  Killian clasped his hands behind his back and tipped his face to the sky. “How do you know Hades is dark? I always imagined it belching tongues of fire which would make it quite bright, I should think.”

  “You are attempting to distract me from my distress.”

  “I am. And I appear to be doing a poor job of it.”

  His gaze dropped to her hands, and she realized then that she was turning the thick stick she carried over and over in nervous inattention. He eased it from her cold and numbed fingers, then tested the weight of it on his open palm.

  “Why not a pistol?” he asked.

  “You do not seem surprised to discover that I carry a weapon.”

  “I am not surprised. You are a most intelligent and resourceful woman, Miss Lowell.”

  He thought her intelligent, resourceful. She found his words more appealing than any poetic praise of her eyes or lips or hair.

  He handed the stick back to her, and she sucked in a breath as their fingers touched, hers gloved, his bare. Even through the wool of her gloves, she felt the warmth of his skin. She frowned, stared at his naked hands. They should be cold, not warm.

  “So why not a pistol?” he prodded.

  “I would need to learn to shoot it with accuracy, and such knowledge comes only with a great deal of practice,” she said. “Besides, pistols are costly.”

  “Why not a knife, then?” he asked.

  She could see that he asked the question out of genuine interest, that he expected a reply.

  “I am small. My assailant might be large. It would be too easy for him to twist a knife from my hand and turn it upon me. Besides, carrying a knife is more complicated. I would need some sort of sheath to protect me from the blade. And then there is the cost of acquiring both knife and sheath…”

  His straight brows rose above the limits of his spectacles. “But you feel confident to wield your stick?”

  “Cudgel,” she said. “Confident enough. No one would expect me to have it, and I have a good chance at landing a solid blow to the underside of a man’s chin or his privates or across his shins or kneecaps before an attacker could know my intent.”

  “Wise and brave,” he murmured.

  She pressed her lips together, disconcerted by his praise.

  “And how did you learn to wield your cudgel well?” he asked.

  “Perhaps I do not wield it well,” Sarah said.

  “Perhaps. But the way you hold it suggests otherwise.”

  “Do you know a great deal about cudgels?” she asked.

  “Less than you, I suspect.” His smile widened to a grin, white teeth and a dimple in his cheek. “Who taught you?”

  His smile lured her to smile back, even as she wondered at this odd conversation they were having in the middle of Coptic Street on a sharp, frigid night.

  “My landlady. She stuffed a sack with rags and made me hit it until she was satisfied.”

  “I see. A formidable woman, your landlady?”

  Sarah thought of Mrs. Cowden who was shorter than Sarah by several inches, who had survived the deaths of three children and her husband, who rented rooms to those in need, who taught a naïve young woman how to protect herself, and she said, “Formidable, indeed.” She paused then asked again, “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting. For you.”

  “Why?” Sarah stared at him. “And how did you know where to find me?”

  The wind picked up, snatching at her cloak, her hair, making her shiver. Killian took note of that and glanced about, his attention turning to the lodging house.

  “You are cold. Perhaps we might take this conversation inside to the parlor. You will be more comfortable.”

  She noticed that he made no mention of his own discomfort in the chilly night.

  “The parlor?” She laughed at that. Oh, that he thought she lived in such a fine place—the expectation of a parlor—was both funny and sad. “On the ground floor are the kitchen and the dining room and the landlady’s rooms. The first and second floors are all to let. There is no parlor.”

  Reaching up, he drew off his spectacles, and she was struck again by the beauty of his eyes, silvery gray against the thick sweep of dark gold lashes.

  “Then we may take this conversation to the room you rent.”

  “I take a very small room from Mrs. Cowden,” she demurred, struck by the image of him, tall and masculine, filling the tiny space of her chamber. Standing beside her narrow bed. The thought made her breath catch because he had been there before, many times over, but only in her dreams and imaginings. To have him there in truth would be both daunting and alluring. “There is not even a sitting room. I cannot have you come in at this hour of the night, Mr. Thayne.”

  “Killian,” he murmured absently, his gaze sliding to the front of the house. The brick was dirty and the yard ill kept. Mrs. Cowden was anything but house proud, her fondness for gin overtaking her fondness for anything else. Sarah felt absurdly unveiled to have him study the house with such careful regard. “You must call me Killian.”

  Killian. She dared not say his name aloud, lest he read her secret longings in the way her lips shaped and caressed the syllables.

  “I am going inside now, where it is warm—” an untruth, for though it would be sweltering hot next to the kitchen fire, the remainder of the house was bound to be little warmer than the brutal climes she was subject to outdoors “—and where I hope Mrs. Cowden has kept a plate for me. Whatever you wished to discuss will have to wait for the morrow. At the hospital.” She f
rowned. “How did you find me?”

  Again, he looked to the street, his gaze alert. The focused intensity of his perusal was enough to stoke the embers of her unease. She tried to see what he saw but could make out only the shapes of the neighboring houses.

  “Does it matter?” he asked without looking at her. “I am here now.”

  “Yes. It matters.”

  He glanced at her then returned his attention to the road. “Matron keeps a written record.”

  She almost expressed her surprise that the matron had shared such information. Then she realized he had not said she had. He had only said she kept a record. Had Killian searched the matron’s office without her knowledge? He wouldn’t dare.

  Oh, but he would.

  Killian’s head whipped to the side, his attention focused, his nostrils flared. “The man who follows you…what did you see?”

  Sarah stared into the darkness, unable to find the target of his attention. The street was empty save for the two of them, houses rising on either side. “Sometimes I saw a man-shaped shadow. Sometimes I heard footsteps. Tonight, I saw him, a shape, a form, indistinct. He wore a hat that hid his face…” She shook her head, then spun to her right, an eerie sensation crawling across her skin.

  Killian was there, on her right, though an instant ago he had been on her left. She hadn’t seen him move.

  “He does not approach you?” There was tension in his tone.

  “He shrinks back when I face him, as though he is wary of confronting me directly.”

  Killian’s lips drew back, baring his teeth and he prowled around her, blocking her view of the street, using his body as a shield. He made a sound such as she had never before heard—a snarl, a growl, a bestial warning. It made the hackles rise on the back of her neck. He seemed to grow in size, his shoulders broader, his chest wider. Here were threat and power. Here was the man she had sensed lurking beneath the façade. But none of the threat was aimed at her. It was aimed at the street and whatever danger lurked in the darkness.

  “Do you see him?” she asked, her voice low.

  “Inside, if you please, Sarah,” he said. “Now.”