Dark Embrace

by Eve Silver

  “How did he take his opium? Laudanum? Some other tincture? A pipe?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He took it privately. I never saw.”

  “And after he died? You found no bottles? No pipe?”

  Sarah closed her eyes for an instant, picturing their house, her father’s chamber. “No. I found nothing. He must have taken the drug elsewhere. At an opium den.”

  “Or not at all,” Killian said.

  “What do you mean? You think my assessment incorrect? You have some other explanation for his symptoms? There is no other disease I know of that would explain it. If you know such a one, educate me. I beg you.” As the last word left her lips, Sarah realized she spoke too fast, too loud. She wanted Killian to tell her of such a disease, to absolve her father of the addiction Sarah had attributed to him.

  But Killian offered no such kindness. Instead, he asked, “The night he went out in his bare feet… Was that the last time you saw him?”

  “No. I saw him early the next morning, before dawn. I was restless, unable to sleep. I went to the kitchen to make tea. He sat there in the dark. When I came in, he looked up at me and smiled. He was himself in that moment. He was the father I had always known.

  “He seemed a different man than he had been the night before. Physically, at least. His skin was ruddy, his movements sure. But he was tormented, apologizing again and again for his actions, for frightening me. I said I forgave him. I made to touch his hand, but he backed away. He told me I must never again come into his chamber when he was there. He was adamant, distressed. He said I must stay away when he descended into what he called his melancholy.” She swallowed, the memories making her chest ache and her throat thick. It was both a torture and a relief to talk with someone about her father’s death. Before this, there had been no one to tell. “Two nights later, he drowned. His body was not recovered.”

  “How came you to know of his death?” Killian asked, his voice gentle.

  “Several witnesses saw him tumble into the Thames, including my father’s old friend, Dr. Grammercy, a man I know and trust. Though I had no body to bury and mourn, I had their testimony, the gruesome truth of it.” Sarah paused, replaying the entirety of their conversation in her thoughts. “Do you think the man who hunts me was a patient of my father’s?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Someone from the opium den?”

  “Perhaps.”

  She did not take his replies as evasive. He only spoke the truth. It could be a man from either of those sources or neither.

  Killian glanced over his shoulder. “You locked your door when you left this morning?”

  “Yes. And you watched me unlock it just now.”

  His attention flicked to the window. “He came in by other means.” He reached for the spare blanket she kept folded at the foot of her bed, shook it out, and wrapped it around her shoulders. She realized then that she was shaking, her teeth chattering.

  Killian stood mere inches away. She had to battle the urge to lean in against him, to rest her cheek against his chest and let the sound of his heartbeat ease her worries. Instead, she forced herself to step away from him. He did not follow, but she thought he wanted to. She thought he wanted to hold her as desperately as she wanted to be held.

  The backs of her legs brushed the spindly chair in the corner. She sank down and stared up at him, her thoughts a muddle of wary confusion.

  There was no sense in any of this. Not in the pursuer who dogged her every step. Not in the gifts left on her pillow. And not in the attention shown her by Killian Thayne.

  She yet had no idea why he was here. She wasn’t certain she wanted to know. He came to her home, alone, at night…

  “I think you should go,” she said, and rose to drag off first the blanket, then his cloak, the latter of which she held out to him. His brows drew together as he took the cloak from her and draped it over his forearm. Then he lifted the discarded blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders once more.

  “I cannot go.” His hard mouth curved up a little. “I am afraid that my damnably chivalrous nature precludes my leaving you here alone tonight.”

  For an instant, she made no reply, her thoughts spinning through a thousand remembered dreams where he had been in this room with her, his lips on hers. She took a slow breath and forced herself to speak. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I suggest nothing. I state fact. I will remain here with you—”

  “—you cannot—” She shook her head.

  “—or you will accompany me to my home—”

  “—I cannot—”

  “—and I beg you to cease interrupting my every word.”

  “My apologies,” she offered acerbically, not bothering to mask the fact that her words were insincere. “You cannot simply step into my life and tell me what I will and will not do. I do not answer to you, sir.”

  “No, you do not,” he murmured and shot her an indecipherable look. “I wonder if you have ever answered to anyone.” There was a measure of admiration in his tone.

  “There was a time that I relied on my father’s decisions and good counsel to guide my life. Then he began to make only bad decisions, and finally, none at all, and so I learned to make my own.” She crossed to the bed where she scooped up both the ribbon and the box. She strode to the door, opened it, and set both out on the floor outside the door of the snoring sisters, then stepped back inside and closed her own door behind her.

  Turning to face him once more, she rested her back against the wood and made a noisy, rushed exhalation.

  “Well,” he said, his tone laced with humor. “That was a solution.”

  “The best I could conjure at the moment.”

  “You are ever resourceful.” Again, the whisper of admiration. It made her feel as though he knew her, saw the practical, intelligent part of her and valued that.

  The moment spun out, thin and fragile, her thoughts battling within her. The imaginary Killian of her dreams would step closer, embrace her, press his lips to her temple. But this was no imaginary lover, and she thought that if the real Killian Thayne drew her into his embrace, he would do far more than kiss her temple.

  She sighed in both relief and disappointment when he moved to the far wall with its two tall, narrow windows. He shifted the curtain to the side, staring out into the night. A low sound came from him, almost a growl. A warning.

  “What do you see?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” But he did not move from the window. Finally, he checked the latch and, satisfied, drew the frayed and moth-eaten velvet curtain shut. With a step to the right, he faced the second window and tested the latch. It slid free and the pane swung open, letting in a swirling blast of frigid air.

  He did not so much as blink as the wind hit him. With careful attention, he closed the window and tested the latch, then played with it a moment until it clicked into place. It was merely temperamental, but not broken. He did not draw the curtain. Instead, he stood close to the glass, looking out, and Sarah had the same impression she had had outdoors—that he somehow appeared even taller, broader…a threat, but not to her.

  “Is he out there?” she asked.

  His gaze sought hers. “I am staying.”

  The temptation to sink into the safety of his presence and simply thank him and let him do as he wished was a succulent lure. But she refused to be beguiled. To accept his comfort tonight meant that tomorrow night it would be all the more difficult to discover comfort on her own.

  “While I appreciate your kind offer, there is no need for you to remain here. I have spent many nights alone in this place, and I awaken each morning with my heart yet beating and breath in my lungs. This night will be no different. I think it best if you go.”

  Eyes the color of a storm-laden sky pinned her and held her in place. “I will sit on that chair, or I will take you to my home and you may spend the night there. The choice is yours.”

  “You cannot spend the night in this room. My room.”r />
  “As you wish,” he agreed amiably and grabbed the chair from the corner. He carried it to the door. “I shall spend the night on the landing outside your door.”

  “There is no need,” she insisted once more. “I shall be perfectly safe here with the windows latched and the door locked.”

  “I beg to differ. There are creatures of the night that even the best locks will not hold at bay.”

  The way he said that, soft and menacing, set a shiver crawling up her spine.

  “You cannot sleep in the hard chair.” She stepped forward and laid her hand next to his on the chair back.

  “I need little sleep.” The smile he turned on her was languid, and it made her pulse trip. “I will stay the night through and leave at the first hint of dawn before the house awakens. No one will know I was here, and you will be safe in the light.”

  She held her place, held his gaze, her heart racing a wild, heady pace. “Safe in the light? I don’t understand.”

  “I know. And I am not yet ready to explain.” His smile dropped away, and he took a slow deep breath, his chest expanding, his gaze gliding over her in a lazy caress, lingering on her lips in a way that made her pulse pound hard and fast. “I hear your blood rushing in your veins, Sarah.”

  How could he possibly hear that? And yet, it sounded as though he spoke the truth. She made a stunted, nervous laugh.

  His hand shifted on the chair until it covered her own. Warm skin. She could not think, could not breathe.

  “Is it for me that your heart races?” he whispered, his voice warm and rough.

  For him. Yes.

  He leaned in, his cheek almost touching hers.

  “Sarah.” Her name was a breath. A whisper. A question.

  She held her silence, uncertain what answer to give.

  “I have enjoyed every conversation, every interaction. I enjoy the way your mouth twists a little to the right when you are deep in thought.” He touched his fingertip to the corner of her mouth. She gasped and had the strangest urge to open her lips and lick his skin. “I enjoy the way you walk with purpose, head high. I enjoy the sound of your laughter when you tease Mrs. Bayley, and the tone of your voice when you offer kindness to a dying man.” He brushed her cheek with the backs of his knuckles and she leaned into his touch. “I had not planned it, this fascination. But here it is—” his chin brushed against her hair as he leaned closer, and her heart stopped, her breath stopped “—and I find myself glad of it, though reason argues it is unwise.”

  Her senses hummed with her awareness of him, with the warm glow that swelled at his words and the wild ache that spread through her limbs.

  Oh, her mind was not her own, her body heavy and hot.

  She wanted him to kiss her. Wanted to know the feel and taste of him. She was hungry for him, her lips tingling, her belly lit from inside with a heat that bordered on pain. Even in her inexperience, she recognized the feeling for what it was. Attraction. Desire.

  It was lovely, this feeling, lovely and frightening and thrilling. She thought that if only he would press his mouth to hers that she would understand, would know secrets that hovered just beyond her reach.

  He turned to her then, his movement quick, and she fell back a step, her back pressed to the wall.

  Both hands shot out and Killian laid his palms flat against the wall on either side of her shoulders. She held herself still, her heart thundering, her gaze locked on his mouth, and he smiled, a dark, dangerous curving of his lips that bared a flash of white teeth for but an instant.

  “You crave my touch.” Not a question. She was glad. She had no breath left to form an answer.

  Taking his weight on his outstretched arms and flattened palms, he leaned in and brushed her lips with his, soft, gentle. Their bodies touched nowhere but their lips and she was undone by that caress.

  Fire roared through her veins. She was so focused on him that the world beyond faded away to nothing.

  His tongue traced the seam of her mouth, and when she gasped in shock, he pushed inside, his tongue inside her, tasting her, touching her.

  She moaned, stunned by the wild kaleidoscope of sensation, endlessly wondrous.

  Winding her arms around his neck she tunneled her fingers in his hair, enjoying the sensation of the silky strands running through her fingers. She kissed him back, following his lead. Tentatively, she touched her tongue to his, then grew bolder, stroking him and learning the feel of his mouth.

  His weight came down on her, the lush heat of his body, making her blood rush and her belly dance with a low, humming ache. He curved his arms around her, one hand flat against the small of her back, the other cupping her bottom. She raised up on her toes, driven by instinct to mold herself to him, to fit every ridge and edge of him in the soft swells and dips of her body, his thighs hard against her own, his belly and chest taut where hers were soft. She found exquisite pleasure in the weight of him pressing her to the wall at her back.

  He kissed her jaw, her neck, his mouth lingering on the pulse that beat there, his breathing ragged. Arching back, she offered herself, loving the sensation of his lips at her throat, his teeth grazing the tender skin.

  With a groan, he tensed then drew back, his eyes gone dark, the pupils dilated.

  Panting, she stared up at him, understanding neither herself in that moment nor the wild, turbulent, emotions rolling about inside her like heavy charcoal-limned clouds in a storm.

  He meant to turn away. She sensed that. Meant to block out the wonderful connection that spun out between them, a glittering thread.

  “I feel as though I stand on the edge of a cliff, the wind whipping my cloak behind me, and if I can only find the will and courage to leap, I will fly,” she whispered. “Kiss me again, Killian. Make me fly.”

  She was drunk on the taste of him, the feel of him, unlike anything she had ever experienced.

  The look he turned on her was feral. Hungry. She thought he would plunder her, take her, drag her against him and kiss her in ways she was too untutored to imagine.

  Yearning sluiced through her, fever bright.

  And she thought her heart would break when he stepped away, mastering himself with visible effort, his cool mask sliding in place to obscure the burning heat she knew she had not mistaken.

  “Sarah,” he rasped, his gaze locked on her throat, hot and dark. Slowly, he raised his eyes to hers. “I must not—”

  He shook his head, and she felt lost, barren, already missing the connection that melted away. He brushed his thumb along her cheek and she ached to fling herself against him.

  Rooted in place, she watched as he took a step toward the door, then paused to look back at her over his shoulder, his eyes gone flat and dark, fathomless, mysterious, too many secrets reflected back at her. She was so attuned to him in this impossible moment, she felt the leashed tension inside him.

  There had been a thrilling edge of desperation in that kiss. Need. Hunger. She ached to untether the bonds he set about himself, to follow where that desperation might lead.

  A perilous path to tread; a most dangerous thing to want.

  14

  Killian held her gaze a moment longer, his hands held in tight fists at his sides, his control clearly in place, if somewhat tattered. Sarah recognized that she affected him and that pleased her. The realization was disconcerting.

  “Lock the door behind me,” he said, his voice taut.

  She had no wish to lock the door against him. She had no wish for him to leave at all. Her lips felt warm, swollen from his kiss, and she wanted only to press her mouth to his and kiss him again.

  “If I lock the door, how will you come to me should I call out?” Such a reasonable question, despite the unreasonable circumstance. She could not imagine calling out to him, could not imagine him sitting out there all night on the small, stiff chair. Why would he do that for her?

  His shoulders tensed, but he did not look at her again. “There is no door that could stop me if I wanted to be at you
r side, Sarah. Remember that. Remember that I—” he made a slow exhalation, as though he struggled with the words, and after an instant, he continued in a low, ragged tone “—I am not like other men.”

  No, he was not. A part of her recognized that with soul-searing clarity. He was like no one she had ever known. She had long sensed a hidden part of him, held in careful check just beneath the surface, and she did not doubt that he spoke the truth, that no lock, no door could hold him. It was a strange and frightening comfort.

  He walked past the small table with the candle and the plate of food, and he paused there, his attention snared. She thought he meant to insist she eat, and she knew that she could not. Her stomach was alternately in knots, or dancing and twisting like it held a thousand butterflies struggling to get free.

  “What is this?” he asked, lifting the old and yellowed copy of New Monthly magazine that lay open beside the plate. He read aloud the title of the short story she had pored over so many times that she could recite it by heart. “The Vampyre by John William Polidori—” he glanced at the date “—April 1, 1819.”

  His voice had grown eerily flat, devoid of inflection.

  “My father was obsessed with that story before his death,” Sarah said. “He read it again and again, studying and dissecting the words as though they held the secret mysteries of life.” She shook her head. “I have read it myself so many times that I can recite it in its entirety. A sad and horrid tale, but I do not see what agitated my father so greatly. There are no secrets hidden there.”

  “Are there not?” He cast her a veiled look. “May I take this to read while I keep watch?”

  Keep watch. Over her. When was the last time she had felt safe? Months. Perhaps years. But tonight, with Killian guarding her door, she was safe.

  She knew not how to place that fact in the twisted uncertainty that had become her life.

  “Yes, please do. Perhaps in your reading, you will find the secrets that I missed.”