Kiss of Steel

by McMaster, Bec

  “Let’s look at this logically, then, since I know you’re so fond of rational thought,” Lena offered. “Firstly, the man has given you a small fortune to be his thrall when he only had to pay you a fraction of what he has. Secondly, he has his men guarding the house at night, and I know we’re the only ones in the rookery, because I asked around.”

  “You didn’t!” Honoria exclaimed.

  “I did. Thirdly, we might presume that he is only interested in getting you into his bed. Any man might do these things and more for a tupping.”

  “Lena!”

  “But he hasn’t taken you to bed.” Lena’s eyebrow arched. “Or at least I presume he hasn’t.”

  Honoria shook her head.

  “So we must assume he is interested in something else. He likes you.” At that Lena reverted to her normal tone of voice and rolled her eyes. “Though heavens knows why.”

  Honoria swatted her sister’s arm. The skin of her cheeks felt tight and dry, as though scoured by her tears. “It’s never that simple.”

  “You think too much. Stop thinking. Just do.”

  “Just do what?”

  “Whatever pops into your mind when you see him next. If nothing else, it shall certainly shock him.”

  The thought of shoving him up against a wall and kissing him flashed through Honoria’s mind. It would certainly shock him. She’d been holding him at bay for days. Despite the turmoil of emotion, she couldn’t stop herself from laughing at the thought of his expression. “You’re incorrigible,” she said.

  “But so much smarter than you when it comes to dealing with emotions,” Lena countered.

  Honoria could have throttled her sister. Or hugged her. Instead she smiled back. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure. Goodness knows, it’s pleasant to be the one doling out the advice for a change rather than receiving it.” Lena turned with another laugh and a swish of her skirts. “I’ll take Charlie his dinner.”

  The small bowl of soup would be barely enough to feed a soul, but Honoria knew her brother would never finish it. The thought sobered her. Her cheeks ached, as though unaccustomed to the laughter.

  I used to laugh. I used to find so much to smile about. She trailed her fingertips sadly over the back of the chair as Lena prepared Charlie’s soup.

  Now there was no time for smiling. Time. She felt it heavily on her shoulders, as though she were trapped in the bottom of an hourglass and each grain of sand that tumbled through landed squarely upon her. It was a race now to see if she could hold all of that sand off before it buried her.

  Honoria sighed and sat back down, dragging her father’s diary in front of her. She could barely think for all of the revelations swirling through her head. When had Lena become so wise?

  Concentrate, she told herself firmly. Think of the notes, of the disease. Blade would be dealt with tonight when she had time.

  The code was hard to decipher. Test subject twenty-seven shows remarkable signs of improvement, much like subjects nine and fifteen, she scrawled onto the page. He has been injected with the same antidote as the others in his subject group, so we must consider that it is not the antidote but something else—unless, of course, he is different himself from the other test subjects and therefore is reacting differently. Variables include diet, exercise, sleep, the amount of sunlight in his cell. I have examined these and conclude them all to be similar. Each subject is given exactly a quarter of a pint of blood a day, fifteen minutes of walking in the yard, and is strictly woken after eight hours of sleep. Sunlight appears to be the same. So what is different? What is the one thing those three subjects share that offsets them from the rest?

  Honoria scratched out the last word and stared through the paper, trying to remember the cell patterns and the number of faceless inmates who stared through the bars at her as she walked past.

  And that was when Lena began screaming.

  Chapter 18

  The soup was splashed all over the floor. Lena stood frozen in the middle of the room. “Charlie?” she whispered.

  Honoria sucked in a breath, her hand clutching the doorknob.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlie whispered. Tears streamed down his face, diluting the blood on his lips. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t stop myself.”

  Honoria’s gaze darted, taking in the bloodstained sheets and the ruined mess of his wrists. She took a hesitant step into the room, feeling it start to spiral around her. Charlie’s pupils were almost completely black.

  “Oh, my God,” Lena whispered.

  “Lena. Fetch the washcloth.”

  Charlie shrank up closer against the headboard. “Don’t come closer.” His nostrils flared.

  The vial of colloidal silver was sitting on the wooden crate that served as a bedside table. She bit her lip nervously, looking at it. “Charlie. You’re bleeding everywhere. We have to stop it.”

  “I know.” His pupils widened for a moment, and then he groaned and banged his head against the head of the bed. “I can smell it.”

  “Stop it!” Honoria said firmly. She passed Lena, who scurried toward the kitchen. “Stop it, Charlie. Look at me. If we don’t stop the bleeding, you might bleed out.”

  “Would that be so very bad?” he whispered.

  Her heart felt as though it was being torn from her chest. “Don’t speak like that.”

  “The worst thing was…I liked it. It tasted so good.” His gaze drifted lower, to her throat. “I want more.”

  “Don’t think about it. Think about…spinach. And smoked cod.” Two of the foods he despised the most. It worked. He screwed up his nose. Honoria took another slow step forward.

  Charlie bit his lip and shut his eyes. “I’m so tired.”

  The blood was welling from his veins sluggishly, as though they sought to reknit of their own accord. Like a blue blood.

  Don’t think like that, she told herself. It wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be. She’d been monitoring her brother’s CV levels every day with the litmus paper. It was extremely crude, but she couldn’t afford the brass spectrometers that the Echelon used.

  Lena returned with the washcloth.

  “Help me restrain him,” Honoria said.

  Charlie didn’t resist. He simply stared at the ceiling as they bound his hands to the bed, looping the cotton around his fingers because they couldn’t constrict his wrists. The bleeding had almost stopped, but Honoria dabbed at it anyway, forcing the gauze to soak up the vermilion splash of his blood.

  “What are we going to do?” Lena asked, sitting back when they had finished tying his hands.

  “I just need time,” Honoria said automatically. “I can fix this. The vaccine that father gave him obviously didn’t work, but if I can puzzle out the cure, then I can stop this. I can…”

  “It’s too late,” Charlie interjected and turned his head toward the wall.

  Honoria ran a hand through his tawny brown curls. Sweat slicked them to the base of his skull. “It’s not—” she began.

  “Honor.” Lena caught her hand. “Don’t do this to him anymore. It’s too late.”

  It wasn’t too late. It couldn’t be. She just needed more time, needed to work out what that mysterious variable had been that started turning subject twenty-seven’s blood results around. “Father knew he had it almost worked out. If I can translate his notes—”

  “You’re hurting him!” Lena yelled. Her eyes flooded with tears. “Stop it! Just stop it! I can’t let you do this anymore. You’re hurting him.”

  “I’m not,” Honoria said, shaking her head in denial. “I know I’m close. I just need…” She saw the tears tracking down her sister’s cheeks and faltered. Charlie lay limp and almost lifeless, staring blankly at the wall.

  “I promised Father,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes and threatening to overwhelm her. “I promised him I’d look after you.” A hiccup of pain burst up her throat. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No.”

  Charlie turned to look
at her. “Please,” he whispered.

  The sobbing started deep within. She tried to hold it back, to force it down with knuckles to her lips, but it overtook her. Her shoulders shook from the force of it. Too late.

  “We need a blue blood,” Lena said, “to help him through the transition.”

  The words seemed to come from some great distance. She barely heard them. She had failed. Her gut twisted until she thought she might almost cast up her accounts.

  “Do you think Blade would help us? Honor? Do you think he would help us?”

  Lena’s fingers dug into her sister’s upper arm, and Lena’s face swam into view, peering intently at her. “We need a blue blood,” Lena repeated. “Do you trust Blade? Do you think he could help Charlie through the transition?”

  Honoria bit her lip. She had to pull herself together. Charlie was still ill. Without someone to ease the transition for him, he might go on a rampage through the rookery. Could she trust Blade with him?

  After months of trusting no one, it was hard to shake old habits. But the answer that came to her was surprisingly swift. He had been far kinder to her than she deserved when she had given him so little back.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll fetch him.”

  It was the least she could do when it had been her own pride that had cost Charlie so much. And if Blade helped her, she swore she would find a way to balance the favor owed there too.

  ***

  Blade strode into his rooms and shut the door firmly in Esme’s face. She’d followed him up the stairs, demanding to talk to him, but he had not the time nor the inclination. It had been another long, frustrating day hunting through the edges of the tunnels with Barrons. His shoulders slumped in weariness. What he wouldn’t give to be able to collapse onto his mattress and simply sleep. He needed just a few minutes of peace before he could face the household and deal with Esme’s demands.

  The day had been one gruesome find after another. The reason the vampire hadn’t taken more victims from the rookery was soon clear: all of the people who lived in Undertown were gone. Some of the cavernous rooms showed signs that people had tried to snatch what they could of their belongings before fleeing. Others showed signs of vandalism or even splashes of blood. In some there had been bodies.

  Blade tore his coat off his shoulders and threw it aside, the leather wrapping around the post of his bed with a wet slapping sound. Turning, he snatched a bottle of blud-wein off the table, lifted it to his lips, then froze—

  Honoria stared at him solemnly from a chair, her feet bare except for her stockings and tucked up beneath her. As soon as he saw her he recognized the subtle feminine fragrance of her, mingling in the air. The stink of old blood and decay still filled his nostrils, but Honoria’s scent was like a fresh breeze.

  Heat stirred in his body and cock. He was filthy, covered in mud and other things too horrific to think about, but he wanted to press her up against the wall and shove aside those heavy skirts that she wore. His nostrils flared as his vision suddenly leeched of color. Blade clenched his fists.

  “What are you doin’ ’ere?”

  She flinched at his harsh tone. For the first time he noticed the bruised circles beneath her eyes and the defeated way she stared at him. A fist tightened in his chest, just behind his ribs. He’d never seen that look in her eyes before.

  “I need your help,” she said quietly, not daring to move.

  A soft laugh escaped him. “Of course.” The only reason she would come to him. He turned and ripped at the leather cuffs around his wrists, carefully avoiding the razors sheathed there. The battered leather breastplate followed, leaving him in only a sweat-stained undershirt. Reaching over his shoulder, he hauled at the collar of his shirt, dragging it over his head.

  Honoria looked down at her hands. She remained uncharacteristically quiet, nervously toying with her fingers. “I was worried about you.”

  Blade balled the shirt. “Why? Afraid ’is lordship’d take the chance to slip a shiv in me back? Thin out the competition a bit.”

  “I’m not quite sure I follow.”

  “Or mayhap,” he said, throwing the shirt across the room, “you were worried it were I with the shiv in me ’and.”

  Color started to flood into her pale cheeks. “What the devil are you talking about?”

  Blade stalked toward her. Leaning down, he rested both hands on the armrest for fear he’d put them on her body and not stop. Honoria stiffened and retreated into the chair.

  “I think you know precisely what I’m talkin’ ’bout,” he said.

  The plain gray dress was far too modest. His gaze roved the scalloped edges with a hunger he felt through his core, and he leaned forward. What he wouldn’t give to put his hands on her and lick his way down that slender throat, discovering just how soft her skin could be.

  Honoria looked up with a flinty gaze. “I don’t know what you’re referring to. I wish you’d stop speaking in riddles. And in case your nostrils have ceased to function, I should like to remind you that you stink. Like raw sewage, in fact.”

  She might as well have slapped him. His eyes narrowed, but he pushed away from her. “Aye. I need a bath.”

  “Possibly several,” she countered.

  She was certainly recovering her form well enough. Blade eyed her. “Come. You can wash me back.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Turning toward the bathroom, he threw over his shoulder, “You’re the one as wants me ’elp with somethin’. So you can damn well wash me back.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “Make it.”

  Water splashed from the faucets as he turned them, steaming up the bathroom. Honoria hesitated in the doorway, examining it as if she’d never seen it. She looked everywhere but at him.

  Blade’s eyelids lowered lazily and he started working at his belt. Just you try and ignore me now. He tugged the belt open.

  Honoria crossed to the stand and uncapped a bottle of scented oils, wafting it beneath her nose and closing her eyes to enhance the smell. Steam caused the soft curls at the base of her neck to tighten. Her skin grew flushed and dewy.

  Behind the stiffened leather of his breeches, his cock raged for release.

  Honoria finally chose one of the bottles of oils and poured a generous amount into the water. “You found no trouble today?”

  Blade sat on the edge of the bath and kicked off his boots. They might have been a married couple, sitting down to discuss the day’s events for the evenness of her tone. Except for the simmering tension lingering in her spine, or the wary glances she stole when she thought he wasn’t looking.

  “Nothin’ but old bodies, drained o’ blood. At least it cleared out the Slashers too. Found a drainin’ laboratory down there, though the glass vats were smashed and empty. No doubt the vampire lingered there awhile.” Other images flickered through his mind, some too horrible to dwell upon. The gurneys where the Slashers tied their victims down. The tourniquets. Rusted needles they used to drain the blood until the body was nothing but an empty husk. And those vats—five of them, big enough to hold the blood of hundreds of people.

  Practically sitting beneath his turf and he’d never known. How many went missing that he’d never heard about? The furrow between his eyebrows deepened.

  “Nobody was injured?” Honoria questioned. She was fussing with the towels, her back to him.

  Blade watched her shoulders stiffen as his breeches hit the floor with a meaty slap. His cock sprang free, bobbing against his abdomen. He ached to take it in hand, but thought better of it. He was already on edge tonight. Best not to tempt fate, not with Honoria in the room.

  “Is there anyone in particular you’re askin’ after?”

  She hesitated. “No.”

  The hot water enveloped him in a steamy wave of scent as he sank into the bath. Honoria’s head tilted to the side as though she were listening to gauge his level of nakedness from the echoes of the water’s shifting.

 
“All covered up,” Blade taunted, splashing water over his face. “You can look now.”

  The smell of something exotic wafted from the water, something lemony and slightly masculine, like rosewood. Water dripped off his lashes as he drew his cupped hands down. Honoria was staring at him as though he’d struck her. At least the sight of him still drew her eyes. Half the time he didn’t think she even knew how often she watched him.

  Blade deliberately hooked his feet up on the rim of the tub, sending water sloshing over the sides. Color rose in her cheeks and she gathered the washcloth and soap with her usual brisk efficiency.

  “Lean forward,” she muttered, “so I can wash your back.”

  “You could get in with me.” He said the words lightly, leaving just a slight question at the end.

  “No, thank you.”

  “You’ll get wet.”

  “I’ll be careful,” she replied and dipped the washcloth in the bath to wet it.

  Careful or not, she was going to get wet if he had anything to do with it.

  Oil shimmered on the water between them, gleaming over his exposed flesh. Honoria scrubbed the bar of soap as though she wished it were lye and then pushed his shoulder. “Lean forward.”

  He did. Anything to get her to touch him. The coarse feel of the washcloth abraded his skin, but it felt delicious and Blade hooked his knees up, resting his head on his forearms as Honoria washed his back.

  “You even have mud on your shoulders,” she murmured. Angry scrubbing gave way to a gentler, more determined stroke as she tried to wash off a particularly stubborn spot.

  He could imagine that washcloth, soaped up and wet, her hand clutched around it as she stroked him elsewhere. His jaw tightened with strain.

  “You ought to see your friend Barrons,” he replied, lifting his head. “Weren’t watchin’ where ’e were goin’. Ended up on ’is back like a turtle in ’bout four inches o’…we’ll be generous and call it mud.”

  Honoria stopped running the cloth over him. Their eyes met and hers narrowed almost imperceptibly. “My friend Barrons,” she repeated.