Hearts of Shadow (Deadglass #2)

by Kira Brady

  Grace slammed the book shut and got up. She paced to the window. Outside, the grey drizzle scattered across the glass. Clouds rolled low above the colorless city. “You’re talking about the man who owns my slave bond. He’s not nice.”

  “Maybe you just need to own a piece of his soul in return.”

  Easy for Elsie to say. But even if Grace had Elsie’s heartbreaking powers, she wouldn’t want to own another person. Not ever. She would never do to another what had been done to her. A person had a right to make his own choices. She would never take that away from someone, not even a soul-sucker.

  Leif shifted through the stack of broadsheets from the past few months to make sure he had marked every last clue. A map of the city and its surrounds was spread out on a table in front of him. Small white-headed pins marked reported wraith attacks. Black pins marked Kingu sightings. Purple marked Corbette’s known movements. So far there was only a weak correlation, but he lacked sufficient data. String outlined territory: purple for Kivati, red for Drekar, yellow for humans. The uncontrolled areas might as well have been labeled black for Kingu and his wraiths. Daily the line encroached upon the safe land. The safe paths through the city narrowed until they disappeared.

  “This is good,” Thorsson said, looming at his right with an almost proud look on his face.

  “What is?” Leif searched the pins for a pattern for the hundredth time, but found nothing.

  Thorsson pointed to Leif and to the map with his mead cup. “This. You. Battle strategy, just like good old days with Sven. The Regent should be a warlord. We strike first.”

  Leif set the sheets down and resisted the urge to rub his temple.

  “He’s right, you know,” Zetian said. “We may make a king of you yet.”

  I don’t want to. But the refrain grew weak. His intense dislike of the idea had fizzled somewhere between Corbette’s breakdown and a pair of silver eyes. He couldn’t abandon the field to a power-mad admiral, a mad, powerful shape-shifter, or his own two crooked advisors. Grace expected more of him. He expected more of himself.

  It wasn’t a comfortable thought. He wanted peace. He wanted uninterrupted time to create. But lately as he worked through the night on Jameson’s suits of armor, his lab felt empty. The cavernous ceiling rang with the same bells and whistles as always, but it seemed more vast and cold than before. It wouldn’t be the same without a certain small, fiery-tempered woman in it.

  Between Zetian’s political strategy and Thorsson’s bloodlust, they might have a shot of winning a battle if it came to that. He still hoped it wouldn’t. He was not, and never would be, a warlord. He used his intellect to create, not destroy. There had been too much blood and death when the Gates fell. But Zetian was right; someone needed to fill the power vacuum. The spirit of cooperation that allowed enemies to work together for the common good had disintegrated. There was no going back. The lines of communication had failed.

  Leif had told Jameson about the Heart. The admiral had given him the strangest slow smile. He thanked Leif for his assistance, ordered his troops to start combing the streets, and disbanded the council citing an “assassination attempt by supernatural forces,” by which he meant Corbette’s Aether storm. His soldiers fanned into the city. Their official orders were to detain suspicious persons, and they forcibly brought in for questioning anyone who resisted arrest. In practice, every supernatural caught alone was in deep shit. Jameson had drawn the battle lines, and if one wasn’t human, one was on the wrong side.

  Work on the Gas Works was on permanent hold. With wraith attacks on the rise, they needed light more than ever, but Jameson’s madness made it impossible to continue without fear of arrest.

  Corbette was unreachable. With aptrgangr on one side and Jameson’s thugs on the other, the Kivati were trapped on Queen Anne like an ant colony in winter. Leif could expect no help from that corner.

  Butterworth’s had been attacked less than an hour ago. A hundred people had died in the stampede.

  “Where the Newton is Grace?” he demanded. He needed to know she was okay. He’d forbidden her from fighting. Even now the memory shamed him. He’d stripped her of her right to defend herself. Even in peacetime that would be abhorrent, but now when the threat of violence was a red glow on the horizon, it was tantamount to murder. What was he thinking? He hadn’t been. She made him lose all reason. Reduced to ordering her about like a petty tyrant, he’d reacted with gut instinct, taken the prerogative of a male to keep his female safe.

  But she wasn’t his to protect in that way.

  Instead, she’d seen him take the rights of a master protecting his property, and she was right to be pissed. Even if he didn’t see her that way, he could never convince her of that. The balance of power was unequal. They had no future if he couldn’t find a way to break this damned blood binding.

  “If you want the girl, simply take her.” Zetian leaned back against the gilt sun chair, but her long, tapping nails gave her away. Her goal was to mold Leif in his brother’s image, a ruthless Regent fit to conquer the post-Unraveling era. She wanted someone unassailable to all but her own influence, and she saw his tie to Grace as a definite weakness.

  If she wanted a strong king to lead by the nose, she’d picked the wrong man. It was time he showed her his iron spine.

  He stood up. “Advisor Zetian, please share this map with the Kivati. If you can’t find Corbette, find one of his Thunderbird generals. Get their coordinates. I’m sure they have information we do not.”

  “But—”

  He dropped the full force of his gaze on her, every kilowatt of deadly dragon, every meter of force of his right to rule. She shut her mouth. “Good. Thorsson, I expect you to visit our surviving people and relay this message: Kingu is here, Kingu is deadly, and anyone who gives him aid will meet with the full force of my wrath. Do not share the details of Tiamat’s Heart. But, please, tell them of Ishtar’s counter-curse.”

  Thorsson laughed. “That pile of bull—”

  With lightning speed, Leif pinned him to the wall. His claws broke through his fingertips straight into the bigger man’s throat. The plaster cracked around the indent of his body. Leif smiled politely. “What will you tell them?”

  Thorsson tried to swallow. Even as his blood trickled down his beefy neck, the wounds knit around Leif’s claws. “Mortal. Weak—”

  “A cure to the immortal madness,” Leif said. “Tell them there is a cure.”

  “You don’t really believe that ridiculous legend, do you?” Zetian asked. A curl of smoke trickled from her nostril. “Even if it were true, who would give up immortality?”

  “Tell them to have hope,” Leif said. “And tell them to start searching the city. Kingu is looking for a treasure that all Drekar are tied to. I would think one of us would feel it if it were close.”

  “And what if a Dreki does find the Heart?” Zetian asked. “You think they’ll hand over that much power?”

  Leif released Thorsson from the wall. The berserker sagged for a moment, then righted himself. He cracked his neck and showed a mouthful of sharp pointed teeth. “Ja. Good.” He thumped Leif on the shoulder. “We find this Heart, then we fight.”

  “We will find the Heart and destroy it.” Leif held up a hand when Zetian balked. “No one should have that much power. Not even me. Anyone who has an issue is free to meet me on the green at dawn. I am Tiamat’s heir. I surrender the throne to no one.”

  “As you wish.” Zetian moved to copy the map for the Kivati. “When did you feed last?”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Hunger was a constant vibration in his chest. The sucking darkness made the edges of his vision flicker. He hadn’t fed since he’d met Grace. After his lecture to her yesterday, that made him the lowest hypocrite. If he couldn’t care for his own basic needs, he couldn’t be trusted to keep her safe either. The white pins on the map danced across his vision. The aptrgangr patterns bothered him. He needed to find Grace, make sure she was safe, and get her input. She would see what
he was missing.

  Damn him, but he needed to find her and apologize. He’d taken away her ability to defend herself with his thoughtless order.

  Leif took his carriage over the Interurban and through the Needle Market. His crest on the door opened barriers and stopped the highwaymen who preyed on travelers. It was slower, but he didn’t trust himself in dragon form at the moment. When he arrived at the House of Ishtar in Pioneer Square, the afternoon rain pattered on the newly installed cut glass windows. The evening rush hadn’t yet started. Piles of chestnut and sienna leaves crushed up against the bone fence. As he strode beneath the hanging bells of the gate, he paused to trace his fingers over a few freshly carved runes that lacked the crispness of Grace’s work. Raidho, he thought, but the lines met at an odd angle. Sloppy. Ianna had hired some sham shaman to finish her protection spells, leaving her people in danger and Grace without work. Why did the second bother him as much as the first? It shouldn’t, but through his own arrogance he’d stripped her of mercenary work. If Grace hadn’t been hired to carve her runes, there were few options left for a woman hell-bent on making money.

  The High Priestess greeted him at the door with a glint in her eye that he didn’t quite trust. “Regent, how good of you to visit our humble temple.” She waved at the Maidens lined up for his perusal. The girls preened and pouted. Some stank of avarice, others fear.

  He found himself searching for a short, black-haired Maiden and shook his head. It wouldn’t be fair to take this unfulfilled lust out on another woman. He had never been a user.

  “None please you?” Ianna asked. She dropped her voice. “We satisfy all desires here. There is no secret longing you have that Ishtar cannot fulfill. The Goddess sees all your pleasure. Tell me what you seek. Ishtar herself is listening.”

  “Nothing. Just a bit of soul.” He swallowed around the last word. It was a part of himself that he hated, this need. Sven had taught him to revel in it, but it was not a lesson he took to. There was too much of his grandfather in him. Too much emphasis on his lack of the divine. Too much reminder of his own damnation. The old anger curdled in his gut. “Anyone will do.”

  “Nonsense. The dragon knows a fake from a true diamond. If you don’t seek your truth, you will never be satisfied. Perhaps something out of the ordinary for you, Regent.” The Priestess motioned for him to follow her up the stairs. Two Maidens followed with honey mead and a silk robe embroidered with dragons. A thick red carpet covered the mahogany steps. They’d repaired the banister with pine, and it didn’t quite match. Ianna led the way to the top floor.

  He’d never been up to the third level. Ianna had refashioned the old servants’ quarters into the Maidens’ private rooms. The wallpaper was still a sensual red brocade, but the rest of the decor was plain compared to the lavish public rooms downstairs. He found its simplicity more seductive. In the secretive upstairs he had the chance to see behind the artifice to the women behind Ishtar’s many veils. But who could Ianna be hiding up here worth taking him out of her carefully staged parlors and entertaining rooms downstairs? He waved away the robe when the Maidens offered it, but took the jar of mead. He wanted a few moments to forget the weight bearing down on his shoulders.

  The Priestess pointed to a plain blue door set with a brass knob. She took a key from around her neck and unlocked the dead bolt.

  “You have a Maiden locked up here?”

  “Just for you, Regent. My little gift.”

  With a curl of foreboding in his belly, he entered the room, and the door clicked shut behind him.

  The sparse room held a rickety brass bed and a small nightstand. An oval window with leaded glass in a spiderweb pattern let in the only light. Standing in front of the bed, a woman waited, hands curled into fists, blue-black hair streaming down over her pale shoulders to frame her chest. She wore a black corset and tight black pants. The corset pushed her breasts high, and he was suddenly famished. When she saw him, she gave a small start and dropped her fists. Her coral lips parted, succulent and sweet.

  Grace.

  Hunger roared through him, and riding on its tailcoat, anger. She was working in the House of Ishtar as a Maiden. How many men would pay to put the notorious Reaper on her back? “You wanted a job,” he said. Was that his voice? It had never been so low, or so hoarse. “And here you are.”

  She straightened. “You ordered me not to fight.”

  “I left you no choice.” He took a step toward her.

  She looked at her hands like she couldn’t imagine what they would be used for now that he’d stolen her weapons. Her fingers curled uselessly. Her knife was gone. She couldn’t even defend herself, and Ianna wouldn’t come running if she heard screams. Maidens of Ishtar might be more like geisha than streetwalkers, but they catered to all pleasures.

  “You needed a job,” he said. “A job to earn back your freedom.” She was such a liar.

  Her eyes darted to the door, but she raised her chin. “There is no shame in serving Ishtar.”

  “No,” he agreed. “There is no shame in desire.” He took another step toward her, and she retreated. The bed hit the back of her legs. There was nowhere to run. “There is no shame in embracing the Goddess’s gifts.” He truly believed that. He respected the Maidens’ devotion to Ishtar. But after five minutes in Grace’s company, he could tell she wasn’t that type of girl. “But can you spread your legs for multiple men? Can you share Ishtar’s pleasure with no strings attached?”

  She swallowed hard. A shaft of light slanted through the spiderweb window onto her glossy hair. He reached out and took a long strand of light and midnight. Her hair was silky smooth. He twisted the long strand around his hand until he reached her cheek, and she turned her head into his palm, the barest touch of her skin, her breath hot on his wrist. “Yes,” she whispered. The heat of her cheek connected the space between them. At the edge of her jaw, her pulse raced.

  “Yes, you can exchange one man for another, worshipping pleasure for pleasure itself?”

  “It’s just a job,” she said, but her voice cracked.

  Freya help him. She wanted to play it that way, did she? His vision clouded in blue and green. He wanted to tug on that strand of hair and pull her to him. To breach that distance and take her at her word. Ishtar knew what he needed, and here Grace was. He wet his lips. The musk of her scent overpowered the dust motes of the room, the old jasmine incense lingering in the bed linens, the iron of his own arousal.

  “Just a job,” he repeated. But he knew she was bluffing. He’d taken away her power when he forbade her to fight, and this was her perfectly orchestrated revenge. It would be so easy to fall for her seductive bait—Freya knew he wanted to—but if he did this, he would never win back her fledging trust. All his honorable intentions had landed them in this angry mess. It would have been simpler if he’d let them succumb to lust. Now it was too late. Emotions were involved, tangled as a kite string in a hurricane.

  In this moment he couldn’t separate anger from lust. He wanted to rage at her. He wanted to show her the monster she made of him. Whatever game she was playing, she’d misjudged him. He was not a saint. The darkness swirled in his breast. The immortal madness clung to the edges of his mind like cobwebs. How easy it would be to push her down into the thick mattress and take what he needed. To lose himself in her welcoming heat. To find himself in her silken touch.

  He was greedy with wanting, weak with hunger, and he was done denying himself anything.

  The tension rose. Fire in the walls. Fire in her skin. Sweat dripped between her breasts, and he hadn’t even touched her yet. Grace was sure hell had a special place for thoughts like these. Asgard’s irises were slit, demonic, but even then she wanted him.

  “So what are you waiting for?” she asked, full of bravado. Ianna had tricked her into this situation, but Grace couldn’t back down now. Asgard claimed he was honorable? She’d show him how much hot air his words were. He was no better than the rest of the Drekar. Still, if he didn’t get it over
with soon, she would lose her nerve.

  Her hair still wrapped around his palm, he leaned down to whisper in her ear. He let his body brush against hers, and an electric thrill raced across her skin. “I ask myself that same question. You, me, a bed, alone. Privacy even if you change your mind—”

  She narrowed her eyes and tried to move her head back, but he held on.

  “This is the perfect opportunity to finish what we started. You’re a grown woman who knows her own mind, and you said, ‘Yes.’ I heard you quite clearly. But we have a problem, Mademoiselle Grace.” He put his nose to her hair and took a deep breath. The scent of cinnamon skyrocketed. “I see you. What you say, what you don’t say. I could take you here, now, and make you love it—”

  “Aren’t we a little overconfident?”

  He fit his body to hers and let her feel the full press of his hot, hard, and ego-worthy erection.

  Alarm bells rang through every nerve. “Ianna found me snooping in the library and locked me up here,” she blabbered.

  He shook his head and let out an angry breath. “You think I don’t know that? Christ!” Releasing her hair, he took a hasty step back and paced to the door. When he got there, he spun back to look at her. His nostrils flared. “By Freya, I can smell you.”

  Stomach clenching, she stood up again and planted her feet. This time she had pushed him too far. She couldn’t explain this compulsion to needle him and get under his skin. To bait the monster in his lair. He was too fucking composed. Why couldn’t he stoop to her level for once?

  Her body craved him, scales and all.

  Asgard stalked back to her and didn’t stop when she hit the bed. A swirling heat shot down to her core. Like a tornado, he bowled her right over into the pillowy mattress. Finally. His weight settled over her, all two hundred plus pounds of toned man pressing her down, making the ancient bed protest, and those extra inches where it counted settled hot and heavy between her thighs.