by Eva Chase
His cock sprang free with a few tugs. Bash grabbed my purse and retrieved a condom. I bobbed eagerly as he slicked it over his erection. Then I was sinking all the way down, whimpering as the head of his cock pushed past my opening, letting out a shaky sigh when he filled me completely with that blissful burn.
“Mori,” Bash said softly, touching my cheek. His light green eyes were soft too as he gazed back at me. The tenderness I saw in his expression would have made me retreat any other time. Even now, my lungs started to clench up.
I inhaled slowly, leaning into the feeling. The knowledge that this man cared more about standing by my side than keeping himself alive. The knowledge that I was willing to put my own life at even greater risk if it meant seeing him safely away.
I didn’t know if I was capable of the sort of love his Shakespeare wrote about. I’d never felt that strongly about anyone except Olivia. But this was something—something good, something I’d never had before. As I relaxed into the sensation, the pleasure building inside me shimmered giddily.
“Until the end?” I said.
Bash’s voice rasped. “Until the end.”
His mouth captured mine as he lifted his hips to meet me. A breath shuddered out of me at that first sharper burst of bliss. I ground down against him, and he urged me on with his hand gripping my ass.
You’d have thought I’d gone a year without sex rather than a week. With just a few thrusts, I could already feel my peak on the horizon. A twinge shot through my thigh, but I ignored it, pumping faster over him.
My lips tore from his. He kissed my neck as he fondled my breast with his other hand. His cock plunged into me over and over, so hard and fast and right—
I moaned as ecstasy swelled and crashed inside me. Bash’s breath spilled harsh against my skin. As I clenched around him, he held me tight and came with a groan that reverberated through us both.
My head dipped to rest on his shoulder. His arms wrapped around me, hugging me to him. As we lingered there in the moment after the first time I’d done anything remotely close to “making love,” an ache formed around my heart.
There were so many things I hadn’t known I was capable of doing, capable of feeling, before the last few weeks. Before just now. What a shame that unless a whole lot of luck was with me tonight, I’d never get the chance to make the most of them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jemma
The day had wound down, but the sun still seared along the rooftops across the town. Slowly but surely, the moon edged closer to covering it. From my mountain perch, the eclipse would be completely visible.
And it was going to be a perch in a very literal sense, because I clearly needed to adjust my plans. I hadn’t realized how many tourists would come even to this small-ish town, eager just to get a glimpse of the eclipse at its fullest.
Bash and I wove through the growing crowd on the sparsely treed slope above the edge of the town. Groups of people clustered together talking in excited voices and waving their viewing devices.
They gave us cover, and the shrouded folk weren’t likely to strike out at us with so many witnesses this close. Unfortunately, the crowd also hid our human enemies. They might become enemies themselves if they freaked out once I started cutting myself to bring forth the dagger’s power. I wasn’t going to get through this night if a bunch of good Samaritans jumped in thinking they were saving me from myself.
So, rather than bracing myself on the barren patch right at the peak, where a bunch of locals had set up folding chairs amid the tourists, I was going to make use of the slab of rock that jutted from the slope a little farther down. Its uneven, weed-dotted surface loomed a few feet over the heads of those passing by, and it looked like a tough enough climb to dissuade any adventurers from taking a seat on its narrow top. I could manage it, though.
As long as my leg didn’t totally fail me.
A sharp prickling ran through my limb from knee to hip, deepening to a now-constant throbbing around my joints. I had the dagger tucked in my purse, and the cuff’s protective magic was working overtime to defend against the shrouded folk’s essence imbued in the blade. I’d wrapped the weapon in a silk scarf with a geometric pattern that dulled the affect a little—but not enough to spare me the discomfort.
The hike wasn’t too difficult, at least. I’d picked another summery dress so I could snap off the gold cuff beneath it quickly, but I had practical walking shoes on my feet. Among the tourists, I was far from the most haphazardly dressed.
The summer heat was starting to wane, but the wind that licked over the gathered spectators still warmed my skin. At the same time, it chilled my gut. The sour smell of the shrouded folk hung thicker in the air now.
They knew where I was most likely to make my stand. They and their followers would be gathering around this crowd while I moved through it.
I glanced at Bash to indicate the perch I’d chosen. He nodded in return, his face shaded by a red baseball cap. As we meandered toward the slab, his hand hovered close to the holster hidden under his touristy polo shirt. As soon as we’d seen the growing crowd, he’d known he wasn’t getting any use out of his rifle, but a pistol could take down any cultist who got too close to me just fine.
The crowd was thinner around my slab, the ground near it rockier and less comfortable for standing. I circled around to the spot where I could most easily clamber up to the top, smiling at people we passed as if I were just another friendly sightseer.
A gasp nearby made my head jerk up, but the sunlight was only just starting to waver as the moon drifted along its path. I checked my watch. We had several minutes left before totality.
When I lowered my eyes, they landed on a head of messy dark waves that stood out in the middle of the shorter figures all around it. My body stiffened for a second before I caught my reaction.
It was Sherlock. He proceeded methodically through the crowd, his piercing blue eyes scanning the faces around him. I shifted on my feet to ease a little farther behind a nearby couple and spotted Garrett prowling along the edge of the spectators on the other side. No doubt John was around here somewhere too, then.
I ducked my head to let the sleek black strands of my wig shield my face. “What is it?” Bash murmured, tensing, and then relaxed a little with a soft chuckle. “They made an appearance after all.”
“Just as long as they don’t get in my way,” I said.
“I’ll pull back. I can cover you better from a little farther away anyway, and it might not take them long to recognize me without a full disguise.”
I grabbed his hand to squeeze it. “Whatever happens, we’ve had a good run of it.”
He smiled. “Absolutely.”
A tugging sensation ran through my chest as he walked away. Not just to stay close to him—I had the urge to stride on over to the London trio and ask what exactly they thought they were doing here. To see the interest that would light in their faces no matter how they felt about my giving them the slip last week. To banter with them one last time.
They really might try to get in my way, though. I only had a few minutes left before I made my move. I had to stay here, braced and ready and beyond their notice.
A fresh pain stabbed down to my ankle and up behind my ribs. I sucked in a shallow breath. Yes, I needed every shred of energy and control I had just to get this chance.
The light was dimming faster now. The voices around me quieted to awed murmurs. Through the fall of my false hair, I saw Sherlock’s gaze lock on Bash where my hitman had stationed himself in the crowd. The detective tapped something into his phone as he headed that way. Summoning the other members of the trio, I assumed.
If I’d had more time, I might have tried to interfere. But Bash could handle himself—and the moon was creeping toward the far edge of the sun now. Shadows sharpened against the ground.
I couldn’t delay any longer. I had to be at the top of that slab by the time the eclipse was complete. The moon’s position would only give me one
minute to finish my task.
Clenching my jaw against the pain radiating from my thigh, I marched up to the jutting protrusion of rock and leapt to plant my feet on a bulge on its side. A knife of agony speared through me, but I clutched onto the best handholds I could find and hauled myself upward. My elbow scraped against the rough stone.
Shouts rang across the slope. I had to keep all my concentration on the climb, but the rancid scent of the shrouded folk congealed around me as I yanked myself closer to the top of the slab. Scrambling for another foothold, I banged my right knee and bit my lip to hold in a cry as the impact amplified the cuff’s painful effect. My fingers caught hold of the slab’s upper edge.
Movement flickered at the edges of my vision. Bash’s striped shirt flashed in the dwindling light as he threw himself into someone—one of the cultists, I assumed. A length of dark brown that might have been John’s walking stick whipped through the air. Someone grunted, someone hollered. I heaved myself onto my perch—and the click of a gun made my blood turn to ice.
I ducked down instinctively. The shot crackled through the air close enough that the air rippled against my face. Screams echoed across the mountainside. There was a thump, and another shot nowhere near me.
I couldn’t wait. The light around us had turned to dusk. With a choked gasp, I shoved myself upright.
My leg wobbled under me but held despite the agony of the climb. Below my perch, the eclipse spectators were milling around, most of them streaming back toward the city’s buildings. Well, that would give Bash a clearer shot at any cultist who came at me now. It’d also mean that the shrouded folk could attack with less caution, but I couldn’t worry about that yet.
The wind cooled as the moon slid over the last bit of sun. The tone of a sunrise lit the horizon all around me. A tiny line of brilliance shone around the dark circle in the sky.
It was time.
I dug the dagger out of my purse with one hand while I yanked up my dress with the other. My fingers flicked the snaps on the cuff, and the gold pieces dropped onto the stone.
Bog’s mark on the back of my neck flared as if prodded with a searing brand. The glimmering streaks that showed at least a dozen shrouded folk wavered into view around me, but whatever energy they’d been fed by their sycophants, their light was dimmed to near transparency with the blocking of the sun.
That didn’t stop them from flinging themselves at me.
“Back!” I shouted, and sliced the dagger in two swift strokes across the inside of my elbow and wrist where the flesh was most sensitive. The pain that flared through my arm immediately overtook the throbbing that was fading from my leg.
“I claim this pain, I claim this blood,” I called out, brandishing the dagger. “I am shrouded, and you may not touch me.”
A wave of power washed over me from the blade, dizzying and vast. The glimmers of the shrouded folk flinched back.
In that instant, the landscape around me dulled like a sepia photo. The sense of an immense space beyond it rang through my body down to the bones—a space that belonged to me. A space from which I could rule.
No, it didn’t belong to me. That was the realm of the shrouded folk, and it only belonged to this dagger. The seconds while I could wield its magic were slipping away from me.
“There is no one more powerful than me,” I declared, hoping that in this moment while the sun was swallowed, it was true. “I sever the claim of another on this human soul and stake my own claim. She belongs to me.”
I wrenched my wig off my coiled hair and brought the dagger to the base of my scalp. Bog’s mark was still burning away. I dug the blade into it, splitting the mark with an X. The pain of the cut skin and the dribble of blood wiped away the sear of my former contract.
“I give myself freely to myself,” I said, in case that side needed to be covered too. “I accept Jemma Moriarty’s claim.”
My voice sounded warbled to my own ears, as if I were falling away from it into that eerily vast space. Another flare of sensation raced over my skin, this one bright and binding. A rush of exhilaration chased after it.
I was mine now. I belonged only to me, for the first time since my birth. None of the shrouded folk could overstep the claim I’d made while I held more power than any of them with this dagger and the dimmed sun.
They couldn’t stake a claim, but they could affect me in other ways. As I dropped the dagger onto the wad of silk in my purse, the blade’s purpose fulfilled, the moon edged a little away from the sun. Starker beams of light shot from around its edge. The early dusk began to brighten, and the glimmers of light that showed the shrouded folk’s presence quivered into clearer focus.
The sense of power slipped away from me, leaving me with only my totally human joy at my victory and the ache spreading from my wounds. I was no longer the creature with the most authority here, and the cultists had made their own sacrifices for their pseudo gods.
I crouched to slide down off the slab—not fast enough. A whirl of bright streaks flung itself at me and slammed into my side with enough force to break a rib. With a hitch of breath, I skidded off the side of the protrusion and plummeted toward the rocky ground below.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Garrett
We left the Chilean town behind, following the locals and tourists who were spreading out across the mountaintop. There were dozens of people ahead of us, but I didn’t catch a single glimpse of Jemma’s flaming hair. I glanced at Sherlock as we started up the slope.
“Are you sure she’ll be here?”
Sherlock gave me the haughty look that often came over him when anyone questioned his reasoning. “It wasn’t as if I needed to consider the entire world or even a large portion of it. Narrowing down my range of inquiry to the path of the eclipse, I should hope I’d be able to locate two reasonably distinctive travelers.”
“They’re not looking all that distinct to me right now.” I eyed the crowd ahead of us. “What the hell would she even be doing here?”
“All her man told you is that she needed to watch the eclipse, right?” John said at Sherlock’s other side, leaning a little more than usual on his walking stick as we hit a steeper section.
Sherlock kept a slightly slower pace than usual too, sans ankle brace but wary of turning his recovering foot again. He frowned at John’s question.
“That’s the gist of it. He didn’t say why. And this appears to be the ideal location for those in town to observe. The fact that he shared that information does still concern me, though.”
“That and the fact that she left us in the lurch again back in Split?” I said.
John’s gaze roved over the sightseers nearly as intently as Sherlock’s, twitching here and there at sudden movements. What was he worried about?
“It was hardly ‘in the lurch’,” he said without looking at me. “There was nothing fake about the evidence we found in that commune. If she hadn’t looped us in, the cult would have kept up all the torture and the thefts and—everything.”
He was right. And it was because of that I couldn’t summon any real anger about Jemma’s second disappearance. Had I really expected her to sit around and have tea with us after she’d gotten what she needed? She was still an admitted criminal, and we were still men sworn to bring criminals down. Which led me to my main concern.
“All right. Then why are we here at all? To finally bring her in for stealing that relic? Because we don’t have evidence of any other crime she’s committed, and last time I checked, there weren’t any laws against watching an eclipse.”
John’s mouth tightened. “It might be an opportunity for someone to commit a crime against her. She said that this cult is widespread. They’ve already tried to kill her at least once. Whether she put Moran up to the call or he made it of his own accord, it could have been for her protection.”
“The whole thing seems too complicated to me,” I muttered. Poisonings, psychotic cults, random trips across the ocean… I could have been spending the r
est of my vacation on a beach someplace where I wouldn’t have to beware of anything worse than a sunburn.
I could have been, but when Sherlock and John had picked up the chase, I’d come here anyway. Maybe it was because when I thought of Jemma, what I remembered first was seeing her huddled weak among the trees outside the commune. And then my mind went to the efforts she’d taken to clear the air between us back in Zagreb.
She’d needed me for her plans in London. I hadn’t really served much use in her operations in Croatia—nothing Sherlock or John couldn’t have taken over. Nonetheless it had mattered to her to make peace, even after the rough way we’d treated her when we’d assumed she was leading the cult rather than fighting them. Wasn’t it all right then for it to matter a little to me what happened to her?
I didn’t have a solid answer, but it’d been enough justification to get me on the plane.
That morning with her in my hotel room, she’d suggested I could get her out of my system. Clearly I hadn’t managed that yet.
“No matter what her reasons are, we’ll be on our guard for whatever comes,” Sherlock said. “Come on, let’s split up to cover more area at once. Your phones still have a signal? We can alert each other that way if we spot either of them.”
Without waiting for our agreement, Sherlock strode off to the right, so I headed left, leaving John to take the middle route. The sightseers looked excited, grins and upbeat chatter all around me. I forced my mouth into a smile so I didn't look too out of place.
Jemma wasn't a stranger to disguises. She could be anywhere here. I eyed every woman—and even some of the men—checking for signs that their appearance was only a front.
