by Zoë Archer
“Yes.” Her voice was smoke and honey. “More. Unfasten your trousers and I’ll watch you stroke yourself.”
He nearly came at just her words. Summoning all his control, he pried open the buttons of his pants and groaned again when his stiff shaft sprang free. Already at the tip, moisture gleamed.
Cassandra licked her lips. “Let me see. I want to see your cock in your hand.”
Once more, he nearly spilled at merely words. Hell—to hear her soft voice say such exquisitely crude things to him—no man could bear it. But he would. For himself, and her.
He grasped his cock tightly, learning his own sex again. As an adolescent, touching himself had been one of his favorite pastimes. Private moments had seen him enthusiastically—though quickly—bringing himself to climax. As soon as he’d been old enough to have a woman, however, one hobby fast gave way to another. Then war arrived and he’d been reduced to infrequent, furtive wanking in the middle of the night to dull the edge of his substantial appetite. And, once he’d been transformed, he and his cock had no relationship at all. They were both dead and cold.
So it was with a newfound pleasure that he stroked himself now. Not only because he relished the sensation, but because Cassandra watched him with lust etched sharply in her face.
“Slower,” she commanded as he ran his fist up and down his shaft. When he complied, she ran one of her fingers over the peak of her breast, her eyelids drooping with need.
She followed with her gaze each movement of his hand on his cock. His balls tightened. Sensation built. He ground his teeth, fighting his release, even as he continued stroking himself.
“I didn’t say you could stop,” she panted when his hand dropped away.
“Can’t continue. Or I’ll spend.”
“I want you to.”
“Only inside of you.”
Pursing her lips, she levered herself up to walk on her knees until little space separated them. He let her push him down so that now he lay back with his legs stretched out in front of him, his weight on his forearms. When she began to straddle him, holding her gathered skirts in her arms, he reached for her.
She edged from his touch, and he understood. This moment was hers to control and command. So he lay back and watched as she grasped his cock and guided it to her waiting entrance. Feral noises clawed from his chest as she sank down onto him, his cock disappearing into her in torturous inches.
God. God. She was so hot, so snug, impossibly wet. His hips jerked up of their own accord, wanting him in as deep as he could go.
She rose up and slid down. He clenched his hands into rock-hard fists to keep from gripping her hips and helping her ride him. He’d never seen or experienced anything as potent as the sight of her moving on him, finding her rhythm, discovering her pleasure. Her expression both soft and sharp with bliss.
I’m hers, hers alone. He was the means to her ecstasy, and it was all he wanted.
“Take me, Cass,” he growled. “Hard as you want. Take everything.”
At his urging, she began to move faster, grinding against him, gripping his cock in the perfection of her body. She caressed her breasts, and it was as if she touched him, too, for he felt her pleasure resounding in him.
Building, climbing. They both threw themselves toward completion. His climax gathered, unwilling to wait for his permission.
“Can’t hold off,” he gritted.
“Sam.” She gasped. “Be with me now.” And then she stilled, tightening around him. Tremors racked her body, one after the other. Her head tipped forward as she cried out noiselessly, too enrapt to make a sound.
He erupted, his release tearing through him with an intensity that stole every other sense. A climax without cessation. Fiery. Harrowing. Wonderful.
She collapsed on top of him, panting, as the last of her orgasm shuddered through her.
When his arms came up to hold her, she didn’t protest that he’d disobeyed her commandment. Instead, she sighed and burrowed closer, nuzzling his neck.
Just then, he didn’t care that, within his chest, there was no movement or beat of his heart. Hers was strong enough for them both.
On slightly shaking legs, they descended the promontory. He suggested he jump down first, unconcerned about injuring himself, and he would catch her as she leapt. This, she flatly refused.
“I don’t doubt you can catch me,” she said. “But until I grow a pair of wings, I’m not leaping off a cliff.”
She’d been so damned fearless up to that point, he couldn’t fault her for a little caution.
So they made their way slowly down. He did go first, but stayed close, in case she should slip. Along the way, neither spoke, but stopped sometimes to watch as the burning wreckage gradually reduced to floating charcoal.
Once back on the beach, they returned to their horses. The animals looked up from grazing on spindly grasses and snorted in recognition. Cassandra took one look at the waiting saddles, and sat down heavily in the sand.
He immediately crouched beside her, concerned. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he demanded.
She gave him a weary smile. “Just give me a minute before we go tearing off again.”
Nodding, relieved, Sam sat next to her. He could not sense Broadwell nearby, so Sam allowed this pause. He enfolded her small hand within his, and they both gazed at the waves breaking against the shore. The moon curved back toward the horizon. With the flames extinguished, the stars reemerged, arrayed in patterns both careful and haphazard across the velvet night.
“Never thought I’d have this,” he murmured. “A beautiful woman beside me on a moonlit beach. Some other man’s dream now my reality.” He brought her hand up to his lips.
She smiled again, tenderly. “Even as an infatuated girl, I could never image this much.”
Then, because he discovered himself bound to her in a way he could not truly fathom, he offered a confession. “I don’t know what to do. About…about this.” He glanced at their interwoven hands and felt the frown gather between his brows. “I can’t give you anything, Cass.” His growl of frustration was for himself. “I’m a monster.”
“You’re not—”
Heated, he turned to her. “There’s no future with me. You know that. As I do. I can’t be part of the normal world.”
“I never said I wanted normal,” she shot back. “Good God, Sam, if I desired an ordinary life, I wouldn’t have become a Blade of the Rose.”
“On your second mission.”
She made a dismissive noise. “Second or hundredth, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is now. This moment.” She leaned forward and kissed him sweetly, and he found himself falling deeper into an emotion even he, a battle-scarred soldier who had already died, was afraid to name.
She rested her forehead against his. “I don’t know what the future holds for you and I, either,” she admitted. “Two things I do know—you have beguiled me so that all I desire is making love with you again and again until we’re both utterly exhausted.”
“And the other?” he growled, hardening at her words.
“The other.” She sighed, and moved back. “We must take care of the Source. Broadwell will return with other Heirs, and they’ll want it back.” From her pocket, she produced what appeared to be a tatty little pouch of hempen fabric. Crude beads and scraggly feathers adorned its surface.
His immediate desire retreated, though he suspected that from now on, whenever he was in her presence, he would want her. For the moment, he let the demands of his body be supplanted by the sword of duty hanging over his head.
Sam plucked the little bag from her hand and studied it. “Looks old, but it seems fairly shabby.” Despite its plain appearance, the moment he touched the pouch, currents of dark energy moved through him. A rush of power that stirred him almost as much as Cassandra—but in a different way. With her, he felt himself wanting only her. This magical object he now held made him hungry for more power, more strength. More everything. It engendered greed.
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br /> “The Blades say that Sources are very seldom impressive objects. Most of them are ancient and homely. Fashioned of things that belong to the common people. Because magic belongs to everyone—rich, poor, male, female, the elderly and the young. All races. All faiths.”
He started to untie the cord that kept the pouch closed, but she laid her hand over his. “We should know what’s inside,” he said.
She shook her head. “Whatever’s in there, it must be kept undisturbed. Or else we risk catastrophic danger.”
“Then we destroy it. Without this,” he hefted the small pouch in his hand, “Broadwell and the Heirs of Albion can’t create more things like me. And no one else can, either.”
“You’re not a thing,” she said at once, and he almost smiled at the temper in her voice, as if she’d do battle with anyone who opposed her feelings about him. “And Sources cannot be destroyed. Without the physical object enclosing the magic, it is unleashed upon the world. Becomes volatile and unpredictable.”
He stared down at the pouch in his hand. “Seems so ordinary.” His fingers closed around it. “But I can feel its power. It’s…captivating.”
Smiling wryly, Cassandra said, “If it wasn’t, then there would be no need for the Blades.”
“If we can’t destroy this thing, what can we do with it? Take it back to the Blades in Southampton?” Broadwell would attack long before then.
“The only way to safely contain a Source’s magic is to secure it through the people to whom the magic belongs.” She gnawed on her lower lip as she considered this. “But I don’t know where this Source originated from.”
Sam thought back to what he knew of such magic—which was practically nothing. “Broadwell used to speak to me and the others, after he’d changed us. To amuse himself. He thought none of us listened, but I did. And he said that zombies came from the Caribbean. Haiti.”
Her eyes lit with understanding. “Yes! Vodou magic has its roots in West Africa, but it migrated with the people who were taken to be slaves in the French Caribbean. That’s where vodou truly took shape. The Source must have come from Haiti.”
“So we take this thing all the way across the ocean?” His mouth twisted to consider the demands and complications of a long sea voyage. So many opportunities for danger. His own safety didn’t matter, but, strong as Cassandra proved herself to be, she still was vulnerable. He’d rather die a thousand times over than allow anything to happen to her. But he knew she’d refuse to be left behind while he undertook the journey alone.
Yet she didn’t frown with concern at this prospect. In fact, she smiled.
“We needn’t go so far,” she said.
Down a dark road they cantered. Through sleeping villages and past farms. Sam kept himself constantly alert, ready for the inevitable moment when Broadwell attacked. That bastard would be back. It was only a matter of when.
From the scent of fresh dew upon the grass, the subtle changes in the sounds of nocturnal animals, Sam could tell dawn was close at hand. A quick glance at Cassandra showed her shoulders still straight, her posture alert. But he realized she had to be exhausted. An eventful night.
She pushed herself, though, to reach their destination. Wherever that might be.
“Tell me who we’re going to see,” he said above the pounding of the horses’ hooves.
“Blades do not permit themselves the use of magic in their mission,” she answered. “Yet that doesn’t mean we’re without resources. For several generations, one family has provided…I suppose you might call it ‘mechanical assistance.’”
He frowned, puzzled. “They build things.”
“Not mere ‘things,’” she corrected with a grin. “The most incredible devices. Contraptions and mechanisms that defy logic and yet also harness scientific principles. If the human mind can conceive of something, the Graves family can construct it.” She shrugged. “The only way to truly understand is to see their work in action.”
“And these Graves people, they have a means of containing the Source.”
“Unfortunately, no. Magic seldom obeys scientific rules. But the Graves do come from the Caribbean. It’s my hope that if anyone can help us with this Source, it’s them.” She tilted her chin, indicating the road ahead. “One member of the Graves family retired a few years ago, and she lives nearby.”
The whole thing sounded damned improbable to Sam, but no other course presented itself. Strange, when he’d spent so many years entirely focused on one thing—finding and punishing Broadwell—and now he dwelt in the midst of uncertainty. Even before his transformation, he’d been a man who demanded precise, straightforward goals. A problem presented itself, and he found the quickest way to solve it. But this ambiguity chafed.
Another ambiguity pained more than all the rest. He gazed at Cassandra. Something much more than lust roared through him whenever he was near her, when he looked at her or touched her. His miserable existence had changed utterly since he found her again, and sick dread filled him to think about what that existence would be like without her. But he’d spoken honestly before. He could give her nothing. He was a doomed creature whose presence in her life would only bring her isolation and misery.
When the Source was finally contained, he’d have to let her go.
The thought sent a bolt of gleaming white pain through him.
The sun chose that moment to crest the horizon. Overhead, the sky paled with daybreak, and the very tops of the trees were edged with golden light. Morning birds called to each other, trilling. A fair, crisp dawn, utterly indifferent to the wrenching decision Sam had made.
As he and Cassandra rounded a bend in the road, they came upon a tidy, two-storied house. Cheerful smoke curled up from the chimney, proving that someone inside already left their bed. It seemed like any other well-kept country house, though its lush garden would make any gardener bilious with envy.
“This is it,” Cassandra said.
They drew up on the other side of the fence enclosing the garden. And that’s when Sam saw it: snaking through the garden, a gleaming network of pipes, spigots, and valves. The mechanism dispensed water throughout the garden, and Sam heard a clicking sound, indicating a timed device regulating the hydration.
“I’m no farmer,” he muttered, “but that is bloody genius.”
A woman stepped from behind the shelter of an abundant rose bush. Though her hair was snowy white, her chocolate-brown skin showed no lines and her jet eyes gleamed with intelligence. Sam had never seen a more regal-looking woman.
“Of course it’s genius,” she said. “I made it.”
Chapter Seven
The inside of Honoria Graves’s home proved as remarkable as its exterior. A system of clockwork mechanisms regulated each room, so that Honoria had only to turn a small key located by the door, and the curtains lowered all over the house while the lamps seemed to light themselves.
“You’re being pursued, I expect,” she said as she guided them through her astonishing home, “so we’ll need some privacy.” She spun on her heel, surprising Cassandra, and fixed her with a sharp stare. “Heirs of Albion, yes? Which ones?”
“Kenneth Broadwell,” Cassandra answered at once. She felt as though she was back at Miss Delafield’s Academy for Young Ladies. But none of the teachers there possessed an ounce of Honoria Graves’s intellect. Or were nearly as disquieting. “Others will be following.”
Honoria’s mouth thinned. “Broadwell. A despicable character. The worst kind of military man.”
“How do you know him?” Sam asked from behind Cassandra.
The stately older woman fastened her piercing gaze on Sam. She did not seem at all intimidated by his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the deadly sword he wore with ease, his sharply handsome face—or indeed anything about him.
Cassandra smothered a laugh when tall, commanding Sam actually straightened his shoulders and smoothed his windblown hair as if being inspected by a senior officer.
“It is my business t
o know my enemy,” Honoria answered crisply. “The Graves family has been the foundation of the Blade of the Rose for generations. We would each of us be remiss if we did not know precisely who and what we are dealing with.” She took a step closer as she peered more intently at Sam, forcing Cassandra to edge backward. “And you, sir? What are you?”
Sam’s awe of the older woman disappeared, replaced by cool distance. His jaw hardened, his eyes turning glacial. “Undead, madam.” He pulled at the front of his shirt, revealing the wound in his chest.
As Honoria donned a pair of spectacles and studied the wound, Cassandra reached out and took Sam’s hand. His fingers lay unmoving in her own, but she gave them a squeeze. If Honoria Graves shunned Sam, or feared him and put her from her home, then Cassandra would leave, as well. No longer would Sam have to face his outcast status alone.
Honoria straightened and tucked her spectacles into the pocket of her pristine apron. Her face was unreadable. “Broadwell did that to you,” she said.
Sam gave a clipped nod.
“With this,” Cassandra added, holding up the Source. By the infinitesimal widening of Honoria’s eyes, Cassandra understood that she recognized the little pouch for what it was: a wellspring of powerful magic.
Then the regal older woman did something Cassandra didn’t expect. She cursed. Profanely. And, truth be told, rather well. Even Sam looked admiring, and he’d been a soldier, where foul language was as common as bedbugs.
“Come into my kitchen,” Honoria said, turning and walking briskly down the hall. “The young woman needs food and rest, and I need both of you to tell me everything that’s happened.” She paused at the entrance to the kitchen. “And, by God, it will be my greatest pleasure to help send Broadwell straight to hell.”
Cassandra and Sam stood precisely where they were, gaping.
“Come on, then,” Honoria clipped. “The kettle’s already on.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
Sam and Cassandra knew better than to disobey a direct order. They followed at once.
