by Zoë Archer
Sam also looked down at himself, and a self-conscious smile quirked. “Mrs. Graves was appalled by the condition of my clothing. These belong to her grandson. He and I must be of a size. But that’s all we share. A bit of a dandy, this Catullus Graves.”
Not dandyish, Cassandra would have corrected, had she the means of speaking. She remembered now that Catullus had been rather splendidly dressed over the course of their mission together. But to see the expanse of superbly tailored black wool mold to Sam’s broad shoulders, the snowy white shirt and burgundy silk neck cloth, and dark gray trousers—tucked into Sam’s scuffed boots, since that size was something the men didn’t share—and his dark hair damp and combed back. The sight was mesmerizing. A gorgeously arrayed, lethal animal. In society, Sam would have devastated. Female and male alike. No one would be able to resist him.
She surely could not.
“That is a phenomenal waistcoat,” she said instead of blurting out that she loved him. The feeling was too new, too raw, in the midst of uncertainty, and she cradled it against herself as one might shield a young, green bud.
Sam passed a hand down the front of the silver vest that perfectly displayed his muscular torso. The surface of the waistcoat was covered with silk Florentine embroidery, as opulent as a Medici palace but infinitely more inviting. All Cassandra wanted to do was pluck open the silver buttons running down the front of the waistcoat and run her hands all over him.
“Told Mrs. Graves not to lend me such fine clothing,” he muttered. “Clothes have a tendency to be destroyed when I wear them. But she wouldn’t accept anything but acquiescence. I feel…ridiculous.” He grimaced.
She interlaced her fingers behind his neck and tugged him down. They came together in a heated, open kiss.
A marvelous torment—kissing him while lying on a bed. They hadn’t had the privilege of a bed, yet. She could see them losing days, weeks, and months in bed together. Nothing but time and soft mattresses as they explored their passion.
“When all this is over,” she gasped, pulling back, “I will buy you a suit of clothes just like this one and demand you make love to me while fully dressed. You are delicious. In these clothes. And out of them.”
His chuckle was part laughter, part animal growl. Then it trailed away as a darker thought occurred to them both simultaneously.
There might not be a time for them when this mission was over. They might not survive the inevitable clash with Broadwell. And if, by some miracle, they did defeat him, and secure the Source…. That nameless fear came back to her in a rush, the sense that something was slipping away.
They unwillingly disentangled, and Cassandra sat up with Sam’s help. For a moment, the room tilted as she regained her balance, but then she felt herself steady enough to stand. The clock on the mantle showed that she’d been asleep for four hours. Not nearly enough, but it would have to do, for now.
Together, they made their way downstairs. Honoria waited for them outside, on the front walkway, with a little basket.
“More food,” she said. “And I’ve changed your horses. Always thought keeping two was a needless expense, but it’s proven itself worthwhile today.” When both Sam and Cassandra started to thank her, Honoria held up a hand. “Please. No unnecessary protestations of gratitude. I find such sentiment excessively wearisome.”
She then gave them directions to Achille Voisin’s cottage, with brisk advisement to stay off the main roads. “But I’m sure you already know that, Major Reed.”
“Yes, madam.” Sam gave her a crisp military bow, then took her hand and brought it to his lips. “Your servant, Mrs. Graves.”
Even Honoria Graves could not entirely resist the sight of a darkly handsome, beautifully dressed Sam gallantly kissing her hand. She actually blushed.
“Yes…well…” She recovered enough to say, “That’s enough of that.” Then pulled her hand away, clearing her throat at the same time.
Smiling enigmatically, Sam strode off to see to the horses, leaving Cassandra alone with Honoria.
From a pocket in her apron, Honoria produced a small vial, stopped with red wax. Pale green liquid filled the vial.
“Take this.” She pressed the vial into Cassandra’s hand. “For future battles. Should you find yourself in a difficult situation, throw the vial at your aggressors. And, for God’s sake, stay out of the way.”
Cassandra took the vial and slipped it into her pocket, wondering what effect it might have. She was both curious and afraid to find out. “I won’t thank you again. But I understand now why the Graves family has been the cornerstone of the Blades of the Rose. And not only for their technological contributions.”
Honoria studied her for a moment, moving over Cassandra’s face with her assessing gaze that missed nothing. Then she nodded. “You’ll go far, child. If you hold on to your courage. For you and him, both.”
Cassandra sank into a curtsey, absorbing Honoria’s words. When she rose, the older woman handed her the basket of food and glided into the house without a backward glance.
Drawing a deep breath, Cassandra turned and followed Sam. Each step away from Honoria Graves’s home brought her closer to what she knew would be a final reckoning.
Chapter Eight
Honoria Graves’s warnings only confirmed what Sam already knew. As he and Cassandra rode toward the vodou sorcerer, they stayed on bridle paths and dirt tracks crossing fields and wooded glades. The day was sunny and mild, heralding the oncoming summer and its lush abundance. Hay grasses scented the air. Sheep bleated to one another. A lovely English pastoral.
To Sam, the warm afternoon sun only indicated time of day and position. Hay grasses and sheep meant that somewhere nearby was a farm, and the likelihood of being noted and followed by whomever might dwell there. He scanned the trees and fields constantly, vigilant for any signs of Broadwell, the Heirs of Albion, or anyone else who meant to take the Source and hurt Cassandra.
“Give me the Source,” he said to her now. They were proceeding through a stand of trees.
“I’ve already said no.” She didn’t glance over at him as they rode side-by-side, but her hand strayed to the pocket in her skirt that held the Source.
“You’ll be safer if I’m carrying it.”
“I am a Blade, which means that the responsibility of protecting the Source belongs to me.”
“And the responsibility of protecting you belongs to me,” he growled.
She did look at him then, and he saw it in her eyes, the flash of emotion that she quickly tried to hide. Ever since they’d left Honoria Graves, a shawl of unease hung about Cassandra’s shoulders, which would make sense. Broadwell lurked, his threat ever present. Yet it seemed as if more troubled Cassandra than the danger of the Heirs of Albion. Whenever she gazed at Sam, he saw it.
“No it doesn’t,” she answered, so softly he hardly heard her above the beat of the horses’ hooves.
He understood—it was him. He troubled her. She must have come to the realization that they had no hope together, and sought a way to distance herself from him. He’d come to the same conclusion, himself, vowing that once the Source had been secured, he’d make certain to disappear from her life so she might have some kind of future.
Having her decide to leave him, however, hurt like a son of a bitch.
One couldn’t feel noble and self-sacrificing without the object of one’s sacrifice giving a damn.
Sam was nobody’s hero—not Cassandra’s, and sure as hell not his own. He’d almost believed he wasn’t the monster he knew himself to be. Brief delusion and stupidity.
But he still meant to protect Cassandra, whether she wanted his protection or not. No matter what she felt for him, she meant everything to him.
They emerged from the trees into a shaded, open glade. “Cass,” he began.
Something large and heavy flew at him from the shelter of the trees surrounding the glade. Sam drew his pistol, but it slammed into Sam before he could turn and fire, knocking him off his horse
. Both he and the thing smashed into the ground. The smell of stagnant, musty water assailed him.
Dimly, he heard Cassandra shouting, sounds of men approaching on horseback, but he could do nothing but tumble over and over, locked in combat with…with…
A monster. Sam shoved his hands against its throat, forcing its head back as it raked his face with its claws. The creature snarled and snapped with jagged, greenish teeth, its eyes the size and color of yellow lamps. It had a vaguely human female form, only enormous and covered with skin like gray India rubber. Its long green hair tangled around them both like sentient weeds, wrapping about Sam’s arms and legs.
He twisted to get free. Extracting himself from the damp, clinging hair, he pushed back, knocking the creature away and gaining his feet. For his trouble, he received a gash across his shoulder and down his arm. The beast rolled down a small hill and splashed into a rocky creek.
A foul curse ripped from Sam as he stood. He’d been pulled to the far side of the glade. Cassandra was on foot, thirty yards away, surrounded by three men.
One of the men was Broadwell.
The bastard advanced toward her while his companions looked on, jeering. She had her pistol drawn, even though she knew it wouldn’t do her much good.
The two other men were ordinary mortals, expensively dressed, with the refined looks that came from painstaking breeding among the wealthy and elite. Still, they were also armed with guns and looked more than eager to use them.
“You’ve one chance to save yourself and Reed,” Broadwell rasped. “Give me the Source.”
“Go to hell,” Cassandra replied.
“Not for a long time.” Broadwell grinned. The other men laughed.
Sam drew his sword. He charged across the glade toward Broadwell, closing the distance.
Nearly halfway there. Something grabbed his ankle and he pitched forward, then was dragged back. He darted a look behind him. The monster had climbed up from the creek, scrabbling after him, and reached out with arms twelve feet long, twice as long as its body. It clutched his ankle with webbed, arachnid fingers. Sam cursed and swung with his sword, but the blade only glanced off the creature’s thick hide.
Broadwell’s taunt cut across the glade. “Enjoy playing with Nellie Long-Arms, Reed. She has a taste for flesh, even if it isn’t alive.”
“Sam!” Cassandra shouted. Not with fear, but anger. She started toward him, but was forced back by Broadwell and his cronies closing on her.
Sam clawed at the ground as the creature pulled him closer. A flash of remembrance, nursery stories about boggarts that dwelt in ponds and lakes, waiting to grab hold of unwary boys and girls and drag them down to watery deaths. He’d dismissed those stories as tales to keep adventurous children away from the water. But, somehow, the Heirs had conjured a real water boggart. And if Sam didn’t break away from it, he’d never be able to protect Cassandra.
Closer to those jagged, mossy teeth and ravening mouth. The undead could be killed either by beheading or a direct wound to the brain. But dismemberment and digestion probably had the same effect. He didn’t want to give that a test.
His sword proved useless. And he’d lost his pistol when the monster tackled him.
He threw another glance at Cassandra, growing smaller as the monster dragged him away. He’d fight his way back to her, through hell if he had to. And, judging by the creature’s gaping, stench-filled maw opening to receive him, he just might.
“Call that beast off,” Cassandra hissed, “or I’ll—”
“What, Miss Fielding?” Broadwell gloated as he eyed her pistol. “That can’t hurt me.”
“Not you.” She spun and fired at one of the other Heirs, a thin sandy-haired man. Just as she did, Broadwell leapt toward her, knocking her pistol up. The bullet grazed the shoulder of her intended target.
“The bitch shot me,” the thin man whined, clutching his shoulder.
“Just a scratch, Purley,” snapped Broadwell.
Scratch or no, it gave Cassandra enough of a distraction to dart between Broadwell and the second Heir, a thickset man with dark, bushy mutton-chop whiskers. She ran across the glade toward Sam.
She had to help him, however she could. She hadn’t seen much magic during her short tenure with the Blades, certainly no creature like that slimy, grotesque beast attacking Sam. As he tried to beat the thing back with his fists and the butt of his officer’s sword, she thought frantically of all the things she’d been taught when first initiated into the Blades.
Magical creatures usually had some kind of a weakness. One tiny thing that could bring them down. But the possibilities were endless.
Think, think. Some faerie beings feared iron. Cassandra had none on her. What else?
She thanked her foresight that she had forgone layers of petticoats as she sped across the glade. Bullets from the Heirs’ guns sped past her, chipping into the ground while she ran. As she neared, she saw the monster grappling with Sam, tearing at him. Its attention was focused only on him.
Thus distracted, Cassandra ran up directly behind the thing. The closer she got, the uglier and more terrifying it appeared. Yet she did not hesitate to grab hold of its hair, pulling with every ounce of strength, tugging so hard her arms shook. The smell of dank water inundated her, nearly making her gag.
More shots rang out. Cassandra ducked as bullets bounced off the boggart’s rubbery skin.
Cassandra pulled harder on the creature’s hair. It shrieked in pain. One of its long arms shot out and knocked into her, sending her tumbling. Pebbles scraped across her cheek. Cassandra held onto its hair, however, and felt a satisfying rip. The monster shrieked again as a chunk of its scalp tore free.
Sam had sufficient opening to leap to his feet. He started toward Cassandra, but the beast blocked him. He swung his sword, avoiding the creature’s flailing arms, and aiming for its eyes. “Get the hell out of here!” he snarled at Cassandra.
“Don’t be an ass!” she shouted back. She tossed aside the clump of writhing hair, then aimed her pistol at the creature.
“Nothing penetrates its skin,” Sam yelled. “Hold your fire!”
Fire. That was it!
“You have a powder horn?” she called.
He frowned, dodging the now-upright creature’s thrashing arms and gnashing teeth. “Yes.”
“Throw it!”
“What?” He nimbly leapt to the side as the beast swiped at him.
“Throw your powder horn at its feet!” She saw he was about to argue more, just as she saw Broadwell and the other Heirs running toward them. “Do it now!”
Still frowning, Sam dug the powder horn out of his coat and lobbed it so that it landed between the beast’s long, claw-tipped feet.
“Get back!” Cassandra shouted.
He saw what she meant to do, and started backing up. But the beast still wanted him. It surged forward, moving away from the powder horn. Cassandra cursed. If the creature wasn’t immediately over the gunpowder, the chances of her plan working shrank to nothing.
The Heirs jogged toward them and readied their pistols.
Two threats converging—the monster and the Heirs. She and Sam couldn’t fight them at the same time. Something would have to be dealt with first, but what? And how?
Sam took all of this in within an instant. He immediately launched into an attack on the monster. His sword slashed out in a series of expert strikes. The creature reared back under the assault, bellowing.
Forcing the monster backward, Sam continued his attack, evading its retaliatory swipes. With consummate skill, Sam maneuvered the thing until it stood once more directly above the powder horn.
“Fire!” he shouted.
She hesitated, fearing that she’d hurt him.
“Do it,” Sam yelled.
Drawing back the gun’s hammer, Cassandra aimed her pistol at the dropped powder horn. When she had purchased her gun, she’d practiced shooting with a paper target and hadn’t had the best luck controlling the weapon’s
aim and recoil. A small container holding gunpowder between the feet of an enraged water beast was a far cry from a large paper target on a hay bale. A quick prayer went up to whatever deity chose to listen. She let out her breath, then held it in the middle of her exhalation.
And fired.
The kick of the pistol pushed her back. But she regained her footing just as the bullet pierced the powder horn. At that same moment, Sam dove to the side. The monster took its huge, sulfurous eyes from him and looked down. It opened its enormous mouth to scream.
Cassandra rocked back again as the horn detonated. Bright flame radiated outward in an explosion.
The creature exploded at the same time.
It blew apart wetly, chunks of gray flesh and green hair flying in all directions.
But Sam, Sam was safe.
Everyone—Sam, Cassandra, even the Heirs—shielded themselves from the rain of viscera and limbs. If Cassandra hadn’t been so pleased by the result, she might have cast up her breakfast. But the creature was dead and couldn’t hurt her or Sam, or anyone else, so she swallowed her disgust.
To give herself something more pleasant to focus on, she gazed at Sam as he picked himself up off the ground. True to his word, his borrowed finery was now torn, stained with bits of water monster; the knees of his trousers bore grass stains. Cuts and slashes covered him. But, to her, he couldn’t have been more handsome.
He stared at the powder burn on the ground, then looked over at her, wearing an expression of amazement and admiration. And…desire.
Her blood immediately heated in response. She loved that a show of her strength aroused him, so unlike most men.
Broadwell and the other Heirs gaped at the remains of what once had been their unfair advantage. When Sam turned and gave them a feral grin, the two men standing beside Broadwell visibly blanched.
Sam leapt between the Heirs and Cassandra, his drawn sword gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. “Let’s try this again.”
Broadwell hadn’t his cronies’ fear. Sam would grant the bastard that much. His former commanding officer barreled toward him, sword upraised. Sam moved to protect Cassandra, shielding her from Broadwell’s attack and bringing up his own sword in a defensive block.
