Kisses to Steal

by Tilly Wallace

  She pulled her knees closer to her chest and let go of Ianthe to clutch tightly at herself.

  Ianthe's eyes moistened and she blinked back the tears. "I promise, Alice, if I cannot be good I will hide beyond his reach."

  The girl sank deeper into her troubled mind. Her gaze darted around the room as though looking for someone, then she buried her head in her knees and sobbed. Tears left a trail down her face as they cut through the grime and the soft broken voice whispered, "The master tried to take Alice's soul, but he will not have it. Alice hid from the master and he was ever so angry."

  The chill of the room pervaded Ianthe's soul and ice flowed through her veins. She had come to ask Alice questions about Hoth and his proclivities. To forearm herself about the things he did and in turn, wanted performed upon him. Now, she no longer needed to ask. The Reaper had eaten the girl's soul and left her mind unable to cope. Ianthe wanted to scoop Alice into her arms and cry over what had been done to her.

  "We can go," Quinn said, worry in his gaze. "You don't have to do this. We have seen enough."

  "Yes, I do. We have to know all of it."

  Ianthe crept closer and considered how to word her question. She decided to reuse the words chosen by Alice.

  "Help me, Alice, to be clever like you. How did you hide from the master?"

  Alice raised her head and met Ianthe's gaze. "The master thought he was so clever. He tried to cut tiny pieces out from Alice's soul. But she fooled him. She broke it into a thousand pieces and scattered it across England. Master cannot consume what he cannot find. He was so angry that Alice had been too clever and he left her here." Then a frown crumpled her face. "But now the pieces are lost. Alice cannot be put back together again without all the pieces."

  How had Alice hidden her soul? Only someone mage-blooded could do such a thing, and Ianthe had never had even an inkling that the young woman possessed a gift. How could Ianthe ever make up for the way the sisterhood had deserted the young woman? They should have stood shoulder to shoulder and denied Hoth the willing women he needed to feed his hunger. Instead, they had thought only of themselves, and left Alice to her fate. "I am sorry, Alice, but I make you a promise. Viscount Hoth will never hurt you again. He has drunk his last soul."

  The girl cried out and flung herself against the back wall, arms splayed. For a moment Ianthe thought she would climb up and away, like a startled spider. Then she collapsed upon herself, with her arms over her head and her face in the light shift covering her knees. "Alice is hiding. He will never find her. All the tiny pieces of Alice are hidden."

  The fabric muffled her plea, yet it still broke Ianthe's heart. A high keening came from the broken girl as she rocked herself and cried.

  Quinn held out a hand to Ianthe. "I don't think there is any more we can do here."

  He was right, as much as it hurt. She rubbed Alice's knee, but even that slight touch startled the broken woman. "You are so clever, Alice, to outwit him like that. I promise I will help you find the hidden pieces, once I show Hoth how very clever women are."

  By shoving a knife through his eye, or however you kill a soul eater.

  She took Quinn's hand and he helped her up.

  His gaze darkened with anger and the wolf shimmered in his eyes. Ianthe avoided looking at him on her way out. He wrapped a mood around him that bristled so even the ghosts of the asylum drew back and wouldn't dare to touch him.

  "She should be looked after properly," Ianthe said as they returned to their starting point. Poor Alice should never have been left here. Alice had fractured her soul to defeat Hoth, and in return he’d dumped her like a piece of refuse. Could she ever be put back together again?

  There was at least one small thing she could do. She stopped in the entranceway, opened her reticule, and pulled out all the money she carried. Every last penny was thrust at the guard. "You are to buy her food and a clean shift, do you understand? I will be back tomorrow to check on her, and every day after that until she is released to me. She is my sister and she will not stay in this hellhole one moment longer than necessary."

  "I can ask the doctors. Might be all right since you're her family and all," the guard said, pocketing the coins. His gaze held a hungry glare.

  "Of course. Part of that sum is for your trouble. I appreciate your assistance, and silence, in this matter," Ianthe murmured. He would take some of the coin anyway—the hospital was notorious for corruption—but let the man think she condoned him taking from the unfortunate woman. She needed him compliant. There were questions she would rather were not asked, and a person she didn't want alerted to her visit.

  She would not abandon Alice, not if there was hope the woman could be nursed back to health, or even simply made clean and comfortable. How to put back a soul together was a question to ask Aster and the mages. Quinn's adopted sister might have access to more information about what the mage-blooded could do and how to undo it.

  Mentally, Ianthe opened another page in her ledger and began to calculate what it would cost to house, feed, and clothe Alice. What the woman really needed, though, was the seclusion and open space of an isolated country estate. Meadows to run through and horses around would help Alice recover the scattered pieces of her soul.

  Ianthe had failed as a friend in the first instance, but she would make amends now. She planned to do what all good friends should do when one was wronged—exact revenge.

  The soul eater was going to choke on his last meal.

  21

  Quinn

  * * *

  One look at the broken woman and Quinn wanted to punch his fist through a wall—although, given the decrepit state of the hospital building, one blow would probably bring the entire structure down around their ears. So this was what a soul eater did; bite by bite he consumed the light and laughter that had made this woman a vibrant creature, and left an empty husk.

  Hoth's words about Ianthe haunted him. Like a fine wine I shall consume her sip by sip.

  From gut instinct alone, Quinn had disliked the viscount on sight. Over time he added layers of reason to his hatred for the aloof banker. Traitor to England. Destroyer of innocent women. Defiler of Quinn's mate. Only by digging his short nails into his palms could he hold his silence as they walked back through the gloomy corridors. If he could shift, he would have torn off his clothes, run to London, leapt through the man's window, and ripped out his throat to exact justice. Instead, he simmered with rage, fed by the chill of the building, until he burned with cold fury.

  He watched as Ianthe handed over money to the guard and asked for his discretion. Here at least was something more immediate he could do: Get the poor girl out of Bedlam and far beyond the reach and memory of Hoth. Quinn would ask his family if they knew of a safe place where they could spirit Alice away to heal. How could a tortured soul knit itself back together, when it was surrounded by hundreds of others just as broken?

  His mind rioted until they made it outside and he drew a lungful of air, free of the taint of urine and sweat. He tried to conjure answers to his questions. He knew of men brutalised in the course of war who acted somewhat like Alice, except she was no soldier, but a creature of pleasure. Why did Hoth torture the courtesan even as he devoured her soul? What did he derive from such an exchange? There was only one thing that sprang to his mind, where pleasure and pain mingled, but even as he whispered the words they were ashes in his mouth and he knew they were wrong. "Le vice Anglais."

  Ianthe spun, anger flashing in her gaze. "No. Wipe that thought from your mind. That is most definitely not the result of le vice Anglais. Alice tore her own soul into pieces to hide it from Hoth. Can you imagine doing that to yourself?"

  He didn't even know such a thing was possible, let alone how one went about doing it. The act certainly spoke of the woman's level of desperation to escape the prison Hoth built around her.

  Ianthe paced up and down the driveway while energy fizzed from her like ocean mist. She curled her hands into fists and raged at the sky and
the decrepit building. She muttered promises and curses, and lamented a society that stood by while Alice suffered. At least her anger matched his own, but they both needed an outlet before they combusted.

  Quinn struggled with his limited life experience. He might be an unnatural creature, but the change was new and he kept to the company of other wolves—none of whom drove women mad. Except perhaps for Alick; he'd be used to women hiding to get away from him. He relied on second-hand information and gossip about the other creatures like him that walked the earth.

  Nor did Quinn know of lesser-known sexual vices, as his tastes didn't run that way. He only knew the ribald comments of men after one too many drinks. He tried to apply what he knew from his army life, and Alice's frightened state reminded him of soldiers who had been tortured by their captors over long periods of time.

  Was that what Hoth did after he had acquired a willing young courtesan? Was the process of consuming her soul a form of slow torture for the woman, while Hoth derived sexual pleasure from it? The aftermath matched what he had seen, but in soldiers it was done in the course of war to obtain information, a sick method employed by both sides as they sought to win a battle. But who would do such a thing to a woman of beauty just to satisfy his own hunger? It was akin to skewering a butterfly alive and shearing off its wings to spread on a piece of toast.

  "Whatever Hoth does to the women that leaves them like that”—she waved her hand at the grim stone building—“is a perversion performed by a unnatural creature with unnatural appetites."

  "I'm an Unnatural; would you compare me to him?" he said. Did she think his desire to possess her was an unnatural appetite? It rankled to be categorised with a shadow demon like Hoth. He would protect and love her for as long as his heart beat in his body. Hoth was a cold thing that could only destroy or smash precious lives.

  "You both fight over me as though I were the last scrap of a meal." She whispered the words as her gaze settled on the run-down building.

  "I would lift you up and cherish you. Hoth would consume everything you are. Look what he did to that poor woman, and who knows how many others. We have found Alice but why can we not find any of his other mistresses? How many of the demi-monde know what he does?" His anger erupted and he wanted to shake her. She knew, they all must have known, for they had named him the Reaper. And yet they let the viscount take a young girl and do that. Repeatedly. How could they have stood by and done nothing?

  As his rage grew, hers retreated. Ianthe wrung her hands as she paced, her voice plaintive as she sought to diminish her involvement. "It was but a nickname, none of us knew he was an Unnatural. We called him Reaper to frighten each other, like children will tell of creatures hiding in the closet. Did you think for a moment I believed any of it to be real? Do you think we thrust Alice at him like some sacrificial offering to save ourselves?"

  "No, I don't believe you would." From what he knew of Ianthe, she wouldn't deliberately send a girl to such a fate. But stories start somewhere; someone had given voice to the first whisper. Buried in the depths of their name for him was the tiny kernel of truth about his origins.

  Men were either born or created Unnatural. Quinn had been created by a lycanthrope's bite two years earlier. Others were born with afflictions created in the womb or inherited from a parent's blood. Which was Hoth—created or engineered? Either way, a man didn't wake up one morning and decide to start torturing women and extracting their souls. There was a pattern, a gradual growth of behaviour. Like soldiers who delighted in taking their knives to fallen enemies, there was something deeply ingrained in their natures that expressed itself in a myriad of ways. It began with small actions and built over time. The most ruthless killers and torturers were created in slow increments.

  "If he was born that way, he has had decades to prey on those less fortunate around him." Quinn ran a hand through his hair. Perhaps he had started in childhood, practising on his surplus older brothers. Given they’d all died, it didn't bode well for the missing women.

  Englishmen fought a war in Europe, while right under their noses innocent women suffered and possibly died. Here was a battle they should be fighting. It didn't matter to him if he protected a courtesan or a princess; either way Quinn would stop Hoth. Not to stop his French plot, but because of what he had done to Alice and others like her, and because of what he planned to do to Ianthe.

  He drew a deep breath and fisted his hands before he laid them upon her. "How many, Ianthe? How many women has he done that, or worse, to?"

  Her gaze widened and she shook her head, hopelessness creeping into her eyes. "God help me, but I don't know. From my time in London, I believe there were five before Alice. I have tried to find a trace of them, but they have all vanished."

  "Do you remember his mistress directly before Alice? Ewan and Aster have been trying to find the others." Quinn tried to recall the features of the other woman in the cell. Not the elderly one, but the brunette who jerked her limbs as though someone else was in charge of her body. She had bold lines to her face, but now that starvation had robbed her body of any curves, it was hard to tell if she had once possessed a luscious form. Could she have been another, or did Hoth dispose of them in different places, so as not to attract attention? Over the course of his life, how many minds had he splintered and left ruined in his wake?

  Or more frightening, what happened if he consumed a woman's soul completely? Did the shell wither and die without something to animate it? What if Alice had only survived because her mage-blood allowed her to hide her soul?

  She chewed her fist, thinking, struggling to recall. "I have tried to recollect his former mistresses and to remember their names and what they looked like. But we are a transient group and many change names and where they live as often as hair colour and patrons. I have made discreet inquiries, but anyone I ask struggles with any details."

  He barked a short laugh. No doubt Hoth's path was littered with convenient excuses for those who dared to ask, just like the one he told about Alice. "Let me guess, all anyone knows is that he retires them to the country and are never heard from again?"

  Ianthe was already pale, but now she drained to a whitened sheet as she followed his suspicions and realised that had reached the same conclusion. The hand she chewed dropped to her chest. "Oh Lord, the vision. The bones are the other women."

  "What vision?" Quinn clenched his fists. Aster said she had found Ianthe's name in the mage genealogies and Sarah had mentioned the sight causing the courtesan's headaches. Did her trace of mage-blood give her a vision of what Hoth did?

  "The sight showed me bundles of bones tied with pretty ribbons, but I didn't know what it meant. I never have context until it is too late." Her voice dropped so low his wolf had to strain to catch the words.

  "Oh, Ianthe." He wanted to yell and shout that such a thing could happen under their noses, but the rational part of his mind knew his anger was misdirected. He needed to rend apart Hoth, not vent at Ianthe. The viscount wasn't just an Unnatural, he was a perverted bastard. With the passing of the Unnaturals Act he was subject to the same laws as every other Englishman. Treason or murder, all they needed was proof to bring him to justice. Proof like sad piles of bones that had once been vibrant young women.

  "He will pay for what he has done to Alice and the others. We need to bring this abuse to the magistrates." Hanging was too good for him, and it probably wouldn't work anyway. Another thing for Aster to research, how to execute this particular Unnatural specimen.

  Ianthe laughed, a short, bitter sound. "And say what? That a peer paid his money to a whore and did whatever he fancied to her?"

  "These women deserve justice." He softened his voice, just a little. His anger was not for her, but for what happened to those of her kind. It was too easy for his mind to place her in Alice's position. The thought of someone hurting Ianthe was a match to the powder keg of rage inside his gut, which he struggled to contain. He couldn't shift, but dear God, the wolf would send him on a rampage e
ither way. "We cannot stand by and condone a man abusing and murdering women."

  Ianthe's laughter turned hysterical and was echoed by the peals coming from the building beyond. She paced and her anger grew anew with each short, quick turn she took. "You are a young deluded fool. This is the society we live in, where the wealthy and titled can do as they please. Do you think Alice is the first common-born woman to be abused by a man? Men call my gender the weaker sex, while they pass laws to protect themselves. Even a noblewoman finds no respite in marriage. A man may beat his wife so long as the rod is no thicker than his thumb. She cannot be raped, for parting her legs is considered just one of her marital duties, no matter how brutally a man insists."

  Quinn threw up his hands. They fought on the same side of this war and they shouldn't battle each other. Not all men were such monsters; some would stand as guardians between them and those they would hurt. There were men like him, who would hunt such creatures as Hoth to the ends of the earth and ensure they were rendered impotent. But how was he to protect Ianthe in such a world? She was too precious to him to risk in such a fraught profession, where her next patron could do something similar. Her vulnerability was his torment.

  "Promise me you will not go near him until this matter is resolved. You will stay away from Viscount Hoth. I forbid you to see him." He curled his hands into fists to stop himself from grabbing her and stealing her away from the world she inhabited.

  "You forbid it?" She turned, her eyes wide and incredulous. "Do not presume to dictate my actions. You do not own me; you merely purchased me for a week. You bought seven days of my time and no more."

  Quinn pointed at the long, narrow structure behind them. "Do you want to end up in there, with Alice? I am trying to protect you. The Wolves' mission be damned, I will protect you from Hoth and bring his reign of horror to an end."