Sinner's Heart th-3

by Zoë Archer

  He had. During his military service, perhaps. Such an injury must kill most men. Not him. Someone had shot him, and he had survived.

  This collection of scars was not what made her stare, however.

  He followed her gaze to his chest. They both studied the markings winding across his flesh, over his heart, along his ribs and down his left arm.

  She’d observed them on the other Hellraisers, these images of flame, promises of torments to come. Yet to see the markings upon Bram reminded her of all that hung in the balance.

  “When it covers you, the Dark One owns you completely.”

  His mouth twisted. “I thought I was his already.”

  “Until your flesh is entirely engulfed by the markings, there’s yet hope.”

  “To regain my soul.” He stared at the images of flame a moment longer, his expression austere. “To become the man I once was.” The way his words frosted, this prospect didn’t seem to be much of a prize to him.

  “The other Hellraisers, Whit and Leo, they found ways. They reclaimed their souls. It’s not an impossible task.” A current of dark energy rippled through the chamber, and she frowned, seeking its source. It hadn’t come from Bram, but seemed to originate from somewhere in the house.

  “They had something I don’t—motivation.” He toed off his buckled shoes and peeled off his stockings, and then began to unfasten the buttons of his breeches.

  Thoughts of mysterious dark energy fled. She watched with breathless anticipation as his breeches slid down, revealing the sharp muscles angling toward his groin, and then his cock. He was not as indifferent to her as he affected, for he was thickening, rising, as he stripped with her gaze upon him.

  “Cruel.” Her voice was a rasp.

  “If necessary, yes.” He pulled off his breeches, uncovering sinewy thighs.

  “I’m not your enemy. We might be allies in this fight.”

  “Having gone to war already, I’ve no desire to do so ever again.” He flipped back the blanket, baring the mattress. He fixed her with a heavy-lidded look. “A pity you haven’t a physical body. We might find intriguing ways of distracting one another while we’re tied together.”

  She was glad she had no body, for it would have been easily misled by him. “Is that what you do? Distract yourself with bedsport?”

  “As a strategy, it’s very effective.” He reached up and pulled the tie from his hair. Freed from its binding, his hair fell around his shoulders, ink black. It was probably silky to the touch.

  “The Dark One looked into your soul and saw more need there. That’s how he works—he offers us what we think we want.”

  “Now look at me.” Nude, unashamed, he spread his arms. “A man fulfilled.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “And you’ve no way of knowing what I do or do not believe.”

  She drifted nearer. She could be cruel, too. “I was inside your mind, your memories.”

  He dropped his arms, and for all his muscularity and strength, he seemed vulnerable. But it passed quickly, and he was beautiful and cynical once more. “I’m amazed boredom did not kill you all over again.”

  Frustration welled. “Bram—”

  Someone scratched at the door. He turned away and paced to a wooden cabinet. He pulled out a long robe of dark green silk. After shrugging into it, he stalked to the chamber door and threw it open, revealing a servant.

  A strange wave of shadows descended, and she felt herself pushed back into the in-between mist. Glancing down, she saw her image fading, her hands so translucent as to be almost invisible. Her consciousness remained in the room—she heard and saw everything, yet had no form.

  “I’m not to be disturbed after I retire,” Bram growled.

  “Forgive me, my lord. He insisted that I wake you. It’s most urgent, he says.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. John Godfrey, my lord. He’s downstairs, and if I may say, most anxious to speak with you.”

  Had she a heart, it would have seized in her chest. Only two Hellraisers remained, Bram and John. It was John’s dark energy she had felt moments earlier; the strength of his power enveloped the house and dimmed her own strength.

  Though she had faded into invisibility, Bram turned and looked directly at her. The servant peered around his master, curious to see what had drawn his attention, and frowned when there was nothing but an empty room.

  “Where is he?” Bram asked, turning back to the servant.

  “In the Green Drawing Room, my lord.”

  “I’ll be down directly.”

  Bowing, the servant withdrew.

  She tried to reach out to Bram, tried to speak, but with John so near, she became an empty shell incapable of words. Damn and hell, she had to keep Bram away from John. The other man’s poison would infect Bram.

  “You’re still here,” he rumbled. “I can feel you.”

  Don’t go to him, she tried to say. There’s still a chance.

  She had no mouth with which to speak. No hands to grab hold of him. Rage at her helplessness burned through her.

  He turned and strode from the chamber.

  Chapter 3

  Bram strode through the darkened corridors of his home, with only a few lit candles flickering in the shadows. Stillness smothered the house, yet his heart beat loudly in his ears as he descended the stairs.

  A lone footman stood outside the closed doors to the Green Drawing Room, candle in hand.

  “No one disturbs us,” Bram said.

  Bowing, the footman backed away. Bram stood alone in the corridor, his hand upon the door, his muscles and thoughts taut. How to face the man he once considered one of his closest friends? The man was now a murderer. Was he here to kill Bram as well?

  In a fight, John would be no match for Bram. Yet there were new measurements of a man’s capabilities beyond physical strength. Bram himself had witnessed the Devil bestowing more power upon John, though what that power might entail was yet untried—upon Bram, at any rate. The Devil had tried to give Bram more power as well. The ghost had prevented it, however, stepping between him and the bolt of magic. Because of her, he possessed only his original gift.

  She might be his savior. She might be his destruction.

  He didn’t want saving, and his destruction was assured.

  Something brushed along his neck, cool and electric. It moved through him in volatile waves. Her. He knew the feel of her presence, her force and purposeful cunning. He knew no living woman like her, and that was a blessing, for of a certain such women were created to rule the world.

  He stared into the shadows, waiting for her to manifest. Yet she did not. She remained a formless, invisible energy swirling through the dark. Agitation thrummed through her.

  Don’t go in there.

  Her voice resounded in his mind, low and urgent.

  “He’s one of my best friends,” he muttered.

  Neither of us knows what John truly is anymore. Send him away.

  “No.” For if there were judgments to make, he’d make them himself, not at the command of a long-dead Roman with a siren’s voice.

  But—

  He pushed open the double doors and stepped into the Green Drawing Room.

  John whirled to face him. Aside from a slight disorder in his clothing, he seemed much as he always had, with his scholar’s sharp face, his lanky height that he had never grown into, as if he had more important and worthwhile things to consider besides the thickening of his body.

  “Bram,” he said after a moment.

  “John.” They stared at one another. Of the five Hellraisers, Bram and John were the most disparate, and had spent few hours alone together. Now they were all that remained, a strange irony. The rakehell and the man of letters. “How did you know to find me at home?”

  “This is my final stop of the night. I tried all the familiar places first.” John glanced at Bram’s banyan. “You’ve been pulled from your bed. Are you alone?”

  Livia’s pre
sence clung close, buzzing and unquiet. Yet Bram answered, “I am.”

  Frowning, John studied him, searching for something. “Certain? I might’ve sworn—”

  “There’s only me.” He didn’t know why he concealed Livia from John. These were perilous times—no one could be trusted.

  Moving further into the chamber, he went to a side table and poured himself a brandy. He silently offered a glass to John, but his friend shook his head. The most abstemious of the Hellraisers, was John.

  “What are you doing here? I would have thought you’d be sequestered in the corner of some assembly, engineering a political alliance.”

  “It is for that reason I’ve searched you out.” He lowered his voice, confiding. “I’ve come for a favor.”

  Bram raised his brows. “You mistake me for one of your Whitehall power brokers.”

  “There are more ways to gain influence than direct channels.” John offered a smile.

  “I’ve never cared for subtlety.”

  John chuckled, though Bram did not share in the laughter. “Direct as the point of a blade, as always. Yet you’ve your own means of persuasion.” He gave Bram a meaningful look, for he knew the specifics of Bram’s magical gift. “In truth, that is why I am here tonight. I need your persuasive talents to get inside a certain gentleman’s private study. Into a desk drawer in that study.”

  Where, no doubt, important and confidential documents were kept. “You want a housebreaker, not me.”

  The corner of John’s mouth curved, the most he could provide for a smile. “Your way is so much more elegant. It’s a simple matter of persuading one of the servants to let you into the study.”

  “Bribe one of them.”

  “All the servants in this household are nauseatingly virtuous. Come now, Bram, we’re friends, you and I. There’s no need to dissemble about your own virtue. I’ve seen you seduce married women right out from under the noses of their husbands.”

  “If a woman is under her husband’s nose, he’s got her in the wrong place.”

  Bram felt, rather than heard, Livia’s amusement. Then her voice within him. The worst kind of scoundrel.

  Oh, he answered silently, but I’m very good at it.

  So I’ve witnessed. I myself found it far more entertaining to be wicked than respectable.

  This intrigued him, but John’s words brought his attention back to the room.

  “Will you do it? It is a very small favor, but it would be an immeasurable assistance.”

  Bram only stared at John. “We’ve not seen one another since Edmund’s burial.”

  The heavy velvet curtains suddenly became fascinating, for John fixed his attention on them. “A sorrowful day.”

  “As of now, I’m the only Hellraiser you haven’t tried to kill.” He took a drink. “That might change. I may wake up with your rapier in my heart.”

  Shaking his head, John said, “This is precisely what Leo and Whit want—division between us. But we two, together we’re the strongest of all. So much power. We can have anything we desire, anything at all.” He stepped closer, the light from the fireplace paring his face into sharp yellow planes. “Mr. Holliday’s gifts were twofold—we were given power, and we also learned which of us were weakest.”

  “Whit and Leo weren’t weak.” Bram had known Whit for most of his life, long before either of them had seen the world’s true face, full of ruin and loss. They had stalked the streets of London together, haunted its glittering ballrooms and smoke-shrouded gaming hells. When Bram had returned from the Colonies, unable to do much beyond drink and fuck, Whit had not judged him. He’d given Bram acceptance, when Bram could not accept himself.

  “No?” John scoffed. “Even with the power they were given, both were misled by women. That Gypsy girl, and Leo’s insipid wife. No man of strength could be so deluded by a woman.” He smiled. “Not you, Bram. You know exactly what women are for—bedding, and nothing else.”

  Fool, Livia fumed in Bram’s mind.

  Bram took another swallow of brandy. “So my cock makes me strong.”

  John seemed to make the decision to be amused. “How marvelous that you are so little changed.”

  Was Bram the same as he’d been before? He barely recognized his reflection in the water of his washing basin. The face he knew, but what was beneath it, that had been irrevocably altered. Witnessing one friend murder another tended to do that.

  “It’s not usual,” Bram said, “for a man to attend the funeral of the one he killed.”

  John’s face tightened. “The damned fool stepped into the path of my blade.”

  Not enough regret, whispered Livia. Not nearly enough.

  “The blade that was meant for Leo.”

  This, at the least, John did not dispute. “He’d turned against us, turned his back on the Hellraisers. He could not suffer to live.” His voice was cold and hard as frost.

  “This is Leo we’re talking of. The man you once carried home on your back when he’d been too fuddled with drink to walk. You and he used to debate for hours about phenomenally dull finance policies.”

  “That was before.” His mouth hardened. “We’ve learned valuable lessons since then.”

  “I was never much for education.”

  Stepping closer, John said, “Bram, think. Consider everything we’ve been given. You and I aren’t like the others. We won’t fall to the wiles of females. We know how to use our gifts to our best advantage. With our abilities, anything we want can be ours, anything at all.”

  “I’ve already got what I desire.”

  “Yet you could have more.” His eyes burned like coals. “Mr. Holliday’s power is great in me. All thoughts are mine to read, from the limbless beggar to the mightiest lord.”

  “Tell me what I’m thinking now.” In truth, Bram wished John would, for his own thoughts were tempestuous and made for rough navigation.

  John made himself look rueful. “All minds but the Hellraisers’. Those are illegible to me.”

  Perhaps that was for the best. He felt Livia close, agitated and angry.

  “Inconvenient,” answered Bram.

  “But I don’t need to worry about what you’re thinking.” John narrowed his eyes. “Do I, Bram?”

  Bram did not answer. Nor did he look away. He only stared at John until the other man chuckled.

  “The hour is late, so I’m for bed.” John strode to the door of the chamber. “You won’t forget that favor I’ve asked of you.”

  It didn’t escape notice that this was a statement, not a question. “I won’t forget.”

  But will you do it? Livia pressed.

  He refused to respond, and stood in the middle of the room as John made a quick bow before leaving. The front door opened then shut. The wheels of John’s carriage clattered down the street.

  Studying the carpet beneath his feet, Bram followed the snaking pattern of vines. If plants such as the ones in the Savonnerie rug existed in real life, they would trap unwary animals and either choke the life out of the creatures or else consign them to a slow death by starvation.

  Damn him, if only he had power over time. With that gift, he’d take the Hellraisers back to the moments before they had freed Mr. Holliday. He would keep them from journeying to the ruined temple where they had found the Devil’s prison, distract them somehow, and they would go on just as they always had.

  “You can’t go back.” Her voice did not come from within his mind. Glancing up, he watched a silver white glow appear in the gloom of the chamber. It coalesced into a form he was coming to recognize far too well.

  “I’m aware of that,” he snarled.

  “All of that”—she waved her hand toward the door from which John had exited—“was a test. Asking for a favor serves to bind you to him. And the rest . . . he wants to know where your loyalties lay.”

  “What a habit you have of stating things I already know.” He poured himself another drink and took a goodly swallow.

  She shook her head,
and he felt her displeasure down in his marrow. He tried to shake it off—he’d stopped courting anyone’s opinion long ago. One imperious, assertive ghost meant nothing to him.

  Yet she persisted, hovering nearer. “You’ll have to make your choice. Sooner rather than later.”

  “I don’t need to choose anything. Neither you nor John can force me to.” He heard the petulant note in his voice and didn’t care. He was a man grown, beholden to no one and nothing.

  “What will it take to break the haze of debauchery that surrounds you? Another death? The earth splitting open and catching fire? Wait long enough, and all of that will come to pass. But by then, it will be too late.”

  He slammed his glass down onto a table. “I exorcised my conscience decades ago. The position doesn’t need filling.” He turned away.

  Yet she now appeared right in front of him, her dark brows drawn down, her hands curled into fists.

  “Stop running and listen to me—”

  “No!” he roared. “Not another bloody word! I order it.”

  She stared at him coldly. “I’m not a soldier to be commanded. I’m not one of your empty-eyed strumpets, either.”

  “What you are is a goddamn plague. And I want you gone.”

  Her teeth clenched. “I. Can’t. Leave. Whatever binds us together, it can’t be broken.”

  “You haven’t really tried.”

  Her eyes blazed and she whirled around the room. In her fury, she was something from ancient legend, awful and beautiful. “Don’t you ever question me!”

  “If you’re no vacuous harlot,” he drawled, “then I’m no fearful acolyte. This temper tantrum is wearisome. As you are.” He tilted his head, considering. “But I’ve resources at my disposal. For enough coin, I could get a priest to exorcise you.”

  She snorted. “A feeble ritual with no true power. All the strength of that faith has been gutted. It’s now nothing but blind devotion to empty ceremony. Not even the priests believe.”

  “I’ve another power to call upon.” He smiled cruelly as her eyes widened.

  “Don’t—”

  “Haven’t we established that I never respond to commands?” His gaze holding hers, he spoke with deliberation. “Veni, geminus.”