by Julia Knight
“Ilsa?”
* * *
Van Gast helped Josie off the floor, a bit wary because she was angry enough to burst. She muttered under her breath, curses and threats against Rillen, against whoever had betrayed her, them. Finally she took a deep breath and looked up at Van Gast with a rueful twist of her lips.
“Josie love, I know I’m irresistible, but this is a heck of a way to get some time alone.”
There, she did it again, went from spitting-blood angry to laughing in the space of a heartbeat. Vicious, capricious and never quite in his grasp. Softer now as her laugh faded, the softness only he saw and with it, underneath, a raw dread that ached his heart.
He wanted to reach out, kiss it all away, lose himself in her and let her lose herself in him. Slowly, slowly. Mind, at least she can’t get away from you in here. There was always a bright side if you looked hard enough. He moved closer, so they almost touched and he could feel her breath on him.
He edged still closer, a hand on her neck, soft as clouds. She didn’t pull away. A long kiss, to steal her breath, steal her heart if he could. Van Gast wasn’t much for planning, or twisting, but he could steal like a god.
He pulled away at last. “If it’s dying you’re after, I can think of a couple of ways we could try. Be a good way to go, too. First we need to be naked though.”
She laughed again, less forced, less brittle. More his secret Josienne. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“On you? No, never. You have my word as a lying, thieving, conniving bastard of a rack.”
Her hand snaked down his bare back, trailed goose bumps behind it. “If you caught me, you’d be bored.”
It was Van Gast’s turn to laugh. “No, love. No one could be bored with you. Especially when you’re giving me heart attacks or trying to get me killed. Now, much as I am greatly enjoying the view your dress is giving me, how do we get it off?”
“Van, shouldn’t we be—”
He stopped her with another kiss, not slow this time. Hungry, insistent. He’d waited too long, in too much doubt. “Sod should,” he said at last, when he got his breath back. “Less talking, more being naked.”
She didn’t say anything else but stepped back a pace and reached behind her. Slowly, button by button, she undid the dress, let it slide first over one shoulder, then the other. She was a shape in the dim light, all soft curves and taut muscles. Moonlight made tempting shadows across her shoulders, delving between her breasts as the dress slid farther.
He didn’t, couldn’t, wait any longer. She was here, and with him, laughing up at him, kissing him as though her heart would burst with it, her hands tangling in his hair and pulling him closer. Butterfly Josie, just waiting to be pinned. She fell back against the wall, her lips on his throat, and he followed, pinned her there. He wanted to say it all then, but she left him no breath for words, no breath for anything but this, no room in his head for anything but her.
They never made it as far as the floor.
* * *
Rillen stopped to kiss Ilsa’s hand. His lovely Lady Laceflower. It was all so perfect. Van Gast and Josie in the cells ready for his little plan, and they would play their part. He had the threat of the bond to make sure, in case they tried anything, like a real escape. The look on Van Gast’s face, the way Josie had scrambled from it in terror—he thought it would be enough.
By midnight the Yelen would be his to control. Estovan would be his, and so would a lot of illicit money. All these traders, all these merchanters, each had paid a consideration just to be here, not to mention at least three deals he’d seen struck tonight. The money was even now winging its way down to the strong room next to the dungeon. Guarded by rock, and Yelen guards and dungeons of a fearsome reputation so no rack would ever try to get in. Several of the richer traders, not trusting the counting house, used the strong room to hold their wealth, their gold and more precious items, the safest place within a hundred leagues. Supposedly. By midnight, the worth of the city would be in that room.
Not for long—by dawn it would be out of the palace and his. Oh, so sorry. Those racks, tried to escape, took the money. Here, I have one to hang to show you. The other got away. No, we didn’t recover your money.
Only the other rack would be floating facedown in the Est River, one body among many the city produced in the night. Estovan would be chaotic for a time, but one man would lead. One man was the natural successor to the sadly “shot by the racks during their escape” Yelen councilors. One man who already had control of the guards, and therefore the palace, the licensed docks, the area around them, the place where all the real money was made.
Ilsa blushed as his lips brushed the back of her hand.
“Perfect,” he said. “All so perfect, thanks to you.”
Her sly smile broadened, so at odds with the naïve look of her. Such a shame she was so obviously a Remorian. But maybe—yes, maybe even that wouldn’t be a problem. For him, for the Yelen as would be, nothing would be a problem.
“How long?” she asked, and he knew what she meant.
“Josie will be dead within hours. Suitably tormented first. Either she’ll take the bond, or Van Gast will. You never did say why it was you hated her so much.”
A single gasped word stopped her dead. “Ilsa?”
Her smooth copper-bronze skin turned pale, her eyes widened so far that Rillen could see white around the dark irises, and her mouth quivered with unsaid words. He turned on whoever it was that had upset his lady.
Some of his guards, but it wasn’t them. Not Tallia, the little witch, though he knew her of old, but her companion. A Remorian, that much was obvious. The copper-bronze skin, the hair that until recently had been shorn just growing out now. The bond scar not quite covered by the garish rack shirt he was wearing.
A rack? Even a Remorian rack, come to the palace willingly? Is this another part of Josie’s plan? That twisty bitch is capable of anything.
Rillen pulled out his pistol, cocked it and pointed. He was half a heartbeat away from shooting the man in the head for the temerity of not only being here, but upsetting his lady, when Ilsa’s tremulous voice stopped him. “No! Please, Rillen.”
He looked away, a quick glance at her stricken face, and that was too long. A gun went off, but it wasn’t his. Heat flashed past his face and the bullet splintered a statue behind him. Tallia grappled with one of the guards. The now-useless one-shot pistol clattered to the tiles. Another guard went for Tallia’s back, but the Remorian stood like stone, his one hand raised as though to take Ilsa’s hand.
“Ilsa? What—”
Rillen raised the pistol again. Whoever this Remorian was, he was trouble. Rillen couldn’t let himself be distracted, not now. Not even by Ilsa.
Tallia fell with a wail under one of the guards, shouted something at the Remorian that Rillen didn’t catch. Still he didn’t move. Rillen pulled the trigger.
Chapter Sixteen
Van Gast flopped away, propped himself on the wall and gasped for breath. “Kyr’s mercy,” he said when he could. If Josie wanted to kill him, she wouldn’t need a pistol. His heart felt like it might actually explode. Be a great way to go though.
Her hand found his, and they slid to the floor, ignoring the reek of it. Van Gast didn’t care about that, not right at this moment. All he cared about was the way Josie felt against his side, her head on his shoulder, her breathing as ragged as his own. The way her other hand trailed over his chest, made patterns in the sweat. That she was here, with him, at last. Even being in the Yelen dungeons paled before that.
He breathed in the scent of her, all wide oceans and salt spray, far horizons and wild storms. She always reminded him of the sea—capricious, vicious, sharp sunlight over dark depths, ever-changing, never still. He felt the change in her now, like the turn of a tide, from crashing swells to a troubling eddy. He took her hand, let his thumb stroke the tender flesh on her wrist. Where any bond would be laid on. She shivered at that touch.
Her fa
ce was moonlight and midnight—the two sides of her, light and dark, love and hate, soft as clouds and hard as diamonds. No half measures for Josie, not ever. All or nothing. Van Gast dare not move for long moments, dare not breathe in case he broke the spell.
A soft smile, not her Joshing Josie grin but the smile that only he got to see, the one that always made him hope that maybe, just maybe, she loved him. The smile wavered before he could kiss it. “They’re going to bond us. I—I can’t, Van. Not again.” She’d never admit it, the fear, not outright. Not fighting, biting Josie. She got as close as she could, as he ever thought she would. “I’d rather die in this cell, or hang from their gibbet.”
One or the other, Rillen had said, just to him. Your choice. “You won’t be bonded. I’m not going to let them. I’d rather blow the fuck out of all of us. Dead is better than that.”
She stirred against him, and the feel of her skin sliding along his made all sorts of distracting thoughts pop into his head. Her words blew all that away. “If you were dead, I’d let them bond me, so I could forget. I wouldn’t want to remember what I had.”
She buried her face in his shoulder. No tears, not his Josie. He’d seen her cry once, and he’d known even then he’d never see her tears again. It wasn’t tears she was hiding now but fear, a fear she never let anyone see. Joshing Josie, afraid of nothing and no one. Except this. She’d probably rather die than say it.
“You won’t have to. I promise you that, love.”
She looked at him for a long time, and at last a smile, the Josie grin that meant trouble for someone. Him, probably. “If you tell anyone I said that, I’ll kill you.”
Van Gast laughed and kissed the top of her head. “I know. Bullet in the face, right?”
She laughed with him, kissed him back as though her world would end if she didn’t. “Right. And don’t you forget it.”
The chill of night bit at Van Gast’s naked chest. “So, I take it the plan went a bit tits-up? Any chance you’re going to tell me what the plan is, or was?”
“Van, I thought you were a smart man. Haven’t you figured it out?”
“The Yelen gold? How does us being in this cell help?”
She winced at that. “That was where it all went wrong. You had the key, and I’d no reason to think they’d search Mr. Ibsen too much, a trader slung in here for taking liberties with Brimeld’s wife. Then me and Skrymir come down, spring you and here we are, right by the strong room and you with the key. But while Mr. Ibsen wasn’t a threat, Van Gast is. Not a cell in the world can hold him, that’s what they say, isn’t that right?” she teased.
“Well, yes. They do say that. And usually it’d be true, but, Josie, all I’ve got is my breeches, my bells and a set of bones. What’s left of the dagger, but nothing we can use, just tiny bits of glass. Not a lot even I can do with that. At least they left you your clothes.”
“Traitor on your ship. Someone knew about this, about me and Skrymir pretending to be ambassadors. About our names.”
“More than one, I think. Gilda knew nothing of this, though it was her that swapped the notes, I’m fairly sure, and her that gave me away in the square. The other is locked up nice and tight in my brig. Shame really, I think Holden took a bit of a fancy to Tallia. Pissed Ilsa off, I know that.”
Josie sat up and gave him an odd look. “You put Tallia in the brig? What for?”
“She makes my trouble bone itch, and she knew Holden’s name before he told her. Plus, she was most uncomplimentary about me.”
“Van, Tallia’s not the traitor—I told her Holden’s name. And, yes, she’s not your biggest admirer, but she wouldn’t turn me in.”
“So—”
“So whoever it is, they’re still out there somewhere, and they told Rillen who we all are.” She stood up and went to the tiny light-well that was all they had to illuminate the cell. Moonlight etched her naked body in hard relief—soft light and sharp shadows. “They want us bad, Van. How in Kyr’s name are we going to get out of this?”
Van Gast had a very bad feeling he knew the only way to get out of this—do whatever Rillen asked. Or at least agree to it, and then try to twist out of it. Yet that would be nigh on impossible once Rillen bonded him. Because he knew, without a shred of doubt, that was going to be his decision if it came to Rillen’s choice.
He watched Josie as she looked up at the tiny slice of moonlight, the way it played over her, making her a thing of shadows, as if she might be blown to mist if he tried to touch her. She’d taken the bond once before, for him, though he’d not known it then. Now it was his turn. He wouldn’t shirk, not from this. Not when Josie was at stake.
“There could be a way,” he said. Not that it had a hope of working, but anything to stop that look on her face, the pinch of fear around her eyes at the thought of the bond. “But it’s a pretty stupid plan. Might not even work. Probably won’t.”
That was better—the lopsided grin spread across her face, sending a shiver up his spine.
“Stupid but thrilling, I’m guessing?”
His own grin was just as wide, the familiar surge of joy and dread running his bones. “You expected anything else? You, er, might want to get some clothes on first though.”
“Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear you say. All right, Van. Looks like we’re going to blow something up.”
She moved in front of him, and this was the Josie he loved, who could go from heartbreak to laughing in a heartbeat, who showed the world her bright cutting words and her brighter sword and screw anyone who got in her way. Yet with him, her face was soft, her words softer, and they meant all the more for that. She ran a thumb over his lips, and he kissed it.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “Stop me thinking on it, on the bond, that’s your stupid plan.” She reached up on tiptoe and the kiss almost stole the last drop of his breath, almost pulled his heart through his mouth. Long and soft and full of want, aching sorrow and a searing need he’d never thought she’d show him.
“That’s why you love me, right?” he said when she pulled away, but she only smiled before she went to the grille and called to Skrymir to make sure he was still alive.
* * *
Holden stared at Ilsa, barely even saw Rillen pull his gun. The way her face had fallen when she’d seen Holden was here gave her away. He’d found the lady. Everything sounded muffled and odd as he stared.
A gun went off behind him—Tallia grappled with one of the guards and the bullet whipped past and shattered a statue. Still Holden could only stare. What had happened to Ilsa to make her do this?
Rillen raised his gun, aimed straight at his heart, and everything came at him in a rush—the noise of Tallia and the guards, her quick gasp of “Holden!”, the way Ilsa’s face changed as she looked at him, a pleading there, a need for him to understand. The gun, the black hole of the barrel pointing straight at him.
He moved as Rillen pulled the trigger, dove sideways and rolled. The bullet flashed past him and embedded itself in the chest of one of the guards. The man fell like a stone, blood washing across the tiles in a sick tide.
Tallia took the opportunity of the other guards’ sudden shock, wrested a gun from one and used the butt in the face of another. She grabbed Holden’s shoulder and pulled him to standing as Rillen strode toward them, sword out and murder on his face. He shook off Ilsa’s hand, her pleading voice, and came for Holden.
Tallia shoved a sword in Holden’s unresisting hand and leveled her stolen gun at Rillen. “One more step, and I’ll shoot you. Right in the face. You know I will.”
Rillen stopped and cocked his head. “I suppose you would. You always were a vicious bitch, Tallia. But you won’t get out of this palace alive, I promise you that.”
Tallia said nothing else, but jerked her head at Holden, indicating a close passageway.
“But Ilsa—”
“—got Van and Josie locked in those cells, ready to hang. Go on!”
Holden scrambled bli
ndly for the passage, Tallia close behind, the gun always pointing at Rillen. Holden’s last glimpse was of Ilsa, her chestnut hair shining, her new dress looking drab now against the planes of her face as they crumpled. Then they were round a corner and Tallia pulled him to a window, deep-set to keep out the harsh sun. They clambered out into a sweet-scented garden surrounded on all sides by the palace, striped with lamplight from the windows.
Sound followed them. The reception on one side, the buzz of conversation, hiccups of laughter, clinking glasses. On the other side, where they’d just come from, a low murmur, gradually rising. Rillen’s voice spiked through it, ordering, hectoring. It wouldn’t be long before the guards swarmed the palace looking for them.
“Come on,” Tallia murmured.
“Where?”
“I know a few places where they won’t look. Follow me and keep quiet.”
They slid past aromatic bushes, keeping off the gravel path. Holden wished they could still their bells, but that would be tempting fate, tempting the gods and Forn in particular. Tallia led them away from the hubbub of guards behind, at an angle to the sounds of the reception. Holden caught a glimpse through a window of a fat man on a dais, red-faced and sweating. Behind him, a sight that made him jerk to a halt with a jangle of bells.
Remorian mages, three of them, hunched and glittering mountains. Holden fancied he could smell them from here—unwashed skin, greasy hair, and the stench of the crystals themselves, of curdled magic, of power used for the sake of power. Mages had ruled his life for many years. He’d gone through so much to end their reign of terror, and here they were, bonding people again. He gripped the sword hard enough that his fingers went numb.
Tallia stopped beside him, her mouth wide as she looked inside the palace. “Those are the mages?”
Holden couldn’t find his voice, so he nodded.
“I didn’t think—they look so—” She stopped with a shiver. Holden knew just what she meant though. “Come on, it’ll do us no good to get caught out here.”
