Dangerous As Sin

by Alix Rickloff

  “If you’ll remember, it was your wife who got in the way.” She threw her legs over the bed. Stood, glaring down at him. No effort to shield her nudity. Instead she seemed to gather strength from that pose as if showing him what he was about to lose.

  He sighed, suddenly wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. Paid lip service to Morgan’s worry and moved on. If he had, he’d be inside her right now. Not hard as a rock with nothing to look forward to but a cold bed and painful frustration. “Charlotte wouldn’t have been an impediment if we hadn’t let her.”

  “This is about you.” But her words came less sure.

  “It’s about us,” he replied. “Tell me you don’t want me when I do this.” He reached up to stroke his hand over her belly.

  She stood rigid as a statue, her eyes shooting fire. “Stop.” But she made no attempt to move away.

  “Or this.” He dared more. Covered her woman’s place with his hand, his fingers gently probing, knowing immediately she wasn’t as indifferent as she wanted him to believe.

  A tremor ran through her body at his touch, but she held firm. “It’s not true,” she said, though her words held little conviction. “I never loved you.” She squeezed her eyes closed. But when she opened them again, anger fired their glittering depths. “Why don’t you just enjoy what we have? Why do you have to confuse it with emotions that no longer apply?”

  Why did he need an admission from her that they’d been more than casual lovers once? What did it matter now—so many months after? She’d made it clear that she’d not make the same mistake again. Her heart remained closed as an oyster, only her body willing to renew their relationship. And God knew he didn’t look for another wife.

  The space between them quivered as if the very room held its breath.

  “Let it be enough, Cam. Please.” A hitch in her voice as heartbreaking as a child’s plea.

  A part of him wanted to punish—to send her away from his bed and out of his room. Show her how little she meant to him. But desire raged too, his body no longer restrained by subtle diplomacy or blatant mind games.

  He pulled her into his embrace and back into his bed so that he lay between her legs, the sweet friction almost enough to end things before they even began. Her hair lay fanned against the pillow, her breasts upthrust, the dusky nipples puckered tight and completely suckable. The heat in her eyes matching the inferno boiling through him.

  He could fool himself and call it love. Or he could take it for what it was—pure lust.

  Right now, lust suited him fine.

  Morgan opened her eyes to a spill of moonlight washing across the floor. Up the walls. For a split second, she was home. Surrounded by childhood mementos, the discarded pieces of an awkward adolescence.

  A breeze curled over her bare skin, bringing with it the city smells of coal smoke, wet brick, and humanity. Church bells rang the hour of one. Awareness seeped through her dreams, and she knew where she was. Whose bed she slept in. Her hand reached for him, but came up empty. Again.

  She sat up, pushing her hair off her shoulders, wonderfully sore, the languor of lovemaking still causing every muscle to tingle with satisfaction.

  Cam sat by the window, the shutters thrown wide, the casement open. A blanket lay draped over his shoulders, but in every other way, he remained nude as a Greek god. The stern perfection of his profile edged in silver from a moon, round as a coin.

  She’d known men with that kind of self-contained confidence her whole life, but in Cam, somehow the polished elegance overlaid with the coiled animal intensity touched a chord deep within her. Taunted her with every girlish fantasy she’d ever harbored and had dashed.

  Could Scathach be wrong? Could Cam accept her—proverbial warts and all? The idea hung before her like a prize on a string. All she had to do was reach for it.

  If she dared.

  “Did it rain?” she asked, pushing the temptation away with the merest of commonplaces.

  His gaze never left the window, his eyes trained on the darkness beyond. “Aye. But the wind should blow it off by dawn.” He dragged the blanket farther up around his neck. “We’ll go back to Wapping in the morning. Try and pick up Doran’s trail from there. I want to end this. I need to end this. Soon.”

  Before she thought about it, she opened her mouth. “Which this are you referring to?”

  He turned, his face tangled in shadow and light, the gleam of his blinding blue gaze burying itself deep within the hard nugget of her heart. “Doran. You. Take your pick, Morgan.” His hands curled to fists. “I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. I don’t how much longer I want to.”

  Chapter 20

  Doran watched the man with the cool appraising eyes of a serpent. Ironic since the weasly little corporal confessed to being a member of that infamous brigade.

  Rumors of their exploits had reached even the weathered climes of northern Scotland. Touched the ears of the Amhas-draoi and been dismissed as the stuff of Duinedon spleen. But if this man, Rastus, were to be believed, they not only existed, but the annoying thorn in his side, Sinclair, had been a member as well. An assassin with a ruthless efficiency rivaling Doran’s own.

  Rastus sat across from him, anxious under Doran’s stare. He shifted on his seat, cracking his knuckles, his hands shaking. Waiting on Doran’s reaction to the explosive shell dropped in his lap.

  Doran took the last sip of ale. Placed the cup on the table. Signaled for another before turning back to his guest. “You say he lives?”

  “Aye, him and the woman both.”

  Bligh had tricked him. Somehow she’d faked her death and tracked him as far as London. Impressive, if annoying. “How do you come to know this?”

  “He hired me to follow you before you left Devonshire. And he found me again at Mrs. Cabot’s. Wanted to know where you were. What you’d been up to.”

  “And I imagine you told him, of course.”

  “Enough to keep him satisfied.”

  Doran’s eyes narrowed as he leaned forward. “So why tell me this now? If, as you say, you’re in Sinclair’s pay, revealing yourself to me would seem an imprudent move.”

  Rastus’s eyes flickered as if he was gauging the best way to answer this. Finally, he offered a cool smile. “Not if my work for the colonel might benefit yourself. You want to put the hurt on Sinclair but don’t know where to find him. I do. I’ve been following him. I can tell you where he is and what he’s up to.”

  “And you do this all out of concern for my well-being?”

  Rastus cleared his throat. “Well, if you were to reward for service, I wouldn’t be amiss at accepting a kind…word, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Rastus. I know exactly what you mean. And for the time being I’m interested enough to keep you alive and…rewarded.” Doran sat back, drumming his fingers upon the tabletop.

  “Good. Then, well, if we’ve come to an agreement, if I may be so bold, what are you goin’ to do about them?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Kill them, you mean?”

  “Oh yes, death awaits anyone who stands between me and my goal. But a quick death is too good for them. They’ve plagued me for too long—Sinclair especially. No, I want them to suffer before the end.”

  The need to hurt iced his heart over, a sadistic evil that enjoyed watching others’ pain froze out any differing voice. Every day spent in the company of Neuvarvaan strengthening the bonds and blurring the lines between the violence of the Morkoth and his own motivations. He’d even forgotten his stricture about use of the sword’s true name. What did it matter? He and the sword were one now.

  Rastus slurped down his cider. Wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Sin will be hard to kill. He’s as canny a customer as any that served.”

  “And Morgan Bligh’s abilities, though hardly a match for my own, still hold the potential for trouble.”

  “So then what?”

  “We show them what happens to those who oppose me. Sinclair suf
fered a recent bereavement, I’m told. His dear wife taken from him last spring. It would truly be a tragedy if he suffered a second such loss. And one just as close to him. A sister or brother, perhaps? Thieves abound in London’s mean streets and if they don’t kill you…” He sent a mere thread of his power, winging across the table. Let Rastus feel the sudden weakness, the nausea, the chills, the shutting down of his body. The man went deathly pale, gripping his chest, his stomach. “…if they don’t kill you, a mysterious disease can threaten at any moment.”

  Rastus’s eyes bulged as he fought for air. His hands scrabbled against the table, his nails scratching furiously at the wood, knocking silverware and plates to the floor with a crash. He reached for Doran, his lips blue, his face gray.

  With a flick of his wrist, Doran released the vile turncoat. He might appreciate his information, but he detested the ease in which Rastus gave it up.

  Rastus coughed and heaved, his face etched in lines of horror and renewed fear, his hands shaking so badly he couldn’t lift his glass to his mouth without slopping it on his vest. “What did you do?”

  “A taste only, but you’ll do exactly as I say, or suffer another such attack, and this time I shall not be so quick to ease your agony.”

  Rastus wiped a shaky hand down his gray face. “What do you want to know?”

  “I know about Bligh. Tell me about Sinclair.”

  “Getting to him won’t be easy. Sin’s as good as they come.”

  Doran smiled, let the full melding of Morkoth and Amhas-draoi show in his expression. Enjoyed the man’s shrinking reaction. “Meet someone better.”

  The rain-slicked streets teemed with as much activity as yesterday. More if that were possible. An East Indiaman—the apparent reason for this new frantic rush of energy—lay at anchor, its web of masts and lines and sails dwarfing the huddle of rooftops surrounding it.

  Morgan felt like nothing so much as a hound on the scent. She stood, hands on hips, gazing up and down the street as if Doran might emerge from the crowds swirling around her. As if finding him might just be that simple.

  Of course, it wasn’t. Her luck didn’t run that way.

  She’d known what she wanted. Known who she was. Or had until Cam had walked back into her life. Until he’d shaken every sense, feeling, emotion, and memory like a child’s kaleidoscope. Twisted the pattern of her life into something new.

  Since then, she’d been riding a runaway horse toward a cliff edge. Blindfolded.

  “Are you sure Corporal Rastus wasn’t feeding you a story? I haven’t felt anything since yesterday.”

  “I’m not sure of much anymore,” Cam confessed. “Rastus said Doran’s been moving up and down the river. But always staying within the city itself. He’s frustrated. And working on a very short fuse. Sergeant Lester was one of his own by Rastus’s telling.”

  Morgan closed her eyes. Allowed the power to well from the most secret places within her. Channeled it. Sent it forth to discover what it might.

  She didn’t have long to wait. The faint scent of mage energy clouded her head. She freed her mind. Let her unconscious tease the wheat from the chaff. Was this Doran? Some random Other who’d crossed his path? No, she recognized Doran’s powers. Saw them in her head as a twisting double rope of red and purple, though the breadth and depth of mage energy stunned her.

  “Anything?”

  She’d put Cam’s impatient presence at her elbow out of her mind. So his brusque words startled her. Opening her eyes, she pointed. “That way.”

  They followed the trail on and off for the best part of the day. Losing it for stretches. Backtracking until they caught it again. Cam let her lead, saying little. As if he’d said everything he meant to last night. Or as if he’d said too much.

  Thankful he hadn’t brought up their conversation again, she kept her own words to a minimum. It made for an extremely long, awkward afternoon. Too much left unspoken. Too much unresolved.

  By the time shadows slid long over the streets, and the sun dropped orange and red behind the church towers and chimneys, her legs ached, her mind felt like mush, and she’d decided Doran’s trail had been all flash and no substance. Too random and yet too pat. As if he knew exactly what she’d do and had led her on like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

  She sighed. “He’s gone, Cam.”

  He followed her into a nearby chop house, the heat steaming the damp from their clothes. Making her nose run. She turned her mind off to the dyspeptic looks that followed her entrance into this bastion of man. Too tired to care. And perhaps a bit interested to see how Cam would handle her.

  He never flinched. Simply followed in her wake. Fell into a chair across from her.

  She closed her hands around her coffee. Hated the sick ache of defeat shriveling her insides. “It’s long odds, but there may be someone in London who can help.”

  “An Amhas-draoi?”

  She laughed. “A librarian.”

  That caught him off guard. He lifted a brow in question.

  “Lord Delvish. He’s a friend of the family. What he doesn’t know about the old ways isn’t worth knowing. His library is immense. Bigger than my aunt’s and that’s saying something.”

  “And he lives in London?”

  “On Cheyne Walk. He’s a bit odd, but the sweetest man. I can pay him a visit. See if he has any idea why Doran would flee to London. Any ideas how to track him.”

  “You really think he’s going to be able to help?” The skepticism coming through in his voice.

  “He’s a link to Neuvarvaan. If we understand the goddess blade, we may be able to predict what Doran will do next. And why.”

  “We know why Doran’s hacking his goddamn way through the British Army. Because he’s looking to create his own personal army of Undying.”

  “Don’t snap at me. I’m grasping at straws here. He’s using the Morkoth’s dark magics to cloak his powers. And I can’t track what I can’t sense.”

  “Then if we can’t find him, we’ll have him find us. I’ll have Rastus pass the information to Doran. We’ll flush him out into the open.”

  “And if he doesn’t take the bait?”

  Cam’s eyes glittered, a ruthless smile playing over his face. “He’ll take it. He’ll not chance leaving us alive. He’s running because he’s scared, Morgan. Scared of you and me. Fear can make a man do all sorts of things he shouldn’t.” His gaze stabbed right through her, leaving her unsure if he intended a hidden meaning. Was he trying to tell her he had regretted revealing so much to her last night? That he didn’t mean it? She couldn’t tell. Wished she had the true Fey’s ability of mind-reading.

  His eyes flickered over her, flat and cold, every emotion hidden from view.

  Mayhap it was just as well she couldn’t read minds. Some things were best left unknown.

  The charred front door was their first clue. The gray-faced butler who reluctantly opened the door to them their second hint that things were far from right at the home of Lord Delvish.

  “His Lordship is not at home to visitors.”

  Morgan, being Morgan, didn’t take that as a no. Instead she oozed her way inside using three parts female flattery. One part brute Amhas-draoi force. The poor fellow didn’t stand a chance in hell.

  Once they were inside, it was more than obvious something very bad had occurred.

  As if a bomb had gone off, furniture stood askew or toppled. Books lay on the floor. Glass smashed underfoot. A rug sat curled in a corner, the dark stain seeped through to the backing an indication of why.

  Maids with red eyes and suspicious faces worked to clear the mess here and in the adjoining rooms, but it would take an army of servants to restore order to the chaos wreaked on the Delvish household.

  “A break-in and robbery at a gentleman’s home,” Cam muttered to himself.

  “Hmm?” Morgan frowned, her frightened, worried eyes scanning her surroundings.

  “I read about this in the paper a few days ago. What do you s
uppose they wanted?”

  “Who knows? Jewelry? Valuables easy to pawn?”

  “Maybe.” Cam eyed the destruction. “It looks like they broke more than they stole.”

  “So they weren’t very bright robbers.”

  The butler showed them through to the back of the house, the destruction lessening as they went, although evidence of the earlier mess could be seen in hastily patched chair legs, empty spaces on walls where pictures once hung.

  He stopped at a closed door. Beckoned them on. “His Lordship is in his library.”

  If a bomb had gone off in the rest of the house, ten such had exploded in here. A sea of ripped pages and broken-spined books covered the floor. More books lay scattered and fluttering on tabletops. Bookcases. A large oak desk.

  Cam took a step, his boot coming down on the crackle of old vellum. He bent, picking up the manuscript, his eye falling upon a jumble of indecipherable squiggles. Beautiful to look upon, but complete gibberish to his mind.

  Morgan took it from him, her face whitening as her gaze scanned the page. “A scrap of the ancient teachings by the philosopher Taog. Do you know what this is worth?”

  Cam glanced again at the artful curved writing. A headache blooming behind his eyes after only a few seconds of examination. He shook his head. “Not much in that condition.”

  Morgan’s gaze went hard as nails. “Aunt Niamh would weep if she saw this.”

  A man knelt upon the floor, sorting through a sea of ripped pages. Hearing their voices, he looked up, a tired smile crinkling his lined face. “So you’ve come at last, Morgana girl, though I’d hoped it would be sooner than this. My prophecies aren’t what they were in my youth. Time was when I could have foretold your coming to the second. Now I’m near as blind as if I’d no ability at all.” He rose slowly, the creak of his limbs almost audible. “And you’ve brought the colonel. Good to see you, my boy. You’re much better looking in person.”