by Win Hollows
“My point is, from watching you and having to take orders from you on this mission, it’s clear you don’t have it in you any longer. The Viper’s venom has run dry, if you will.”
She crossed her arms. “Is this because I don’t take pleasure in causing others harm as you do?”
“No, it’s because you hesitate to cause others harm, even when it means compromising the mission. You could have killed Eydris yesterday, but you didn’t. Instead, here we are, hoping we can get the Lance before it is safely ensconced in a British caravan headed for Russia.”
Elorie sighed. He really was spoiling the leisurely morning. “Maybe it’s as you say, and I’m just waiting for Eydris to find it so we can take it from him.”
“Then shouldn’t you let me in on that plan?”
“It is not your place to question my motives or my plans. I can promise you, I will have the spearhead in the end, no matter the methods I use to get it. Just be thankful you’ll be around to take credit as well.”
Ruben’s nostrils flared. He knew when the subject was dismissed for the moment.
He was growing bolder, questioning her like that. Elorie didn’t like it one bit. However, she wasn’t going to up and kill someone just to impress her insolent partner. He knew he was to follow her orders, but Elorie wasn’t certain for how long he would be content with that arrangement. She often wondered if Ruben’s fear of the organization and his desire for admiration within it would win out over his thirst for depravity in the end. They both knew he wasn’t on his own now because he had killed a pair of harem girls unnecessarily, causing the failure of an important mission in Hejaz two years ago.
Elorie put the thought away for another time. The sooner this mission was concluded, the better. Things would change for her once she brought the Lance of Longinus to her government. Maybe the axe hanging above her head would disappear.
There was no sense worrying about that now. The ruins of Cairdygyn Hold loomed up ahead, a great mass of lumpy stones teetering on the edge of a sharp bluff above the sea. Wind whipped through her hair the closer they came to the bluff, salt from the sea air stinging her eyes. The sun was bright, but it was much colder here than on the main road. She watched carefully for signs of the yellow carriage as they approached and finally saw it near one of the entrances to the stone structure. She directed Ruben to pull off the road and park the cart behind a proliferation of brambles.
They snuck along the edge of the ancient stone wall bordering the road until the ruins cast their shadow over them. The lichen-covered gray stones stood intact in places, two towers and most of the courtyard still in place. When she had been here a few weeks ago to see if the artifact might still reside here, she hadn’t explored the structures in any thoroughness because she had assumed nothing still remained in the decaying rubble. Trees hardy enough to survive the briny air grew up out of the stone, green buds beginning to show on some.
Elorie whispered to Ruben as they crept along the wall. “No contact. We watch until I say otherwise.”
Ruben nodded.
She motioned to split up, directing him to go through the entrance closest to them while she kept going. Ruben disappeared behind the rocks as Elorie moved forward, rounding a corner. She found another portion of wall that had crumbled enough for her to climb over easily. Jumping down into the courtyard area, she surveyed the open area with its dried-up fountain and sculptures of unrecognizable figures now.
He wasn’t here.
Once she was sure, she made her way to the base of the West Tower. Climbing over large piles of rocks in a heavy woolen dress wasn’t the easiest of endeavors, but it didn’t take her long to reach the tall cylindrical structure. She paused to catch her breath and wipe her forehead, letting the cool breeze play with damp wisps of her hair.
Upon cautiously entering the dim tower, she took a moment to let her eyes adjust. Nothing remained in the circular space except more piles of greened stones and an intact staircase winding upward. She sighed. She had to follow it, even though she didn’t like the thought of running into anyone on the aged stairs. A push down a steep staircase lined with slick moss could kill as surely as her darts, and she didn’t particularly want to leave this world in so inglorious a way.
Muttering beneath her breath, she began to climb the slippery stairs. She was thankful she didn’t have to navigate in complete darkness as narrow windows, designed against an archer’s assault, had been built into the tower’s walls at regular intervals. Up and up they went, seeming to never end. Elorie prided herself on being in fighting form, but as she pressed on a stitch in her side, she thought she might need to change her fitness routine to include stairs because she felt like dying at the moment.
Finally, bright light up ahead and the sound of a breeze whistling through stone formations signaled the end of the dreaded things. Making sure a dart was ready at the inside curve of her wrist, she tiptoed into the sunlight, finding herself on a parapet which laid the entire world bare before her. She caught her breath, going to the edge of the chest-high wall lining the walkway between the East and West Towers. She squinted into the cold sun and shivered as the wind whipped through her frame. On one side was the endless Scottish countryside, its purple and green landscape rolling out like a velvet cape. But Elorie looked toward the other horizon in which the vast expanse of the ocean met the coast with a tumult of white-capped waves against the sharp rocks below.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a low voice said behind her.
Elorie gasped and turned to find Max leaning against the opposite wall across from her. His arms were crossed, and a little smile played at his lips, as relaxed as any lord smoking a cheroot at White’s.
“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I have no intention of crossing swords with you today, Viper. But I can’t resist pointing out that I’ve gotten the better of you twice now. Are you starting to warm up to me then, my lovely serpent?”
Ellie narrowed her eyes at him and adopted a similar pose. Her heart was racing, and not just from exertion or fear. “As warm as the wind in your ridiculous-looking hair, English cur.”
He frowned and reached up. “What’s wrong with—?” His hand returned to the crook of his other elbow. “You know, it doesn’t matter. What matters is we seem to be bumping into each other more than is prudent, given the nature of what we both know our mission to be, and it doesn’t seem likely that either one of us is going to raise the white flag anytime soon.”
“Yet it doesn’t really matter, does it?” she countered. “You have your orders, and I have mine. In the end, only one of us will succeed in bringing the Damarek back to our monarch.” Oh, why did he have to look so rottingly handsome, with his hair tossed about in the wind and his warm eyes glowing in a face that was just a bit too tan for the pallor of a gentleman of leisure? She knew that to the rest of the world, that was exactly what he was, yet he was anything but. He wore his shirt open at the throat instead of the traditional cravat worn by men of his social standing, and Elorie suddenly understood why English aristocracy required it of their peerage. It wasn’t seemly to want a person this badly during drawing-room conversation or all civility would be tossed aside at the crook of a finger.
“I’ve been thinking about that.” He uncrossed his arms and ankles, moving toward her.
Elorie pressed herself against the hard stone behind her, stomach quivering. Did she think he’d really harm her?
No.
For some unfathomable reason, she knew he wouldn’t take any action that would injure her. Not here, not now. His demeanor indicated all his intense focus was on her, but the look in his eyes was … hungry, not for violence, but for something else. That scared her more than if he’d been wielding a claymore, if she were honest.
He took two more steps toward her until his body towered over hers, close enough for her to feel the warmth radiating from him.
“Thinking for a change, are you?” she retorted, hiding the trembling of her hands in her sleeves
.
“Haven’t we exchanged barbs for far too long without doing anything about it?” he murmured, his full lips upturned at the corners.
She swallowed visibly. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“We both have something the other wants. Why don’t we exchange that instead of the usual withering insults?”
Was he offering her the Cairdygyn Hold records book? Would he really give up that information? Of course, what choice did she really have at this point? She hadn’t any further leads other than following him to this place. Yet— “What could you possibly want from me? You clearly have the advantage of the Cairdygyn Accounts in your possession.”
His breath fanned over her face, minty and sweet. “I do have the advantage, yes. But don’t underestimate yourself. You have something I want more than a dusty old ledger.”
Her chest thumped. “And what is that?”
His gaze roamed her face, seeming to reach down into her very soul. “A kiss. Just a kiss.”
She let out the breath she’d been holding in a rush. His words had scrambled her thoughts as her stomach swooped in frantic loops. “You’re mad. We can’t— That’s tantamount to treason.”
“Who would ever know?” he said softly, his hand coming up to thumb across her cheek.
Her breath stopped. He had never touched her before.
The callused pad of his thumb traced her cheekbone with exquisite care. “It is just you and me up here, Viper. Hang the rest of it.”
The power of speech seemed to have left her. It was her darkest fantasy come true. Eydris wanted her, and he didn’t care that the fate of nations hovered between them. A curl of hot desire twisted in her abdomen as his other arm snaked around to the small of her back. This could not be. And yet…
“Even if I wanted to, I am not for you,” she whispered, dragging her eyes away from the burning light of Max’s.
“You aren’t for anyone, least of all me,” he replied, his fingertips curling around the back of her neck. He squeezed until her eyes met his again. “You’re just a dream on a castle above the ocean, and the wind will whisk it away soon enough like it never was.”
Yearning spread through her limbs. Something in Elorie let loose, and it was as if another person spoke the words when she replied, “Then you’d better make it a good dream.”
Something wild flashed in his eyes as he pulled her against his body and brought his mouth to hers.
The heat of his body engulfed her as his knowing lips kneaded her soft flesh. Fingers threaded into the hair at her nape, and the tip of his tongue begged for entrance to her mouth.
Elorie didn’t have the willpower to deny him, opening her lips to his assault. The world fell away, and there were only the melodic thrusts of his tongue in a rhythm both primal and exquisitely sweet. There were only his arms around her, crushing her against the hard lines of his own form. She felt herself melting against him, his capable hands ridding her of any resistance to his expert kiss.
She moaned into his mouth, indulging in the way his tongue sought to tangle with her own as if claiming the taste of her. Only one thought remained, and it was a distant ringing in her ears:
What have I done?
Chapter Three
Max felt the rushing of the wind around him as a maelstrom of frenzied and incoherent thoughts while he possessed her sweet mouth.
Her moan was like music to his ears, reckless with abandonment. The feel of her, strong as iron scrollwork, and the smell of rich dark cocoa emanating from her skin, all served to make him dizzy with the desire he’d felt for her for so long.
He felt her sharp intake of breath as he pressed his pelvis against her hips. Max wanted to make her burn for him, to make her as pliable as clay in his hands. He had thought there wouldn’t be any sweetness to her, no softness beneath her armored exterior, but she was like warm honey melting into him. The biting chill had lost its sting as her warmth invaded his senses, filling him with the heady release of conquering her.
He shifted, smoothing his hand over the rough material of her peasant’s dress to cup her plump derriere. She was slim and yet abundantly curved in all the right places, fitting into him like she was made with his intentions in mind. He had dreamed of having her countless times in the secret, traitorous darkness of his own thoughts, yet the reality was far headier than he’d ever dreamed. Blood pumping in his veins caused a lightheadedness that made him dizzy with the shape of her so close. It felt as if he soared above everything around them, like nothing could touch them except the licking flames of desire that rose steadily.
The thick silk of her hair slid between his fingers as he pushed them further into her sunlit tresses and deepened the kiss. She met him eagerly, her hands clutching at his shoulders as their lips fused more tightly.
Max pulled back, lungs pumping as if he’d run the distance from Edinburgh to Cairdygyn Hold. His voice was rougher than usual as he moved his lips to the pink curve of her ear. “You’re like sunlight shining into my black soul. I want all of your warmth.”
He was pleased to note her breath was also coming in furtive gasps. “We’ll both burn.”
“Then God help me, because I can’t stop.” He pressed furious kisses along her neck, reveling in the way she arched her back at his uncontrolled ministrations. Her fingers dug into the flesh of his biceps, and what sounded like a purr came from her throat. How had he resisted her this long, the siren who was never far away, yet ever out of reach? Having her in his arms was more potent than any covert mission or night of indulgence with a local lightskirt in a foreign port.
Instead of foreign, she felt like coming home—like finally easing his muscles in that armchair by the fire or the feeling of seeing his verdantly green estate again after traveling for long months. Kissing her was the bone-deep knowledge that everything was as it should be, though he knew he’d never felt that way in his entire life.
“Lord Eydris, did you find anything up there?” a voice called, echoing from the area of the stairs.
He froze. Losif.
As he released her, an oath rang from his lips and he looked at her wide green eyes.
He saw the hesitation there.
“The book,” she demanded, not letting him leave her grip.
Max’s lips pressed together in a thin line as he let his arms drop. “In the coach under the tiger’s seat. I daresay you won’t have any trouble spotting the coach.”
The ghost of a smile lifted her lips for the briefest moment as he turned away to intercept Losif. He took a step toward the stairs just as the wheezing monk stumbled out of the stairwell. Max looked back to capture one last glance of Elorie, but she was gone. No one except himself stood on the lonely tower walkway.
It had only been a dream…
“Oh, there you are,” Losif panted. “I’ve been … looking everywhere … for you.” He put his hand on the end of the wall to steady himself.
Max tried not to let his frustration with the monk show. “Gather yourself, Losif,” he announced, clapping him on the back as the stars left his vision. Max fingered the slip of paper in his pants pocket. A single line was written on it, and he prayed it wasn’t a dead end. “We’re going to Ireland.”
He had found part of what he’d been looking for, at least. A few rooms below the keep had been left relatively intact, although heavily looted. One of the rooms he had entered was clearly a storeroom with shelves of things long since taken except for some random bottles and earthenware.
But there it was. He knew it the second his eyes alighted upon it, for there had been plenty of legend and description regarding the Damarek’s holy vessel in which it had been kept by the Catholic Church for millennia. The simple, distinctive engraved tin box holding the Damarek had been left on an upper shelf toward the back of the room, as if it had contained nothing more than a trinket bought at a Maypole street fair. Max’s heart had begun to beat a tattoo against his ribcage as he carefully lifted it from the shelf. When he had opened the latch, it was al
most an expected disappointment that had coursed through him.
It was empty, the velvet lining molded into the shape of an elongated triangle dusty and frayed at the corners of the box. As his shoulders slumped, he closed it with a sigh. The hinge stuck a bit, so he reopened it to see what the issue was. A piece of cloth was stuck between the hinge and the bottom lip of the box, causing the mechanism to not close properly. Max’s eyebrows had drawn together as he pulled it from where it was wedged in the metal.
It was a clothing label, one pinned to the sleeve cuffs of issued soldiers’ uniforms, embroidered with the soldier’s assigned unit in case he was killed in battle without any other way to identify him.
Irish Royal Army
437th Muster Station
Ulster Plantation
So it was most likely that the Protestants had taken it back to Ireland to Ulster Plantation, sometime during the Irish Royal Army’s active period. If he remembered right, that would have been in the early 1700s, at the latest. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had to go on. He had pocketed the clothing tag and come up to ground level just in time to see Elorie Lavoie disappear into the West Tower.
He couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty about stealing a kiss from her in return for a book that was now useless. It had been worth it, and with nothing lost to his mission.
As Losif wiped his brow in preparation for heading back down the stairs, Max allowed himself a secret smile. Kissing the Viper had been the most idiotic and exhilarating thing he’d ever done, and that included saving an Indian regent from a group of assassins in Kathmandu armed with only a serving fork. It couldn’t happen again, of course, but if someone had asked him if he regretted it… He thought about the ramifications for an entire second before answering the question no one would ever ask.
Not even a little bit.
He and Losif boarded a ship for Ireland the next evening. He had made for the Troon ferry as quickly as it was possible to travel over the rutted Scottish roads, but he didn’t make it in time for the daily ferry. Fortunately, he had found a local merchant whose pockets he lined in return for a berth on his cargo ship heading for Belfast. He soon learned the term “berth” was a generous one as it was just a storeroom with barrels of Scottish whiskey and a few sacks of textiles upon which to make a bed. He was thankful it was only a little over a day’s journey, so Losif only kept him awake snoring for one night.
