The Beautiful and the Cursed

by Page Morgan

“Sending her off at the crack of dawn, without a chaperone and to a man’s home, isn’t scandalous?” he roared at Gabby, refusing to meet his wife’s eyes.

  Gabby stared into her tea, which was far too milky, but her arm had jumped when her father had shouted earlier and she’d spilled in more than she preferred. Grayson had been smart enough not to come down to the dining room. The weasel had probably sneaked out altogether.

  Their butler, Gustav, entered the dining room, his hands clasped behind his back. “My lord, my lady. Monsieur Quinn to see you.”

  Gabby startled again, and this time a splash of tea crested the lip of her cup and sloshed onto her saucer. She sat with her back to the foyer entrance and heard Nolan’s footsteps as he entered. What on earth was he doing here? It was far too early to call, and Gabby hadn’t even pinned on one of her veiled hats yet. She resisted turning to face him.

  “Detective Quinn, what a surprise,” Lady Brickton said, addressing him as she had in December when Nolan had pretended to be a detective searching for Grayson.

  Her mother knew the truth now, of course, and her greeting had sounded cool.

  “I apologize for arriving at such an early hour, my lady,” Nolan said. His voice set off an unexpected craving inside Gabby. As much as he vexed her, Nolan also had a way of making Gabby want more of him.

  “I haven’t had the pleasure,” her father said from his chair. He peered at Nolan, who had moved almost directly behind Gabby. She was disturbingly aware of him, and it brought a most unwanted flush to her cheeks.

  Her mother introduced Nolan, and when she explained that he was the detective who had helped her search for Grayson, humiliation hung on her every word. Her husband had thought her a fool for making such a fuss of their son’s disappearance, and it was clear that having to thus play the fool wounded Lady Brickton’s pride to no end.

  “And Lord Fairfax is well?” Nolan inquired, using Grayson’s title with astounding propriety. No doubt he wanted to roll his eyes.

  “As well as he’ll ever be,” Gabby’s father answered, making little attempt to mask the disdain he felt for his own son. If he felt this way about Grayson now, Gabby didn’t want to imagine how it would be should he learn about his son’s demon half.

  “I apologize if my wife had you mucking about Paris trying to find the boy.”

  Her brother straightened her back and leveled her chin. It was only a matter of time before she burst. Gabby didn’t wish to be there when it happened.

  “No apology is necessary. She did nothing wrong. Any decent parent would have taken the same course of action,” Nolan replied.

  The room fell silent and Gabby’s jaw went slack. Even the footman in the corner of the dining room raised his eyebrows at Nolan’s cutting insult. No one spoke to her father that way. Before she knew what she was doing, Gabby shifted slightly in her seat and peered up at him in awe. He and Lord Brickton had become locked in an arctic glare.

  “I wanted to deliver an invitation to you personally, rather than through a messenger,” Nolan went on, as if he’d said nothing at all. “My father and I would like to request the pleasure of your family’s company at our home, Hôtel Bastian, tomorrow evening for dinner.”

  Had Gabby been eating, she would have choked. Nolan must have gone utterly mad. He wanted her father at Alliance headquarters? Gabby’s mother seemed to be having the same concerns. Her lips twitched as she started, then stopped, and then started once more to respond.

  “Oh, why … of course, that would be marvelous. Indeed, we shall come.”

  Lord Brickton said nothing but continued to stew in his chair.

  “Excellent,” Nolan said, at long last meeting Gabby’s eyes. “I know it’s early, but would you care for a stroll around the churchyard, Miss Waverly?”

  His smooth manners unsettled her—she much preferred the improper Nolan Quinn who called her lass and winked devilishly at her. Gabby folded her napkin and set it on the table, avoiding her father’s eyes, which were no doubt simmering with displeasure. She stood up, half wishing her father would bluster and refuse to allow her to leave. Once she was alone with Nolan, she’d have to explain how she’d destroyed the carcass demon. But then, staying with her parents at the breakfast table wasn’t a much better prospect.

  Gabby and Nolan left without hearing a word of objection. They stopped in the foyer to gather her cloak and gloves, but all of her hats were up in her room. She felt exposed as they walked outside onto the thin layer of crusty snow covering the drive. Nolan kept an arm’s length between them. He was silent, and when Gabby ventured a peek, she saw that his eyes were fastened on the abbey, his lips drawn into a taut line.

  He was angry.

  They were nearly to the transept doors when Nolan finally said, “It was Chelle, wasn’t it?”

  It wasn’t worth the effort it would take to feign ignorance. Gabby nodded. “You don’t know what it was like, sitting around the rectory waiting, doing nothing. I’d catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, see my face, and remember that hound … how powerless I was.” Gabby stopped at the doors while Nolan reached for the handles. “Don’t be angry with Chelle. I practically begged her to start training me.”

  “I’m not upset with her.” Nolan gestured for Gabby to enter.

  They weren’t alone in the eastern transept. A pair of workers were crouched along the aisle, scrubbing the white marble frescoes that had gone brown and yellow with age and neglect. They spared Nolan and Gabby a single glance before setting back to the delicate work of cleansing the carved robes of the portrayed saints.

  “But you’re angry with me,” she whispered as they walked toward the pulpit.

  Nolan didn’t reply. He took her by the arm and led her toward the ambulatory. Pink marble columns lined this rounded end of the abbey, creating a walkway past numerous small alcove chapels dedicated to individual saints. Nolan continued to lead Gabby deeper into the sanctuary, behind the freshly varnished choir stalls. The columns rushed past them, and Gabby’s slippers hit the tiles with echoing slaps. Finally, he jerked her to a stop underneath the great rose window, took her by the shoulders, and dragged her behind a column.

  And then he kissed her.

  It wasn’t a soft kiss, either. He backed Gabby up against the column and pinned her there, his lips hard against hers. She opened her mouth and he stole inside with a husky groan of satisfaction. Gabby tried to free her arms, longing to wind them around his neck, run her fingers through his black curls. But he held them firmly at her side.

  “You’re not angry?” she gasped when he pulled away for a breath of air.

  “Furious.” He kissed her again. Nolan released her arms and curled his own around her hips, pulling her away from the column and against him.

  “You don’t seem furious,” she whispered, eyes closed, a smile tugging at her throbbing lips.

  He held her so closely that the rumble of laughter in his chest passed to hers. “All right. I’m jealous. I wanted to be the one to train you.”

  Gabby opened her eyes. The unexpected kiss had plunged her into a swirly kind of fog.

  “But you can’t,” she said, an edge of sadness intruding. “Because your father won’t allow me to join the Alliance.” She closed her eyes. “And now I’m to dine with him so he can whisper enticing persuasions to Ingrid and Grayson so that they’ll join and wield their demon gifts for the greater good.”

  Nolan leaned his forehead against hers and sighed. “My da’s decision is final, so no, lass, you can’t join the Alliance. Not yet.” He rubbed his nose against the tip of hers. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep learning how to fight. If it’s done between us, in private, there’s no reason anyone else has to know.”

  Gabby liked how that sounded. She brought her mouth to his, kissing him first this time. She felt Nolan’s lips stretch into a smile. He captured her bottom lip with a soft nip of his teeth.

  “Do you have anything you wish to confess?” he murmured.

  Gabby drew
back, confused by his question. She followed his gaze to an old, worn confessional tucked back in the closest alcove chapel. The two connected wooden booths, one for the priest and the other for the sinner, still had their solid doors attached.

  Nolan snaked his arm around Gabby’s waist and stepped up onto the raised floor of the alcove chapel.

  “You’re wicked,” she whispered. “May I remind you that we are in a house of the Lord?”

  Nolan continued toward the confessional, pulling her with him. “And how hospitable of him. Look, he’s provided us a room of our very own.”

  He reached for the small knob on the confessional door and twisted. It swung open with a groan of its rusted hinges.

  Gabby peered into the dark booth. There was a small wooden seat inside, and a carved iron grate set in the wall. She thought of all the sins whispered through that latticed ironwork. She rose onto her toes and kissed Nolan, loving the feel of him. How he gathered her against him in that stubborn, unyielding way of his. What she felt for him wasn’t a sin.

  “If you’ll remain a gentleman?” she asked.

  Nolan swiveled on his heels and twirled her into the shadowy booth. He stepped inside the small space with her, their bodies forced even closer together. “Define gentleman,” he said, his breath already hot against her neck.

  She giggled, feeling somewhat relieved when he left the confessional door open partway.

  If she could, she’d stay tucked away like this all day. Just her and Nolan, kissing. But she’d soon be missed. If not by her mother, who kept busy most days with her gallery plans, then definitely by her father, who seemed far more idle than he ever had in London.

  “I can’t,” she said. Nolan froze. Pulled back.

  “You know me, Gabby. Of course I promise to be a gentleman,” he said, brow furrowed in earnest.

  She laughed. “Not that. My training. It’s too difficult. My father watches me constantly, and if I keep sneaking out at night, I’m bound to get caught.”

  Nolan loosened his arms from her waist. He probably hadn’t considered Gabby’s constraints. He’d never had them himself, she gathered. His father had raised him within the Alliance, after all. She bet he’d never even had a curfew.

  “Then I’ll come to you,” he answered.

  “But how?”

  “You won’t have to sneak out at night. I’ll sneak in,” he said. “We can practice in your room at the rectory.”

  “Don’t be absurd—you can’t come to my room in the middle of the night!”

  He formed a slow, arrogant smile and began to reel her back in, closer to him. “You don’t want me there?”

  The confessional booth was growing warmer by the second. “I—” She sealed her lips. She shouldn’t say yes, but of course she wanted him there. To train, she scolded herself.

  “My room is on the upper floor. How will you get in?”

  “I’ll fly him up.”

  Nolan and Gabby tore out of their embrace and turned toward the booth’s open door. Dimitrie stepped into the alcove chapel and stood just outside the confessional. How long had he been watching them? Gabby flushed.

  “My lady,” Dimitrie greeted her. “I can bring him to your window.”

  As she and Nolan spilled out of the confessional, Gabby tried to imagine Dimitrie’s scrawny frame lifting Nolan’s muscled one. Of course, Dimitrie’s body in true form was a different thing altogether.

  “Why would you do that?” she asked. Luc would never have offered to help.

  Dimitrie shrugged. “Any human willing to fight demons is an asset to the Dispossessed.”

  Gabby wanted to smile and say thank you, but she couldn’t stop remembering his pale back and the scars running the length of it like the ridges of a metal washboard. Nolan had called Dimitrie useless, but he wasn’t. He’d saved her from that appendius and had swallowed his pride by taking her to Hôtel Bastian for mercurite.

  “All right,” Nolan said. “I’ll come to the carriage house tomorrow night, after midnight.”

  “Thank you,” Gabby said quickly. Dimitrie bowed. He was so much more gracious than Luc. It was a bit disarming.

  Nolan called after Dimitrie as he stepped down out of the alcove chapel. “One more thing. Can you trace Grayson for me? I’d like to speak to him.”

  Dimitrie stilled. His fingers tensed into fists. He kept his back to Nolan, his head bowed forward. When he answered, it was through gritted teeth.

  “I prefer not to use my abilities to please the whims of humans.”

  He strode away without a look back at Nolan or Gabby. She immediately took back every kind thought she’d just had for the gargoyle.

  “He’s a bit touchy,” Nolan muttered.

  “He could have easily told you,” Gabby said.

  Dimitrie’s refusal to trace Grayson didn’t make any sense, especially since he’d practically begged to fly Nolan up to Gabby’s window, as if facilitating some preternatural rendition of Romeo and Juliet.

  “Never mind.” Nolan took Gabby’s wrist in hand and persuaded her back to his side. She liked it there, and promptly forgot Dimitrie.

  “If I’m going to be coming to your room, I suppose we won’t need this relic,” Nolan said, kicking the confessional door closed with his foot.

  Gabby jabbed a finger into his chest. “We’ll be training, not kissing.”

  He nodded and sputtered promises of good behavior. Gabby didn’t believe him for a second.

  “Why did you want to see Grayson?” she asked.

  Nolan ran his thumb across the tender underside of Gabby’s wrist. “He hasn’t told you?”

  “He doesn’t talk much lately,” Gabby said with a weary laugh. The sound caught in her throat as Nolan’s thumb coursed over her wrist again. “What happened?”

  “He shifted into a hellhound last night,” Nolan answered with stark brevity. Gabby pulled her wrist away and stared, disbelieving.

  “Chelle saw the whole thing. She said it wasn’t like before,” he went on. “He was a real hellhound. Smaller than most, but—he didn’t look human at all.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense. Why would he shift fully? He hasn’t been in the Underneath, like last time.”

  Nolan and Vander had determined that Axia must have done something to him there. Given him some sort of poison to make him shift. That was why his body had come out of the Underneath riddled with bite marks.

  “I don’t know,” Nolan said. “But, Gabby, for now, it might be best if you kept your distance.”

  She huffed, waving off his concern. “He’s my brother. He isn’t going to harm me.”

  “No doubt you’d put him in a hospital bed should he attempt to,” Nolan said as he cupped her cheek, her puffy scars against his palm.

  Gabby flinched.

  “Just be careful around him,” Nolan pressed. “And tell Ingrid as well.”

  He kissed the tip of her nose before stealing back down the ambulatory, toward the transept. Kissing in a church. In a confessional booth! Gabby should have felt sinful. Instead, the only thing clenching in her stomach was dread. How was she supposed to tell Ingrid that Grayson had fully shifted? That their brother had become even less human than before?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ingrid backed away from the fountain. The arcade entrance wasn’t far, perhaps fifty yards. She could make it if the serpent kept its sluggish pace.

  Luc. She stole a glance over her shoulder. He wasn’t there, coming for her in full battle regalia. And the glass doors seemed farther away than she remembered.

  Ingrid’s soles scuffed over the marble, a rush of desperation making her clumsy. Luc would come. Any moment he would swoop overhead, his wings like black pennants. There were no other humans here to witness him. But a second passed, and then another, and a fast look showed Axia’s pale serpent now gliding over the marble tiles, its shining scales leaving a track of fountain water in its wake.

  Where was Luc?

  Ingrid hated that she needed him
so desperately. The first moment of fear and here she was, wishing for him to fly to her rescue. She’d started going to Constantine so she could learn to defend herself. She had the power. She’d defeated this serpent before, too, sending spikes of lightning through its boneless coils.

  All she had to do was face it. Let Axia’s pet come at her. Her body would react, her lectrux blood would boil and surge all on its own, and she could make the lightning.

  Ingrid slid to an abrupt stop on the glass-and-iron floor she’d just crossed a few minutes before. It was a gamble. She tried to imagine the sparks lighting at her shoulders, tried to feel the numbing current coming down her arms. She needed to feel it.

  “Don’t fail me,” she whispered, and then spun on her heel to face the serpent.

  But the demon was gone.

  She let out a shallow breath and searched the corridor, eyes wild. A creature of that length and mass shouldn’t have been able to hide very well.

  Ingrid let her shoulders drop, the urge to run overwhelming. It wasn’t gone. The thing was still here. She could feel it.

  She took a step toward the entrance, but a strange squelching, like a sweaty palm dragging along a pane of glass, stopped her again. The sound resonated in her gums and made her cringe. It was coming from beneath her.

  She lowered her gaze slowly, but she wasn’t prepared for what she saw.

  Axia’s serpent was on the underside of the glass-and-iron floor, directly beneath her feet, stuck to the glass like a leech. How it had gotten into the underground arcade and maneuvered its way onto the stretch of ceiling wasn’t something Ingrid had to worry about for very long. Because at that moment the tip of the serpent’s tail reared back and smashed against the glass. Ingrid threw out her arms for balance as the floor shook—and then cracked.

  She sucked in a breath as the fissure in the glass carved a path between her feet, branching out in fits and bursts like the overflow of a flooded river.

  The serpent rubbed at the glass as it peeled free, curling down toward the strip of white marble floor that ran between the underground shops at least three stories below. Ingrid held still, her muscles seizing. If she shifted her weight, the weakened glass would shatter. Her lightning wouldn’t save her then. She needed Luc.