by Bec McMaster
Fire. Always fire.
He could not recall anything more of Marina than the scent of vodka, her plain wool gowns, and a certain grim-faced intensity as she dragged him down the gangway of a steamship.
She'd fled from something in her homeland.
His father, perhaps.
And she'd never stopped looking over her shoulder for someone.
"A man came to examine me one day when I was fifteen," he murmured. "I had the craving, though I don’t know how I got it. His name was Dr. Erasmus Cremorne. He worked with rogue blue bloods like me, he said, to help control the craving. They had a treatment program at Falkirk. Marina had signed me up for it. It was the last time I saw her.”
"I'm so sorry." Gemma's hand stilled on his arm.
And Obsidian hauled himself out of the past. The savage beast within him—the hunger—felt like it finally eased its grip upon him at the stroke of her hand. Not soothed. Never that. The proprietary urges he felt toward her only sank their claws in tighter. But he was almost certain the darkness within him would kneel at her feet and surrender itself to her, if she only kept touching him like this.
"I never knew my mother," Gemma whispered. "I always wanted to track her down and ask why she’d sold me to the Falcons. Who could do that to a little girl?"
Who indeed? He wanted to tear someone apart at the flare of rage her words wrought in him, to protect her, but the very intensity of his sudden emotions alerted him. Obsidian surfaced from the depths of the hunger through sheer will, blinking at the sudden lightness of the world around him.
What was happening to him? What was she doing to him?
Ensorceling me.
Wrapping him around her little finger, inch by inch.
Mine, whispered his darker half. Obsidian's teeth ached, his lip curling back off his right fang as his gaze dropped to her throat.
He had the sudden, insistent urge to bury his teeth in her throat and claim her. Bloodletting was an intimate thing, never to be taken by force. But he wanted it now. He wanted to crush her in his arms and bury himself in her body. The hunger rushed through him like oil thrown upon a fire, engulfing his vision until he could barely see. Only hear the throb of her pulse.
The world went black.
His cock hardened, thrusting insistently against the placket on his breeches.
"Obsidian?" Those wide eyes locked on his mouth, but he could no longer see the pretty blue depths of her irises. Only gray. The entire world around him was gray. "Do you have... fangs?"
Fangs. The thought hauled him out of the darkness. Shit. How close had he come to losing control?
Obsidian shoved away from her abruptly, turning toward the wall. It was better when she wasn't touching him, but not... not gone.
"But... how?" she whispered.
"They grew in several years after my transformation." All the better to pierce her skin with, and suckle the sweet blood from her veins. His cock flexed, and he fought the urge to turn back toward her.
"I didn't notice them before."
"They descend when I'm hungry."
"Like... an erection?"
Only Gemma could say such a thing.
Damn her for saying such a thing.
And then he could feel a soft touch on his back, fingers trailing down the muscle on the side of his spine. The hunger’s vise on his lungs choked tighter, hauling him back into dark depths—
"Don't touch me," he snapped, jerking away from her.
Her hand fell from his back.
Obsidian whirled around, pressure tightening around his chest. "I don't ever want you to touch me."
"Then what do you want from me?"
Everything. "I want to erase you from my life." He closed his eyes. "I have no memories of you, Gemma, because I asked them to remove them. I asked them to send me for conditioning after Russia. I wanted to forget you."
Her full lips parted in a gasp, the pain in her gaze imprinting itself upon him.
Then she visibly swallowed. "You tried to forget me."
"Yes."
And yet, no matter how he tried, he couldn't seem to manage it. Some tie still tethered him to her. The second he'd laid eyes upon her, the block in his head began to dissolve. Wisps of memory were coming back with every second he spent in her company. It hurt. Even now he could feel the stabbing pain of Richter's machine sliding like a needle through his eye socket.
"Do you know what I think?" Her voice roughened, her eyes flashing fire.
"What?"
"I think you couldn't forget me if you tried."
Dangerous, dangerous words. Obsidian tensed, aware of the heat suddenly filling her eyes. Challenge gleamed there as Gemma took a step toward him, the gown slipping to her waist.
She gave a little wiggle, and the skirts tumbled to a pink mess on the floor around her stockinged feet. She wasn't wearing a corset, and her damp chemise was crushed to her body, highlighting each inch of her skin. Her puckered nipples gleamed rosy through the thin white cotton,
"Oh, yes," she whispered, sliding her hands down the curve of her hips. "Do you think you can forget this?"
Their eyes met.
"Gemma," he warned.
"What's wrong?" Her fingers toyed with the hem of the shift.
"Don't you dare," he managed to rasp, taking a step back as she stepped forward.
"I'm testing a theory." She dragged it up several inches, revealing her smooth thighs. Pretty pink garters tied her stockings there, and he wanted to tug them loose with his teeth.
Instantly his fangs descended again, his mouth flushed with heat.
"What sort of theory? Because this one's going to end with you flat on your back."
"I loved you," she whispered. "And while I'm not entirely certain what lies between us now, I know you're lying. Does it make it easier to say you want to forget me? Do you know what I think? I don't think you wanted to forget me at all. I think... you wanted to forget what happened on that bridge when you shot me."
"I guess we'll never know."
A hand slid up his chest as Gemma stepped forward, the very swish of her hips predatory. "There's one way to find out."
His fingers locked around her wrist. "You're playing a dangerous game. I'm not the same man I was."
If I ever was that man.
The index finger on her other hand hooked in the top of his pants as Gemma nibbled on her soft lower lip. "You still feel the same."
He held his breath as the back of her knuckles brushed against the tented suggestion in his trousers. His hips gave an involuntary thrust.
Gemma grew bolder, stroking her knuckles up his hard length. Every aspect of her face sharpened as the hunger rose. Her own eyes darkened, until the blackness spilled across her irises like the velvety sweep of midnight. She turned her hand and cupped him, squeezing hard.
"Gemma."
She was impossible.
And he wanted her so damned much.
Obsidian grabbed hold of the back of her neck and dragged her mouth toward his. Every inch of her pressed against him as she kissed him. Finally. There was no more pain, no more voices arguing in his head. Just her. The taste of her tongue as she slicked it against his, and the sensation of her cold body as he wrapped his arms around her and hauled her up.
No more time for doubt.
No time to think.
Gemma's thighs wrapped around his waist, gripping him tightly. He staggered sideways until he felt her back hit the wall. Rocking into the vise of her thighs, he captured her mouth in a punishing kiss. Do you still love me now? It hurt, pain screaming through him as his conditioning kicked in, but he couldn't stop himself, no matter how much he tried. Soft hands raked through his hair, but he didn't want soft. Her gentleness would break him.
Capturing her fingers between his, he yanked her hands over her head, pressing the backs of her wrists to the wall. The position gave him all the power between them, and yet he knew, deep in his heart, she held the upper hand somehow.
&nbs
p; Gemma bit his lip, drawing back to let him see the triumph in her eyes.
"Fine," he whispered, in a voice taut with suppressed hunger. Another searing streak of white left him swaying. "You want to fuck? You think that means anything to me? You think there's anything left? Then let's fuck...."
Gemma blew a strand of dark hair from her face, glaring up at him, her chest rising and falling with the force of her breath. "I know it means more to you than you'll admit. I know you too well, all your tells... and I'm willing to put it all on black—"
Put it all on black.... Her laughter sliced through him, her arm draped around his neck as she urged his hand forward across the green baize. "Do it," she'd whispered in his ear, nipping the fleshy lobe there. "Put it all on black, darling. I know we'll win. Together we're invincible."
He'd... forgotten about that.
Obsidian blinked his way back from the past, staring into her eyes now. The fierce challenge that gleamed in those stormy depths was irresistible. She thought she had him. She was prepared to risk everything on this one move.
The electric lash of conditioning seared him again. He slid his fingers from hers, capturing her wrists. His touch wasn't kind. And he thrust into the vee of her hips, pinning her to the wall with his hard body, almost moaning as his erection dug into her belly. A subtle shift of his hips, and then he was riding over the small nubbin between her thighs.
"Yes," Gemma gasped, tilting her throat back and revealing the slim column there. The pulse thumping beside it.
Heat filled his mouth, his lip curling as the sound of her heartbeat began to overwhelm him.
Then he could no longer deny himself. He bit her. There. Teeth sinking into soft skin as she gasped and jerked and ground herself against him. He wanted her hot blood in his mouth, but if he took that step he didn't think he could come back from it. He kept his bite light enough to sting, not deep enough to penetrate.
Gemma cried out, as if the sensation lashed through her.
The scent of her arousal drove him wild. He wasn't thinking anymore. Pain came in surges, whiteness blinding him again and again. But the sensation of her body began to sink through, to penetrate the oblivion. Obsidian yanked her shift up in a crumpled mess about her hips, cupping her between the legs and earning a sharp inhale from her. "This doesn't change a damned thing. And maybe you're willing to put it all on black, but you're not the only one who can take risks here."
"I remember the first time you took me." She gasped as he rubbed the heel of his palm against her pussy, and then began to stroke her through her drawers. Gemma bit her lip as he worked her. "I remember making love—"
"You were my enemy," he snarled, working his fingers through her drawers and shoving two of them inside her. Hot, wet heat enveloped him, making him shudder for a second. He forced the weakness away as he curled his fingers, stroking her inside. "You seduced me because you wanted to destroy me. And all we ever did was fuck."
Shocked eyes met his, her body clenching around him as he brutally crushed his thumb against her clit and began to work her there.
"Prove it," she said.
Gemma writhed, and he took immense pleasure in the unmasked emotions that ruined her pretty face. She couldn't hide how much she wanted him now. Nor could she pretend he wasn't working her body like a well-oiled machine.
"Prove that"—a gasp—"all I ever meant to you was this."
Fine. His mind went hot with incandescent rage. Thrusting his fingers inside her, again and again, he wrung every last little gasp from her lying lips. "I hate you."
Her poisonous body tightened around his fingers as he brought her to the edge. "I hate every lying word that leaves those pretty lips. Every memory I have of you is poison."
Wide eyes locked on his, her fleshy lip locked between her teeth as she stifled a moan. No, you don't, said those eyes, and then he was pushing her over the edge, burying his face against her throat to hide from the truth as she screamed with pleasure.
She couldn't fake this.
And nor could he.
His heart pounded in his chest as her body milked his fingers, a spasm running all the way through her. She was gasping in air, all her weight pulling against the hand that pinned her wrists to the wall and her chest heaving against his, those soft curves melting against his hard frame. Slowly her head fell forward, her breath stirring the hair beside his ear. The pain in his head was endless—he bit down on the leather strap, screaming through a hoarse throat as waves of electric current ran through him—but he was also tearing her drawers away from her, drowning in the scent of her hot arousal. Forcing the here and now to sweep the past from his memories. He wanted oblivion, but as he cast her drawers aside, he hesitated.
Oblivion came at a price.
"Do it," Gemma breathed as he looked down and met her devilish eyes.
A price he needed to pay....
Turning and thrusting her forward over the table, Obsidian shoved the shift up over her hips and freed his aching cock from the button flap on his trousers. He could have taken her then, but something in him demanded more. He slid a hand up the curve of her spine, pinning her flat to the table even as he drove a knee between her thighs.
"Is this what you want, curse you?"
And she laughed, damn her, the sound vibrating through her back. Her voice came out husky in reply. "I always did like it a little bit rough...."
Curse her.
He found her slick wetness, rubbing the crown of his cock through it. Blood and mercy, he was dying with want of a fuck. Needed to be within her. Now.
Obsidian thrust.
Hard and deep, filling her to the hilt. Gemma gasped, tight inner muscles clamping around him as he slid his hand up her back and dug his fingers into the soft muscle just under her scalp. Her face was turned, her cheek pressed to the table. He drew back and slammed within her again, tearing a soft cry from her lips and a shudder from the table. Its legs squealed over the floor, his hips slamming into the soft flesh of her bottom. The ripple of impact drove across her thigh, and he dug his fingers into the curve of her ass. He took her with animalistic passion, driving in and out of her until she was crying out, her fingers curling helplessly across the table varnish. Pleasure choked her as she screamed.
The table hit the wall, and suddenly it couldn't go any further. Obsidian drove himself inside her, the hunger flooding through him, roaring his claim upon her as he marked it on her flesh.
"It means nothing," he said hoarsely. "You mean nothing." Another hard thrust.
Gemma clenched her inner muscles.
He drove into her once more. Twice. A hot hand gripped him by the balls as orgasm exploded through him. Biting his lip, he threw his head back and pumped his pleasure inside her until he collapsed over her wilted body, drained of everything.
No more pain.
Just her. Just pleasure, twitching through his cock.
"Oh, my God," Gemma panted, her body flinching with aftershock.
Utterly spent, he wilted over her, the weight of his body crushing her to the table. Gemma gasped for breath beneath him, and he realized his weight was too heavy. Somehow he pushed away an inch, his biceps flexing. He withdrew from her body, his cock bobbing in the cold. It was almost like being plunged under icy water; the shock of it left him bereft.
Her stockinged feet hit the floor and her knees almost buckled. He captured her in his arms, half turning her. She shook like a newborn foal.
"I didn't hurt you?"
Gemma grabbed a fistful of his hair and kissed him again, softly this time. Not so much to mark his flesh, but to steal his soul.
He had to get away from her before it was too late.
Gemma staggered against the table as he let her go, her thighs slick with his seed and her shift caressing the full white globes of her breasts. Her knees quivered as she met his gaze with wide-eyed shock.
He wanted to take her again. Rut his way into her, throw her down on the bed and sink his fangs within her flesh until sh
e screamed his name.
"Who's lying now?" Gemma whispered, as if she saw it all in his eyes.
"I assume that would be you," he grated out between his teeth as he stepped way from her, hastily buttoning himself back up. "It's always been you."
Her knowing eyes locked on him, as if she could see right through him.
And suddenly he couldn't stay here in the room with her. Obsidian strode toward the door, slamming it shut behind him.
Then he collapsed against the wood, his hands shaking and his stomach twisting with nausea, a sign he'd pushed the conditioning too far.
Who's lying now?
Indeed.
Obsidian lowered his hands away from his face, knowing he was about to collapse. Somehow he pushed away from the door—heading anywhere, as long as it was away from her—his heart thundering in his chest.
There would be no coming back from this.
Chapter 14
After several long, fruitless days, the tracking beacon finally ignited just as Ingrid and Byrnes crossed into Clerkenwell territory one evening.
Ingrid gasped as she felt the device pulse inside the pocket of her coat. "Byrnes!"
Her husband peered over her shoulder as she tugged the device free, watching the arrow spinning madly, round and round.
Malloryn had insisted all of them be implanted with a tracking beacon when they first started working for COR. The second Gemma went missing, he'd sent the pair of them out into the streets searching for her.
The tracking device had a limit of half a mile upon it, which meant they had to be close. Gemma was nearby.
Hopefully alive.
"Got her," he said.
Ingrid met her husband's eyes. "We need to fetch Malloryn. Now."
Because she'd seen the signs of a struggle in the museum and knew someone had taken Gemma by force. Instinct propelled her forward, driving her to wade into battle immediately, but Ingrid fought it down. They had no idea what—or who—they were facing.
"I'll run and fetch the others," Byrnes said, pointing to the tracking device. "Wait here for me."
