Brimstone Seduction (10 page)

From her arms, he slid his hand over each leg, torturing himself at the tremble of her thighs and the seduction of silk in the V between them. But he devoted himself to giving her his heat without demanding anything in return. No more intimacy than this. She would be cradled in his arms and accept the heat of his touch and him. The pleasure of nearly innocent exploration was a test for his control.

Noting how her nipples peaked the silk of her top wasn't innocent, nor was his swelling erection.

But he ignored his ache to tend to her. She trembled in his arms. She warmed. She relaxed.

He brushed his hand against her face, and she sighed. She leaned into his palm. She didn't stop him when he moved his hand to her bared neck. She only opened her eyes and watched through her lashes as he slid his fingers from her neck to her chest, where he spread them between the fullness of her breasts.

Her heartbeat was rapid but steady.

Not frozen.

Not anymore.

His Brimstone was a blessing for just this night. He was no daemon. But he was also no saint. He lightly teased his palm over and under one heavy breast, and she gasped, but she didn't pull away. He tested the weight of her in his hand, but only for a moment before he slid his palm to her stomach.

There, beneath her ribs, she was still far too cold.

He gathered her closer. He pressed his hand tight. He willed his heat into her. He wasn't afraid. His fear had been burned away long ago, but he was suddenly desperate to warm her.

“You're safe,” he said. As he held her and healed her, he would have accepted eternal torment rather than let anything hurt her. He would hurt her. One day soon. He would betray her. But he held her now and helped her. He gave her all, if only for a few moments.

“That's a lie, but I'll risk it. I don't want to freeze to death,” Kat said.

Too soon, but not soon enough, she flushed in his arms. He sensed when her body temperature was closer to normal. Her shivers stopped. She sighed.

“Is l'Opéra Severne haunted?” she asked against his shoulder.

“No. There are no ghosts here that I've ever seen, and I've walked these halls a long time. There are only souls doomed to a limbo even the damned don't deserve,” he replied.

“The walls...the murals,” she said. She no longer shivered from the cold, but she did shudder as she comprehended one of the opera house's darkest secrets.

“Don't look. Don't touch. There's nothing you can do for them. This is a war that began before you were born. Before I was born. They're casualties of war. Gone but never forgotten,” Severne said.

“They're suffering,” Kat said.

She trembled now. His body felt every subtle reaction to his touch. She was no longer cold. She didn't need his Brimstone heat. There were other needs shifting into focus.

* * *

She was warm now.

His body beneath her hands was a living furnace. Her shivers had stopped, but she still trembled. Severne was back in his workout shorts. His black hair was damp against his forehead. His muscles beneath her fingers were honed and hard.

She tilted her chin to look up at his face. His cheeks were flushed from exertion, from Brimstone, but also, maybe, from her touch? He'd shielded her from the door with his body. Grim had crouched down, warily watching the hall, but silent now. The icy threat had been burned away by Severne's fire.

It was momentary. This truce. This shelter. This shield. But she gave in to appreciation anyway.

Kat lifted her hand from his chest to his face. Such a perfectly chiseled cheek and jaw. No softness. Had immortality worn it away or had he been nothing but hard and harsh from birth? Yet...he tilted down. He leaned over her. He cradled her body in his arms. How could she not take advantage of the curve in his spine? She rose on tiptoe before he knew what she intended. That had to be the explanation for why he allowed it. First she pressed her lips to his hard jaw, and then it was only a whisper of movement to taste his mouth. Sweet, salty, smoky skin. Full, firm, slightly open lips. Once. Twice. She brushed her mouth against his. Again, then deeper again.

He sighed, but it was an exhalation of protest. More like a moan. As if her hesitant lips hurt him. Still, he sank into her. He met her hesitation with the sudden dip of his tongue. It was a stolen moment. He pulled back from her too soon. Never really softened. Tasted but not fully touched. At least, not for long enough to last.

“Don't be grateful. I don't deserve it,” he said. “Grim, show us the way.”

He took her hand and pulled her out the door. The way was shadowy and long. At times she thought they were no longer in the opera house at all. There was a strong scent of crushed pine needles beneath their feet and the rush of cold air from a coniferous forest at night. There was the soft nip of snow, warm compared to the ice she'd felt before.

But Grim responded to Severne's commands. Stop. Go. Run.

Finally, after a long journey, much longer than if they'd taken the normal route, they stood at the door to her room. The corridor was blissfully too dark for her to see the faces.

“We'll guard your door until morning,” Severne promised. “I said you were safe, but you aren't. You're in danger. Never more so than when you willingly step into my arms.”

“I'm not cold anymore,” she responded.

He watched as she stepped into her room. She slowly, slowly shut the door against him. She leaned into the wood, feeling his heat from the other side.

He said she was in danger. But she was warm again.

In many ways, she felt warm for the first time.

Chapter 12

K
at huddled over a steaming cup of chamomile tea, neither soothed nor warmed as much as she'd hoped to be by the cozy brew. She'd left the letters in the cabinet, abandoned, because of the shadow. In the light of day, her retreat would have seemed ludicrous if not for the deep ache of chilled marrow in her bones.

She couldn't go back to the room during the day, when the whole opera house was full of people bustling in the halls. She had no legitimate reason to have and use the key in her pocket. Did she dare go back at midnight?

She wasn't sure she'd survive another brush with the shadow's frigid wings.

Kat couldn't seek out Severne's heat. Not when he'd warned her away. The tea was a meager substitute. Her fingers wrapped around the cup, almost as if to keep themselves from seeking more dangerous things.

She couldn't retrieve the letters. She couldn't approach Severne, but what of Sybil? The costume matron had a ring of keys at her waist like a housekeeper from a hundred years ago. She must have been in all the dressing rooms a thousand times.

A thousand times a thousand?

She remembered Severne's confession and just like that, the hot tea on her lips was a reminder of Severne's much hotter mouth. A rapidly cooling reminder that wasn't helping at all.

She rose, abandoning the useless tea.

Sybil might have seen the shadow. She might have felt its chill. Maybe she could shed some light on Katherine's dilemma. Though as Kat left her room to seek out the woman she'd seen only in candlelight, finding illumination at l'Opéra Severne seemed an impossible quest.

* * *

Several technicians directed her down a winding spiral staircase beneath the main stage. It led to a hushed space with a cramped, low ceiling and bare bulbs sparsely placed along a long hall. When she thought she couldn't stand the claustrophobic confines of the long wooden tunnel any longer, the hallway led out from under the stage and opened up into a much more cavernous room.

Double doors sat across from her—seven-foot-tall wooden doors with heavy iron fittings and a closed-to-all-intruders feel that made her hesitate to approach. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath of dusty, stale air and walked up to them anyway.

She reached for the latch and creaked one door open enough to slip inside. Her chest expanded when she saw the interior of the room stretched out impossibly deep before her. The room was lined from the double doors to the distant shadows with racks of textiles. Three layers of racks with the topmost ones accessible only by rolling ladders like those she'd seen in the opera house office. Several ladders had been left waiting should they need to be used. They were crafted of scrolled iron like the staircase she'd used to reach this level.

Suits, dresses, petticoats and hats. Her eyes strained to widen and focus enough to perceive the entirety of contents on the racks. Cloaks, gowns and crowns. She saw everything and nothing because it was a mass of structured confusion, a whole conglomeration of separate parts pressed together in rows that couldn't be distinguished from each other. Feathers, silk, satin, poplin, crepe, muslin, wool, cotton, batiste, calico, brocade, lace...and she knew who must be in charge of it all.

Suddenly
costume matron
didn't seem like a pretentious title.

Kat's eyes were dazzled and her senses dizzied by the riot around her. She stepped forward between the towering rows, an Alice in a dark wonderland of make-believe as colorful as any fantasy garden, but blanketed in shadows.

Polished boards protested under her feet, and far above her head, the rafters also evidenced the crowd of performers passing to and fro upstairs. The racks seemed never-ending. They disappeared in a blur of unlit recesses she couldn't quite see.

Mephistopheles loomed beyond a far row of costumes. She could see his ram-like horns and his arched brows. The warehouse wasn't only for costumes. It held a props town of discarded giants. They created gruesome shadows in the distance. She didn't head that way. The great devil's head with its grinning maw repelled her.

Instead she chose a path down the costume rows. The only illumination came from a distant source of light she couldn't see. It wasn't bright enough. She began to hope a helpful caterpillar would show up in a cloud of smoke to help her with tricky questions that might ultimately reveal her way.

“What exactly have you come looking for?” Sybil's voice came from behind a long row of red coats with tarnished brass buttons. Her voice came from high and then low as she climbed down a ladder and wheeled it into sight.

Somehow she'd expected the costume matron to be as hard to deal with as Alice's caterpillar.

“I'm not sure,” Katherine said.

How did she ask about threatening shadows on the walls? The question was ridiculous now as she faced a woman who lived and worked in these shadows every day.

“I wondered when you'd find your way here. Most of the women and even the men have already chosen. Only a few stragglers haven't been here, and they'll be left with moth-eaten rejects,” Sybil said.

She came into the light wearing another old-fashioned dress with a nipped waist and full skirts. This time she had her pincushion on a strap around her wrist and a measuring tape draped around her neck like a jaunty scarf in addition to the jangle of her keys.

Her mention of moths was a joke. In spite of the age of the collection around her, Kat would bet there wasn't a moth nibble to be found in the whole warehouse. With Sybil on guard, they wouldn't dare.

“I saved something for you. Eric insisted and I agreed,” Sybil said. She smiled, and it was a
Mona Lisa
tilt of her lips.

“Thank you. Tess said I should ask you about a costume for the masquerade, but I've been busy with other things,” Kat said.

She followed as the other woman wordlessly nodded and led the way down one packed row. Instead of ending in darkness, this row curved into a well-lit alcove where an old theater ghost light had been left burning. She'd seen its light from a distance before. She wasn't surprised that one large globe was the only light in the warehouse. It was fitting. Sybil wasn't afraid of shadows. It also amused her to see that the dust motes that swirled in the glow of the light resembled smoke. Sybil was no caterpillar in wonderland, but she was as confounding. The ghost light's glow revealed a ball gown that was out of place among the old costumes.

Constructed of delicate, uneven layers of ivory tulle and white satin, the voluminous skirts were more modern than vintage, an almost sculptural masterpiece. Above the skirts that had been calculated to be jagged—a fairy-tale dress, but one with dark Gothic edges—there was a gossamer bodice constructed of thousands of tiny, clear gems.

The gown was perfect for a masquerade at l'Opéra Severne.

Kat wasn't sure if she was bold enough to wear it.

To wear this dress would be to embrace the very things she should have been resisting—Severne, mysterious shadows, daemon desires.

When Sybil lifted the dress from its form, which was eerie in its mimicry of Katherine's own figure, the fabric shimmered in the ghost light like a candle's soft champagne glow come to life. The fluttering edges of fabric as Kat took the dress in her hands mimicked flickering flame.

“Severne will be all in black, of course. Unrelieved as usual. I admit I had that in mind when I designed this dress for you,” Sybil said.

“You made this for me?” Katherine asked.

“For you,” Sybil said. “From the day you arrived.”

“That's impossible. A gown like this would take months to construct...” Kat protested.

Sybil turned fully toward her. She'd been hidden behind the folds of dress, but now she was illuminated by the ghost light's bulb. Kat felt it only then. The burn of Brimstone. Dim, banked, a fire that had been allowed to turn to ash, but definitely there. Beneath Sybil's beautiful skin, far less lined than it should have been if she'd served as costume matron of l'Opéra Severne as long as it seemed.

Kat stepped back. The dress was no shield between them. The light of it no protection from Sybil's darkness.

“Don't be afraid. You have nothing to fear...from me,” Sybil said.

“But from others? From icy shadows? From Severne?” Kat asked.

“Much to fear from those things. Much to face. But you can do it. Eric told me how you saved him,” Sybil said.

“His mother died,” Katherine said.

“She isn't dead. You can still save her. And all the others,” Sybil said.

“But Severne...” Kat began.

“Fear him. Definitely. You are a pleasure to him, and he cuts pleasure from his life, ruthlessly. No quarter given even if it causes him pain. Especially if it causes him pain. He's determined to be damned, you see. It's his price to pay. His personal penance. He believes in redemption only for others. Not for himself.”

“Daemons can't be trusted,” Kat said.

“Never. You've taken the ball gown I designed for you, Katherine D'Arcy. I have sewn it with my own hands. You owe me something in trade. I will tell you when it's time to pay,” Sybil said.

Her words rang out with a formality Katherine recognized. The moment stilled and crystalized just as back in Savannah, when John Severne had traded her cello for Eric. She couldn't move. She couldn't drop the dress. She suspected it would cling to her fingers like a glistening spider web even if she could force her digits to open and release it. She'd made another agreement with Brimstone blood. It was too late to reject the dress. Her heart had accepted it. Her skin already flushed against the tickle of tulle and satin. The bejeweled bodice might as well already cup her breasts. It would fit her perfectly.

The costume matron had the experience of immortal eyes.

“There's always a price to be paid,” Katherine said.

She was as she had been in Savannah, under the influence of a daemon bargain she hadn't meant to accept.

“Please feel free to explore for shoes or accessories. I must see to Eric before nightfall. He wanders around the opera house more than he should,” Sybil said.

“Would Grim bother the boy?” Kat managed to ask. Sybil had taken the dress from her hands and placed the gown back on the dress form while Kat still struggled to make her body respond to her will.

“No. I don't think the hound would harm him. He's in no danger...from Grim,” Sybil said. The new knowledge Kat had gained about the costume matron's daemonic nature made every word from her mouth seem mysterious and vague. But the daemon woman covered the dress she'd made for Kat with a sheet using regular, unhurried movements, taking care of business as usual before she nodded a goodbye.

Kat watched her leave until only a rattle of keys in the distance proved she'd been there in the first place.

She was left in the warehouse.

Alone.

The sheet-draped figure was almost sentient beside her. It stood, keeping the secret of what Sybil might want in exchange for its Gothic beauty in the future. It took several more long minutes before she could breathe normally. Before she could move.

Kat backed away. She didn't turn off the ghost light. It was the only illumination she had. She didn't intend to search the gloomy warehouse for shoes with Sybil gone. The discovery that the costume matron was a daemon with hidden motives and desires had given the warehouse a creepier atmosphere. Now its shadowy depths were threatening, the looming props more grotesque. Mephistopheles grinned and seemed all-knowing as if the giant papier-mâché devil had foretold the surprise of Sybil's nature and enjoyed Katherine being trapped into another bargain she hadn't intentionally sought.

But as she made her way back down the aisle, footsteps interrupted her progress. They were slow, measured and unhurried.

Someone else was in the warehouse.

Probably another performer who had been encouraged to look for accouterments for the masquerade or a technician who had come to hunt for a replacement for a prop that had failed. Definitely not dress forms or papier-mâché come to life to intercept her retreat.

Kat stopped and turned to confront whoever or whatever controlled the steps that approached.

Somehow, a few seconds of waiting told her heart who the other person in the warehouse would be.

John Severne came out from the shadows surrounding the jumbled props town. He wasn't in workout clothes or a suit. He wore jeans and a faded T-shirt, form-fitting but more casual on him than she'd previously seen. He looked dusty, ordinary and too approachable. His approachability was far more frightening than a shuffling dress form or an animated prop with evil intentions would have been.

“I heard Sybil leave. Did she give you a key?” Severne asked.

The only key she had was hidden in her pocket. She didn't want to admit the key to Victoria's dressing room was still in her possession.

“She wouldn't lock us in,” Kat said.

“Wouldn't she? Sybil often has her own agenda,” Severne said. He seemed intrigued. Maybe amused. But not alarmed.

She hurried to the doors she'd opened to enter the warehouse. They were shut tight. When she tried the handle, it wouldn't budge beneath her fingers.

“I'm supposed to be looking for shoes,” she told the door. She almost hated to turn around and face Severne, though she could tell he had walked up behind her.

“I'm sure someone will come down to let us out soon,” he said.

Locked in a deserted warehouse with an approachable Severne. Kat tried to breathe normally. She willed her heartbeat to calm. It wasn't claustrophobia or panic. It was anticipation. Okay, maybe a little bit of panic.

She turned to face him. Better late than never. She was cautious, but she was no coward. In fact, just like the night when he'd come to her with her cello in Savannah, she felt an adrenaline response to being near him when she shouldn't have been. Being trapped near him was a whole other level of temptation. She couldn't flee, so why not enjoy the fall?