Kiss of Steel (33 page)

Charlie’s eyes flared with anger. “You said you knew what it was like. Then how can you ask me to accept this?”

“I know more ’n you’ll ever guess,” Blade replied.

Charlie’s lip curled. “You understand nothing,” he choked out, spitting with fury. “What is there to live for?”

“The same as any man,” Blade answered. “To work, to marry, to build a family. A home.” He kept his voice cool and calm. Charlie was already overwrought, the hunger winding him to an anger fit. “Whatever you want to do with your life.”

“
I
want
to
kill
my
own
sisters!
” Charlie yelled. “Tell me you understand
that
!”

He launched off the bed, but Blade was ready for him. Wrenching him back against his chest, he hooked a forearm around the boy’s throat and held him immobile, waiting for Charlie’s struggles to cease.

Honoria was backed against the wall, her face pale as she stared at her brother. Finally she understood. Tears gleamed in her eyes.

Blade kept his gaze on her. “You want ’er blood? You think I don’t understand that?” He spun the boy around, tossing him on the bed. Charlie bounced and came up onto all fours, prepared to defend himself, his instincts working against his logic.

“I ’ad a sister once,” he said. “’Er name was Emily. And when she took up with a blue blood lord, ’e took me in too. Decided to give me ’is ‘little gift’ and then locked me up when I wouldn’t do what ’e wanted. ’E swore ’e’d give me blood when I obeyed and not before. And I swore I’d never give in.”

Pride. That was the cost of Emily’s life. Foolish, bloody pride. If he’d done as Vickers commanded, maybe Emily would still be alive.
Do
you
ever
wish
you’d done something differently?
Oh yes. God, yes.

And just as easily as that, Blade’s anger against Honoria abated. She had made a mistake and she knew it. But she’d done so with the best of intentions and with all of the resources she owned. If she’d feared him and distrusted him, then God knew he’d earned that reputation over the years.

“What happened?” Charlie asked.

“’E starved me till I weren’t meself,” Blade replied. “Emily demanded to see me and Vickers gave in.” Charlie’s eyes met his and he saw in them the horror reflected from his own face.

“So don’t tell me I don’t understand,” he said softly. “’Cos I understand better ’n any other poor blighter in London. You don’t want to ’urt your sisters? Well, that’s good. That’s ’ow we does it, then. Every time you feel the ’unger threatenin’ to overtake you, you remember your sisters. Picture ’em. Use that to control yourself.”

“Is that how you do it?” Charlie asked.

“No,” Blade replied grimly. “I use the memories instead. Somethin’ I swear you’ll never ’ave to resort to.”

He could see the boy thinking it over. Charlie might be only fourteen or so, but there was a wealth of pain and fear in those eyes, turning them old before their time.

“All right, then,” Charlie finally whispered. “Do it.”

***

Honoria couldn’t watch. She had her arms buried up to the elbows in soapy water, her mind as blank as a slate as she moved with purposeful intent.

I
want
to
kill
my
own
sisters!
The memory of Charlie’s expression was like a knife through the heart. Wrong. She’d been so wrong. All of his pain was her fault, because she could see no other way through her wrong-headed pride.

Who was she to find a cure when her father couldn’t? Who was she to make Charlie’s choices when she had no concept of his pain?

She felt at such a loss. For months she’d had purpose. To work from dawn till dusk, to scratch together every coin for the doctor, for the colloidal silver…None of it was necessary now. Blade had given her far more money than she could ever hope to spend, and now he was taking Charlie away from her too.

That wasn’t fair.

He was helping Charlie when she could not, and a part of her resented that. Pride again. She looked at her feelings, all of her ugly feelings, and pushed them away.

Right now he’d be giving Charlie his blood. Helping them again when she had given him so little in return.

She’d never met a blue blood like him. For too long all she’d seen when she looked at him was the Echelon, flavored with her own prejudices and her father’s as well. She’d not allowed herself to see more. She’d held him at arm’s length, erecting walls around her heart for fear he’d find his way through.

And now he was angry with her and justifiably so.

What a mess she had made of everything. A tear slid down her cheek. Then another. She dashed them away. She was sick of crying. It solved
nothing
. And yet she couldn’t stop the silent slide of wetness down her cheeks.

In her distraction, Honoria didn’t notice the floorboard squeak behind her.

“’E’s restin’ up now.”

She jumped and then started wiping furiously at her eyes. Soap clung to her hands.

Blade caught her wrists, his chest a solid presence against her back. “Easy now, luv. Easy. You’ll get soap in your pretty eyes.”

Honoria slumped in his grasp. Blade held her up like a puppet-master with a marionette. He slid her hands down, circling her stomach and drawing her back into the sanctuary of his arms.

“Lean on me,” he said.

Her nipples were uncomfortably tight. A different kind of tension began to wind its way through her. Honoria looked up and met his obsidian gaze in the reflection of the window.

“Is it done?” she asked.

His lashes fluttered against his cheeks as he reached out with his tongue and traced the tantalizing rim of her ear. “Aye.”

A stab of grief and failure shafted through her, but she nodded. Heat stirred behind her eyes again, and she shut them, trying to force it back. “Is Charlie all right? Does he want to see me?”

Blade hesitated, then pressed his mouth against her throat. “No.”

No
. Honoria clutched at his hands across her midriff.

“’E ain’t angry at you, luv. ’E’s afraid o’ what ’e might do. It’ll take time for ’im to trust ’imself when you or Lena are there. And I won’t push ’im to forget—it might be all as keeps ’im from killin’ someone.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“I should have come to you earlier.”

He pressed his mouth against her neck again. “Aye.” The word whispered over her skin. “But I can understand why you did as you did. It don’t matter. Nobody were ’urt or killed, and the boy’s goin’ to survive.”

Honoria turned and looked up at him, pressing her back against the sink. She wanted to make him understand. “All my life I’ve lived among the Echelon. I’ve seen how they treat their thralls, how they treat their servants. And then when I lived under Vickers’s roof…it was awful. He developed some sort of obsession with me, perhaps because he knew how much I despised him.”

Blade stroked the back of his hand down her cheek. “Aye. That’d do it. ’E’s rotten to the core.”

“He used to hunt me. Like I was prey. I was so afraid to go anywhere alone. He would never do or say anything when there were people around, but when we were alone…he used to pin me to the wall and whisper in my ear what he was going to do to me. I didn’t dare tell my father. And when we finally escaped, it felt like I was done with them for good. Until you sent for me that night.”

“And you thought you were ’bout to be toyed with again.”

“It’s all I knew of them. And with your reputation…They hate you in the city. You’re the monster hiding under the bed, Blade.”

He took a step toward her, his legs brushing against her skirts. “And you. What am I to you?”

She looked up into his face helplessly. His hands came to rest on the sink on either side of her hips. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m still trying to work out what I feel.” She saw his face and grabbed his sleeve as he moved to step back. “You wanted the truth between us? I’m sorry, then, but this is how I feel. I’m so confused. There’s been so much going on with Charlie, and losing my employment and then…you. You’re not who I thought you were.”

Blade didn’t like that, she saw. Her fingers tightened on his sleeve, the only thing keeping him from stepping away.

“I do know this, though…” She swallowed, toying with the lapel of his shirt. “I would like to kiss you. Again.” The words were a bare whisper, breathed into the heated atmosphere between them.

His gaze shot to hers. “I ain’t stoppin’ you.”

She’d hurt him with her revelation. Slowly she stroked the edge of his sleeve, drawing closer. Pressing both hands against his chest, she reached up and brushed her mouth against his.

Blade held himself stiffly, his arms straight and his fists clenched. Honoria trailed her tongue across his closed mouth, tasting him the way he had done to her in the past. He didn’t fight her. Nor did he help her. She drew back. Blade’s eyelashes flickered against his cheeks and then he met her gaze. His eyes were as black as Hades and twice as hot. In them she saw everything that he refused to tell her. Her heart thumped hard in her chest, and this time it was her who almost stepped away.

Blade’s hands came up and cupped her face, the thumbs stroking across her cheeks. His gaze followed the movement as though he were captivated by the silky feel of her skin. “I can’t control meself with you,” he said hoarsely.

A muffled groan came from his throat. His hands were shaking as though he fought to contain himself. She pressed closer, rubbing her sensitive breasts against his chest and sucking his bottom lip between hers.

His hands came up and captured her face between them. “Damn you,” he cursed. And then he took her mouth in a blistering kiss.

Chapter 20

Fog clung to the chimneys of London like a heavy skirt, obscuring the world and drawing silence down upon her like a weight. The moon was a thin sliver, like a blue blood’s smile. Lena pushed open the window and slipped out onto the edge of the roof. This was her private place, the only place in their cramped quarters where she could go without stumbling over somebody else.

A faint whisper sounded above. Lena froze. The hair on the back of her neck rose, and she slowly looked over her shoulder.

The man kneeling on the roof above was enormous. His shaggy hair brushed against his collar, and his eyes gleamed an odd amber color in the moonlight. Dark, coarse stubble covered his jaw, highlighting the blade-sharp cheekbones. Certainly not a handsome man, by her standards, and yet a heated flush went through her at the sight of him. So big, so coarsely put together, all heavy muscles and thick sinew. His shirt could barely contain the thick bulk of his trapezius or the breadth of his forearms. A glint of silver shone at his throat, a winking piece of silver shaped like a tooth or a claw. The verwulfen.

Lena found her feet, measuring the distance between the windowsill and herself. Her heartbeat pulsed in her throat like the rapid tick of the clockwork soldier she’d made for Charlie.

“You wouldn’t make it in time,” he said and jumped down to the edge of the gable, barely three feet from her. As he straightened, his eyes narrowed. “And if you couldn’t avoid
me
, then you couldn’t avoid
it
either. Are you stupid, girl, to come out here with the creature on the loose? Or just wantin’ to die?”

Lena gaped at him. How dare he? Before she opened her mouth to retort, however, his words penetrated. “Creature? What creature?”

Two bodies, lying in the streets. The chill at her spine grew, spreading across her lower back, and she looked around as though sudden eyes had settled on her from the shadows.

The man stared at her. His gaze was bold, as though he had no inkling of the rules of polite society. “You didn’t know. The bloody fool didn’t tell you.”

He could only be speaking of Honoria. Lena bristled. Though she might fight with her sister at times, she’d be damned if anyone else could disparage her. “If she didn’t tell me, she must have had good reason for it. And both of us have had a lot on our minds these last few days.” She actually took a step forward, glaring at him. “What creature are you referring to, wolf-boy? The one that killed those two men?”

His shoulders stiffened. “Me name’s Will. Not wolf-boy. And I were talkin’ ’bout a vampire.”

Lena froze. All thoughts of taunting him faded. “A vampire? That’s impossible.”

“Believe me, it ain’t,” he said in a dry voice. “’Alf tore me apart just a night ago.”

“But…” How? The Echelon strictly monitored its members. “It must be an unregistered rogue.”

He rested his hand against the side of the building. The loose sleeve of his shirt slid down, revealing a heavily muscled forearm. For a moment Lena was distracted by his bronzed skin. Then she flushed. He was obviously uncouth, with his loose, dirt-grimed shirt and the ragged mess of his hair. She’d grown up among the vibrant, butterfly-like colors of the Echelon, where every man wore his nails short and manicured and his boots buffed within an inch of his life. She was used to pale skin and padded shoulders, not this raw, virile youth whose body was almost obscenely rippling with muscle. A hulking farm boy. Or a Viking in disguise.