Shadowdance (28 page)

T
oo long. Jack did not want to think about how much time had passed since Mary’s heart had last pumped. Shit, piss, and fuck. How long could a GIM survive this way? Panic surged. His muscles burned from running and now from paddling the small skiff he’d nicked from an irate wharfman. Mary lolled about in the bottom of the little boat, unmoving, not breathing.

“Shit!” He plunged the oars in as fast as he could.

Lucien’s barge loomed up before him.

“Oy!” he shouted toward it. “Stone! Get out here now.”

The skiff slammed into the side of the barge just as Lucien’s scowling face appeared over the rail. His expression swiftly changed to alarm. “Her heart isn’t running,” Lucien accused. “What the devil did you do to her?”

Jack didn’t pause to explain, nor did he give a pig’s shit when Lucien raised a brow at his nakedness as he threw Mary over his shoulder and hurried up the rickety rope ladder hanging on the side of the barge.

“Fix her.” He practically threw Mary into Lucien’s arms, making the GIM stagger. “Now!”

Lucien took off, Jack following on limbs that wobbled.

“How long?” Lucien barked, kicking open the door to his cabin.

Jack did not want to think of the time it had taken for him to run along the Victoria Embankment with Mary in his arms, nor the hellish race across the Thames.

“Too bloody long. Hell. Nearly half an hour.” His vision blurred. Impossible to come back from that.

Lucien’s lips pinched. “Christ.”

Jack blinked hard as Lucien set Mary on a massive bed and began to tear at her clothes. The bodice ripped down the middle, and with it her underclothes and corset. Honey-tipped breasts bobbled at the rough movement. Jack sucked in a sharp breath. Countless times he’d imagined what she looked like beneath her clothes. He didn’t want to find out this way. Something twisted inside him, fear, helplessness, and rage. He tamped it down and focused. Between those perfect breasts were interlocking teeth of gold that formed a sort of track the length of a handspan. The entrance to her clockwork heart.

Jack hated her vulnerability. Hated that Lucien looked upon her too.

But when the GIM began to feel along Mary’s long neck and then her belly with thorough hands, Jack snarled. He grabbed Lucien’s arm. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Lucien wrenched free with surprising ease. “I don’t have time for tantrums, shifter.” He bared his teeth as he glared. “I need to find her key.”

“Key? What bloody key?” Mary’s torso was smooth, too pale, and showed no trace of wearing a key.

“To restart her heart. She’s no longer under my command so I don’t have it anymore.” With that, Lucien went back to touching Mary, tracing the neat little half-moon that was her navel as he muttered. “It ought to be here. We all wear it close.”

Jack gnashed his teeth at the sight of Stone touching her with impunity. The desire to throw him across the room made Jack’s muscles quiver. But he could not. Mary needed the fucking GIM. Jack ran his hands through his shorn hair and locked his fingers behind his head to quell the temptation to strike.

Lucien paused for a moment, then laughed. His fingers went to the tawny peaks of her nipples, and Jack nearly howled. But the bastard stopped with a grin. “Cheeky girl,” he said fondly to Mary before turning back to Jack. “Got it.”

Jack stilled. “What? It’s on her…” Heat coursed through his body as, with a gentle curl of his finger, the GIM lifted something from the tip of Mary’s left nipple. A crystal key glinted in the lamplight. Hanging from a piercing. Like that, Jack’s cock leapt to attention.

“Shit,” he muttered, realizing that he was naked.

Lucien gave him a quick look and sneered. “Christ, man, get some clothes out of my bureau before I am ill.”

Face burning, Jack did as bidden, keeping an eye on Stone while throwing on a too-small shirt and trousers.

More precious seconds were wasted as Lucien struggled to free the tiny key from the nearly invisible hoop that attached it to Mary’s nipple. Once it was free, Lucien ran his fingertips along the golden path between Mary’s breasts. He stopped at a small section and slipped the key into a tiny keyhole.

“You might not want to look,” Lucien murmured.

Bollocks to that. Jack moved forward and grabbed Mary’s hand. It was ice-cold and corpse-stiff.

Lucien turned the key. Immediately a series of clicks went off, sounding over-loud in the room. The golden tracks separated, parting Mary’s flesh as well. Blood welled, and then an ivory length of bone appeared.

Jack had seen a number of things in his time. Had even helped Ian repair the inspector after Lane had fought the soul thief Isley. They had not prepared him for this sight. His head went light.

Mary’s sternum creaked, and then, as if they were merely gates, her ribs began to open.

“Christ almighty.” Jack swallowed hard. Through the blood and gore lay her heart, a miracle that appeared much like a human heart in shape, save it was made of gold. Thick valves attached to the arteries were of gold as well. A glass window dominated the center of the heart, showing the inside where cogs and gears sat unmoving. Just above the window was another keyhole. Lucien slid in Mary’s crystal key and turned it counterclockwise. Blue-white light flashed from the key and traveled in cracking licks of electric current along the arteries surrounding her heart.

Slowly the cogs and gears began to move. A whirling tick-tock filled the silence. The most gorgeous sound in the world. The light increased, the currents zapping outward.

Mary’s body jolted, her back bowing. Lucien moved to hold her shoulders down, but Jack was quicker. He grasped her as gently as he could but had to firm his grip as she writhed.

Lucien leaned on her hips, holding her in place as her ribs closed.

“The key,” Jack protested.

Lucien’s gaze remained on Mary. “Patience.”

Before their eyes, her chest sealed shut. A deep breath lifted her breast, and then, with a shudder of her slight frame, the crystal key was expelled from the tiny slot in the golden teeth that held her chest closed.

Jack grabbed it, lest it fall, and Lucien quirked a brow. Jack ignored him and pocketed the key. Hell if he was letting Lucien touch Mary’s breasts again. The bloom of health was spreading along Mary’s skin. Jack’s shoulders slumped, and he took what felt like his first real breath in over an hour. All he wanted to do was let his head fall to her breast and hold her tight. But she’d be waking soon.

Letting her go was hard. But he did, and with careful hands pulled the ragged edges of her chemise over her nakedness. “She’ll believe that I did this,” he said to Lucien.

Surprisingly, the GIM did not ask if it was true. Instead he studied Jack with those unnerving light-green eyes. “Then it’s best if you stay.” Lucien gave a pointed look to Jack’s stance.

Jack hadn’t realized it, but he was poised for flight, his arse already halfway off the bed. He plunked back down, and Lucien grinned outright. “That way she won’t have to hunt you down before she tears you apart.”

Jack sneered, but at that moment Mary’s eyes snapped open. Her golden gaze focused on him in terror and rage. He opened his mouth to explain, but she lurched forward. Slim hands slapped against his chest. A jolt struck him hard, resounding though his flesh and bones before hooking onto his soul with such ferocity that he felt as though it’d be ripped to shreds. Then the world simply stopped.

Jack hit the floor with a hearty thud and lay there, prone. Mary did not know how long she’d been out, only
that her body was sluggish and cold. And it was that bastard’s fault. He’d hit her, hurt her. The memory of white light flashing before her gaze confused her. He’d done something more to her. With a growl she surged forward, wanting to finish him. His soul had been in her hands for one moment before the man sitting beside Mary had separated them. Struggling to move, she realized that the same man now held her back from leaping on Jack and delivering the killing blow.

“Hold, Mary. Hold!”

Lucien. She stopped, looking around with wild fear. Lucien’s room. How?

His breath was on her cheek, the familiar scent of him calming yet confusing her more. Why was she here?

“He’s down,” Lucien said. “Now let him live, for pity’s sake.” There was laughter in his voice, and she wrenched free to glare at him.

She did not expect to see the quiet fear in Lucien’s eyes. “He saved you.” Lucien glanced at Jack on the floor. “Your heart had completely stopped. You would have died if he hadn’t brought you here.”

“He did this to me,” she rasped. A draft shivered over her skin, and she looked down to see her breasts bared. Blushing, she yanked her torn chemise closed. Although Lucien wouldn’t care; he’d never so much as bothered to look at her undressed.

Proving her point, Lucien kept his eyes on her face, studying in his unblinking way, plotting, most likely. “He said you’d believe that.”

“How can I not?” she snapped. “He attacked me.”

A rough, deep voice answered her. “It was not me.”

Mary froze at the sound of Jack’s voice coming from below. A groan rang from his broad chest as he heaved to
sit. Rubbing his head and glaring at her in weariness, Jack continued to speak. “You pack a devil of a punch, angel.”

Clutching her chemise tighter, she drew her legs under her, getting farther away from the edge of the bed, and from him. Logically, she could understand that if Jack had brought her to Lucien, he could not be the one who had hurt her. Viscerally, however, her body only remembered the utter betrayal of seeing him grin as he struck her. Jack eyed the movement and snorted. She expected one of his snide comments but he merely looked at her, his body so still that she wondered if she’d addled him with her attack.

With a sigh he leaned back on his hands as if too weak to do anything further. “He took on my appearance.” Jack’s dark brows met. “Likely to unnerve you, and hurt me.”

His expression grew stark, and a tremor racked his frame. “I thought I’d lost…” With a scowl, his mouth snapped shut, and he leapt to his feet. Such a graceful move, and one that had her flinching, despite herself. The scowl grew when he saw her reaction. “What happened?”

Mary glanced at Lucien. “A moment, if you please.”

“But of course,
chère
.” He gave her a small bow. “See me before you leave, eh?”

Jack sniffed as if something foul had been shoved under his nose, and he eyed Lucien as the man made his way out. As soon as the door clicked shut, he turned his attention back to Mary.

Awkward silence choked the air between them. Mary crossed her arms over her breasts, and Jack’s gaze stayed purposely away from her undressed state. An action that only served to emphasize it. Gathering her strength, she slowly stood, wobbling a bit as sensation rushed back into her legs.

He made an abortive move to help, but she held him off with a warning look. Jack snapped back into his guarded stance, his eyes wary as she made her way to Lucien’s wardrobe and helped herself to a dressing gown. Aware that her familiarity with Lucien’s room and his things only served to exacerbate the long-standing strain between her and Jack, she quickly tied the robe and assumed a professional manner.

“He looked just like you.” Obvious, and it sounded too much like an accusation, but she was struggling to get past the horror that she’d felt when she’d thought Jack had hit her. Part of her wanted to go to him now and simply feel his skin, just to reassure herself. She didn’t need to, though. His eyes, those lovely green eyes that shone like holly in the mellow glow of the room, were proof enough.

“Yes,” he said.

She took a breath. “That is why he got to me. I wasn’t expecting the attack.”

“I am so sorry, Mary.” His brow furrowed as he ran a tired hand along the back of his thick neck, and his shirt strained against his bicep. For the first time, Mary took in his odd attire, the too-tight shirt and too-short pants. Lucien’s clothes. Her lips twitched. Following her gaze, he swore under his breath. “I shifted to fight the bastard,” he said. “I’d have killed him if I could. For touching you.”

“You’ve no reason to be sorry, you know. It wasn’t you who attacked me.” She could acknowledge the truth now that her head had cleared. His eyes had been wrong, his voice missing the essential ingredient that made him Jack.

He shrugged absently, as if he disagreed but would let it go, then glanced at her, his gaze sharp. “Why were you there?”

Mary nibbled on her bottom lip, considering.

“Chase.” A warning.

“An agent from the Nex was in my house when I came home tonight.”

He swallowed several times before sighing. He did not appear to find the notion threatening. If anything, he appeared resigned.

“If the SOS were to find out that you were Nex, you’d be banished, Jack.” And his family would be devastated.

His fists curled and pressed into his narrow hips as he stared blindly at the corner of the room.

“Worse,” she said, “is that you’ve declared war on the Nex, and they have taken up the gauntlet.”

Jack’s expression grew fierce, lit from within by anger and frustration. “Good. There are more of them out there. The ones who… Hell.”