The Isis Knot (28 page)

Then William appeared trailed by a much smaller group of men. They pushed him into the circle. As he broke into the cleared center, he and the red man prowled on opposite ends, sizing each other up.

A clamor arose as the onlookers shouted wagers—coins and smokes and pairs of shoes. William was so much smaller than the red man, and the bets didn’t seem to favor him.

A knot of dread coiled in Sera’s stomach.

William circled around so his back faced her. He grabbed his shirt at the neck and pulled it forward over his head. His skin glowed almost crimson from the sun. Whatever hits he took would sting like a bitch. And yet, when he snapped his suspenders on his bared chest, he didn’t even flinch. He threw his head from side to side, loosening up. The dangling lanterns tossed hazy light over the tight muscles in his back. He kicked off his boots and turned one over, emptying the coin he’d palmed in Waldgrave’s into his hand. He flicked it into the mud and the red man matched it.

The fighters began to dance around the edge of the circle. As William moved his face finally came into view, and his eyes positively glowed. All that sour energy he’d given off at Waldgrave’s last night and tonight was gone, channeled into raised arms and tight fists and…was that a grin?

Supporters of both sides raised their voices, chanting for them to
fucking fight already!

The red man lunged first, a barrel rumbling downhill. William lifted on the balls of his feet. His arm flung out, precise and powerful, his fist slamming the red man in the face. William’s modest group of followers cheered and waved their bets, but were quickly silenced by the larger contingent as the red man recovered with a snap and smashed his hand into William’s cheek.

Sera hissed and winced away, her hands finding the corner of a building, her nails grinding into the sandstone. Then her eyes flipped up and her vision, to her surprise and very much against her will, narrowed to a tunnel. Bloodlust streamed down the tube, aimed at the red man who threatened William. Just like with Elizabeth. Just like when Malik had made her kill that driver.

A black shadow unfurled and grew in her soul. If she wanted to, she could kill the man who was threatening her William. She could do it so, so easily…with only a look and a thought. All she had to do was let it go…

No
.

Her heart clogged her throat. She refused to be a tool of death. This was William’s fight. If he got hurt, she’d heal him. But she wouldn’t take another life. Not after what Malik had made her do in Egypt. Not ever again.

She
forced
the bloodlust away, stamping and shoving it beneath every good thing she’d ever felt. Watching Las Vegas disappear in her rearview mirror. Taking that first secretarial job. The sensation of William’s arm around her as she’d awakened in that woodshed. The hard, hot pressure of his mouth and the soaring emotion behind the stroke of his tongue.

Gone. The death was gone. She breathed easier.

In the fighting circle, the convicts ducked and jabbed, even throwing a few kicks and knees. Each sound of flesh striking flesh carried over the shouts of the crowd.

William straightened after a barrage of attacks, dabbed at a streak of blood on his cheek, and laughed in the red man’s face. “Is that your best?”

The red man growled and attacked again, but he was messy with drink. William was sober, focused, and channeling a huge amount of frustration over the
John Barry
’s premature departure. Even if he’d chugged a whole bottle of rum, Sera had the feeling this fight still wouldn’t be equal.

William was letting the red man land his punches. To increase the energy. To keep the fight going. To feed himself life.

He
loved
this.

He was a dancer, possessing graceful, vicious movement. It was both beautiful and repulsive to watch. It was sexual.

All of a sudden William let loose with a dizzying serious of punches, the last one an uppercut that sent the red man flying backward. The defeated landed with a splat in the mud, not moving. A worried silence drifted over the onlookers. When at last the red man moaned and curled onto his side, William smiled and spat, blood in his teeth. Someone handed him a mug and he swished the drink around in his mouth before swallowing.

As the crowd dispersed, the losers complaining about William’s sobriety and the winners laughing at the losers’ stupidity, William went to the red man and stood over him.

“You even
think
of Jem again,” he snarled, “and I’ll fucking kill you.”

Jem? What the hell did Jem have to do with this? Who was that guy?

William backed away from the scene. Blood splattered his chest and arms. A welt formed above his eyebrow and his bottom lip swelled. He used his shirt sleeve to dab at the blood running from that cut on his cheek. He barely acknowledged the men who grumbled words of praise or slapped him on the back. Some handed him money, which he accepted without a nod.

A few of the men stumbled back into Cook’s, but most ventured into the narrow streets, their paths crooked with liquor. Some walked right past Sera, but she kept pressed into the shadows and they were too drunk to notice.

William dropped his coins into one boot and tucked the pair of them under his arm. Throwing his shirt over his shoulder, he headed away from the pub, down where warehouses lined the shore and docks made a crooked spine out into the water.

She knew he wouldn’t want her to follow. She knew he’d hate her walking around the Rocks in the dead of night—to tell the truth, she hated it, too. She also wasn’t stupid. She was painfully aware of where and when she was, and how the differences here between men and women were a matter of safety and not just the fact that one was from Mars and the other from Venus.

But this was William. He was hurt and he might need her.

Or maybe she just hated having him too far away. Maybe she just needed him.

Only after she’d trailed him all the way down to the water’s edge, where the ground was soft and the skeletons of the daily harbor life rested for the night, did she realize that none of those thoughts had anything to do with Ramsesh.

William rolled up his pant legs and waded into the shallows. He cupped water and gently washed away the blood and sweat from his chest and face. His body moved methodically, muscles undulating under his reddened skin. He hissed as the salt stung his cuts, but he seemed to welcome the extra pain. Here, alone, he finally let his shoulders sag, the brunt of the fight catching up with him as the adrenaline died.

She moved quietly behind him. “Did you get what you came for?”

He whirled, rising. “Christ, Sera!” His eyes darted over her shoulder, scanning the Rocks. “You shouldn’t be out here alone. What the hell are you thinking?”

“No one saw me. I’m good at hiding.”

“It doesn’t matter. Do you have any idea where you are?”

A shiver made its way down her spine. “I do. I absolutely do.”

His jaw clenched.

“You told me you were looking for information,” she said softly, “but you really came for a fight.”

He advanced on her, kicking water out of his way. The bright moonlight threw shadows that made his injuries look huge and painful. “You saw it?”

“I did. The whole thing.”

“I’m sorry. You weren’t meant to.”

She found his shame genuinely amusing. A man from her time probably would’ve loved to have kicked the shit out of another guy in front of a woman he was trying to impress. She gave him a small smile. “Don’t you know by now? I’m no lady.”

A tiny grin broke through his pain. “You’re many things, yes, but a lady you’re not. And I’m glad for it.”

It eased something between them.

“That man you fought…you knew him?”

His eyes darkened. “Richard Riley. He was on the
John Barry
with me.”

“And Jem,” she added. His face paled. “I heard you mention Jem. What happened?”

A new anger furrowed William’s brow, but he said nothing.

A realization came to her. “You saw Riley last night in Cook’s. That’s what was bugging you.”

He blinked. “‘Bugging’ me?”

“Yeah. Bugging.” She reached out and poked him a bunch of times on non-injured patches of skin. “Bothering.”

He nodded, then looked down at her hand. “Bugging.”

She realized she’d stopped poking him and her hand was just resting on his damp chest. Despite the desire to slip that hand around his neck, she let it drop.

He looked at her for a long moment before pulling his shirt over his head.

“I saw your face out there,” she said softly. “You fight for pleasure. You love it. Why?”

He rolled his shoulders, still silent. She loved his hair shorter, the way the blond curls stuck out all over the place, untamed. Like him.

God, she missed touching him. It had been less than a minute since she’d removed her hand and it felt like a year.

As he turned his head and met her eyes, the space between them was erased. She slid her arms around his waist just as his strong hands wrapped around her back. She kissed his neck, her mouth open and wet. A shudder coursed through his body and his forehead dropped to her shoulder.

“Why do you like to fight, William?”

He nudged the high collar of her blouse with his nose. When his warm breath caressed her skin, the unfulfilled lust from the night next to the river came blazing back.

“I fight,” he murmured into the tender place below her ear, “because it’s all I know.”

Hands slid down her back and tugged her blouse from her skirt. She didn’t even think about stopping him.

“I fight because when I use my fists, it doesn’t matter that I can’t read or don’t have a trade beyond the sails, or that I’ve had to beg for food.”

Hot fingers skimmed her waist, coming around to her belly. Her lungs refused to expand or contract. His touch was made of a thousand delicious points of flame, and she pressed herself deeper into the fire.

“When I fight, I’m not thinking about how the visions ruined my life.”

Calloused palms slid up to cover her breasts, and she moaned into his neck. Every move, every stroke of his hands was agonizingly slow. Wonderfully tormenting.

“When I fight, I don’t miss being out on the ocean.”

Thumbs played with her nipples, making her buzz. Turning her legs liquid.

“I fight because it’s what I’m good at.”

Tongue in her ear, one of his hands swept down to clutch her ass and pull her against his erection.

“I fight because sometimes I just want another person to feel what I feel.”

Swollen lips trailed up one side of her jaw, then the other.

His mouth against hers. “I fight for the release.”

A strong thigh inserted between hers, he grabbed her hips and rubbed himself against her. She whimpered as a jolt of pleasure rocketed out from the place of friction. If he could make her feel this with clothes on…

“I fight”—now he finally took her mouth and commanded a deep, hard kiss—“because it’s been the only thing in my life I’ve been able to control.”

Something inside her iced over. She jerked back. The regretful look in his eyes told her he knew exactly what had scared her.

“Except for now,” he amended. “I don’t feel that way now that I know what the Spectre is, now that the visions are gone. Now that I know I can control myself again.”

“Can you?” She gestured to his body. “Because I’m not so sure I can, and it scares the hell out of me. More so even than how much I want a man I’ve only just met.”

He tilted his head in a sympathetic expression.

“Tell me you haven’t wondered whether we’re just game pieces,” she pressed. “Tell me you haven’t doubted your own humanity.”

“I have. Of course. But it doesn’t make me want you any less.”

“But does it make you want me to begin with? Is there any of
you
feeling that desire?”

He let out a small laugh, his hands coming to his hips. “Yes. I believe you could say that.”

Cute. “That night by the river you said you felt me.
Me
, William.”

“God, I did.” The little bit of humor drained away and he slid his hands up her arms. “I do now.”

She couldn’t help it. She sighed and it came out long and stuttered. “And I you.”

His fingers tightened but he didn’t bring her closer. “Hardly anything I’ve done in the past eighteen years has been of my own volition. My visions are the reason we’re together. End of story. You know it. I know it. Over the years I learned to go along with what they demanded of me, to accept them like a punch I couldn’t duck. I’d absorb them and then recover. But with you…” His chin dropped and his voice turned thick. “I’m not recovering. I think about you all the bloody time and we haven’t left each other’s sight in days. I don’t care how much of it comes from…Amonteh…because I’m well aware of who I am. And I will be here while you figure it out for yourself.” He touched his forehead to hers.

She curled her fingers around his forearms, noting their tension. “I have no idea what’s going on inside my own skin. Ramsesh wants you. She wants us together. I so much as step away from you, and she yanks me back.”