Blood Kin (22 page)

My spine prickled. I forced myself to act relaxed, let my hand stray to the fan on the table. There was a dagger hidden in its handle. A thin, sharp stiletto. Iron mixed with silver. I’d use it on him if I had to.

“I’m surprised to see you here tonight,” Cormen said, his voice ice edged as he continued to track me with those emotionless eyes. “I set you to a different task.”

“I am working on that,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. Not outright.

“Is that so?” He took a step toward me and my hand tightened on the fan. “I told you to watch Simon DuCaine, not bed his brother.”

Gods. He knew who Guy was.

“And how better to gain Simon’s trust than to win his brother’s?” I retorted.

“I don’t have time for you to use your dubious charms to win over the DuCaines. I want that information.”

The words ended with a crack like a whip, and pain suddenly clawed my stomach. Cormen tugging on his leash. I steeled myself, trying to remember how to breathe, and stared him down. The urge to attack him in return, to hurt him until he told me where my mother and Reggie were and if they were still alive, pounded through my veins. But Cormen was fast and his magics were stronger than mine. My only hope of defeating him in a face-to-face fight would be a lucky strike. One that killed him.

Leaving me without the information I needed and possibly damning Mama and Reggie to rot in whatever hole he had stashed them in.

For now I needed him alive.

Alive and unsuspecting.

“You wanted me to do this because I’m good at what I do. You need to let me do it.”

“I don’t
have
to do any such thing.” He moved closer still and I had to fight not to back up. My throat dried and I suddenly recalled his face as he ordered the Beast to beat me. My stomach clenched against a wave of nausea. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he scared me.

“You will deliver what I asked. You will deliver it quickly or you will pay the price.” His voice was whispered ice, turning me to frozen fear.

I’d always hated Cormen since he’d abandoned us. That hate had grown over the years, and the beating had only set it burning fiercer. But I hadn’t realized that the beating had planted fear too.

He’d ordered someone to hurt me with no more thought than one might give to throwing away a broken piece of crockery. And with no more remorse than one might show for that act. He would do it again—and worse—if he had to. I knew that much for sure.

“I
am
working as quickly as I can. It’s not as if I can walk up to Simon DuCaine and demand that he tell me his secrets.”

“You were at the hospital for days.”

“And most of that time I was bed-bound, thanks to you. Your thug was overly enthusiastic. The healers at St. Giles are very conscientious. They don’t let patients who are recovering from being severely beaten wander around out of bed.”

“That is not my problem. Perhaps all that is needed here is to provide you with some additional motivation.” He reached into his pocket and drew something from it. A long glittering chain, twin to mine. The pendant dangling from it was a stylized heart set with black diamonds and sapphires.

I knew that pendant as well as my own. I’d seen it hanging around my mother’s neck every day since I’d been born. The fear stalking my nerves blossomed into something nearer to terror. I couldn’t breathe.

So. Here was the proof I’d been seeking, the proof some small broken part of me had hoped not to find. Cormen had my mother and likely Reggie too. “Where did you get that?” I hissed.

The pendant glinted in the light of the chandeliers, the jewels set in the gold sending sparks of black and blue dancing across the walls.

“Your mother let me borrow it.”

“You bastard,” I spat. “You leave her out of this.”

“Why should I? She belongs to me.”

“She does not. Neither of us does. You walked away from us. You cut us off and left us to rot in the gutter. I swear, Cormen, if you’ve hurt her I’ll—” The words cut off as pain choked me, acid claws wrapping my throat, burning down to my belly.

“You’ll what exactly?” he said with a sneer. “Don’t get above yourself, little
hai-salai
.” He grabbed my chin as I sputtered, unable to talk. “Now. Listen closely. I want the sunmage’s secret.” His bronze eyes gleamed malevolently as his nails dug into my cheeks. “I want it fast.”

He let go of me abruptly, stepped back, and lifted the pendant once more. “And if you disappoint me, this will be the last time you see this or your mother.”

I still couldn’t speak, though I no longer knew if it was the geas or sheer rage and terror stealing my voice. My cheeks stung from the bite of his nails, and my heart raced. I ached to move. To reach the fan and stab him, cut him. Anything to hurt him. To rid myself of him. But all I could do was stand there and listen.

“Do we have an understanding?” He shoved the necklace into his pocket, then carefully smoothed down the lines of his frock coat.

I nodded. There wasn’t anything else I could do. My bastard father had the upper hand. But as I watched him turn and leave, I was determined that he wouldn’t keep it for long.

Chapter Thirteen

GUY

“Ignatius
Grey?” I demanded as Holly slipped through the door of the box. “Are you insane?”

She scowled, eyes sparking green as the jewels in her ears. “Keep your voice down. People will hear.”

We were still well to the rear of the box, so I didn’t know if that was a valid point, but she had been to the theater more than I, so I reluctantly let her go. I pointed at the nearest seat, forcing my voice to a more loverlike tone. “Won’t you have a seat,
darling
?”

Holly sat facing the stage. Her eyes glittered in the dim light. I stopped for a moment. Tears? No. She wasn’t crying. Her face was pale under the paint, her mouth set. Angry.

That made two of us.

“Ignatius Grey?” I repeated, lowering myself into the chair opposite and angling my body toward her as though we were having an intimate tête-à-tête.

Those glittering eyes fastened on me. “Yes. This is what I do, Guy.” Her fan snapped open, then closed again, her gloved hands moving restlessly over the carved sticks.

“I thought you crawled around on rooftops, spying on people.”

“Sometimes the information isn’t on rooftops. Sometimes it’s at the theater. Or the Assemblies. Which means I have to be there.”

“In Blood Assemblies.” I heard my voice go flat. I tried to rein back the temper rising within. Of all the places . . . an Assembly. I loathed them and everyone who willingly attended them.

But everything Holly said was true. She was a spy. A professional. Good enough for Blood Lords to hire her. She knew what she was doing. And I’d known we might have to venture into the Night World when I’d started this. So why was I fighting the urge to punch someone at the thought of her parading through a Blood Assembly?

I hated the Assemblies, that was true, but this wasn’t that feeling. This felt different. Sharper somehow.

“When the situation requires it, yes,” Holly said, still tapping her fan restlessly. “I’ve done it before. It’s safe enough.”

I tried not to think about the last time I’d been in a Blood Assembly. Because that had involved a riot, killing a few Beasts, and Simon kidnapping Lily. Hardly a recommendation for the safety of such places. “You have an interesting definition of safe.”

“I’m not an idiot, Guy,” she snapped. “This is how I make my living. I’m not going there to drink vampire blood or get myself chewed on.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “You don’t see any scars on my neck, do you?”

“No.” I’d kissed that neck . . . that skin. I knew it bore no scars.

Anger flared again. Hotly possessive.

Hell’s balls.
No
. I reined myself in with a heavy mental hand.

Holly was not mine.

I didn’t want the ties such emotions brought.

But I did want her.

That much was clear. Inescapably clear. Much as I’d have to be blind not to know she wanted me too. I’d felt it in the tiny reactions of her skin under my lips, in the catch of breath. In the heat of her eyes.

She was a spy, yes. A game player. But whatever it was flaring between us, it wasn’t a game.

I needed to resist it.

Of course, given her current mood, if I tried anything, I would suffer something worse than a refusal. I didn’t doubt she had weapons somewhere on her person or that she knew how to use them. She was a fighter. A survivor. She would do what she had to do. I needed to remember that that might not be the same as what I wanted her to do.

Hells, I needed to remember that she might just turn me down regardless of what mood she was in. Perhaps she still had a grip on her common sense. She was practical, I knew that much.

But I still couldn’t quite help looking at the slim column of white throat, rising from the silk, framed by the chain that arrowed down to where her breasts rose from the dress in smooth curves and disappeared below the ruffles as if its sole purpose was to draw the eye there. To her skin. Warm, that skin. My hands remembered. And it smelled of . . . well, Holly and flowers and something subtle that seemed to seep into my brain whenever I got near her. It tasted good too.

Too good.

Hell’s balls, what was I doing thinking about kissing her when we were talking about the stupidity of going to an Assembly?

Another yank on those mental reins was required.

I studied her. Her fan swished angrily, like a cat’s tail. She hadn’t been angry when we’d parted outside Adeline Louis’ box. No, then she’d been almost too well pleased with herself.

And yet by the time she returned to me, she’d been angry.

So what had happened in between?

“Why are you angry?” I asked.

The fan stilled. “Why are you arguing with me?”

Deflecting a question with a question, I knew that technique all too well.

“Something happened,” I said flatly. “Before you came back here.”

She was very good. The fan snapped back into action with a dismissive flutter. But not before I saw the small flash of surprise in her eyes. I was right.

“Nothing happened,” she said.

“You’re lying.”

“You’re still arguing. Nothing happened, Guy.”

“We can’t do this if you’re going to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.” Another flutter of the fan. “It was nothing.” She looked at me, then away.

“It?”

She bit her lip. “If you must know, I ran into someone.”

“Who?”

Her eyes came back to me. “If you must know, someone I once . . . kept company with.”

Shared her bed with, she meant. I felt another hot surge of anger. “And?”

“And he was unpleasant about you,” she said. “I sent him on his way. As I said, it was nothing. Or rather, it’s something that can work for us. He’ll no doubt be talking about me.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed her. Even if I did, I wasn’t sure that I
should
believe her. She had her own agenda here; I needed to remember that. I wanted something from her and I believed that she would hold to her end of her agreement, but I’d be a fool to think that her only priority was finding her mother and her friend.

Silence hung between us. I could push her, but I doubted she’d give away anything she didn’t want to. I’d only make her angrier. More likely to do something reckless.

So I would hold my tongue. Bide my time. For now. “Your Lady Adeline is concerned about Ignatius Grey. He’s bad news. Particularly if he’s gotten his hands on some money,” I said, trying to return to the topic at hand.

Exasperation flashed over Holly’s face before she restored her tight social smile. “I’m well aware of that. I imagine I have a far better understanding of Ignatius and his particular peccadilloes than you do.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t—”

“Wouldn’t what? Go near him?” She leaned closer, smile tightening further. “I’m a spy. And a thief. I’m not some delicate little flower that you have to protect, Guy. I can handle myself. The question seems to be whether you can cope with what we’re doing. If you’re going to start throwing your weight around whenever we come across a Blood Lord or a Beast or the Fae, then we might as well give up now.”

The words were almost a slap. And stopped me short. I drew in a breath, ignoring the scent of her that drifted with it. “I can behave myself if you can.”

I certainly wasn’t going to let her do this alone. Maybe she had done these things before, but now she had me. I looked down at my hands, at the beasts snarling there. Just because I bore them didn’t mean I had to become them. I’d agreed to go along with the plan. I’d defaced my
tattoos
, for the love of all that was holy. I needed the information she could uncover. I wouldn’t abandon the path—or Holly—now.

Even if I did want to shake her until her teeth rattled.

“Good.” She turned away from me slightly, flicking a curl that had fallen over her shoulder. “Let’s watch the show.”

I changed seats, moving beside her. We had to keep up the pretence. And more than that, I needed to be closer to her. The tension riding me wasn’t just the knowledge that half the people in the theater were Blood or Beasts, setting off every instinct I possessed. No, part of it was just being close to her.

I wanted her. Wanted to peel that dress from her and lay her down and take her until we both forgot who we were and what we were doing.

You couldn’t fake actual desire. You could resist it and I knew that she, just like me, was resisting mightily, but you couldn’t conjure the spark from nothingness. You couldn’t make the air prickle when someone else walked into the room.

It was either there or not.

And, because God apparently had a nasty sense of humor right now, it was there between us.

The question was whether we could both keep our heads and resist.

It would be good between us. It had been a long time since I’d allowed myself the distraction of giving in to this kind of hunger. We didn’t swear celibacy, but my life was simpler without sex.

My Brother knights chose their own paths. Some largely ignored women, some found women willing to satisfy their hungers. Some even fell in love and married as the Church would prefer.

Love. I didn’t even want to think the word.

Because there was no place in my world for that emotion when it came to a woman.

It came at too high a cost.

But I was used to guarding myself. Planning liaisons as carefully as I planned campaigns in battle. I wasn’t going to let her slip through my defenses. I was going to stay in control.

Take charge.

Starting right now.

And the first thing any good soldier did when taking charge of a campaign was to get the lay of the land.

In my case, that meant understanding the woman sitting beside me, looking as though she was listening happily to the shaky soprano currently gracing the stage.

But she wasn’t just listening. No. Her eyes studied the crowd, searching it.

Spy. Thief. What did she see with those eyes? What did she see when she looked at me?

I leaned closer, felt her jump in surprise. “Looking for someone in particular?” I said, mouth close to her ear.

“N-no.”

Another lie. “I can’t help you if I’m walking blind, Holly. You want me to understand this world.” I gestured at the audience. “Time for another lesson.”

She looked somewhat chastened. “I’m sorry. I forgot. I usually work alone.” She offered a quick smile. A real one this time.

“And I usually work with fifty other men. I can adjust if you can.”

The corner of her mouth quirked. “I’m not sure I can replace fifty Templars.”

“You don’t have to. Who are you looking for?”

She looked down, smoothed her skirt where it wasn’t wrinkled. “No one in particular.”

Lying again. All right. I knew when to hold position rather than attack. “Then what?”

She looked back up. “I was just watching the dance.”

“The dance?”

“I told you earlier. The Night World isn’t simple. Everything shifts and moves and turns in an instant. It’s a dance, only you’re never quite sure what song might play next or if there’s a new set of steps everyone else but you knows.”

“Battles are that way too,” I said.

“I guess.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve never seen a battle.”

“They’re unpredictable.” And violent, bloody, and horrible. So perhaps a good metaphor for Night World politics after all.

“So maybe I can follow your dance. I might even let you lead.” I grinned at her and she relaxed, a little. “Good. How about you smile at me while we talk? After all, we don’t want to disappoint our audience.”

“I’ll smile if you will.” She grinned at me and then lifted the fan to her face. The air stirred the curls around her face and she brushed them back into place with her free hand. The movement settled her dress even lower on her chest, baring more of the curve of her breast to my view. My mouth went dry. I knew she was acting, but the effect was very real.

Keep your mind on the task at hand
. I summoned an answering smile. “Seems fair.”

Holly angled her body toward me so that her skirts brushed my knees. “So. The dance.” The fan was still for a moment as she looked out over the theater.

“What do you know of the Favreaus?” she asked.

Right this minute, I chiefly knew that she smelled very good and that her skin almost gleamed in the half-light.
Favreaus, Guy. Beast Kind. Ambushes.

I took a breath. “Mostly what you told me this afternoon. Not known to cause trouble. Kept their noses reasonably clean until Lucius died.”

“Was killed, if you believe the rumors,” Holly murmured.

I paused. Was she digging for information? Or just commenting. She wasn’t the only one with secrets, after all.

“Died. Since then the Blood have been trying to determine who might take his place. Which also leaves the Beast Kind packs scrambling for territory and position.”

“That’s a polite way of saying the entire Night World is tallying up quite the body count.”

I smiled. “Darlin’, a gentleman always strives for politeness.”

“Are you a gentleman, then?”

“My mother would like to believe so.”

The fan dropped, revealing her wide smile. “Well, I have heard that knights are meant to be chivalrous.”