Obsidian Eyes (2 page)

“As you wish.” She directed her comment to Marshall, but her eyes remained fixed on Jared.

Her tone brushed over his skin like a caress. He mentally smacked himself in the side of the head.
Pull it together. She’s just a girl
, he berated himself.
But what a girl
, part of him answered.

Laughter danced behind her eyes as she watched him, as though she could read his soul and found his internal dialogue amusing. She arched a dark eyebrow at him.

“When you’re ready?” she murmured.

The sound of steel on steel echoed in the high-ceilinged room as their swords met and slid off one another. Sparring became more dance than fight. Silence of intense concentration hung as they tested one another, seeking any weakness to exploit. In terms of speed they were equally matched. Jared had the advantage of strength and reach, but Allie was more agile.

Jared’s light strokes became harder and fiercer as he took the measure of his opponent and found her worthy. He stretched his arm farther and threw more of his weight behind each blow. The match spun into long minutes, each thrust and slide met and repelled. They both drew shorter breaths with the exertion but neither of them made headway. Jared saw minute hesitations in Allie’s moves, a tiny waver in the hand holding her sword. He only had to wait for her to weary enough to make a mistake, although that option ran the risk of her being hurt. Tired fighters made fatal errors.
I should end this, before she is injured.

He took a risk. As she spun past and under his thrust, he shot out one arm and caught her around the waist and then tossed his weapon to one side. She gave a cry of surprise as his arms wrapped around and pulled her against him, her spine pressing into his chest. He placed one hand around her throat to hold her immobile. His other hand moved to pinch the small bones in her wrist, forcing her fingers open on the sword hilt. It dropped to the ground with a clatter.

“Yes,” he whispered as though she were a skittish horse to be brought under control. He moved her trapped arm up and held it tight against her chest. With her warmth pressed to him he realised how tall she was, yet slender enough he could wrap himself around her. Her head rested on his shoulder, the curve of her spine pushed into his chest.

As though we were crafted to fit together
, he realised with a jolt and suppressed a groan.

Leaning forward, he brushed her ear with his lips. “Yield.”

She gave a quiet snort of suppressed laughter and turned her head, throwing him a look of pure defiance from eyes turned black as ink. “No.”

Though she appeared composed in his grip, under his fingers he could feel the rapid beat of her pulse, betraying her inner turmoil.
No cold assassin.

Marshall coughed. “Jared? You two have to go get ready for classes, and Allie probably needs to change.”

He loosened his grip and she spun away from him. Picking up her fallen sword, she walked to the wall of blades and returned hers to its place. She cast one backward look over her shoulder before slipping through the door into the hallway beyond. Jared watched the swing door shudder back and forth.

“Are you interested in helping me dig to the bottom of this puzzle?” Marshall’s words interrupted his train of thought. “We need to know which guild she is bound to and what they want at St Matthews. I have probed and asked, with no success.” Marshall rubbed his jaw. “You have an opportunity to get closer and learn the truth.”

Jared swung his gaze from the closed door back to Marshall, a large wolfish grin on his face. “Oh, I am most definitely interested.”

llie’s heart pounded; an echo of her footsteps on the hard slate floor of the hallway. As a guild child, she learned to wield a knife like noble girls learned needlepoint. Swords and throwing stars were her pianoforte and deportment classes. Her sparring partners were often boys, so why did this particular one make her pulse run faster than a bolting horse?

He had circled her with the easy grace of a dancer. His hair draped over his forehead, so black it bordered on blue, cut short on the nape but rangy in front, almost obscuring that pale grey gaze. Eyes so mesmerising she thought a wolf watched her. Pure predator looked out, assessing her weaknesses. Her skin burned under her tunic where his arms held her. The memory of his lips at her neck made a shiver pass down her body.

A foolish reaction or worse, a deadly mistake.

Her mind whirled as she traced her path to the girls’ dormitory. She flung open the door to the room she shared and pressed it shut behind her. With short, quick movements, she stripped off her loose cotton pants and kimono top and threw herself on the bed clad in just her chemise and knickers.

Lying back, she stared at the ceiling. Her roommate, Eloise, had painted an intricate sky scape during her long internment at the school. A dark blue night with constellations painted in swirls of gold and silver stared back at her. The walls were a forest of climbing vines fit to conceal Sleeping Beauty. Eloise was a genius with her hands whether painting, sewing, or dissecting wild life.

Allie gathered her thoughts and calmed her mind, before she dressed for class. The colours over her head reminded her of the harem, where the walls were decorated with tiles painted in azure blue, startling orange, deep green, and sunshine yellow. The brilliant mosaics were a hard contrast to the lush silken drapes and velvet floor cushions so large she used to curl up on one, like a kitten in a lap.

“I wish you would stop killing my frogs!” The genius in question had stirred and risen from her bed only to find the lifeless amphibian on her desk.

“Stop reanimating them and I wouldn’t have to,” Allie countered, rolling over on to her stomach. “And to be fair I don’t kill them, I just disconnect them. How can you sleep with their limbs twitching and jerking? It woke me up again this morning.”

Eloise’s hazel eyes peered from behind delicate gold-framed glasses. “Don’t tell me the warrior princess is scared of a little itty bitty frog?”

Allie smiled at the gentle teasing. As the only two girls in residence over the summer break, Allie had been dumped on Eloise. Friendship sprung up between the two, despite being polar opposites. One noble born and one common, one bookish and academic, one more at ease with a blade in her hand. Even in looks, they were light and dark. Allie thought her darker colouring, inherited from her Egyptian grandmother, marked her as common. Unlike Eloise, with her ethereal, porcelain skin and face surrounded by pale strawberry blonde curls. Her friend looked like a delicate and expensive doll.

“Don’t call me that. And it’s not the frog itself that scares me, rather the whole reanimation business. What’s next? Will I wake up to find a goat laying over your desk as though it were a high altar to biology?”

Eloise screwed up her nose in thought as she considered the possibility. “My desk isn’t big enough, neither are my electrodes. I’d need more electricity so you’d have to climb up to the roof for me and connect a larger cable.” Eloise tapped her finger on the copper wires running from her desk and disappearing out the window. They ran up the side of the building to a device of Eloise’s construction on the roof.

Allie snorted in laughter. “Not going to happen. Then I would wake up one morning with your wires attached to my forehead and chest.”

Eloise pondered the scenario. “Well you’d have to be dead first. So you’d probably be grateful to be waking up at all. Your gratitude would enslave you to me, for ever after.”

Allie stared at her friend. “Beneath that gentle exterior is the mind of an evil genius. One day the world will wake up and find itself under your dominion.”

“Well you have nothing to fret about. I’ll keep you on as my chief body guard.” Eloise laughed. “And we both need to get dressed. First class starts in twenty minutes, and I hate being late.” Eloise picked up the pillow and lobbed the feathery missile at her roommate.

Allie groaned and ducked. “For a science girl you have far too good an arm on you,” she muttered as she slid off the bed.

Surveying her wardrobe options, she donned a floor-length tweed skirt with a train over her simple chemise. On top, she added a brown corset with bright brass swing hooks. Although made of plain leather, she lovingly cleaned and replenished it, so the buttery hide moulded to her form. The tight lacing up the back emphasised her narrow waist. She twisted her long black hair up off her nape and secured the roll with two deadly silver pins. She laced soft boots over her shins. From beside her bed she picked up a dagger with an obsidian blade, given to her when she left Egypt. She ran a finger over the ornate hieroglyphics on the hilt, remembering the young man who bestowed the gift, before she slipped the knife down the side of her right boot.

Eloise gave her a strange look. “What was his name?”

She shook her skirts and a small smile tugged the corners of her lips. “Hakim.”

“You never talk about him. Did you love him? Does it hurt too much, to remember?” Eloise’s intelligent gaze bore straight through Allie, dissecting her heart like a biology experiment.

Allie frowned.
Did I love him?
She shrugged. “I miss him, like I miss numerous things about Egypt.”

“Ah, an interesting answer.” Eloise looped her arm through Allie’s and dragged her through the door.

Those around saw her as an orphan and ward of her grandfather. They thought her position at the school was awarded to secure Alfred Donovan, renowned historian instrumental in helping Champollion to decipher the Rosetta Stone. Allie saw beneath the surface lies to the truth. She was no orphan and she didn’t have to smell her father’s subtle French cologne to know his hand pulled the strings. He placed his puppet at St Matthews, she just had to figure out why.

They struck off from the girls’ hall to the main school building and their first class of the new term. Allie took a deep breath and decided to change the topic of conversation from one boy to another. “Do you know a student called Jared McLaren?”

A dreamy expression fell over Eloise’s face. “Ah, the McLaren boys.”

“There’s more than one of them?” Allie hoped they weren’t twins or triplets.

“Two, they’re cousins, Jared and Duncan. They make quite an impression on the female population.” Eloise turned and gave Allie a curious look. “Why do you ask?”

“I met him this morning. He was with Marshall.” Allie bit her lip before she mentioned how the handsome young man made her pulse gallop when his strong arms wrapped around her and crushed her to his chest. How the scent of warm musky male and autumn leaves filled her nostrils and for a moment, she couldn’t think of anywhere else she would rather be, than in his arms.
Even back with Hakim.

“He’s the son of the Duke of Lothian, his father is King Rab’s advisor. Jared is one of the highest ranking nobles here as the Marquis of Kerr, even if they are Scottish.”

“I did notice the burr.” A stone settled in Allie’s stomach at Eloise’s words.
Oh, well done me, going gooey-eyed over the highest ranking noble in the school. You might have found the one situation more tragic than falling for the sultan’s guard, who wants to be a eunuch.