The Curious Case Of The Clockwork Menace (20 page)

“
There’s Rosa.” Perry tilted her
head toward the stairs as she sipped her champagne.

Indeed, when he looked, he saw the
coppery curls of Rosalind’s coif beneath the candelabra’s light. A
dark shadow almost obliterated her as a man swept her out of the
way of the crowd. Lynch.

Garrett turned his back on them.
Lynch was a recognizable figure. If any of the humanists saw him
here, they’d know what he was about. However, Garrett and Perry
were unknowns and needed to keep it that way.

“
Keep an eye on them,” he
instructed quietly, pressing close enough to Perry that her skirts
brushed against his polished shoes. “But don’t stare. And act like
you’ve seen all of this a thousand times before. You’re my thrall,
remember?” The thought sent a flash of darkness through his vision.
The idea of Perry as his personal blood slave was heady.

For a moment he almost envied the
blue blood lords parading their thralls—young ladies who exchanged
their blood rights in exchange for protection, gifts, and an
honorable thrall contract—through the room. Garrett’s gaze drifted
to Perry’s throat and the fierce, flickering beat of her
pulse.

Idly fanning herself, Perry
glanced around the room with a slightly bored expression. “I do
know what I’m doing.”

“
So do I.”

“
Yes, but playing a cad is already
within your repertoire.” The fan stirred cool air over his lips as
he reached out and leaned his hand against the column behind her.
Perry’s expression lashed pure heat through him. “That was never in
any doubt.”

“
If I doubt you, it’s only because
you’ve never played the lady before.”

“
Perhaps you simply never
noticed.”

He looked down. There was a slightly challenging
note beneath the words.

“
You do play the role well.” His
eyes narrowed. It was an unspoken rule that when a blue blood
showed up on the guild’s doorstep, nobody ever asked about their
past.

Most blue bloods were created
during the blood rites, a rite of passage offered to certain
privileged sons among the aristocracy and strictly controlled.
Accidents occurred, however, when the merest scratch could transmit
to others the virus that made the blue bloods what they were. Those
accidents were declared rogues, forced to join either the
Nighthawks or the Coldrush Guards that guarded the Echelon. Kept
alive only for their usefulness.

He’d never asked about Perry’s
past, though he’d often wondered. Women were strictly forbidden the
blood rites for fear their gentle natures would succumb to hysteria
at the fierce hunger of the craving. He wasn’t certain if any of
the men who’d decreed such a law had actually met Perry, or the
only other female blue blood, the Duchess of Casavian.

“
Indeed, you play the part almost
too well,” he continued, to see how Perry would react.

The fan fluttered, stirring the black curls of her
wig and the lace trim of her dress. It drew his attention to the
faint pulse in her bare throat, to the fine tracery of blue veins
beneath her creamy skin. Hunger burned within him. Again his vision
flickered to black-and-white tones. The world became a little
distant, as if something was drawing him away from it.

“
I wasn’t born in breeches,
Garrett.”

She’d said something. He yanked
his gaze up, trying to focus. “I hope not. I’d have thought you’d
have been naked.” It was what he would have said a month ago. An
idle flirtation that didn’t require much thinking to mouth.
Reaching out, he caught the top of the fan, feeling the razor-sharp
edge against the pads of his fingers. It was irritating him, making
the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

She rapped his knuckles with it.
“Behave.”

“
Just playing a role, my
love.”

“
So am I.
La femme fatale
.” She sliced the fan
in the air just in front of his nose, forcing him to take a step
back. With a slow, wicked smile, Perry strolled out from under his
arm, catching up her skirts with one hand as she deposited the
empty champagne glass on a drone’s tray. He followed her lead as
she stalked away.

Dangerous woman
.

“
That way,” Perry said, pointing
along the corridor with her fan. “Rosa and Lynch are heading for
the stairs. Which means we need to disappear until the crowd has
thinned.”

Then it was their task to search the foyer and
backstage for either the humanists or the Doeppler Orbs.

“
I am your humble servant,” he
replied, following in the wake of her swishing bustle.

“
Servant, perhaps,” she murmured
under her breath. “Humble? Never.”

The bell rang, signaling that the
patrons ought to be seated. Suddenly Garrett and Perry were
fighting against the tide of the crowd. A young lord’s shoulder hit
Garrett’s, throwing him off balance, and he bared his teeth in a
silent snarl. He could smell blood in the air, his gut clenching.
It was probably in the champagne.

Bloody hell
. He needed to get this over with and get out of
here.

“
Perhaps you’d care to use the
powder room?” His hand slid to the small of Perry’s back, helping
her keep her balance against skirts that had to be somewhat
unfamiliar. Fingers flexing against the supple muscle along her
spine, he let out the breath he’d been holding. Touching her felt
like holding on to an anchor. In the darkness that was slowly
becoming his world, Perry was a reliable, solid light that slowly
drew him back to safer shores.

“
We’re alone.” Garrett pushed
ahead of her and pressed his fingertips to the door to the powder
room, listening for a moment.
Nothing
.

He shoved the door open and stalked inside,
shrugging out of his evening coat. A white silk waistcoat strained
over his chest, gleaming back at him from the floor-length mirrors.
A pair of white leather holsters rode over his shoulders, with two
small pistols that would each fit in the palm of his hand. There
was a knife in his boot, but the main weapon was his body.

Behind him, Perry locked the door. She lifted her
heel onto a champagne-colored divan, then slowly dragged a fistful
of her skirts up, revealing her flesh-colored stockings. He caught
a glimpse of her gray eyes, watching him in the reflection.
Watching his reaction.

She might not have owned an
abundance of curves, but she had legs as long and lean as a
dancer’s. “Perry,” Garrett warned. This was no longer fun. She was
pushing him toward the edge, and he was far too close to it as it
was.

Her gloved hands slowed, dragging her skirt a
fraction higher until her garter ribbons were revealed. This time
Perry watched him openly, her gaze locking on his in the reflection
as she slowly dragged her pistol from the holster strapped to her
thigh.

Garrett tugged at the gleaming
white silk of his bow tie. “Bloody hell. That’s enough, Perry. You
win. You look entirely fetching in a gown. And partially out of
it.”

“
I’m nowhere near finished,
Garrett.”

This was a side to Perry that he’d
never seen, never even dreamed existed. As a Nighthawk, she’d been
forced to expel the myth that her gender made her vulnerable in any
way. She generally preferred her own company and rarely jested, let
alone flirted. It was as if putting on the dress had relaxed her
inhibitions, and his dare had only served to throw down the
gauntlet between them.

The predator inside him noted that they were all
alone, locked inside by her own devices. It stirred restlessly.

She snapped open the barrel of the
pistol and checked the ammunition. When she looked up, the heeled
slippers brought her face almost to his. His cock hardened, each
muscle in his abdomen tightening as if for a blow.
Don’t
.

Their eyes met. “Do you remember
when you laughed at me and said I wouldn’t know one end of a dress
from the other?”

“
So this is revenge?” His lashes
lowered. “Don’t play games you can’t afford to lose. I’ll only
offer my surrender this once.” He gave in. Let his eyes bleed to
black for her. To show her just how close the line was for
him.

Perry sucked in a sharp breath but
she didn’t back away. And that was the mistake they both
made.

His hand slid up her cheek, the
silk of his gloves cupping her face in his. He knew what her blood
tasted like. She’d cut her wrist for him when he lay gasping on the
floor a week ago, with his heart ripped half out of his chest.
Perry’s blood had healed him, but the desire for it had never quite
gone away.

And this time he wasn’t
injured.

Perry caught her breath and
wrenched away from him. Her eyes glittered darkly in the mirror as
they met his. “You’re right. I accept your surrender.”

Garrett stepped closer, sliding
his hands over her shoulders. “I’m no longer offering it,” he
murmured and pressed his lips against the smooth silk of her
neck.

“
This isn’t… We
shouldn’t—”

He could feel her trembling. God,
he wanted her. One hand slid around her waist, drawing her back
into his arms. Perry’s hand caught his, holding it against her
abdomen as if uncertain whether to draw it away or tug it closer,
but the softening of her stance betrayed her. She melted back
against him with a low moan. “Garrett…”

The thought skittered away,
drowning in a flood of darkness as the hunger washed over him. His
lips trailed against her nape, the edge of his teeth riding over
that flawless white skin. The hunger in him burned hot, until he
could barely see or hear anything that didn’t have to do with
her.

All he wanted was her. All he needed… And damn her,
he was going to take it.

Hand fisting in the pearls at her
throat, Garrett yanked her head to the side. He couldn’t remember
triggering the concealed knife in his sleeve, but the hilt of it
was warm in his hand. Their eyes met in the mirror, and his irises
were black flame.
Shouldn’t do this.
Control yourself
. Then the moment was gone
and he slashed the small blade across her throat.

Warm blood splashed against his
mouth as Perry gasped. He lapped at it, suckling hard.
Not enough. Never enough
.

Soft cries cut the air as her body jerked in
release. Then she was melting against him, her weight falling into
his arms and her blood wetting his lips.

He caught a glimpse of those
amazing gray eyes, wide and alarmed, but couldn’t stop himself from
drinking more, feeling her weaken, hearing her heart shudder in her
chest, her breath catch in her lungs. Blackness swept through his
vision, turning the world dark. Prey. His prey. And she was all
his. He’d drink her dry, steal the last shuddering breaths of
ecstasy from her body as he—

“
Garrett, stop!
”
she whispered, and he realized she’d been saying it for a while
now. “Please, stop…”

The dream shattered.

Garrett sucked in a huge breath and bolted upright,
breathing hard. His fingers clenched in the blankets as they fell
into his naked lap.

The world was dark and silent, the steel shutters
drawn across his window to keep the sunlight out so he could sleep.
Yet everything in the room was clearly visible, his blue-blood
senses so superior he could make out each piece of furniture and
article of clothing. Holding his head in his hands, he rocked back
and forth, trying to fight the raging desire that burned through
him.

Perry. At the opera.

The dream struck him every time he
closed his eyes, though events had not played out that way in life.
Perry had stopped him before he took her blood, slamming him back
against the wall with her own eyes bleeding to black and their
breath mingling. They were so close to kissing that if the screams
hadn’t started echoing down the hallways outside, he didn’t know
what would have happened.

“
Bloody hell.” Swallowing hard, he
brought his shaking hands down from his face. The dream always
ended that way. The hunger overwhelming him until all he cared for
was her blood. Sometimes he woke before the end. Those were the
better nightmares.

Sometimes he had to witness the whole damned
thing.

A month since that incident at the
opera, and he couldn’t forget it. He’d never thought of Perry as a
woman, as a
beautiful
woman, until that night. Now the thought haunted
him.

His hands were still shaking. Garrett sucked in a
steady breath and lowered them. Movement fractured off the small
mirror attached to the vanity. Himself, still in shades of gray
instead of color, his eyes as black as the demon inside him. The
hunger.

Shoving the blankets aside,
Garrett made his way to the vanity and stared at himself in the
mirror, taking slow, steady breaths until he could see the
blackness washing out of his eyes.
Come
on
. The muscle in his jaw tightened. He
could control this. He
would
.

But it was growing harder and
harder each day. No matter how much blood he drank, the hunger kept
growing until it was a gnawing pit within him, eating away at bits
of his soul until he was afraid one day he wouldn’t wake up from
the dream. One day, the dream would be real.