Zoe Archer - Sinner’s Heart

“Can he do such a thing?” Zora pressed. “Seize command of Parliament? Make himself the leader of the whole nation?”

“He’s made allies,” Bram answered, “and more enemies. Yet his power keeps growing.”

“But to completely overthrow the existing government,” protested Whit. “And then conquer the entire world? He’s only one man.”

Livia said, “A man who has the magic and patronage of the Dark One. Should he open the gate between this realm and the underworld and raise a demonic army—” She shook her head. “Even he does not realize what disaster he brings upon us all.”

“If he’s as powerful as you say,” Zora said, “what can be done to stop this?”

“I, we, need you both in London,” answered Livia. “At once.”

“Leo, too. And his wife.”

Whit’s expression turned even more grim. “That’s an impossibility.”

“You’re an earl,” Bram pointed out. “Hire faster horses. Or a carriage.”

“It’s not a matter of cost. Nor distance.” Whit tilted his chin toward the nearby stream. “Mark you well that little brook. Now observe.” He walked toward the water.

Zora’s hand on his arm stopped him. “Whit, don’t.”

“They need to see.” Before Livia could press for an explanation, Whit sprinted in the direction of the stream.

A sound like a thunderclap splintered the air as Whit was flung backward by an unseen force. He landed on his back ten feet away. Zora was at his side immediately, kneeling in the grass as she held his shoulders.

“What the hell was that?” Bram demanded.

Zora said, “As of two days ago, we cannot cross water. Any water. Stream, river, lake or pond. Whenever we’ve attempted it . . . you’ve seen what happens.” She brushed hair from Whit’s forehead as his dazed look faded.

“John’s doing,” Livia said tightly.

“The wily bastard.” Bram growled. “That’s what he meant back in his study. You should see the books piled up. It’s not just the Devil’s power, but his own. He’s used some magic to keep Whit and Zora from coming back into London.”

“Doubtless he’s worked the same spell on Leo and Anne,” Whit said, his voice strained and breathless.

“It can be broken. Can’t it?” Bram turned to Livia.

She exhaled. “Such a spell is a powerful thing. Even had I full possession of my magic, this insubstantial form couldn’t engender enough strength. I would require a corporeal body.”

“We can get your body back,” Zora said at once.

Livia could not stop her embittered laugh. “Impossible.” She waved down at her translucent form. “This is how I shall spend eternity.”

“No,” Bram said, his gaze dark. “There’s a way. I’ve only to find it.”

Silence fell, weighted with leaden thoughts. Despite Bram’s claim, no one seemed to have a solution, the battles ahead already lost.

Whit said, “How can we—”

The scene became a blur of shape and color, a painting left in the rain. Whit’s voice was lost in a haze of sound.

Livia struggled to grasp to magic that held her and Bram to this place. It slipped away, and she felt herself torn from the fabric of the world.

Bram felt the world shudder around him, a breaking apart, and then a swift tug backward. His head reeled, his stomach pitched. For half an instant, he thought he might be sick—he who could endure any manner of rough sea crossings and the lurch of an unsprung carriage down a furrowed road. This motion was unlike anything he’d experienced before, permeating his every sense. The clearing with Whit and Zora spun away, and he plunged through formless infinity.

At last, stability. The whirligig in his head stopped its twirl, and he discovered himself standing in the middle of his practice room, just as he’d been before. He ran the back of his hand across his clammy forehead, and tasted dry metal in his mouth.

He was alone.

He waited for a moment. She would reappear from that Ambitus place. They had worked magic together—his mind still lurched at the thought of creating magic beyond what Mr. Holliday had provided him—and they were bound to one another. She would return. Then they could discuss their next move, formulate strategies. He had been very good at devising tactics and lines of attack.

The few candles in the chamber dripped wax and sent thin coils of smoke toward the ceiling. No other movement in the chamber. Not even Bram, holding himself still, attentive.

Minutes passed, judging by the chime of a clock in the hallway. Still no Livia.

He called her name. His voice echoed in the room.

When no answer came, he reached into his thoughts. Never had he spent this much time in his mind as he did now. He searched for her presence, her haughty flame.

Unfamiliar panic welled when he found only himself within. Her presence was gone. She was trapped in the Ambitus. Again. Fury and despair clutched at him—he couldn’t find the means to draw breath.

Then—there came dim flicker in the recesses of his self. Relief almost made his legs give way beneath him.

Livia, he thought.

She gave a murmur, but did not speak.

He thought her name again, adding urgency. She stirred, the flicker growing faintly brighter.

Are you ailing? he pressed. Injured?

. . . tired ...

Her weakness disturbed him. Never had he felt her so fragile, so enervated. Always, she held the strength of a dozen storms, leveling anything in her path—including him.

Can you make yourself visible?

. . . will try . . .

His awareness returned to the chamber. A moment later, she appeared on her knees, the unsteady flame of a lamp. She cradled her head in her hands.

He crouched beside her. Acting on instinct, he brought up his arm to wrap around her shoulders, then cursed when all he met was shimmering air.

“The spell took its toll on you.” He made his voice sound calm and straightforward.

She made a murmur of assent. “Never . . . tried it before . . . with another.”

“Practice shall make us stronger.”

Lifting her head, her limitless dark eyes met his. “Perhaps . . . even so, it might not . . . be enough.”

He frowned. “It will.”

“John is so strong. He can hold back . . . the Hellraisers. No simple magic. And I’m . . .” She held up her hand as if to block the candle’s illumination. The light shined through her. She provided no barrier. “All I will ever be.”

Bram surged to his feet. “The hell kind of nonsense are you spouting? You’re a priestess, and a damned powerful one.”

“So powerful I can barely take form.” Her mouth twisted. “A spell that once cost me nothing reduces me to a trembling shade. I will never have flesh—which means I can never break the curse that keeps the Hellraisers from coming to our aid. I achieved this much, but shall go no further. The war is already lost.” She lay her head down once more.

“I wish you did have a body.” He growled. “Because if you did, I’d give you a hell of a shaking. Rattle some sense into you. For you’re acting like a sullen, self-pitying child.” The irony was not lost on him—she had made a similar accusation against him not so long ago.

She lifted her head, eyes ablaze. “Recant your words.”

“Or what? You’ll moan me to death?”

Expression thunderous, she bolted to her feet. “I will find a way—”

“Exactly.” He stalked to her. “You will find a way.”

She glared at him a moment longer before her scowl eased. “Is that how you rallied your troops? By insulting them?”

“Whatever means succeeded. I tried them all. Some wanted kind words. Others fared better with sternness—especially the strong, stubborn ones.”

She exhaled. Had she been flesh, he would have felt her breath warm against his face, and he wanted that with a sudden, fierce severity. To breathe her in. To taste her.

“I hate this,” she growled. “Not knowing what to do, or how to do it. I hate that all I see before me is uncertainty.”

“No war’s outcome is ever certain.”

“But there are means by which success is more readily secured. We have none of them.”

Damn, how he wanted to touch her. To place the tips of his fingers beneath the proud line of her chin, feeling her pulse, and tilt her face up to his. To test the texture of her skin, and learn if she was as soft yet resilient as he imagined.

“You recruited me to this war,” he said. “Not because you believed it to be easily won, but because you knew it had to be fought.”

He captured her gaze with his own. “We may win, we may lose. But swinging a sword is better than digging a grave.”

After a moment, she smiled. Or bared her teeth. He could not quite tell the difference. Yet he’d rather she snarl her defiance than extinguish her own flame.

Deep in the hours of night, when Bram might have once caroused and earned himself the name of Hellraiser, he now planned war. A war of stratagems and subterfuge, but war nonetheless. To consider an all-out frontal assault was as foolish as it was perilous. Much as Bram wanted to charge through the front door of John’s home, sword in hand, he would be dead before he made it halfway to the study.

Poisons and planned assassinations would fare no better. Of a certain, John had safeguards in place. Their only recourse, then—ferret out precisely what Bram’s erstwhile friend intended, and prevent those schemes from happening.

Thus, the war council of two: Bram and Livia.

She circled the bedchamber, counter to him standing immobile in the middle of the room. “From every angle, I cannot see a way in.”

“Simple enough,” he said. “I grab one of John’s cohorts and wring the plan out of him. Or use my gift of persuasion, though,” he added, cracking his knuckles, “it won’t be as satisfying as a fine old interrogation.”

“Then that cohort goes running back to John. And thus our subterfuge is ended.”

He scowled. “Hell and damnation. How’s a man to make war against the Devil if he can’t break some jaws?”

“The shattering of bones must wait, much as it must pain you.” She tilted her head, deep in contemplation. “These aren’t the right strategies. We need more guile.”

Frustration formed a red wall in his mind and spread tension through his body. “I only know the battlefield.”

“Not so,” she corrected. “You also know the bedchamber.”

He dipped his head in acknowledgement. She had seen his most prurient memories, and they were abundant.

She continued, “If you wanted to seduce a woman without letting her know she was being seduced, how might you do that?”

Here was a subject he knew well. “The direct approach must be discarded. She has to think that mere chance has put me in her path. A chain of circumstance rather than deliberate intent.”

“Forces outside of your control,” she said.

“Yet now that she and I have been brought together, I find it most agreeable.” He gazed at her. “Pleasurable, even.”

“Pleasurable?” She raised a brow. “From her presence alone?”

“Is that so difficult for her to believe?”

She pursed her lips. “Given what she knows of your history, it is.”

“Therein lies the wonder and truth of it.” He stepped nearer. “I hadn’t gone looking for such a bond, yet it found me. I need her guidance in this unfamiliar territory.”

Livia did not back away, but tilted her chin up to meet his gaze without blinking. “She might be as inexperienced as you, and have no guidance to offer.”

“Then,” he said, lowering his eyelids, “we’ll feel our way together.”

After a long moment, she said softly, “Yes, I can see the efficacy of your strategy.”

He was tense all over, tense in the way a predator readied itself before leaping onto its prey. In this instance, though, there were two predators, and the struggle would be all the more delicious as they each fought for dominance. How they’d claw and tear at one another. He never wanted anything more.

From beneath this onslaught of need, a revelation emerged. The best strategies for tracking bore striking similarities to a seduction.

“We’ve been busy checking the weapon,” he said, “but not the target. That is where we should look.”

She blinked, returning to herself, and it flattered him no small amount that she’d been just as ensnared as he. “John’s enemies. They are the men who occupy his thoughts.”

“He’ll want to know what they intend, make his next move based on that.”