Zoe Archer - Sinner’s Heart

He was a thundercloud of a man as he swung away. Easy to see him as a soldier in the lethal economy of his movement. “I’m not so inured to the presence of ghosts, let alone being chained to one.”

“Witness my own joy at this state of affairs.” Yet it need not be a wasted opportunity. This man was the linchpin in the fight. If she could turn him to the cause of defeating the Dark One, surely the chances of success must increase. He could be very powerful, if he so chose to be. But whether his power was for the Dark One or against him, that was yet in doubt.

He went to stand at the window, staring out at the darkness.

She drifted closer to him, until she was beside him. Women would be drawn to such a man, helpless as starving deer, craving a taste of him. Even without the magic given to him, he would pull them near. If he had a scent, it would be woodsmoke and clove. But she couldn’t learn his scent, nor the warmth of his body or touch of his hands. She had only the memory of her senses. Everything else was ashes.

“The gifts given to you by the Dark One, they were but pretty trinkets in exchange for your soul.”

He did not turn to her as he said without irony, “Didn’t think I had a soul.”

“All men do. But it was yours the Dark One craved.”

“Then he’s the bigger fool, for it has a negligible value.”

She peered at him. “You truly believe that?”

“Once I had a fine, dazzling set of beliefs. They are all tarnished now. Or thrown onto the midden.”

His bleakness made her frown. “The world is going up in flames.”

“Let it burn.” He sounded weary.

“It’s not simply a matter of the world ending. It’s not the blaze of the fire followed by cold nothingness. If the Dark One is victorious, it means suffering. Unending suffering for every living being.”

He did turn to her then. “We’re all suffering.”

“Worse.”

Shadows shifted across his face like clouds across the moon. Yet he remained as distant as the moon, as well, shuttering away doubt. “Cannot be stopped.”

“It can—”

“You’ve denied me my night’s pleasure, and the Devil knows how long you’ll keep me from my peace, but you won’t keep me from my rest.” He moved away from the window.

She glided forward to intercept him. He started to walk around her, then moved through her. She stiffened, anticipating sensation. None came. He went through her as if she were nothing, not even a vapor to leave a chill upon his skin.

Coming to stand beside the bed, he stared at her with that cold, ruthless look of his she was coming to recognize. It had been intentional, his walking through her. Proving a point. She could not impede him.

Slowly, his fingers moved to his waistcoat. The buttons sparkled and winked beneath his fingers as he undid them.

Once his waistcoat had been opened and he let it fall to the floor, there were more layers. His torso made a firm, broad shape under the fabric of his shirt.

He watched her the whole while. A thief ’s gaze. Canny and calculating.

By all the gods, he was undressing. Deliberately. Knowing that she watched him.

His laced shirt followed the waistcoat, making a soft white shape on the patterned carpet. His torso gleamed in the firelight, still slick with sweat from his combat practice. Scars marked him, not merely the one that twisted down his neck, but relics of other past wounds. She recognized the scars left behind from blades, but a strange circular one on his right shoulder puzzled her. There were odd new weapons now, weapons that exploded with fire and hurled balls of lead, piercing the body. Guns, she’d heard them called. A person could be shot by a gun.

He had. During his military service, perhaps. Such an injury must kill most men. Not him. Someone had shot him, and he had survived.

This collection of scars was not what made her stare, however.

He followed her gaze to his chest. They both studied the markings winding across his flesh, over his heart, along his ribs and down his left arm.

She’d observed them on the other Hellraisers, these images of flame, promises of torments to come. Yet to see the markings upon Bram reminded her of all that hung in the balance.

“When it covers you, the Dark One owns you completely.”

His mouth twisted. “I thought I was his already.”

“Until your flesh is entirely engulfed by the markings, there’s yet hope.”

“To regain my soul.” He stared at the images of flame a moment longer, his expression austere. “To become the man I once was.” The way his words frosted, this prospect didn’t seem to be much of a prize to him.

“The other Hellraisers, Whit and Leo, they found ways. They reclaimed their souls. It’s not an impossible task.” A current of dark energy rippled through the chamber, and she frowned, seeking its source. It hadn’t come from Bram, but seemed to originate from somewhere in the house.

“They had something I don’t—motivation.” He toed off his buckled shoes and peeled off his stockings, and then began to unfasten the buttons of his breeches.

Thoughts of mysterious dark energy fled. She watched with breathless anticipation as his breeches slid down, revealing the sharp muscles angling toward his groin, and then his cock. He was not as indifferent to her as he affected, for he was thickening, rising, as he stripped with her gaze upon him.

“Cruel.” Her voice was a rasp.

“If necessary, yes.” He pulled off his breeches, uncovering sinewy thighs.

“I’m not your enemy. We might be allies in this fight.”

“Having gone to war already, I’ve no desire to do so ever again.” He flipped back the blanket, baring the mattress. He fixed her with a heavy-lidded look. “A pity you haven’t a physical body. We might find intriguing ways of distracting one another while we’re tied together.”

She was glad she had no body, for it would have been easily misled by him. “Is that what you do? Distract yourself with bedsport?”

“As a strategy, it’s very effective.” He reached up and pulled the tie from his hair. Freed from its binding, his hair fell around his shoulders, ink black. It was probably silky to the touch.

“The Dark One looked into your soul and saw more need there. That’s how he works—he offers us what we think we want.”

“Now look at me.” Nude, unashamed, he spread his arms. “A man fulfilled.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“And you’ve no way of knowing what I do or do not believe.”

She drifted nearer. She could be cruel, too. “I was inside your mind, your memories.”

He dropped his arms, and for all his muscularity and strength, he seemed vulnerable. But it passed quickly, and he was beautiful and cynical once more. “I’m amazed boredom did not kill you all over again.”

Frustration welled. “Bram—”

Someone scratched at the door. He turned away and paced to a wooden cabinet. He pulled out a long robe of dark green silk. After shrugging into it, he stalked to the chamber door and threw it open, revealing a servant.

A strange wave of shadows descended, and she felt herself pushed back into the in-between mist. Glancing down, she saw her image fading, her hands so translucent as to be almost invisible. Her consciousness remained in the room—she heard and saw everything, yet had no form.

“I’m not to be disturbed after I retire,” Bram growled.

“Forgive me, my lord. He insisted that I wake you. It’s most urgent, he says.”

“Who?”

“Mr. John Godfrey, my lord. He’s downstairs, and if I may say, most anxious to speak with you.”

Had she a heart, it would have seized in her chest. Only two Hellraisers remained, Bram and John. It was John’s dark energy she had felt moments earlier; the strength of his power enveloped the house and dimmed her own strength.

Though she had faded into invisibility, Bram turned and looked directly at her. The servant peered around his master, curious to see what had drawn his attention, and frowned when there was nothing but an empty room.

“Where is he?” Bram asked, turning back to the servant.

“In the Green Drawing Room, my lord.”

“I’ll be down directly.”

Bowing, the servant withdrew.

She tried to reach out to Bram, tried to speak, but with John so near, she became an empty shell incapable of words. Damn and hell, she had to keep Bram away from John. The other man’s poison would infect Bram.

“You’re still here,” he rumbled. “I can feel you.”

Don’t go to him, she tried to say. There’s still a chance.

She had no mouth with which to speak. No hands to grab hold of him. Rage at her helplessness burned through her.

He turned and strode from the chamber.

Bram strode through the darkened corridors of his home, with only a few lit candles flickering in the shadows. Stillness smothered the house, yet his heart beat loudly in his ears as he descended the stairs.

A lone footman stood outside the closed doors to the Green Drawing Room, candle in hand.

“No one disturbs us,” Bram said.

Bowing, the footman backed away. Bram stood alone in the corridor, his hand upon the door, his muscles and thoughts taut. How to face the man he once considered one of his closest friends? The man was now a murderer. Was he here to kill Bram as well?

In a fight, John would be no match for Bram. Yet there were new measurements of a man’s capabilities beyond physical strength. Bram himself had witnessed the Devil bestowing more power upon John, though what that power might entail was yet untried—upon Bram, at any rate. The Devil had tried to give Bram more power as well. The ghost had prevented it, however, stepping between him and the bolt of magic. Because of her, he possessed only his original gift.

She might be his savior. She might be his destruction.

He didn’t want saving, and his destruction was assured.

Something brushed along his neck, cool and electric. It moved through him in volatile waves. Her. He knew the feel of her presence, her force and purposeful cunning. He knew no living woman like her, and that was a blessing, for of a certain such women were created to rule the world.

He stared into the shadows, waiting for her to manifest. Yet she did not. She remained a formless, invisible energy swirling through the dark. Agitation thrummed through her.

Don’t go in there.

Her voice resounded in his mind, low and urgent.

“He’s one of my best friends,” he muttered.

Neither of us knows what John truly is anymore. Send him away.

“No.” For if there were judgments to make, he’d make them himself, not at the command of a long-dead Roman with a siren’s voice.

But—

He pushed open the double doors and stepped into the Green Drawing Room.

John whirled to face him. Aside from a slight disorder in his clothing, he seemed much as he always had, with his scholar’s sharp face, his lanky height that he had never grown into, as if he had more important and worthwhile things to consider besides the thickening of his body.

“Bram,” he said after a moment.

“John.” They stared at one another. Of the five Hellraisers, Bram and John were the most disparate, and had spent few hours alone together. Now they were all that remained, a strange irony. The rakehell and the man of letters. “How did you know to find me at home?”

“This is my final stop of the night. I tried all the familiar places first.” John glanced at Bram’s banyan. “You’ve been pulled from your bed. Are you alone?”

Livia’s presence clung close, buzzing and unquiet. Yet Bram answered, “I am.”

Frowning, John studied him, searching for something. “Certain? I might’ve sworn—”

“There’s only me.” He didn’t know why he concealed Livia from John. These were perilous times—no one could be trusted.

Moving further into the chamber, he went to a side table and poured himself a brandy. He silently offered a glass to John, but his friend shook his head. The most abstemious of the Hellraisers, was John.

“What are you doing here? I would have thought you’d be sequestered in the corner of some assembly, engineering a political alliance.”

“It is for that reason I’ve searched you out.” He lowered his voice, confiding. “I’ve come for a favor.”

Bram raised his brows. “You mistake me for one of your Whitehall power brokers.”