His voice was pleasant, smooth as cream, but with the sharpness of a proper, upper-crust London accent. Well-raised, then. But beneath it, there was a thread of something deeper that came out more when he was agitated, such as now. It wasn’t Scots, more like what one would hear in Northern England, with the dropped “h”s and breathy endings of words as if he were swallowing them. Exotic and dark. Holly had heard the like before in other demons. Notably the Sanguis who were believed to come from the north. Sanguis. The blood drinkers. Fiends who thrived on blood and sexual relations. Logically, Holly knew that it was wrong to fault someone for something they have no control over. Sanguis were as their creator made them. And yet, even though she tried to see it that way, a shiver of disgust over their choice in libation came over her just the sam.

Nor did she particularly trust demons. Far too many of her colleagues had been hurt or deceived by them. She wondered idly if he spoke demonish. But then swatted that thought away as he stalked about the room, his muscled arms gesticulating wildly. “Am I to be this mad thing? Incapable of a rational thought unless you,” his lips curled on a bitter face, “are near me?” Thorne halted and strode back to her, the torn ends of his tunic flapping, displaying a well-defined torso and that scar. That scar had haunted her deepest dreams. Nearly a foot long and comprised of gnarled platinum threads, like a tight network of tree roots. From that scar spread a small lake of platinum, washing over the expanse of his upper chest. It radiated ever outward as he moved. “Tell me,” he said, his voice still dark and strange, his eyes flashing black and silver, “why shouldn’t I kill us both now and take you to hell with me?” “Can you destroy yourself, Mr. Thorne?” The taut wall of his abdomen clenched as he glared down at her. “No,” he shouted. “No, I can’t. Satan knows I’ve tried. But I simply dissipat.

To shadows! Fuck.” He pushed off again, a mass of restless energy. She envied that. She was so weary at this moment. Using her power on Thorne to that extent had utterly drained her. Holly braced her hip against the edge of her desk and hoped he would not notic.

“You say you turn to shadows. Have you the ability to leave your body in spirit as the GIM do?” GIM, or Ghosts in The Machine, were spirits that refused to move on once dead. As lore went, an extremely old and powerful Primus demon named Adam could be called upon to restore the spirit’s body and give them immortality. There was a price, however. Adam gave the body a clockwork heart, and the soul was contractually indebted to him for a time of servic.

Should the soul fail to comply, Adam simply stopped the heart, and the body would di.

With his clockwork heart, Thorne was modeled after the GIM. Only he was a demon, whereas GIM were once human. “No. I am either lamentably solid or mere ether.” He made it sound like a fault, but Holly saw a greater advantage in his ability. For at least his body was never left empty and vulnerabl.

“There is something I do not understand,” she said, watching him prowl. He snorted rudely. “You say you are here to kill me as revenge against what was done to you. Did you send the others?” Thorne pivoted on his heel. “You mean to say there are others who yearn to wrap their hands about your pretty neck?” His smile was not nic.

“Why am I not surprised?” Really, the man was most amusing. “Mr. Thorne, did you come here of your own accord or did someone send you?” He paused and peered at her. “I… Hell, I don’t know.” On a sigh, Thorne tossed himself into a chair and grasped his hair with both hands as he hunkered forward. His voice came out muffled and pained. “I don’t even know how I got her.

Or what I’ve been doing since I was freed. How long has it been since that night?” He lifted his head and looked up at her. Really, his eyes were most beautiful, almost feminine with their long, dark lashes and the slight tilt at the corners. With his smooth, unlined face, he appeared nothing more than a young man, lost and frightened. “You’ve scars upon your wrists,” he said. “Time to heal at least.” She found it an effort to speak. “It is nearing on a year. It is the first of October, in the year eighteen-eighty-six.” “A year.” He winced before letting out a chuff of air. “Why did it take me so long to come for you?” He did not speak to her, but scowled down at his large, clenched fist. “You are the only thing I have thought about.” She was sure many women would love to hear such a sentiment, if it weren’t for the “so I could kill you” that was left unsaid. A soft blanket of silence fell over the room. Enough that she noticed the gentle patter of rain coming from outside the windows. Thorne ran a tired hand over his face then straightened. “Just how many have tried to kill you, Evernight?” “Including you, four attempts thus far.” “And you truly have no notion as to why?” He appeared highly skeptical. “You are the only one I’ve had an opportunity to ask. The others died.” His elegant brows lifted. They were not white as his hair was, but a dark bronze color. Holly forced her attention away from silly things and addressed the matter at hand. “I have excellent security in place, Mr. Thorne.” “No doubt,” he muttered then ros.

He was not a great hulking brute like his friend Jack Talent, but lithe and lean, and above average in terms of height. Perhaps an inch over six feet, which made him a foot taller than Holly. His eyes, beautiful though they might be, were also those of a predator. They glinted now, calculating as he came clos.

“Yet you could not kill me,” he said in that deep Northern voic.

“Not yet.” He stopped before her, and she caught the scent of wool and something sharp like win.

“Has it not occurred to you that in learning your advantage over me, it has become easier for me to get at you?” He radiated heat like a small oven now. Demon heat. She wanted to recoil, but did not. The corners of his mouth curled, showing a hint of fang. “Tell me, can you fight against a shadow? Keep one out of your little fortress here?” Coolly, she faced him head on. “What are you waiting for, then, Mr. Thorne?” His humorless smile grew, but she noted that he was now shaking slightly, and the corners of his eyes were tight. Platinum crept up his throat, edging up to his jaw, and it snaked down his abdomen, dipping into the tiny well of his navel. He twitched when it reached ther.

“Here is what I propose,” he said, as though he were not in increasing pain. “I shall keep you safe, help you find out who wants you dead, and stop them. In return, you agree to cure me and keep me pain free for the duration.” As she watched him, he swayed on his feet, a small movement, but clear nonetheless. His lids fluttered, the platinum threads in his irises getting thicker. “Well?” he rasped. She ought to let him wait, the cheeky, annoying bastard, but it was her heart that chugged away in his chest. And so she pulled what little reserves of strength she had and let her palm rest once more on his smooth chest where the metal had made it so very cold. He shuddered, a breath of sound leaving his lips, as she pulled at his pain. “All right,” she said, looking at her hand upon him. So strange to see it ther.

“But this shall take some thinking.” For if she was correct, she’d have to touch him almost constantly.

Chapter Three

Relief, Will realized, could work like a drug. It flooded his system, making him weak of knee and frighteningly close to whimpering. However, he fought back the urge to draw her close, to drop his forehead to hers and weep with gratitud.

She might not have been the hand swinging the sword that slashed through his life, but as sword maker, she was responsible in her own way. He shook himself out of his muddled analogies and followed as she turned and headed out of the room. In the hall, a man waited. He was fairly young, likely in his late twenties, and polished in the slick manner of a London toff. Will eyed him with distast.

Had Evernight a man? She hadn’t said, but the unfeeling woman would be just the sort to keep her paramour waiting. “Felix,” she said without breaking stride, “have the blue room made up, please.” Servant. Good. Felix looked Will over with dark eyes full of distrust. “Very well, Miss.” “Is the blue room next to your room?” Will asked her. She faltered a pac.

“Why?” He crowded her and then, giving in to the urge to touch her, caught up her hand. When she tried to pull away, he held fast. Touching eased his pain, and she had promised. “I don’t want to roam far should I have need of you,” he said, with a certain dark gle.

The halls were too shadowed to tell, but he swore a blush stole over the high crests of her cheeks. Her butler, or whatever he was, wasn’t able to contain a soft gurgle of shock. “Ignore Mr. Thorne, Felix,” she said. “He is merely trying to get a rise out of you.” Clever girl. “Yes,” Will admitted, “but it is also the truth. I fully intend to comply to the terms of our agreement.” Gas lamps flickered on the newel post at the top landing, coloring her skin peach as they climbed the wide center stair. “The blue room,” she said coolly, “has a door that joins to mine.” Will’s toe caught on a riser. Scowling, he jumped lightly up the next one as if to appear that his bumble was intentional. Not that he fooled the smug Miss Evernight. “I assumed you’d need to be near for the same reasons,” she went on in her smooth way. “I don’t like you,” he told her again, and to remind himself. “Of course not.” She and the butler stopped before a door midway down the third floor hallway. “Nor do you need to.” In the odd way of English houses, the blue room was not done in blue, but in shades of grey. Flamed walnut paneled the walls. The only nod to blue was a vivid, deep blue lapis lazuli fireplace mantl.

A staggering display of wealth for a simple bedroom. Evernight managed to detach herself from him, and the heavy weight of pain immediately returned. “Bathing room.” She pointed to one of the paneled doors at the far side of the room. “My room,” she said of the other door. Two maids entered, one holding a coal scuttle, the other bedding. Evernight ignored them and headed towards the connecting door to her room. “Come.” Will followed, feeling a bit like a dog, and wanting to growl just the sam.

He wasn’t certain what he expected of Evernight’s room, but not this… clutter. Four large tables were pushed up against the available wall spac.

Heaps of mechanical parts in various stages of development lay upon them. At the end of each table rested a toolbox. Before the fireplace stood a massive desk, upon which tottered two towers of leather notebooks. Her bed was made of cast iron with a canopy. It seemed more a cage, though masses of plump, linen-clad pillows and a down-filled comforter made up for the austerity. Her only other concession of comfort came in the form of a wide, red velvet chaise lounge drawn up before a wall of windows, hung with ivory damask drapery. Evernight stopped next to her desk and turned up the lamp ther.

As she gathered up a stack of what looked like small metal disks from the desk, Will walked over to the window. Below them, a wide stone terrace ran the length of the house, stepping down to an unadorned lawn that met the river Thames. Two sets of iron gates surrounded the property. Efficient if one wanted to dissuade human thieves. “You know you are being hunted,” he said, watching rivulets of rain run down the windowpanes, “yet you sit here like a rabbit in her warren.” “The house is well fortified.” She placed a disk on the floor in one corner of the room and moved to the door that connected his room to hers. There she set another little disk. “My safety precautions have dispatched three supernaturals.” “Hmm.” He roamed over to a table and picked up an apparatus that appeared to be some sort of half-formed pocket watch, only it had a tiny lens on its fac.

“Do not,” she bustled over and took the thing from him, “touch my work.” “I won’t damage it.” But he had to smile at her proprietary ton.

“Maybe not, but it might damage you.” Carefully, she set the watch down and turned to face him. “How shall we proceed?” “You can start by telling me everything you can about your activities leading up to—” He stopped short when she uttered a strangled cry and tugged his arm to get him away from the tabl.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he groused, “I was only leaning a hip against it.” “I told you to stay clear of my—” Will bent down and scooped her up. “Mr. Thorne! Release me at once.” “In a moment.” Will held her close and headed for his room. “I cannot think in here, not with you admonishing me like a high-strung governess.” “Then simply tell me that and let me walk on my own volition.” Up close, her lashes were thick and long, her eyes indigo. A tiny freckle graced the outer corner of her left ey.

He might have done what she requested, but he found he enjoyed annoying her, and he had his hands on her, which eased him. Regardless, he let her down with an ungracious drop the moment they were back in his room. She wobbled on her feet and uttered a ribald curse beneath her breath. “I was not yet done in there.” “What? Placing those little disks?” Will asked. “What are they anyway?” “Another safety measure.” She appeared far too smug about it. “I see.” He didn’t ask what, fearing the explanation of the mechanics would bore him to tears. The maids had gon.

His bed, an ornate affair of ebony wood, was made and turned down for the night, and a cheery fire crackled behind the grat.

Will sat upon a small sofa before the hearth—for his room had a normal sitting area—and patted the space next to him. Evernight, who was shaking out her skirt, gave him a quelling look. Hell, he would enjoy this as much as demonly possibl.