“Solace or torment.” He tugged off the linen stock encircling his neck and wrapped it around his hand. “I cannot decide which you are.”
She checked to make sure the makeshift dressing was secure. “My family would say I’m your punishment.”
“God knows I deserve it. Just the same”—he flicked his gaze to her mouth—“it is a sweet penance.”
She tilted her head back as she considered his mouth, the shape of his lips. He had kissed her ... when? Yesterday? Years ago? Either was too long to go without the taste of him—this nobleman, this gambler.
He reached out, stroked his thumb where her pulse fluttered in her wrist and her skin was sensitive. A contrast from how he had grabbed her roughly just moments ago. Now he plied her with a surprisingly gentle caress, the pad of his thumb along her wrist, for all the clawing and grappling they did with one another. This touch revealed more than incendiary lust. If she had to name the feeling, she might call it ... affection.
Something loosened within her as he stroked her wrist, a knot of vines around her heart releasing its stranglehold.
Male voices echoed in the street. She thought nothing of them, but Whit’s thumb stopped moving.
He turned his head, listening, his brows drawn down. The voices came nearer, as did the sounds of horses on the cobblestones. A group of men traveling together, by the sound of it, approaching the inn. Nightfall and scattered torchlight hid their appearance. Yet, as they drew closer, something about their voices sounded familiar to her, though she could not place them.
Whit could. He growled a curse. Keeping his eye toward the street, he pulled her toward the stables. His free hand went to his sword.
They reached only halfway to the stables when the men rode into the yard. Light from the taproom spilled out, revealing the travelers on horseback. Mutual recognition stunned Whit and Zora as well as the men. For a moment, they stared at one another.
“Hellraisers,” Whit said, his voice even.
“Whit.” The dark one with the scar along his neck dismounted. He began to stride toward them, and the flare of his long black coat, with its many capes and high collar, made him resemble a great raven.
The Rom feared ravens. Zora let her fire magic thread into her hands, keeping it ready should she need it.
“No farther, Bram.” Whit tightened his grip on the pommel of his sword.
Bram stopped in his tracks, his gaze never leaving Whit’s face.
One by one, the other men swung down from their saddles. They, too, stared at Whit, their expressions as tense as bowstrings.
Whit broke the silence first. “Mr. Holliday has you acting as errand boys?”
The youngest of the men, a lean blond man with shrewd eyes, answered. “No errands. We used our gifts to find you, at our own behest. It’s friendship that had us seek you out.”
“After everything, Leo, you still consider us friends?”
“Always,” came the immediate reply.
“It isn’t too late,” said the third man. He had a pleasant face, and Zora remembered how readily he had laughed when he had visited the camp. “The way to London is straight and fast. All of us may return, take up exactly as we had been before.”
“
Better
than we were before,” said Bram. “We’ve gifts now. Anything is possible.”
“Come back,” the pleasant-faced man urged, “and there will be no harm to any of us.”
Her stomach clenched as she glanced at Whit. Would he accept his friends’ offer? Would he slip back into that world of darkness and vice?
“Whit,” she whispered so softly only he could hear.
His gaze found hers.
Stay with me
, her eyes said.
A moment passed. A lifetime. She could not breathe.
He turned back to his friends. Though his expression did not change, his gambler’s mask in place, she knew him now and could read the smallest change in the set of his mouth and the lines around his eyes.
She did not exhale in relief, but she wanted to. His friends’ temptation left him unmoved.
“No harm?” he repeated. “Edmund, you have a mark somewhere on you. A mark of flames.”
The answer came when Edmund gingerly rubbed his thigh.
“If we bear such marks,” said the fourth man, narrow faced and thin, “they mean nothing in exchange for what we have received. The ear of the Prime Minister—it’s mine. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, too. Leo reaps benefits, as do Edmund and Bram.”
The men all nodded, and Zora felt sick dread slithering in her stomach.
Wafodu guero
’s influence had snared them, and nobody looked eager to be free. If what the Devil offered them held as much dark allure as it did for Whit, then only the purest of men could refuse. Whit’s friends were far from pure.
“Political influence is not worth your eternal soul, John.” Whit looked at each man, those who had once been his friends. “None of it is worth the price.”
“Is that what
she
has told you?” asked John. “The thieving Gypsy.”
Before Zora could fire back a retort, Whit spoke. “I trust Zora now as much as I once trusted you.”
The men looked stunned by this statement, especially Bram, who grimaced as if Whit had slid a blade between his ribs.
“There’s more at stake than your own desires,” Zora said. “You’ve seen it, riding into town. The destruction, the madness.”
“Perhaps the fellows have run wild,” murmured Edmund. “A common occurrence.”
“Not on this scale,” Whit countered. “And it’s not only the students. All of Oxford runs wild. Only the slightest provocation and it descends into complete chaos. Imagine that chaos spreading like a pestilence. The smallest village all the way to London. Traveling beyond England’s shores. Riot, devastation and ruin.”
“Hell on earth,” said Zora. “Unless you turn from the Devil.”
Bram scowled, his sharp features turning severe. “You sound like that mad Roman ghost.”
Zora straightened. “You’ve seen her? Livia?”
“Damn spirit harasses me,” Bram muttered. “The others, too. Always speaking in broken riddles, but the message is clear enough. A shame, too. She’d be a beautiful woman ... if she wasn’t demented.”
“And dead,” added Leo.
“Deranged she may be,” said Whit, “but she is trying to help.”
Bram’s scowl deepened, shifting toward a menacing snarl. “It isn’t helpful. It’s bloody maddening.” He took a step toward Zora and Whit. “End this nonsense. Return with us, back to London.”
“No going back.” Sorrow edged Whit’s voice, but it quickly hardened. “And if you come any closer, this saber comes out of its scabbard.”
Rather than cooling Bram’s temper, Whit’s threat only fueled it. His mouth twisted, and shadows crept into his eyes. “Unsheathe it, then.”
Whit did not move.
His stillness seemed to goad Bram. “Do it, Whit. Or do you gamble only with dice and cards, like a coward?”
Zora felt the tension within Whit, saw his jaw tighten and his fists clench. She knew some of
gorgio
ways, enough to understand that Bram’s insult demanded retribution. Yet Whit battled this demand, for the sake of tattered friendship.
Seeing that his taunts did not work, Bram growled. From beneath his overcoat, he drew a sword. Torchlight licked along the blade.
Zora reached for her fire magic, and flames curled over the fingers of her free hand.
“You want me to fight you?” Whit could not keep the disbelief from his words.
Bram smiled unpleasantly as he brandished his sword. “I not only want it, I insist.”
Chapter 13
The directive built inside Whit’s brain, in his muscles. He did not want to fight Bram, nor any of the Hellraisers, though he had prepared himself for the possibility. If he had to, if it meant protecting Zora, he would let steel ring against steel. As corrupted as his friends had become, however, he had no desire to hurt them.
But with Bram’s words, Whit’s choice dissolved. Dimly, he understood that it was Mr. Holliday’s gift that forced Whit to comply. Bram could persuade anyone to do anything. And what his old friend wanted from Whit was a fight.
“You may control the
what
,” Whit said, drawing his saber, “but not the
how
.” He positioned himself between Zora and the others, shielding her, and advanced in a vigilant side step.
Bram’s smile gleamed like wolf ’s teeth as he also advanced. “Nothing by half measures for me. Friend or enemy—one or the other, but nothing in between.”
Whit and Bram drew closer. More steel hissed as John and Edmund drew their swords. Leo held a pistol. Their faces were hard, distant, so different from the close companions he had known. Mr. Holliday had them now, so they were no more than automata with familiar faces powered by diabolical machinery.
He felt more than saw Zora trying to edge around him, but he had to protect her. No telling what any of the men might do now that Whit no longer knew them. The
geminus
wanted her eliminated, and the Hellraisers might be all too happy to oblige.
Bram attacked first. His rapier flashed, quick and deadly. Whit countered the blows, though his heavier saber hadn’t a rapier’s speed. He and Bram used to practice their fencing together in an academy near Fleet Street. They wore no padding now, no protective masks. They came together in a fierce clash of blade to blade, the force of the blows reverberating up Whit’s arm.
He blocked a strike—barely. Though Whit practiced his swordsmanship like any nobleman, Bram had the advantage. He had been a soldier, and a damn good one. The Indian who had given Bram the scar tracing down his neck had not lived long after bestowing the souvenir.
Bram moved with swift precision, striking, parrying. “I always beat you at the academy,” he said as he sidestepped Whit’s swing.
“This isn’t the academy,” Whit answered.
“Masks are off now.”
Whit did not know what was the disguise—the friend with whom he had shared every confidence, or the vicious man giving free rein to his taste for blood. Long had Whit suspected that beneath Bram’s licentious façade was a dark core of brutality, barely contained. At that moment, he had his answer.
“Back away, Whit,” Zora urged, her hands wreathed with flame. “I can’t get a decent shot when you’re so close to him.”
But Bram’s attack came on relentlessly, leaving no room for even the slightest strategic retreat.
Out of the corner of Whit’s eye, he saw movement, almost distracting him. The other Hellraisers moved in. It would be four against one in a moment. John and Edmund hadn’t Bram’s skill with a sword, but Whit could not hold back all of them. Leo might not fire his pistol, but he could box like a born brawler. Leaving Whit with exceedingly unpleasant odds.
Odds
. Damn him, he
did
have a skill Bram did not.
When Bram moved to strike, Whit blocked the blow, then redoubled the strength of his own hits. Bram possessed speed and skill, but his lighter rapier could not hold up under attacks from the heavy saber. Whit reached into the interlaced fibers of probability, probing its configuration until he found what he sought. Minute weaknesses in the rapier’s blade. He struck hard at the steel.
The sound of metal snapping rang through the yard. At the same time, Leo moved to skirt around Bram. Leo stopped his intended assault, biting out a curse as five inches of broken steel pierced his shoulder. Blood welled, a black stain on his fawn coat. He fell back, swearing and clutching his wound.
Bram stared at his broken rapier. The sight stoked his anger, and he launched into another volley of attacks. Whit barely had enough speed to counter. He found himself retreating, struggling to hold Bram at a distance. He delved back into the maze of chance, and found another weakness. A further hard strike broke off over a foot from Bram’s rapier. John and Edmund dodged the flying steel, and it lodged into the wall of a town house across the street.
Though Bram’s sword had been reduced, he still fought well, using it like a cutlass. He came in closer for his offensive. The fire of bloodlust gleamed in his eyes. He feinted. Whit moved to block but felt a blaze of pain as the shortened rapier gouged his side, just beneath his ribs.
They circled one another until Bram stood in front of the inn and Whit had his back to the Hellraisers.
Out of his peripheral vision, he saw John and Edmund taking advantage of their opening, edging nearer.
A burst of light flared. “Back,” Zora commanded, her hands aglow. “Or I will burn you where you stand.”
The Hellraisers stopped their advance. Whit would thank her later, but he still had to contend with Bram. Having scored first blood, Bram fought harder.
He and Whit crossed blades, grappling for the upper hand, swords locked just above the cross-guards. Both men bared their teeth, grimacing, as they struggled for mastery. Whit was strong, but so was Bram. They planted their feet, leaning into each other, every muscle tensed.
Whit delved back into the intricate patterns of probability swirling around them. They shifted and transformed at his urging, the reticulum of probability his to command. All it took were slight adjustments, and chance lined up in precise order.
Yes.
With a surge of energy, he threw his fist. He smashed the saber’s thick hand guard into Bram’s jaw. The blow snapped Bram’s head back, dazing him. It would take more than a hard punch to the chin to lay him out, but the force of the blow did cause him to readjust his footing. Bram took a minute step back. As he did, the heel of his boot caught on a loose cobblestone. His balance faltered, and he slipped backward.
He fell against the front wall of the inn, swearing roughly. Seeking equilibrium, his arms flew out, and his left hand knocked into a lamp mounted on the wall. The lamp tumbled down. Its glass shattered on the stones, and flame touched a scattering of hay. The tinder caught immediately, creating a tiny blaze.
Then the fire was everywhere, roaring up in a wall. The four Hellraisers’ panicked horses ran off. Whit glanced over his shoulder and smiled. Zora stood beside him. She had flung back her cloak, and, with hands outstretched, she guided the flames, creating a barrier of fire encircling the Hellraisers. Her lovely face was fierce, unrelenting. With her hands wreathed in fire, and fire reflected in her dark eyes, she was an avenging goddess, and nothing had ever been so beautiful.
“Call off your witch!” John shouted above the blaze.
“No one controls her,” Whit answered.
He cast a quick look toward the inn. Faces crowded the windows. With wide, disbelieving eyes, people watched the spectacle as f irelight danced on the glass. Witches had not been burned in England for thirty years, but he did not want today to see the practice resume. It would not take much urging for the citizens of Oxford, having seen their town descend into chaos, to blame Zora.
One hand still holding his saber, he held the other out to her.
She glanced between him and Bram, who was pinned and held back by the wall of fire. An unspoken question. Whit reached into himself and found that Bram’s command no longer bound him. The hit to the jaw and subsequent fall must have broken the magical directive. Whit did not have to fight Bram any longer.
“We leave this place. Now.”
The flames around her hands disappeared, though the fire continued to blaze and imprison Edmund, Leo, Bram, and John. She took hold of Whit’s hand. Together, they ran into the stables. It took some doing to mount the frightened horses, but they managed the task.
Whit’s side throbbed, and blood dampened his skin. He ignored the pain and urged his horse out of the stable. Zora did the same, as fleet as lightning, her cloak billowing behind her.
For a brief moment, they paused, taking in the scene. Leo, wounded. Bram, staggering and snarling as he rose. John and Edmund, shielding their eyes from smoke. The strange, hellish image of fire encircling his erstwhile friends, while onlookers within the inn stared back, pale and aghast.
With a wave of Zora’s hand, the flames guttered, then died. She flicked her gaze toward the inn and then the stables. He grasped her meaning. The fire could not be allowed to spread, could not touch any buildings, lest innocents found themselves caught in an inferno. Only a diversion had been needed, not a holocaust.
Leo could not run, and the other Hellraisers could only follow on foot.
Whit refused to allow them the possibility of pursuit. He and Zora shared a glance. They set heels to their horses’ flanks and rode hard into the street. Shouts rang out behind them, but the voices soon faded. The havoc in the streets of Oxford matched Whit’s heart. If there had been any possibility of reconciliation with his friends, it was now gone. A line of fire had been drawn. On one side stood the Hellraisers. On the other stood Whit.
But he was not alone. Zora was with him. As they crossed Folly Bridge, he felt her bright, fierce presence beside him, and the shadow of loss dimmed in her brilliance.
“We were at school together.”
Zora glanced up from where she knelt beside a stream, a strip of muslin dangling from her hand.
“Winchester,” said Whit. He sat upon a fallen log, his legs outstretched to relieve the ache from hours in the saddle. Nearby, the horses dipped their heads to the ground, cropping grasses and taking their deserved rest. Whit blessed the need both he and John had to buy only the finest of everything, including horseflesh. Any other lesser animals would have collapsed into quivering meat after such a rigorous, taxing pace.
Zora dipped the muslin into the water. A quiet, intimate sound. She gracefully rose and walked to him. He followed her movements as if the sight of her could somehow prevent his slide into greater darkness.
She perched beside him, and he caught her scent of night, wind and smoke. As he inhaled, she motioned for him to remove his coat, waistcoat, and shirt.
He obliged, and did not miss the way her gaze roamed over his bared arms and torso. Even in this moonlit meadow, he saw and felt her hungry perusal. Her gaze lingered on the hollow of his throat, where her ring rested. He still wore it. A low throb moved through his body, settling in his groin with warm expectation. He allowed himself to sink into the need, a distraction from the injuries riddling his body.
“Bram and I.” He watched as she dabbed gently at the wound beneath his ribs. The cold water made him hiss, but he eased his breathing. “I’d been there for two years when he arrived. Eton and Harrow had already thrown him out.” He smiled. “Wild, he was. Even then.”
“And you were great friends right away.” The muslin in her hand darkened as it swabbed away crusts of blood. Bram’s rapier had made that wound. It was deep enough to leave a scar.
Yet it could have been much worse. Bram’s skill with a blade could not be matched by any of the professional maestros in London. Not for the first time in the past few hours, Whit wondered if Bram had truly fought as hard and ruthlessly as he could.
“The first time we met, I teased him about his shoes. One of the buckles was loose, and it jingled when he walked, so I called him a cow. A cow in the field. He punched me in the stomach. Whenever we saw each other—in the refectory, at lessons, on the football pitch—we beat each other bloody. A month that went on.”
“Something changed.” She peered closer at the wound, her breath feathering over him.
He forced his concentration on the stream rather than her head bent low, or her braided hair brushing the tops of his thighs. “There was another boy, a liar and bully. Bram and I beat
him
bloody one day. And then we were friends.”
Her chuckle curled over the flesh of his abdomen. “Nothing strengthens friendship like a shared beating.”
“After that, we were inseparable. But when I went to university, he bought a commission. Saw each other often enough when he had leave. Cutting a swath through the assemblies of London—a young earl and an officer in His Majesty’s Army.”
“What
gorgie
could resist?”
Few did, but he was not much inclined to tell her that. “He was different back then. So was I. That’s the callowness of youth and privilege. He went to the Colonies to fight the French, and came back ... changed. Wilder than ever. I couldn’t even attempt to keep up with him. He seldom talked about what happened over there. It left him profoundly altered. Almost ... broken. It ... hurt to see.”
“Did you ever speak to him of your concerns?”
He looked at her, raising his brows. “Have you no knowledge of men?”