Brimstone Seduction Page 11

  She put her elbows on the powdery surface of the table and rested her face in her hands, but just as she began to close her eyes, the reflection of a name caught her eye.

  Kat stood and turned.

  Not only a name. She recognized a face and a particular set of eyes she’d known as well as she knew her own.

  She moved toward the wall with hesitant steps.

  From the vanity to the poster, she traveled back in time twenty years. Her mother had been a lovely Marthe. It was the fluttering corner of her poster that had caught Kat’s attention and drawn her eyes to her mother’s name. The paper was yellow and curled. She reached to touch the face she’d lost before she’d lost Victoria. Her sister had done the same. Kat knew she must have. Vic had stood where she stood now with her fingers trembling and tears on her lashes, with her heart trapped in the tightening cage of her chest. Had her sister remembered the full contralto swell of their mother’s voice singing lullabies to her children as easily as she sang her dramatic roles?

  Victoria must have peeled back the loosened corner. Kat peeled it back, as well. The move revealed a seam in the wood that ran down to her knees. It was a cupboard, one that had been papered shut decades ago.

  But it had been loosened much more recently than that.

  Kat slid several lacquered nails down the seam to edge it open. Inside was a shallow enclosure built into the wall. Perhaps it had been installed for costume jewelry or other small valuables, but the only thing in it now was a small bundle of folded letters bound in a faded satin sash.

  She recognized the old belt to her childhood dress.

  As she reached to close her hand around the stack, she glanced at the mirror over her shoulder. In it, her reflection looked small and humble and completely dwarfed by a hulking shadow on the wall. She reached for the stack of letters, and as she did, the shadow shifted and changed. The black mass of it swelled bigger and bigger. Large wing-like projections unfurled and stretched from corner to corner of the room. In the reflection, she was sheltered or threatened beneath those shadowy wings.

  Kat left the letters where they lay and whirled. She stared at the shadow to determine where it came from. A flood of instinctive energy rushed to her legs, urging her to flee. Was it adrenaline that made the room seem colder? She could see nothing that would cast the shadow, and neither dress forms nor couches had moved. The lights around the mirror flickered and flashed. The wings stretched as if they would envelop her. But it had to be a trick of the light. She was in no danger from darkness.

  As she tried to calm her heart and ignore the urge to run, the tip of one wing lifted from the wall.

  The translucent shadow that was no mere shadow reached out to her and touched her cheek in a feathery slide down her face.

  These black feathers would never give her freedom or happiness.

  Her body went suddenly cold. Ice radiated outward from the shadow’s touch as if flowing superchilled through her veins. She cried out, and the sound escaped from hard lips in a puff of white. A tingling numbness was following the ice. Her body was freezing while she tried to tell herself it couldn’t be.

  The whole room dimmed. The shadow was detaching itself from the wall. There were whispers now, all around. Urgent shushes and hushes she no longer wanted to hear.

  She could think of only one person who might be able to combat the freeze.

  Kat flung herself forward and away from the shadow. She wrenched open the door and began a stumbling run down the hall. It was desperate and probably foolish, but in that moment, John Severne and his Brimstone’s fire seemed a salvation.

  * * *

  Whatever peace he’d achieved from hours of weights was shattered when the woman he’d tortured himself to forget rushed into the sanctum of his private gym. Grim leaped to his feet from his place at the door, but he didn’t confront Katherine D’Arcy. He faced out toward the hallway instead, his hackles raised and a growl rumbling deep in his chest. The dog’s hind legs dug into the floor until his claws pitted the rug as if he expected to be met and slammed with great opposition.

  Severne was lathered, spent, self-flagellated to nothing but muscle and bone.

  Still, he rose.

  He met Kat as her momentum brought her to his side, but he didn’t take her in his sweat-slicked arms. Instead, he faced the hallway as Grim faced it, planted, prepared, an unuttered growl filling his chest.

  Kat stopped. She turned to face the hallway, as well.

  “C-c-cold. S-so c-cold,” she stuttered.

  It was only then that he saw she quaked until her teeth chattered as she tried to speak.

  He had nothing to give her except the damnation in his veins.

  While Grim guarded the door, Severne turned to the woman beside him and took her in his arms. Hours of forced separation and austerity fell away. This was what he most wanted and most feared. She was shivering, and her soft skin was ice against him beneath the delicate silk pajamas that provided no warmth. Thankfully, they provided no barrier, either. He hissed from the pain as their bodies came together. Her ice and his fire. Immediately he felt the drain as her frozen body absorbed his Brimstone heat.

  More pain of a different sort flared when she touched him, both palms coming against his chest. Only strength of will kept him from dropping to his knees. The ice was agony. The contact was worse. Her reaching for him in need was torturous.

  In spite of the pain, or maybe because he needed the lash of it to keep from feeling her softness, Severne pulled her closer. She’d been touched by a banished daemon, one that wasn’t fully contained in the walls. His lean form pulsed with Brimstone. Banished daemons were completely drained of fire. How had one managed to free itself, and why had it reached out to Katherine?

  Kat pressed into him, seeking his warmth.

  Torture? He’d been tortured his whole existence, but Katherine hungry for his damned heat was worse than any hardship he’d ever endured. He gave it to her while holding an untouchable part of himself back. Here, now, he burned for her. He saved her with hell’s fire.

  He’d been right that her skin would be perfect and soft. He had reason to caress it now. Her cold was the perfect excuse to slide his Brimstone-heated hand over her skin. She trembled, but she didn’t ask him to stop. Cold, fear, desire—what fueled her shivers? He held her with a strong arm behind her back while he ran his other hand gently over her arms, each one from shoulder to wrist, purposefully ignoring the tinkle of her silver chain.

  A flush rose in response to his touch. Her pale, frozen flesh was brought back to heat and life. The silk of her nightclothes was nothing compared to the softness of her.

  From her arms, he slid his hand over each leg, torturing himself at the tremble of her thighs and the seduction of silk in the V between them. But he devoted himself to giving her his heat without demanding anything in return. No more intimacy than this. She would be cradled in his arms and accept the heat of his touch and him. The pleasure of nearly innocent exploration was a test for his control.

  Noting how her nipples peaked the silk of her top wasn’t innocent, nor was his swelling erection.

  But he ignored his ache to tend to her. She trembled in his arms. She warmed. She relaxed.

  He brushed his hand against her face, and she sighed. She leaned into his palm. She didn’t stop him when he moved his hand to her bared neck. She only opened her eyes and watched through her lashes as he slid his fingers from her neck to her chest, where he spread them between the fullness of her breasts.

  Her heartbeat was rapid but steady.

  Not frozen.

  Not anymore.

  His Brimstone was a blessing for just this night. He was no daemon. But he was also no saint. He lightly teased his palm over and under one heavy breast, and she gasped, but she didn’t pull away. He tested the weight of her in his hand,
but only for a moment before he slid his palm to her stomach.

  There, beneath her ribs, she was still far too cold.

  He gathered her closer. He pressed his hand tight. He willed his heat into her. He wasn’t afraid. His fear had been burned away long ago, but he was suddenly desperate to warm her.

  “You’re safe,” he said. As he held her and healed her, he would have accepted eternal torment rather than let anything hurt her. He would hurt her. One day soon. He would betray her. But he held her now and helped her. He gave her all, if only for a few moments.

  “That’s a lie, but I’ll risk it. I don’t want to freeze to death,” Kat said.

  Too soon, but not soon enough, she flushed in his arms. He sensed when her body temperature was closer to normal. Her shivers stopped. She sighed.

  “Is l’Opéra Severne haunted?” she asked against his shoulder.

  “No. There are no ghosts here that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve walked these halls a long time. There are only souls doomed to a limbo even the damned don’t deserve,” he replied.

  “The walls...the murals,” she said. She no longer shivered from the cold, but she did shudder as she comprehended one of the opera house’s darkest secrets.

  “Don’t look. Don’t touch. There’s nothing you can do for them. This is a war that began before you were born. Before I was born. They’re casualties of war. Gone but never forgotten,” Severne said.

  “They’re suffering,” Kat said.

  She trembled now. His body felt every subtle reaction to his touch. She was no longer cold. She didn’t need his Brimstone heat. There were other needs shifting into focus.

  * * *

  She was warm now.

  His body beneath her hands was a living furnace. Her shivers had stopped, but she still trembled. Severne was back in his workout shorts. His black hair was damp against his forehead. His muscles beneath her fingers were honed and hard.

  She tilted her chin to look up at his face. His cheeks were flushed from exertion, from Brimstone, but also, maybe, from her touch? He’d shielded her from the door with his body. Grim had crouched down, warily watching the hall, but silent now. The icy threat had been burned away by Severne’s fire.

  It was momentary. This truce. This shelter. This shield. But she gave in to appreciation anyway.

  Kat lifted her hand from his chest to his face. Such a perfectly chiseled cheek and jaw. No softness. Had immortality worn it away or had he been nothing but hard and harsh from birth? Yet...he tilted down. He leaned over her. He cradled her body in his arms. How could she not take advantage of the curve in his spine? She rose on tiptoe before he knew what she intended. That had to be the explanation for why he allowed it. First she pressed her lips to his hard jaw, and then it was only a whisper of movement to taste his mouth. Sweet, salty, smoky skin. Full, firm, slightly open lips. Once. Twice. She brushed her mouth against his. Again, then deeper again.

  He sighed, but it was an exhalation of protest. More like a moan. As if her hesitant lips hurt him. Still, he sank into her. He met her hesitation with the sudden dip of his tongue. It was a stolen moment. He pulled back from her too soon. Never really softened. Tasted but not fully touched. At least, not for long enough to last.

  “Don’t be grateful. I don’t deserve it,” he said. “Grim, show us the way.”

  He took her hand and pulled her out the door. The way was shadowy and long. At times she thought they were no longer in the opera house at all. There was a strong scent of crushed pine needles beneath their feet and the rush of cold air from a coniferous forest at night. There was the soft nip of snow, warm compared to the ice she’d felt before.

  But Grim responded to Severne’s commands. Stop. Go. Run.

  Finally, after a long journey, much longer than if they’d taken the normal route, they stood at the door to her room. The corridor was blissfully too dark for her to see the faces.

  “We’ll guard your door until morning,” Severne promised. “I said you were safe, but you aren’t. You’re in danger. Never more so than when you willingly step into my arms.”

  “I’m not cold anymore,” she responded.

  He watched as she stepped into her room. She slowly, slowly shut the door against him. She leaned into the wood, feeling his heat from the other side.

  He said she was in danger. But she was warm again.

  In many ways, she felt warm for the first time.

  Chapter 12

  Kat huddled over a steaming cup of chamomile tea, neither soothed nor warmed as much as she’d hoped to be by the cozy brew. She’d left the letters in the cabinet, abandoned, because of the shadow. In the light of day, her retreat would have seemed ludicrous if not for the deep ache of chilled marrow in her bones.

  She couldn’t go back to the room during the day, when the whole opera house was full of people bustling in the halls. She had no legitimate reason to have and use the key in her pocket. Did she dare go back at midnight?

  She wasn’t sure she’d survive another brush with the shadow’s frigid wings.

  Kat couldn’t seek out Severne’s heat. Not when he’d warned her away. The tea was a meager substitute. Her fingers wrapped around the cup, almost as if to keep themselves from seeking more dangerous things.

  She couldn’t retrieve the letters. She couldn’t approach Severne, but what of Sybil? The costume matron had a ring of keys at her waist like a housekeeper from a hundred years ago. She must have been in all the dressing rooms a thousand times.

  A thousand times a thousand?

  She remembered Severne’s confession and just like that, the hot tea on her lips was a reminder of Severne’s much hotter mouth. A rapidly cooling reminder that wasn’t helping at all.

  She rose, abandoning the useless tea.

  Sybil might have seen the shadow. She might have felt its chill. Maybe she could shed some light on Katherine’s dilemma. Though as Kat left her room to seek out the woman she’d seen only in candlelight, finding illumination at l’Opéra Severne seemed an impossible quest.

  * * *

  Several technicians directed her down a winding spiral staircase beneath the main stage. It led to a hushed space with a cramped, low ceiling and bare bulbs sparsely placed along a long hall. When she thought she couldn’t stand the claustrophobic confines of the long wooden tunnel any longer, the hallway led out from under the stage and opened up into a much more cavernous room.

  Double doors sat across from her—seven-foot-tall wooden doors with heavy iron fittings and a closed-to-all-intruders feel that made her hesitate to approach. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath of dusty, stale air and walked up to them anyway.

  She reached for the latch and creaked one door open enough to slip inside. Her chest expanded when she saw the interior of the room stretched out impossibly deep before her. The room was lined from the double doors to the distant shadows with racks of textiles. Three layers of racks with the topmost ones accessible only by rolling ladders like those she’d seen in the opera house office. Several ladders had been left waiting should they need to be used. They were crafted of scrolled iron like the staircase she’d used to reach this level.

  Suits, dresses, petticoats and hats. Her eyes strained to widen and focus enough to perceive the entirety of contents on the racks. Cloaks, gowns and crowns. She saw everything and nothing because it was a mass of structured confusion, a whole conglomeration of separate parts pressed together in rows that couldn’t be distinguished from each other. Feathers, silk, satin, poplin, crepe, muslin, wool, cotton, batiste, calico, brocade, lace...and she knew who must be in charge of it all.

  Suddenly costume matron didn’t seem like a pretentious title.

  Kat’s eyes were dazzled and her senses dizzied by the riot around her. She stepped forward between the towering rows, an Alice in a dark wonderland
of make-believe as colorful as any fantasy garden, but blanketed in shadows.

  Polished boards protested under her feet, and far above her head, the rafters also evidenced the crowd of performers passing to and fro upstairs. The racks seemed never-ending. They disappeared in a blur of unlit recesses she couldn’t quite see.

  Mephistopheles loomed beyond a far row of costumes. She could see his ram-like horns and his arched brows. The warehouse wasn’t only for costumes. It held a props town of discarded giants. They created gruesome shadows in the distance. She didn’t head that way. The great devil’s head with its grinning maw repelled her.

  Instead she chose a path down the costume rows. The only illumination came from a distant source of light she couldn’t see. It wasn’t bright enough. She began to hope a helpful caterpillar would show up in a cloud of smoke to help her with tricky questions that might ultimately reveal her way.

  “What exactly have you come looking for?” Sybil’s voice came from behind a long row of red coats with tarnished brass buttons. Her voice came from high and then low as she climbed down a ladder and wheeled it into sight.

  Somehow she’d expected the costume matron to be as hard to deal with as Alice’s caterpillar.

  “I’m not sure,” Katherine said.

  How did she ask about threatening shadows on the walls? The question was ridiculous now as she faced a woman who lived and worked in these shadows every day.

  “I wondered when you’d find your way here. Most of the women and even the men have already chosen. Only a few stragglers haven’t been here, and they’ll be left with moth-eaten rejects,” Sybil said.

  She came into the light wearing another old-fashioned dress with a nipped waist and full skirts. This time she had her pincushion on a strap around her wrist and a measuring tape draped around her neck like a jaunty scarf in addition to the jangle of her keys.

  Her mention of moths was a joke. In spite of the age of the collection around her, Kat would bet there wasn’t a moth nibble to be found in the whole warehouse. With Sybil on guard, they wouldn’t dare.