Blade didn’t like that, she saw. Her fingers tightened on his sleeve, the only thing keeping him from stepping away.

“I do know this, though…” She swallowed, toying with the lapel of his shirt. “I would like to kiss you. Again.” The words were a bare whisper, breathed into the heated atmosphere between them.

His gaze shot to hers. “I ain’t stoppin’ you.”

She’d hurt him with her revelation. Slowly she stroked the edge of his sleeve, drawing closer. Pressing both hands against his chest, she reached up and brushed her mouth against his.

Blade held himself stiffly, his arms straight and his fists clenched. Honoria trailed her tongue across his closed mouth, tasting him the way he had done to her in the past. He didn’t fight her. Nor did he help her. She drew back. Blade’s eyelashes flickered against his cheeks and then he met her gaze. His eyes were as black as Hades and twice as hot. In them she saw everything that he refused to tell her. Her heart thumped hard in her chest, and this time it was her who almost stepped away.

Blade’s hands came up and cupped her face, the thumbs stroking across her cheeks. His gaze followed the movement as though he were captivated by the silky feel of her skin. “I can’t control meself with you,” he said hoarsely.

A muffled groan came from his throat. His hands were shaking as though he fought to contain himself. She pressed closer, rubbing her sensitive br**sts against his chest and sucking his bottom lip between hers.

His hands came up and captured her face between them. “Damn you,” he cursed. And then he took her mouth in a blistering kiss.

Chapter 20

Fog clung to the chimneys of London like a heavy skirt, obscuring the world and drawing silence down upon her like a weight. The moon was a thin sliver, like a blue blood’s smile. Lena pushed open the window and slipped out onto the edge of the roof. This was her private place, the only place in their cramped quarters where she could go without stumbling over somebody else.

A faint whisper sounded above. Lena froze. The hair on the back of her neck rose, and she slowly looked over her shoulder.

The man kneeling on the roof above was enormous. His shaggy hair brushed against his collar, and his eyes gleamed an odd amber color in the moonlight. Dark, coarse stubble covered his jaw, highlighting the blade-sharp cheekbones. Certainly not a handsome man, by her standards, and yet a heated flush went through her at the sight of him. So big, so coarsely put together, all heavy muscles and thick sinew. His shirt could barely contain the thick bulk of his trapezius or the breadth of his forearms. A glint of silver shone at his throat, a winking piece of silver shaped like a tooth or a claw. The verwulfen.

Lena found her feet, measuring the distance between the windowsill and herself. Her heartbeat pulsed in her throat like the rapid tick of the clockwork soldier she’d made for Charlie.

“You wouldn’t make it in time,” he said and jumped down to the edge of the gable, barely three feet from her. As he straightened, his eyes narrowed. “And if you couldn’t avoid me, then you couldn’t avoid it either. Are you stupid, girl, to come out here with the creature on the loose? Or just wantin’ to die?”

Lena gaped at him. How dare he? Before she opened her mouth to retort, however, his words penetrated. “Creature? What creature?”

Two bodies, lying in the streets. The chill at her spine grew, spreading across her lower back, and she looked around as though sudden eyes had settled on her from the shadows.

The man stared at her. His gaze was bold, as though he had no inkling of the rules of polite society. “You didn’t know. The bloody fool didn’t tell you.”

He could only be speaking of Honoria. Lena bristled. Though she might fight with her sister at times, she’d be damned if anyone else could disparage her. “If she didn’t tell me, she must have had good reason for it. And both of us have had a lot on our minds these last few days.” She actually took a step forward, glaring at him. “What creature are you referring to, wolf-boy? The one that killed those two men?”

His shoulders stiffened. “Me name’s Will. Not wolf-boy. And I were talkin’ ’bout a vampire.”

Lena froze. All thoughts of taunting him faded. “A vampire? That’s impossible.”

“Believe me, it ain’t,” he said in a dry voice. “’Alf tore me apart just a night ago.”

“But…” How? The Echelon strictly monitored its members. “It must be an unregistered rogue.”

He rested his hand against the side of the building. The loose sleeve of his shirt slid down, revealing a heavily muscled forearm. For a moment Lena was distracted by his bronzed skin. Then she flushed. He was obviously uncouth, with his loose, dirt-grimed shirt and the ragged mess of his hair. She’d grown up among the vibrant, butterfly-like colors of the Echelon, where every man wore his nails short and manicured and his boots buffed within an inch of his life. She was used to pale skin and padded shoulders, not this raw, virile youth whose body was almost obscenely rippling with muscle. A hulking farm boy. Or a Viking in disguise.

“You ought to stay inside till it’s caught,” Will said.

Lena looked around. There were two men in the distance, watching the rookery.

“But I have you fine fellows to protect me,” she said lightly, sending him a flirtatious smile. It never hurt to have a man in the palm of her hand. “Whatever harm could befall me?”

“I could wring your neck,” he muttered, almost too low to be heard.

“I daresay that’s not the only place you wish to put your hands.” Lena let her smile deepen and stepped past. Her lips curved at the dark look on his face. He didn’t like that. “I believe I should like to take some air. If you would just go that way a little bit…” She wrinkled up her nose as if he smelled bad. “You can still keep watch and I can get some fresh air.”

Will stepped forward to grab her, his nostrils flaring. His hand locked around her wrist. “That’s not me…” He barely had time to turn his head before something pale and streamlined flew out of the shadows and smashed him up against the wall.

A wretched scent filled the air, and Lena gagged as she sought to make sense of the blur of movement. An arm slashed and blood flicked across her face, warm and salty. Lena gasped, patting at it in shock. Will cried out, and her vision finally caught up with the fight. The stranger—a pale, balding creature—had its teeth in Will’s throat and an arm buried up to the elbow in the man’s stomach.

“Blade!” the Irishman yelled, leaping over the rooftops with a pistol flashing in his hand. “Blade!”

Will turned and with great effort smashed the creature up against the building. Its back legs raked up between them, forcing him back, and he fell, his knees giving way beneath him as though he’d lost the strength to use them. With her back pressed up against the wall, Lena could do nothing but watch and scream as the two rolled toward the edge of the rooftop, blood spraying everywhere as the creature—the vampire—tore its way through the burly youth as though Will was merely human and not superhumanly strong.

Somehow Will grabbed it by the throat, his teeth clenched in pain. Blood dribbled from his lips, but he met Lena’s eyes. “Run,” he said with a weak gasp. Holding it away from her so that she could get away.

Lena wasn’t a brave girl. People had told her that time and time again. But they’d also told her that she was foolish enough to have some form of courage. Perhaps it was that, then, that made her launch herself at the monster, tearing futilely at its face with her nails. Her finger sank into something soft and squishy, and the creature screamed, a high-pitched ache in her ears almost at the edge of hearing.

Reflex had it arching backward, away from Will. It hit Lena in the chest and she stepped back, her foot finding nothing but air. With her arms windmilling, she screamed again, grabbing frantically for anything—even the vampire—to keep from falling.

For a moment she clung to its filthy shoulders, staring into the sightless, filmy eyes. She almost thought that it grabbed for her, its claws raking through her skirts and tearing through the cotton. Then she was falling, and the vampire was coming too.

***

A scream tore through the air.

Inside the flat Blade pushed away from Honoria, his head cocked as though he was listening to something she couldn’t hear.

“Blade?” she asked, licking her lips and struggling to find her feet. Her knees shook. If there’d been an inch of privacy, she would have done something reckless, she was sure of it.

His nostrils flared and he held a hand out toward her. “Stay here.”

“What’s happening?”

He shot her an intense look. “Stay here. And fetch your pistol. I can smell the vampire.”

Honoria’s blood went cold. Blade started toward the door, but she grabbed him, a horrible feeling of dread running down her spine. “Be careful.” She grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him, a brief, furious press of her mouth to his, trying to tell him everything that she didn’t have time to put into words.

Blade stepped back and nodded. “I’ve got to go.” And then he was gone.

Ducking into the bedroom, she hurriedly loaded the pistol, her hands shaking. She’d seen Blade fight the vampire before. It was quicker than him. Stronger. “Damn it,” she swore, dropping one of the firebolt rounds. It rolled beneath the bed and she ducked down to search for it. Shoving the round into the chamber, she cocked the pistol and then hurried to the window. It was half open, a cool breeze stirring the curtains.

Outside, Will lay on the slope of roof near the window, trying to sit up. Black shadows stained his shirt and pants, and he was trying to stuff something back inside his stomach. His throat was a mess. Beyond him, Blade grappled with the vampire, trying to force it off a prone shape on the rooftop below. It was tearing at the throat of someone on the roof, but she couldn’t see who it was. Another man lay nearby. Too late.

At least Charlie was safe in bed, Honoria thought, and Lena…Where the hell was Lena? The warmth drained from Honoria’s face. Her gaze traveled unerringly to the half-opened window. Lena always liked to sit on the roof.

Yanking the windowpane up, Honoria hooked her leg over the edge. Will had managed to drag himself into a sitting position, panting hard as he held his arms over his abdomen.

His eyes met hers, then his lips peeled back from his mouth. “Don’t.”

Honoria knelt beside him, her shoes slipping on the tiles. “Where’s Lena?”

He nodded toward the tableau below, sweat dampening his hair. His body was starting to tremble, and when she pressed a hand against his cheek, his skin was burning hot.

“Will you be all right?” she asked. So much blood. And worse…his exposed intestines gleamed in the pale moonlight. She glanced nervously around for Lena, but she couldn’t just leave him here.

“Go. I’ll live.” Will flashed a grim smile at her, his teeth stained with blood. “Ain’t the worst I e’er got.”

Honoria handed him her shawl and helped him to put it in place against his stomach. “Hold here. Tightly. I’ll be back.”

She peered over the edge. The other rooftop angled in sharply beneath hers, almost touching the sides of the wall. That was how they built houses here, pressed up against each other like bodies seeking warmth on a cold night. She saw Lena huddled on the edge of the rooftop, blood splashed across her pale face and her wrist bent at an unnatural angle.

“Lena!” she hissed and glanced toward the vampire. Blade had thrown it off, but it was clear that it was too late for his man. The curly-haired Irishman, she noted with a stab of sorrow. O’Shay. His throat had been ripped open, the bone inside gleaming like teeth in the mangled flesh.

Blade circled the vampire. He shot her a dark look, then turned all his attention to the creature. It paced the rooftop on all fours, snarling at him silently. Blood dripped from Blade’s side.

The pistol was a heavy weight in Honoria’s hand. She slipped her legs over the edge of the roof and then dangled, trying to soften the fall. She landed with a jarring thud and tumbled onto her back. The pistol slid across the roof tiles, stopping a few feet away.

The creature screamed in rage, a high-pitched whine that shot through her ears like a knife. Blade cried out and clamped his hands over his ears, his knife dropping from his hands.

“No!” she screamed as it attacked him. They went down together in a vicious whirl of action, blood flying.

Honoria scrambled for the pistol then stopped when she saw the vampire bulleting toward Lena. She would never reach it in time. “No!”

Somehow she caught its ankle as it leapt past. The vampire spun with blurring speed, its claws raking across her arm like white fire. Honoria cried out and it stopped, hissing in her face. She couldn’t move, every muscle in her body paralyzed in fear as she stared into its sightless eyes.

Its breath stirred across her face, thick with the coppery scent of blood. With Lena forgotten, it hopped toward her, reaching out with its claws as though to touch her face.

Honoria couldn’t take her eyes off its gnarled hand, coming closer and closer. Oh, God, what was it doing? Would it go for her throat too? Fear curdled in her stomach, freezing her lungs. Her breath came in short, sharp, painful gasps.

“Lena,” she whispered, trying not to draw its attention. “Lena, you have to move.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be…” The creature stopped in front of her, and she felt the first stroke of its claw against her cheek, strangely gentle, and shuddered. “I’ll manage.”

“Don’t move,” Blade called. “It’s attracted to movement.”