Her ni**les were erect, practically begging for his mouth. He pinched them between his thumb and forefinger, the oil making them slip. Honoria’s fingers dug into his thigh.

“Sweet lord,” she whispered.

One hand sank into the wet curls between her legs. He wanted to feel her. The oil staining his fingers made it easy to slip within her, nestled in the burning heat. A cry tore from her throat. She was hopelessly vocal, ungiven to any thoughts of disguising her pleasure.

Every gasp, every writhing wriggle was bliss to him. He brought her to the edge with his fingertips and took her over, listening to her scream. The darkness stirred its hungry head, but Blade forced his eyes shut and curled her up in his arms.

“Shush,” he whispered, pressing a kiss against the top of her head.

The sound from her lips was halfway between a sob and a pant. She melted against him in a boneless heap, the silk of her skin driving him to distraction.

A sudden rush of tenderness flooded through him, bittersweet with regret. He’d never given much thought to a wife. Though there had been many women through his bed over the years, and even friendships with quite a few, none had tempted him to dream of anything else. Until now.

When it was too late.

“I wish I’d found you earlier,” he said. Before his CV levels became so high. How long did he have before the Fade took him? Months? A year? He could not subject her to that.

Honoria glanced over her shoulder at him, her skin flushed with the heat of the water. A blush stained her cheeks. “I wish…I hadn’t been such a fool,” she replied. “I wish I’d come to you earlier. So much could have been avoided.”

“Trust is somethin’ as must be earned,” he admitted.

Honoria turned her body in the tub and straddled his hips. Oil gleamed across her br**sts as she rested her palms on his chest. Leaning forward, she nibbled at his mouth. “I was wrong,” she admitted. “You’re a good man.”

Blade caught her wrists and smiled darkly. “Don’t cast all your prejudices aside,” he murmured. “I ain’t good.”

She smiled. “You’re terribly wicked, of course.”

“Sometimes.” He drew her closer, then slid his hands down her body. His gaze followed, darkening. “And sometimes I’m just a bastard.” To be thinking of taking her again, so soon.

Honoria sucked in a breath and flexed her hips. Blade stilled, his gaze meeting hers.

“Easy, luv. Don’t stir the devil, or you’ll ’ave to pay the consequences.”

“I’m not sure I have any coin on me,” she said, leaning closer and kissing the stubbled roughness of his jaw. “Do you think he would accept my favors instead?” A sultry whisper in his ear.

Blade groaned. “Bloody ’ell, Honor. Don’t tease a man so.”

“But it’s so very exciting.”

His c**k grazed her tender flesh. Desire swept through him like a flood of heat. Christ, she made him feel warm all the way through, as though his blood weren’t cold.

“Well, damn me, if you ain’t got a touch o’ the devil yourself,” he muttered.

Another kiss. Against his throat. Her tongue sliding over the hollow of his collarbone. “I’ve been so tired and scared for so long. It’s nice to feel safe.” Her hands slid down his body. “To laugh. To tease you. When I’m with you, I don’t think of anything else. I don’t think I’ve felt this happy since before my father died.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Honoria.” A husky warning. “You’re ’bout three seconds away from bein’ bent over that vanity and pumped.”

She sat up, water streaming off her. Wide, innocent eyes met his and she brushed her hair behind her ears. The action thrust her br**sts forward, her h*ps rocking against his. As he dug his hands into her thighs with a hiss, he saw the wicked little gleam in her eyes.

“So be it,” Blade said, his voice harsh with need.

He dragged her out of the tub. Water poured off them, splashing across the tiles. Honoria’s eyes widened as he started toward the doorway.

“Where are you going?” she asked, clinging to his shoulders.

“The bed,” he replied curtly. “As I shoulda done weeks ago.”

Chapter 24

A knock sounded at the door. Honoria lifted her head off the pillow, but Blade’s h*ps and legs were thrown over her carelessly and she couldn’t move.

“Wake up,” she whispered, stroking his jaw. The prickle of his stubble tickled her fingers. He gave a rather inelegant snore.

A smile curled over her lips. He was exhausted. A fierce little part of her wanted to tell whoever was at the door to go away and leave him alone for the day, but she didn’t dare. Who knew what news they brought?

Wriggling out from under him, she left him snoring on the bed and slipped into one of his robes before answering the door.

“Esme.” Honoria slipped through the door, shutting it behind her. “Is it Rip? Is he well?”

Esme’s chignon dangled from its pins and her eyes were bloodshot with weariness. “He’s still sleeping. There’s been no change.”

“What is it, then?”

“There’s an Echelon lord here. That man Barrons whom Blade is working with. He’s got a company of metaljackets with him.”

“I won’t let him go out today. He’s exhausted and there’s nobody to watch his back.”

Esme arched a brow. “You don’t know Blade if you think he’s going to stay abed and not do his duty.”

“If he doesn’t know about it, then he can’t do it, can he?”

“And what about the Echelon lord?”

“Let me deal with him,” she replied. “Is there anything that I can wear? My dress…it’s wet.”

A smile flickered over Esme’s lips. “I won’t ask how that happened. Stay here, I’ll fetch you one of mine. It might fit if we pin it in.”

Twenty minutes later Honoria was dressed, her hair pinned into a tight chignon. She descended the stairs toward the front parlor, where Leo was waiting.

The room was full of cobwebs and dust. Leo paced by the fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back. He wore unrelieved black—a leather carapace over his chest with obscenely carved muscles, and a pair of tight, black wool breeches thrust into his knee-high boots. The only sign of adornment was the heavy gold signet ring on his finger.

His eyes lit on her and he stopped in his tracks. “Honoria.”

“Leo.”

“You’re well?”

“I shouldn’t see why you care,” she replied.

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t. Particularly. But it’s considered polite to start a conversation with such trivialities. How are Helena and Frederick?”

She stared at him, her fists clenching. “Charlie,” she insisted. “We call him Charlie. And they’re both well.” How she longed to simply tell him, but she didn’t dare. Leo had never looked more like one of the Echelon, and if he betrayed Charlie’s condition to the authorities, both she and Blade would be in trouble. It might be an excuse for the prince consort to send his metaljackets down upon the rookery, and this time he would have the law on his side.

“May I ask whether you are Blade’s emissary, or whether he will be along shortly?”

“He’s asleep,” she replied. “The vampire attacked last night and killed one of his men, injuring another two.”

Leo stilled. “And the vampire?”

“Got away,” she replied.

“Where was it?” he asked. “If we can pinpoint its location or discover what’s drawing it to the rookery, we might be able to set a trap.”

An icy flush ran through her, tingling in her veins. “What do you mean, ‘drawing it to the rookery’? Isn’t that where the tunnels come out?”

“The tunnels run through this half of London,” he replied. “It’s unusual for it to keep coming here.”

She rested her hands along the back of a chair, her fingers tapping. There had been one thing that was common in all of the attacks: her. That time in the street, it had tried to chase after her, practically ignoring Will and Blade, who were both bleeding. And then it had been near her home.

“Honey?” he asked, in the quiet voice he used to use when they were children and had signed a temporary truce.

“Don’t call me that. That was Father’s name for me. Don’t you dare use it.”

“You know something.”

She met his gaze. “Perhaps.”

“Share it with me,” he said. “It might be a way to trap it before anyone else gets hurt.”

Still she hesitated. How much could she trust Leo? Not very much, she concluded. “Why are you hunting it? Why you?”

“The prince consort sent me.” His tone was abruptly curt, and he looked at her hair rather than meeting her eyes.

Honoria’s fingers stilled on the chair. “You’re lying. You never could look me in the eye when you lied.”

His gaze shot to hers then. “And you know me so well?”

“Not at all,” she admitted. “I used to think you were someone I could trust.”

“You hated me as a child,” he said incredulously. “And with good reason.”

“I pitied you.” Her voice softened. “I never hated you.” A rueful twist of the lips. “Perhaps once or twice, when you put those mechanical spiders in my bed or cut off my doll’s head and buried her.”

Silence crackled in the room.

“Pitied me?”

Honoria looked at him. If things had been different, she would have accepted him as her half brother. But both her father and the duke of Caine had destroyed any chance of that.

“Because the duke despised you, and Father…Father was indifferent.” It hurt to admit that anything her father had done was wrong. But she could not deny that he had not done his best by Leo. Memory flashed through her mind of a little boy with angelic blond curls—a little boy who looked a lot like Charlie at that age—watching her with hate in his eyes as she drew back from her father’s hug. The boy had turned and run off, and that night little mechanical spiders were crawling through her sheets.

Only as she matured did she come to understand why she was being so persecuted. The boy who claimed he didn’t care cared far too much.

“I don’t know whether I preferred your dislike of me to your pity.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Pity makes one sound so weak. But you haven’t managed to divert me, alas. You know something about the vampire.”

“I also haven’t been diverted,” she replied. “You lied to me about your reasons for hunting it. You have some personal investment in this, which leads me to believe that you know who it used to be.”

Leo stared at her with considering eyes. “And now you ask me to trust you?”

“I wouldn’t betray you,” she replied.

“How refreshing. Forgive me if I can’t quite trust the sentiment.” Cynicism curled across his mouth. “I think, in this circumstance, that you might.”

“Then we’re at a quandary. Your information for mine.”

“People might die, Honoria.” He took a step forward, looming over her. “Don’t you give a damn?”

“They might either way. I don’t know yet.”

A frustrated sound rumbled in his throat, and he grabbed her arm. “Are you always this bloody argumentative?”

“The answer to that would be ‘aye’.” The words were softly spoken and came from behind.

Honoria turned to the voice. “Blade.”

Blade took a step into the room, slowly surveying it. His dark gaze—blackened to that demonic obsidian—swept over Leo and her. She had the feeling that he noted precisely how closely the two of them stood to each other.

“You should be in bed,” she said. She felt guilty, and she had not a damned reason in the world to feel so.

“Sorry to spoil your plans, sweet’eart.”

***

“Plans?” Honoria took a step toward him. “And what, precisely, do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know, exactly.”

Blade pushed the door shut behind him using just his fingertips. His gaze narrowed on the hand Barrons held her with, and the ease of familiarity it showed. She had asked him to trust her, and after last night he’d finally felt as though she’d made some form of commitment to him. There was just one anomaly. Barrons.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” she murmured.

He assessed the situation again, taking a slow step forward. Every hair along the back of his neck rose as he caught the scent of Barrons’s bay rum aftershave. The demon in him, the dark, hungry part he could never quite excise, wanted to go for Barrons, blades swinging. But…last night. It had to mean something.

Light streamed into the room, highlighting the pair of them within the golden rectangle of the window’s sphere. It gleamed off Barrons’s gilt-colored hair and the vibrant crimson of the dress that Honoria wore. They made a handsome couple. Both young and slim, with creamy skin and dark brown eyes. He felt incredibly old all of a sudden, relegated to the shadows.

“I know what it looks like,” he said, hurt burning within him. “And I want to trust you. But…bloody ’ell, Honoria…Would it kill you to give me one damned scrap of explanation?”

“You were sleeping. I thought it best to see to Leo myself. And I had questions for him regarding the vampire.”