Shadowdance (Darkest London 4)

A lump rose in her throat. “It is a good place to think. And my mother never brought us to church.”

He made a sound of dry amusement. Then his body tightened even further. “He is my uncle.”

“The archbishop?” It was only due to years of training that she kept her voice modulated, yet she had seen the resemblance between them. And the man had called Talent “spawn.”

His upper lip twitched with a sneer. “The very one.” He gave her a measured look. “You understand that shifters start the change at the end of their first decade?”

“Yes.”

He glanced back at her, his eyes nearly black and glittering with rage. “You’ve no idea. One moment you are a normal child. And then comes the pain. So intense that you scream and writhe on the floor. You don’t understand. You’ve never felt this sort of agony.” His nostrils flared. “The next moment you’re running on four legs, not knowing how you got that way, or what you even are. You think perhaps it’s a dream.

“A child doesn’t think about such things in terms of madness or possession. He simply wants help. For his mother and father to comfort him. Wake him from the dream.”

The corner of his lip curled as he studied the cathedral floor below. “My father almost killed me the first time. I’d turned into a panther. One moment I was studying a picture book about the exotic animals of the Orient. The next I’m crashing about the house, running from my father’s shotgun.” The bitter smile upon his face grew. “He winged me. Here.” He pointed to his left shoulder. “And then, when I was bleeding on the ground, I turned back. It was not… pleasant, my parents’ reaction.”

All sound faded down to the pumping of her heart and the low rumble of his voice. “They thought I was possessed.” A choked snort broke from him. “I do not blame them. I would too.”

Perhaps, Mary thought, clutching her hands together beneath the shelter of her cloak. But she understood the pain in his voice. Logic was very well and good, but it meant nothing in the face of a parent’s betrayal. When those who ought to protect turned against you, the wound left behind did not easily heal. For years she had bled from such wounds.

Gently as she could, she asked the question burning within her. “There wasn’t another shifter in your family?” She wasn’t sure how else to phrase the question, but the fact remained that no supernatural springs from the sea, fully formed in a clamshell.

“I don’t know. If there was one, he or she certainly didn’t make it known. All I can tell you is that I looked like…” A small, bitter hiss left him. “You heard that bastard. I’ve the look of my mum.” His lips compressed, and for a long moment he said nothing. “After it happened, my parents thought I might be a changeling, the devil’s child left in place of theirs. Likely that’s true.”

Talent studied his large fists resting on the carved limestone, and his voice grew detached. “My mother insisted we seek out her brother for help. The Archbishop of Canterbury.” Emerald-green eyes were suddenly upon her. “The bloody saint of the family. My only hope.”

Silence descended, and Mary fought not to reach out to him. He wouldn’t want that. Regardless, her hand trembled with the need. Talent’s agitation and pain unsettled her far more deeply than she would have liked to admit.

“Years,” he ground out. “Whippings, kneeling on rice, endless praying. Years.” A growl rumbled in his throat. Fangs touched the smooth curve of his bottom lip. He shivered, then blinked. On a breath, he was calmer. Ice-cold now. “She killed herself.”

When he didn’t say anything more, Mary found her own voice, a cracked and painful thing. “Your mother?”

A quick nod. “She’d failed, you see. To take the devil from me. When Father found her…” His lashes swept down. “He beat me to within an inch of my life. Shot me point-blank. Then he turned his gun on himself.”

A gurgling sound filled the air. Mary realized it was her own cry.

Talent did not seem to notice. “Didn’t realize a simple bullet wouldn’t keep me down.”

“How old?” Her heart spun and pumped with painful force.

He met her gaze, and his was dead. “Thirteen.”

Jack. She didn’t say a word. She would not do that to him.

“And when I went to that… bastard for help.” His fangs erupted again, his irises going wide and animalistic. “He shot me too. Called me Satan’s spawn. Had them toss me into an alley.”

Wild eyes flashed in the dimness, Talent’s fists opening and closing as he struggled, his breath hissing between clenched teeth. Mary’s soul cried for him. Then, with a sigh, he sank to the ground and rested his arms upon his knees. His head pressed into his forearms.

“I can’t stand living in my own skin some days,” he said, not moving. “The nightmares. I close my eyes and I’m staked to a wall… Shit, Chase.” A violent shiver wracked his body.

“I thought”—she licked her lips—“I thought that Lena destroyed them.”

A bitter snort rang out. “And then left me hanging there? Hardly. I was Lena’s guest for all of one day. Her little minions took my blood, polite as you please, and went about their business. Then the Nex came.”

His jaw worked as if he was trying to find the words. When they came, they were stilted and rough. “They played her, letting her think she was in control of her pets. And they… Well, they used me right thoroughly, didn’t they?”

Quietly she sank down next to him, but she didn’t touch him. She knew that sick, dark feeling. And when it came, the physical touch of another could make her snap. He said nothing more. He did not even move, but merely sat frozen.

“Are you the Bishop of Charing Cross?”

He flinched, and Mary pressed on. “The time for secrets has passed. If we are to remain partners, I need to know.” It made perfect sense that an agent as skilled as Talent hadn’t yet solved this case and that he wouldn’t want her on it.

Talent’s lips flattened, then he destroyed her last bit of hope. “Yes.”

Mary sucked in a sharp breath. He heard it and angled his head toward the sound, but did not face her. “Or I was.” Talent squeezed his fingers over his eyes. “In the beginning. But the shifters, I did not kill them. Nor have I harmed any innocents.”

“Why did you do it?” Mary suspected, but she needed to hear it from him.

The sound of his harsh breathing filled the silence, and his shoulders trembled. “They were the ones, Mary. I cannot live knowing that they do.”

Mary cursed those beings to hell for the torture.

He glared up at the arched ceiling high above. “I’ve lost myself,” he whispered. “And don’t know how to get it back.”

“You are coming back.” Her voice was cracked and too loud. Mary swallowed and spoke again. “You are not a mindless killer.”

“But I want to be.” The confession was soft. Talent ran his thumb along the claws that had formed on his hand. “If I’m mindless, then I won’t remember.”

They sat quiet for a long moment. Then he stirred, a small movement that brought their shoulders into contact. The hard muscles along his arm flexed, then eased.

Leaning against her, Talent rested his back against the railing and stared ahead. He took a long breath. “I hate that it was you who found me.” His whisper was so raw that it scraped against her skin. “Hate that you saw me that way.”

“I know,” she whispered back. She hated it too, though not for his reasons.

Blinking rapidly, Mary leaned into him just a bit more, giving him her heat, shoring him up. Talent eased into the touch on a breath. “I see you and…” He pressed his lips together for one sharp moment. “I remember.”

“Jack.” Heartbroken, she let her head fall to his strong shoulder. Talent went stone-still then, and on a sigh, rested his head against hers.

For a long moment, they simply sat in the cold peace of the church.

“You came for me,” he said on a sudden breath. “I thought I’d hang there forever. But you came. Even though…” His chest hitched. “I’d done nothing to deserve your rescue. I’d always been an utter ass to you.” The hopeless bafflement in his voice pained her anew, as if he could not fathom the idea that she would help him.

Mary plucked at a fold on her skirt. “When I realized they had you”—she squeezed her eyes tight to fight the prickling heat of tears—“it was my fault.”

“What?” He turned his head, but she refused to lift hers.

She couldn’t look at him. “A demon took my blood, disguised himself as me to get to you. I ought to have been more vigilant. I ought to have suspected.”

His chest lifted and fell with a sigh. “Hell. I didn’t realize you thought that way.”

“How could I not?” Even now guilt crushed her chest.

“Because it’s stupid.”

Mary’s head shot up, but his big hand gently eased it back down. “You might as well blame the inspector and Mrs. Lane for bringing us into that situation, if that’s your thinking. We both understood the danger when we sailed with them.”

She couldn’t argue when he spoke so sensibly. Even if her soul still protested.

“Let it go, Merrily.”

“Don’t call me that.” She said it more out of habit than annoyance, for his tone was not derogatory but affectionate.

A pregnant pause swelled between them, and then his soft voice closed the distance. “But that is how I think of you. Gliding over cool, still waters. A life of dreams and sweet merrymaking.”

His words pierced her, breaking into her clockwork heart and setting it off rhythm. Beside her he tensed and awkwardly cleared his throat. “So,” he said after a moment, “you helped me due to misguided guilt.”

“No.” Mary turned her head a fraction, just enough that her cheek touched the rough wool of his coat sleeve. Talent’s scent surrounded her, what was once an irritant now grounding her in ways she didn’t want to examine. “We might have been enemies, but you are not a bad man. I could never leave you to such a fate.”

“Are we enemies still?” The quiet query held a mix of caution and hope.

A nerve twitched at the base of her throat. Were they enemies? They’d been at odds for so long. For reasons she didn’t fully understand. Yet she could not keep away from him. Here they sat, curled into each other, and it felt… good. Her lids grew heavy, as if she could sink into sleep, sink into him. She wanted to be here with him more than anywhere else. “No.”

He let go of a long breath, as if he’d been holding it. “You saved me, Mary. You.”

With dreamlike slowness she eased away and turned toward him. His head was bent, his expression a mixture of confusion and wariness, as if he thought she might leave. Their gazes met.

A visible ripple went through him. “Merrily.”

Then she saw what he’d only given her a glimpse of before. Need. So stark and pure that the hard marble beneath her seemed to dip and sway. A surge of something fierce went through her body. The strong column of his throat worked on a swallow, and his words came out raw. “I didn’t want to feel this.”

That she knew precisely what “this” was made her want to cry and to laugh at the same moment. “Neither did I.”

He’d laid himself bare. She kept that knowledge close to her heart, and when she touched him, she did so gently, her fingertips skimming along his strong jaw. He held himself tight as new bed ropes, but his breath left in a small exhalation as her fingers slid into his soft hair to cradle his skull.

The wool of his coat whispered as he moved. His big hands cupped her cheeks as if she were blown sugar. Inches away, he stared at her, his gaze a living thing that thickened the air and sent heat and trepidation skittering along her needy flesh. His gaze lowered to her mouth. Such power in a look, the way it made her lips feel fuller, softer. And he responded, making a small sound as he came closer, his breath light and quick, his lids at half-mast. “Do you know what it’s like to have what you want most in the world constantly in front of you,” he whispered, “and never dare take it?”

Oh, yes, she knew. How well she knew that sweet ache. And she’d been a fool to ignore it. “If you never dare,” she said, “how will you know you are truly alive?”

His mouth trembled, a flit of a smile. And then his expression grew intent. He would kiss her now. She wanted it so badly that she shook inside. And yet…

Mary tensed. Instantly Jack paused, his gaze flicking up to hers. The hot, languid air about them cooled and stilled as he pulled back. Mary wrapped a hand around his wrist, keeping him there. She took a shaking breath, the quivering feeling within her making her stomach ache. “I don’t… That is, I’ve seen it done, of course. But I gather seeing and doing are altogether…” She winced, searching his face and wanting him to understand. “I don’t know how to kiss.”

He blinked once. His brows knitted. She knew what he was thinking: Impossible. Mary grimaced. Awareness of him washed over her, of the heat of his body and his strength. Of the fact that, until this moment, they’d never faced each other in complete honesty. Her voice came out too rough. “What need had I to kiss a man? Why, when I never wanted…” She trailed off, her face flaming.

The furrow deepened between Jack’s eyes.

“I don’t want to make hash of it,” she said, so low she barely heard it herself.