A Dawn Most Wicked

Hunger burned up from my stomach, through my lungs. Into my throat. I felt like shouting, letting all my rage loose on someone—something. . . .

But it wasn’t rage, I felt—not at Cassidy. This was a brighter, sharper feeling. A need. I was losing everything I’d earned for a kiss that hadn’t even happened.

“I am asking you to stay, Danny. Please.”

I watched the way her mouth moved as she spoke—the way her bottom lip trembled. The way her chest rose and fell with each breath. The way her collarbone gleamed in just the right way to drive a man mad.

I shifted my body toward her. “Is . . . your pa here?”

“No. He left an hour ago.”

“Good.” In three steps I closed the space between us, laced my fingers behind her head . . . And then I pressed my lips to hers, and I kissed Cassidy Cochran.

Her breath did this little catch thing, and her whole body stiffened. But then I pulled her harder to me, and the next thing I knew, she was kissing me back.

My stomach clenched. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. All I could do was kiss her harder. My head was spinning too fast—my blood roaring too loud—to care about stupidity or risk or anything but Cass. And when my teeth grabbed hold of her lower lip and tugged, her body followed until we were so close together, I really couldn’t breathe. Yet, somehow, she still wasn’t close enough. I wanted to push her to the nearest crates and taste every inch of her—

Stop. The word blazed through my mind. I wrenched back, gasping. I hadn’t meant to kiss her like that. . . . Not with so much need. Not with so much rage.

She stared at me, her breathing shallow. Her lips were scarlet and raw, her cheeks flushed. “What . . . ,” she began. “What was that for?” There wasn’t accusation in her voice—only genuine surprise.

“You’re . . .” I swallowed and rubbed my eyes. “You’re . . .” I dropped my hands, and it took me a long moment to collect my thoughts. “You’re my other half,” I finally said. “Just like you said. And no matter what happens, Cass, don’t forget it.”

“Why would I f—”

“Me and you,” I cut in, taking a single step back. “Don’t forget it.” Then I spun on my heel and launched into a jog—away from her, away from the Sadie Queen, and away from all those hungers I couldn’t control.

CHAPTER THREE

The bar I wound up in was a foul place filled with the lowest of the New Orleans’s low. The ceilings crumbled, the lamps swung every time someone stood, and the liquor was watered down.

“I bet my money on the Abby Adams,” drawled a mustached man, who—judging by the amount of money he’d swindled from me in poker that night—was a professional gambler.

I strained over the table to see the man’s sunken-in eyes, but the oil lamps above us needed new wicks. Their patchy, flickering light made it hard to see much of anything.

Of course, that was probably intentional, since I’d felt more than a few creatures scuttle over my boots.

But I didn’t much care. I was feeling pretty damned invincible tonight. I had kissed Cassidy Cochran, and she had kissed me back. Come hell or high water, nothing could take that back.

Plus, for all the disgusting forms of humanity that were trickling through the bar’s half-collapsed door, I’d ended up playing poker with the most savory of the bunch. A Chinese boy in navy and red servant’s livery, a professional gambler, and then a Negro gentleman with kid gloves so white they practically glowed in the seething darkness. The gentleman spoke elegantly, his swinging accent undoubtedly Creole and his ramrod posture absolutely well-bred.

“What do you think?” the Chinese boy asked in his soft, high-pitched voice. “You think the Sadie Queen can beat the Adams?”

For a moment I blinked stupidly at the boy’s bald forehead. I’d lost track of the conversation, and the boy’s long braid and half-shaved head were distracting. I’d known a few Chinese men, but most had been laborers. Bottom of the bottom when it came to jobs . . . and treatment. For this kid—and he was definitely a kid, at least a year younger than me—to be a servant in some local household was unusual. Special.

And there was something familiar about the navy and red uniform.

“Well?” the boy pressed. “You work on the boat, yeah? So who’s gonna win?”

“You been readin’ the Picayune,” I drawled. “Otherwise you’d know the Sadie Queen’ll win.” I tipped back my bottle of whiskey, satisfied with the way the liquor burned my gullet. I smacked my lips. “We got the Natchez horns, you know. And the Memphis horns too.” At the Creole man’s blank look I explained, “When you win a race or set a record speed, you get a pair of gilded deer horns from the city you raced to. And the Queen has two pairs sitting on her jack staff.”

“Now, hold up.” The mustached man leaned on the table, sloshing everyone’s drinks. “I thought the Abby Adams had the Natchez horns.”

“And then we took ’em.” I pounded the table. “We beat the Adams’s time back in April—why else do you think Captain Dunlap hates us so much?”

That shut the man’s pan for a moment, so I seized the moment to steer the subject away from racing or business or Captain Cochran. “Listen,” I drawled, “are we playin’ another round of poker or not?”

At everyone’s nod the Chinese boy dealt new hands. For an hour we played—and drank—until the professional gambler had taken almost all of our cash.

Then I was dealt a good hand . . . or I thought it was good. The more I stared at it, though, the more the cards became a bleary mess of color.

Inwardly I groaned. When had I gotten so bad at poker? Or so bad at holding my alcohol? I used to knock back drink after drink. After all, it was the easiest way for a young pickpocket to stay warm.

But right as I opened my mouth to fold from the game, the Chinese boy said, “Hey—you’re cheating!”

My eyebrows shot up. I glanced around, wondering who the boy meant . . . until I realized that he was pointing at me. “Huh?” I grunted.

“You’re cheating.” The boy jumped up, his stool kicking behind him. “You slid an ace up your sleeve.”

I looked down at my cuff. The SQ initials swam side to side, but behind that . . . yes, that was definitely the corner of a card poking out. With great difficulty I tugged it loose. “I dunno how this . . . got here.”

But my words were lost in the uproar that spewed from the Chinese boy’s mouth. “You were gonna take all our money! This game doesn’t count!”

“I didn’t cheat,” I tried to say. “I swear, I didn’t.”

The Creole gentleman seemed to agree, for he thrust a crisp finger in the Chinese boy’s direction. “Actually, it was you who slipped that card in his sleeve.”

Now the mustached man jumped to his feet, a deep red rising on his face. Then he was shouting at the Chinese boy while the boy hollered, “Liar!” Suddenly there were people everywhere—a blurred mass of flesh—as the rest of the bar’s patrons crowded in to watch the inevitable bar brawl.

Oh, hell with it, I thought. Clearly I should be angry about this . . . and maybe defend my honor. Either way, the thought of crunching in someone’s nose, of letting all my fury with Captain Cochran and Engineer Murry loose—it sounded mighty appealing.

I lurched up, and my fist flew at the Chinese boy’s jaw. Then my knuckles cracked, my wrist snapped, and I got to momentarily revel in the boy’s look of surprise. But as I dove in to tackle him to the ground, my fingers grabbing at his waistcoat, I latched on to something I was not expecting. Where there should have been flat chest, there was definitely something more. Something . . . round.

Just as I managed to comprehend the meaning of what I had grabbed, the Chinese boy whirled around,