Sinner's Heart

“I know because I have been in your thoughts, your memories. I saw them, felt them.”

Gaze and mouth hard as winter, he growled, “You had no right—”

“It wasn’t by design,” she shot back.

“My memories are mine.” He stalked toward her, until a small distance separated them. She saw the ring of indigo that encircled the ice blue of his eyes, and the freezing anger within them. “You violated them.”

“This, from the man who uses magic to get women into his bed. Isn’t that a violation, too?”

His gaze dropped, briefly. “They’re all well pleasured.”

“Yet you take choice from those women, and no amount of pleasure ameliorates that.” Was that regret tightening his jaw? Could she imagine that he felt remorse for his actions? She had tumbled through the tempest of his mind, and yet he remained opaque as steel. “I’ve memories enough of my own. I don’t need yours, yet I saw them anyway, after I found myself in a chamber with you and one of your conquests.”

“Intended conquest.” His mouth twisted. “She didn’t care for a spectral audience.”

Livia would not feel contrite. She had no yearning to watch this virile, lean man make love, taunting her with what she had lost and would never have again. Though she could not stop images and thoughts from seeping in. In his sleek movement, he revealed his capability, his sensuality. He would be an expert in love play, turning an animal act into something creative and perhaps even brutally beautiful.

Stop this. Don’t torment yourself.

“That wasn’t by choice, either.” She glanced away, then back. “Watching such scenes is a punishment.”

His gaze narrowed at this, and moved over her, assessing and bold. “I can see how that might be so.”

When she had been alive, few men had possessed the insolence to look at her so brashly. She’d been one of the first families of Rome, and a priestess of considerable power. Was it her spectral state that allowed Bram to stare at her, his gaze brazen, openly carnal? Or was it the man, himself?

“There’s no deceit here,” she said. “No guile. If this were my strategy, I’d choose a far less punitive one.”

“Meaning I am haunted.” His words cut like mirror shards. “By you.”

She nodded.

“Tell me how long I have to endure your presence.”

“Any moment is too long,” she snapped. “And I have no answers.”

He glared down at the floor as if it whispered calumny. “Another delightful turn of events.” Turning to her suddenly, a hard, keen look crossed his face.

She felt a change in him, a gathering of power drawing around him like shadows.

“I urge you to leave.” He spoke the words as if they were an incantation, then waited.

“Must we go over this again? We’re tied to one another.” She stared at him. “You just attempted to use your magic on me.”

A scowl darkened his face. “It hasn’t yet failed me.”

“The power that lashes us together may be stronger than yours.”

“Or it doesn’t work on dead women.”

“If you think to insult me with your bluntness, you will be sorely disappointed.” She waved down at herself, the transparent luminosity of her form. “I’ve had a considerable amount of time to adjust to my circumstances.”

He was a thundercloud of a man as he swung away. Easy to see him as a soldier in the lethal economy of his movement. “I’m not so inured to the presence of ghosts, let alone being chained to one.”

“Witness my own joy at this state of affairs.” Yet it need not be a wasted opportunity. This man was the linchpin in the fight. If she could turn him to the cause of defeating the Dark One, surely the chances of success must increase. He could be very powerful, if he so chose to be. But whether his power was for the Dark One or against him, that was yet in doubt.

He went to stand at the window, staring out at the darkness.

She drifted closer to him, until she was beside him. Women would be drawn to such a man, helpless as starving deer, craving a taste of him. Even without the magic given to him, he would pull them near. If he had a scent, it would be woodsmoke and clove. But she couldn’t learn his scent, nor the warmth of his body or touch of his hands. She had only the memory of her senses. Everything else was ashes.

“The gifts given to you by the Dark One, they were but pretty trinkets in exchange for your soul.”

He did not turn to her as he said without irony, “Didn’t think I had a soul.”

“All men do. But it was yours the Dark One craved.”

“Then he’s the bigger fool, for it has a negligible value.”

She peered at him. “You truly believe that?”

“Once I had a fine, dazzling set of beliefs. They are all tarnished now. Or thrown onto the midden.”

His bleakness made her frown. “The world is going up in flames.”

“Let it burn.” He sounded weary.

“It’s not simply a matter of the world ending. It’s not the blaze of the fire followed by cold nothingness. If the Dark One is victorious, it means suffering. Unending suffering for every living being.”

He did turn to her then. “We’re all suffering.”

“Worse.”

Shadows shifted across his face like clouds across the moon. Yet he remained as distant as the moon, as well, shuttering away doubt. “Cannot be stopped.”

“It can—”

“You’ve denied me my night’s pleasure, and the Devil knows how long you’ll keep me from my peace, but you won’t keep me from my rest.” He moved away from the window.

She glided forward to intercept him. He started to walk around her, then moved through her. She stiffened, anticipating sensation. None came. He went through her as if she were nothing, not even a vapor to leave a chill upon his skin.

Coming to stand beside the bed, he stared at her with that cold, ruthless look of his she was coming to recognize. It had been intentional, his walking through her. Proving a point. She could not impede him.

Slowly, his fingers moved to his waistcoat. The buttons sparkled and winked beneath his fingers as he undid them.

Once his waistcoat had been opened and he let it fall to the floor, there were more layers. His torso made a firm, broad shape under the fabric of his shirt.

He watched her the whole while. A thief ’s gaze. Canny and calculating.

By all the gods, he was undressing. Deliberately. Knowing that she watched him.

His laced shirt followed the waistcoat, making a soft white shape on the patterned carpet. His torso gleamed in the firelight, still slick with sweat from his combat practice. Scars marked him, not merely the one that twisted down his neck, but relics of other past wounds. She recognized the scars left behind from blades, but a strange circular one on his right shoulder puzzled her. There were odd new weapons now, weapons that exploded with fire and hurled balls of lead, piercing the body. Guns, she’d heard them called. A person could be shot by a gun.

He had. During his military service, perhaps. Such an injury must kill most men. Not him. Someone had shot him, and he had survived.

This collection of scars was not what made her stare, however.

He followed her gaze to his chest. They both studied the markings winding across his flesh, over his heart, along his ribs and down his left arm.

She’d observed them on the other Hellraisers, these images of flame, promises of torments to come. Yet to see the markings upon Bram reminded her of all that hung in the balance.

“When it covers you, the Dark One owns you completely.”

His mouth twisted. “I thought I was his already.”

“Until your flesh is entirely engulfed by the markings, there’s yet hope.”

“To regain my soul.” He stared at the images of flame a moment longer, his expression austere. “To become the man I once was.” The way his words frosted, this prospect didn’t seem to be much of a prize to him.