The Serpent's Shadow

tongue. He crushed her against his chest in a cruelly hard grip with one hand clenched tight enough to bruise her biceps, while his free hand groped for her breast, pawing at her with lust. She couldn't open her mouth to scream without getting his filthy tongue down her throat.

But something in her reacted to the outrage with potent fury.

No!

Shock galvanized her and filled her with diamond-hard hate; they combined in a single moment of sheer outrage, and before she thought, she struck at him— but not with her fists, with her mind.

Earth-born power rose within her unbidden; lava-hot with rage, it welled up inside her and overflowed, all in an instant. She couldn't have controlled it if she'd wanted to, and she didn't want to. It rose up in a mountainous wave, paused, and avalanched down on Simon Parkening, smashing him with a crushing blow before she could take a smothered breath.

He choked, let her go; she staggered backward a pace, and he dropped like a stone, sprawling on the floor of the storage room as if a champion boxer had just laid him out.

Maya gasped, and stumbled back into the support of the shelves, one hand on the upright, the other at her bruised lips.

What have I done? Is he dead?

For one long moment she could hardly breathe for the panic that thought triggered. But then, when Parkening groaned and stirred a little, sense reasserted itself, and her outrage returned.

I defended myself, that's what I've done! And there's nothing wrong with that! As anger broke through the shock and allowed her to think again, Parkening brought up both hands, slowly, to his head, and curled into a fetal position. From the look of him, he wasn't going to wake up very soon, and when he did—-he'd be hurting. She put out her hand, slowly, to get a sense of what she'd done to him.

Something—like a concussion. Serves you right, you—you cad! she thought at him, hot anger choking her and making her flush. If I didn't know that your uncle would blame me for this, I'd turn you in to him, I would!

But Clayton-Smythe would take one look at her, and probably decide that she had tried to seduce his nephew, and not the other way around. No—this would have to do for punishment. She bent over and touched him on the shoulder—briefly—just long enough to determine exactly how much damage she'd done.

Not enough, she thought with scorn, her insides twisted with the wish that she had been able to do more than merely strike him. He'll just have the devil of a headache when he wakes up. It probably won't be any worse than the hangovers he has all the time. Wonder at her own strength broke through the anger then; she'd had no idea she could hurt someone as well as heal them! I wonder what he'll think I did? Probably that I hit him with the nearest bedpan.

Well, she had—it just wasn't what he'd think she'd hit him with.

Enough dithering. What do I look like? She spent a moment putting her dress back in order, and patted her hair into place. Above all, she had to make certain no one would suspect that she and Parkening had so much as exchanged a greeting, much less what he had actually attempted. Her reputation was at stake here, and she dared allow nothing to mar it. There. Now— fix this situation—

For the first time that day, she blessed the heat, blessed the fact that no one had actually seen her go into this room, and stepped over his body.

'Nurse!' she called shrilly, backing out of the door hastily, as if she had only just stepped in. 'Nurse! Bring an orderly! There's a man on the floor of the linen room with heat stroke!'

The head ward nurse came running at her call, with an orderly following. She pursed her lips when she recognized Simon Parkening, but said nothing except, 'Well! Master Parkening, is it? Now what business did he have here?'

Maya shrugged as if it was of no moment. 'Is it Parkening, Nurse Haredy? I didn't recognize him. I don't know or care,' she replied, supervising the orderly who hauled the unconscious man up and draped a limp arm over his shoulder. 'But if we don't get him off the charity ward and into a private bed with all the little comforts, his uncle will blame us.'

The head nurse frowned, then suddenly smiled. 'Nurse Fortenbrase with all her airs can have the care of him, and I'll be washing my hands of him,' she told the orderly, who hauled a groaning Parkening off to a wheeled stretcher for transport to a better class of care.