Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)(72)

It caught her by surprise when it came, no slow buildup, no warmth diffusing through her body. This was fast and hard, a fire sweeping through limbs already weakened by the previous orgasm. She was dimly aware of her hands scrabbling at his sides, his shoulders, as she tried to urge him to do something. She was going to expire, to die, if he didn’t pick up his pace, didn’t take his cock and ram it into her.

And whether because he could sense her extremity or because he was there himself, he did it. He let her legs fall and braced himself on his strong, straight arms and slammed his hips into her, making violent, urgent, blissful contact with her. The bed rocked, the headboard banging rhythmically against the wall, and any other time she would have been mortified, but right now … right now she was in paradise. White light obscured her vision as bliss flooded her being, seizing her, shaking her, giving her life.

She could fly like this, perhaps live eternally.

She came down from the heights with her limbs liquid, just in time to see Godric. His head was arched, his eyes closed, his chest shining with sweat, and his lips drawn back over his teeth as if he were in extremis. He was beautiful like this, a god made mortal in his physical delight, and she stared in awe. At the last minute, his eyes snapped open, staring at her, gray and fervent, and she gasped.

It was as if he let her see into his soul.

He dropped then, his head falling forward limply, his body collapsing down. He rolled to the side as if he feared crushing her, and she had a moment’s disappointment: she wanted to feel his weight.

She lay there, catching her breath, feeling her skin grow chill. She turned her head to look at him, her husband. He lay, his expression more relaxed than she’d ever seen it before, the lines smoothed from his face, one arm thrown over his head, those elegant fingers lax and curling. A single drop of perspiration trembled at his temple and she wanted to touch it, to rub it into his skin and feel the man beneath the armor he wore. She reached out a hand, but he was moving now, rolling from the bed, getting up without a word.

She stared, drawing the coverlet over herself. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t look at her. “I need to go.”

“Where?” she whispered, feeling lost, abandoned.

“St. Giles.”

Chapter Fourteen

Grief leaned forward with an oily smile and touched Faith’s sleeve. “Do you see the souls drifting here and there in the wind? They are what remains of babes, dead before they were born. They’ll stay here, wailing for their mothers’ teats, until the earth falls into the sun.” Faith shivered. “How awful! ’Tis not their fault that they died thus.”

Grief grinned, his impish tail whipping back and forth. “Aye, but there is no justice in Hell. For them or for your beloved.”

Faith frowned and pushed Grief from the horse. …

—From The Legend of the Hellequin

“Over there,” Alf said later that night. He whispered so close to Godric’s ear that he could feel the boy’s panting breaths. Alf was scared, though he hid it well. “In that cellar across the way. Do y’see?”

“Aye.”

This was the second—and biggest—workshop of the night. He’d already freed six girls from a shed in the back of a foul courtyard—a relatively easy operation, as there had been only two guards, one of them drunk.

Now both Godric and Alf lay prone on a roof catty-corner from the cellar he’d indicated. “Is there another way in?”

Alf shook his head decisively. “Not that I ever saw.”

Godric grunted, analyzing. The lassie snatchers had chosen a good spot for the workshop. The cellar door lay within a narrow well—any attackers would be exposed from behind and perforce would have to enter single file.

Of course, he’d always planned to enter by himself, so the point was moot.

Winter had argued in favor of bringing in more men for this second workshop when Godric had delivered the first six shivering girls to him. Godric was loath to trust anyone else, though, both with possible exposure of his identity and with the attack itself. He was used to working alone. This way he didn’t have to rely on another’s skill and dependability.

No one could fail him if he only had himself.

“There’s two guards.” Alf’s whisper was barely audible even this close.

Godric glanced at him, and for a moment his eyes were caught by the delicacy of his profile. Something twinged at the back of his mind—something that bothered him about the boy.

Alf jerked his chin forward, distracting him. “See? One by the door, one at the entrance o’ the alley.”

“And another one on the roof,” Godric replied.

Alf started, his gaze swinging in that direction. “Sharp eyes,” he said grudgingly. “What’ll you do? There’s only one o’ you.”

“Let me worry about that,” Godric whispered, rising to his haunches. “You stay here and don’t get involved. I don’t want to have to worry about you as well as them.”

Mutiny flashed in Alf’s eyes and Godric respected the scamp more for it.

Then the boy looked at the three toughs guarding the workshop and nodded. “Luck, then.”

Godric smiled at him. “Thank you.”

He was off, running silently across the roof in a crouch. He leaped away from the building housing the cellar, moving in a wide circle as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop. He was careful about it, taking a good fifteen minutes to work his way around until he was in back of the guard on the roof over the cellar. Then it was a simple matter of stealth and quiet. Killing the guard wasn’t hard: a firm, quick grasp on the guard’s hair, a vicious tug to bare his neck, and a lightning-strike cut across his throat. The difficulty came in making sure the guard made no sound before he died.