Darkyn - Night Lost Part 24

"Gabriel." She wound her legs around his hips, offering herself to him. He pushed into her, hard and fast, almost knocking the breath out of her. "I love you."

Alexandra woke up naked and lying facedown on an uncomfortable pallet. Someone with very gentle hands was was.h.i.+ng the wounds on her back, but whatever they were using didn't irritate or sting but soothed. For a few minutes she simply enjoyed the relief.

"I'd like the recipe for whatever you're putting on me," she said at last.

"Water boiled with willow bark and valerian," Korvel told her, "left to cool."

"Sounds herbal. You sure you boiled it?" Alex craned her neck to see the captain in only a pair of trousers, sitting on a three- legged wooden stool by the bed. Barely healed claw marks slashed across his chest in four places. "Did you lock him up?"

"My master is sleeping."

"That's not what I asked you, Korvel."

"Dr. Keller, I cannot lock up the high lord of the Darkyn." He rose, picked up the stool, and moved it closer to her upper body.

"Be still. I am not finished."

Alex laid her cheek on her folded hands and studied Korvel's face. In the firelight, like now, he seemed more ordinary than movie-star handsome, but there was something compelling about him. "What's your talent?"

He didn't answer, but squeezed out a soaked cloth over her back, letting the warm liquid pour over her wounds.

"I can read the minds of killers," she offered. "Is yours worse than mine?"

"Kyn do not trade tales about talent." He pulled up the sheet covering her legs and hips and tucked it around her. "It is undignified."

"So it's worse than mine."

He almost smiled. "Does anything discourage you?"

"The Bush administration, our foreign policy, and Alison getting kicked off Project Runway," she told him. "So on a scale from one to ten, how bad is your talent?"

"It has never failed me." Korvel got to his feet. "Even when I wish that it would."

Under the grim all-business, fight-to-the-death warrior facade was, Alex suspected, a very nice man. Why else would he be playing her nurse?"I'd help you, but intelligent design screwed up our arm-to-back motor skills." She tested her shoulders, moving them and wincing. "He really did a number on me, huh?"

He nodded. "You do not heal like us."

"When I'm not being held hostage, I actually heal pretty fast. Being here has slowed me down on a couple of levels." She frowned as a clear image of herself being beaten with a copper pipe pa.s.sed through her mind. "Quit thinking about killing me."

"I do not wish to kill you."

She didn't like the way he said it, at least until she breathed in. "You know, when you get p.i.s.sed off or upset, you smell like vanilla pound cake."

"Larkspur," he said, coming over and looking down at her face. "When I go to wash at dawn, I can sometimes smell lavender on my clothes. From you."

"That's nice. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy." Too warm, too fuzzy. "And a bit like a skunk."

"You do not smell like one."

Alex was staring at his mouth, but she didn't know quite why. Then she did, all in a rush, as soon as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s tightened and something very neglected and sulky stirred between her legs.

Which brought home some facts: She was naked, alone with Korvel, and in his bed. In a very small room with no real ventilation. "I have to get out of here."

"Yes." Korvel didn't move. "Unfortunately, so do I. It is not your doing, Doctor."

p.o.r.nography popped into her head, starring the captain of the guard and herself. "You know what I'm thinking?"

"My talent put the thoughts in your mind." He flashed his fangs as he spoke. "No human woman can resist me. Neither, I fear, can you."

"You can make any woman want to ... f.u.c.k." She pushed herself up with her arms. "Give me my clothes." She remembered Richard had torn them from her. "Give me some clothes. And turn off your talent. This minute."

He brought a light robe to her and went to stand by the fireplace, averting his gaze. "I apologize. I have always controlled myself before this."

Alex wanted his hands on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His tongue in her mouth. His c.o.c.k in her p.u.s.s.y. "Try harder."

"I am not seducing you," he pointed out. "However much I wish to at this moment."

Alex felt herself go wet. "Yeah. No. Christ, I am out of here." She went to the door, startled by how sore she was and how slowly she was moving, and stopped there. "Thank you for patching me up, Captain."

"I am at your service, my lady."

"G.o.d, don't ever say that to me again." She opened the door and hobbled out.

Chapter 16.

Although some Brits returning from the Continent grumbled incessantly about it, Nick never minded riding at the back of the Eurotunnel shuttle. The shuttle company put bikers in the back for safety reasons, but all Nick cared about was that they let her book and pay for her ticket online, and the thirty-five-minute trip from Calais to Folkstone meant that she and Gabriel didn't even have to get off the bike. Besides, the most interesting pa.s.sengers on the trip were always the bikers.

Making the channel crossing today were mostly weekend solo bikers, but one German couple on a wicked black-and-silver Triumph Tiger outfitted for transcon touring parked next to her and exchanged admiring looks. Knowing Gabriel couldn't see it, Nick described the couple's bike to him.

"You sound as another woman would when she describes a diamond necklace," he teased.

"I can't ride a necklace," she told him. "That bike I could take around the world. In a heartbeat."

"BMW GS?" the German man asked her.

Nick seesawed her hand, making the man's wife giggle. Her German was nonexistent, so she pointed to the different parts of the bike she'd rebuilt and named the make of the new parts. She then pointed to the reinforced molded luggage containers fastened to the custom rack at the back of the Triumph, and fluttered her hand over her heart.

Gabriel unexpectedly said something in very precise, rapid German to the couple, who responded enthusiastically. When he had finished, he said to Nick, "I told them that you admired their motorcycle. They are envious of your ingenuity with your engine refittings."

"Danke," she said to the couple. At least she could say that much. She glanced back at Gabriel. "I should take you with me every time I cross over. You could be my interpreter."

"I have never traveled through the Channel Tunnel," Gabriel said. "I suppose it was the thought of being under so much water."

"We're forty-five meters down. We could swim, but it takes a whole day and my bike would rust to pieces." She leaned back against him and enjoyed the way his arms came up around her waist to pull her closer. "I was really b.u.mmed to hear that the company that built this had to file for bankruptcy over the summer. I'd hate it if they have to shut it down; it's the fastest way to get from France to England and back again."

He kissed the side of her neck. "You are impatient about everything."

"You didn't think so on the train from Toulouse," she reminded him.

Nick wasn't quite sure how to cla.s.sify what Gabriel did to her. He had s.e.x with her, of course. That was the clinical way of looking at it. Over the last couple of days they had gone at it like bunnies. But he also made love to her, the way the heroes did in chick movies. And then he took her, too, as dominantly and erotically as some of the Emma Holly novels she'd read.

"That trip should have taken much longer," Gabriel insisted. "They drove the train too fast, and then you rushed us through the station."

Nick thought about the Interpol bulletin she'd seen when they'd pa.s.sed through the station at Calais. Whoever had given them the description of her had told the artist that she was a boy, but despite that it was a fairly accurate sketch of her face on it. The list of properties she'd burglarized didn't include the ones where she'd found Kyn and released them, so the holy freaks were definitely involved.

She couldn't tell Gabriel she was being chased by Interpol any more than she could explain about her parents; he'd want to know all the details. She also wondered if the same bulletins were being posted around London, and how she would feel if he found out she was a thief-and a liar.

He won't find out. He can't see me or them.

Nick knew she might be able to keep the truth from Gabriel because he was blind, but that wouldn't keep the authorities away.

They could see her just fine, and with Father Claudio and the men from the house in Toulouse helping them, they'd soon change the description on the bulletin from a boy to a girl.

As the shuttle stopped at Folkstone station and the vehicles were driven off, Nick's nerves got the better of her. She wasn't sure she could even do this. "How long do you think this meeting with your friend in the city is going to take?"

"Only an hour at the most."

Not much time for her. "Can he get you in touch with your friends? I mean, the ones who are Kyn?"

"Croft serves the suzerain of London. He can put me in contact with any Kyn in the world." Gabriel tugged at a piece of her hair.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just curious." She saw a customs officer and two police constables approaching the rear of the shuttle, led by an elderly man walking with a familiar-looking cane. "Gabriel, we might not make that meeting."

His arms tightened around her. "What is it?"

"Father Claudio is here. They're checking each shuttle deck." She saw Claudio pointing at her and Gabriel, and the two constables picked up their pace. "f.u.c.k me, he just made us." She turned, checking the clearance in front and behind the bike before kicking up the center stand. "Strap on the helmet and hold on to me."

The German couple on the beautiful Triumph both looked back as Nick started her engine, and the husband glanced from Nick to the approaching constables and frowned. His wife whispered something in his ear, and he winked at Nick before he rolled his bike forward. The Triumph's bulk blocked the side entry and gave Nick enough clearance to go around him.

No matter what country they came from, in an emergency bikers were always happy to give you a hand.

"Whatever you do," Nick shouted over the sound of her revving engine to Gabriel, "don't let go of me."

As she released the parking brake and shot forward, a fluttering cloud filled the deck, causing the pa.s.sengers to shriek. Nick drove through the swarm of moths, nosing the bike around the vehicles in front of her and speeding up and out of the tunnel station.

Gabriel's moths provided enough of a distraction to get them safely out of Folkstone, but Nick didn't stop until they were miles away. She pulled off the road to shake off some moths still clinging to her s.h.i.+rt, and make sure Gabriel wasn't too freaked out by what she had done.

"We're good," she told him as she helped him remove the helmet. The sunlight irritated his eyes, so she handed him her spare pair of shades. "You all right?"

"I am wis.h.i.+ng I had killed that old man," he muttered, stroking one hand over her head. "It would have saved us much grief."

"We got away. What's a little grief, huh?" She hugged him, which turned into a kiss, which threatened to end up with the two of them rolling around the gra.s.s in the ditch. "Whoa. Save that for later, and tell me how to get to this guy Croft's shop."

Nick followed Gabriel's directions into the business district of London, and ended up in front of an old rare bookshop."'Mr. Pickard's Emporium of Literature'?" she read from the ornate sign painted in white across the spotless window. "Sounds like the captain from that second Star Trek series."

"My name is not Jean-Luc, young woman," a crisp, cultured voice informed her. It belonged to the man stepping out of the shop.

"I am, regrettably, equally as bald and stuffy. I say, is that vampire on the back of your motorbike bothering you?"

Nick grinned. "Not really."

"Count yourself fortunate." He made an elegant sweep of his hand toward the sun. "Daylight does not make them turn to ash, but they become b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.n infants, whining on about irritated eyes and sluggish limbs and so forth."

Gabriel climbed off the motorcycle and embraced the short, thin bald man.

"Croft, it has been too long since I've listened to your insults." Gabriel kissed both of his cheeks before turning toward Nick.

"This is Nicola Jefferson. Nicola, although he would have you think otherwise, this is my very good friend Croft Pickard."

Pickard clasped Nick's hand between his before urging them into the shop. "Come inside before some religious zealot has at you with a pike or something."

Nick knew from the moment she stepped under the gla.s.s door's tinkling bell that she had entered someplace special. The aroma of old paper and aged leather tickled her nose, but so did another scent; something like mint and chocolate.

Croft's shop, she decided, had the perfect name. Elegantly carved, freestanding bookcases held shelf after shelf of antique books. Most were bound in leather and still showed their t.i.tles stamped in faded gilt on the spines. Some were displayed open under round gla.s.s domes, like cakes, while others were bound in sets of three and four with cream and gold silk ribbons.

Precious, beautiful things had to be kept safe. This more than anything decided things for Nick.

One sparkling crystal dish offered wrapped Swiss chocolates for the customers, and a live mint plant sprouted in one corner of the desk from a bra.s.s urn. Nick bent over to breathe in its fragrance. Mint and chocolate, two things she had genuinely missed.

"I hate to say it, but of all the Kyn I have expected to walk through that door," Croft said as he closed the blinds and locked the front door, "you never made the list."

"The Kyn believe I'm dead."

"They sent the word out on you more than a year ago. We had a very nice memorial service over at the club." Croft switched on an electric teakettle. "I know you can't stomach the stuff, but your charming escort appears in very great need of a cup of tea."

That was her cue.

"I can't stay." Nick stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets and forced a smile. "I have some things to do. Gabriel, I'll be back in an hour to pick you up."

Croft stopped spooning tea leaves into the ceramic pot in his hand. "You don't have to leave, surely."

"You guys need some time to chat. By the way, they blinded him," she said, nodding toward Gabriel, "so don't let him wander out into traffic, okay?"

"Heavens, no." The bookshop owner looked horrified. "Completely blind?"

"Yeah." Nick kissed Gabriel on the cheek, keeping it casual. "See you."

She left the shop before he could say another word or she could change her mind. Because she wasn't coming back in an hour, and would never see him again, she didn't look back.

Gabriel was a gentleman. She was a thief. They had no future together.