Page 104 of The Unweaver

Her gaze lifted and met his, molten with wordless promises. Hair tousled and expression raw, his cool detachment had melted away. Without his mask, Malachy Bane was beautiful.

The darkness in him called out to the darkness in her.

His hungry gaze drank her in. Softly, slowly, his fingers combed through her hair and cupped the back of her head. A simple touch that stoked a flame within her. She leaned into his caress, aching to cry, aching to kiss him. His arm tightened around her waist, melding their bodies together, inch by inch, until their shallow breaths intermingled.

Pinned between him and the door should have felt confining. But it still wasn’t enough. She wanted to drown in the pools of his eyes. Her fingers skimmed the hard contours of his chest, tracing the dark outlines of his tattoos.

He pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. Her cheeks. The corner of her mouth. Eyelids drifting shut, she gripped his shirt to keep him from ending the exquisite torment of his soft lips. When his mouth whispered over hers, his breath became her breath.

They stood poised on the edge of uncharted waters. Dark and deep. Terrifying and exhilarating. Waters Cora wanted to both avoid and sink into.

Neither moved.

There was a question in his hesitation. Her eyes fluttered then flew open when she saw the blood smeared where her hands had trailed, staining him with her rot-caked touch. “Oh god,” she breathed. “I am a monster.”

“After everything that’s happened to you, Cora, you should be a monster. But you’re not.” He cradled her face and lowered his mouth, a breath away. “You’re beautiful.”

Years of repressed desires uncoiled low in her belly. Heating her. Overwhelming her. It was too much, too quickly. She turned away and his lips brushed her cheek. “Are you only saying that because I’m wearing your suit?”

She felt his lips curve on her cheek. “Maybe.” He drew back, dark eyes glittering. For a moment, they smiled softly at each other.

Her hands splayed on his chest. Tentative at first, she dragged them down the dips and planes of his abdomen. He groaned low, resting his forehead against hers. When their gazes met, they were no longer smiling. She searched his features for confirmation of her fears, her desires.

“I’ve been playing tug-of-war with fate.” His eyes pierced into her. “I don’t want to win anymore.”

She watched the slow path of his tongue across his lower lip and angled nearer for a taste. His grip tightened and a whimper escaped her lips. A masculine whimper responded.

Malachy Bane, whimpering? Her eyes opened. No, Bane hadn’t made that sound. They both tensed in realization. Breaking apart, their heads swung to Durbec, regaining consciousness with a thready caterwaul.

A wave of panicked adrenaline doused any pleasure. She’d almost kissed Bane—her secret-keeping bastard of a boss—while Teddy’s murderer was a few paces away. A reckless near mistake.

Bane’s gaze roamed over her with uncertainty, then understanding, and finally unconcern. His hands dropped, his mask slid back on. Shutting her out. His impassivity stung more than any rejection.

The intimacy was over, but she knew the embarrassment would fester. She ached, not from need, but emptiness. She disentangled from him without resistance and twisted the door handle, daring a last peek before leaving.

Eyes on Durbec, he said, “Don’t wait up.”

Chapter 29. Monsters

Agirl was crying.

Dreamlike, Cora followed the muffled cries through the abandoned Limehouse hotel with a sinking sensation in her stomach. She knew what she’d find before she kicked open Felix’s door. A young girl pinned down on the dirty mattress while he stole her innocence.

You didn’t say no enough.

But this time the girl wasn’t her. Felix hadn’t touched her since she’d used her devilry on him years ago. At sixteen, she was a head taller than him now, and he preferred his victims young and defenseless. Like this girl, the freshest recruit to his gang. As young as Cora had been.

Without thinking, she rushed into his bedroom and tore him off of the girl. Awful energy poured from her fingertips. She flung Felix onto the floor, her hand rotting through to his skin.

The anger came then. Years of rage boiled out of her throat and hands.

Screaming, they wrestled and struck blows, hurtling through the grimy window. Glass pelted them in a slicing rain as they crashed onto the dead lawn outside. They grunted and grappled, clothes and flesh ripped apart in the sea of broken glass.

Felix landed a punch on her jaw, a kick to her sternum. She felt eerily calm as she grabbed a jagged spike of glass and raised it over her head. It caught the fading sun in a kaleidoscope of light.

Pinned to the ground beneath her, Felix looked up in a suspended moment of raw terror. “M-monster,” he gasped.

“You’re the monster.” She stabbed him through the heart. Again. And again. “You’re the monster!”

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