Page 48 of The Unweaver

“I dunno, Mal. She’s a real cunning cunt.”

Dimitri crossed his trunk-sized arms over his chest. “Rogue mage?”

“Might be,” Bane said. “Look into it, Dimitri. Take Sloane for shadow-cloaking and scope out the Crossbones cemetery in Southwark. Should be bodies. And my car. Bring back both.”

The giant plodded out of the office without a word.

What Anita couldn’t seal with her magic, she sewed shut. “Good as that’s gonna get, boss. Should get the feeling in your arm back in a couple of hours, I reckon.”

“Thank you, Anita.”

“Any time you’re bleeding, Mal.” She flashed a beaming smile and turned to Cora. “It’ll be dangerous for you out there, love. You got a safe pad to crash? Me and Sloanelive above the club. Sloane’s a shadow mage and Mal’s spymaster. Ain’t that a treat? The spare bed upstairs ain’t bad if you don’t mind some, ah, nocturnal entertainment.”

“She’s staying with me,” Bane said.

“Brilliant. Loads of us have crashed at Mal’s when we’d no place to go.”

Cora was both relieved and strangely disappointed this wasn’t an uncommon arrangement for his gang. She had been entertaining misconceptions about his generosity when she was just another stray he’d taken in. The Realmwalker never didanything without a reason—his hospitality was probably to keep a close eye on his gang, make them dependent on him.

Was he in the habit of propositioning, as well as housing, his gang? Had he asked the former courtesan the same question he’d asked Cora in the car? Had Anita said yes?

Cora studied Bane. Eyes closed, his long lashes were dark half-moons resting on pale cheeks. Blood trailed down the corded muscles of his injured arm, bared from the ripped sleeve. On his thigh, his other hand clenched and unclenched. She remembered the feel of those hands gripping her hips. The feel of a hard—

His eyes snapped open and locked onto hers.

She looked away, catching Anita’s brows lifting with intrigue as she glanced between them. Cora couldn’t lie about the blood pounding in her veins to a Sanguimancer.

“Say,” Anita began with a mischievous smile. “Do you two—”

“Isn’t there a man tied to your bed right now?” Bane interrupted.

“Bollocks. Best be getting back to unwrapping my Christmas present. Poor bloke doesn’t appreciate delayed gratification like some of us, eh? You finish up, love.” Anita handed Cora a roll of bandages and closed the door, leaving them alone together.

Uneasiness settled in her gut as Cora faced Bane, his eyes closed again. His blood-soaked shirt was torn off at the shoulder, but more would have to come off to properly bandage the wound.

“Can you, er, take your shirt off? For the bandages.”

“You take it off,” he said without opening his eyes.

She hesitated. With one functional arm, he couldn’t wrap the bandages himself. Leaving him to bleed and fester wasn’t a fair repayment for taking a bullet for her, even if she was slightly tempted. “This wasn’t part of our agreement. You owe me for this.”

She came to stand between his splayed legs. He didn’t bother widening to make room and their thighs brushed. Awareness tingled along her nerves. His jaw tensed.

Flustered, she undressed Malachy Bane. Unwinding his silk tie and stripping his waistcoat, she unbuttoned his shirt and helped him shrug out of it. Skin grazed skin in an alarming thrill.

Her gaze traced his scars and rune tattoos, symbols of a long-dead language written on his lean body in iridescent ink. Beneath his coppery chest hair, over his heart, was a scar, white with age. A lethal wound. On the sculpted planes of his abdomen was a fresher scar, the puckered flesh of a deep gouge over his kidney. Another lethal wound.

That trail of dark hair drew her eyes down the firm lines and angles of his torso to where his thighs bracketed hers.

“Maybe you owemefor this,” he said in a low voice. Head tilted back, he had been watching her ogle him through half-lidded eyes.

Her gaze jumped up and met his smirk.Smug bastard. She poured whiskey onto the wound—for disinfection, partially. He hissed in a sharp breath. Her gratification was fleeting as a paired pain ignited in her own shoulder. Damned Binding Agreement. She regretted it more by the minute.

“I will do this without your commentary, thank you,” she said crisply. With the clean towel Anita had left, she wiped the blood away, none too gently, and heaped gauze on the stubborn trickle of blood. “I don’t sense necrosis. But this will leave a nasty scar.”

“Needn’t matter. It’s only flesh.”

Bandaging the wound required even closer proximity. She had to press against him, hard and warm and too close, to wrap the bandage around his broad shoulder, across his back, and under his arm. Firm muscles tautened under her touch. The tips of her breasts felt the stir of his every breath.

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