Page 104 of The Dagger and the Flame
‘And now he’s going to kill me,’ she finished, through chattering teeth. ‘And there is nothing you can do to stop him.’
They were both soaked to the bone, the rain falling so hard she struggled just to make out his expression.
He raked his hands through his sodden hair. ‘Seraphine.’ Her name broke on his lips. She could feel him straining against the last of that Shade, aching to hold her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I’m so sorry. I know that life you lived. That brand of fear is worse than any shadow. Stronger than any magic. I’m sorry for all of it. For my part in it.’
She inched closer. There was such anguish on his face now. It burned through the last of his Shade and then his eyes were clear, and he was looking at her as though he could see her – truly, fully – for the first time.
He reached for her and she went to him, crying as he folded her into his arms and pressed his lips to her hair. ‘I won’t let him hurt you again. I swear it.’
She laid her forehead against his chest and listened to the thunder of his heartbeat. ‘Then bring him to me,’ she said, against the damp planes of his chest. ‘Tomorrow when the clock tower strikes ten, bring Dufort to the entrance to Hugo’s Passage.’
She didn’t say the rest – what she planned to do with all those monsters before she got rid of them, the freedom she intended to wrest from her father’s cold dead hands. She didn’t have to tell Ransom that. He heard it in her voice. He had done the same thing to his own violent father ten years ago.
‘Please,’ she said.
She scrunched her eyes shut, listening to the sawing of his breath as she waited for his answer… It seemed to take an age, the rain falling with a vengeance, the mud thickening beneath their boots. And then he sighed and gripped her tighter, whispering into her hair.
‘I’ll bring him to you.’
She curled her fists in his collar and dragged his mouth to hers, the press of her lips saying the words for her.Thank you, thank you, thank you.
He raised his hands to cup her face, drawing back from her just enough that she could look up at him. Droplets hung from his dark lashes and slid like tears down his cheeks.
‘I’ll help you,’ he murmured, kissing her softly. ‘We’ll help each other.’
She traced the whorl of black along his collarbone, then pressed a kiss there. He groaned into her hair. She took his hands in hers, and brushed her mouth against those too. Slowly, gently, her lips skimmed his rain-spattered skin, every kiss a promise of freedom.
‘Seraphine.’ Her own name was a promise on his lips. ‘My spitfire.’
Moonlight shone through a broken cloud and flooded the clearing, as though the saints themselves were peering down on them. As they stood together in the rain, shivering between soft, stolen kisses, Sera couldn’t help but think there was an air of destiny about this moment too.
Chapter 39Ransom
Ransom could have stood in that clearing with Seraphine all night, with nothing but the rain sliding between them, but by the time she finished her story, she was shivering so badly, she could hardly speak.
Nothing could have prepared him for her earth-shattering confession, the sickening truth that the man who had taken him in ten years ago and cared for him like a son was the same man who had terrorized his own daughter her entire life.
Seraphine was Dufort’s daughter, and the rotten bastard had made a mark of her. Then he had handed that mark to Ransom, like a prize. The promise of the signet ring he wore on his left hand, and everything it stood for, because he was too much of a coward to do it himself.
The whole thing was so twisted that during the first half ofSeraphine’s confession, Ransom had thought the bonfire of his rage would burn him to ash. It was an effort to stay and listen rather than stalk all the way back to Hugo’s Passage and slam Dufort up against the wall to bleed the same confession from him.
Ransom was dimly aware he shouldn’t care this much about their connection. The depth of his Order’s depravity was hardly a surprise to him. He had seen enough,doled outenough, not to be surprised by anything. Lark wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at Seraphine’s confession, would have killed her anyway, but then, thoughts of Seraphine Marchant didn’t haunt Lark to distraction.
Lark didn’t know that she was quick-witted and sharp-tongued, that she was twice as foolhardy as she was headstrong, and more soft-hearted than she would ever admit. That she was reckless and beautiful in equal measure. That she kissed like it was her last gasp on earth, and moaned like a song.
Lark hadn’t pressed her up against the walls of the catacombs and let her kiss him into oblivion. And he sure as hell hadn’t just bartered a decade of loyalty to Dufort for the promise of freedom glowing in her eyes.
And besides all that, Lark’s father had been a good man. Ransom’s father had been just like Dufort. That was the worst part. The startling realization that Dufort was the very thing Ransom had run away from all those years ago. That for all his kindness to Ransom, he was no better than the brute who had torn Ransom’s family apart.
Only the sight of Seraphine trembling like a leaf before him had pulled Ransom from the tornado of his anger. Her eyeshad silvered with tears, her mouth quivering as she poured the truth at his feet. At the sight of her distress, all that anger inside him buckled.
It was a relief when the Shade left him so he could hold her. It was easy to promise he would help her, that he would bring Dufort to her tomorrow night and let her finish what her mother started.
But as Ransom walked Seraphine back to House Armand and turned for the long journey home, rain-soaked and shivering, he was needled by the depth of the betrayal he had agreed to and wondered if Dufort truly was beyond reason. If the only pathway to freedom was over his dead body.
He had to find out for himself.
Back in Old Haven, Ransom stalked into Hugo’s Passage like a beast on the hunt. The catacombs were largely deserted, the hour so late now that even the Cavern was empty. No sign of Dufort, which was probably a kindness of fate. If Ransom ran into the Head of the Daggers right away, he would have lost that tenuous grip on his temper. And who would that have helped? Not Seraphine, and right now, she was the only person he cared about. He wanted to make sure she was safe.
