Page 94 of The Dagger and the Flame
‘Seraphine.’ Her name in his mouth was a ragged plea. He whispered it onto her skin, along the curve of her cheek, against her lips, into her mouth.
She was half a heartbeat from dragging him down onto the dusty floor when she heard the sound of crumpling paper. She froze.
He stilled, his hands tightening on her waist. ‘What is it?’
She pushed him away as reality crashed back in. In the frenzy of her lust, she had almost crushed Lucille’s journal. She raked her hands through her hair, gulping down the cool air, as though it might quell the fire raging inside her.
What the hell was she doing?
She looked up at Ransom, and saw the same wildness in his eyes. He sucked in a breath. ‘That was…’
‘A slight deviation from the plan,’ she said.
‘You have to get out of here,’ he said, coming back to himself. He slung the cloak around her shoulders. ‘Here. Put this on.’
Sera didn’t dare look at him as he fastened it at her collar, too afraid she would fall back into his arms. A familiar coldness reached for her as she stepped back into the shadows. Alone, this time.
Ransom hurried along the passage, leading her up the stairwell that returned them to the main crossway. She followed at a distance, leaping from one shadow to the next, winding her way back towards the entrance of the catacombs. Clear-eyed Daggers came and went, nodding at Ransom in the flickering half-light – just as before – none the wiser about where he had come from. What he had done in the shadows, and with whom.
Soon, the entrance to Hugo’s Passage was before them, crowned with that sickening archway of skulls. For the second time that night, Sera shoved away her revulsion. Ransom twisted a skull on the wall and the doorway groaned open, letting in a welcome breeze.
‘Go,’ he said, under his breath. ‘And don’t come back here.’
Sera grabbed his hand. He looked down, momentarily stilling at the sight of her small, pale fingers interlaced with his.
She caressed the shadow-mark along his thumb, then lifted it to her mouth. ‘Thank you for helping me.’
‘Go,’ he said again, his eyes softening.
For once, she did as he asked. With Lucille’s journal in her arms and the shadow of his kiss on her lips, she smiled all the way home.
Chapter 35Ransom
Ransom watched Seraphine run away from him with a curious mixture of longing and relief. Their flirting had always felt like a dangerous game, but that kiss… thatheat… there had been nothing playful about that. The press of her tongue against his and her ragged moans in his mouth had unravelled something deep and primal inside him. His sense of caution had gone up in smoke, his loyalty to Dufort along with it. Hell, he would have spun her back into the crypt and finished what they started in the tunnel if she hadn’t pulled away when she did.
If that journal in her waistband hadn’t reminded him of who and what she was: trouble.
Trouble fled from him now, without looking back.Mercenary little spitfire. The entrance to Hugo’s Passage closed with a resounding thud, sealing him inside.
‘I wish I hadn’t just seen that.’ Nadia’s voice made him jump. Ransom turned to find her leaning against the wall.
He closed his eyes.Shit.
‘What the hell are you doing, Ransom?’ He heard her stomp towards him. ‘Tell me your mark wasn’t just inside these catacombs. Tell me you didn’t bring a Cloak into the inner sanctum of Hugo Versini. Tell me—’
‘I can’t.’ He snapped his eyes open. ‘And please keep your voice down before Lisette hears and comes sniffing around.’
‘Only if you can make sense of what I just witnessed,’ she said, prodding his chest. In all the time he had known Nadia, he had never seen her so furious. ‘You’ve got ten seconds.’
He raked his hands through his hair, trying to make sense of it himself. ‘She followed me down here. I didn’t know, Nadia. And then by the time I noticed—’
‘You were already breaking into Lucille Versini’s crypt?’
It was an effort not to flinch at the searing realization of his own stupidity. ‘She needed Lucille’s journal,’ he tried to explain. ‘There are secrets hidden in there about a new kind of magic. The kind that can destroy the monsters of Fantome.’ Nadia’s eyes widened, until Ransom could see his reflection in them. He was wide-eyed, his hair unkempt, lips swollen. The more he talked, the more unhinged he sounded. But the power of Lightfire was real. He hadseenit. It had blanched away one of his shadow-marks, had destroyed a monster in front of his eyes. ‘She’s the one who turned Kipp back into himself in that fountain. She pulled the monster off me. Seraphine saved my life.’
She sighed through her nose. ‘You’ve named your mark.’
Ransom was way past naming her, but he wasn’t about to tell Nadia that. He was in enough trouble already.
