Page 33 of Darkest at Dusk
She saw now the dark halo surrounding the girl’s form, writhing like oil slicking across water.
And then she knew. Impossibly, the girl was a wraith, though unlike any she had encountered before. Solid. Dangerous.
A sudden, wind howled down the hallway, kettle-hot, breathy with ash and scorched oak, whipping Isabella’s hair across her eyes. Heat scored her cheeks and the backs of her hands.
As if a grate had been flung open and a bellows put to work, the sounds of a fire raged around her, quick, greedy crackles and pops and snaps accenting a gathering roar. A rippling wave of scorching air stole her breath.
The flame of her candle sheared flat, then clawed upright once more, hissing and spitting.
In the next instant, the heat was gone. The sounds and smells and horror of the fire were gone.
And the girl was gone.
The corridor stretched before her, empty, silent.
The air was thin with cold, heavy with the scent of metal and rot. Somewhere close, something tapped inside the wall. Tap…tap…tap.
Isabella’s heart thundered. She had seen wraiths all her life, but never one like that, never one that looked so real, as if it could step fully into the world.
She stumbled forward, desperate to escape this place, to return to her room, to what paltry sanctuary it might offer. Her heel caught on the edge of the carpet. With a startled cry, she fell, bracing for the impact?—
But she never hit the floor.
A hand caught her wrist.
Warm. Solid.
She looked up into the shadowed face of Rhys Caradoc. His hair, dark and thick and sleek, framed his face. The moonlight painted his bare shoulders in silver, the hard planes of his chest rising and falling with slow, measured breaths.
“Miss Barrett,” he murmured, his voice low and smooth, the sound wrapping around her like a cocoon of velvet and silk.
She stared at him, stunned, unsteady, her pulse tripping violently. He yet held her wrist, his hand warm, his body close, the faint rasp of his breath stirring against her temple.
“Mr. Caradoc!” she whispered, the sound barely more than a breath. For a heartbeat, she saw him not here in this corridor, but in another place, trapped behind iron bars and wired glass. She pushed the vision away and gathered herself. “It seems you are always catching me when I fall.”
She meant to look away, to compose herself, to remember that she was alone in the dark with a man she barely knew, a man who was only half-dressed and standing entirely too close.
But her gaze betrayed her, tracing the dusting of dark hair on his chest, the hollow that marked the center of his throat. She imagined the pulse there, steady against her lips if she but dared to lean in, to press her mouth?—
Heat flashed through her, and something clenched low in her belly. She jerked her gaze away, stunned by her own wayward thoughts, unsure what had elicited such an uncharacteristic desire.
“What are you doing wandering the halls at this hour?” he asked, his tone quiet, intimate.
She swallowed, her throat dry.
“I…” She could not tell him about the wraith she had seen. The entrenched caution of a lifetime stayed her tongue.
He would think her mad. Of course he would.
Oh, the bitter irony. She could neither ask what madness had once confined him to St. Jude’s, nor reveal her own.
Years of her father’s warnings rang in her ears, yet another reason to keep her secrets.
“I could not sleep,” she said, wondering if he would challenge her lie.
He did not. He only studied her in the darkness, his fingers still wrapped around her wrist, the sound of her breathing too loud in her ears.
After a moment, she tugged against his grip. He set her free, his thumb grazing the inside of her wrist, lingering there for a breath too long, the touch so slight she might have imagined it.
