Читать книгу Ecstasy: The Shadowdwellers - Jacquelyn Frank - Страница 12

Trace was wandering the street in the dark, a habit he had when he was trying to think something through. It was like a deadly sort of game, or perhaps the Shadowdweller version of extreme sports. Striding from shadow to shadow, avoiding the rims of light that flooded the city streets. His steps were light and quick, his body movements as fluid as the inky sections of dark that protected him from certain agony—even death if he were exposed long enough or fully enough.

But it wasn’t this, nor was it Baylor’s treacherous attack on him that nagged at his thoughts and conscience. In truth, he couldn’t seem to get the haunting image of the fair and fragile Ashla out of his head. A large part of the issue, he supposed, was his indebtedness to her. The bald fact of the matter was that she had saved his life. And, as Malaya had wisely pointed out a short time ago, she had saved the lives of his regents as well. Had he died in Shadowscape, there would have been no one to warn them of the plot that brewed against them. There was very little information to work from as it was, but very little was far more than none at all.

As a religious woman, Malaya was also fascinated with the Lost woman’s ability to see Trace and his enemy, as well as her fascinating corporeal attributes. The Chancellor did not believe in coincidences, but she felt quite strongly about divine providence. To her mind, Darkness had provided the impossible for Trace at just that moment to help him, and it was very hard for him to argue. By the time he had left the royals, Malaya had all but asked him to return to Shadowscape and try again to seek this woman out, and perhaps some answers as well.

A preposterous idea, of course. The city, and all of Shadowscape for that matter, was far too enormous to ever hope to run into a single individual again without it being planned…never mind the fact that she would probably try to hide from him if she caught the slightest hint that he was looking for her. But if he could thank her for what she had done, maybe then his mind would rest a bit. Maybe then he could focus once again on the more critical issues instead of this grating regret for having upset her.

“Damn,” he muttered, running a hand back through his hair.

He stopped where he was, looking around himself and then at the sky. He could sense the coming day, the lightening of the area too miniscule for human perception but an ingrained alarm to all of his Shadowdweller senses. If he crossed into Shadowscape now, he would be trapped within it until the fall of darkness the next night. This, too, he would sense instinctively, which kept him from crossing out into light by accident because his perception of time had otherwise been toyed with by the alternate dimension.

Trace couldn’t believe he was actually considering doing this ridiculous thing. But apparently that was why he had returned to the site of his fight with Baylor. He had made up his mind long before he was aware he was even considering the action.

Trace closed his eyes, leaned back deeply into the darkest of shadows, and slowly began to pull that darkness into himself. He could feel the night entering him first, its weakening hold on the world easily felt in the way it vibrated through him like the tantrum of a furious child. Then there was the tart taint of light that trimmed the edges of the shadows, creating them as much as it destroyed them at whim. It cut through his palate like the rusty taste of blood on the tongue, filling him with an overwhelming urge to spit. It passed quickly enough, though, and soon all there was were the wraiths of blackness that tugged and pulled him toward Shadowscape. He held his breath, like a diver swimming through an underwater tunnel that led from one section of a cove to another one that lay hidden beyond it.

He surfaced in Shadowscape with a gasped draw for breath, a reflex when it took a while to cross. The process was drawn out, depending on how dark it really was around the traveler. The lights of the city and the dawn had pushed the limits of what was safe, and it had been much more taxing on his inner energy to leave from such an unsuitable launching point.

But he was safe now, the utter darkness of the ’scape a pure delight. It would rejuvenate him in time, to the point of euphoria. Of course, like anyone else, he would have to leave once he reached that point. There was a reason why ’Dwellers didn’t just stay in Shadowscape all of the time, and it fell under the category of too much of a good thing.

Trace looked around himself slowly, orienting his eyesight to the darkness it was intended for. In Realscape, Shadowdwellers were all a little bit “blind.” Unless there was perfect darkness as far as their eyes could see, the shedding of light caused an ache and even sometimes a blur in their eyes. They were prone to terrible headaches, quite often full-blown migraines. Still, those were minor weaknesses and were gladly endured for times like these, where perfect darkness spread the world out before them in brilliant, vivid colors and details. He imagined that this was what humans saw in their daylight worlds, only what he could see was probably much better. He had never heard of a human who could easily see for blocks at a time, see in infrared, and even have enough intuitive sight to know what was lying around corners…at least for the first couple of feet.

Normally, none of this would have been likely to help him as he looked for a Lost woman in Shadowscape, but this woman gave off very real heat and quite vibrant energy.

Still, he was hit with a bolt of surprise when he immediately caught sight of a slight-figured female less than half a block away from where he stood. She had returned to the scene of the fight as well! As delighted by that as he was, Trace couldn’t help but wonder why she would do that. Was she looking for him? Or was she merely gawking at the scene of his gruesome act like so many humans always seemed so fascinated with doing?

There was only one way to find out, and because he didn’t know for certain how he would be greeted, he approached his target with all the stealth his species was born with.

Ashla walked away from the ruined store at a clipped pace, muttering under her breath at her absolute foolishness. Of course he wouldn’t be there, she reprimanded herself. No one would stay in such a mess, and surely there were many more places of better comfort to be found in New York City.

The trouble was, she couldn’t keep from feeling like she had acted like a total ass. Fear and disorientation had been no excuse. She ought to have kept her cool and shot down his ignorance and prejudice. Why, he had no right whatsoever to look down on her! Especially considering that she had saved his miserable hide! She could have kept her secret and just as well let him drop dead in that store like he’d expected. But no, she had thrown herself open—risked herself, even—and his thanks had been condemnation?

The more she thought about it, the angrier Ashla became. She was frustrated that she had no one to take it out on. She was even more frustrated that she was so desperate for the company of another human being that she would have probably sacrificed all of her righteous indignation if he would only promise to keep her company.

It was this thought that made Ashla realize her solitude was truly getting to her. She would rather keep company with a man who beheaded people than be alone? Talk about desperation!

She had been the lonely, isolated sort even when there had been other people milling all around her, so she knew the meaning of desperation quite well. When that kind of solitude became too much to bear, she would cut herself away from her normal routines and take a wild chance on something, like going to a New Year’s party even if it meant driving on the most frightening night of the year.

At that subconscious trigger, a wild rush of sudden illness overran her body. Chills and queasiness overwhelmed her and she had to stop and brace a hand against the wall for balance as her head spun nauseatingly. Her knees seemed to disappear and in an instant she was sinking toward the ground.

She nearly screamed when strong hands abruptly halted her collapse, their warm power drawing her back against a muscular and sturdy body. Even though she was dizzy and sick, she looked up over her shoulder and into curious dark eyes. His brow creased with clear concern as he jogged her a bit more firmly into his hold, a solid arm crossing her ribs to pin her tightly to his frame.

“I’ve got you,” he assured her in a richly rumbling murmur that seemed to vibrate against her ear and all down her neck. She couldn’t seem to help the little shiver the sensation provoked, reaching to grasp his forearm instinctively. The crisp feel of male body hair at his wrist tickled her fingertips, and Ashla was suddenly overwhelmed with a strange sense of intimacy. Discomforted, she tried to squirm loose even as she snatched her hands off him and made fists out of them.

“Be easy!”

It was a command, plain and simple. The sharp jerking of her body in his grasp made that quite clear to her. And that was to say nothing of the dark heaviness of his voice and the way it seemed so obvious that he was used to having his commands obeyed. Considering his talents with a sword, Ashla could see why no one would be compelled to argue with him.

And there it was, beneath the long black coat he wore, the thick buckle of the belt that held its sheath pressing into her backside from where it was slung at a low angle across his hips. This was what made her realize her feet weren’t touching the ground. There was no way otherwise, with their disparate heights, that she should find herself within such intimate fitting with him. Ashla’s face was washed with an upward wall of heat and embarrassment, her complexion burning as she gasped in a breath.

Coincidentally, as her thoughts were occupied by all of this input that pushed aside her slightest memories of New Year’s Eve, her feelings of illness were quickly brought to heel. She took a deep breath, wanting to demand he put her down, to get furious with him, to just explode with all of the stormy emotions she’d been besieged with ever since she had encountered him.

But she didn’t do any of it. Ashla simply turned her face away from him, her hard, stressed breathing the only thing being freely expressed as she said softly, “Please, let me go.”

“Really?” he asked, his richly resonant voice a prelude to his breath washing warmly over her face. “Because a moment ago I would have sworn you couldn’t wait to get your hands on me.”

Ashla gasped in a soft breath, trying to twist around in his hold so she could see his face. The way he said that…it was almost as if he were suggesting…

She squirmed angrily. “Let go!”

“I would,” he mused, “if I wasn’t worried you’d collapse to the ground. Also, I think I rather like you this way. It keeps you in one place long enough for me to get some questions answered.”

The truth of the matter was that Trace was enjoying the way her temper seemed to swell and grow with every wriggle of her body and every denial he handed her. Not that he was being mean or anything, but it was intriguing to see the streak of fury that ran through his frightened little mouse. It fascinated him that as angry as she clearly was, she refused to unleash herself on him, as he no doubt deserved.

“Please,” she begged him, suddenly relaxing into a limp little creature of defeat. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t?” he questioned. “Don’t what?” Trace reached up to cup her small chin in his palm, his fingers sinking into the softness of her cheek with such ease that, for a moment, he feared he would bruise her unintentionally. He tilted her chin up, her head falling back against his chest until her pale blue eyes were blinking up at him. The shine in her overbright gaze warned him she was near to tears, so he was infinitely gentle as he looked down on her. “I’ll not hurt you, jei li,” he promised her. “What makes you think I would repay my debt to you in such unfriendly ways?”

Ashla laughed at that, fully aware of the edge of hysteria in the sound just by seeing him frown darkly at it. “Because I saw you use that sword to kill someone,” she countered with a shudder as her eyes flicked down to the weapon on his hip.

“Is that what worries you, jei li? That I am armed?”

Trace reached down immediately for the buckle of his weapons belt. He slid his hand between their pressed bodies, and he found himself by accident gliding his knuckles along the curve of her backside.

She was wearing another dress, but this one was light and thin, some sort of calico or gauze cotton that barely provided a barrier to his touch. The impression was validated when he realized he could feel every stitch of the fabric of her panties. Trace unbuckled his belt and let it, the sheathed katana, and the slightly smaller wakizashi sword fall with a careless clatter to the pavement. Had Magnus seen him treat his weapons in such a disrespectful manner, Trace would have gotten an earful and, potentially, a hard refresher on the subject. The priest had forged the weapons himself, signed his name to them, and honored Trace with the gifts. Magnus very rarely bestowed his masterful weaponry on others. This one had even been specially designed for Trace’s unique left-handed style.

But all of that importance faded with surprising speed as the vizier’s full attention became quite riveted on the sweet warmth and shape of her provocatively nestled rear. The charge of sexual awareness that crashed through him so suddenly simply took his breath away. He was no stranger to sexual magnetism and all of its energizing benefits, but to find it so unexpectedly in so muted a package completely amazed him.

She was Lost, he tried to remind himself. By all rights, he shouldn’t even be able to feel her. Anomalies notwithstanding, she was a ghost, merely the apparition of a woman who most likely lay in a human hospital somewhere connected to those brutally cruel machines that kept bodies alive well beyond sense and grace. Far beyond all dignity.

But it was so hard to reconcile all of that with the lushly heated woman he held against himself; the one who squirmed provocatively whether she knew it or not; the one whose scent changed abruptly under the attentiveness of his keen senses, telling him he wasn’t the only one affected by all of this.

Drawn in, Trace lowered his nose to her neck, running the tip lightly along the length of it as he drew in a slow, searching breath. “There,” he said softly into her fair hair, his gaze fascinated by the gleam of gold and platinum in every flip and wave, “no weapons.”

Ashla was quite unsure about that. Her heartbeat raced in response to the way he held and stroked her. Every touch was both completely innocent and outrageously provocative. Perhaps it was the tone of his deep voice as it caressed her skin, or the way he seemed to breathe deep of her, but Ashla was also quite aware that there was so much more to it than that. She had felt it when she had covered his body in her touch to heal him. She felt it even more now that she was locked against him under his power. Her body instantly responded, a flush of awareness congregating with long-denied hungers inside her. She blushed with dreadful embarrassment when her nipples hardened into prodding points against the arm that still held her close.

“Tell me why you ran away from me before,” he suddenly asked, his coaxing query sounding half distracted. Ashla didn’t realize that Trace’s attention had been snared by the reaction of her body, and that it had made him realize that she wasn’t wearing a bra, merely a chemise, the lace of which was quite obvious beneath the scant material of her dress. All it would take was the lifting of his thumb to prepare her for his teasing stroke of touch. Trace was floored by the power of his yearning to do just that. How in all that was Light had this gone from seeking her out to thank her to becoming an exercise in sensual temptation?

More importantly, how was it that he of all people would be feeling this way? For years he had held on to such bitter memories that he could barely stand to touch or be touched by a woman. And now…

He shook his head in denial. How could any Shadowdweller even feel in such a way toward a human?

Half a human.

If that.

Trace let go of her suddenly, stepping away from her as she stumbled in her sudden, unexpected freedom. Ashla turned around slowly and he could see the shaking of her hands as she ran one through her short, soft hair. She didn’t realize that Trace had lost track of his own question as he tried to plow some kind of order to his jumbled thoughts. So she caught him off guard when she answered.

“Because you…you shunned me.”

Why did you shun me?

I never shunned you!

The haunted whispers of a half-realized memory swirled through Trace’s brain, even as he responded with knee-jerk indignation. “I did nothing of the kind!”

“You did! You said ‘what are you?’ like…like I was some sort of…of demon!”

“Because I thought you were…”

He trailed off before he could tell her he had actually thought that very thing. Not a demon, but a Demon, a Nightwalker race of elementals with great powers. But he had certainly never thought of her as the human incarnation of “demon,” some twisted beast damned and deceptive. Trace was actually insulted by the idea she would think him capable of such a disparagement, forgetting she had no way of knowing otherwise about him.

“Look,” he said irritably, “I have seen things a lot stranger than you, little mouse. Some human girl who can heal may be unique, but certainly not strange enough to make me forget how to treat someone with decency!”

“Then why did you ask it like that? And—” Ashla stopped short, jerking her head and shoulders into a tight sort of attention as her pale, pretty eyes narrowed on him suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘some human girl?’ What other kinds of girls are there?”

Oh, Light and damnation, Trace thought with an inner groan at his own massive stupidity. How could he have made such a mistake? Then again, how often did he ever speak with humans in the first place? It wasn’t as though he was well practiced in guarding the uses of his language outside of the Shadowdweller society.

“Please,” he said, his tone lowering to a coaxing level. “I feel as though we have misunderstood each other from the start, and all I want to do is fix that so I can thank you for what you did.”

“You want to thank me?” she asked, her suspicion seeming to deepen. “No questions? No curiosity? You don’t find me strange, so it begs the question what have you seen that you do classify as strange.”

That was when Trace realized that for all her bundles of fear, little blond Ashla was ounce for ounce as sharp as others might be brave. What she lacked in courage, she clearly made up for in intellect. He had underestimated her in that respect, and now would have to either pull off some dazzling damage control, or…

Lie.

Trace was quite good at telling creative truths. He was even better at flat-out lying. He had to be. Not a single ruling body on the planet that he knew of could function on a completely open and fully honest governing style. Secrets were a necessary evil, especially when it protected vital information and key negotiations between touchy cultures; especially when the telling of truths would leave opportunity for enemies to plunge their daggers into the hearts of the monarchy.

Yet now that he was faced with upholding one of the more crucial lies his people perpetuated, the one that secured their anonymity as a race in order to protect them from hers, his tongue seemed to freeze against it. He found himself trapped in a pair of fair blue eyes the likes of which amazed him, the lightness of them completely mesmerizing. What was more, he couldn’t escape the feeling that she had had more than her share of liars and betrayers in her life. Trace shook his head, trying to tell himself that he was applying his own impressions onto her without a single shred of proof, but it didn’t sway the overwhelming cry of his instincts. How could he force himself to ignore them when he was so used to living by them?

Ashla saw him hesitate, however, and her face wrinkled with distress and pain. She was so ready to think the worst of him, and probably anyone else as well. It amazed him that so young a woman could be so jaded. He wasn’t an expert at judging human age, but he estimated she was not yet out of her third decade. If she’d had the longevity of a Shadowdweller to look forward to, she would have the time to grow out of this bitter stage while still in her youth. She would learn how truly vast life could be, and how insignificant some things became in the face of it.

“Don’t bother saying anything if you’re going to lie,” she said heavily, shaking her head as she turned away from him.

“I’m not going to lie,” he said sharply, grabbing her arm and turning her back to him.

“But you thought about it,” she accused as she stumbled awkwardly in his hands. She gave a strange little hop before daring him to deny it with the glare of those uncanny eyes.

“Yes. I thought about it,” he admitted with a stiff nod. It burned him to confess it to her, and the unfamiliar guilt of it sat very ill on him. He was completely baffled as to why this would be so damn hard for him, but without a solution he had no choice but to be as honest as he could. “Look, there are things I just can’t talk about…”

“Is one of them the fact that you’ve talked about thrones and traitors when there are very few monarchies left in this world? Very few of anything, for that matter,” she added, gesturing to indicate the dark world around them.

This was when Trace caught the first sight of bright and dark reds streaking her palms. Far too familiar with the look of it, Trace plucked one of her hands out of the air, pulling her forward with a hasty jerking motion that was far rougher than he had intended.

Ashla gasped and squeaked out a startled sound of protest when the dark male so suddenly manhandled her, bringing her with a harsh tug against his chest as he pinned her to him at the back of her waist with one hand and drew her hand to his face with the other. She could swear she almost felt him shuddering with some tightly contained emotion, but his expression was grim and shadowed in the darkness. She felt his heated breath on her palm, the flow of it rushing over the tender cuts and deeper gashes that were there.

His deeply black eyes glittered as they turned to hers, and she got the thorough feeling that he was furious with her for something. She found that rather rich, considering he was the one with a lot of explaining to do after admitting he was more inclined than not to being dishonest with her. But the truth was, Ashla was tired of lies and liars. She was tired of being judged and found wanting. She was mostly tired of feeling like she was the only one in the world who didn’t have a clue what was going on. And considering that the world as she knew it consisted of herself and a man who was keeping secrets, she could hardly be wrong.

With a sudden feeling of vertigo, she felt his hand shoving her against her breastbone, pushing her back off balance. She was next aware of the powerful strength of steady male muscles as he simultaneously dipped her and sank to his knee. The way he moved, she realized suddenly, with such ease and vigor, it was as if he had never been injured at all. He couldn’t possibly have healed to such a point in the hours that had passed. Even with her healing, there was just no way. She had only taken him so far before she had run from him, and as soon as she was no longer touching him, the effect of her ability would have worn off instantly. As it was, she needed as much skin-to-skin and body-to-body contact as she could manage to pull off a healing of that magnitude.

She clutched his coat at his shoulders as he brought her down to the ground, allowing the cold of the concrete to seep through her skirt against her backside. But the chill was washed away in an instant when she became aware of him catching her dress by its hem and jerking it well above her knees. She yelped a protest, quickly snagging the material and shoving it back down, but all she managed was a hard meeting with his hand as it caught her mid-motion, stopping her in her tracks. More impressive was the softly spoken snarl of displeasure that gave voice to the anger in his eyes. She had never heard a man make such a sound. This time her chills developed larger chills of their own, and she simply froze under the cold of it. Petrified, she started to shake as he pushed her skirt back once more.

She watched with wide eyes as his gaze drifted down over the length of her exposed legs. It was as if the man had more than two hands as he touched her in one jolting shock after another. First on her thigh, then behind her knee as he pried her legs apart, and then her ankle as he raised her shin to his studied inspection. By the time his fingers danced along the sweep of her instep, she could barely catch her breath, and she had to tell herself quite firmly that it was a product of fear as he continued to control and overwhelm her.

Ashla became less convinced of that, however, as he bent over her like a tiger crouching over prey, but only touched her once more, this time with fingers filtering through the hair at her temple. His expression never changed, that black, fearsome glitter still flashing in his eyes, but she no longer felt it in his touch.

“The glass from the shop,” he ground out in a guttural voice, the tone reminding her of that primal sound he had made not too long ago. “Your hands, shins, knees, and feet are shredded. Why are you walking around like this? Drenna, this must scream with agony, Ashla. Why would you be so foolish…?” He shook his head sharply. “Can you not cure yourself, little healer?”

Ashla didn’t know how to respond at first. She had been second-guessing and fearing his every action since the moment she had first laid eyes on him, and nothing about him had prepared her for the potential of his concern. For her, no less.

Trace watched her blink dumbly at him from those big blue eyes, the frosted blond of her lashes seemingly dusted in sparkles the way his eyesight interpreted the lightness of them. His tongue was still flooded with the vile taste of his self-disgust as he realized he had been so preoccupied with himself and the damage being done to his own world that he had easily dismissed any potential damage that had been done to her. He had given up the search for her earlier far too quickly and with far too little effort. It had been wrong and thankless, and he despised himself for it the more his gaze tracked over her torn skin.

“I can, but…but I…”

She hesitated heavily, peeking up at him through the glistening veil of lashes, her shoulder hitched up in a prepared cringe as if she expected the worst of everything from him. And why shouldn’t she? What had he shown her of himself, besides thoughtlessness and cruel disregard for anything not important to his own selfish needs?

“Stop,” she whispered suddenly, a trembling hand rising to lay gentle fingers over his mouth. “I can’t bear it!”

Trace didn’t understand what she was talking about, the action, for a moment, as confusing as every other thing about her. Then, all in a rush, he realized that she wanted him to stop berating himself so harshly for his failures. As though she could hear him and it hurt her heart, she was begging him to cease.

“By the blessed Dark, you can read my thoughts!” he whispered fiercely, not even able to conceive of what to feel about that. Trepidation and anxiety were natural, given the vulnerability it left him at, and the people whose deepest secrets he had a hand in protecting, but…

“I cannot! What a ridiculous thing to say!”

“Then explain that remark!”

“Explain yours first!” she spat back, tears burning hot across her eyes and infuriating her even more. “T-the ‘human girl’ the…the ‘monarchy’…t-the strange…” She was making no sense, and they both realized that, but Ashla was too upset to clarify her garble of thoughts.

“Why haven’t you healed yourself?” he demanded of her, the tattered condition of her body winning out over all the issues that pressed down on him.

She covered her mouth and shook her head, as if she needed to physically repress her feelings and to speak would shatter the last shreds of her control. Trace had never before felt so many emotions jumbled all together inside himself. He hardly blamed her for being overwhelmed when he was wishing he himself could give in to the urge to shout that was racing through him again and again. There was something stirring deeply within him, like a part of himself he had never really met before, and the near savagery of the sensation made him want to send it back where it had come from, banishing it to the oblivion of the place where he could continue being unaware of it.

“Dark and Light, this is crazy,” he rasped as he ran a hand back through his hair, his other palm curling in reflexive possession around the back of her calf. For a moment he considered he might be feeling the beginnings of Shadowscape euphoria, but quickly dismissed the idea because he knew he had only been there a short time and that effect took at least two days to settle in.

That left only one variable that had changed between this time and all the times before.

Ashla.

“My name is Trace,” he said as he moved closer to her, hovering over her half-prone body. She quickly tried to put distance back between them, but the only way to do it was to lie down completely. Ashla’s heart thundered beneath her breast as he came so close she could feel his body heat everywhere against her. “I tell you this because I believe I have failed to do so before,” he informed her, his words coming as though he were choosing them very carefully. But in spite of his politeness, and contrary to his efforts at a neutral, explanatory tone, Ashla could hear that quality caressing the lower register of his voice that sounded a great deal like the animalistic sound he had made before. “I am a man of importance, intellect, and reason. Do you understand me?”

She nodded quickly, but her gesture only darkened his expression into a storm of annoyance.

“I mean that I am not prone to emotional whims! I don’t chase ghosts and engage in fruitless behavior, because I know better! I create my world around me. I shape the progress of my life and the lives of many, many others!”

“Please,” she squeaked as he loomed brusque and intense over her. Instinct put her hands to his chest, pushing at him as if her twiggy arms could make any kind of impression on that wall of muscle and masculinity.

“Tell me why you do not heal yourself!”

“Because I can’t!” she shouted back at him in response to his demanding growl. “I burned myself out healing you and I won’t recover for days! I’m exhausted. Weak. Weaker, I mean. I’ve always been weak. Always! Too delicate and fragile to give a big jerk like you a decent black eye without breaking my damn wrist! And here! Try this on for size!”

She reached for the buttons lining the front of her dress and, without bothering to free the antique silver shells, she tore it open in two violent jerks that sent silver flying in wild scatters everywhere. This act instantly revealed the chemise she wore beneath, as well as the shimmy of the breasts beneath the silky fabric. She gathered the hem of it and yanked it up, making Trace’s entire body stiffen in shock and, undoubtedly, a rapid-fire response of eager anticipation that he had absolutely no hope of controlling, never mind expecting it in the first place. Trace watched as she swept the midnight blue fabric up between her breasts, keeping her modesty somewhat intact even as she bared her entire midriff from the bottom of her sternum to the low line of her panties where they crossed her hips just barely above her pubic bone.

And while that tempting little flash of feminine decadence snared his attention almost instantly, it was quickly disrupted with a scream of subconscious denial in his own brain as information glimpsed from the corner of his dark-sharpened eye roared for notice.

Trace held himself still as a statue as he let his gaze creep up the amazing light and pale plane of her belly, raw emotion roiling to a head the moment he saw the first angry furrow of a wound marring the delicate canvas. Then there was another and another; jagged evil things, fresh and wildly cut as though without rhyme or reason.

And yet…

Trace knew the pattern far too well.

He had hold of her in an instant, lurching back onto his knees as he drew her up off the ground. He heard her suck in a single breath and then there was just the fierce grinding of her teeth as she clenched her jaw. She stoically bore him reaching for the back of her dress and stripping it down, her eyes tightly closed and her cheek resting against his biceps where, unknown to her, dual metal bands tried to contain the swell of muscle he was using to support her weight against himself. Ashla let him do these things to her because she knew what he was looking for.

They both knew what he would find.

There, as sure as sunlight, was the exact same dagger wound that had once been in Trace’s flesh.