LITMIR.BIZ

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mother, Eric. I’m sorry I couldn’t save her,” Kat said.

      The boy didn’t look up at her. He stared at his plate. But then he spoke. “Her name is Lavinia. She’s glad you saved me.”

      Eric was obviously still processing the loss of his mother. He’d referred to her in present tense as if she wasn’t gone.

      The conversation was stilted after that, with “More, please” being the predominant phrase until an older woman came to the door.

      Her tea-length skirt was perfectly pressed and flared but fifty years out of fashion, its tiny polkadot print and lace trim a style reminiscent of black-and-white television.

      Severne rose, and Kat followed suit. She was jumpy. In spite of the fine meal and beautiful table, she wasn’t at ease. Because of her guilt over Eric’s mother, her uncertainty with Severne and the confrontation with the hellhound, she waited on a razor’s edge for disaster to happen. For all she knew, the woman in polka dots might have a machine gun under her skirts.

      “Matron,” Eric greeted her.

      “Bath and bed, young sir. I believe you’ve had your fill,” the woman said to the young daemon boy after a curt nod to Severne. She seemed to see nothing different about the child. She didn’t act nervous about babysitting a daemon. When Eric smiled at the woman, Kat finally relaxed about his being at the opera house. He was welcome. Cared for. Her chest tightened with emotion, thinking about Reynard’s blade cutting into his mother’s throat.

      The older woman glanced at her, but instead of looking away again to her new charge, her gaze held. It became a penetrating stare.

      “You are like her. Very like. The same eyes. Same hair,” she said.

      Kat’s heart leaped to her throat, but the woman wasn’t referring to her sister. She and Victoria were as unalike as could be. Vic was taller, her hair auburn and her eyes the palest blue. She’d taken after their father, a man they’d barely known.

      It was her mother the woman referred to. It had to be, though twenty years had passed since her mother had performed here.

      “She was lovely. And talented. Drew them like a flame. Her voice was an angel’s voice. But...” Her eyes narrowed as she looked closer at Katherine. “She wasn’t as strong, I think. You are the strong one,” she concluded. She toyed with an iron ring of keys that dangled from her belt as she spoke.

      Kat clenched her napkin in her hand. Strong? Was love strong? It was the only weapon she had in the fight to find her sister.

      “Yes. Definitely stronger,” the woman noted.

      “Sybil has been costume matron at l’Opéra Severne for many years,” Severne said.

      She hadn’t come into the room or approached them as she spoke. She held herself apart. The soft candlelight didn’t fully illuminate her face. She must have been older than Kat had first assumed if she remembered her mother that well. The keys hung beside a small sewing pouch with a pincushion full of needles incorporated into its design. A bit of measuring tape peeked from the top of the pouch. Altogether, she seemed a woman used to taking care of business, one who didn’t need a machine gun to do so. Was she the one who had set a special place for Eric at the fancy table?

      Eric had paused near her chair, and now he flung himself at Kat’s legs in a tight hug reminiscent of last night, when they’d fled from his mother’s killer. His move distracted her from Sybil. Her chest tightened as she felt his ferocious hold again.

      “He won’t find you here. You’re safe with Severne,” she said.

      Their host heard the exchange. He stood straighter as if she’d surprised him. His whole hard body stiffened. Eric let her go after a fierce squeeze that made her eyes burn. He went happily with “Matron,” his pockets bulging with pilfered food.

      And then they were alone.

      Severne didn’t reclaim his seat, so she remained standing, as well. She forgot her pastry—in fact, she forgot everything—as he suddenly moved. He came toward her in a slow, steady approach very like a stalk, as if quicker movements might scare her away. Did he consider her strong? How soft she must seem to him. How mortal and easily broken.

      She tried to convince herself she was stronger.

      Her heart beat faster in her chest, an urgent pulse she could feel in her whole body. The heat in her cheeks flushed hotter and spread until she was sure the low neck of her silk blouse revealed her consternation.

      She was frightened. But she didn’t run.

      He was a daemon.

      Dangerous.

      And so inhumanly hard. He was dressed in a modern, fitted button-down shirt that hugged his chest. Its white fabric was only slightly paler than his skin, but the candlelight caressed his skin to a golden glow, whereas his shirt was left stark in shadow. Or maybe Brimstone caused the color, a more subtle tan than sunlight? He also wore straight-legged black pants that were tight against muscular thighs. Suddenly the idea of feeling his form like perfectly sculpted marble beneath her hand invaded her thoughts.

      Could he be made to blush? Or sigh? Could his heartbeat be quickened? Would his breath catch as hers did when he stopped millimeters from where she stood?

      With Grim, she’d mastered a calm that Severne shattered.

      “You can see I’ve helped Eric. Just as I intend to help you find your sister,” he said.

      His voice was a vibration on her skin. His face tilted toward her. There was the green she’d wanted to seek, but it glittered. Dangerous, not soft. Getting close enough to see the colored striations in his dark irises was a compulsion she should have been sure always to deny.

      There was bold and there was crazy. Severne inspired mad impulses she should have resisted.

      She imagined it for only a second—her hand fluttering softly over the plane of his chest, his stomach and his thighs—but the vision was undoubtedly braver than one she would previously have had. The flush her vision inspired spread more intimately until her knees grew weak.

      Again, she could feel his heat. Maybe he would blame Brimstone for the blush he could see in the candlelight? The candles’ glow was cruel, causing more warmth and intimacy in the room than she was prepared to handle.

      She drew in a quick breath when he reached out toward her, but his hand went past her to the table. She held the sudden gasp in her lungs because to exhale might cause her body to brush his reaching arm. And one touch might betray her. The air filled her chest, tight and unexpressed, as he lifted a tiny pastry from her plate and brought it to her lips. When it was so close to her mouth that the scent of vanilla cream teased her nose, she exhaled softly, meeting his eyes over the proffered treat.

      It was a confession, that exhalation. And his eyelids drooped over his eyes in response.

      “You didn’t enjoy your own pastry,” she said.

      His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips and back again.

      “I’ve eaten them a thousand times a thousand. But you chew as if nothing so perfect has ever touched your lips and tongue. They’re dust to me. Watching you enjoy them is delicious.”

      Katherine’s head grew light as blood rushed to her lips and the tips of her breasts. He knew. He must. His jaw relaxed, and he brought the pastry to her mouth. He touched the pursed bow of her lips with a light, teasing tickle of sugary cream.

      She licked out, instinctively dipping into the residue of icing with her tongue. He watched as she tasted it once more. It was even more decadent when combined with the intensity of his attention.

      “I’ve tasted cream a thousand times a thousand, but I’ve never tasted it on you,” he said.

      Had she known? Had her head gone light because she knew her nibbles of delicate pastry had overwhelmed any decision on his part to keep his distance? Or on her part to stay calm and controlled?

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