Shadowdance(101)

Blows rained down. White pain took hold of Jack. Blood blurred his vision. Jack’s counterattack was just as vicious. The bones in his hand snapped from the force of his punches.

The devil got his foot under Jack and kicked him off. Jack flew back before landing on his feet. Claws extended as he snarled. He didn’t know what he’d become, only that it equaled his rage. Muscles stretched and swelled, white fur erupted over his skin. The change healing him, giving him strength.

Amaros was changing too. His body morphed into a wolf. A were.

Jack glanced at Mary’s prone form. She wasn’t moving. Her heart wasn’t pumping. Terror lit through him like a fuse. This needed to end now. Jack did not fully shift. Not yet. He charged as a man. Claws raked his side. Amaros grinned in victory. Bollocks to that. He grunted and then shifted in a burst of anger.

Amaros’s eyes widened as Jack loomed over him in the form of a polar bear. Good enough for Jack. His roar echoed through the square. One swat of his massive paw had Amaros flying through the air and landing with a splash in the fountain. Jack followed, his bulk fine with the wet. His massive jaws clamped onto Amaros’s neck, ready to shake the life from him. But he met with air. Growling, he swung his head, searching for his prey, but Amaros had become shadows and fog, escaping on the wind.

Jack took one lumbering step to follow, but halted. Mary. In an instant he was himself again, naked and scrambling out of the fountain.

She lay as pale as death, and so bloody still. He bit his trembling lips hard as his shaking hands traveled over her body. Nothing. Aside from the bruises on her face, there was no grievous injury, no massive blood loss. Cursing, he pressed an ear to her chest. Not a sound.

Water dripped from his hair and splattered onto her face. Viciously he tore at his skin, and when the blood welled, he pressed his gaping wrist against her mouth. She did not move. Whatever had been done to her, his blood could not fix it. She’d left him.

“Merrily.” It was a sob. He sucked in a breath, touched her hair. No, he was not bloody losing her. He hauled her up and held on tight. He needed help. And there was only one man who could provide it.





Chapter Twenty-Eight





Too long. Jack did not want to think about how much time had passed since Mary’s heart had last pumped. Shit, piss, and fuck. How long could a GIM survive this way? Panic surged. His muscles burned from running and now from paddling the small skiff he’d nicked from an irate wharfman. Mary lolled about in the bottom of the little boat, unmoving, not breathing.

“Shit!” He plunged the oars in as fast as he could.

Lucien’s barge loomed up before him.

“Oy!” he shouted toward it. “Stone! Get out here now.”

The skiff slammed into the side of the barge just as Lucien’s scowling face appeared over the rail. His expression swiftly changed to alarm. “Her heart isn’t running,” Lucien accused. “What the devil did you do to her?”

Jack didn’t pause to explain, nor did he give a pig’s shit when Lucien raised a brow at his nakedness as he threw Mary over his shoulder and hurried up the rickety rope ladder hanging on the side of the barge.

“Fix her.” He practically threw Mary into Lucien’s arms, making the GIM stagger. “Now!”

Lucien took off, Jack following on limbs that wobbled.

“How long?” Lucien barked, kicking open the door to his cabin.

Jack did not want to think of the time it had taken for him to run along the Victoria Embankment with Mary in his arms, nor the hellish race across the Thames.

“Too bloody long. Hell. Nearly half an hour.” His vision blurred. Impossible to come back from that.

Lucien’s lips pinched. “Christ.”

Jack blinked hard as Lucien set Mary on a massive bed and began to tear at her clothes. The bodice ripped down the middle, and with it her underclothes and corset. Honey-tipped breasts bobbled at the rough movement. Jack sucked in a sharp breath. Countless times he’d imagined what she looked like beneath her clothes. He didn’t want to find out this way. Something twisted inside him, fear, helplessness, and rage. He tamped it down and focused. Between those perfect breasts were interlocking teeth of gold that formed a sort of track the length of a handspan. The entrance to her clockwork heart.

Jack hated her vulnerability. Hated that Lucien looked upon her too.

But when the GIM began to feel along Mary’s long neck and then her belly with thorough hands, Jack snarled. He grabbed Lucien’s arm. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Lucien wrenched free with surprising ease. “I don’t have time for tantrums, shifter.” He bared his teeth as he glared. “I need to find her key.”