Shadowdance(126)

Grabbing hold of her bodice, Amaros tore it in two. Mary supposed she ought to feel humiliation upon seeing her body exposed. Anger came instead.

“Quite lovely, no?” he said to no one in particular, but Tottie answered quickly enough.

“If you’re going to shag an empty body, tell me now, and I shall leave you to it.” Her pert nose wrinkled in disgust.

“It will not be empty for long.” With brutal efficiency he reached down and ripped the key to Mary’s heart off her nipple. Blood welled from the torn tip, and Mary gave a mental wince. That would hurt when she came back to herself. And he now had the means to stop her heart.

“I’ll do worse,” Amaros said to the room. “I can last all night.” He turned, and with unerring accuracy focused on her. “Fallen see spirits, Miss Chase. Now get back in this body, before I have at it.”

It was a chilling thing to face him. She knew he’d make her suffer before he was through with her. But she couldn’t hover like a coward. Gathering her courage, she dove into her flesh. It hurt, just as she’d suspected, her breast burning with pain. But she did not let it show as she rose and pulled the ragged edges of her bodice back together.

“So glad you could join us.” Amaros inclined his head with a smirk.

Mary slid a hand along her thigh and felt the throwing knives still strapped there. “The pleasure is all yours.” Curling her legs up on the trolley, she turned to face him and, in the same movement, slipped a hand into the hidden opening of her skirt. Her fingers grasped the knife’s hilt.

Amaros gave her an amused look. “Are you planning to use that weapon on me?”

“No.” It would be useless against him. But against others? In a smooth glide of movement, she pulled the knife free and threw. It hissed through the air and landed with a juicy thud deep within Tottie’s eye socket. Tottie screamed, her body arching against the pain.

“Traitorous bitch,” Mary snapped as Tottie flailed about, and Amaros laughed with delight. Mary ignored him and watched Tottie. While GIM could heal, they could not regrow limbs or eyes. “Think on your deceit every time you look in the mirror.”

“You are a savage little thing,” Amaros said with a wide, insane grin. He snapped his fingers, and a pair of guards took hold of the still-screaming Tottie and dragged her out. When she was gone and her cries had faded, he turned back to Mary. “I do believe we shall get on well, Miss Chase.”

“While we wait for Jack to come to my rescue?” She suffered from no illusion as to why she was here.

“Yes.” All humor left his face, and he bared his teeth in a grimace. “Have you not seen?” He waved a hand over his body, gesturing to the sores. “It appears that I am not healed after all.”

In a violent blur of motion, Amaros grabbed a goblet from the table and flung it against the far wall. The pewter exploded upon impact, sending thick shards of metal across the room. He kicked a heavy wooden chair over and stalked toward her. “I want my body restored! And that little bastard is going to give his blood to me. I am going to suck on him until he begs for mercy.”

And Jack would let him. Mary knew it to her core. He couldn’t kill Amaros, or he’d be cursed to the same fate. But he’d do it for her. Well, Mary thought, she wasn’t going to let him. There was one game she knew how to play quite well.

“I would like a new gown,” she said calmly.

Amaros visibly paused, frowning at her as if she were touched in the head. But then he gave her a patient smile. “Of course. No need to sit in discomfort.”

“Very kind of you,” she murmured, all the while letting her full GIM nature free. Beguilement, seduction. It swirled in the air and throbbed in her skin. She knew she’d gone luminous, and that her eyes softly glowed.

Interest lit in the fallen’s gaze. As she’d known it would. Good, let him want her. A man led by his cock was a man who did not use his brain.

“Now what are you planning, Miss Chase?” Amaros drawled.

To kill you. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Oh?” He loomed over her, his rage a seething mass of dark energy that affected her heart’s rhythm. “Other than a nice long fuck, what can you possibly give me?”

Ignoring the flutter of anxiety within, Mary moved with languid grace to the table to pick up a goblet. Slowly she poured a glass of wine and raised it to her lips, Amaros tracking every move. Holding his gaze with hers, she let the glass play along the curve of her bottom lip, noting the way his own lips parted and his body tightened.

“A better existence.”