Shadowdance(92)

“This wasn’t just a message to the GIM,” Mary said by his side.

Turning with a grunt, Jack walked away from the body, and she followed. “He’s playing with us,” he said as he reached Stone once more.

Jack forced himself to look at Mary. It hurt to do it. Hell, being in the same room hurt. When he spoke to her, his voice was hard. “Whatever you feel about me, you aren’t safe. No GIM is right now. Let me protect you.”

Mary’s lashes lowered, her creamy cheeks pale. “I shall take proper precautions.”

Stone turned away as if to give them privacy, but not before Jack saw the satisfaction in his eyes. And Jack’s teeth met with an audible click. God, but he wanted to rip the man’s cods off and feed them to him. “With him?”

Mary’s lithe frame moved in a flash, her palms smacking into the center of his chest with enough force to capture the whole of his attention. “Don’t you dare!” she snapped, her eyes glowing pure gold. “Never again! Do you hear?” Her palms connected with his chest with another loud smack. “Never again will you sneer or imply something untoward between Lucien and me.”

“Mary—”

Jack’s outstretched hand was slapped away.

“Do not ‘Mary’ me.” She brushed a lock of her hair back from her face as she advanced on him. “You seem to be suffering under a misunderstanding. My life is not your concern. If I go back to Lucien’s barge and swive him senseless, it is none of your concern.”

Jack wanted to howl. The muscles along his back burned, and he feared those strange leathery wings would soon break through. “Stop.” It was more of a plea than anything. Fangs were growing in his mouth. Soon he would be smashing things. “Please.”

All at once her expression turned somber and tired. “You say you wanted me from the first, that I was your world. Then where were you all these years?”

Right here. Watching you. Needing you. Dying a little more every day.

“When I needed a friend,” she went on, “a kind word, a bit of support? It was Lucien who provided that. Where were you?”

Blood pooled in Jack’s mouth, and he forced his fangs to recede. It took all he had not to look at Lucien, not to point his finger and shout the truth of her dear Lucien’s culpability in this. That bloody blackmailing bastard might have spoken up, but he didn’t.

Mary glared up at Jack, hurt and anger twisting her lovely features. And it twisted his heart. He couldn’t do it. He would not hurt her further. If she believed Lucien was the only good and trustworthy man in her world, then he’d leave her that comfort. Even if it tore him apart.

When he did not answer, she made a soft, scoffing noise. “As I thought. You say you are sorry. But that isn’t a cure-all.” Her lip trembled. “Actions count too.”

The ground beneath him seemed to sway. He held steady by will alone.

She took a deep breath, as if bracing herself. “It is finished, Jack. Just… go.”

Humiliating heat swept over him. Stone’s presence, Mary’s disappointment in him. The heat flared to pain. It was over, then. And he’d lost. “As you wish.”

Jack sat in a darkened corner of the cathedral. A slow ache washed over him, as though he’d been in battle.

“I’d have thought this would be the last place you’d go to hide.”

Jack nearly bolted out of his skin. In the dark calm of the cathedral, he ought to have heard anyone approach. Steeling himself, he turned toward the sound and found the same bastard who’d toppled the freight car on Mary. His hands fisted tight. “I ought to rip your head off where you stand.”

The man laughed. “And yet you took what I offered. You went after Mercer.”

Ugly memories slid through Jack. “I did not finish him.”

“Weak.”

Slowly Jack stood. “You are the one who came after me, begging.”

A low snarl snapped through the darkness, and a set of red eyes gleamed. “You wish to play the game of begging?”

That was one thing Jack had never done. Not even when he had wanted to die with every breath he took. He wasn’t about to start now.

The man’s bootheels clicked against the marble as he took two steps closer. Again came the cold bunting of an unnatural fog. It drifted from the man’s long, bulky cloak, seeping out from his sleeves and collar, billowing down around his legs. Jack had never seen the like. The faint scent of cold stone and rot rode on that fog, so like that of their surroundings that it wasn’t any wonder Jack hadn’t noticed his arrival.

“You could be free from this quest for vengeance, by ending it.” He cocked his head, those cold, slightly off eyes gliding over Jack in a way that made his blood congeal within his veins. “You could have the world in your hands.”