I hated the weakness. The fear. I had thought them stamped out long ago.
Anger surged. I would catch the servant and bury these weak emotions six feet down where they belonged.
I would hunt Thorne Worley.
I shed one set of emotions for another. Brushing up on my hunting skills—I smiled wickedly, ignoring a passing girl’s gasp—was a task I could enjoy tonight.
~*~
MARIETTA
Sitting in the kitchen, absently pawing through papers and fuming, I waited. I was back earlier than expected, obviously.
Ferris had vacillated between raving and staring, so I’d told him to behave like a grown man, read him the list of rules, and left in disgust.
So yes, back far earlier than expected. Gabriel was nowhere in sight.
Not going to do anything exciting—just going to sit here and pore over legal documents—theliar.
I knew he looked shifty earlier. Was he investigating without me? What if he met Dresden and I wasn’t there to save him?
I picked up a note from Phineas that listed the first victim’s former name: Iris Forester. The name was vaguely familiar in the way fringe society names were.
Remembering titles, talents, natal, and married names was madness. A gilded could be addressed in a hundred ways—based on their own talent, a powerful husband or wife’s moniker, or their natal line. Shifting societal factors created a thousand ways to trip the unwary into ruin. It was enough to send a mage to Shatterfield for mind work.
It was so overwhelming a task that there was a spell for it. Spells could be seen, however, so slipping one in unnoticed meant mixing it with others at precise measure. Social memory minders were frequently embedded in glove charms for cleaning and softening—since everyone needed those.
Memorizing each title and form of address was a task undertaken by only the most diligent social mavens. The ones who used no spells in introductions or greetings and prized that as a sign of might.
I had never cared to spend the magic or memory on any of it. Another failing. A deep one.
Instead of keeping abreast of the gossip, I had focused on keeping us fed.
The front door opened and banged shut. Measured footsteps clicked down the hall. Gabriel came into view, hair mussed and windblown, eyes dark and predatory.
The image of a hunter who had finally found his prize.
I sprang from my chair. “You said you weren’t leaving. Where did you go? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He strode forward and kicked my chair aside. One moment I was standing, the next I was flat on my back on the table, papers crinkling beneath.
“What—”
I barely took another breath before he tossed up my skirts and pushed my legs up and out. His mouth pressed against the core of me and power flooded through me.Wavesof it. Dear. Spirits.
A sound tore from my throat and out between my lips. I bucked against him as he licked one broad stroke, then another. I didn’t have time to ask him what he was doing, to be mortified at what he was doing, as all thoughts to his mouth. Papers bunched beneath my fists and my head arched so far back that my shoulders no longer touched wood.
His arms hooked beneath my legs as he buried himself between. His tongue thrust inside, his lip pressed, his thumb circled, his magic pulsed through me, andohdearspiritsI was flying and dying as my hips bucked upward and papers tore beneath my hands.
I panted on top of the table, legs shaking and forehead damp. What in heaven’s name had just happened? What wasthat?
He pulled me forward and took me in a demanding kiss. Drugged and sated, I could only hold on tight, legs splayed, as he kissed the spirit right out of me and then refilled me with more.
He tasted likeme. It was a strange thought, but I couldn’t be unnerved by it when the absolutely clever things he was doing to me blocked all thought.
“You are going to let me have you, aren’t you, Marietta?”
The wobbling of my head must have said yes, because a triumphant light lit his eyes.
