“It wouldn’t help.He knows how to make one now.”
“Because of you.”She was looking past his shoulder, not at him.
“He’s coming for you.No matter what I do.At least he can’t work it.”
“What do you want me to do, Apollo?Go back to Yorkshire?That’s what Temple wants.But you know that, don’t you.”
He shook his head.“Do as you please.As always.”He lifted a hand, unable to suppress the need any longer.His fingers trembled near her cheek, lightly brushed one wayward curl near her temple.Her eyes closed, and her head tilted oh-so-slightly toward his hand.Just a moment, a singular break.Before she opened her eyes and stepped away from him.
“Do exactly what gives you pleasure,” he said, letting his hand drop.“I’ll take care of the rest.”
He inhaled deeply before leaving her room held his breath, held the smell of her in his lungs as she slammed the door behind him.The lockthunkedinto place, and he yelped as a shadow came to life at the end of the corridor.
“You shouldn’t be up here,” Lady Guinevere’s guard said, picking at his fingernails with a rather large knife.
“You’ll have to remove me bodily.And I’d prefer you didn’t.There’s a man after her.”
“And you think to stand between them?”
“I will.”It was the only good thing he was capable of in this life.
The guard studied him for several silent seconds, twisting the point of it into the leather glove covering his palm.Finally, he nodded and snapped the knife through the air.It landed in the wall next to Apollo with whiplike precision that absolutely did not make Apollo piss his pants.
“Might need that,” the guard said, turning and lumbering back into the shadows.
Apollo pried the knife from the wall and leaned against the door.He slid down it until he was sitting, legs outstretched, ankles crossed.He tried to make himself comfortable.
Comfortable?Ha!A man who’d just realized he was in love with a woman he could never have would never be that.
Nothing had changed.Nothing belonged to him but his grandmother’s herb journal and hisexperiences, all of which were better when Sybil wasn’t enraged with him.Rightfully enraged.
Holding up the knife, he saw his reflection in the well-polished blade—warped, him but not him.
Was how he felt, too.He still wanted everything he’d always craved—money, power, influence.But different.Because he only wanted it so he could hand it all over to Sybil Grant on a golden plate.Everything he ever earned would be hers.He’d even give her his life.To keep her safe.
24
A SOUL
Stuck.Sybil had been stuck inside her room for more than twenty-four hours because that nodcock of a man wouldn’t leave her doorway.
She could leave, but he followed her about like a lost puppy, bearing a giant knife he didn’t seem to know what to do with.Better to stay behind this closed door, him just beyond it, than to exchange any sort of conversation.Outside her window, the sky had shifted to black hours ago.Her stomach growled.She hadn’t eaten anything since noon.She’d have to leave again, and he’d follow, and there would be more awkward conversation.
But she hadn’t heard him rustle about in a while, hadn’t heard any frustrating mutterings she couldn’t quite make out.
Pressing her ear against the door, she called out, “Are you gone yet?”
“No.”
She sighed, an irritated sound that scratched her throat.
“Can I come in?”he asked.
“No!”
He sighed, less irritated, more… grudgingly accepting.
“I don’t need your protection.”
