Dark Saint by Colleen Gleason

Author:Colleen Gleason
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oliver-Heber Books

10

Of Weddings and Kisses

Narcise heard a noise.

Her first reaction was relief: had Chas forgotten something and returned?

He’d only been gone a few hours—perhaps he’d been in London, still putting things in order and making preparations, and had come back. Or realized he didn’t need to go after all. Perhaps they’d already rescued Angelica.

But that was a brief, initial reaction that soon fled.

She listened intently, the hair prickling at the base of her neck. Likely it had been a mouse or squirrel, knocking a little bit of rubble across the concrete floor. Or maybe it was the guard Chas had arranged, or even Dimitri bringing her—

The slight scuff of a foot, so faint a mortal would never hear it, had Narcise slipping off the bed and reaching for her saber. That was one good thing Cezar had done: taught her to fight with a blade. He’d allowed her to learn, as much for his own entertainment purposes—watching her duel with men who wanted to fuck her—as to give her a false sense of hope that it might be a useful skill in gaining her freedom someday.

In the end, it hadn’t. It had been Chas who’d freed her, not her own abilities—a fact that made her alternately furious and grateful.

Slipping the sword from its leather sheath, she turned on light feet and moved into the shadows.

The slender but lethal blade comforting in her hand, Narcise stood in a corner behind the doorway and wondered if she would be better served waiting for whoever it was to come in, or if she should rush through the door and meet them on her own terms. But she didn’t have the chance to make such a decision.

Just as the door opened, she scented him and whipped out from behind it.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, shoving the point of her blade up against Giordan’s chest. Just below the hollow of his throat.

“I have no bloody idea,” he replied. Eyes flashing, he grabbed the blade with his bare hand, yanking it away from his skin. It sliced along the inside of his palm and fingers, and immediately, his bloodscent permeated the air.

Narcise stepped back, allowing the sword to fall away, her heart pounding. Rich and warm and familiar, the essence of him filled her nose. Despite the loathing that settled like a stone in her belly, she couldn’t dismiss her body’s instant reaction: the blood in her own veins surged, her gums swelled, threatening to eject her incisors, and her mouth watered. Awareness prickled her. She swallowed hard.

“You did that purposely,” Narcise snapped, backing away.

Giordan’s expression was no less hostile. “As did you, my dear.”

She used a cloth to wipe his blood from her blade and shoved it back into its sheath. “I ask yet again—what are you doing here?” Then she shook her head. “Forget that. Just leave.”

“Nothing would please me more.” His eyes raked over her, making Narcise feel, for the first time in a long time, as if she were dirty and used.

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