Chapter 11
Analise changed her clothes, untangled her hair and crept down the stairs, boots in hand.
She paused, listening. Silence. That meant Jem had gone.
She hurried to the front door. She should have just spent the night with a dead rat, and not a certain blond man who she didn’t realise was shirtless until she was under the covers with him.
She gave the door knob a sharp turn.
‘It’s locked, remember,’ a voice called from the kitchen as she leant her forehead against the door, wanting to scream. ‘I’m also under the impression you don’t like my company.’
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ Analise muttered.
She threw the door a mutinous glare, then stalked into the kitchen.
Ezra was at the table, sleeves rolled to the elbows, his tattoo snaking down his forearm.
Light from the window haloed his head. There was a pot of tea and two cups sat on the table.
Ezra nudged the teapot in her direction but what Analise really needed was a whiskey.
Her hands shook so violently she could barely grip the teapot.
Ezra poured the tea for her.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered.
He waited for her to say more but she stayed silent. It annoyed him, her not talking. She could see it in the way his fingers tensed on his cup. Good. She didn’t owe him an explanation for anything.
Not to be deterred, Ezra gave her another smile.
His jawline softened when he smiled, and his cheekbones became more prominent.
His nose looked like it had been broken more than once, but it suited his face, a roughness that she tended to like.
She looked away, reminding herself that, despite being good-looking—and a fabulous kisser—she knew nothing about him, and didn’t want to know.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘This is cosy.’
‘What is?’
‘Us. Here. Sharing a cup of tea. Did you sleep alright?’
Analise had already tried to forget she’d woken pressed against the firm lines of his body.
The corners of Ezra’s mouth twitched. ‘This is where you ask me how I slept.’
‘I don’t care how you slept.’
He laughed, running a hand through his hair.
She’d never met anyone who laughed so freely, especially when there was nothing to laugh about.
One of the nuns at the convent had laughed often.
Analise liked the Sister’s laugh, and her smile; but then, she’d been a child with no true knowledge of how the world was.
When she ran away, she hadn’t known where she was going, only that she had craved freedom. Now, she was trapped in a grimy townhouse with a man who hogged the blankets and had no right to look the way he did. He was also, she suspected, used to charming his way out of, or into, everything.
‘I’m going to assume that I’ll be doing most of the talking for the duration of our stay,’ he said.
Several nights without a drink and Analise’s mouth was filled with sand and her skin itched. ‘You’re assuming I want to talk to you.’
Ezra gave her another infuriatingly cheerful smile.
‘You kidnapped me,’ she began, her voice dropping as anger flooded her. It was her default reaction, but there was nothing she could do to stop it.
‘Saved your life,’ Ezra corrected.
‘Held me prisoner—’
‘Again, saved your life.’
‘Helped your Gendarme friend lock me in here—’
‘To save your life.’
‘And you expect me to sit around and chat like we’re friends?’ Analise’s temper was boiling. She took a deep breath, trying to be calm.
Ezra leant both elbows on the table, those blue-green eyes on hers. ‘You really don't know how to say thank you, do you?’
‘And you don’t know when to shut up,’ Analise shot back. Ezra stood, going to hunt around the cupboards until he found a frying pan and a bowl. Analise narrowed her eyes.
‘I can feel you glaring,’ he said, not turning around.
‘Who broke you in?’ she asked.
He gave her a startled look over his shoulder.
‘You appear to be house broken,’ she continued. ‘I’m not going to lie and say I’m impressed, but I do find it surprising.’
He chuckled, opening a drawer and pulling some cutlery free. ‘Do you honestly care?’
‘No.’
‘So you don’t want breakfast then?’
Analise couldn’t remember the last time she ate anything decent. She should be thin as a rail, but she wasn’t. Her curves clung to her frame. She didn’t care—she liked bread.
Ezra cracked an egg expertly into the frying pan.
‘I like mine scrambled,’ she announced.
‘Fried is better.’
She grit her teeth. ‘I’m not hungry anyway,’ she lied, bundling her hair into a knot with burning fingers. Her stomach growled in protest as Ezra deftly flipped his eggs. She ignored the spike of envy.
With his meal plated, Ezra returned to his seat. He was managing to get on nerves Analise didn’t know she had. She pulled a steady breath in through her nose, thinking of calming things, like sunshine and flowers and roses with thorns that sliced the skin.
Out of all the people in this city, why did she have to be stuck here with him? She exhaled, throat tight. It might make it easier if she could at least talk to him without wanting to strangle him, so she tried again. ‘I slept fine. You?’
Ezra grinned.
She held her breath, and counted to ten. ‘How long have you worked for Maddog?’
That earned her a slightly suspicious glance. ‘A while.’
‘What do you do?’ She poured another cup of tea, not remembering drinking the first, almost draining the pot.
Ezra met her eyes. ‘I’m his prize boxer.’
Analise laughed, but when he didn’t, her laughter died. ‘Seriously? You don’t look like a boxer. You look more like, oh, I don’t know, one of the pimps from the skin market.’
‘Looks can be deceiving, and I’m going to take that as a compliment. Do you like working in a morgue with all those dead bodies?’
This was something she could talk about. ‘I do. Did,’ she corrected. ‘I guess I’ve lost my job.’
‘I’m going to assume I have as well,’ Ezra said. He finished his eggs, picking up the tea pot, frowning. ‘You almost drank all the tea.’
Analise stored that information away for later, nodding at his tattoo. ‘What is that supposed to be?’
He pushed his sleeve up. ‘A dog.’
‘It doesn’t look like a dog. It looks like a dragon. Why did you get that?’
Ezra shrugged, tugging his sleeve down. ‘Consider it my mark of servitude.’
‘Maddog made you get it?’
‘Maddog didn’t make me—well, he did, but it was my choice to be as outrageous about it,’ Ezra explained. ‘Just as it was my choice, sort of, to get a dragon and not a dog.’
Analise ran her eyes over him, taking in every detail—the brightness in his eyes, the flush of colour to his skin, the lack of lines on his face. He didn’t look like he’d spent his life in The Credges. ‘How old are you?’
He hesitated. ‘Thirty.’
‘Definitely not a slum local.’ She tapped her fingers on the edge of her cup. ‘What happened? Daddy cut off your fortune?’
The look he gave her was dark, and she realised she’d hit a nerve. Suddenly, she was angry again.
Who the fuck was he?
Ezra collected his empty plate and cup and strolled over to the sink. He was so calm, so composed—regal, almost—that it made her want to smack him in his perfect mouth. Sobriety was not a good look on her.
‘You know what I think?’ she said, standing and marching over to the bench, finding herself closer to him than she’d intended. ‘I think you’re full of shit. You and your friend. You’re a poor little rich boy with connections.’
‘You are too suspicious for your own good.’ Ezra laughed, but it was brittle.
‘Then tell me the truth.’
When he didn’t respond, she made a grab for his cup. If there was any tea left in there, she’d tip it over his bloody head.
Ezra’s hand shot out, fingers closing around her wrist. Every line of his face was filled with the rage of an afternoon thunderstorm.
Boiling clouds banked the horizon of his eyes.
She tried to rip herself free, but he was much stronger.
A quick assessment of his hands told her he’d spoken the truth—his knuckles were swollen, fingers bent. Boxer’s hands.
Analise huffed a laugh. She refused to show any fear, refused to flinch, magic shifting under her skin. The man in the alley flashed into her mind. She tilted her chin. ‘What now, Ezra? Is it only men you beat?’
‘You don’t know a thing about me,’ he growled, releasing her.
She scowled, then returned to the bedroom.
The convent garden was flowering. Analise trailed her fingers over the petals of a rose.
She loved the deep red colour, the smell and velvety texture of them.
She touched the rose again, reaching for the stem.
Thorns bit her skin and the sky darkened as the sun slid behind the clouds.
The flower bed trembled. Frowning, Analise bent over, reaching out.
Fingers suddenly shot free of the soil and closed around her wrist. She screamed, trying to pull herself out of an inhumanly strong grip.
Dread sank through her as the rose bush shuddered, transforming into a gravestone covered in lichen and age.
‘No,’ she sobbed.
A hand slid along her forearm. The skin was pristine, fingers long and slender. A white sleeve glowed in the darkened garden. The dirt-smeared hand holding Analise let go; she stumbled backwards, only to be caught in a pair of strong arms.
‘What should you do next time?’ The voice was like honey, smooth and rich.
She gasped a shaken breath. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Use what you’ve been given,’ he whispered.
She twisted her head to look up at him. His face was cloaked in shadow - she couldn’t see him, and she wanted to.
She reached for his face - he caught her wrist, brought her hand to his lips, kissed it.
She thought she felt teeth. She thought his skin felt like fire.
He chuckled. ‘My beautiful death witch,’ and the world shattered.
With a choked scream, Analise sat up, her heart beating so hard she thought it would explode from her rib cage as that voice echoed through her ears. It took her a moment to realise she was in bed. Whimpering, she clutched the blankets close to her chest.
A hand touched her arm. She twisted around, gasping, the desire to hurt something surging through her. Death burnt her fingertips, searing her skin, and terror coated the back of her throat as she stretched out her hands.
But it wasn’t the white-suited man from her dreams who caught her wrists.
Ezra held her hands away from him as he pulled her down until she was lying half on top of him. In the moonlight slinking through the window, his expression was wary.
Analise winced, and her magic retreated. ‘You’re hurting me.’
Ezra let her go. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Bad dream,’ she breathed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he pushed her hair off her face, tucking a chunk behind her ear. She shivered and he dropped his hand. ‘For now, and for earlier. I didn’t mean—’
‘You shouldn’t touch me like that. I could have killed you.’ Analise spoke without thinking and once the words were out, she couldn’t take them back. She bit her lip, watching his face for any hint he knew what she was talking about.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked quietly.
‘I mean … I couldn’t really but … touch me without permission again and I’ll end you.
You’d best believe I know how to carve up a body.
’ She shifted off him to lie on her side, facing him, needing to change the subject before she said something so obvious even a gangster’s prize boxer couldn’t miss it. ‘I touched a nerve earlier, didn’t I?’
Ezra flipped onto his side, the action bringing them close together. ‘You did.’
‘Which one? Tell me so I can touch it again.’
His chuckle was low. ‘I’ve got other nerves I’d rather you touch.’
Analise’s breathing hitched against her will. ‘Oh? I’m not sure about that.’
‘Why not? You were sure about it a week ago.’
‘That was different, you were there.’ Like the man in the dream, she couldn’t see Ezra’s face, but she could feel his eyes burning a hole through her.
‘I’m here now.’
Her throat tightened. ‘I’m not sure I want to know what tricks you’ve learnt in the skin market.’
‘What makes you think I visit the skin market? And anyway, those ladies are highly professional.’
‘I’m sure they are,’ Analise managed. His lips were right there. If she leant forward, just a little …
‘If you don’t want me to touch you, tell me now,’ he whispered.
Analise said nothing. His hand brushed her hip and when she didn’t move or push him away, Ezra’s gaze fell to her mouth.
She licked her lips, heard him bite back a groan, before his lips grazed her jaw.
She gasped as he traced a path down her neck with the tip of his tongue, so languid and slow that she wanted to scream at how easy he was undoing her.
Heat coiled between her legs and her muscles slowly liquified.
It was the dream, she reasoned. She was rattled because of the dream, not because of his bloody tongue. Not because she remembered he knew how to use it. Analise moaned and tipped her head back; the hand resting on her hip tightened at the sound.
‘You hate me, don’t you?’ Ezra whispered against her throat.
‘I wasn’t supposed to see you again.’
A pause, his mouth lifting from her skin. ‘One of your rules?’
She nodded, then shivered when she noticed what other part of him she could feel. Her mouth went dry, her brain emptied and her fingernails pressed into his flesh as his knee edged between her thighs. She was on fire.
‘Rules are made to be broken,’ Ezra murmured.
Analise took a deep breath, and pushed him away. ‘Not this one.’ She waited, not sure what to expect. Something flitted across his face but it was gone so quickly she thought she’d imagined it. She almost apologised, then remembered she owed him nothing.
‘Right,’ he said eventually. ‘Good night, I guess.’
Analise shifted onto her back to stare at the ceiling, barely able to breathe. A wildfire raged in her chest. She squeezed her thighs together and dug her fingernails into her palms. After a moment, Ezra got up.
‘Where are you—’
‘I need at least fifteen minutes, maybe more, alone,’ he said, voice tight. He was gone before she could say anything else, and didn’t return.