Chapter 5 Call the Heat
CALL THE HEAT
The dark was closing in. Sybil’s fairy orb lit only the rusty bed where she lay.
She couldn’t even see her feet stretched out at the end of it.
It was summer above ground, but here it was damp and cold, and her body no longer had enough heat to flame the light.
She shivered. Baxter would have to return sooner or later.
Hopefully he’d bring another orb, flamed by fire or sun. And food.
He would certainly bring opportunity.
She already had the notebook wedged between her shift and her stays.
She had a bit of her shift wrapped tightly around her injured ankle.
She had, too, a rusted bar from the bed she’d yanked free.
It would work wonderfully well as a club to bludgeon Baxter with.
If she could put enough force behind it.
The light wavered, dimmed. The world had been reduced to such a small circumference.
A clanking growl crept toward her through the black. She bolted upright.
The floating chamber was on the move. So must she be. She jumped from the bed, rusty bar clutched in one hand. She tried to maneuver by memory closer to the door of her cell. Not too close, but close enough to swipe at Baxter then dart for the opening.
A dim light appeared at the end of the corridor. Not much to see by, but it made her giddy, her stomach a riot. Metal screeched against stone.
Then footsteps brought the light closer.
Louder, brighter. She couldn’t quite see yet at the angle, but she dared not move closer to the bars of her cage.
The footsteps quickened. What would she do when the light hit her? She’d not considered that. He’d see her makeshift weapon. He wouldn’t open the door. She whipped the rod behind her back. No. Too suspicious.
She stuffed the bar into the snug space between her stays and body, shoved it down far enough she could still reach it, but the top end of it was hidden by her shoulder. She swallowed a grin as she saw his leg. She tried to pick her jaw up off the floor as she saw the rest of him.
Apollo Chester—the rat, the sneak, the bounder—held a fairy orb at head height. He stopped right before her cell, lips pinched.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“If you don’t want to be saved, I’ll leave.”
“No!” She lunged for the bars, slipped her arms through them, reaching, clutching. “No, don’t go. I do wish to be saved.”
“Frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t yet saved yourself.”
“I was in the process of doing so. Now open this door.”
“Can’t. Don’t have a key. I can’t find the damn key. I was hoping you’d have some alchemist insight into where sneaky, secretive bastards stash them.”
“How am I supposed to know where Stone keeps the key to his dungeons?”
“Because you almost married him.”
“A grave mistake on my part.” She settled her hands on her hips. “It could take you all night to find it. What time is it?”
“Somewhere past one in the morning, I should think. I’ve been searching for hours. At great risk to my own health and precarious position in Stone’s forge, I might add.”
“I’ll repay you for your effort.”
He stepped closer and leaned a shoulder against one of the bars of her cell. He waggled his eyebrows. “I do take payment other than gold.”
“Are you insinuating I use my body as payment?”
He shrugged, the lightest lift and drop of a lazy shoulder. “What can I say, grimy ladies in trousers simply… does something for me.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, but it did little to squeeze away her frustration. “Am I truly to be rescued by a moron?”
“Not with that attitude, you’re not.”
“Hestia, grant me patience.” She looked around the cell. She wasn’t alone now. She had an ally, even if that ally was a nodcock. “Don’t you go anywhere, Chester, my attitude will improve. I swear it.”
“My attitude won’t if you call me Chester.
I’ve never been called by my godawful surname.
First it was Bainbridge, earl of, a courtesy title you know.
Then Fordham when I became marquess. Always my lord, then, which you’re more than welcome to use, even though I’m not one anymore.
And by my lovers, well, they always simply called me Apollo.
” He flashed a whole mouthful of wide, white teeth. “He’s a god, you know.”
“God help me. I don’t need your onomatology.”
“My what?” He blinked.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the unset key she’d placed there thoughtlessly before her abduction. “It means the study of names, the history of, the meaning of, etcetera.” She handed him the key through the bars.
He held it close to his orb and studied it with a raised brow. “How do you know that? And if you’ve had a key this whole damn time, why are you still here?”
“Your cousin Diana mentioned it once. I tend to remember interesting things. I find it useful to do so. And that is not a key to this cell. It’s not really a key to anything. I had it when they took me. It’s not set metal. You can reshape it to fit the lock.”
“I tend to forget things Diana says. They’re boring. And no, I cannot reshape it.” He handed it back to her, tried to.
She didn’t take it. “Of course you can. You’ve apprenticed for almost a year. This is the sort of alchemy any locksmith can do, and they do not require great training.”
His jaw tightened. His eyes darkened. “I cannot.”
“You’re lying!”
“I wish I was. But the only thing I’ve learned in the last year is how to not burn the skin off my palm when it encounters the tiniest candle flame.”
Her mouth dropped open. “That can’t be true.”
“Good God, I would prefer not to be insulted when I’m trying to do a good deed. It rather puts me out of the mood of doing good entirely.” He waved his hand flippantly and stepped away from her cell.
“No! No, no. Don’t leave. I’ll teach you.”
He stopped mid step. “You can do that? You can’t do that.”
She might not be able to. “I can. I’ve had no formal training, of course. But I’ve been teaching myself. Secretly.” She shouldn’t tell him, hadn’t planned on it. But she’d spill every one of her secrets if it got her out of here. “If I can teach myself, I can teach you.”
He held the key she’d given them up between them. “I do this assuming failure. On both our parts. Now”—he cleared his throat—“what do I do?”
“Mm.” She was about to try to teach him something she couldn’t do herself—shape metal without a fire. And iron at that. “Let’s see… Find your heat.”
“My what?”
“Your body’s heat. You need it. It’s your power. Seek it, coax it forward.”
His eyes glowed. The edges of his lips curled upward. “How?”
That she could never fully figure out. She’d been told, but it never worked. Still… “Think of what makes you hot. A sunny day. A warm bath. A roaring fire.”
His mouth became a sumptuous curve. “What makes me… hot…”
“Yes. And then you mimic that thing, in your mind. You recreate the sun’s beaming heat or the fire’s glowing coals, imagine your bones those very coals. Or—”
“What if it is something else that makes a man hot, hotter than all those things?”
She tilted her head. “Hotter than the sun?”
He reared back, the sensuous curve of his lips twisted all away. “Good God, you’re a virgin, aren’t you!”
“That’s neither here nor there, Chester.
” The unmitigated gall of the man. She might not be a titled lady, but she was still a respectable woman and deserved equally respectable treatment.
But… what if he was on to something? In all her explorations of inner heat, she’d never thought… never tried to imagine…
But she had seen Temple and Diana once, brows sweaty, cheeks bright red. They’d looked like they’d been in the forge, but they’d been in the bedroom. She inhaled and released the air in a heavy rush.
“Try it,” she said.
“Pardon me?”
“If that makes you hotter than the sun, then think of that.” Hestia, she was acting like a virgin. Natural, since she was one, but she should still be able to say making love or marital congress without stuttering or hesitating. “Imagine sexual relations.” There. She’d said it.
He gave a little throaty chuckle. “It’s called fucking, princess. And I’m afraid my imagination requires some sort of visual stimulation. Care to show me your—”
“Absolutely not. No showing of anything. Now close your eyes and use your likely miniscule imagination.”
He closed his eyes, closed his palms over the key, too.
“Now,” she whispered, “call the heat.”
He rolled his shoulders back, his face terribly still. Then red rushed across the fine, high bones of his cheeks.
“Do you feel it?” She never had.
He nodded.
Jealousy was a dog’s teeth tearing at her skin. “Good. Good. W-what does it feel like?” She sounded small, a bit breathless. There wasn’t time for this. Baxter could appear at any moment.
But she had to know.
“It feels like skin on skin, a fever of desire. No matter how high the heat goes, it’s never hot enough.”
She swallowed. “Don’t fight against it.”
He barked a laugh. “Fight? Princess, I’m going to woo it. I’m going to caress it and tease it until it does exactly what I want.”
Oh God, her entire body felt tight. She’d never been able to physically sense another’s alchemy before. But she was tingling. Everywhere. Her breasts tight, the space between her legs coming alive.
“Y-yes,” she managed to say, “court it.”
“Court? Ha. I’m going to make it come.”
Come? Yes, he needed it to come willingly to him, needed the fire of his own body to do his bidding. But the way he said it suggested something else. Never mind. “Focus on the heat.”
“Gladly.” He shifted from foot to foot, and as her attention shot down toward those dancing boots, it snagged at his hips. Good Lord. She knew what that was—the bulge in his trousers no polite young lady was supposed to acknowledge the existence of. But she did possess several brothers.
But knowing about arousal and seeing it were terribly different beasts.
Apollo Chester’s bulge was… significant.
Focus, Sybil. She shot her gaze back up to his.