Page 44 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

The brief walk to the despicable kitchen for a raid on the cabinets, where my mother had once kept first aid, offered a much-needed moment to gather my wits.

I was reacting foolishly. I’d seen men half dressed, in much more intimate circumstances than this, yet had never blushed like a bashful virgin, even when I’d been one.

In the small corner cupboard behind the door, I discovered my sister had continued Isolde Blackwicket’s habit of overstocking medical supplies.

Balm, iodine, rubbing alcohol, aspirin, adhesive bandages of varying sizes, and rolls of cotton gauze filled the shelves, enough to supply a small hospital.

I didn’t want to think about why she needed so much.

When I returned to the parlor, Inspector Harrow was sitting on the piano bench, arms resting on his knees.

He reminded me of the boxers who’d exhibited in Devin, an event that Ben had taken me to for reasons beyond my comprehension.

But I’d attended, smiled, clapped, and cheered, all the while longing to be home.

He said nothing as I approached to stand behind him, my heart skipping unpleasantly at the sight awaiting me. Mirroring his chest and stomach, his back was a map of brutality.

Scars marred his flesh, accompanied by multiple bruises at varying stages of healing.

But none was more vicious than the blue and purple discoloration that spanned his left shoulder.

The gash in its center continued to weep blood.

As I suspected, the Inspector had been unable to reach it, and it remained only partially cauterized.

There was something about manipulating living flesh that made magic recoil, rendering even minor repairs to the body highly complicated and requiring a focus that was impossible to achieve when pain was meddling.

That Harrow had managed to seal the cut on my chin while enduring this wound was a testament to the concealed virility of his power.

As I examined the other marks, I pondered their origins and whether anyone had ever been there to help him mend.

“I’ll have to do this slowly. I’m not practiced in this kind of magic, but a bandage won’t be sufficient on its own,” I said, preparing him for the process.

“You can’t hurt me, Ms. Blackwicket.”

“Yes, I can.” I gently rejected his assurances that he was an inhuman creature who couldn’t feel the ache in his own body.

His head turned a fraction.

I’d never attempted to soothe with magic, and I doubted the Inspector would lower his guard and allow me to try.

Keeping my touch as tender as possible, I disinfected the opening with alcohol, hovering my touch above the last two inches of flayed skin.

I ushered my magic to act, fusing skin like metal met with a soldering iron.

The demand of the effort caused my hand to tremble. The results wouldn’t be pretty.

He remained deathly still, but here and there, he winced, the swell of muscle in his arm twitching. I tried to distract him, opting for questions that might draw his ire, the best of pain medicines.

“You helped dig my sister’s grave. Why?” I asked.

“It cost me nothing.”

“She was Brom.” It was the first time I’d admitted this, accepting it as true .

“She belonged to you. While I don’t believe you’re innocent, I’ve seen enough to conclude you’re not a Brom woman.”

A clenched jaw followed this proclamation as my fingertips swept along the jagged tear, his teeth grinding.

Driven by empathy, I rested my free hand upon his right shoulder blade, allowing a small portion of magical energy to flow warm and free.

Its purity would serve as an analgesic, softening the misery of this process.

He sucked in a sharp breath as his power responded radically, entwining with mine with a starving urgency.

“Eleanora.” The murmuring of my name was a warning, and I withdrew.

“I’m sorry, I was trying to help with the pain.”

He grunted in response.

When I’d finished wiping the last of the blood, I pressed the gauze into place and began to wrap it.

The method required me to stand at the Inspector’s side and tuck my hand beneath his arm, knuckles brushing his ribs.

My face was close to his, the smell of his hair still smoky under the clean scent of soap.

He watched me, eyes half-lidded, as I fastened the gauze. We lingered like this, so near one another, and at last I gave in to the deranged urge to graze my thumb across the scar on his cheek.

He caught my hand, neither encouraging me closer nor pushing me away.

“You said a Brom did this to you.” I spoke quietly, confounded by the compassion I’d found in myself.

“He was fighting for his life,” he answered with poorly concealed contempt for the memory. “He lost.”

“You killed him?”

I needed to know, even though I hadn’t been fully honest myself .

“Yes.”

“Have you killed many people, Victor?”

His grip on me contracted ever so slightly, and my pulse picked up pace for too many reasons to name.

“Have you?” he replied.

“Why would you choose this life?” I evaded his question, desperate to understand what had made him into the shape of the man he was, violence a mantle on his broad shoulders.

Rather than letting go, he pressed my palm to his chest. His heartbeat was sure, steady.

“Take a look. You have my permission.”

I hesitated, but he’d dropped his guard. His magic entreated, and I surrendered. The unsettling thought that this might be a trap—that I would lay my magic in his hands merely for him to seize it—was ignored.

Unlike before, Inspector Harrow didn’t dampen the tide of his power, and it swept mine under. There was no taking, no wrenching it from me, only an unspoken invitation to sink into a magic this world couldn’t fathom.

He observed my face as I explored this vastness.

“You’re a Dark Hall child.”

I needed no confirmation beyond the experience of our energies weaving themselves together, the moment becoming suddenly more intimate as this secret was revealed.

Yet as I drifted further, I came upon something else welded into the essence of the magic that made Inspector Harrow a commodity, and upon contact, it rose.

Inspector Harrow’s eyes closed briefly, exhilaration coursing through him, and thus through me. He brought my knuckles to his lips and inhaled, the change in his demeanor unmistakable.

“It’s time for you to go to bed now, Eleanora,” he said against my skin .

I should have agreed, should have retreated to my room, allowed the Inspector to find peace in solitude. But I was hungry for the connection, a force that stirred my magic in a way I’d never believed possible.

“You don’t need to hide from me,” I replied. “I’m not afraid.”

He sat up, his free hand cupping the back of my neck, dragging me to him. The crush of his lips was unforgiving, devouring, and he released my hand at his chest to hoist me onto his lap, coat and nightgown rising as my legs parted around him.

The layers of fabric were infuriating, preventing me from experiencing the full firmness of his body.

I pushed my hands into his hair, parting my lips to invite his tongue, which delved to taste me in the same way it had in the alley, when this fire had first begun to smolder.

I pressed into him, the sensation of his hard length against my sensitive heat making me ferocious.

He began undoing my coat, his hands sure, and soon he was yanking it from my shoulders, exposing the slip, cotton and simple.

Some distant part of me, not addled by lust, lamented that I hadn’t worn the silk set of underthings.

As it stood, I wore no brassiere at all, and the frisson of ardor had hardened my nipples, which rose prominently beneath the fabric.

“An interesting choice of wardrobe for a winter walk,” he grated, all the while tucking his finger into the strap of the garment, sliding it down my shoulder, tugging the front panel from my breast to expose me to the frigid air.

He braced an arm between my shoulder blades, twisting a handful of my hair in his grasp, pulling so that I was forced to arch nearer him. He didn’t lower his head to torment me as I hoped he would, but ran his mouth along my jawline.

“Were you hoping to run into someone?”

I wasn’t sure if it was teasing or an insinuation.

“A girl’s allowed her amusements,” I replied, irritation and want creating a heady mix .

“And tell me what you were going to do if you’d found no one to play with you,”

I wasn’t well-versed in this sort of banter, though it heightened my arousal. My experiences had all been mostly silent, punctuated by grunts and nonsensical exclamations from lovers.

“Victor, I’ve never done this,” I said, breathless, hesitant to admit my lack of experience in this field. In response, he inclined me further, angling my hips, my nightdress pooling in the aching juncture of my thighs.

“Touch yourself, Eleanora,” he growled.

My magic heaved, warming me from the inside so that a flush rose to my skin in contempt of the cold.

As any woman, pleasing myself was a thing I knew how to do well. I slipped a hand along my thigh, and Victor aided me by gathering the fabric, tugging it further up to expose the cream linen underwear and soft curve of my abdomen.

I guided my fingers over the fabric, damp with need, and across the crest of my desire, shuddering at the sensation, enhanced by having a witness.

“Finally doing as you’re told,” he said, bringing his mouth to my breast as I stroked myself, catching the hardened crown of my nipple between his teeth and tongue.

My core grew molten, and I rose to him. I worked knowingly at the taut nerves, the ministrations of his tongue nearly more stimulation than I could withstand.

He unhanded my nightdress, utilizing this freedom to fondle my other breast, still clad in cotton, rolling the delicate flesh in his fingers, as my climax began to build.

But as my muscles grew tense, Victor seized hold of my wrist, denying me.