Page 47 of Dark Embrace

Something clicked inside her, a key inalock.

No.What was she thinking? It was notpossible.

TheVampyre.

The smoky ideas that had eluded her a moment past coalesced, and she was left speechless andoverwhelmed.

Impossible. And…not. It explainedsomuch.

He stared at her, unsmiling, severe. She had the thought that he knew the direction her suppositions traveled. That hewantedthem to flow toward that impossibleconclusion.

Her breath stuttered to a stop, trapped in her lungs, and she stared at him, suddenly certain. Certain of the impossible, the terrible,themad.

Inexorably drawn, her gaze dipped to the magazine once more. The seconds ticked past, protracted andsluggish.

“You did not kill those people at King’s College,” she whispered, the words so soft she wondered that he could hear her at all. When he made no reply, she raised her head and realized that he waited only for that, that he wanted her to look at him as he made hisresponse.

“No, I did not kill them.” His eyes, liquid mercury, gleamed in the dim light, boring deepinsideher.

“But you could have.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and held herself tight. “You could havebecause...”

There was both sorrow and resignation etched on his face as he finished the thought that she dared not speak aloud. “Because I am—” He paused, and she waited, her breath stalled in her chest, then he shook his head and finished, “I am not likeothermen.”

And suddenly, that assertion was laced with a multitude of subtle inferences and implications that she was not yet ready to drag into thelight.

In that moment, though she knew not its source, she felt his suffering asherown.

Whatever his tormented secrets, she recognized in him like to like, knew that whatever horrors he had known and seen, whatever mysteries lurked in his heart, he was even more alonethanshe.

That he needed her as sheneededhim.

17

At Killian’s instruction,the coach set off. He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the velvet squabs, baring the strong column of his throat. Once, Sarah stretched out her hand, almost brave enough to lay her fingers against his neck and feel the steady, solid throb of the pulse that beat beneath his skin. In the end, she dropped her hand and contented herself with letting her gaze roam his features. Her heart swelled with the knowledge that he had comeforher.

He had cared enough to comeforher.

She concentrated on the wonder of that rather than the multitude of questions that their cryptic dialogue hadskirted.

Mindful of the light, she leaned close to the window and peeked through the lifted edge of the blind as the carriage rocked to a halt before Killian’s town home in Berkeley Square. His was the last house in a row of very large, very tall houses. There was a black ironwork fence surrounding the entirety, with a break at the stairs that ascended to the front door, and another that descended to the servants’entry.

Sarah counted four floors, each with three large rectangular windows across the front, save for the ground floor, which had two windows to the left of thefrontdoor.

After a moment, the liveried footman opened the carriage door and waited as Sarah gathered her candle dish and the magazine. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, staring at the curled and faded pages...wondering...

Raising her gaze, she found Killian watching her, his expression blandandcool.

She turned away, and let the footman hand her down from the coach. Killian descended behind her. She glanced back to see that he had put his spectacles in place to shade his eyes. He kept his head bowed, his thick, honey gold hair falling forward to veil hisfeatures.

Without a word, he offered his arm, and she sensed that any questions she had would be better spoken indoors rather than out here, for it was clear that even this dim, cloud-filtered light was uncomfortableforhim.

They ascended the stairs and he did not wait for a butler or maid to open the door, but opened it himself and gestured for Sarah to precede him inside. The hallway was dark but beautiful. Paneled walls of rich gleaming wood. A semi-circular console table just inside the entry with a vase of deep red roses. There was thought and artistry in thepresentation.

The scent of beeswax left a faint signature in the air, topped by the breath of the roses. Killian drew off his gloves and tossed them on the table, then swung his cloak from about his broad shoulders and handed it to a maid who stepped forward and curtsied before taking the garment from hishands.

Sarah caught her breath as Killian stepped around behind her to stand close at her back. His breath fanned her neck, sending shivers of awareness dancing acrossherskin.

“May I?” he murmured, and she nodded, wordless. He took her cloak and passed it to the maid. And then they were alone. He radiated warmth. She could feel it through all the layers of her clothing and his. How long since she had been warm? Truly warm? Body, heart, and mind. She had been frozen for so long. Certainly, since her father had died, but at this moment, she thought she had been frozen even before that, her existence held within a rigid box that was imposed by her sex, by society, by expectations. Despite her father’s nature, the fact that he had viewed her as an asset in his work and treated her not merely as a daughter, but as a person in her own right, she had been denied the opportunity to be all that she dreamed. She was grateful that her father had fed her curiosity, stimulated her mind. Even so, she had felt that she could only walk so far along the road before she met a solid gate that barred herpassage.