Page 25 of The Hellion is Tamed

He smacked the cloakroom door open with the heel of his hand, bouncing it back against the wall. Mollie was huddled beneath the rack of coats, coiled protectively over Emma, who lay motionless on the floor, her cheeks pale as snow in the meager gaslight, the Soul Catcher captured in her outstretched hand. The stone pulsed like a heart, a prism of amber light unlike anything he’d ever seen emerging from it, splattering the room.

Julian stepped behind him, crowding into the small space. “My God, it’s onfire. Have you ever…”

“No,” Simon whispered and went to where she lay atop the scuffed planks, his pulse a bumpy drumbeat in his head.

“We traveled back, through r-r-rainbow colors, a flash of sound like thunder, but not. It went through my body like a punch. Bethnal Green. My sister,” Mollie panted, her hair hanging in a limp tangle down her back, her chest riding swift breaths beneath a torn bodice. Scurrying aside to let Simon move in, she gestured crazily, on the edge of hysteria. “We saved her... Katherine. Before Mason Thomas g-g-got his hands on her. I don’t know how it changed things... Her life path... I only know it did. I’ll go now and find out. I have to g-g-gonow.”

Settling on his knee next to Emma, Simon brushed aside a strand of hair fired with amber clinging to Emma’s cheek. Her breathing was steady, her color improving. She was going to wake soon, and when she was strong enough, he was going to have it out with her. Her recklessness was going tostop. “Julian, can you arrange a carriage for Mollie to Bethnal Green?” Josie had told him about Mollie’s sister and her abortive effort to save her from the clutches of a garment factory owner who routinely ruined women with ease and little conscience.

Using a riskier method, Emma’s rescue attempt had been successful.

He trailed his thumb across the sleek curve of her jaw, his fingers trembling. Her gown was torn at the shoulder, her cheek scratched and bleeding.

Success…but at what cost?

Simon grasped Mollie’s wrist when she struggled to stand. “What happened?”

“We was in f-f-fine shape. Got Katherine out of harm’s way and tucked in a safe spot. Was headed back straightaway. Before breakfast, before a-a-anyone knew. Just like Miss Emma planned.”

Simon inhaled sharply, rage pouring through him. “And?”

“The time tracer c-c-caught up with us. Stepped out of the mist like a phantom. He touched her, and she went down like old Freddie Two-step, a pugilist who’s not adept-like in the ring for what it’s his profession. It’s only c-c-cause we were already sliding back here that we got away, to my thinking. That uncanny r-r-rock flickering like a wick gone bad. We whooshed from the past to this very spot like we’d marched through a doorway, simple as that when it’s not so simple. We weren’t supposed to come b-b-back here, but Miss Emma said your name when the tracer touched her.” Mollie yanked her wrist from Simon’s hold and wobbled on shaky legs. “So here we be.”

Julian stepped into the fray, gently grasping Mollie’s shoulder and drawing her to her feet. “Time tracer?” As the League’s leader, Julian managed a thousand-page volume listing everything he and his group of mystics knew about the supernatural world. This information would be something he’d desperately want to record in his chronology.

Mollie palmed her brow and swayed, beginning to feel, Simon guessed, the exhaustion he had after his adventure in 1802. “Miss Emma said he follows the ones who gambol through the ages. A watchdog of sorts. Always trying to bring them back.”

Someone was chasing her through time.

Simon gazed at her, his mind racing, wondering what else she’d failed to tell him.

As if she felt his regard, Emma blinked and sighed, her lips moving in wordless entreaty.

Simon leaned in to hear her whispered words.

Her eyes opened and focused on him, her gaze such a glorious shade in the muted light that his heart stuttered. “I can’t breathe,” she said, the Soul Catcher throwing crimson facets across her face and his chest.

He unfurled her fingers, took the gem from her and pocketed it before she woke fully. It dimmed the moment it left her touch. “Relax, you’re back. You’re going to be fine.”

She licked her lips and tried again. “Can’t breathe.Corset.”

Simon glanced toward Julian. “Take Mollie, will you? Help her locate her sister. Then, I’ll get Emma back to the duke’s. And Henry”—he looked to the haunt loitering in the doorway just behind his brother—“a moment, please.” Henry gave a proper salute, then faded like a wisp of smoke into the night.

Julian opened his mouth to speak, advice Simon didn’t want but perhaps needed, then shook his head. “Twenty-seven-year-old men don’t need direction, now, do they? Wasn’t that what you were telling Finn upstairs?”

Tears pricked the backs of Simon’s eyes, and he was damn glad the lighting wouldn’t allow his brother to see them. “Thanks, Jules.”For everything, he wanted to add but wouldn’t dare.

A rare occurrence, Julian’s lips kicked as he ushered Mollie into the hallway, closing the door behind them.

Simon looked back to find Emma had shifted to a half-sit, her breath coming in shallow fits and starts, her hair a glorious tangle of auburn and gold swimming past her shoulders. She frowned, her cheeks flushing.Bloody corsets, Simon thought and reached for the knife in his boot. “Turn around,” he ordered and flicked the blade free.

Emma glanced from the knife glittering in the gaslight to his face. She swallowed once and presented her slim, delectable back.

Against his will, Simon’s cock stirred beneath his trouser close, arousal coloring his ire a shade darker. “Hold still,” he gritted between his teeth and reached for her.

She dipped her head and swept her hair to the side, offering a gently rounded form for his consideration. He had the urge, irrational but evident nonetheless, to press his lips to the nape of her neck, to mark her skin with his teeth. As she gasped, struggling for breath, he pierced her gown at the waist and split the fabric up the back, an ocean of emerald silk falling open beneath his blade. Of course, her corset was a violent splash caught somewhere between gold and russet, tantalizing against her pale skin. The laces were easy to destroy, pleasure he shouldn’t be experiencing flooding him as they fell away, strings dangling.

Her back was finely-boned—and freckled. A light dusting along every bend and dip of her spine.