The Smoke Thief d-1 Read online

  Instinctively she scanned the brush and shadows, but there was no one else near, no Others, no runner. The monkeys woke the solitary lioness, who let loose an ear-shattering roar.

  Rue brought a hand to her forehead, feeling her headache creeping back.

  The pit itself was little more than a muddy ditch, but deep. The crocodiles swam about seven feet below them, held back by the steep pitch of the sides and a railing of battered wood. At one end of the pit was a small, sandy beach where one of the creatures watched them edgily, breathing through its mouth. The other had to still be in the water, but with the lack of light, Rue couldn't find it.

  Christoff was standing with both hands braced against the railing, looking down. Almost, almost, she was becoming accustomed to the sight of him undressed.

  “I don't like your plan,” she said for perhaps the tenth time.

  “Sorry.” He was surveying the pit, focused, frowning. “It's the best we've got. You said you can't swim. That leaves me in the water, and you guarding the shore.”

  Getting down to the bottom would present no difficulties, but finding the diamond in the muck would. They could not grasp it as smoke. They would have to be either in their human shape or as dragons. And the confines of the pit made it impossible for both of them to be dragons.

  Rue joined him at the rail. “What if they've eaten it?”

  “Let's hope not. Their lives here are wretched enough. I've no desire to injure them, even for Herte. We'd just have to wait it out.”

  “Wait it out . . .”

  “Aye. And I believe I'd actually prefer this to that.” He straightened. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded, his gaze traveling the length of her body, deliberately, slowly, as if to memorize her as she stood.

  “Then may I have a kiss?” he asked, unmoving. “For luck?”

  She felt her heart pick up. She felt her face grow hot.

  “You see? I'm asking, not demanding.” He lifted his hands to her, palms up. “Even the most beastly of us can learn.”

  Rue dropped her gaze to the ground, discomfited. “I don't think you're beastly.”

  “Thank goodness. I was about to point out that that fellow down there has far worse breath than I do.”

  She laughed softly, shaking her head, but by then his fingers were curling around hers.

  “Is that a yes, mouse?”

  She inhaled: heat, and animal. Him.

  Rue lifted her chin. “Yes.”

  Everything happened so gently at first, so languidly, as his hands drew hers behind his back so that she had to step toward him, so that their fronts had to touch. As soon as they did his fingers released; he smoothed his palms up her back, one hand at her waist and the other rising to cradle her head. She felt her hair bunch and slide with the passage of his fingers. She felt the cool air on her skin, and the welcome warmth of his chest and stomach and hips. His eyes roamed her face with that half-lidded intensity; she brought up a hand to the slope of his shoulder, resting it there. They stood there together in the open dark, soft and hard, while her stomach tied in knots and her hair stirred with the breeze.

  She wet her lips, nervous. “Are . . . are you going to do it?”

  “I am.” His head tilted to hers. She felt his lips against her cheek, light, thistledown, barely there. “I just . . .”

  “What?” she whispered, staring out into the shadows.

  “I just like looking at you.”

  So when he kissed her she was smiling a little, her lips curved under his. Kit loved that curve, let his tongue travel the sweet length of it, tasting her, teasing her, but mostly just driving himself to the edge of reason. When she opened her mouth he heard himself moan, but it was faint and deep, almost inaudible beneath the thunder of his heartbeat. She was exactly as he remembered, silky, succulent. Her hands made circles across his shoulders. She leaned forward into the kiss, rising on her toes, and slowly dug her nails into his skin.

  That dark edge within him began to crumble. The lioness roared again and he felt it rumbling through the air, through him, felt Rue tighten and press against him with her thighs slightly parted, her breathing growing shaky. She clung to him as he gradually deepened the kiss, taking his time with it, beckoning her, retreating, teaching her how to cling and to part, to share tongues and pleasure.

  She made a feminine sound in her throat that sounded perilously close to surrender.

  He honestly hadn't meant it to be more than this, a prelude to what he could give her—but desire was pumping through him in lush black waves, obliterating the last of his noble restraint. Kit had a wild thought to push between her legs and take her here, now, standing up, the two of them as ferocious and untamed as all the other creatures around them. It would be natural, it would be easy; he wanted to and she wanted him to, whether she fully realized it yet or not.

  She began to rub herself against him, small, restless moves that became an extraordinary, squeezing friction against his arousal. He had to grab her hips to stop her.

  “Wait,” he gasped, turning his face to her hair. “Wait, Rue.”

  She was as flushed and winded as he was. He could do it. As soon as he mastered himself he could do it, she was ready. He felt her shivering beneath his palms. Felt her heat, the salt on her skin. Smelled her scent, lilies and woman.

  One of the monkeys let out a particularly shrill scream. The crocodile answered it, thrashing and hissing below.

  She took a longer breath, held it. The willing softness of her figure began to tense. Her arms dropped from his.

  He did not pull her back to him, although every fiber of his being called out for him to. Instead, he shook back his hair and gave her what had to be a truly savage smile, unable even to be sorry when she shied away a step.

  Kit said, “The next time we do this we have to be either clothed or in bed.” And quickly, before she could tell him there would be no next time, he Turned to smoke, sinking down into the crocodile den.

  The beast on the sand watched him descend, opening and closing its mouth, but at least it didn't rush into the water and try to charge him. He was safe like this, nothing could touch him—but neither could he touch anything. He couldn't even cause a ripple in this form; Kit needed solid shape for that. He skimmed the water's surface, back and forth, feeling the call ofHerte, feeling the blunt, primitive fear of the other crocodile, nestled in the mud below him.

  The pond's reflection caught a rectangle of stars and Rue, leaning over the railing with her hair dangling over her shoulders. She glanced once behind her, then back down at him.

  Kit drifted higher, then Turned to dragon, digging his claws into the timbers that lined the top of the pit—there was no room in here to fly. The crocodile on the sand raised up on its feet, snapping its jaws. Kit was mostly out of its range, but the one in the water could do anything. He needed it in sight. Kit swished his tail to the surface, drew a skimming line toward the sand that broke into arrows. Nothing. He tried it again—an easy target, small, unguarded—and the second crocodile surged up like a nightmare, swifter than he'd imagined, streaming water, ignoring his tail to close its mouth on Kit's hind leg.

  He Turned but not quickly enough; the crocodile snapped bloody teeth into smoke, falling back to the pond with a terrific splash.

  Then Rue was there, a flash of white and gold, a magnificent dragon hanging upside down on the farther wall, her wings spread to catch the starlight. She fixed the reptiles with glowing eyes and opened her mouth to show her own teeth, slowly fanning her wings. She couldn't make any noise but she was doing a damned fine job of intimidation anyway. The second crocodile fled the water to join the first, both of them slinking as far away from her as they could, groaning and climbing over each other as they pressed against the pit wall.

  He didn't have to hear her to know what she was thinking:Hurry.

  He Turned human and instantly realized his second mistake. The pond was deep, much deeper than he'd thought. Instead
of standing in the water he sank through it, barely managing to hold his breath in time. And it was filthy.

  He closed his eyes, swimming lower and lower until his hands touched silt.Herte sang her song and he heeded it, sifting through the mud, finding rocks and God knew what else, but no diamond.

  He ran out of air. He came up huffing, spitting the taste from his mouth. Above him Rue still held position, angling a bright golden eye down at him, her wings extended over his head.

  The crocodiles were paralyzed, transfixed on her, knotted into a single dimpled gray lump.

  He submerged once more. This time he knew about where to go, kicking down to the deepest part of the pit, reaching into the mud and squashing it between his fingers, searching, searching—

  He found it. As soon as he touched it he knew. It was cold in his fist, burning cold; he scissored up to the surface and took a great gulp of oxygen, raising his arm above his head to show her.

  Herteblazed between his fingers, purple fire that flickered even in this dim light. With a grunt of effort he heaved it up into the air, a slow arc that sparkled. Rue caught it in her mouth. He heard it click against her teeth.

  He Turned to smoke, finding his way to the trampled grass beside the pit, becoming a man sprawled out flat upon it, his arms outflung, his face to the sky.

  He was wounded and out of breath, but at least he was dry. When they Turned, everything on them was left behind, even water.

  A shadow draped across his torso, slender, gliding. Rue had leapt high out of the pit, suspended for one miraculous, infinite moment against the night before landing before him, her claws skidding furrows through the grass. She spat the diamond to the ground near his feet and Turned again. Smoke became woman, outlined with stars. She sat down beside him and tucked her knees up to her chin.

  The screams of the menagerie reached a grievous new height.

  “I wish I had food for them,” she said after a moment, scarcely audible beneath the clamor.

  “Try the monkeys,” he said. “They're probably delicious.”

  “My God.” She was reaching for him suddenly, her hands on his leg. “You're bleeding.”

  He was. It looked awful, dark liquid streaking down his calf, the bite marks of the crocodile punching lines of neat little circles into his flesh. Kit sat up. Even as he watched, the blood dribbled over her fingers, scarlet ribbons dripping off her hands.

  “Turn.” She looked up at him, her eyes urgent. “You've got to Turn now to control it.”

  “I'll still bleed as a dragon,” he pointed out.

  “To smoke, ” she said. “I'll meet you back at Far Perch.”

  “No, mouse.”

  “Don't be an idiot! We can't manage this here. Turning to smoke is the only thing that will help.”

  If he was smoke and she was dragon, she would have all the real power. She might fly away to almost anywhere in this city she called her home. She might do nearly anything. Especially since she would be the dragon carrying Herte .

  “I will follow you,” Rue said. “I swear it.”

  Her hands were still pressed tight over his calf, trying to stem the flow. Her lips were downturned in that familiar, endearing bow.

  She had said we .

  Kit leaned forward, scooping up the diamond and placing it in her hands. “Fly high. You're less likely to be seen that way.”

  “I will.”

  With their gazes still locked he made himself smoke, curling up into the night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  It had always seemed to Rue that London was a city designed exactly for her, if not for her kind. From her very first years here, she had slipped easily into its rhythms, into the webwork of streets and dazzling high fashions, into gourmet food and servants and amusements like Vauxhall and the Haymarket. Her secret self had scarcely ever presented a true problem to her role as the young widow Hilliard, but despite the pleasures of her city life, there was one issue she had never managed to resolve. She could not afford to grow ill. She could not afford to summon a physician. Not ever.

  The drákon lived and died apart from the Others for countless good reasons; in illness, their Gifts grew dangerously unpredictable. She'd heard of tribesmen gripped by fevers who Turned uncontrollably, changing from dragon to smoke to human to dragon, all the while never waking. A few demolished rooms. One man razed nearly his entire cottage, sending his wife and four children out to the winds until the old marquess had taken them in. It took a mighty disease to humble a member of the tribe, but once a fever riddled them, the consequences could be swift and disastrous.

  The notion had frightened her so severely that the one time she knew she had caught the ague, she banished everyone from her house. She told them it was spotted fever and sent them off to Bath for a fortnight. She'd had the locks changed too, because of Zane. Just in case.

  Far Perch made a much gloomier, if more sophisticated, prison than her own home had. Without the distant presence of the marquess's caretakers, without the council or the guards, Rue walked alone down the polished hallways, not bothering with sconces or lamps, practicing her silence as Christoff slept upstairs.

  It was fairly early in the day. The fact that he was still asleep was nothing worrisome.

  She had followed him here, just as she'd promised. She had delivered his diamond to him, both relieved and regretful to let it pass out of her hands.Herte was special, without question. Holding it was like holding a cool slice of rainbow, something so rare and magical it didn't seem possible to contain. It spread life through her blood, hummed happiness where it touched her skin. But it was not worth her freedom. So last night she'd given it back to him, made certain he washed his leg and bound it, and then retired.

  It was still on Christoff's nightstand when she had gotten up this morning. She'd peered past his door to see it winking at her, a mute temptation; beside it Kit was slate shadows and a shallow, even breathing in the bed. She could just make out the spill of blond hair across his pillow.

  She said his name. He did not awaken. Rue closed his door and crept off.

  But she could not quite bring herself to leave. She thought of it. She actually went to the parlor window Zane had used and toyed with the latch, opening it, closing it, before drifting down to the kitchen. She found a wooden spoon in one of the drawers and snapped off the handle, bringing it back to the window to jam between the lock and the sash.

  The sky beyond the glass was turning a bottomless, pristine blue. A red squirrel dashed across the road in front of her in great leaping bounds, almost flying in its haste to reach a nearby elm.

  Her stomach rumbled.

  She returned to the kitchen, boiled a pot of water for the tin of porridge she found, eating every bite with a shudder. She loathed porridge. But it was that or the pickles or cod.

  Cook would serve her spiced sausages for breakfast. Buttery croissants. Fresh melon and juice and sweet, scaldingcafé au lait .

  Rue scraped the last of the cold porridge from her bowl and tossed it into a basin, along with the broken spoon. She climbed the stairs back to the marquess's chamber.

  He was sprawled on his side, one arm hugging a pillow, his body sunk deep into the feathered mattress. She savored him for a slow, secret moment, the flawless contours of his face, the shape of his hand, long fingers relaxed into a curve against the linens.

  It should not be possible for a man to be so beautiful. It should not be possible for him to make her feel like he did, like he wielded a sorcery that madeHerte seem small in comparison.

  “Care to join me?”

  “Oh.” Her eyes flew to Kit's, open now, regarding her with sleepy interest. She laughed a little, embarrassed. “You're awake.”

  He eased up against the headboard and pillows, his hair falling unkempt across his shoulders, the sheets slanting down to his hips. He was, of course, completely without nightclothes.

  “So it seems.” He rubbed a hand across his face. “What time is it?”

  “After el
even.”

  He glanced at the shades, still closed. She moved to the windows, pulling at the draw to let light fall in blocks across the saffron and pale yellow rug.

  “How is your leg?”

  “Fine. Why are you dressed like that?”

  She was a footman, from her fitted waistcoat to her plain woolen breeches, the brass buttons on her cuffs flashing dots in the sunlight. The only thing missing was the wig, which she never wore until she had to. Powdering wigs properly was the sort of thing that could take half the day.

  It was luck, or intuition, that had her pack this particular ensemble in the case she'd brought from home yesterday. If she was truly trapped at Far Perch, she wasn't going to be trapped without a measure of her own clothing.

  Rue handed Christoff the square of vellum from her coat pocket.

  “The Earl of Marlbroke is hosting a masquerade this evening. He'll have hired extra help for it. It's an excellent opportunity to steal inside unnoticed.”

  He looked up from the invitation. “Where did you get this?”

  “From your front parlor. There's a stack of them there on the mantel, unopened. Don't you ever read your post?”

  Kit tapped a corner of the vellum against his lips, observing her with something that was not quite a smile. “Dare I ask why we need to steal inside at all?”

  “Marlbroke,” she said, and waited. “Of the Rotherham Marlbrokes. Of the fortune in South Sea pearls. Lady Marlbroke fairly staggers with them at every event she attends.”

  “Ah. The runner.”

  “Precisely.”

  “What makes you think he'll be there tonight?”

  She shrugged. “He likes pearls. I discovered him near the earl's town home twice last season. I don't think he's taken anything yet. But he wants to.”

  Christoff nodded, his head bowed, tracing the edge of the invitation with his ring finger. Sunlight threw a clear, frozen brightness into the room, reflecting off the walls and floor up against him, highlighting his jawline and cheekbones and hair. His lashes lifted; she was pinned in a green-gold gaze.