“DOES THIS HURT?” HE ASKED.
Because it was hurting him.
Beneath his hands, her breathing quickened. “N-no.” She stared at him, eyes wide but unafraid, and her soft, pink lips parted slightly. “It feels … nice.”
He was braced over her now, his body stretched alongside hers, so that he had only to lower his head to touch his lips to hers. Thoughts of the Heirs, the Primal Source all dissolved like vapor beneath the sun of his and her shared awareness. Her gaze flicked down to his mouth, as well, and the dropping of her lashes and flush spreading across her cheeks revealed that not only had she shared his thought, but wanted it, too. What would she taste like? Both the scientist and the man within him needed to find out.
Slowly, slowly he bent lower, suspended in liquid time. His heart slammed within the cage of his chest, and he was tight and hard everywhere. He cradled the juncture of her neck and jaw, feeling the rush of her pulse at that tender convergence. Such delicacy. Combined with remarkable strength.
“You’re a very courageous woman,” he breathed, close enough to count freckles.
She brought her hand up to curve around the back of his head. “I know,” she answered.
He smiled at that, a small smile. And then he stopped smiling, because he kissed her.
The Blades of the Rose
Warrior Scoundrel
Rebel Stranger
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
STRANGER
The Blades of the Rose
Zoë Archer
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2010 by Ami Silber
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-1986-2
eISBN-10: 1-4201-1986-2
First Printing: December 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
For Zack, sometimes strange but never a stranger, my heart will always know yours
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Chapter 1 Shipboard Meetings
Chapter 2 Tenacity
Chapter 3 Miss Murphy Makes the Leap
Chapter 4 Unfamiliar Territory
Chapter 5 Sleeping Arrangements
Chapter 6 Catullus in the Dark
Chapter 7 Question and Answer
Chapter 8 Rex Quondam, Rexque Futurus
Chapter 9 The Silent Village
Chapter 10 Mr. Graves Takes Control
Chapter 11 Of Scarabs and Sulfuric Acid
Chapter 12 The King and the Heir
Chapter 13 A Hunger Not Sated
Chapter 14 Crossing the Boundary
Chapter 15 Shelter
Chapter 16 The Hazards and Habits of Otherworld
Chapter 17 Courage
Chapter 18 Perilous Crossings
Chapter 19 Conundrums
Chapter 20 The Silver Wheel
Chapter 21 The Blades of the Rose
Chapter 22 Siege
Chapter 23 Through the Fire
Chapter 24 Aftermath
Epilogue The Once and Future Blades
Thank you to superagent Kevan Lyon and wondereditor Megan Records for loving my crazy adventurers as much as I do. And thank you to the many people whose support and encouragement helped make the dream of the Blades of the Rose a reality: Andy and Christina Blaiklock, Lorelie Brown, Pauline DiPego, Jerry DiPego, Gene and Janice Fiskin (hi, Mom!), Kathy Harmening, Carolyn Jewel, Carrie Lofty, Tiffani McCoy, Julia McDermott, Courtney Milan, Martti Nelson, Elyssa Papa, Jeffrey Silber (hi, Dad!), Liz Thurmond, and Lisa Zalokar.
The steamship Antonia, two days from Liverpool, 1875.
Three guns pointed at Gemma Murphy.
She pointed her own derringer right back. Two shots only. Maybe she could get her hands on one of the revolvers aimed at her. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
A sane person would have fled the cabin. But Gemma wasn’t sane. She was a journalist.
So, instead of running, she confronted three faces ranging in expression from curious to outright hostile. And their guns.
The culmination of weeks of hard travel. On the trail of a story, she had journeyed all the way from a small trading post in the Canadian Rockies, across the United States, to New York, where she boarded the Antonia. Horseback, stagecoach, train. Clapboard boardinghouses with thin mattresses and thinner walls. Food boiled to inedibility. Groping hands, speculative leers. Rats and dogs.
She’d faced them all, pressing onward, always a day behind her quarry—but that was deliberate. She couldn’t let them see her. To be seen was to risk being recognized. Maybe she flattered herself to think that any of the people she followed would remember her. After all, she had only seen them twice, and spoken with one member of their party once. Weeks, thousands of miles, had passed since then.
But