Page 54 of Blackwicket
“Blackwicket,” Inspector Harrow rumbled, his tone and posture newly relaxed, satiated. “You’re always in the middle of every trouble I come across.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, finally turning his eyes to me. I didn’t take his languorous posture at face value. The power he’d imbibed was seething beneath the surface, hungry for more, and I was in his sights, trembling from the cold and writhing adrenaline. I couldn’t run. The alley was too long. I hoped saving Patrick’s life was worth whatever I’d condemned myself to.
“You know,” he remarked, expression impassive as he tooka menacing step in my direction, “I had a feeling you’d be coming out tonight.”
I broke, turning to lunge towards the staff entry, grasping the handle. But he caught me, turning me to face him as he pinned my body to the freezing brick wall with far less power than he was capable of.
Once again, I found myself trapped in the cage of his arms, but this time, it was he who posed the threat, and no one would shield me from the fallout.
Refusing to mewl and cower, I met his power with rage, fighting to free myself.
“You killed him!”
I reached to scratch his face, pulled my knee up to catch him anywhere I could, but I was restrained by the tight dress, whose slit tore with my effort. Harrow took hold of my arms, binding them to my side. My body was useless, and so was my magic. In his current state, anything I gave the Inspector, curse or otherwise, would make it worse.
“No, no, no,” he murmured like a wolf to a rabbit it was about to bite. There was blood on his collar, a fresh bruise on his jaw where one of his victims managed a shot. “Patrick’s going to wish he were dead, but the rat’s breathing. Go on, take a look.”
I turned my head, finding the man shifting, grunting as he tried to sit up.
“Feeling sympathy for him? He was going to murder you, Eleanora.” Harrow’s lips were so near my ear I felt the warmth of his breath on my neck, the heat sending goosebumps rising on my cold skin. My magic turned molten, pressing at the walls of my defenses, eager to be swallowed by the gravity of Harrow’s power, which I was only just beginning to fathom.
“Does the Authority know you’re a Curse Eater?” I spat, pushing against his chest. He relented, but only gave me enoughspace to meet his gaze, bright as gold glinting in sun-drenched water.
He smirked, the malice deliberate. “Oh, I’m something much worse.”
The timbre of his voice stole into the cracks of my shield, pressing them further open to expose the magic marrow.
There was a transformation, a physical shadow that emerged absent a shift of light, briefly distorting the planes of this face. Leaning close, he breathed me in, and new unwelcome heat mingled with my temper.
“You broke into my room. I could smell your magic everywhere. Too sweet for its own good.” His voice vibrated at my temple, “You enjoy snooping where you shouldn’t. Is that why you were here on High Tide? Looking for answers? Or for another experience entirely.”
“I’d never use magic that way,” I protested, and although it was true, my delivery was less emphatic, softened by the strange reaction I was experiencing to the Inspector’s feral magic, powered by energy that wasn’t his own.
“Just like you’d never murder a man,” he crooned.
Voices rose from the staff exit as people approached and the door rattled, but instead of drawing away, the Inspector yanked me to him, hand snaking beneath the torn slit of my gown, bruising the soft flesh of my thigh as he crushed his mouth against mine in a fierce, punishing kiss.
My hands were caught between us, leaving me with nothing to do but grasp his coat. I tried to hold on to my will to resist, but it evaporated in the inferno my magic had created, and my lips parted. Harrow deepened the embrace. He tasted of the earthy peat of whiskey mingled with sugar. I no longer noticed the bite of cold; a furnace of something unwanted yet unstoppable roaring to life, fueled by sensations never present when kissing lovers past.
There was a brief silence as whoever stumbled upon us processed the scene, followed by a click of the tongue.
“Wow.” A woman’s voice, tinkling and melodic, slurred from liquor or magic.
“Easy, killer,” a man said, footsteps passing us. “They’ve got laws against that kind of thing in public.”
“Gosh, would you beat up any scum who went after me, Jimmy?” The woman warbled.
“Sure, honey,” her beau replied, as easy as saying he’d wash dishes, the sight of this violence commonplace. Their voices receded. “Tell you what, the bastard’s got some guts. Wouldn’t catch me messin’ with William’s girl.”
The last words prompted an intensification of the Inspector’s tactics, leaving me near senseless. As I prepared to humiliate myself further by easing into him, he loosened his hold and ended the kiss, remaining disrespectfully close.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded, attempting to infuse the words with disdain and deep offense, but they emerged with a trembling vibrato encouraged by the rapid beating of my heart.
“So, you’re William’s girl, are you?” The Inspector replied, and the question was spoken with a note of something I detested, as though he’d discovered an answer he’d been searching for.
A wave of shame gave me the strength to wrest myself from him, and he released me, but my humiliation was just beginning, because standing at the mouth of the alleyway, having come from the car waiting in the distance to ferry me to Blackwicket house was Thea, my coat draped in her arm.
“Well, Inspector Harrow, I see you’re making a nuisance of yourself as always,” she said, but she was glaring at me, dark eyes accusing.
