Page 95 of The Duchess Curse

And she kissed him.

He tightened his hands on her—claiming, branding, lovely forever touches she wanted to keep. Then, like a starving man, he kissed her back, and the ferocity of his want, the deepness of it, set her body aflame.

His hand was beneath her skirts, gripping her thigh just above the dagger she strapped there, climbing higher, finding the pulse between her legs and caressing it into a frenzy. She dropped her head back, the pleasure rocking through her like pain, but he caught her head with his other hand and returned her mouth to his.

She felt empty without him, and she fumbled at his fall, tearing at the buttons, grasping for his shaft as it sprang free. Then she lifted and slid down on top of him. He gripped her hair at her nape and moaned her name against her lips. Light flashed in and out of the coach as they rode along a row of streetlamps.

His face flickered golden in the light, pale in the shadows, and his visage flashed back and forth—Braxton, Bran, Braxton Bran. Two men. The same man. Light and dark, glowing and hidden, a leader and a shadow.

His eyes golden then green but always begging for something she couldn’t give him. “I know you cannot forgive me,” he rasped, still holding her tight as she rode him, his face taut with pleasure, “but let me be with you anyway. I’ll kill Braxton.” They passed a fairy orb, and Braxton flashed onto his face. “I’ll free you. You can do whatever you want, only let me follow you.”

She could do that. She could. They would solve the curse and please the queen, and she would be free. She could do anything with that freedom.

Even, in that fantasy place where death and curses couldn’t reach, love.

They slipped out of the light and into the shadows, and Bran appeared again. She set her forehead to his as her climax ripped through her, then he lost control, too, and screamed her name, held her tight as their hearts beat so quickly, she couldn’t count them.

The streetlamps outside the carriage had disappeared, drenching them in darkness. But darkness had a solid form now, a familiar one. It had a name, too.

“Bran,” she whispered, the single syllable full of longing.

She can’t have done it again. Foolish heart, why had it ruined everything again?

He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her neck, everywhere he could reach, and she cried, hoping he could not see, knowing he could because he kissed her tears, too.

A gunshot ripped them apart. The horses cried out.

The coach shook, and Bran hid her from the window with his body as he looked out into the night.

Their coachman demanded, his voice echoing across the empty streets, “Who goes there?”

Laughter from the shadows beyond the door. “Give us the duchess, and we’ll let you go.”

Bran growled and leapt into the darkness.

22

A BLOODRED HEM

Bran reached for shadows as his feet hit the ground. “Stay, Guin.” Guns were involved. Guin could fight hand to hand, but she couldn’t guard herself against a bullet. He reached for a little light to see through the dark, looking for the outlines of a body.

There they were—two figures huddling at the end of the alley they were stopped outside of. Bran stood between them and the coach, but he heard whispers in the cold night air.

“There’s two on the other side,” Hesperus whispered from his perch on the driver’s bench.

“Four in all.”

“Good odds.”

“Not with firearms.” Bran hated guns.

“For you maybe.” Hesperus launched himself to the ground, shaking the coach. He was bigger than usual, and he cracked his neck side to side before gathering shadows. His chuckle was low. “I’m from an old alchemist family. A bullet’s nothing but a bit of metal.” His hands glowed.

The other man could probably catch bullets and spit them right out. Not a talent Bran possessed.

“Give up,” Bran called out, “or fight.”

A bang. Then a bullet whizzed past his ear and lodged in the coach.