Page 103 of Mortdale

I sighed, tired and worn out.

Goddess, what in the Hell even was this mess?

What was Agnes doing, for Hell’s sake?

The questions accruing with every passing second were starting to terrify me more than the answers.

A ribbon slid over my eyes, pulling my head back against a shoulder. My body relaxed against his, my lungs finally expanding fully. “I leave for a day and this is what I come back to? More scheming and plotting.”

I could feel my heartbeat down in my stomach, my skin growing warmer and uncomfortable against the silk fabric that was suddenly pressing too firmly against my breasts. “You didn’t even wake me up to say goodbye.”

“I took other liberties,” he murmured against my ear.

“Such as?”

The ribbon was still wrapped around my eyes as he spun me around until my chest was pressed against his. I tasted the scent of cloves on my tongue before he captured my lips in a sharp, possessive, wet kiss that sent shivers down to the tip of my toes.

This was hardly the place to ask him to kiss me properly, Goddess damn it, but I still fought the itch on my tongue to do so.

My fingers blindly skimmed his jaw and traced the shape of his lower lip. “Are you mad at me for talking to Sybil?”

“I’ll get over it.”

I smiled, running my fingers through the back of his hair. “When did you come back?”

His breathing grew laboured. “A few minutes ago.”

I felt his hard swallow as I brushed my fingers over his throat. “How did you know I was here?”

My head tipped back when he nuzzled my neck and ran the tip of his nose down my pulse. “Did you know I can recognise your heartbeat from miles away? Did you know it drives me insane?”

I felt warm blood come down my nose and slip between my lips. “It’s not like I do it on purpose.”

I swallowed down a gasp when he pressed another quick, demanding kiss on my mouth, lingering just a little this time. But it was long enough for every nerve ending in my body to fire with life. I had the sudden need to tear my ribcage off with my bare teeth for not letting my lungs expand more, breathe in more until they’d finally burst.

He pulled back and slipped the ribbon off my eyes. His gaze seared as he licked his bloodied lips and then wiped the blood on my skin.

My smile might have looked a little crazy, but I didn’t really care. “Hi.”

His eyes paced between mine, his pupils growing wider and wider the longer he stared at me. “Hi.”

“So, I’m not in trouble?” I asked, finally noticing how many eyes were on us. And for some reason, I just couldn’t find it in myself to care about anything else but the way he was looking at me, the small smile lingering on his lips, the way his chest met mine with each harsh breath he inhaled.

“Oh, you’re in deep fucking trouble,” he said, his palms settling against my ribs. “But Alfred wants to see you.”

“Please tell him I’m not interested in him like that. He’s cute and everything,” I said, dragging my hand down his tie and keeping it there against his chest. “He just doesn’t do it for me.”

His fingers tightened against my ribs. “Cute and everything?”

I bit down my smile. “Why does he want to see me?”

“Apparently, you were right. The samples you’ve collected, he says they’ve changed the colour of the cold iron sheets you placed in them.”

Alfred was less than happy to see me in his laboratory, but he’d been very cooperative while we’d collected the samples from a new cadaver, unlike last time. The specimens we’d collected from the Madness-infected cadaver had all turned the cold iron an acid green colour, just as I’d predicted. A pretty conclusive indication for poison, and not the kind he was familiar with—whatever that substance had been, it had been poisoning the chaos in the vampire’s blood.

Despite Alfred’s aversion to matters of magic, his curiosity had betrayed him. Asking mile long questions per minute while also insisting he just couldn’t see what I could see. And all while refusing to re-learn anatomy the way I’d been taught it.

“This is the last time I might be able to do this,” he chattered, pacing back and forth as I discarded my gloves in soapy water. “If the results differ, we’d be back to ground zero. No lead.”