Heart of Darkness Read online

  Isabeau watched as Wolfe's shoulders suddenly tensed and he murmured, “Is that all he seeks? The ring?”

  The man was quiet until Wolfe kicked him hard and sent him sprawling backwards with a squawk of pain that had even Isabeau flinching. “No. No, he wants the girl as well. If she is unspoiled.”

  “I see Jaegar has developed a superiority complex. Well, Isabeau, are you unspoiled?” he asked silkily. Then when she remained quiet, not dignifying his question with a response, he said, “Come, come, Isabeau, let's allow the man to leave with one part of his mission fulfilled. Jaegar can be a mean bastard, when crossed. We don't want this poor man to die, do we?”

  She watched as the man flinched again and knew that Wolfe spoke the truth. That this Jaegar, whoever he was, would kill the man for his failure to obtain neither the ring or herself.

  It wasn't enough to make her reply, she only did so when Wolfe spun around and glared at her. Stuttering slightly, her words were nonetheless indignant, when she said, “Of course! I am a maiden! How dare you even question it?”

  “It was not that unsuitable a question, Isabeau. How many women in similar straits as your own, have been reduced to selling themselves simply to survive?”

  She grimaced. Isabeau had met several prostitutes along her journey and had felt nothing but pity for their plight. Fortunately for her, the ring kept her sustained. If she felt hunger, then a sudden weight would appear in her hand and she would find a glint of a golden guinea there. She had thanked the Goddess for that gift many a time.

  “Yes, well, I am not of them!” she retorted exasperatedly.

  “I, for one, am glad to hear it. And I'm sure that Jaegar will be as well.”

  Wolfe prodded the man with his foot and sneered when he whimpered.

  “Tell Jaegar that if he endangers Isabeau's life once more, the hundreds of grudges that I can lay upon his hide, will suddenly have a need to be avenged. Tell him that I am no longer the skinny youth he knew, but a grown man. One capable of crushing another's fist within my own hand,” Wolfe spoke grimly before he bent down and retrieved the dagger and then turned his back on the intruder. “Davide, come and collect this man and take him from my sight!”

  Another man scurried into the room and part-dragged and part-helped the intruder leave the room.

  Silence reigned for a few moments, until Wolfe stomped towards her and settled himself on her bed. He glared down at the bleeding finger and the already bruising flesh at her jaw and throat. “I assume that you can heal this?”

  She nodded and was about to glare at him when he prodded her tender jaw, then realized that he had just saved her from a great deal of pain. “Thank you for helping me,” she murmured stiffly.

  “You're very welcome.” His own fingers came out to stroke along her bleeding one and he replied quietly, “You must value your sorcery greatly, if you are willing to risk your life for it.”

  “It wasn't a matter of risking my life for it. It is a part of me. I cannot explain it and I don't see that I should have to quite frankly. But it is rather unfair of you to simply assume that it is a superficial thing. I cannot simply take it off and hand it to anyone. It has been in my family for many years. It knows me. As crazy as it sounds, it's...it is in tune with my body and my mind and has been ever since I started to wear it.”

  “Heal yourself,” was all he said, well, ordered.

  Pursing her lips at him, she scowled but complied. Allowing her dazed state of mind to relax and to flood her being with healing energy, she felt the heat start to bubble through her and soothe all the troublesome aches that the intruder had just inflicted upon her.

  The bruises at her jaw suddenly disappeared, almost as though they had been wiped away. The blood at her finger shriveled away and returned to the cut before that too was sealed. The mélange of injuries the man had bestowed on her were soon cured, as were the remnants of the drug with which Wolfe had poisoned her.

  Her eyes popped open and as she opened her mouth to demand to know what the hell he had been about, attempting to spike her chocolate with a sleeping draught, she suddenly jolted to a halt as his hand reached out and cupped her own. She watched with owl-like attention as he lifted them both until their fists hovered at his mouth.

  When he separated the fingers on her hand and slid the digit upon which the ring sat into his open lips, she gasped as a flood of fiery sensations rippled through her. Alternatively sending shudders of heat and ice cold sensations along her nerve endings. The contrast was discomforting, but not in any way she had experienced before.

  A slight quiver wracked her small frame as his tongue slipped along the length of her flesh, around the golden metal, between the flesh that joined finger to finger... Heat pooled in her belly and she began to feel breathless once more.

  What surprised her was the recollection that the ring wasn't reacting to being touched. Where it had once shot bolts of pain swimming along her nerve endings to force her to awaken and protect it and herself, when the intruder had attempted to steal it from her, now it did...nothing. Simply behaved as though it were a regular, normal, piece of gold jewelry.

  When he pulled her finger out of his mouth, and with a slight pop, she felt almost flushed as he stared at her with heavy eyes. Eyes that promised things that with her inexperience, she simply could not understand, but how she wished she could!

  She swept her tongue along her lips and froze when he pursed his own together and blew air along the now moist skin of her finger. Before it completely dried however, his hand came up and he began to play with the ring. Slipping it from side to side, edging it up and down.

  Throughout his play, she said nothing. Just watched in bemusement as he handled the ring and again, it failed to respond to his touch.

  Lulled into a sense of security, she watched as he eventually managed to slip it from her finger.

  He turned the ring around and around as he studied it minutely. He peered at the stone, inspected the facets that allowed it to reflect light, looked at the setting in which it had been attached to the circlet of gold. Wolfe contemplated the inside--the metal which touched her flesh; analyzed the mark of quality, which declared it an item of pure gold.

  When he eventually stopped studying it and then popped it into an interior pocket of a rumpled-looking jacket. She said nothing, until she awoke from her stupor and realized that he did not intend to return it.

  * * * *

  “Wolfe! Give me it back!” she demanded insistently and held out her hand to prompt him into action.

  When he simply stared at her and did not make a move towards returning the ring to her possession, she glared at him. Feeling truculent, almost like a child whose parents had taken away her most favored toy, she slammed her hand down against the mattress.

  “It is my ring, Wolfe. I demand that you return it to me,” Isabeau stated coolly, her voice was smooth and free from strain, but she felt it.

  Inside, her mind ran from one to two to three to forty!

  What happened if he did not return it?

  What happened if he never returned it?

  What and why was he behaving like this?

  She swallowed at the somber look he bestowed on her and softly, politely, she murmured, “Please, give me the ring back, Wolfe.”

  “I see you have not entirely lost your manners then, Isabeau,” he retorted firmly and although his lips twitched as though he were amused, she felt floods of mortification as she realized he'd been baiting her.

  It was a welcome reminder that this man was no friend.

  While he had saved her from that brush with the intruder, it would do her well to remember that he was her captor, not her companion. She was not in this sleeping chamber out of choice, but because he had brought her to this manor, had led her to this room and then had locked the door so as to keep her imprisoned.

  These were not the actions of a friend. Nor was his earlier...indiscretion in regards to the supping at her finger with his tongue!


  “Wolfe, please, just return it to me. It's my ring, one of the only remaining possessions I have that once belonged to my mother,” she said and huffed in a deep breath, then continued, “Please. I have to wear it.”

  “Why do you have to wear it?”

  She shrugged, but the gesture wasn't smooth, it was jerky and tense.

  “My mother told me that I was the last one in our line to yield the kind of power that could control the magic in the stone. My mama and papa had no brothers or sisters still living and I was an only child.”

  “So you're a witch?”

  Isabeau glared hotly at him. “Are you doing your level best to insult me today?”

  He chuckled and she damned his very existence. She was not a joke, for Goddess' sake! Nor did she have to be ridiculed in such a manner by the man. He may have abducted her, but that did not give him the right to mock her as well.

  Honestly, it was a further injustice!

  When no response came to her question, she brushed it off. It had been rhetorical anyway, and instead retorted, “No, I'm not a witch. My mother...well, she never told me what we are. Just that I was one of the very few remaining of...whatever we are. I believe that she thought to tell me what I was would place me in danger.”

  “She was correct, although it is a shame that you aren't entirely aware of your heritage.”

  “I take it that means you know what I am?”

  “Of course,” he said with a mocking nod.

  Inwardly, she fumed. Had she ever met such an exasperating character?

  Rather than ask, as he so obviously wanted her to, she murmured, “How did this Jaegar's man enter my bed chamber?”

  Her words were mock-sweet but at their heart, they were blocks of ice. His face hardened and a nasty glimmer appeared in those almost-black eyes. Had his ire been focused upon her, then she would have quaked in her stockings! Damn, the man had a fierce face.

  She was not sure why it appealed to her so, when it seemed always to be set in harsh and unforgiving lines. Even moments before, when he had thought to prod fun at her, there had been laughter in his voice and a slight merry tinkle in his eye, but the rest of his face had remained the same. Almost as though it were carved out of stone.

  If he were forged from stone, then his sculptor deserved a medal--for what a statue!

  She was annoyed at him.

  Thoroughly irritated by him and the situation he had forced upon her, and yet...there was something inside of him, perhaps his soul, that called to her. And Goddess help her, she could not resist that call.

  Her instant weakening upon the flicker of his tongue about the sensitive flesh of her finger told her that he was a temptation, from which she had no desire to abstain!

  Grimacing inwardly, she watched as his firm, but beautifully molded lips started to move and almost as though she were suffering from a delayed reaction, his words eventually penetrated her mind.

  “...Jaegar must have used his own brand of magic, Isabeau. Damn his legs! My guards must have been infiltrated by one of his own.” He hissed. “I shall have to seek out the one who has betrayed me!”

  She blinked. “Jaegar is a sorcerer?”

  Although she said nothing, Isabeau felt pity for the man who had dared to deceive Wolfe. There was a bitter anger on his face that did not bode well for the unknown man!

  Wolfe shook his head.

  “Then what is he?”

  “The same as you, but not the same as you.”

  Isabeau clicked her tongue in annoyance and murmured pleasantly, “Are you trying to be irritating? If so, then congratulations, you have succeeded.”

  He laughed again and she watched in shocked delight, as this time, his entire face transformed into full animation. His grin cut into his firm, taut cheeks. The skin beside his eyes crinkled slightly. She saw his teeth and damned his hide, for even they were attractive! There was no reason to be disgusted by his yellow-caked, rotten stubs. He had a full set of pearly white teeth, damn him.

  She almost felt disappointed.

  Was every part of this man perfect?

  If so, was it any wonder she could not resist him? The man was like a walking God, so it was only natural that she would feel...she refused to say adulation, but it felt almost like that.

  She was not used to being attracted to men. For the most part, she viewed them with suspicion and distrust, fully aware that they could harm her and most dreadfully. Even though she had been raised to consider men as her only form of protection, her years alone had taught her that they were the complete opposite. And sometimes the very reason why she needed to be protected!

  For the first thirteen years of her life, she had lived in a very similar hall to the one she had stayed in this past night. Her parents had been rich, very rich and kind with it. She was not one to be blindly adoring of her mama and papa, simply because they had passed.

  She knew it to be true.

  Knew that the servants thought kindly of her family, for they had always been well cared for. The tenant farmers had had little complaints, for her father had not charged high rates and had been a good and generous landlord.

  Even at thirteen and a mere girl, she had known this, because in her family, being of the female sex was not a crime. It was celebrated. She had been taught how to be the merriest lady as her parents' wealth had dictated. But in the same breath, she had been taught literature, history, the classics.

  Her father had involved her in his estate work. She had ridden about the land with him on a small pony, greeting and speaking with the tenants, who had been hearty and healthy and dare she say it, happy with their lot.

  At fourteen, however, something had changed. The manor had been closed and they had retreated to a plot of land in the deepest Yorkshire to live in a thatched cottage.

  Admittedly, it had been a large thatched cottage. Almost four or five times the size of a tenant farmhouse. And inside, there had been all the luxuries of home, but it had been rather confusing as to why they had moved from their manor and to the cottage. She had at first thought them to have lost their fortune, as it did happen.

  During the few balls and house parties her mama had thrown, Isabeau had rebelled against an early bed time, when so many fascinating people had arrived at her home and she had hidden behind one of the antique Chinese Coromandel screens many a night. She had heard the women gossip about rake hells who had lost their fortune at the gambling halls.

  She could easily picture the shocked and delighted expressions on the women's faces. There had been a salacious ravenous look on their faces that told the young Isabeau that people wished ill on others. It had been one of many lessons that had led her on the sharp learning curve from childhood to adulthood.

  As far as she had been aware at that time, they had not lost their fortune and until her mother had eventually handed the ring to her, around eighteen months later, she had never understood why they had so strangely transferred their life up to the north of the country yet had still retained the same spending power as before.

  In the midst of Yorkshire, her parents had still dressed in the haute mode.

  Her father would dress as befit his station. Luxurious materials, the best linens. Discreet yet opulent stones and precious metals at his cuffs and in his neck cloth and she could easily envisage the few jewels he wore in her mind's eye. He had also worn a plain band wedding ring on his left hand. But on the right, a huge cabochon sapphire had sat in state upon the fourth finger of his right hand.

  Her mother had been the same. She had always dined in full dress, jewels draped upon her neck and adorning her wrists. While her mother had precious stones aplenty, always, always had the onyx ring been perched on her hand. Regardless of ill-matching colors, she had constantly worn the semi-precious gem.