She was temptation incarnate, driving him mad, all sinful curves and fire he knew would only scorch him if he got too close to her. It was impossible to concentrate as she writhed beneath him, rousing hungers he shouldn’t be feeling, needs that were seemingly beyond his control.
The wind howled across them, flecked her hair with snow that was a stark contrast to the flames that flickered in her irises, a blaze that snared him and had him moving before he was aware of what he was doing.
He caught her wrists, stopping her from battering him, and leaned over her, pinning them to the ground above her head.
Bringing them closer together.
“Give up and give me your name. I will let you go if you do.” He didn’t feel the cold bite of the wind as he stared down at her, as he pressed closer to her.
She stilled, her eyes enormous now.
She didn’t believe him. It was right there in those striking eyes of hers.
He remained where he was, time trickling past at an agonisingly slow pace as he waited, forced himself to be patient. No hard task considering he was enjoying the warmth of her against him far too much.
She finally sagged and muttered in a resigned tone, “What does it matter? You’ll kill me either way.”
For a moment, he thought she would look away from him, but her gaze remained rooted on his.
“Mackenzie.”
Hartt rolled that around his head, ignoring how convinced she was that he would kill her, revealing how she thought he possessed less honour than she did. He also ignored how he should kill her and eliminate the competition because, despite what she believed, he was an honourable male.
Plus, it didn’t seem sporting since it hadn’t been a fair fight.
He focused and let his armour finish forming, so it peeked out from the collar of his tunic and covered his hands, the small black scales rippling over them to transform his fingers into talons.
Mackenzie scowled up at him, anger that he deserved blazing in her eyes. His armour had dampened a lot of her blows, turning bone-breaking ones into only bruises. Her eyes widened as he convinced himself to release her, pushed off her and distanced himself.
She was still for a moment, and then she picked herself up off the ground, but she didn’t shuffle away from him or run. She surprised him by standing right where he had downed her, only a few feet from him, and tipping her chin up.
She looked him right in the eye. “Next time, I’ll come appropriately armed.”
Hartt did his best to ignore the shiver of heat that coursed through him, caused by her delicious threat. Something was seriously wrong with him tonight, and he didn’t want to examine it too closely.
“I look forward to it,” he murmured, and he meant it.
Which only unsettled him further.
He shouldn’t be looking forward to seeing Mackenzie again.
But as she disappeared, revealing that he wasn’t the only one who could teleport, he found himself counting the seconds until she was back with him.
Chapter 4
Hartt appeared near the fireplace in his room in the guild and braced himself. The door to the right of the marble fireplace, beyond one of his armchairs, burst open and he pivoted to face it.
Fuery stormed inside, his violet eyes ringed with black as a frown pinched his dark eyebrows. Hard.
His friend strode right up to him, halted and growled as he pivoted away and started pacing, heading for the only window in the wall directly opposite Hartt and then striding back towards him.
Guilt churned Hartt’s stomach to hot acid as Fuery raked his hands over his overlong blue-black hair, tugging it loose from the silver clasp that held the top half of it tied back. The twisted emotions running rampant through Fuery trickled into him too, had him crossing the room to his friend and stepping into his path, because he knew what had tipped Fuery over the edge.
He had sensed Hartt’s pain during the fight, had experienced echoes of each blow through their blood bond, and had been worried about him.
He clasped Fuery’s shoulders through his tunic and rubbed his thumbs against them as he struggled to find the right words, torn between apologising and telling his friend that he was fine, and saying whatever might comfort him and ease the grip the darkness had on him.
Now that he was close to his friend, he could feel the darkness within him and how agitated he was.
How close he was to suffering an episode that Hartt had no way of knowing how it would end.
Fuery was unpredictable still, easily went off the deep end and succumbed to the darkness. Whenever it happened, he could do anything from holing himself up in his room and snarling at anyone who tried to enter, to going on a murderous rampage he wouldn’t remember when the darkness finally lost its hold on him.
His brother-not-by-blood despised it when he forgot things and Hartt hated it too, because he hated seeing Fuery suffering, hated that he wouldn’t believe Hartt when he told him everything that had happened and reassured him he hadn’t done anything terrible while in the throes of the darkness.
“I told you not to go alone,” Fuery growled and tried to pull away from him.
Hartt held him firm, refused to let him work himself up over this by pacing, and debated whether or not to fill Fuery in on the new development. He went back and forth about it as he palmed Fuery’s shoulders, kneading the tension from them, and finally settled on telling him.
Because he hated lying to Fuery.
Fuery was the closest thing to family he had now—was closer to him than his real brother had ever been.
Plus, Fuery would probably live up to his name if he discovered Hartt had been keeping things from him—like the times his murderous blackouts were in fact rather bloody.
“We have a… problem.” Hartt picked that word carefully out of the hundreds his mind supplied for Mackenzie. Beautiful. Distracting. Dangerous. Delicious. Delicate. Strong. Tempting. Problem certainly seemed to encompass all those things.
“A problem?” Fuery tensed, his violet eyes darkening again.
Hartt kneaded harder. “Just a little assassin. Competition is healthy.”
“Not when it clearly tried to kill you.” Fuery broke free of him and started ploughing fingers through his hair again.
“It wouldn’t have gotten that far.” Hartt sank onto the black silk covers of his double bed and rubbed a sore spot on his left side where Mackenzie had tried to pulverise his kidney. “She is no match for me.”
She was, but Fuery didn’t need to know that.
“She?” Fuery ground to a halt and turned a look on him.
One Hartt knew well.
“I do not intend to kill her,” Hartt said before Fuery could go there.
Apparently, Fuery had a problem with killing all females, even ones who wanted his friend’s head. Although, Hartt wasn’t sure Mackenzie really wanted to kill him. Just as he wasn’t sure he really wanted to kill her.
“I will eliminate the mark and she will leave me alone.” He was confident of one of those things anyway. His gut said that she was liable to come after him with even more gusto if he managed to fulfil the contract before she could.
“She will leave you alone when you drop this contract.” Fuery gave him a dark look as he paced between the black marble fireplace to Hartt’s left and the door in front of him. He pivoted and leaned against the onyx wall there. Well, sagged against it. Fuery tipped his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose, and concern swept through Hartt, had him rising to his feet again.