Read Online Demon's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood) by Alexa Egan - Free Book Online

life-destroying curse.
    He pulled on his coat, grabbed his hat from the rack. Surprised the duty sergeant in the midst of picking his teeth. The man scrambled to his feet, casting Mac a faintly sneering side look. “Need somethin’, Captain?”
    “I’m going out.”
    “Where to, sir?”
    He flashed the man a snarling whip slash of a smile. “This ‘queer duck’ has a mind to do some reading.”
    *   *   *
    Stepping down from the hackney a few streets over from Spitalfields Market, Bianca scanned her surroundings with a wary eye. Downtrodden men hung about useless upon the corner. A hedge whore flirted with a sailor, her eyes devoid of emotion as she led her cull into a nearby alley. A gang of boys taunted a beggar. A man shoved a drunk from a dingy wineshop, where he fell face-first into the gutter. Scenes all too familiar from the final years of her marriage, when the money had run out and they’d taken two shabby rooms in Whitechapel, Lawrence spending his days drunk on cheap gin and sour wine.
    Ignoring the angry shouting from an upper apartment and the scarlet-rouged bawds hawking their wares at the brothel down the street, she made her way to Adam’s house.
    She’d only visited here once. A few crushingly embarrassing moments she’d as soon forget. Flush with success in her first leading role and drunk on champagne and adoration, she’d come straight from a lavish midnight supper that had lasted till dawn. No one answered her knock, but upon spying the lit windows,and arrogantly confident of her welcome, she’d walked blithely in.
    She’d discovered them in Adam’s tiny parlor. The impression flashing through her brain like the flare of a lightning strike. Adam curled nude upon the floor. A shirtless man kneeling beside him, his shock of red hair alight with the fire’s brilliant scarlet and silver glow, a tender hand resting upon Adam’s shoulder. Words too low to hear between them.
    She’d backed away, but the red-haired man caught sight of her. She still remembered the brutal glare of his eyes. The curl of his mocking smile.
    She’d fled the house. Never returned. Never spoke of what she’d seen. Buried the memory away at the bottom of her mind. Adam’s secret became her secret, an explanation for so much she’d never understood about his life.
    Today the latch turned smoothly beneath her hand. Afternoon sun giving way to a dark and empty interior.
    So much for locks and constables.
    She stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. Took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. And drew in a breath of quick and painful fear.
    Captain Flannery spoke the truth. The place was an absolute wreck.
    Cupboard doors hung open. Drawers had been pulled out and overturned. Books and papers lay strewn across the floor in a blizzard of pages to mix with the smashed glass of cold frames, plants crushed and broken, their scent hanging like death in the air. As she passed through the cramped and tiny rooms, fear splashed clammy over her shoulders and squirmed in her stomach.
    “I’ve seen close-range artillery fire do less damage,” came a solemn voice just behind her.
    Bianca spun around with a cry, colliding against a scarlet-clad chest sturdy as a tree.
    The captain put out a hand to steady her. “Calm now, lass. It’s just me. You look as if the devil were after you.”
    “How did you get in here?” she snapped, ashamed and embarrassed at her sudden, overwhelming urge to lean into his strength, let him wrap his arms around her and tell her it would be all right.
    “The same way you did. The door” was his quiet comment as he righted a broken chair, stuffing spilled like entrails across the floor.
    Alarm became anger, a more useful emotion. It allowed her to maintain a semblance of composure despite her thrashing heart and wobbly knees. “Are you following me? Is that why you’re here?”
    “I came in search of something.”
    “What kind of something?”
    “Let’s just say I’ll know