Devil’s Kiss by Zoe Archer

to explore the world with your new gifts.”
    The friends shared grins, each of them thinking of yet untapped pleasures and unmet ambitions, all of which they would soon come to realize. Whit felt the presence of Zora close, and the towering heights of anticipation. Her secrets would be his, and probability was also his to command. Part of him rebelled at the notion, but the shadowed voice within him smothered that rebellion. He told himself he could not imagine anything more wondrous or welcome. Just as his friends envisioned what their gifts would bring them.
    They had been growing weary of things so easily lately. That would not be the case again.
    “If any of you have need of something,” Mr. Holliday went on, “simply say, Veni, geminus , and one of my attendants shall wait upon you.” He gave another sinuous bow, a movement of supreme, unearthly elegance, then patted the scroll he held. “Now I bid you all good evening, Hellraisers.” A smile spread across his face. “I shall see you all again.”
    In an icy mist, Mr. Holliday disappeared. The gilded room and the women within vanished, as well. Leaving the five men standing once again in the carved rock chamber, with only the skeleton and empty box for company. Their torches, lying upon the ground, burst back into flame and illuminated the chamber.
    For a moment, none of the friends moved. No one spoke.
    “Was that ... real?” whispered Edmund.
    Whit’s hand strayed to his pocket and found the playing card. He glanced at it and saw the image of Zora printed upon its face. A hum of awareness traveled the length of his arm, through his body.
    “Indeed, it was real,” he said. “It is real.” He returned the card to his pocket, then looked up at the dazed faces of his friends.
    “Felicitations all around,” Leo boomed.
    Everyone joined in, offering each other their congratulations on a job most splendidly done.
    “What shall we do now?” asked John.
    “What won’t we do?” Bram returned with a laugh like the bite of a whip. “For me, I shall find the most beautiful, virtuous woman in England and, with my gift from Mr. Holliday, persuade her to share my bed. Then thoroughly debauch her until she is the least virtuous woman in England.”
    “I must find Rosalind immediately,” said Edmund fiercely. “And make her mine at last.”
    “She is married,” Whit felt compelled to note. The state of marriage meant nothing to Bram, but Edmund had always tread a more respectful path. Or he had, before this night.
    Edmund’s eyes gleamed with fever. “Mr. Holliday said she was to belong to me, and I will have her, no matter what.”
    Whit wondered what Edmund’s vow might entail, for Edmund had never been a particularly violent man, never joined in when the Hellraisers brawled. But seeing the hectic color staining Edmund’s cheeks and gleaming in his eyes, Whit thought those days of passive calm were over.
    “I am for Whitehall,” said John. He curled and uncurled his fingers in his habitual gesture of contemplation, though there was something manic about his movements now, less controlled. “There are many men whose minds I would know, their plans and alliances. Soon, they will find me a most astute and”—he smiled tightly—“powerful ally.”
    “There are fortunes to be built,” Leo said. “ My fortunes.” He added darkly, “And there are fortunes to be razed.”
    There were several men of genteel birth who had made it quite clear that neither Leo nor his commoner family were welcome in the rarified air of genteel society, Leo had railed bitterly to Whit and the others over predawn whiskey and cheroots. No mistaking the bloodthirstiness in his voice now, the need to punish. Those aristocratic men had no idea what awaited them, the beast they had thought chained now broken free from its restraints, intent on carnage.
    “And you, Whit?” asked Edmund. “What wondrous schemes do you intend?”
    “I must go to London posthaste,” Whit