Heart of Iron by Bec McMaster Page B

such a thing.
    “You’d run along and tattle on me?” She ignored the angry flare of molten-gold in his eyes. Will would never understand what she was trying to do, and she was very well aware of the dangers of involving other people.
    Will caught her chin in his fingers. His lip curled back off his teeth. “This ain’t a game. I’d tell Blade because it’s clear you’re in over your ’ead. I seen somewhat like this before. On a man who burned the drainin’ factories down. Lena, they’re government owned! The Echelon will destroy whoever did this.” He waved the letter at her. “If it kept you from gettin’ your head cut off, then I’ll take a bloody full page out in the Times !”
    “That almost sounds as if you gave a damn.”
    Thought flickered through his hooded gaze. Indecipherable. She found she was holding her breath, which was ridiculous.
    “I don’t want to see you hurt,” he said finally. “And your sister’d skin me alive if anythin’ happened to you and I’d known about it.”
    Foolish, to think that he might have cared, even a little. Her shoulders slumped. “I promised a friend I’d deliver it for him. I had no idea what was inside it. I still don’t. That could be a laundry list, for all you know.”
    “Let’s pretend I can’t smell it every time you lie to me.”
    “That is the truth!” This was the hardest part of her cause—lying to her friends and family. But if she involved them now, who knew what might happen? Will was right. The Echelon would kill anyone they even suspected of being involved in this. She glanced uneasily at the letter. Mandeville had told her she was only dropping off meeting points and times to one of the other spies who worked within the Echelon.
    She sent the letters by crow to some mysterious conspirator and received them for Mr. Mandeville. What if one of those letters had been instructions to burn the factories? She desperately needed to be alone, to think.
    Suddenly, the world had become a far more dangerous place.
    “Lena.” The growl that came out of his throat was almost primordial. The kind of sound you expected to hear in a snowy forest, late at night, alone. The kind of growl that sent shivers down her spine because she knew it meant she was the prey.
    Run , a little voice whispered.
    “I—I—”
    No longer content to play games, he gripped her chin and stared at her, his amber eyes burning right through her. Lena stopped breathing. She had nothing to fear—this was Will—but something in her, some unconscious part of her body, recognized danger when she saw it. The little hairs along her arms rose, her stomach turning to lead.
    “I’m not—”
    Laughter sounded on the stairs. Lena looked toward the door in relief as Blade’s housekeeper Esme and her husband Rip came through it.
    Instantly Will straightened, his fingers slipping from her chin. He glanced away in order to hide his eyes from the newcomers and give himself a chance to leash the beast inside him. It rode close to the surface of his skin today, a predator beneath all those sleek muscles and powerful brawn.
    “Lena!” Esme greeted, her black hair knotted back into a simple chignon. She took Lena’s hands and kissed her on the cheek. “I didn’t know you were visiting today.”
    “It was a momentary decision,” Lena replied quickly. “You look well. Married life suits you.”
    Esme smiled over her shoulder at Rip. The menacing giant had frightened Lena in the beginning, with his heavy mechanical arm and dark expression. In the first few months she’d lived at the warren with her sister and Blade, Rip had been suffering through the initial stirrings of the craving virus. She could remember his screams and the way he tore through his room in a rage. Not even Blade had been able to manage him and only Esme could calm him.
    “And Will,” Esme said, with a faint note of scold in her voice. “I see you’ve been at my soup.”
    “Honoria’s suggestion, I’m