Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster

humanity that surrounded him. Until nothing but the hunger remained.
    Something caught his ear—the rustle of waxed paper. He fixed Honoria with a hawkish glare, but she was dipping her fork into the stew again. The bread was gone. Too quickly for the small pieces she’d been breaking off.
    He could smell pork now too. “God’s teeth, you’re a stubborn wench.”
    She looked up in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”
    “The ’alf-eaten pork pie in your pocket and the bread.” He shook his head. “Aye, give it away, even though you obviously need it more.”
    “My brother and sister are at home wondering where I am,” she said. “The least I can do is bring something back. I can’t eat all of this.” She put the fork down. The stew was hardly touched. “I can’t eat a thing more.”
    The way she eyed the bowl, with reluctance in her eyes, made him believe her. She’d been starving herself so long that now she had the appetite of a bird.
    “Next time it’ll cost you,” he said.
    Honoria’s chin tipped up. “There won’t be a next time. I agreed to three lessons a week. No more. No less.”
    He leaned closer, breathing in her scent. “We’ll see.”
    “No. We wo—”
    The door to the White Hart smashed open. Blade was on his feet with his razor tucked in the palm of his hand before he realized it was Will, breathing hard from running.
    “Bodies. Two of ’em,” Will said. “Torn up and drained, like a bloody blue blood went crazy down in Pickle Road.”
    Honoria’s head jerked up and she went white as a ghost. “That’s my street!”

Chapter 4
     
    “Stay back,” Blade commanded.
    Honoria took one look at the crowd and hurried after him. They were three houses down from the small flat she rented. There was no way she was going to stay behind.
    Blade pushed through the crowd of people ahead of her, forging a path through the swarm of goggling onlookers with his powerful body. Honoria stumbled along behind. People shot glares at them—until they saw who was pushing through. Then the way miraculously cleared and the master of the rookery found himself in the eye of the storm. It seemed being known as the Devil of Whitechapel was extremely useful in certain situations.
    Blood sprayed the cobblestones, gleaming black in the moonlight. One of the spectators had located a flare stick, and the fluorescent glow highlighted the brilliant scarlet splashes near Blade’s booted feet.
    Honoria swallowed. She had seen blood before. In vials and tubes in her father’s lab or on the samples she took from Charlie to examine his virus levels. Not like this. Not painted across the flagstones as though someone had wielded an artist’s flamboyant brush, flicking drips of it in every direction. The ghastly sprawl of the two bodies was almost garish in the moonlight. Some quirk of fate had found this part of London free of its almost perpetual ground cover of fog.
    Blade turned and found her on his heels. “I tol’ you to stay back.” He looked around at the crowd. “Go on. You seen it. Now get.”
    The onlookers dispersed with a handful of whispers. The burly man who’d found them at the White Hart knelt beside Blade and surveyed the scene with his burning amber eyes. Two others hung around, and the tattoos on their wrists proclaimed them Blade’s men. One had a steel cap riveted to his scalp and a wicked hook in place of his left hand. The other winked at her with a devilish smile.
    “Cutthroat Nelly cried the alarm,” the man he’d called Will said. “O’Shay sent me after you and came ’ere to clear the street.”
    The taller man, the one who’d winked, spat to the side. “Bleedin’ vultures swarmed me before I could keep it quiet.” A thick lilt of Irish filled his voice.
    “Who are they?” Blade knelt down, fingertips pressed together and a burning look in his eye as he stared at the bodies. He didn’t go any closer, and she realized that he was wearing that expression again. The one that