Forged by Desire by Bec McMaster Page A

But I’m going to keep all the possibilities open.”
    Storage was a set of rooms with cold iron lockers in rows. A good thing they kept new evidence compiled in the lockers nearest the doors. Tugging out his identity card—a square brass card with ridges and indentations in it—he slid it home into the slot on the nearest locker. Metal teeth crunched through the matching holes in his card, and then the locker opened.
    The logbook was heavier than he remembered. Garrett flipped through the pages, with Perry peering over his shoulder, her body nestled close to his. The moment he caught her faint vanilla scent, his body went still.
    Sometimes he could forget her or the cursed heat of the craving within him. And then she would do something to draw his attention back to her, even something as innocuous as standing beside him.
    He breathed her scent in, tasting the vanilla oil on his tongue. Sweet. Where did she wear it? A touch to her wrists and the side of her throat?
    Garrett swallowed hard. He tried to blink away the flashes of dark shadow that threatened to consume him. “Count Mikhail Golorukov, Countess Yekaterina Orlova, Prince Pyotr Demitzkoy, and Duchess Elizabeta Kalovna.”
    “They’re definitely Russian,” she murmured in a small voice that drew his attention.
    Something about her expression warned him that she’d noticed his withdrawal. Hopefully not the reason for it. “How do you know such a thing? I couldn’t tell a Bavarian designation from a Russian one. I can barely pronounce either.”
    A little shrug that could have meant nothing at all. “I read the papers.”
    “Well.” He snapped the logbook shut. “At least we have some names to ask questions about—a connection between the Echelon and the factory. I’ll send Larkin to inquire quietly into Golorukov and Demitzkoy.”
    “I wouldn’t presume that the killer is a man.”
    “Not that I doubt you—or any other woman—could kill someone, but statistically the chances are higher, you must admit.” He started toward the door.
    “In normal circumstances I might agree with you. But we’re dealing with the Russian court. Both men and women are allowed to be infected with the craving there, and each is equally as dangerous as the other. They make the Echelon look like a bunch of lambs. Or so I’ve heard.”
    Garrett held the door open for her. “Fine. Then we shall quietly investigate all of them. And their retainers. And anyone else they happened to bring. Satisfied?”
    “I’m simply trying to be thorough.”
    The memory of her hands skating over his abdomen the day before shot through his mind. Garrett took a deep breath. Thoroughness was her forte. “Well, we certainly can’t accuse you of being slapdash. What next?”
    “It’s Tuesday,” she said.
    “Followed closely by Wednesday, yes.”
    Perry glanced over her shoulder, the weak light from the library’s sconces dappling her face with shadows. “Lynch shall be arriving shortly for our appointment if you’ve no current need for me.”
    The door jerked out of his hand, the gears springing out and rotating into a variety of higgledy-piggledy positions. “How could I forget?” Garrett murmured. Lynch and Perry sparred every Tuesday morning at ten o’clock. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll chase Dr. Gibson down over those autopsy results.”

Seven
    The feel of the hilt in her hand was a welcome respite. Perry slid the weapon—an elegant rapier, in a style similar to that preferred at court—from its rack and let its weight balance on her fingers. She stared down the long sliver of its blade, wrapped her fingers firmly around the hilt, then stepped back.
    Perfectly balanced.
    The room had been an orangery before the building became home to the guild headquarters. Lynch had ruthlessly stripped out all of the plants and transformed the room into a boxing saloon of sorts. Heavy matting protected some of the floor, and boxing bags swung from the iron rafters. The