My sincerest apologies for the delay of this chapter! My 'other' Erik in Ghost's Shadow has been very talkative.
In the last chapter, Erik and Corinna were a bit cozy.
Noir34
She had been dead for hours. Ari Nadir crouched down and waved his hand above the young girl's blue lips, sending flies from her open mouth. It was difficult to look at, but he forced his eyes to survey what damage had been done before death.
Bruises. Scrapes. Dried blood on the insides of her bare thighs.
He swallowed and nodded at the man crouched down opposite the body, a young palace guard who had come running to Ari's door an hour before dawn. The other man present in the quarry stood with his back to the rising sun.
"She rode on my shoulders yesterday," the young man said once Ari rose and stood beside him. The young man still stared at the little girl, his face contorted in a grimace. "She laughed when I ducked through the doorway."
Ari nodded, seeing the distress in Erik's dark green eyes. "Was she dead when you found her this morning?"
He nodded in return, unable to draw his eyes away from her face. "I shook her arm but she never moved."
"Where was she?"
"By the western wall," Erik said, pointing to the far end of the rock quarry where workers still chiseled and delivered rock onto waiting carts.
Ari made no reply. He stared at the distant wall partially hidden beneath a growing gray cloud of rock dust, sand, and dirt. The onion-shaped dome beyond the high wall revealed the old palace and its half-circle balcony. He hadn't seen anyone on the balcony, which was unusual, as the Little Sultana enjoyed taking her breakfast while overlooking the laborers who were erecting the new palace.
"Why did you move her?" Ari questioned.
"I didn't want someone to bury her body here, in the quarry. She should be cleansed and mourned. Shouldn't she? She's only a child."
Ari ignored Erik's nervous ramblings. He saw much of himself in the young foreigner and recalled the days when finding a dead child would test his resolve and his stomach. As the commissioner of the police he saw many horrific things weekly. This nameless girl was no different. There was a rope around the girl's neck wrapped so tight that it had cut into her throat. This was the second body found in two weeks.
"Mr. Levesque, do you remember a child named Sunita?"
The younger man thought for a moment. "I haven't seen her for a week and a half, but yes. Tall and thin, if I'm not mistaken, with eyes of two different colors?"
Ari nodded. That was how her mother had identified the body. The girl with one blue eye and one golden.
"I danced with her at the Sultana's birthday celebration," Erik commented.
"Yes, I recall that now. And this girl here, you said you carried her around yesterday?"
Erik nodded. "She was leaving the Sultana's apartments." His face darkened. "I should have been more careful."
"How do you mean?"
Erik shrugged. "I should have watched her more closely. Perhaps someone was waiting for her after I left."
"There was nothing to be done," the daroga said. He glanced behind at the men waiting to remove the body from the worksite and motioned them forward.
"I was late arriving this morning. If I had come earlier—"
"Mr. Levesque, unless you were in the quarry all night at the scene of the crime it would not have made much of a difference."
"Someone should have protected her. She was only what? Seven years old at the most?"
"Mr. Levesque, I understand."
"She was laughing yesterday. I had her on my shoulders. You don't understand—" the young man began to protest but Ari raised his hand and stopped him.
"It's unfortunate, Mr. Levesque, but there is nothing you could have done. You're not, for lack of a better word, an angelic protector or otherworldly force. You are only a man. If you believe otherwise it will drive you mad."
"An angel?" Erik questioned under his breath. He knelt down and pulled the girl's skirt over her blue legs, masking the dark bruises and the dried rivulets of blood coloring the inside of her thighs.
Ari studied the peculiar look in the architect's eyes. It was impossible to ignore the pensive expression slowly washing over the oval face, settling into the dark green eyes. It was enigmatic, lacking hope and full of darkness.
"What is it, my son?"
The young man shook his head. "Whoever killed her will find an Angel of Death waiting."
Ari couldn't help but think that the person responsible for her demise was the Angel of Death.
Ari Nadir pounded on the wooden door of the small hut standing on the darkest corner of the city. The hut was like a drop of mud in a gleaming palace city standing proudly with white walls and gold trim.
"They found him," Ari said as the door swung open.
Sanjeev Desai stared blankly at Ari. He started to shake his head. "What hour is it?"
"Late," Ari replied. He stepped forward and let himself into the miniscule abode. "But not too late, let's hope."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Nadir. Of whom are you speaking?"
"Erik," Ari snapped. "Erik Levesque. He allegedly abducted a young woman."
"Corinna," Sanjeev gasped, holding his hand to his heart.
Ari shook his head as he paced the length of the dirt floor. "Your daughter is safe, Mr. Desai. According to a message sent to Mr.Baleeze, he took Anisha Patel. If I understood correctly she's Mr. Baleeze's fiancée."
Sanjeev's eyes narrowed. "Why would he abduct…Mr. Nadir, this is not in his nature."
"Do you know his nature?"
Ari's words seemed to agitate Sanjeev. "I helped him escape as a favor to you, Ari. You vouched for his character. Are you withdrawing your good word now, when he is hundreds of miles away with my only child?"
"I've spent twenty years scouring the street for vagrants, scoundrels, and the unscrupulous. I would like to think that I can look a man in the eye and know whether or not I must follow him into an alley."
"So, you are saying my daughter is safe?"
"From Erik? He's a man, Sanjeev, and I have seen your daughter. She would test the will of any virile creature."
Sanjeev threw his hands in the air and walked the length of the room.
"You should worry about him as much as you would any other honorable man," Ari replied.
"Honorable?" Sanjeev questioned.
"You spent weeks in the desert with him, San. He gave you three year's worth of earnings without question, did he not?"
Sanjeev gave a reluctant nod. "He gave me his money and I gave him my daughter. And now he has abducted my niece!"
"There is no proof, Mr. Desai. Allow me to remind you that these are all merely accusations."
"You doubt his involvement?" Sanjeev asked, sounding surprised.
"Mr. Levesque was quiet when he was employed by the Sultan, very reserved and shy. For the three years I knew him he merely planned and built, nothing more. No drinking, no partaking in anything of a lascivious nature. He kept to himself and never stirred the waters. Building was the only thing that interested him despite many opportunities to participate in less honorable activities. Would a man—a highly intelligent man—find it necessary to steal another man's promised bride?"
"Perhaps he desired a challenge," Sanjeev ventured.
"Possibly. But I don't believe he would risk the consequences. The wounds from his first betrayal are undoubtedly still healing."
Sanjeev nodded darkly. "I had forgotten." He moved his tongue across his teeth and shrugged. "I will leave tomorrow afternoon to return to India."
"Mr. Baleeze leaves at dawn." The daroga paused. "With the Sultana and her guards."
Sanjeev turned back to face Ari. "And you, my friend?"
The daroga frowned. "I am at the Sultan's service, Sanjeev. He has asked me to accompany his favorite wife."
"When shall we leave?"
"Now."
-o-
With the building plans in hand, Erik and Corinna walked to the lobby and asked one of the maids who was tidying up if she would bring a carafe of tea. The older woman, with streaks of gray hair threaded through her dark braid, had looked them over and finally nodded.
"Lovers," she muttered in Hindi as she walked from the lobby and disappeared through a doorway.
Once she returned and had left their tea, they never saw her again. Erik spread the papers over a small coffee table and pinned the corners down with several polished brass paperweights he had found in a writing desk.
Erik and Corinna sat in the lobby shortly after midnight, knees touching as they huddled over the palazzo designs. No one had passed through the common area since the maid had brought their tea earlier, and the seclusion only encouraged their giddy laughter.
"You are tired," Erik said as he moved one sheet of paper aside and placed a new one on top.
"I am not."
"You are," he chuckled. "Everything amuses you."
"You're laughing as much as I am."
"No, you're worse," he protested. "Listen to yourself."
Corinna giggled again. "Perhaps a little. But I have no desire to sleep yet. I want to see the rest of the drawings."
"Designs," he corrected.
Corinna snorted and reached for tea. "Designs," she mimicked in a deep voice.
"How certain are you that your cup is filled with tea?" Erik asked, raising a brow.
They both laughed again until Corinna nearly spilled her tea on the papers. Without warning, Erik grabbed her wrist and entwined his fingers with hers.
She laughed nervously. "What are you doing?"
"There," he said, holding her hand against his. "Until you can be trusted again."
Corinna looked at their joined hands, at the pallid tone of his flesh against the titian shade of her soft skin. Her heart began to race, her body filling with electricity she had never known before. She watched intently, finding it impossible to swallow as Erik's thumb ran along her knuckles.
Her attention was so fully focused on the light swirl of his caress that she barely noticed he had leaned in closer, so close that their shoulders and elbows touched.
She turned to speak but her breath hitched in her throat as she stared into his face. He was so close that she could have counted his long, thick eyelashes if her attention hadn't lingered between staring at his lips and gazing into his eyes.
"Erik," she whispered.
Erik grunted in response to Corinna saying his name. He leaned in closer, close enough that she felt each of his breaths on her face. His hand squeezed hers more tightly, his head tilting to the side. She felt drunk and nervous, calm and excited.
Each sensation intensified once his free hand moved to her cheek and swept the stray hairs behind her ears. It was beyond comprehension how something so pleasurable tormented her with pin pricks prodding deep in her belly, along her legs, in her chest, and in private places she had never felt before.
She forced herself to swallow, begged her eyes to stay open as he ran his thumb along her lips. She released a barely audible gasp as his face neared hers, as she watched his lips slowly part. She felt his warm, strong hand at the back of her neck, his fingers stroking her flesh in agonizing delight.
He searched her eyes for permission and Corinna faintly smiled in shy response. His hand at the nape of her neck slowly drew her toward him, his fingers abandoning hers as he swept his arm around her.
A surge of ecstasy bolted through her as Erik's lips tenderly met with hers. She felt his tense body relax, his arms slowly melting around her as they shared a soft, dream-like embrace. His lips tasted like the honey from his tea and Corinna couldn't stop herself from touching his lips with her tongue.
The shock of it nearly drew her away but Erik held her firmly, cradling her in his arms, holding her until she forgot that her knee was partially draped over his, her arms around his back. She only knew the sweet taste of his mouth, of his tongue greeting hers, of the comforting warmth of his breaths on her face and the slight sting of his rough face against her smooth cheeks and chin.
He rubbed her back as the first kiss ended. Without a word, Corinna leaned into him again and gently pecked his closed lips, longing to feel the same overwhelming rush she had felt when his tongue entered her mouth. Her insides continued to flutter, focusing her energy and desire on a realm she was becoming increasingly aware of the longer she sat with her leg draped over Erik's lap.
She caught him staring at her chest and glanced down to see what had earned his attention. When she noticed herself she gasped, embarrassed by the tiny points accentuating the tips of her small breasts. She felt his hand slide across her back and knew what he would do.
She sighed harshly and his hand stopped at her side. With his eyes averted, he dropped his arm to his side as Corinna moved back onto the couch again.
Erik exhaled hard and ran his hand through his hair, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. She attempted to keep her eyes on his face but it was impossible. He was a man. It was far too obvious that the secret areas she felt throbbing were not as easily contained on his anatomy.
Corinna blushed and turned away. "Would you walk me to my room?"
Erik had to clear his throat before he found his voice. "Of course," he answered hoarsely. "Would you help me?" He gestured to the sheets of paper.
Corinna sat beside him again, her hands trembling and heart wildly thumping. Erik couldn't grasp the paperweights, which amused Corinna as he dropped one on the floor and one on his foot.
"Roll them and I will put them in the tube. But roll them as tightly as possible or they won't all fit into the tube," he said. "Or do you want to put them in and I'll roll them?"
Corinna handed the first drawing back. "How is that?"
He glanced it over. "Perfect," he said, glancing at her with a smile.
Corinna's blush deepened when she watched him insert the rolled up paper into the tube. His hands worked with grace and ease, and she couldn't help but think of how he had just held her.
She handed the second rolled up document to Erik, waited for him to place it into the container, and then waited for him to look up at her.
"What is it?" he asked, brow raised.
Corinna proceeded to kiss him again, feeling the same rush overtake all good sense as his hands wrapped around her and lifted her from the couch. The drawings ignored, he carried her upstairs, holding her tightly as she rested her head on his shoulder.
The drunken feeling ended only when he placed her on her own two feet and gently kissed her on her cheek.
"I will see you at breakfast," he said as he played with her hair. He kissed the back of her hand and gave a short but chivalrous bow, which elicited a giggle from Corinna. "Ursula is most likely listening for you right this moment," he grinned.
"Erik—"
"Tomorrow," he said. "We can sit by the river and watch the boats pass."
"I'm not tired," Corinna protested.
Erik held her close a moment longer. "Neither am I but it's for the best."
"Let's return to the parlor."
"Your reputation has been challenged enough for the night."
Corinna exhaled in disappointment. She couldn't tell him that she didn't care about her virtue or what people said. But her father would be furious, Ursula would be partially to blame, and she would lose Erik forever.
Erik kissed her again, once on the cheek and once on the lips. He pulled away from her slowly and trailed his fingertips down the length of her arm. "Good night."