The Reluctant Berserker (36 page)
Read The Reluctant Berserker Online
Authors: Alex Beecroft
The rats are closing in, and something has to give…
Warning: Contains m/m sex (on desks), blackmail, dark pasts, a domineering earl, a magician on the edge, vampire ghosts (possibly), and the giant rats of Sumatra.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
A Case of Possession:
“Vaudrey! Vaudrey! Crane, I mean.” The visitor peered through the window. “There you are.
Nong hao
.”
“
Nong hao
, Rackham,” said Crane, and went to let him in.
Theo Rackham had been something of a friend in China, as another Englishman who preferred local society to expatriates. Rackham was himself a practitioner of magic, though not a powerful one, and it was he who had introduced Crane to Stephen Day a few months ago.
“This is an unexpected pleasure. How are you?”
Rackham didn’t answer immediately. He was wandering about the room, peering at the maps tacked on the plastered walls. “This is your office? I must say, I’d have thought you’d have somewhere rather better than this.” He sounded almost affronted.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s in Limehouse. You’re rich. Why don’t you act like it? Why aren’t you at grand parties in the West End instead of slaving away in the Limehouse docks?”
“I do act like it, on occasion. This coat wasn’t cut on the Commercial Road. But my business is here, not the City, and certainly not in the West End.”
“I don’t see why you have a business at all. You don’t need any more money.” There was a definite note of accusation in Rackham’s voice.
Crane shrugged. “Frankly, my dear chap, I’m bored, and I would not be less bored in the West End. I need something to do, and trading is what I’m good at.”
“Why don’t you go back to China, then?” Rackham demanded. “If you’re so bored with England, why are you still here?”
“Legal business. My father left his affairs in the devil of a state. It’s taking forever to resolve, and now I’ve got distant cousins popping up out of the woodwork demanding their cut. Why do you care?”
“I don’t.” Rackham scuffed a worn leather toe against the skirting board. “I suppose there’s been no recurrence of your troubles?”
“You mean the matter in spring? No. That’s all resolved.”
“Day dealt with it.”
“He did.” Crane had been afflicted by a curse that had killed his father and brother, and Rackham had put him in touch with Stephen Day, a justiciar, whose job was to deal with magical malpractice. Crane and Stephen had come very close to being murdered themselves before Stephen had ended the matter with a spectacular display of ruthless power. Five people had died that day, and since Crane had no idea if that was general knowledge or something Stephen wanted kept quiet, he simply added, “He was highly efficient.”
Rackham snorted. “Efficient. Yes, you could say he’s that.”
“He saved my life on three occasions over the space of a week,” Crane said. “I’d go so far as to call him competent.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“Day? He’s a pleasant enough chap. Why?”
Rackham concentrated on straightening some papers against the corner of Crane’s desk. “Well. You were with him at Sheng’s last week.”
“I was,” Crane agreed. “Did you know I’ve taken a thirty percent share there? You must come with me again sometime. Tonight, unless you’ve anything on?”
Rackham, who never turned down free meals, didn’t respond to that. “What did Day make of Sheng’s food?”
Crane repressed a grin at the memory of Stephen’s first encounter with Szechuan pepper. “I think he was rather startled. It didn’t stop him eating. I’ve never met anyone who eats so much.”
“Have you had many meals with him?”
“I’ve bought him a couple of dinners as thanks. Is there a reason you ask? Because really, my dear fellow, if you’re after any particular information, you know him better than I do.”
“I know he’s like you,” Rackham said.
“Like me.” Crane kept his tone easy. “Yes, the resemblance is striking. It’s like looking in a mirror.”
Rackham gave an automatic smile at that. Stephen Day had reddish brown curls to Crane’s sleek and imperceptibly greying light blond, and pale skin to Crane’s weather-beaten tan; he was twenty-nine years old to Crane’s thirty-seven and looked closer to twenty, and mostly, he stood a clear fifteen inches shorter than Crane’s towering six foot three.
“I didn’t mean you look like him,” Rackham said unnecessarily. “I meant…you know. Your sort.” He switched to Shanghainese to clarify, “Love of the silken sleeve. Oh, come off it, Vaudrey. I know he’s a pansy.”
“Really?” This wasn’t a conversation Crane intended to have with Rackham or anyone else. Not in England, not where it was a matter of disgrace and long years in prison. “Are you asking me for my assessment of Day’s tastes? Because I’d say they were none of my damned business or yours.”
“You dined with him at Sheng’s,” repeated Rackham, with a sly look.
“I dine with lots of people at Sheng’s. I took Leonora Hart there a couple of weeks ago, and I defy you to read anything into that. Come to that, I took
you
there and I don’t recall you gave me more than a handshake.”
Rackham flushed angrily. “Of course I didn’t. I’m not your sort.”
“Or my type.” Crane let a mocking hint of lechery into his tone and saw Rackham’s jaw tighten. “But even if you were, my dear chap, I can assure you I wouldn’t tell your business to the world. Now, is there anything I can do for you?”
Rackham took a grip on himself. “I know you, Vaudrey. You can’t play virtuous with me.”
“I don’t play virtuous with anyone. But since Stephen Day’s love life is no concern of mine—”
“I don’t believe you,” said Rackham.
“Did you just call me a liar? Oh, don’t even answer that. I’m busy, Rackham. I’ve got a sheaf of lading bills to reckon up and a factor to catch out. I assume you came here for something other than lubricious thoughts about mutual acquaintances. What do you want?”
Rackham looked away. His sandy hair was greying and his thin face was pouchy and worn, but the gesture reminded Crane of a sulky adolescent.
“I want you to make me a loan.” He stared out of the window as he spoke.
“A loan. I see. What do you have in mind?”
“Five thousand pounds.” Rackham’s voice was defiant. He didn’t look round.
Crane was momentarily speechless. “Five thousand pounds,” he repeated at last.
“Yes.”
“I see,” said Crane carefully. “Well, I’d be the first to admit that I owe you a favour, but—”
“You’re good for it.”
“Not in petty cash.” The astronomical sum mentioned was ten years’ income for a well-paid clerk. “What terms do you have in mind? What security would you offer?”
“I wasn’t thinking of terms.” Rackham turned, but his eyes merely skittered across Crane’s face and away again. “I thought it would be an…open-ended agreement. Without interest.”
Crane kept his features still and calm, but the nerves were firing along his skin, and he felt a cold clench in his gut at what was coming, as well as the first upswell of rage.
“You want me to give you five thousand pounds, which you in effect propose not to pay back? Why would I do that, Rackham?”
Rackham met his eyes this time. “You owe me. I saved your life.”
“The devil you did. You made an introduction.”
“I introduced you to Day. You owe me for that.”
“I don’t owe you five thousand pounds for it.”
“You owe it to me for keeping quiet about you and Day.” Rackham’s lips were rather pale and his skin looked clammy. “We’re not in China now.”
“Let’s be clear. Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“That’s such an ugly word,” said Rackham predictably.
“Then it suits you, you pasty-faced junk-sick turd.” Crane strode forward. He had a good six inches on Rackham, and although he was often described as lean, that was in large part an illusion caused by his height; people tended not to realise how broad-shouldered he was till he was uncomfortably close.
Rackham realised it now and took a step away. “Don’t threaten me! You’ll regret it!”
“I haven’t threatened you, you worthless coward, nor will I. I’ll just go straight to the part where I break your arms.”
Rackham retreated another two steps and held up a hand. “I’ll hurt you first. I’ll ruin Day.” He pointed a trembling finger. “Two years’ hard labour. You might be able to buy your way out of trouble, perhaps, but he’ll be finished. Disgraced. They’ll dismiss him. I’ll destroy him.”
“With what, tales of a dinner at Sheng’s? Go to hell.”
“He goes to your rooms.” Rackham moved to put a chair between himself and Crane. “At night. He came back with you after Sheng’s and didn’t leave till ten the next day, and—”
“You’ve been
spying
on me,” Crane said incredulously. “You contemptible prick.”
“Don’t touch me! I can ruin him, and I will, if you lay a finger on me.”
The Reluctant Berserker
Alex Beecroft
Manhood is about more than who’s on top.
Wulfstan, a noble and fearsome Saxon warrior, has spent most of his life hiding the fact that he would love to be cherished by someone stronger than himself. Not some slight, beautiful nobody of a harper who pushes him up against a wall and kisses him.
In the aftermath, Wulfstan isn’t sure what he regrets most—that he only punched the churl in the face, or that he really wanted to give in.
Leofgar is determined to prove he’s as much of a man as any Saxon. But now he’s got a bigger problem than a bloody nose. The lord who’s given him shelter from the killing cold is eyeing him like a wolf eyes a wounded hare.
When Wulfstan accidentally kills a friend who is about to blurt his secret, he flees in panic and meets Leofgar, who is on the run from his lord’s lust. Together, pursued by a mother’s curse, they battle guilt, outlaws, and the powers of the underworld, armed only with music…and love that must overcome murderous shame to survive.
Warning: Contains accurate depictions of Vikings, Dark Ages magic, kickass musicians, trope subversions and men who don’t know their place.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
The Reluctant Berserker
Copyright © 2014 by Alex Beecroft
ISBN: 978-1-61921-743-0
Edited by Anne Scott
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: February 2014
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