Perilous Pleasures Read Online Free

crime, once he had killed her, he’d have turned his knife on himself.
    It was only later, when Adam, exhausted from hours of raging, could finally listen to what the Dark Lord had to say, that the healer had convinced him that it wasn’t too late to atone for the curse that stained Adam’s soul. That was when his teacher had promised that if Adam did as he prescribed, when the time was right the Dark Lord would grant him a revenge far more satisfying than anything Adam could imagine now, for by then Adam would have cleansed himself of the fatal flaw that had made revenge necessary.
    So Adam had taken the vow the healer had demanded, and when that was done, the old man had given him the serpent-headed cane, as a talisman to protect him, as he’d embarked on the grueling pilgrimage that would purify him.
    For the next nine years, Adam had traveled to the great centers of learning on the Continent where he found the physicians who taught him the things the Dark Lord had instructed him to study. He’d been able to find solace in his studies, knowing they would make him more worthy to take his revenge when the time finally came. And as he mastered the skills that transformed him into a healer, the agony he felt at remembering how he’d failed his sister dwindled into an ache he’d learned to live with, like the stab of a rotten tooth.
    There had even been times over the past years when he’d become so wrapped up in mastering the fine points of surgery with the scintillating Von Faschling in Vienna that he’d almost forgotten that the time for his revenge would come. Except, of course, on those nights when Charlotte’s ghost came back to him in dreams, silent and reproving. Then he’d assure her, I will avenge you . And he’d meant it.
    But when that moment had come at last, there in the harlot’s rose-scented lair, he hadn’t been able to do it.
    â€œYou live too much in dreams,” the Dark Lord had told him when he first read Adam’s horoscope, back at the very beginning, when Adam, newly arrived at Morlaix, had applied to him for teaching. The Dark Lord had been dismissive. “With four planets in Pisces, you might become a flute player, perhaps, or a drunkard. But a healer?” The Dark Lord had shaken his head. “A healer must be a man of action, not a dreamer.”
    And the old man had been right. For it was only in his dreams that Adam had avenged his sister. When he’d found himself, at last, face-to-face with the harlot, he’d come up short. Even though he’d followed the Dark Lord’s instructions to the letter and made his appointment with Isabelle for the exact moment when the Moon eclipsed the Sun in Pisces, when he’d finally stood in her presence and had her and her cursed whelp at his mercy, he hadn’t been able to do it.
    The painted harlot still lived, swathed in her tawdry lace. He would never forgive himself.
    He was brought back to the present as the post chaise slowed. They must have reached the school. He forced himself to get a grip. He’d have another chance to finish off the matter of the harlot once he’d come into all the Dark Lord’s powers. But though he’d failed his sister today, he mustn’t fail the teacher who had lodged such trust in him by choosing him as his heir. Adam still marveled that he’d done so, after all these years of separation. But in the letter that had summoned Adam to Iskeny, his teacher had explained that Adam alone of all his disciples had kept the vow the Dark Lord had enjoined on him—that vow so necessary if the heir was to survive his initiation.
    The carriage stopped. When the postilion opened the door, Adam clambered out, taking care to block the entry as he took the harlot’s daughter by the hand firmly enough to signal that escape would be futile. “I’ll accompany you while you bid your adieux .”
    She shot him a furious look, her