Mission: Improper: London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy (12 page)

Screams broke out behind them.
Then a strange fluting trill pierced the air.
"Hunt, my pet!"
Another low, eerie tone from the flute.

"Byrnes!"

"
Coming!
"

A lithe black shadow broke out of the trees, and Byrnes caught her, wincing as one last hemlock bomb exploded behind them.

"What are we going to do?"

"Can you carry him?"
Byrnes glanced over his shoulder, flicking his pistols into his hands.

For a while.
She ground her teeth together.
"I'll manage."

"Head for the folly.
I've planted some more bombs there, on a remote detonating charge."
He gave her a shove in the back and turned, both pistols lifting.

Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Double barrels spat bullets, the sound shearing through her eardrums.
"There are two of them!
I've got this one!"

As if the odds could not get any worse.

Panting, with sweat dripping down her face, Ingrid forced her way up the hill toward the marble folly.
Something snarled behind her and she threw herself over the edge of
berserkergang
, letting the fury, the fierce rush of the loupe consume her.
It fired through her veins, granting her an extra burst of speed, even as the fierce cold-hot rush bled through her veins.

A heavy weight hit her and Debney squealed.
Ingrid went to one knee, as a flash of
something
rocketed past.
Dumping Debney off her shoulder, she spun just in time to face a nightmare.
The vampire had overshot them, but now it loped toward her then paused, as if it sensed that she'd turned, and lifted its head to sniff.
Crab-walking sideways, it made a series of high-pitched clicking noises that somehow helped it to see, considering the blind film covering its eyes.

Ingrid moved with it, trying to force it back to the main entrance up the slope.
"Come on," she whispered.
"Back you go."
There was no fear now, only a tempting lure of violence.
Let's see if you bleed
.
"Back, you ugly bastard."

Back where the glittering gold hemlock orbs waited, lying forlornly on the grass.
In the distance, she could see flames flickering as if something was burning, but Byrnes was nowhere to be seen.
The vampire took a single step forward, hopping on three limbs.
Nearly there.
Nearly.

"Byrnes," she said softly, gaze locked on the vampire as it made one more step.
"Anytime you're ready with those detonators."

The golden orbs made a faint clicking noise, and the vampire looked down.
Ingrid threw herself behind the folly wall as they exploded.
Iron spikes flew past, embedding themselves in the marble, and the vampire gave a high-pitched scream.

"Got you."

Hemlock couldn't be entirely trusted; its effectiveness differed depending on the levels of craving virus in the blood, and a vampire's would be coming in at 100 percent.
But it might slow it down, just for a few seconds anyway.

Blades in hand, she launched herself down the slope.
The creature was staggering, shaking off the effects of dozens of the iron spikes.
Ingrid lashed out, raking her knife through its maggot-pale flesh.
Black ichor splashed and it screamed, its claws lashing at her, just as a wave of putrid stench enveloped her.
Forcing herself not to gag, Ingrid sank her second knife into its guts, and wrenched it upward, toward its sternum.
Heart.
Where was the heart?

There.
She felt it on the tip of her blade, and the vampire's efforts redoubled, its back claws hooking up between them and raking down her side.
Hot blood burned her knuckles; somewhere in the back of her mind she was aware of the pain and the hurt, but the
berserkergang
had her in its grip now.
Lashing out, she drove her main knife in deep to join the second one.
Again.
Again.
Then it kicked out, and the force of the blow knocked her feet out from under her.

"Ingrid!
Clear!"

Ingrid threw herself aside, relief flooding through her, as Byrnes suddenly appeared, pistols raised.

T
here were
a few moments in his life that had branded themselves on Byrnes's brain; the moment when his mother had fallen that last time, her head striking the edge of the fireplace and making
that sound,
that horrible sound; the memory of cold rain drizzling down his face as he stared impassively at his father's casket and hoped the bastard was rotting in hell; and now Ingrid, backlit against the blaze below, runnels of sweat marking her face.

Blood.
And pain in her eyes.
And a white blur, moving toward him with impossible speed.
Byrnes stepped back, his heel catching on something, his eyes going wide as he fell....

Tumbling onto his back, he jerked the trigger as the vampire launched itself at him.
Acid blood sprayed across his face as the pistol retorted, the creature falling heavily across him.
Byrnes scrambled backwards, still fighting, still wrestling, until he realized that he was fighting a dead weight.

It was over.

Half of the vampire's head was simply...
gone.
The firebolt bullets in his pistol had exploded upon impact, and its chest was a mess from where Ingrid had cut it.

"I killed it."

A vampire.
He'd killed a
vampire
.
Pure bloody luck, that was what it was; the pistol in the right place at the right time, his finger already on the trigger.
His heart wouldn't stop racing.

Then the pain of the blood burns washed over him.
Vampire blood was like acid.
That, and the recollection that he hadn't been alone.

"Ingrid!"
Byrnes wiped it off, scoring his sensitive skin and ignoring the flash of pain as he searched for her.
Ingrid watched him warily, those amber eyes flaring bronze-hot.
She was kneeling, one hand pressed gently to her side.

"Are you hurt?"
he demanded.

Ingrid shook her head, staring again at the vampire's body.
"Just...
shaken."

And she was so rarely shaken.
Those long, dexterous hands trembled and blood marred her bodice.
She'd never looked so bloody beautiful.
Nor so vulnerable.

"And Debney?"

"Alive."
She pressed her hands over Debney's chest.
Sharp slashes gouged a bloody ruin in his brother's skin.

"Oh, God.
I'm dying, aren't I?
Caleb?
Caleb?"
There was a note of panic in Debney's voice as he searched for Byrnes.

"Not dying, Debney.
Not today."
Byrnes knelt at his brother's side, assessing the damage.
"You probably won't even have a scar, courtesy of the craving virus."

"Not dying?"
The words gurgled in Debney's throat; an incredulous laugh.

"Not dying."

For some reason, Debney caught his hand.
"You came for me."

"Well, you were squealing like a stuck pig in my ear.
I couldn't just leave you there."
Though he tried to sound disgusted, their eyes met.
Byrnes looked away.
"No more debt, Francis," he said softly.
"You were very brave.
If you hadn't lied about my presence, we probably wouldn't have had a chance."

Sitting up with a wince, Debney nodded, looking quite overcome.
"What happened to the other vampire?
Did you kill them both?"

"She recalled it with her flute."
Byrnes ran a hand through his hair.

"Bloody hell."
Staggering to his feet, Debney nearly took a swan-dive into a stand of bushes.
"Just let me...
get my feet under me."
He headed off in a slow circle around the folly, shaking off the hemlock.

And then they were alone, the feral need in Ingrid's eyes matching the sensation in his chest.
Nearly dead.
Both of them.

Want kindled in his veins, fanned to hot flames by the exhilaration of what had just happened.
The blaze of post-battle fury brought with it the need for physical release, or simply even the touch of her skin.

Fuck it.
He gave in to the urge, closing the distance between them, cupping her face and tilting it up toward him, his thumbs wiping the blood from her cheek.
Ingrid made a growling sound in her throat, but he didn't think it was denial.
An echo of the lust slamming through him, perhaps.

"Think I've earned that kiss yet?"
It came out rougher than he'd intended.
Hell.
He wasn't feeling at all himself.
Shaky perhaps, in ways that he didn't understand.

Sliding a hand behind his nape, Ingrid yanked his face down, her lips brushing against his and sending an electric shock through him.
"I think you've more than earned it."

Then she claimed his mouth in a kiss that lit the very soles of his feet on fire.

A year.
An entire year in which he'd yearned for this, dreaming of that last time she'd kissed him and ridden his hips with only her breeches between them and the hot scent of her need dampening the air.
Byrnes had locked it all away—every last memory—but he hadn't been able to forget.
Not completely.
It all surged to the surface, but the sensation of this, the realness of it, blew his memories and his expectations out of the water.

Muscling her backwards, he felt the jolt as her back came up against the marble column of the folly.
Kissing each other, their mouths warring, no finesse, only hunger...
it burned through him.
Sliding his hands down her hips, he rocked against her.
Tongues clashed, hers faintly teasing—

"Ahem."
Debney made a faint coughing sound behind them.

Byrnes froze.
He was going to kill his brother.
Slowly and painfully.
A thousand ways to do so sprang to mind, even as tension slid through Ingrid's lithe body.

But this wouldn't be his only chance.
No.
He'd won a precious step toward earning her trust today and this contest of wills between them.
He would have her.
All he had to do was remain patient.

With a sigh, Byrnes lifted his face, reluctantly releasing her.
It hurt to let her go.
Darkness slithered through his vision, the hunger—the predator within—asserting itself.
Mine
, it whispered, and Byrnes actually blinked.

Then it was gone, his vision sliding through shades of black and gray, until color flooded back into his world and he had to wonder if he'd imagined that.

Because, if he wasn't mistaken, the darker side of his nature had just stamped its claim on the most frustrating woman he knew.

"Let's go."
Ingrid's voice was sharper than expected.
He could almost hear the sound of her putting up those guarded walls around herself so that he could never, ever get in.
"That woman had four vampires.
I shouldn't like to wait around to discover if there are any more out there in the dark, hunting us."

"Agreed," he said softly, and shook off the unusual sense of connection that he'd momentarily felt.

That way lay danger.

And Ingrid wasn't the only one who guarded her heart.

"
H
OW'S DEBNEY
?"
Ingrid asked, rapping her knuckles against the door of the passenger cabin that Byrnes occupied.

She paused awkwardly as Byrnes looked up from beneath those thick, indecent black lashes, his blue eyes locking on her with that intensity with which he viewed everything.
Something heated lit his gaze, then he returned his attention to his bare arm, which he was wiping the blood from.

Bare arm.
Bare chest...
rippled abdomen.
Ingrid looked away, her gaze locking on his discarded shirt and valet's coat and staying there.
Far safer than letting it wander back to the man himself as he tended various wounds.
The blood burns from the vampire had long faded, leaving only a reddened mark on his skin, but there were various cuts and bruises.
Much like her own, though she hadn't had a chance to tend them.
The one along her side burned as the loupe virus fired through her blood.

"Most likely in some sort of alcoholic stupor in the main cabin," Byrnes replied, and she could hear fabric rustling as he dragged his shirt off the chair and slid into it.
"I had to force half a bottle of blud-wein into him before he'd even start to make sense."
Byrnes suddenly sounded disgusted.
"He kept telling me how brave I was to come back for him.
And he's in awe of you."

"You
were
brave," she said, deciding to tease him a little.
A glance revealed that he was decently covered and struggling impatiently with the buttons on his shirt.
"Sweeping in to rescue your brother like that."

Byrnes's eyes narrowed to thin slits and Ingrid crossed toward him, brushing his hands out of the way and doing the buttons up beneath his chin.

"Thank you," he murmured, and their eyes met.

She lowered her hands.
"You came back for me too."

Odd words.
She felt like she stood on the edge of a precipice with that sentence, and from the uncertain look on his face, he knew it too.
This truce was new to both of them.

"Well, I couldn't have you stealing all of the glory," he finally said, as if to settle them safely back within the familiar realms of their relationship.
"Single-handedly defying Ulbricht and his cronies; dashing headlong into the reach of four vampires to pull Debney out, and then carrying him over your shoulder.
It's almost embarrassing.
Had to do something."

"Maybe Debney's been rubbing off on you.
You sound half in awe too."

"Well, I did have the other half of the bottle of blud-wein.
Garrett's personal stock."

"Why do you enjoy pulling on Garrett's whiskers so much?"
she asked, sinking into one of the chairs.
She'd met the guild master a year ago when he'd first commissioned her help during the Vampire of Drury Lane case.

"Because I can."
Byrnes shrugged and dragged his coat up his arms and over his broad shoulders.

Which wasn't quite the entire truth, she suspected.

"You're bleeding," he declared.
"I can smell it on you somewhere."

The wound along her side was painful, but not overwhelming.
"I've bandaged it up.
Just an idle claw mark or two.
Not going to bother you too much?"

Blue bloods, after all, liked blood.
A great deal.
But Byrnes had always seemed in control of his darker half.
Brutally so.

"I can manage it."
At that his expression tightened and he scrubbed a hand across his mouth.
"Vampires, eh."

"Vampires," she echoed.

"Real actual vampires," he repeated.
"Not like that Drury Lane nonsense.
Never thought I'd see the day where I didn't actually
want
to hunt something.
But hell...
what a sight.
What a smell."
His nose wrinkled.
"Want a drink?"

"As long as it doesn't have any blood in it."

"I've had enough to recover," he replied, squatting in front of the liquor cabinet that was built into the side panels of the room.
Glass chinked and he straightened, staring down at the bottle in his hand.
"Scotch.
That ought to take the edge off things."

Pouring them both a glass, he snagged them in his fingers and handed her one, sitting beside her.
"To surviving the unsurvivable."

"To killing the unkillable," she added, and their glasses chinked together in companionable camaraderie.

"I've radioed ahead to London, whilst you were tending Debney," Ingrid said.
"Given Charlie and Jack the heads-up on what happened.
Garrett was looking for you.
Something about a missing dirigible the Nighthawks own?"

"Can't imagine where that went," he replied, offering her a slightly rakish smile that stole her breath.

Don't be a fool.
It's not the first smile you've ever been given.
But Byrnes's smiles were so rare that they were somewhat shocking in their intensity.
He had the whitest teeth, and looked as though he intended some sense of mischief when he graced her with a smile like that.

"The captain's having a minor case of the conniptions," she pointed out, sipping her Scotch.
She was half tempted to roll her eyes back in her head.
God, that was good.
"He seems to think that he's possibly absconded with the
Nightingale
against orders, though he
seems
to remember seeing some kind of warrant, and he's fairly certain the guild master's signature was on it."

"I'll explain matters."
Byrnes stretched his arm across the back of the sofa they shared.
"And it was a good forgery.
Garrett won't care.
He owes me a favor or two."

"I thought it was his new toy?"
She pointed out.
"Don't men get rather territorial about such things?"

"Toys can be shared.
Garrett will huff and puff, then ask me how it flew.
If it were his wife, however, that...
that would be a different story."
Byrnes's voice softened.
"There are some lines a man doesn't cross, some belongings that a man doesn't tamper with."

"Perry isn't an object, like a chair," she pointed out.
Leaning back against the chair, she let her head loll to the side.
He was watching her intently now, his fingers toying with the loose ends of her hair, and the Scotch held negligently in one hand.

Byrnes tugged on a lock of her hair.
"Don't be deliberately obtuse.
Garrett belongs to her just as much as she belongs to him."
His touch softened.
"I wonder...."

"What?"

"What it would be like to belong to someone."
There was a questioning tone to his voice, but she wasn't about to believe it.

Ingrid's breath caught.
She'd walked into this, let her defenses down, and now she was trapped here as Byrnes slid toward her a fraction.
"I don't belong to you," she whispered.
"And if you think I'm falling for that codswallop, then you're definitely off your game.
Caleb Byrnes is a black-hearted rake who lives for the hunt.
Not someone who dreams of romance."

"Aren't I?
I suppose you know best."
That questioning look faded.
He smiled again, loose and relaxed, and instantly back to his old self.
Definitely up to mischief.
"It's a good thing I cannot fool you."
The backs of his knuckles brushed against her shoulder.
"It would make you far less interesting, if you were too easily seduced."

Ingrid swallowed, her lashes fluttering down as she tracked the movement of his fingers, every muscle in her body tight with anticipation.

She knew better than to trust his touch, or the faint self-mocking tone to his voice.
What was she doing?

Something foolish
.

Ingrid pushed away and went for the Scotch, snagging her empty glass between her fingers.

"What's wrong?"
Byrnes taunted.
"A little hot under the collar?"

"Weary of wading through sweet nothings," she shot back as she poured herself another glass.
"I'm tired, Byrnes, and your insincerity is hardly convincing.
I don't believe you're interested in exploring forever with me, and if I were to offer you one suggestion it would be this: what makes you think I'd want forever either?"

Byrnes stretched one arm along the back of the daybed, looking coolly unruffled.
"Is this a negotiation?"

"It's...
an exploring of options.
You want to bed me," she told him, frustrated by how composed he looked.
Perhaps it was that fact that made him so irresistible to her: she wanted to ruffle him, wanted to see him undone, that facade washed away and replaced by the beating heart within him.
She knew it was there, that passion.
She'd seen it once or twice on their previous case, and it intrigued her.

"Well, I wouldn't say no," he murmured.
"You and me...
We've already proven we'd be an explosive combination."

"And if you win your three challenges–"

"Of which I am now up to two," he pointed out.

"Of which you are now up to the second challenge," she conceded, "then you may get a chance to do so.
Though the first challenge remains open throughout this case, Byrnes.
Renege on your promise to work with me, and you may kiss your chance of getting me into bed good-bye."

He considered that, hands clasped between his knees.
"Fine."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."
His smile held mischief.
"Because it sounds like you want to fuck me too."

Ingrid shrugged, though her body screamed
yes
.
It had been a while, and Byrnes was...
a little bit of a secret weakness.
"I'm not entirely certain yet.
I want to make sure you're not playing games with me in response to that situation last year."

And I don't want to find my heart trampled beneath your boots.

She glanced away.
If she were being honest with herself, she could admit that it would be easy to fall for him.
She'd never met a man so frustrating, so...
challenging.
For the first time in her life she could be herself with a man, and he actually seemed to like her for it.

"So," she murmured, "give me one good reason why I should give you a chance to get into my bed...
and I might seriously consider it."

"Because I make your heart race and your breath catch.
And don't bother denying it: I'm a blue blood.
I can hear the pulse thumping through your veins."

A smile danced over her lips.
"Running from a vampire made my heart race too, Byrnes.
Don't flatter yourself."

"You want me."

Ingrid snorted in a most unladylike manner.
Toying with Byrnes always brought out this side of her.
"Is this a litany you repeat to yourself of nights, or simply the result of your overexaggerated sense of importance?"

"Let's examine the evidence then," he shot back with a devilishly crooked smile.
Holding up a finger, he said, "One, you could have simply delivered that letter to the doorman at the guild.
Instead you had to sneak in, leave your perfume all through my room—when you never wear it normally—and slip the letter under my pillow."

"Maybe it was to prove to myself that I could, hmm?"

"Or," his voice lowered to a growl, heat flashing through his pretty blue eyes, "maybe it was because you knew how much it would provoke me."

"Maybe," she admitted, sipping her Scotch.
"Provoking you
does
get me all hot and bothered."

Those blue eyes glittered and he smiled as he took the empty glass from her and sat it aside.
"Two," he continued, as he slid closer to her, "you could barely take your eyes off me before, when you walked in here unannounced."

"You
are
pretty to look at."

All sharp cheekbones, hard, lean body, and dangerous grace.

"Three"—his mouth brushed against her ear—"you wouldn't be keeping me at bay half as much if some part of you didn't crave me."