Mission: Improper: London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy (22 page)

Then they were both sprinting up the curved stairs.

A blur of maggot-white shot into view behind him as he circled upwards.

Byrnes shoved Charlie in the back and launched after him, fists pumping at his sides as he sprinted for the rail that they'd climbed over.
The ropes still hung there.
He snatched a glance over his shoulder as they reached the edge of the spiral staircase, and saw that rocketing white blur hot on his heels.
Byrnes ran faster, leaping up onto the railing and then launching his body out into air, reaching desperately for the rope.

The second he caught it, momentum carried him forward as a whisper of movement swept past his boots.
A high-pitched scream of thwarted rage echoed up as the vampire fell below, vanishing into the circular depths of the tower.
It landed on the bloodied floor of the pit and scrambled to its feet to stare up at him like a cat watching a ribbon dangle above it.

"So a fall won’t kill it."
Byrnes swung back the way he'd come, glancing behind to make sure it had only been one vampire.
He yanked hard on the harness to signal Ingrid to haul them up, the bullet wound ripping through his shoulder as though the movement tore his battered flesh further.

"That was close," Charlie breathed hoarsely as the harnesses began to retract, dragging them higher.

"Closer than comfortable," Byrnes agreed, his heartbeat still racing.
A figure was forming in the shadows, a hooded blue blood stepping to the edge of the rail he and Charlie had just vacated.

"We meet again," the woman called, turning her face up to the moonlight as her hood fell back just enough to reveal a smooth oval face framed by silvery hair.
She watched as he and Charlie jerked higher.

Ulbricht's mistress.

And she was smiling faintly at him as if his appearance here pleased her.

"
H
ERE
," INGRID SAID, handing him a flask as she pushed him back onto the bed in his room at Baker Street.
"Drink this."

Blood.
Byrnes set the flask to his mouth as she sat beside him.
Charlie had driven them home from the pits, taken one look at the murderous expression on Ingrid's face, and said he'd tell Malloryn what they'd seen.
Byrnes hadn't had a reason to argue.
His arm hurt, despite the raging chill of the craving virus, and he was fairly certain that the bullet was still inside him.

Besides, he wasn't going to argue with her either.
Not in this mood.

"What are you doing?"
he asked.
Ingrid tugged open his coat, unbuttoning it with crisp fingers.
Then he realized.
"It's just a scratch, Miller."

"I'll be the judge of that," she replied, pushing his coat off his shoulder and then gently touching the bloodied sleeve of his shirt.

Everything about her expression changed.
He didn't have an answer for what he saw on her face.
Stricken?
Perhaps stricken came closest.
"The wound's healed around the bullet," she said.
"I'm going to have to cut it out."

"Then do it."
Feeling somewhat adrift, Byrnes tilted his shoulder toward her.
Was this what had her so upset?
The fact that he was injured?
It didn't make any sense, as she knew he was a blue blood.
"I've had worse."

“I’m certain you have.”

“This is—”

“Byrnes.
Please be quiet.”

She was frighteningly proficient as she wielded the scalpel with a skill and grace that told him she'd done this before.
Byrnes ground his teeth together as he breathed through the extraction.
The bullet pinged as it landed in the tray.

It was as she cleaned the wound that her hesitancy came through.
Byrnes watched her expressive face the entire time.
When was the last time that someone had tended to him like this?
He honestly couldn't remember.
Perhaps his mother, bracing skinned knees.
Or pressing cold meat to his face to still the heated echo of his father's fist.

That soured his thoughts.
Instantly he was back there, slamming into the door in his father's study, too small, too weak, too pathetic to strike back.

Byrnes turned away from the memories, forcing them into that little locked box in his mind where he could pretend they didn't exist.
He felt ill, as he always did when he thought of the viscount, but controlling it was easy.
Lock it away.
Lock it up tight.
Don't ever let it out.

The guilt was not so easy to hide.

"Am I hurting you?"
Ingrid's voice helped draw him into the present.
She gently wound clean linen around the gauze that she'd packed over his wound.
A chill told him that the craving virus was flooding back into the inflamed skin.
By the end of an hour, there wouldn't even be a scratch.

Which made this a complete and utter waste of her time.

He said nothing though, because he quite liked those warm hands on his skin.
"You're not hurting me."

The tension that had radiated through her shoulders seemed to ebb.

"Were you fretting?"
he teased, then instantly wished he hadn't.
Dark lashes fluttered down over her gorgeous eyes, but she couldn't hide how upset she looked in that moment.
The bottom of his stomach dropped, much like it had when he rappelled down through the core of the staircase.

Because the answer was yes.
And he didn't know what to do about it.

"Ingrid," he said hesitantly.
"I'm incredibly difficult to kill.
It’s fine.”

"I wasn't there," she growled, throwing the small scalpel aside and pressing her hands to her thighs.
"And all I could hear was gunfire, then you and Charlie come bursting out, pushing at me to run and blathering about vampires, and you're bleeding, and you wouldn't let me see to it in the carriage—" She pressed her curled fists into her eyes, turning away from him.

It was the most extraordinary thing.
Byrnes stared at her bowed back, thinking through a response.
The most immediate one was another jest, but she was genuinely upset.

Nobody had ever been upset about his injuries before.
Nobody had ever cared enough.
There was a strange feeling in his chest, like a lump.
Perhaps of coal, since he didn't have a heart.
"Ingrid," he said, sliding down the bed toward her and cupping her arms from behind.

"Don't hold this against me," she growled, bowing her head lower.
"I'm verwulfen.
I can't help feeling this way, this—"

"Upset?"

"It doesn't mean anything," she pointed out.

Byrnes turned her around, holding out his arm.
"See...."
The scent of blood had vanished.
"Just a scratch.
Almost gone already, though I'll thank you for your ministrations.
And I wouldn't hold anything against you.
I like it when you get angry."
Reaching out, he cupped her face in his palm.
"I like the fact that you care enough about me to grow agitated when I'm injured—"

"Byrnes—"

"You care.
Don't lie.
It's written all over your face."

That didn't soothe the savage
wild
he saw in her eyes.
Ingrid was close to the edge tonight, and one push would rouse her fierce verwulfen nature.
Sliding his hands down her arms to soothe her, he instinctively kissed the tip of her nose.
"After all, how could you not?
How could you resist me?”

Ingrid couldn’t fight the faint tug of her lips upwards.
“I’m glad that someone thinks you’re wonderful.
Too bad it’s only you.”

He rubbed her arms, laughing under his breath.
“You think I’m wonderful.
Admit it, Ingrid.
You wouldn’t be in here fussing over me if you didn’t.”

“Arrogant fool.”
She set her hand to his chest.
“And you like me fussing.”

True.
He smiled and tugged on a lock of her hair, which only earned him a swat with her hand.

“Ouch,” he said, drawing his arm against his chest.

Instantly she was all contrition.
“Oh, I’m sorry!
Did I hurt you?
Did I—”

He used the moment to capture her in his arms, dragging her half into his lap.
“Yes, you did hurt me.
Kiss it better?”

That earned him a narrow-eyed look, but she didn’t push him away this time.
Instead her fingers toyed with his collar and she glanced down.
“I never thought you’d have this side to you,” she admitted.

“Roguish?”

“Playful.”

That made him thoughtful.
He nibbled on her fingertips.
This was more than pleasant.
Seeing her eyes light up verwulfen bronze made his blood sing through his veins.
Teasing her had begun to feel like the highlight of his day.
But he wasn’t about to admit that.
“You should see me in bed,” he told her instead.

Ingrid sighed.
“You’re the most frustrating man I know.”

“That's unlikely to—"

The kiss took him by surprise.
Her fists curled in his open shirt and her soft lips brushed his.
Byrnes had missed the minute change in her expression that preceded this.
He stilled, letting her draw back, and tasting the soft wash of her breath on his sensitized lips.

“Sorry,” she whispered, glancing up at him from beneath those dark lashes with a teasing glow in her eyes.

“Liar.
You’re not sorry at all.”
Byrnes brushed his mouth against her cheek, nuzzling closer to her lips.
“You do realize that’s not going to end there.”

He felt her smile.
“Isn’t it?
Maybe I don’t want it to.”

For too long he’d been kept at arm’s length, determined to be patient and outwait her.
No more.
Byrnes slid his hand up to caress her nape and drew her mouth to his.
She tasted both sweet and sinful, her mouth opening to his as he deepened the kiss.
The first lash of her tongue felt like it stroked along his cock.
Byrnes slid his spare hand up her thigh, his fingers sinking in a little harshly as he fought to contain himself.
Christ.
His body ignited as Ingrid slid fully into his lap, straddling him.
The kiss became hungrier.
Deeper.
Possessive.
And it was moving in a clear direction.

Maybe I don’t want it to?

The game slipped away, the challenge, the conquest....
He was surprised by how much he wanted this.
Her.
Just her.
Hands hesitating on her hips, he drew back at the thought.

"I haven't been drinking tonight," she reminded him in a soft voice, as if she thought that the reason he'd withdrawn.

Well, now.
He swallowed, every wicked little thought that had sprung into mind at the Garden of Eden echoing loudly in his head.
He knew what she was offering.
Everything.
It lingered in her heated gaze, in the gentle way she traced the half-open collar of his shirt.
Ingrid knew exactly what she wanted, and she was determined to get it.

And again he hesitated.
What was wrong with him?
There was a nervous pit in his abdomen, instinct whispering through him like it sometimes did when he knew he was in danger.
But there was no danger here.
Only Ingrid, with the candlelight turning her skin to molten gold, her natural perfume hovering in the air like a smoky lure and the shadows growing deeper, darker....

No danger.
But he felt like he hovered on the edge of taking a momentous step forward, and he wasn’t certain what that meant.

"You want me to tup you," he said, and his cock jerked at the words.
As far as his body was concerned, it was all in.
Who could blame him?
Ingrid was absolutely gorgeous; all Amazon legs, generous breasts, and muscular litheness.
A Valkyrie in human form.
And all his...

"Maybe I'll tup
you
," she whispered, a palm pressing against his chest as he slid back on the bed, and she rose over him.

"What about our challenge?"

She kissed the words from his lips, her fingers trailing down his shirt and stroking the hard flex of his abdomen.
"Maybe I changed my mind?"

He couldn't fight it anymore.
His mouth took hers, hard and demanding.
His fingers were in her hair, gently tugging the honey-gold locks from their braid and tangling the soft strands over her shoulders.
He wanted to pause, to drink in the sensation of her hair against his skin, but Ingrid had him by the lapels.
She muscled him back against the wall.
The bronze ring around her pupils was heating, stealing through the hazel of her eyes, as if the berserker fury roused within her.
Then she was nipping at his throat, tearing at the buttons there as if to get at his skin.
Byrnes tilted his head back, one hand sliding through her hair and cupping her nape.

Sweet heaven.
It had been an age since she'd been in his arms.
Too long.
Far too long.

He gave himself over wholly to her, and Ingrid yanked his shirt from his leather breeches.
It was as if a dam had broken somewhere inside her.

And he liked it.

"Yes?
Or no?"
she whispered.

"Maybe," he breathed, to toy with her.

Firm hands pushed him down flat onto the bed and then a pair of hard-toned thighs straddled him.
His back hit the pillows, her knees sliding deep into the coverlet on either side of his hips.

He certainly wasn't going to fight it.
Byrnes curled a possessive hand around her hip, resting it on her arse.
Their eyes met, and then she fisted both hands in the center of his shirt, and tore it clean up the middle.

"I'll buy you a new one," she whispered, a heated flash of her eyes sweeping over him before she leaned down and kissed the side of his throat.
Her touch was ravenous as she slid his shirt off his shoulders, licking at his neck and then suckling hard.