Mission: Improper: London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy (43 page)

And half tempted to take advantage of the situation.

Ingrid made a purring sound deep in her throat as she dragged her nails down his abdomen.
"This reminds me of a promise I made, once upon a time, that went unfulfilled."

"You fulfilled your promise to the letter," he breathed, heat filling his expression.
"And I'd love to take you up on that offer, but I think"—he squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in deep—"that we'd be best to stick to something less overwhelming."

Instantly she eased back onto her chair.
"Lust is a consuming thought?"

"Anything primal," he admitted, with a faint mocking smile.
"I'm holding on to the thought that when I finally get a hold on this, I get to have you all to myself.
I'm planning everything that I'm going to do to you.
In exquisite detail."
He swallowed again.

"I'd best make sure that the house is empty when that happens," she teased, but only lightly.

"And perhaps reinforce the bed."

"Well now."
Ingrid smiled.

"Read to me?"
he whispered, turning that all-black gaze on her one more time.

Ingrid took a deep breath.
"What would you like to hear?"

"
Pride and Prejudice
," he said, then shrugged when he saw her eyebrows arch.
"What?
It's my mother's favorite."

"And of course, you don't see anything of Mr.
Darcy in yourself?"

"Are you calling me proud?"

Ingrid laughed, then pressed a kiss to his forehead before she went in search of the book.
"It's one of your most frustrating traits, yes.
But Byrnes," she paused in the doorway with a flirtatious smile, "I still love you, despite it."

L
ove you
.

Byrnes breathed in the words, feeling them flood through him, a light to sway the darkness.
Ingrid didn't know how close to the edge he still was, but everything she'd said gave him hope—a means to fight this.

He'd spent years in perfect control of his craving virus and his emotions.
He could win this battle.
And he would.

Because he had one hell of a prize waiting for him when he did.

"Seven weeks," he whispered, as a promise to himself.
"You can do this."

Because her love was worth the fight.

Z
ero strained
at the manacles binding her, feeling them give, just slightly.
Malloryn might have her trapped in this godforsaken little dungeon, but if he thought steel could keep her here, then he had another think coming.

The first thing I'm going to do is kill that cold bastard
, she told herself as she felt the steel link stretching on the chain that pinned her right hand.
Perhaps I'll even make him eat his own tongue?

Footsteps whispered in the hallway outside.
Zero looked up, holding still.

A key rattled in the lock, and a chill ran through her, taking her back years and years to that first asylum.
Zero fought to remain calm.
Everyone who'd ever hurt her was dead.
Malloryn didn't scare her.
And she was Zero now, not Annabelle.
She was prepared for anything.
No doubt it was merely Malloryn, that smug bastard, back to question her or to gloat some more.

"I'm not telling you anything else!"
she snarled.

And then the door opened and a figure stepped inside, easing it closed behind him.

Zero's resistance faded as she caught a glimpse of that moonlight-pale hair, her shoulders slumping into the seat.
"It's about bloody time.
I thought you were never going to come."

"Have you told them anything?"

Zero paused.
"Of course not."

But she knew he'd caught the pause.

Obsidian stepped closer, tugging off his gloves, one finger at a time.
His face remained implacable.
"I'm not telling you anything...
else," he repeated.
"Which means you told them something."

A mistake.
Oh, hell.
Zero wrestled with her chains.
"I meant...
Caleb Byrnes.
That bastard tricked me.
I thought I had him captured and I
might
have mentioned one or two things about
dhampir
, but nothing else.
I swear it, Obsidian!"

Thick blond lashes obscured his eyes.
"You mentioned nothing about the Master?"

If she could have sweated, she was certain she'd be doing so right now.
"Of course not!
Do you think I'm stupid!
If Malloryn gets even a hint of what this is all about—"

A single slashing hand stopped her.
"Good.
The Master is not happy.
You've made one mess too many, Annabelle.
You were warned to follow your orders and not draw too many eyes to the moves behind the scenes, but thanks to your arrogance, Malloryn is now aware of things he shouldn't know yet.
You got sloppy."

"Don't call me that," she whispered, suddenly furious.
"Annabelle is dead!"

And then he looked at her, just looked, and she knew why he was really here.
There would be no chance to talk her way out of this.
The Master had been her judge and jury, and now Obsidian was here as his executioner.
"You treacherous—"

A hand clapped over her mouth and Zero sank her teeth into the flesh there.
Then heat exploded behind her eyes, and her head rang.

"I'm sorry.
This is not something I wish to do," he whispered, withdrawing a small syringe from his inner pocket as she struggled to blink through the dizziness of his blow.
"But you have done this yourself.
You were warned, damn you.
Warned to keep yourself under control."

She tugged her face aside from his controlling hand, just for a second.
"No!
No," she whispered, kicking and scrambling to break free.
"You bloody little lapdog!
Did you kiss his feet when he demanded this of you?
Do you think that he won't d-do the same...
to you—"

The needle slid into her throat and icy cold spilled into her veins.
Zero jerked.
"No!
N-no, please...."
She was suddenly frightened.
She didn't want this to end.
She didn't want to be alone.
Not again.

"I'm sorry," Obsidian said.
"But there is no other way."
He moved to step back from her.

"D-don't...
leave...
me," she managed to gurgle as pain lit her nerves on fire.
"Please...."
Her eyes rolled up in her head as her feet and body began to jerk uncontrollably.

A moment passed, as if he hesitated.
Then a pair of strong arms went around her, and for the first time in a long time, Annabelle felt like she wasn't alone.
She jerked as fire flooded through her chest, narrowing in on her heart.

"Shush," Obsidian whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple and ruffling her hair.
"It will be over soon.
And I won't leave you until it's done.
The same way that I wouldn't leave you back then.
I'm sorry."

It lasted minutes.
It felt like hours.
And through it all, Obsidian rocked her, even when she began to weep tears of blood.

And then the fire exploded in her chest.

G
emma paused
in the doorway to her room, feeling a breeze slip over her skin.
Just that, but it was enough for her to draw the small pistol at her side.

"Hullo?"
she called, pressing her back to the wall and waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

The last time she'd left her bedchamber, the window had been closed.

Now the sash was lifted and her curtains fluttered in the slight breeze.
Gemma swept the room, but there was nobody there.

"Maybe I left it open after all," she murmured, then frowned.
She was fairly certain she hadn't.

Instinct drove her back out into the hallway.
Slipping quietly through the house, Gemma made her rounds.
She was being silly.
There was nothing here.
Just—

The door to Zero's cell was cracked open an inch.
All of the hairs on Gemma's arms lifted, and a chill ran down her spine.
Maybe she wasn't imagining things, after all?
She sidled closer, her gaze raking the darkness, and her heart suddenly thundering to a crescendo.
And then she eased open the cell door with a steady hand and stepped inside, her pistol swinging to track each shadow.

Only one shadow remained in the room.
Zero, slumped silently in the chair and chains where they'd put her.

"Are you awake?"
Gemma whispered as she crossed the room, though she was fairly certain that she knew the answer to that.

Zero didn't move.
No breath lifted her chest.
Gemma swallowed and tilted the woman's head up.

Black blood dripped from her eyes and her ears.
Her skin looked like a thousand small bruises had erupted, as though her capillaries had burst in a hundred places.

Gemma staggered backward, trembling badly.

What was the first rule of espionage?
Leave no comrades behind.
Sometimes that was due to the fact that in dangerous cases, you only ever had each other to watch your backs.
The more sinister reason was so that your enemy couldn't use them for information.

A floorboard creaked behind her.

She spun, the pistol tracking...
nothing.
There was nothing there.
But as she swallowed, she was fairly certain that there had been.

"Who are you?"
she whispered.

For there was but the faintest scent left behind in the air, a peculiar sweetness that she'd only smelled one time before.

In the museum, when someone killed her attacker.

T
HE BLOOD WAS
sweet as Byrnes stared out through the window in Malloryn's study, watching rain drip down the windows of the new house that they'd moved to the second the old one became compromised.
Ingrid had sought their bed, but something was bothering him.
A weight upon his mind.

Now that he had it back.

The door opened and Malloryn strode in, scraping his wet hair back off his head.
The instant he realized that someone was in the study, his hand dipped, coming up with a knife.

"It's only me."

Malloryn's hard gaze flattened and he vanished the knife as swiftly as it had appeared.
"That's an easy way to get yourself killed.
All I saw was your bloody pale hair.
I thought it was one of the...
others.
What are you doing in here?"

"Waiting for you, actually."
Others.
Other
dhampir
.
Byrnes twitched a little.
The changes to his physique were coming swiftly.
He'd shaved off his hair the second the roots of it stared to grow in silvery, and his eyelashes were already lightening.
His hair was an inch long now, changing his appearance significantly.
Ingrid said it didn't bother her, but looking in the mirror was like looking at a different man.

And maybe that wasn't all bad.
He no longer saw his father, at least.
Perhaps this could be a fresh start?
A rebirth?

Even if the weight of the hunger remained constant and his moods more mercurial.

"There's something that bothers me."
He couldn't stop his gaze from sliding to the wrapped package under Malloryn's arm.
"Light reading before bed, your Grace?"

"The Cremorne diaries," Malloryn said, holding the book-shaped package aloft.
"Ava's finished with it, now that your treatments are well on the way."
Those mercurial eyes examined Byrnes.
"What is it you wished to speak of?"

"Ulbricht's gone to ground, and Zero is dead," he said.
"Someone broke into the house and killed her.
And you haven't found them yet."

Malloryn sidled around the desk, looking thoughtful.
"Yes.
I'm assuming it was one of her
dhampir
brethren.
What surprises me is that I didn't wake up with a slit throat.
Or not wake up, as it were."

"Maybe they're not finished with you yet," Byrnes suggested.
"Zero said they wanted revenge upon you for the revolution, and if I were planning revenge, I wouldn't want it to be too easy.
I'd want you to suffer."

"Remind me not to get on your bad side."

Byrnes smiled.
"One could say the same, your Grace.
Though it would be interesting to see who wins."

Malloryn poured himself a glass of blud-wein and then topped up Byrnes's.
They chinked their glasses together.
"If we went to war against each other, it would be...
bloody.
And you're not that type of man.
Neither of us likes disorder, or mess.
And sometimes the mystery of not knowing the answer is more intriguing than the knowing."

"Besides, if you won, you'd have a furious verwulfen breathing down your neck."

"There is that," Malloryn conceded with the faintest hint of amusement.
"So enough games.
What's bothering you?"

"I've had a lot of time to think lately.
This whole thing," Byrnes said, "from the Sons of Gilead to Zero herself, was merely...
puppetry.
Zero's dead, her vampire stable burned, and the missing people were found, but I don't feel like this is a victory at all.
Ulbricht's still out there somewhere, with his Rising Sons.
There are at least four other
dhampir
; this Ghost, Sirius, Obsidian, and X.
It's a mess of threads, but none of it makes any sense."

"Yes.
One would almost think that someone was pulling all of the strings."
Malloryn lifted his own glass in a kind of wry salute, then tipped the glass to his lips.
"This 'master' that Zero spoke of."

That was when Byrnes realized that Malloryn didn't look shocked.
"You knew."

"I suspected."
Malloryn shrugged, and for a moment looked younger and weary as he stared at the desk surface, or perhaps beyond it.
"It's been clear to me for a while that someone is manipulating events."

"Who?"

"If I knew that"—Malloryn's eyebrow quirked—"then there wouldn't be a Company of Rogues."

"The others have settled on the name then?"

A touch of humor softened that hard mouth.
"They have.
Young Todd made an impassioned debate of it."
Malloryn stared at his blud-wein, then drained what was left of it.
"It's the first time in my life that I've ever been called a 'rogue.'"

"The boy means no offense."
Rogue blue bloods were, after all, the scum of the blue blood world.

"None taken.
I've never truly considered myself a part of the Echelon, or that world."

No, Malloryn had always been the puppet master, working behind the scenes for the queen.
"How
did
you ever form an alliance with Her Highness?
Or why?"
He'd been born into a world where he should have had it all.
Why would Malloryn give a damn about the working classes, or the way blue bloods had killed and slaughtered without repercussions?

Malloryn's smile died and his eyes glittered as he poured himself another drink.
"A long story, Byrnes.
And one not commonly shared."

Silence.
Byrnes didn't pretend to be affronted, even though his endless curiosity bit deep.
After all, where was the fun in simply being
told
the answer?
But that was for another day.
Something Malloryn had said bothered him.
"You knew that someone was behind it all.
That's why you set us on this course.
Not to find those people.
Not to hunt Zero or any of the others, but to flush out your true quarry.
After all, you could have used your spy network, or the Nighthawks.
But no...."
He thought it through.
"You wanted to set a trap for him—or her—a challenge.
To see if he'd take the bait and come after us."

Malloryn merely tipped his head to Byrnes.

"If we'd known that," he pointed out, "then we might have come at the answer quicker.
And you might have gotten some of us killed."

"I ask you to take no risks that I won't take myself," Malloryn pointed out.
"I don't have to be hands-on here."

Byrnes whistled under his breath.
"You
are
cold."

Malloryn leaned forward to refill his glass.
"Coming from you, that almost sounds like a compliment."

"Almost," Byrnes warned.
"I have a stake in this now."

"I don't intend any harm to come to any of the Rogues.
There are plans in place in case the danger gets out of hand."

"And there's no point in throwing away good operatives."

Malloryn looked a little unsettled at that.
He tapped his fingers on the desk.
"I have to be cold to survive this world.
I learned that in the womb."
He hesitated.
"The Rogues' usefulness isn't the only reason I would prefer you stay alive.
Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not
that
ruthless."

"You did try to shoot me in the tunnels below the asylum.
Twice."

"The first time I was protecting Gemma.
The second… well, you
were
about to try and rip off my head, I believe."

Touché.
Byrnes considered it, then let it go.
It was interesting to come up against a mind quite like his own.
"We're even.
But what are you going to do about this mastermind?"

"Nothing."
Malloryn slumped back in his chair, looking entirely relaxed.
"Except watch.
And wait."

"And discover if they will play their hand.
Very
good
, your Grace.
And you say you're not ruthless."

"'Not
that
ruthless,' was the precise term I used."

"Doing nothing might gain you a name in the end," he pointed out, "but it puts all of us at danger, and paints a rather large target on our backs.
You might not be pulling the trigger, but you might get us killed all the same."
Leaning forward, he pointedly set his glass down and stood.
"Maybe that is 'that ruthless.'"

Malloryn toyed with his glass, looking distant.
"Maybe it is."
He smiled sadly.

"Sometimes I have a hard time seeing it anymore.
Which means you should keep your mouth shut, and keep an eye on your fiancée."

"Fiancée?"
It was clear he was being dismissed, but that word still shocked him.

"If Ingrid doesn't belong to you, then she can be taken," Malloryn said, sleepy-eyed but no less dangerous.
"I assume that's the direction this matter is taking."

"It is, but not because I'm afraid to lose her.
Not like that."
Snagging his hat, Byrnes offered a respectful nod to the duke.
"The others are my friends too.
Ingrid's not the only one who means something to me.
And we should mean something to you too.
The way you're headed....
It's a difficult thing for a man to stand alone, and it turns you hard.
I should know.
I've been there.
You need someone to be your conscience, if nothing else."

"It seems I have you," the duke replied dryly.

"I'm not enough, and Lord knows my sense of boundaries is not exactly trustworthy sometimes.
If it cannot be one of us—for obvious reasons—then maybe you should look elsewhere."

"I have someone to warm my bed."

"I'm not just talking about your bed.
The reason Ingrid and I work so well together is because she's not afraid to tell me the truth whenever I cross the line."
Byrnes crossed slowly to the door.
"Think about it, at least."

"Byrnes"—the duke settled that glittering gaze on him—"there are more than enough females in my life trying to tell me what to do."

Sensing that he'd pushed far enough, Byrnes opened the door and smiled.
"You mean Miss Hamilton?"

Malloryn shook his head.
"Go play with Ingrid.
My relationship with Miss Hamilton is none of your business.
And you're starting to sound like your new romantic entanglements have warped your brain."

"It's everybody's business," Byrnes countered, holding onto the doorknob.
"Haven't you heard?
This
is
a company of spies, after all.
Gemma's running a betting pool on whether you're going to get the bride to the altar, or whether one of you will cry off first or kill each other."

"Byrnes, you're a menace."
Malloryn sounded disgusted.
"And it sounds like none of you are busy enough.
I can fix that."

"You don't even know who I'm backing," Byrnes protested.

Something was lobbed at the door—the crumpled piece of paper off the desk.
Byrnes slammed the door shut just before the paper hit, laughing to himself as he hurried along the corridor.

Malloryn had one thing right: going to play with Ingrid was precisely the destination he had in mind.