Royal Blood The Complete Collection

by Amity Cross

“What are you doing?” I asked, wondering if she was having a complete mental breakdown. The one we’d been trying our best to avoid.

  “You have to help me,” she said, brandishing the knife.

  “Help you with what?” I asked, watching as she picked up the man’s limp arm. When she began hacking at his flesh, my mouth dropped open.

  “We need to get rid of the body,” she said as if she was taking a stroll in the park. “I have a vat of acid in the shed.”

  She was going to hack the guy up and dissolve the pieces in acid? When did she get acid? That was fucked up even for me.

  “Lorelei,” I murmured as the sickly stench of blood filled the air. “Stop. Look at what you’re doing.”

  “I don’t need to stop,” she said like I was mad. “I can’t leave any traces behind.”

  “And we won’t, but you don’t have to go this far. We’re safe here. We can take our time.”

  She ignored me and turned to the rack of tools against the wall. Dropping the knife, it clattered onto the concrete, and she selected a pair of hedge clippers.

  Realizing she was stuck in some kind of psychosis, I stepped forward and grabbed the shears.

  “Stop,” I hissed, wrenching them from her grasp. “Come back, Lorelei. Don’t let them win.”

  Her gaze met mine, and she blinked once before staring at Ballinger’s corpse. Slowly, her expression crumpled, and I knew awareness was flooding back into her mind.

  “Oh God,” she whispered. Holding up her hands, she stared at the blood that coated her skin, tears beginning to collect in her eyes. “Oh God.”

  I set the shears on the bench and held my arms open. “Come.”

  She sank against me, a sob bursting forth. “I didn’t… I didn’t…”

  “Shh,” I murmured, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “Let’s get you inside and cleaned up, okay?”

  “But—” she complained.

  “Leave it to me,” I said, glancing back at the corpse. “Don’t think about it. I’ll take care of it all.”

  “You won’t leave a trace?”

  I frowned as she buried her face against my chest and breathed deeply. “Not a speck.”

  Guiding her into the house, I took her upstairs and ran a hot bath, tipping some sweet-smelling soap underneath the tap. Lorelei stood and watched me with a vacant expression, allowing me to strip her of her bloodstained clothing without complaint. She didn’t utter a word, and I feared she was either going into shock or retreating into her own mind where I would have no chance of drawing her out again.

  When the bath was ready, I helped her step into the tub, and she sank into the water, the clear liquid instantly tingeing red. Rolling up my sleeves, I retrieved a face washer and scrubbed her skin.

  “Vaughn?” she whispered.

  I paused. “Yeah?”

  Her hands emerged from the water and gripped the sides of the bath, her knuckles turning white. “My father was right.”

  Instantly, my skin prickled with a coldness that was akin to uncontrollable rage. My jaw tightened, but I didn’t say anything. I just resumed my gentle movements, caressing the blood off her skin.

  “Ballinger was one of them,” she whispered, her voice sounding oddly disembodied.

  Understanding her reaction when saving that girl at the bus stop and then again in the shed, I just nodded and cupped her face, dabbing the damp cloth against her cheek. The man who’d caused her pain was dead, but it was only one of them. There was still the greatest asshole of them all, and we would get him, no matter how long it took. Until then, Lorelei came first.

  Coaxing her from the bath, I helped her out and wrapped a towel around her body, drying the water from her etched skin. I took in the details of her tattoos, picking out each little symbol entwined into the larger patterns.

  “What do they mean?” I asked, trying to keep her mind from withdrawing into the nightmare that had been brought to the surface.

  “Protection,” she said, her eyes drooping.

  Deciding not to press her further, I discarded the towel and pulled the plug out of the tub. The water drained away, taking the stain of Ballinger’s blood with it.

  In the bedroom, I pulled one of my T-shirts over her head and bade her to climb into bed and under the covers. Changing out of my own stained clothes, I slid in beside her, and her hands instantly found their way around my waist and held on tight.

  It didn’t feel right to delight in the fact that she wanted me even though it was what I wanted from the beginning. Instead, I let her cling to me and take comfort in my presence, the notion of triumph never entering my mind.

  “me,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “me,” she said again. “The code word to get to Lafayette.”

  So she’d gotten something out of Ballinger after all. Something more than painful memories and revenge.

  “Shh,” I murmured. “We’ll deal with that later.”

  I lay with her until she fell asleep, her chest delicately rising and falling as she descended into restfulness.

  Sliding out of bed, I covered her with the blankets, placing a soft kiss against her forehead. Oh, Lorelei.

  Shuffling downstairs, I retrieved the burner phone, debating the decision I knew I had to make to try to save her from complete and utter madness.

  Bringing the phone to life, I contacted Hawkes and commanded him to set up a line of communication with X.

  There was nothing else I could do.

  Chapter 19

  X

  Peering out the greasy window of the shithole hotel room Mercy and I had rented in South London, I contemplated the conversation I’d had with Hawkes hours before.

  Truthfully, I’d been surprised I was able to contact him at all considering the plight of his employer and his back from the dead assassin.

  “When I said to call Hawkes, I didn’t realize it would be so easy,” Mercy declared from behind me. “I didn’t know you had him saved as a favorite.”

  Turning, I raised my eyebrows at her quip. “I didn’t expect it to be so easy either, but after Bristol…” I shrugged.

  “I know,” she said. “I was just expecting a little more resistance. Or a little more silence.”

  “It is what it is, Mercy. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Yeah, yeah. So we just have to wait?” she asked.

  I crossed the tiny room in two steps and sat on the bed beside her. She had the laptop resting on her knees, scrolling through news websites looking for clues.

  “He’ll get in touch with Vaughn, relay my message, and if they want our help, then they’ll ask for it.”

  “That’s not very proactive.”

  “It’s called trust, Mercy,” I scolded her. “When you’re in the wind like they are, it’s all they want.”

  “I have been ‘in the wind’,” she said, air quoting. “When you met me, I was blowing a gale.”

  “Then you should understand and have a little patience.”

  “You know that’s my greatest weakness,” she said, smirking at me. “I want everything now.”

  I ran my hand through her hair. “That I know.”

  “I still can’t believe you told him everything,” she said, leaning into my palm. “About Section Seven, your past…”

  “I couldn’t be duplicitous about it,” I replied, stroking my thumb over the burn scar on her cheek. “Not if we want to convince everyone involved that Vaughn and Lorelei being assets is the best course of action. That kind of work needs one hundred percent trust. There’s no room for error, or they will just disappear at the first sign of a double-cross.”

  “You’re so smart,” she said dreamily.

  Dropping my hand, I rolled my eyes. “There’s no need to butter me up, Mercy.”

  Laughing, she turned her attention back to the computer, leaving me to wonder at her ability to laugh and make jokes in the middle of a mission. I wouldn’t necessarily call Vaughn a friend, but he’d been an all
y in the past when I’d had nowhere else to turn for assistance. That had to count for something. And Hawkes? He was part of the overall package by default.

  “We’ve got a hit,” Mercy exclaimed, breaking my thought pattern in half. “Attempted kidnapping this morning in Brixton. Fifteen-year-old school kid waiting at a bus stop reported she was attacked by a man. He tried to drag her away, but allegedly, she was saved by a man and a woman who told her to run.”

  “Is there a description?”

  “The man had blond hair, and the woman had short, curly brown hair and apparently, beat the shit out of the kidnapper.”

  I sighed, knowing where this was going.

  “You have to admit that Lorelei and Vaughn have something to do with this now,” Mercy said, rolling her eyes. “I know it’s not irrefutable proof, but it’s too coincidental. It happened like five blocks away from here. This, we have to take on faith.”

  “Faith is a hard pill to swallow,” I said blandly.

  “Think about it, X. Attempted kidnapping, the description of the Good Samaritans… The man must’ve been someone working for Lafayette.” She shuddered and closed the laptop. “Acquiring goods.”

  “And what would we gain by looking into this story?” I asked. “The kid is underage so her name is off the record. Trying to get security footage is a bust without Section Seven resources…unless you know a hacker, who might want a few spare bucks. Even if we tag the Samaritans as Vaughn and Lorelei, then what? I can’t see how we can track them from there.”

  “Any lead is a good lead when we’ve got shit all,” she snapped.

  “I know all the tricks, Mercy,” I said. “If they had a car, it’d have fake plates. If—”

  “I get it,” she interrupted, thoroughly pissed off. “We have to wait for Hawkes.”

  “I don’t like it either, but we’re backed into a corner. Yes, it could be them. Gardener operated out of this area, which would indicate the intel he gave Lorelei had something to do with operations in Brixton and surrounds. Still, tracking the incident this morning will only have us running in circles.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “So you’re a man who trusts now?”

  I turned my gaze away from hers, her barb hitting me with an accuracy that made my resolve waver. The life I’d led with Royal Blood as a cold, unfeeling killer made me a monster that never trusted a soul apart from my handler. Remembering the last time I’d seen Weiss, I narrowed my eyes. There was only one way that story was going to end and that was with a bullet between his eyes. I’d like to say I’d reveled in killing the man, but he’d had my back over the years. It was twisted, but there had been a sliver of regret in my actions.

  “It’s logical,” I murmured, falling back on old habits.

  Mercy shifted next to me, sliding her body over my lap until she straddled me. Her hands cupped my face, and her lips brushed against mine.

  “Don’t pull that hitman bullshit on me,” she whispered, letting me know she’d sensed the change in my demeanor. “The past is done. Over.”

  Grasping her thighs, I stood and flipped her back onto the mattress, which squeaked loudly. Covering her body with mine, I kissed the crook of her neck.

  “Now this is a good way to pass the time,” she said through a heavy sigh, her hands finding their way underneath my clothes to caress my back.

  Ignoring her, I felt my cock begin to stir and began moving against her slowly, my lips traveling along her skin until I found her mouth. Her tongue met mine, and she kissed me greedily, her taste overwhelming my senses as it always did. Mercy Reid could be a smart-mouthed piece of work—she knew all the buttons to press to piss me the fuck off—but she held my heart, and I held hers. She was the only person in the world I would allow to talk to me the way she did. I wouldn’t entertain it, not even from Mei or the director of Section Seven himself.

  Tearing my lips from hers, I shoved her top up and yanked her bra down, trussing up her perfect tits. I sucked her right nipple into my mouth and rolled my tongue over the hard bud. She moaned and arched her back off the mattress—forcing herself against me—begging for the sharp sting of my teeth against her flesh.

  Just as I was about to give myself over to nothing but the sensation of fucking my one true love, the burner phone began to ring shrilly.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, my cock feeling tight in my jeans.

  “You better get that,” Mercy said breathlessly, still working her crotch against mine.

  Rolling off her, I grabbed the burner phone and answered it, my cock throbbing in protest. “Yes?”

  “X.”

  “Vaughn?” My cock suddenly went soft.

  “You sound surprised,” he replied.

  I glanced at Mercy, who’d sat up and was fixing her bra and top. “You sound strung out.”

  “I hate to admit it, but I’m at an impasse,” came his tired voice.

  “Really? I hear you’ve been quite busy.”

  “So have you. Hawkes tells me you and Mercy have been moonlighting for MI6.”

  “Well,” I began. “We’re off book with the off book right now.”

  Vaughn scoffed, “Didn’t take you long to piss off the powers that be, huh?”

  I rolled my eyes, sensing that nothing much had changed where he was concerned. The man was always fishing for a bite.

  “Let’s cut to the chase, Vaughn. We both have a common goal, and we can get there a lot faster and efficiently if we’re on the same team.”

  For a long moment there was nothing but silence on the other end of the line. “I’ve got a problem. Well, not so much a problem as an issue…”

  “They’re the same thing,” I retorted.

  “I hate to say this,” he said, ignoring my smartass comment. “But… I need your help.”

  I hesitated at the morose tone in his voice. He hadn’t mentioned Lorelei yet, and knowing how he’d held a torch for the woman since she’d supposedly died, it was slightly worrying.

  “It’s Lorelei.”

  She was like me. Conditioned to be a killer for her father, Greggor, until the moment a crack had appeared in her mind. A crack that I suspected was widening out of her control…which was the only thing that had prompted The Hangman to contact me.

  I could be a smug bastard about it, knowing her mental instability had given us an in to their operation tracking Lafayette, or I could use the heart I’d grown and offer to help the woman Vaughn loved.

  “She’s not coping,” I said, my gaze meeting Mercy’s.

  “Her behavior is becoming more erratic every day. The memories her father took from her… Fuck, it’s bad, X. I don’t know if I can help her.”

  Mercy moved to sit next to me and laid her hand on my thigh.

  “Tell me more,” I said.

  “First, she wanted to take over Royal Blood, and then she wanted to track Lafayette. That was until she stopped a kidnapping in broad daylight.”

  “A kidnapping?” I asked, glancing at Mercy who was leaning forward, listening to the conversation with interest. If she could hear Vaughn on the other end, she didn’t mention it—like I’d keep her out of the loop, anyway. Knowing I had to admit to her that she was right about the news report once I’d hung up, I narrowed my eyes.

  “She was tracking a man she believed was selling women to Lafayette,” Vaughn went on. “She turned out to be right, but then she foiled his attempt at taking a kid. A fucking kid, X. Not more than fifteen.”

  “Sounds like a win-win situation to me,” I said, not getting where this was going.

  “For the kid, yeah. Not for her. She got a lead out of him, but he triggered a memory in her, and she just… She snapped and butchered him, X. There was fucking blood and body parts everywhere. Then she wanted me to help her hack the body up and dissolve the pieces in acid. That’s fucked up even for me. Fuck, even for you.”

  “Thanks,” I drawled.

  “You know what it’s like,” he pleaded. “She’s…”

  I wanted to say goi
ng insane, but that wouldn’t help anyone. I’d come apart a little more gently in the early days, and I’d had Mercy from day one. She wasn’t from my past, she was from my future, and I suspected that was the issue with Lorelei. Vaughn represented a past she didn’t remember or necessarily want. Most of all, he represented the life she’d lost.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “I’ll help you with Lorelei if you allow Mercy and I to help track Lafayette.”

  “How is that a good thing for me?” he asked. “Lorelei wants to question him, and then give the fucker the slow death he deserves. You want to bag him alive. It’s not going to work.”

  “So you assume,” I retorted. “What do you want, Vaughn?”

  “I want to give Lorelei her every desire.”

  Of course he did. He was devoted to her even in death, so why should now be any different?

  “I don’t see you having much choice,” I went on. “I came out of my conditioning in once piece and as sane as any man in our line of work could hope to be. I can help her find her way, and so can Mercy. Lafayette’s life is a matter still open for discussion. Either you’re in or you’re out.”

  “Cut to the chase, why don’t you,” he drawled.

  “As I see it, you have limited time…for both problems.”

  I waited as Vaughn mulled over my offer. There was no way he’d say no, not when he’d already resorted to contacting me. He couldn’t handle Lorelei’s changing mind on his own, and it would be too much of a risk to keep trying when he was failing. Losing her twice wouldn’t be an option.

  “All right,” he said. “But if you try to pull anything X, I’ll kill Mercy first.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “We’re in Devonshire,” he snapped. “You should come immediately or not at all.”

  The line disconnected, and I let the phone fall into my lap.

  “Did you have to be such an asshole?” Mercy asked.

  “I’ve dealt with Vaughn on and off for years,” I said to her. “You know how he works from when he helped us get into France and that bullshit with Weiss. How could you expect anything more than that?”

  “The way he spoke to Lorelei,” she said as the phone beeped with a text message. “In Bristol, she came to our cell, and he convinced her to help us escape, and he said—”