by Bec McMaster
Byrnes eased onto the edge of her mattress, clasping his hands carefully in his lap. "I've gone above and beyond to prove that you and I meant nothing, and it turns out I've been lying to myself all along." He hesitated. "I missed you during this last year, Ingrid. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And I said some stupid things about getting you into my bed and burning you out of my memory, but the truth is... I don't think I could ever forget you. You're one hell of a woman. And I don't know where this road will take us, or whether I can be what you want, but I do know that I want to explore that option."
“I wish you’d make up your mind,” she whispered.
“It is made up.” This time, there was no misjudging the expression on his face. “I am going to pursue you, Ingrid Miller, with the intention of never letting you go. So fair warning….”
Words died in her throat. This was supposed to be a chase, a game. Byrnes wasn’t the sort of man that one started daydreaming about the future with. Except… that seemed to be his intention now.
"I understand that you weren’t expecting this. Perhaps you don’t feel the same way that I do. I don’t know. We need to talk about this," Byrnes said, leaning in to kiss her gently, his hands cupping her face in a way that made her heart leap in her chest. "But this is not really a wonderful time, and I think you need some time to think. You keep making these incoherent noises." He grinned suddenly. "I'll take them to mean that you're flummoxed by my abrupt turnabout and not disgusted at all. Just know this: It's no longer about winning your body, Ingrid. When I finish these challenges, I intend to win your heart."
Withdrawing gently, he stood and stepped away. "Rest and heal, so you can join me as soon as possible. Kincaid's not nearly as pretty as you are."
And, after dropping that shocking statement upon her, he turned and left the room.
* * *
LOCKING AWAY ALL of the doubts he felt about Ingrid and whether she felt even remotely the same way he did, Byrnes amused himself by toying with Kincaid.
"So you're saying that there's not a single positive outcome associated with a man turning into a blue blood?" he asked. "Just to make your statement clear."
Kincaid shrugged. "I don't know, bloodsucker. Is there?"
Stalking across the rooftop, Byrnes paused at the edge, then leapt down twelve feet to the next rooftop and looked up. "Well come on, then. We haven't got all night."
Kincaid examined the drop, then swung himself over the gutter and used his arm strength to lower himself a respectable distance before he dropped onto the roof at Byrnes's side. "Still can't see a benefit."
Byrnes examined his pocket watch. "I can. It's called efficiency. I should have brought Charlie. We'd be nearly there by now. You're slowing me down. And we have a vampire’s trail to pick up."
"Malloryn's got him doing something."
"What?"
"How the hell should I know? I'm not his secretary."
“I’m faster than you,” Byrnes pointed out. “I’m stronger than you. I heal from practically anything. And let’s just say that when it comes to the ladies, I can go all night too.”
"That's got nothing to do with being a bloodsucker," Kincaid spat back.
Byrnes grinned at him.
"So, I heard the chemicals in a blue blood's saliva can bring a woman to the edge of ecstasy," Kincaid said, casting him a sidelong glance.
"Your point?" Byrnes asked. "I assume you're not complimenting me."
"My point is, a real man don't need no chemical enhancements to satisfy a woman."
"Don't worry. It's not the chemicals in my saliva that leaves my women satisfied. Jealous?" Byrnes arched a brow.
"Is that why Ingrid's been casting big eyes at you—?"
Byrnes stopped in his tracks, his easy languor fading off him as if it had never been there. The hunger within him surged, shocking violence suddenly rising to the fore, and he realized that a part of it was due to his lingering uncertainty about what Ingrid’s answer would be. "A blue blood can also kill you in a second and bury the body so deep that nobody will ever find it. And if you even breathe her name again," his voice dropped to a growl, "in a manner indicating anything less than utter respect, then I will take a lot longer to kill you than a second. I will make it last for days."
"You know... I were starting to wonder how deep you buried it. You're more in control than most of your kind, but it's still there, isn't it?" Kincaid stepped closer, eye-to-eye. "You're still ruled by it, itching to smear my blood all across this roof, ain't you?"
Itching to tear your throat out, at least. The pulse in his throat hammered. Kill him, whispered his inner darkness, his inner predator—the part of him that belonged in the shadows.
"No matter how deeply you think you've got that monster buried, it's still there, and one day it will hold the leash, not you."
Byrnes took a deep breath and swallowed it all. It was like flicking off a switch, like facing his father again and burying all of that rage, that fierce hissing need to kill deep within him.
"You have no idea," he told Kincaid, "how much I want to kill you right now. But the problem is, you're wrong. I am not and never have been ruled by the craving. I am also not very much of a gentleman, but in this instance, you crossed a line in mentioning her name."
Drawing his arm back, he punched Kincaid hard in the face before the man could even see it coming.
"Fuckin' hell!" Kincaid bellowed, clapping a hand to his nose and staggering.
Byrnes tugged his handkerchief from within his pocket. "No, I might have the hunger inside me, and the urge to make you little more than a smear on these tiles, but you're the one who can't handle your hate. Handkerchief?"
Kincaid pinched the bridge of his nose and tilted his head back. "Shove that up your a—"
"Stop your whining. I didn't break it. No matter how tempting it was. And you shouldn't bleed so enticingly in front of me." Byrnes smiled a nasty smile. "Who knows? I might lose control. I might let all of that big, dark hunger inside me overwhelm me, and then leap at you."
Kincaid wiped his sleeve across his face. "Anyone ever told you that you're a prick?"
"Frequently. Can you not see the tears of remorse in my eyes?"
Kincaid muttered something under his breath.
"See, if you were a blue blood, you would have seen that coming," Byrnes pointed out brightly, and stalked off backwards into the fog, watching his adversary just in case Kincaid decided to do something rash.
Kincaid muttered curses, wiping at the blood trickling from his nose.
"So," Byrnes continued, "what happened to you?"
"I'm fairly certain you punched me in the face," Kincaid growled.
"No, not that." Byrnes looked at the burly mech. "People don't just suddenly decide to hate an entire species. Something happened, something to do with a blue blood in your past. What was it? Did one of them kill your mother? Or a sister? Or a father? Drain all of the residents in your neighborhood?" He paused. "Steal your woman?"
"Go to hell."
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear that...?" He cupped a hand to his ear.
Kincaid glared at him. "You son of a bitch. It was my sister.”
They both stared at each other.
"They took her," Kincaid continued, in a slower, quieter voice. "The Echelon lords. Took Agatha right off the streets and used her at one of their parties as some kind of bloodwhore for the night. Three days later she killed herself, because of those men. I was the one who found her hanging.
"And every time I look at you," Kincaid said, staring into Byrnes's eyes. "I see those men. Those monsters. And I see Aggie, staring sightlessly at the sky. Forever." He wiped at his bloodied nose. "That's what you are to me. But that's also why I'll work with Malloryn, because I remember what it was like before the revolution. I don't ever want to see my people, my friends, go back to that."
Silence fell. Byrnes actually felt a worm of guilt twist deep inside him. "I'm sorry," he said. He spread his arms wide.
"Occasionally I can be an asshole. You get one free hit."
"What?"
"You mentioned my woman," he replied, "and I didn't like your tone. Now I've brought up your sister, and I was less than respectful too."
Kincaid mulled it over for all of a second, then swung. The full metal crunch of his mech fist slammed into Byrnes’s nose. Byrnes fell onto the roof clutching at his face as pain speared through him.
"Bastard," he breathed, trying to blink through the ringing in his head. "Little bleeding pissant. You could have used your human hand."
"Leech," Kincaid replied, giving him an evil grin—and offering his hand for Byrnes to help himself to his feet. "What are you whining about? You're not even bleeding. And I'm only a poor weak human. I'm not as strong as you. Or as fast. Or as adept at healing. I can't even jump off a twelve-foot roof without risking a broken leg."
Byrnes tested his teeth as he grabbed Kincaid's hand and hauled himself to his feet. "Okay. Maybe I deserved that."
"Maybe?"
"That's as humble as I can be," Byrnes replied. He itched to touch his swollen nose, but wasn't about to give Kincaid the satisfaction.
Kincaid grunted under his breath. "Look, I'll deny this to my dying breath, and I still don't like you very much, but..." He looked pained. "You aren't entirely as bad as the rest of your breed."
"Did that hurt?"
Kincaid merely shook his head and walked on. "Smug bastard."
Byrnes laughed, but as he breathed in he got a trace amount of scent that slid through his chest like a stiletto. Instantly he turned, staring into the night, trying to smell the air. That scent came again, like sweet rot fresh out of a graveyard.
Byrnes shoved his hand out, slamming it into Kincaid's sternum. Kincaid grabbed his wrist, as if thinking it an attack, but Byrnes hushed him.
"What?" the mech murmured.
"Can't you smell that?" Then he realized. "No, of course you can't. I barely can, thanks to you."
"What is it?" Kincaid's nostrils flared.
Byrnes turned in a slow circle, examining the foggy rooftops. They'd been using them to hunt for the vampire's scent trail that Charlie and Kincaid had lost earlier. "You remember that thing we were hunting? Well, I think... we're not the hunters anymore."
A pistol clicked in Kincaid's hand. "Shit." Sweat sprang up along the man's temples. "Are you sure it's not the trail?"
"Not unless it's a fresh one."
A pale shape skittered out of the corner of his eye. Byrnes unholstered his own pistol and tracked the darkness, the sensation of a trickle of icy-cold fingers trailing down his spine. Kincaid's back met his. Both of them barely breathed.
Another sound whispered through the night, like claws scrambling on a roof. To the left. Byrnes swung that way, pistol raised, his eyes tracking the darkness. Kincaid was a wall of warmth at his back. A ghost whispered through the night to the right. Dashing close enough to be seen, then darting out of reach.
"They're playing with us," Byrnes breathed. Sweet Jesus.
"They?"
"Two of them, I think." Something else was moving out there, something that wasn't as albino pale as the vampires. "Why the hell aren't they attacking?"
"I don't like any of this," Kincaid muttered. "Vampires not going on a killing spree is unnatural."
"For once we're in agreement." He'd never thought he'd see the day where he wished for something uncomplicated like a vampire slaughtering its way through the population. But this made his skin itch. It wasn't right. It went against all of the natural laws. What if they'd... evolved somehow to start thinking like predators, rather than indiscriminate killing machines?
They'd be unstoppable.
A vampire's only weakness was its lack of rational thinking. The only way to get close enough to one to kill it was by waiting until it was so glutted on blood that it didn't see you coming.
A flute sounded.
And that's when the first vampire slunk out of the fog to pant at him, it's filmy eyes blank with blindness and its monstrously long claws skittering on the tiles. It hissed as it heard his sharp intake of breath and paced back and forth, looking hungrily at him, even if it couldn't see him. Byrnes lined it up in his sights, swallowing hard, but movement to his right made him hesitate and glance that way.
To where a tall, pale-haired woman stepped out of the shadows, outlined by moonlight.
"You," Byrnes said, lowering the pistol but not easing his guard one inch.
"Me," said Ulbricht's mistress, with a smile as sweet as a knife’s edge.
TWENTY-FOUR
"WELL, IF YOU were a blue blood," Byrnes said to Kincaid, taking a stealthy step backward. "You might be able to survive the ensuing encounter. Me? I don't like my odds. Not against two vampires. You however, have no odds. Unless I take pity on you and decide to protect you."
"Do you ever bloody shut up? And nobody asked you for protection." Kincaid punched his mech fist against his thigh and a knife slammed through the gauntlet of steel that he wore as his hand. "I can watch my own back."
Ulbricht's mistress glided toward them, one hand patting the vampire's head at her side whilst its thin leash trailed up to a gold band around her wrist. Long silvery-white hair draped over one bare shoulder. It wasn't the coarse whiteness of age, but a spill of moonlight silk. A tight black corset spanned a narrow waist, with chains and a holster hanging stylishly from it. Everything about her was sleek. Even her black velvet skirts, which were embroidered in gold with a kraken by the look of it.
"How the hell do you move in that?" Byrnes asked. Their only chance of survival lay in getting her to start talking and keeping those vampires on their leashes. Kincaid's shoulder pressed against his own. Despite his words, the fellow's heart rate pounded like a train's engine fresh into the station.
The woman's leg thrust out through a well-designed slit in her skirts, revealing trim stockinged calves and heeled boots. The side lunge held traces of the martial art, batitsu, in it. He'd barely seen the movement, it had been so swift.
This was going to hurt.
"Christ," Kincaid said under his breath, his gaze locking on that leg.
Byrnes's smile held no humor. "Some vipers are pretty. Doesn't mean you take them to your breast."
As if he'd just graced her with the most delicious compliment, the woman's smile curved higher as she slowly undid the leash around her wrist and dropped it. "Oh, I do like you." Then she turned to the nearest vampire, and hissed, "Stay."
Just smashing. There was a hint of insanity in those pretty blue eyes.
"May I have a name?" Byrnes asked, settling into a defensive stance as his gaze flickered between her and the now untethered vampires. "Or do I just refer to you as Madame Viper?"
"You may call me Zero, although once upon a time I was Annabelle Underwood." Her smile was dreamy. "I like this better. Much better. Nobody rips Zero's heart out of her chest—not like Annabelle's. Care for a dance, Caleb Byrnes?"
She knew who he was. His eyes narrowed to thin slits. "Is that why you're here?"
"No. I'm here to discover if you're worthy or not. You killed one of my vampires. Nobody's ever managed that before."
Worthy of what? But he thought it through. "You were watching. At the grotto."
Her smile sent tremors down her spine. "I could have killed you then and there but you caught my eye. I decided to spare your life so that I could learn more about you."
"Like what?"
"This—"
He barely saw her coming. The first kick took him in the shoulder as he twisted out of the way, and Byrnes stepped under her guard, slamming both hands flat against her chest. Zero staggered a step, then a knee drove directly for his balls.
Byrnes twisted, taking her knee to his thigh, barely managing to disengage. Hell. He winced as he put all his weight on that leg and felt that hard knot in his upper thigh.
Kincaid's fists were raised, but he hovered there, a constipated look on his face.
"What the
hell are you hesitating for?" Byrnes yelled, ducking beneath a swinging kick.
Kincaid danced out of the way, his jaw tightening. "I don't hit girls."
Zero laughed, then spun and kicked Kincaid in the face. The second the kick landed, she jerked her knee back, and kicked him again in the throat. Bang, bang. The work of a second.
Kincaid went down. And stayed there.
Zero sneered. "Pathetic humans."
This was why he liked working with Ingrid. She wouldn't have hesitated. And now it was two vampires and one whatever-she-was against him. Smashing odds.
Launching forward, she lashed out with her other foot, and he caught it, locking her boot against his upper arm and clapping his other hand on her thigh. Zero's eyes widened as he spun, using a twist of her ankle to take her to the roof. They both went down, and he used his weight and his elbow to slam her back into the tiles before he disengaged and danced to his feet. The second she rolled onto her fingertips and knees, she launched toward him. Byrnes leapt lightly in the air, hammering a punch into her solar plexus the moment she came after him.
"Well, you're no gentleman." Zero pouted. Then tried to kick his feet out from under him.
"Take it as a compliment. Gentlemen get their throats ripped out in my world." If he let her get close enough to him, she'd take him down and make it hurt. That fall hadn't even winded her.
Another feint. Punches landed in a flurry of pain along his arms as he deflected them, and Byrnes used her momentum to head butt her. Zero staggered back, and for the first time in his life, Byrnes hesitated instead of going after her. She was dangerously faster than he was, and if that last punch was anything to go by, stronger. He might have years of training on his side—that was the only reason he suspected he was still on his feet—but something about the way she moved told him that she'd outlast him.
"What are you?" His breath came hard, and he lowered his hands a fraction, inviting her to talk.
Zero wiped her nose, sneering at him. "Haven't you worked it out yet? I'm the butterfly, you're just a caterpillar."
"I've been called worse." Bastard sprang to mind. Or weak. He'd hated that as a child, especially considering it came from his father's lips.
