by Bec McMaster
Malloryn's smile was chilling. "I spent the next ten years searching for a way to destroy him."
"Did you succeed?"
"Oh, yes." Malloryn's tone could have frozen an entire sea. "I ruined his every scheme. I destroyed his puppet prince consort, burned his little kingdom to the ground, set his tower ablaze, and then I cut his throat from ear to ear the night the revolution occurred. He managed to escape at the time, but I found his body later in the yard with a bullet to the chest. I wanted to burn his corpse, but the queen insisted he be buried. She wanted Lord Balfour to rot instead, and it seemed fitting."
This was why Malloryn joined the revolution to bring the prince consort undone, and restore human rights to England? "You're a dangerous man."
"I can be." Malloryn relaxed back into his chair. "As Ulbricht and his friends discovered. I have no intention of seeing London destroyed after I sacrificed years of my life to build it."
"What happened to the serum? The SOG?"
"It seems we entered the wrong factory. Ulbricht and the SOG set three of them to blow, and they planned on blaming the humanists. The remaining two factories are in perfect working order. If one doesn't consider the fact all the blood was poisoned."
Kincaid scraped his hands over his face. "So they blame the humanists, and set off a war, and with so little blood remaining, everyone rushes to get what's left."
"That was the plan, yes." Malloryn sighed. "And of course, the only blue bloods who keep enough thralls to feed themselves—and therefore don't require the blood—are the Echelon. Some of them might have died, but it was a risk Ulbricht seemed content to take. I must have pissed him off last month."
"It's your winning charm," Kincaid muttered.
Malloryn barked a laugh. "Perhaps. Ulbricht used to fawn at Balfour's feet, so I was never his favorite person. I wish I'd gotten a chance to question him before he died, to ask him why he suddenly decided to launch this foolish scheme to destroy London. What stirred him up after three years of kissing the queen's hand and pretending he was on board with her plans?"
"That's the problem with dead enemies. You can't question them afterwards," Kincaid replied sleepily. "If I had my time again, I'd have tried not to shoot him for you."
"No matter." Malloryn shrugged and stood, his shadow falling over the bed. "I just wish I knew where those bloody dhampir were now. They can't have just vanished, and I suspect they're up to something. Hurry up and get better. Now we've got Byrnes and Ingrid back, I want all hands on deck. Ulbricht and his Sons of Gilead have been vanquished, but now we need to work on the real mission: discovering just who has been pulling the strings behind the SOG and the dhampir. The mastermind behind all of this nonsense."
"Sounds good." Kincaid yawned. "But you'd better get me a new hand first."
Epilogue
"WHAT HAVE YOU got to tell me?" the Master asked.
Obsidian bent his head as he knelt upon the rotted timber floor, and stared at the hem of the Master's velvet robe. It was so bloody cold and dank in here, and he hated it, but the subterfuge was necessary for the next stage of the Master's plans. If anyone found them before they could complete phase two, then everything would be ruined.
And he did not want to be the one to tell the Master or Ghost their little plan had been destroyed.
"Everything's going according to plan," Ghost replied, tugging off his gloves, finger by finger. The tall dhampir was ghostly pale in the dark confines of Undertown, faint light highlighting the stark slope of his cheekbones. "The clinical trials of the control chip work. We can move forward with that plan once our pet mech's created enough of them."
"Casualties?"
"It has a success rate of 50 percent."
"Hmm," the Master murmured.
"We can't get close to the queen, as expected," Obsidian stated emotionlessly. "We've been testing the defenses of the Ivory Tower, and it's too tight."
"You'll figure it out, I assume?"
"Yes, Master," they both echoed.
"We just need time," Ghost added. "Ulbricht's little scheme has been a distraction, as we cleaned up after him."
"It was actually rather clever, for Ulbricht," the Master replied. "Poisoning the Echelon's entire drinking supply. Imagine the uproar."
Obsidian froze. Sometimes it felt like the man was testing them. He shouldn't have known that.
"It failed," Ghost said. "And now Malloryn knows what the caterpillar mushroom does. His little company interrupted Ulbricht halfway through completion, and Ulbricht tried to detonate the charges with them inside the factory. Malloryn had brought the Nighthawks in on the scheme, and they managed to capture the remaining Sons of Gilead before they could destroy the other factories."
"So only one factory burned? Obsidian?" the Master demanded.
Obsidian couldn't tell if the Master was displeased. "Yes."
"You watched and did nothing?"
A frisson of alarm went along his nerves. Obsidian looked up, meeting Ghost's eyes where the leader of the dhampir stood on the underground train platform at the Master's side. "As instructed, Master," Obsidian replied. "I was told not to interfere. Not to be sighted. We wanted to know what Ulbricht was up to, now he was off Zero's leash."
He held his breath. Ghost brooked no challenges to his leadership, and any infringement was punished cruelly—but the Master... he'd saved them, and brought them together. They owed him everything.
"And Ulbricht?" the Master continued. "Where is he now?"
"Dead. Malloryn must have killed him."
"Any witnesses?"
"The Nighthawks got their hands on a couple of SOG members. I killed a few with the serum when they tried to flee."
"The serum worked?"
"Within minutes," he replied, and then hesitated.
"What is it?" Ghost asked. He never could fool that bastard.
Obsidian swallowed. "There was one anomaly. Corbyn died in the assassination attempt upon Miss McLaren, but to all extents she seems to have survived an injection of the serum."
They looked at each other.
"All of the blue blood test subjects have died," Ghost said slowly. "How did she survive?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Yet," Ghost said, and it wasn't a question.
"Yet," he conceded.
"So Ulbricht failed, and the Sons of Gilead are dead, my lord," Ghost continued. "Most of their higher-ranking members were killed in the explosion, and the rest captured by the Nighthawks."
"It's not important," the Master stated. "Ulbricht was a puppet, and his loss means little to the cause. What is important is blue bloods are being killed all across London—at the hands of humans and mechs. The aristocrats of the Echelon are running scared, and bleating to the queen and the Council of Dukes that the people want them dead. Three of their precious draining factories have been burned, and they'll blame the humans for it. The humanists have clashed with the Nighthawks in a catastrophic manner. London's ripe for dissent. Now is the time to divide the classes. I want war in the streets."
"The Nighthawks are claiming blue bloods were involved with the draining factory explosion. It's all through the papers, my lord," Obsidian said.
Ghost cut him a sharp glance. They'd agreed not to mention that.
The Master's lips thinned. "Malloryn's doing, no doubt. He's starting to truly irritate me."
"I could deal with him," Ghost offered. "Slowly."
"No." The word was hard and emphatic. "Malloryn must be the last to die. I want to take everything away from him first: his precious queen; the city he loves and fought to protect; I want to destroy his ancestral home; to kill every single person around him, including all the agents he's surrounded himself with...."
Obsidian watched as the man paused. He recognized hate when he saw it—the same emotion bound him to the past.
"Then what do you want us to do? This draining factory scheme was a defeat. Malloryn won, despite Ulbricht's maverick plans. That can't be tolerated, despite t
he desire for secrecy while we enact the next phase of the plan," Ghost argued.
Obsidian waited breathlessly.
"It's not a complete loss. The blue bloods are running scared. Spread some whispers the Nighthawks are covering up the truth about the explosions. Paint a few humanist symbols around the site, or on one of the remaining factories." The Master paused, rubbing at the blackened scar across his throat he usually hid. Its edge was puckered, and it looked as though it had never truly healed. "And then kill one of Malloryn's little company as punishment for ruining my little scheme with Ulbricht. One of the women."
"Which one should we kill?" Ghost asked.
"What do they look like?"
Obsidian and Ghost exchanged glances. "Why?" Obsidian chanced.
"I want to send Malloryn a message," the Master said. "I want to remind him of the past, and let him start to wonder who he's dealing with." He laughed suddenly, a rusty noise, as though this was a great joke.
Obsidian had spent the most time observing Malloryn's Company of Rogues. "Miss McLaren is a blonde with a slim build; Isabella Rouchard has dark hair and voluptuous curves; Ingrid Byrnes has brown hair, amber eyes, and an Amazonian figure typical of her verwulfen race; and... the woman who calls herself Gemma Townsend has dyed black hair."
And an even blacker heart.
Pale eyes seared him as the Master clearly heard something in Obsidian's voice he hadn't been aware of. "Gemma Townsend?"
The name echoed through the abandoned underground train station.
"Hollis Beechworth," Obsidian stated coldly, hiding a flinch. His fist clenched. Not her. He wasn't done with her yet. "Emma Rusden. Alice Clayton. Or Gemma Townsend, as she goes by now. She's been Malloryn's right hand for years."
"The spy in Malloryn's party in Saint Petersburg seven years ago," Ghost added quietly, and both he and the master exchanged a significant look.
"Black hair," the Master repeated, reaching into his pocket. "Her. She's the one. The perfect candidate. Have her killed. Put her in a white gown, like something a debutante—or a thrall—would wear. Then shoot her straight through the heart. And leave her on Malloryn's doorstep."
Obsidian's chest tightened, as though a metal fist gripped his heart. No. Blood began to rush through his ears as the darker half of him rose to the surface, picturing her death.
Violence rose in his throat, threatening to choke him. A demanding rage he fought, locking it down deep inside him. He could almost feel the electric lash of the whip across his back, the leather gag between his teeth as Ghost put him through his conditioning after he'd failed to kill her the first time.
"Do you still love her?" Ghost had asked, as Obsidian fought to breathe around the gag. Ghost held up the electric wire. "Do you have any feelings for that lying little bitch still within you?"
No. He'd shaken his head. And that no had echoed in the place his heart used to lie. Before she ripped it out of his chest.
Ghost straightened. "Yes, Lord Balfour. I'll get one of the new recruits to do it. Perhaps Langley. He needs to prove he's ready to be initiated into the Brotherhood."
Langley was a dead man. Obsidian kept all signs of it off his face, however.
The Master removed his hand from his pocket, fingering something with a certain kind of careful grace. He stared at it for a long moment, as though it meant something to him. Then his lips thinned, and he thrust the thing at Ghost. "And have him put this around her neck."
"A locket?" Ghost sounded surprised.
"Malloryn will know who it belongs to." The Master finally smiled. "Make sure you watch when he finds the locket. I want you to describe the look on his face to me, in perfect, exquisite detail."
"And you, my lord?" Ghost dared to ask, the words echoing distantly in Obsidian's ears.
Control it, he told himself, staying utterly still.
The Master swung a fur-lined cape over his shoulders, the sable color highlighting the gray in his coppery hair. "I'm going to take care of the Russian problem. You have a month until I return. Initiate phase two of our plan. I'll expect to see the blood splashed all across Europe's newspapers."
"Yes, my lord," they both echoed, though only Obsidian felt the crushing heat of fury ignite in his heart as Lord Balfour vanished through the blackened tunnels of Undertown.
Gemma's death belonged to him.
And no one else.
Is that why you saved her life last month when Ghost sent one of the recruits to kill her?
He pushed to his feet. He'd had his chance then to repay the debt she owed.
It was just the shock of seeing her again that stayed my hand.
The sight of her pale, heart-shaped face as she lay unconscious and bleeding had thrust him years into the past, when she'd whispered love words in his ears and almost swayed him to her side. Gemma—or Hollis, as he'd known her—had been the one person who'd threatened the foundation upon which he'd placed his trust, and made him question exactly who he owed his loyalty to.
Just another of her pretty lies.
But he'd had time to think past the shock of seeing her. Time to reassess what she meant to him, and the damage she'd done him.
Next time... next time it wouldn't be as difficult.
But first, he had to keep her alive long enough to exact his revenge.
Skoro moya yadovitaya lyubov....
Soon.
###
BEFORE YOU LEAVE LONDON…
Dear Reader,
If you enjoyed The Mech Who Loved Me, then get ready for You Only Love Twice! Book three in the The Blue Blood Conspiracy series, it features Gemma and Obsidian, and deals with a second-chance at love for two very broken people.
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Thank you again. I hope we meet again between the pages of another book!
Cheers,
Bec McMaster
P.S Not ready to leave London? Read on for a preview of what's next for Obsidian and Gemma in You Only Love Twice…
YOU ONLY LOVE TWICE
With the clock ticking down, the Company of Rogues must find a deadly killer and stop them from assassinating the Queen... before London burns.
Gemma Townsend failed her mission once, and knows love is a weakness she can never afford again. When offered a chance at redemption, the seductive spy is determined to complete her assigned task: to track down a dangerous assassin known as the Chameleon, a mysterious killer whose identity seems to constantly change. As her investigation leads Gemma into a trap, she's rescued by a shadowy figure she thought was dead—the double agent who stole her heart five years ago, before he put a bullet in her chest.
Born in fire. Brainwashed. Betrayed.
A man with few memories thanks to the harsh conditioning he was put through, all Obsidian knows is that Gemma betrayed him, and he wants revenge. But one kiss ignites the unextinguished passion between them, and he can't bring himself to kill her. As they find themselves on opposite sides of a war, they must question everything they believed to be true. Because it soon becomes clear someone is lying and the Chameleon might be closer than either of them realized. Can Obsidian break the ties of his allegiance? Before his only chance at redemption—and love—is lost forever?
###
EXCERPT
Gemma took a breath. "Hullo?" she called, taking a cautious step forward. "Curse you, I know you're there."
Silence.
The museum remained still and musty around her. This w
as where she'd first felt Dmitri's ghost; the day a mysterious pale man stabbed her, and she'd expected to die.
She hadn't died.
Instead, she'd woken up with her wound already pink and healing, and her craving virus levels skyrocketing in her blood.
Something happened to her that day at the museum. And she needed to find out what.
The faintest shift of leather on the marble floors caught her ear. Gemma froze. She'd thought she was imagining things, but that was definitely the sound of someone else here.
"You healed me," she whispered, turning in slow circles, hunting for him. "I should have died but I didn't, and I couldn't understand why..."
A listening sense of silence this time.
"I want to see you," she suddenly demanded, her voice ringing out loud and sharp. Gemma stepped forward, her fists clenched. "Damn you, show yourself!"
Movement shifted out of the corner of her eye. She spun around, her skirts whisking against her ankles.
Something sharp bit into her neck. Gemma slapped a hand there, feeling the tiny dart that stuck out of her skin.
A man stepped out of the shadows. Gemma's breath caught in her throat as he took a step toward the light. First his shoe appeared, and then his slacks, and then hands gloved in black leather.
Broad shoulders. Pale, moonshine hair that brushed against his collar. And that breath-taking, oh-so-familiar face. A face that mimicked those she'd once seen on a painting of Lucifer's fall.
"Dmitri," she breathed, heat flooding from her extremities and centering in on her heart, like some sort of protective mechanism. Her body was stiffening up, her legs losing all feeling. Hemlock. He'd used hemlock on her.
Everything flashed before her eyes. St. Petersburg. Dancing under gilded lights. The taste of his mouth the first time she kissed him, her gloved hands sliding over his roughened cheeks. The shock of the bullet ripping through her chest, and the icy plunge she'd taken into the river that literally stole her breath.
