by D. D. Miers
Distracted by the sweet taste of champagne on her tongue, Emma hadn’t heard the approaching steps bringing someone new to her side.
“I suppose congratulations are in order.”
She shifted sharply toward the unfamiliar masculine voice, nearly sending champagne sloshing over the rim of her slender glass. When her eyes connected with the roguish glimmer of Callom’s, she knew he was trouble.
“Are you offering them, then?” she asked uncouthly.
Warm laughter slipped from his lips, which both infuriated her and quirked her mouth slightly upward.
“I could, if you so wish, but I couldn’t help but notice from even across the room that you have appeared uncomfortable every step of the way.”
The admission made Emma freeze, if only because she’d worked tirelessly at masking her general disdain for societal pleasantries. How easily he could see through her illusions, was worrisome. She’d need to try harder.
With pursed lips, she looked over the crowd, forcing him to remain at her side rather than directly in front of her. “And you seemed rather pleased with yourself and have apparently forgotten your manners in introductions.”
“Ah.” He grinned too devilishly for her liking. “My apologies. Callom Sm . . . S, at your service. I did quite a lot of traveling before finally setting root here in New York, so my pleasantries aren’t completely in order.”
Emma huffed out a laugh as she finally turned her attention toward him. It still wasn’t entirely proper for her to introduce herself, but it would be foolish to find someone to do it for her. “Emma Clearwater, a pleasure, I’m sure,” she said with a shallow curtsy.
“Soon to be Emma Milton, no doubt.”
Emma stilled. It was one thing to agree to marry and another entirely to hear one’s name changed because of it. “Yes, yes of course.”
“I was about to go out to the terrace for some fresh air,” Callom said. “Would you care to join me?”
From the corner of her eye, Emma regarded the man’s more neutral expression. Certainly waltzing off with him would be another faux pas in society’s eyes, but it would also be good to learn of the newcomer to New York, wouldn’t it? Frederick would understand.
With a glance to be certain her glass wasn’t empty yet, Emma nodded. “Fresh air would do me well.”
Outside. Emma gratefully inhaled the chilled evening air tinged with the sweet aroma of fresh roses. Over sweeping arbors and across swathes of lattice, the shy, red blooms were scattered, making the terrace appear more romantic than her own engagement party within.
“It seems I could have done without the peonies and just held the party out here,” she said as she returned to the comfort of her drink.
Callom’s chuckle sounded almost strained and wrinkled her brow wrinkled as she turned to face him. Something was awry, and she suddenly wondered if she hadn’t made a grave choice in following him outside.
“Are you certain you’re all right?” she asked.
His quiet laugh chilled her. “We’ll see how well I am after I tell you what I must.”
Emma’s grip on her glass tightened. “Excuse me?”
“Certainly you’ve heard of the Smythe name,” he said, stilling her breath and thoughts simultaneously. In slow motion her eyes connected with his, and it was then, as she stared into their depths that at first appeared a vibrant hue of brown, she realized they were tinged with more gold than normal.
He was a dragonborne.
One might expect a slayer to recognize the legendary dragonborne families immediately, but many of them had disappeared from the normal social circles. The last time a dragonborne and a slayer had come face to face was more than fifty years ago. The dragonborne kept to themselves and maintained their status through old money.
Emma swung her glass, spraying champagne across the deserted terrace as she aimed the hefty crystal piece straight for his head. Ducking out of the way, he barely missed her makeshift weapon, which slipped from her grip and sailed into a thousand pieces of shattered, glittering crystal.
Emma’s hand dropped, ready to rifle her revolver from the folds of her skirts when Callom grasped her arm, jerking her closer to him. Her chin tilted up, allowing her eyes to narrow darkly at his attempts to halt her when a feminine voice shattered her thoughts.
“Heavens!” One of her father’s friends, and now an old maid desperate for gossip, stuck her head out the door. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, just fine Ms. Knolles,” Emma said with a smile. “I tripped and this kind gentleman was on hand to make sure I did not fall entirely.”
“Well,” the woman gasped, “I should be glad he was there!” Her head vanished back inside for a moment to a calling voice before she looked back to Emma with a warmth in her eyes. “If you’re all right then dear, I must be off. Congratulations once more.”
“Thank you, Ms. Knolles.”
The moment the woman disappeared, Emma spun hard, snatching her arm from Callom’s annoyingly warm grip. “You have the gall to come here and announce to me that—”
“That we dragonborne had nothing to do with the death of your cousin.”
“Do not speak of Everett to me!”
With each sharpened barb she threw, she unknowingly drew herself closer toward the flame that was her mortal enemy. It was a terrible shame he was so attractive, and she chided herself for the lingering heat she felt on her arm from where he’d held her.
“Please, just let me explain,” he said.
With a flat expression she nodded. “You have one minute to speak and then you’ll leave one way or another. Do I make myself understood?”
He folded his firm arms across his chest. “I swear it when I tell you we did not kill Everett Brant. I’ve had my people searching for the true perpetrator ever since we heard the news. So far, we’ve a few leads, but I found no one to name as the guilty party. I can only tell you that someone wishes for the slayers and dragonborne to wage battle once more. We must ask ourselves, why?”
“And what of the assailant I chased off yesterday?” Emma asked haughtily.
“He was searching as well.”
“By looking in the window of my dear friend?” Emma was appalled.
“Look.” His hands flung up in defense. “I’ve no reason to know whom you may or may not trust, so we have been searching all avenues, including turncoats.”
Rage flooded Emma’s veins. How dare he show up at her engagement party uninvited and proceed to tell her one of her dearest friends could have been the villain?
“But there’s something else. Something you must know,” he said.
“And what is that, Mr. Smythe?”
“Someone is following you.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She’d know it, if it were true.
“I’m sure of it.”
“How?”
“Because.”
She waited. Even though his statements filled her belly with unease, taking the word of a dragonborne wasn’t something Emma could ever get accustomed to. Even Callom himself hesitated in his admission
“I saw them follow you the other night to Miss Hadley’s house.”
“Well, there you go!” Emma forced herself to lower her voice and calm herself. “The one following me is you. Now, leave, this very instant.”
He didn’t move an inch. “I wish to form an alliance.”
Callom Smythe was crazier than she imagined if he thought she—a slayer—would listen to his advice. Rather than allow him the dignity of exiting back inside through the front doors Emma shoved him hard toward the stone steps to lead him back to the street.
“I will never form an alliance with the likes of you,” she said.
Callom sighed as he strode a few steps down and turned back toward her. “Do watch your back, Miss Clearwater,” he said with a final bow before he hurried off, the tail of his coat trailing behind him in the heavy breeze.
For a long while Emma watched the corner around which he’d vanished
, wondering to herself what Henrietta would have made of such a scene. The Smythe’s weren’t simply dragonborne, they were royalty, and as far as she’d been made aware in her studies of her enemies, that man was a prince.
Long after Callom’s departure, Emma had mingled among the crowds inside, hollowly responding to conversation and laughing whenever appropriate. When she heard her father calling, she quickly excused herself and made her grand exit.
Never had she been more excited to deposit herself within her father’s old carriage. It jolted forward from the force of a couple of trustworthy horses. Seated across from him, she exhaled sharply, closed her eyes, and let her shoulders sag.
“It’s exhausting, isn’t it?” he teased.
She popped open one eye. “Society?”
“Being engaged.”
“Oh. Yes, quite.”
She struggled to push Callom and his offer from the depths of her mind. Part of her wondered whether her father would have some wise counsel on the matter, but she’d yet to gather up the courage to tell him at all.
Maybe he already knew.
The thought plagued her as the carriage bounced over rough cobblestone near the port and sweeping views of the sea. It would have made a lovely view, if not for the billowed smoke and the sadness of widespread poverty.
Quietly, Emma sighed. “Father, do you think it—”
A crash, loud as lightning, rattled the carriage’s side. Emma’s hands flung out to steady herself from the sudden rock before another crash hit. Her surprised scream mixed with the terrified cries of their horses as the carriage defied gravity and tilted over, upending Emma and her father in a mix of limbs and groans as they struggled to decipher which way was up.
“What’s happened?” he called out to the driver. The grimace on his face as he struggled to upright himself in the sideways carriage worried Emma greatly.
“Father, just stay here, let me check what’s going on.” Half of the carriage’s roof had split open, giving her a wide enough space to slip out with ease. Caution was her number one strategy as she fished into her skirts for her revolver, and a single click cocked her gun at the ready.
The street around them appeared deserted, and somehow in the mayhem the horses had come loose and run off. She was grateful they weren’t hurt, but the coincidence of their situation couldn’t be ignored.
Hesitance marked her steps as she rounded the overturned carriage and came face to face with a menacing snarl. The man was dressed formally, in a long tail coat, with a kerchief or perhaps a mask concealing most of his face. The most distracting of it all was the top hat upon his head. It ticked with a multitude of gears and whatever its purpose, Emma did not want to find out.
She swung up her revolver and aimed, popping off a shot as her attacker sidestepped quicker than she could blink. In his wake, he’d left a cloud of emerald dust, both mystifying and worrying. She heard her father cry out over the carriage’s wreckage just as a well-placed hand curled tight as iron around her upper arm.
“That,” she snapped, “is rude.”
She aimed again, the deafening shot sinking into the man’s shoulder and dropping him to his knees in momentary anguish. Emma lifted her heeled boot and kicked hard in the same spot she’d just left a bullet. He fell over with loud groans of agony as she raced to aid her father.
He’d barely made it out of the carriage and was now fending off another man dressed much the same. The attacker’s thick knife continually swung close to her father, while his walking cane was his last line of defense. Though her father had always been quite the champion, it had been years since he saw action. Emma knew his age had limited his strength to survive.
Emma took aim again, this time straight for the attacker’s head. Just as her finger tightened on the trigger, someone grabbed her from behind. Her feet lifted from the ground, leaving her flailing as the man in the geared hat relieved her of her revolver.
Fear iced her heart as she watched her father losing his strength. He couldn’t hold off much longer, and with one of her arms pinned hard behind her back and her other swinging frantically for a good hold, she was of no help.
With her one free hand, Emma tugged hurriedly at her thigh holster, knowing she’d hidden a small knife within. Silently she cursed the ridiculous layers as her father took a swipe to the cheek, drawing a thin line of blood across his skin.
A movement from the corner of her eye startled her. The dragonborne prince, Callom Smythe, sat perched upon the short-lying roof of a nearby shack with his eyes trained on her father.
“No!” Emma screamed as she finally found the knife and yanked it free with an audible tear of fabric. She plunged the knife backward into the man’s torso, soaking her hand in the thick of his blood just as Callom’s palms raised into the air and a burst of light flung forward.
Emma watched in horror as the ball of flame sailed straight toward her trapped and fatigued father. The dragonborne was a goddamned liar, and now she would pay for it with the life of the person she cared for most.
Chapter 4
Thomas’s eyes widened at the circle of magic hurtling toward him. He shoved hard against his aggressor but it was too late.
Emma’s scream pierced the air when the flame hit, and unbeknownst to her, she let loose the grip on her own knife. She’d nearly sunk to her knees in desperation when Callom’s voice cut through the air.
“Behind you!” he called out.
She barely had time to register he was attempting to aid her when she spun and found her own knife and gun both brandished in the hand of the man she’d already shot.
Well, this is a terrible turn of events.
She ducked under his haphazard swing before realizing he’d left one vital piece of himself vulnerable. Grabbing at the lapels of his coat, she brought her knee up hard and jammed him in the groin.
The man plummeted forward to his knees, nearly knocking her over in the process, as she snatched away her weapons and cracked him hard across the skull with the butt of her gun.
Emma scrambled over to her father’s side, relief filling her as she realized he was still alive and mostly uninjured. Down at his feet lay the ashes of a burned man, and in front of him stood another assailant. Every ounce of his strength focused on making certain he survived before Callom himself jumped in and halted the deadly man with one well-placed crack of his neck. The man slumped to the ground, leaving the trio standing there in silence.
“Thank you, but . . . who the hell are you?” asked Thomas.
Callom’s attention swiveled about the empty street for additional threats, before he turned back to address her and her father. “Callom Smythe, sir.”
In slow motion, Thomas’s lips turned to a snarl and though he was clearly outmatched, he lifted his cane in anger.
“No! Father, no.” Emma pushed his cane back toward the ground. “He just saved your life.”
“It’s a ruse, I’m sure of it,” Thomas grumpily said.
Emma wasn’t entirely certain he was wrong, but now at least she would listen to Callom. She owed him that much.
“I haven’t figured out the specifics,” Callom explained, “but these men, these things aren’t entirely human.” With nothing but burning embers remaining from the dwindling fire, Callom kicked at the man’s arm alerting Emma to a loud thud of metal.
This couldn’t be. “What is that? A metal man?”
“Some type of mechanized arm. I don’t know who or what precisely they are, but my soldiers have been tracking them for some days now. It may be coincidence, but they seem to be growing in number—and strength.”
Emma peered down and peeled his closed eyelid open. A shudder ran over her spine as she stared into the gaze of a dead man—or dead metal man. She wanted to examine firsthand what she swore had been eyes dark than obsidian and void of white. Now though, she could see that wasn’t the case at all. Unexpectedly, they faded before her very eyes into nothing more than a picture of pure, white snow.
Startled, she jumped back and stood beside her father, who leaned into her.
“There are rumors,” Callom said, “that these men are creations of those who desire a war.”
“Why should I ever believe you?” Thomas said.
Callom scoffed. “I just saved your life, did I not?”
“And your kind killed many of our ancestors.”
“And yours, mine,” the dragonborne prince said through gritted teeth. Both men stared each other down. “Look, we may not trust each other, but this is bigger than all of us. We need to work together. Otherwise, we play right into their hands.”
Laughter cackled from her father as he turned to leave his wrecked carriage behind. “It will be a cold day in hell when the Clearwaters work alongside the dragonborne. Come, Emma. Let us go home.”
“Of course.” She took her father’s arm.
There was no trying to convince her father otherwise when he so strongly believed a point. Though Emma believed Callom spoke was truth. He wanted to work together rather than pursue their long-held feud.
“More will come,” Callom called out. “More will come and they will kill us all given the chance.”
Emma caught his gaze over her shoulder. A lump formed in her throat. One of them or both of them would die if nothing was done. She was sure of it.
For three nights in a row, Emma attempted to change her father’s mind. They’d been attacked and Callom had clearly come to their rescue. Not only had he saved Thomas, but he slayed two of the metal men. Who would go through such lengthy efforts and kill their own men, just to gain their trust?
Unfortunately, Thomas was even more stubborn than Emma.
On the second evening, she’d received a letter from the dragonborne prince. He again tried to persuade her an alliance was needed and time was their worst enemy. He’d also left his address and an open invitation to his home.
