You Only Love Twice

by Bec McMaster

  "See something you like?" he'd asked.

  "I don't know," she'd responded, as she swayed in his arms. "I haven't yet made up my mind."

  At every ball and gathering he'd been there, getting between her and the Prince of the Blood. Hollis had stomped her foot in frustration once, and it became a game. Her trying to catch Sergey's eye, and he deliberately thwarting her efforts. Playing the dutiful suitor; one of Sergey's many "friends."

  It wasn't until that day in the Hermitage Museum, when he'd caught her looking at him in a new way, her dangerous blue eyes thoughtful, that he'd realized he was falling for her.

  And when he'd kissed her in a shadowed section of the museum, she'd wilted against him as if she felt it too. From that day on it all changed.

  Had it all been a lie?

  The smoke in his lungs still choked him as he stared up at the burning manor. People were streaming from the main doors, spilling out onto the snow in alarm.

  "What happened?" Silas asked, lifting his head and spitting on the snow.

  Dmitri couldn't find the words to answer.

  There was no other explanation he could imagine.

  The woman he'd given his heart to had tried to kill him.

  Now....

  * * *

  The warm bundle in his arms stirred.

  Obsidian strode up the circular staircase within the abandoned manor he'd found on the outskirts of London, heading for the observatory. His head ached, driven into the past by Gemma's presence, though all he could truly remember were flames.

  Flames and treachery.

  She tried to kill you. Now you can return the favor.

  A hand brushed against his chest, Gemma's head lolling to the side as she groaned. He could almost sense her coming out of her drugged stupor, and needed to get her locked away before she could awaken completely.

  Mably House had once been home to the Dukes of Vickers before the previous duke betrayed the prince consort, his entire line blighted and stripped of everything but the clothes on their back. Someone had tried to burn the manor, but it had been crafted of solid stone and though most of the house lay in ruins, the east wing had fared a little better.

  Nobody came here anymore.

  The gates were painted black and soldered shut.

  Mably House represented the death of a Great House, and nobody dared stir the ghosts that lurked within.Any trespassers knew they invited harsh penalties, and so most tended to avoid the place.

  Except for him.

  "Dmitri?" Gemma whispered, in his arms.

  He could just make out the pillow-shape of her lips and see the faint rise of the lush curves spilling out of her bodice. Fingertips grazed his shirt as if to test if it were really him as her dark lashes fluttered against her pale cheeks.

  "Dmitri is dead," he whispered hoarsely, pausing to juggle her in his arms as he drew another syringe from his belt. "You killed him, you lying little bitch. Do you remember?"

  Eyes the color of a field of cornflowers tried to focus upon him, her pupils forming tiny little pinpricks. "You... shot me."

  For a second he almost saw something else. Smoke curling from a pistol as Hollis's eyes widened and she tumbled backward off a bridge.

  "I have no recollection of that."

  Sharp nails dug into his forearm. "Well, I do."

  She began to struggle, and he injected her with enough of the laudanum-hemlock injection to send her blissfully under again.

  The observatory loomed ahead of him, lit by a single glass pane in the roof. Starlight gilded the slate floor in a silvery glow.

  Laying her to rest on the heavy marble slab in the middle of the room, he brushed a strand of dyed black hair off her cheek, unable to help himself. Her fingers lay curled into her palms, her head splayed to the side and the faint cleft in her chin shadowed beneath her lush mouth. For a second, Obsidian's heart gave a pulsing twist in his chest, the darker half of his nature whispering through his veins, urging him to kiss her.

  He reared back, his hand going to the knife at his side. He should never have brought her here. He should have simply put the blade through her black heart; and yet the second she'd slumped into his arms, he'd wanted more.

  He'd wanted to look into her eyes as he asked her, "Why?"

  This was madness.

  But his knuckles strained white on the knife, and he turned and took two swift steps away from her, cursing his resolve under his breath. Obsidian paced the observatory, scrubbing at his mouth.

  Killing her would be only too kind for what she'd done to him.

  But again he saw that smoking pistol and her accusing eyes. "You shot me."

  A sharp stabbing pain sliced through his brain, like a pickax to the skull. He'd never remembered that before, but it felt as though her words brought a shiver of memory to the surface, like a leviathan surfacing from the depths of the ocean.

  All he'd ever had of her was the sight of her laughing and fluttering her eyelashes at Sergey.

  The teasing glint in her blue eyes as she played suitor against suitor, smiling mockingly at him the entire time as she wove her way through the Russian court.

  The kiss of flames against his skin.

  The rasp of smoke in his throat.

  And the taste of betrayal.

  She was an enemy spy.

  "She was an enemy spy," he whispered.

  She deliberately seduced you, seeking to use you.

  "She deliberately seduced you...." He couldn't say the rest.

  She tried to kill you.

  "She...."

  He pressed the heel of his palm to his aching forehead. The fugue was coming, sweeping over him like a black tide. He had to get out of here before it overwhelmed him.

  But...

  Moonlight fell across her fallen figure, caressing the soft curve of her cheek. Gemma looked like a fairy-tale version of Sleeping Beauty, goose bumps pebbling across her skin from the chill of the room.

  She looked innocent.

  And what had that flash of vision meant? Her words had unlocked something he'd not known was buried within him.

  He needed to know what she meant about shooting her.

  But not now. Not now.

  Swinging his cloak off his shoulders, Obsidian draped it over her like a blanket. A blinding white light floated through his vision, blurring her face. The tingling started in his fingers.

  He needed to get out of there before he fell.

  Pushing away from her, Obsidian strode toward the scrolled gate that guarded the observatory and clanged it shut, the lock slamming into place.

  It was only when he staggered down the stairs that the pain eased up a fraction.

  And then the world vanished as he slammed to the floor.

  7

  GEMMA WOKE TO darkness.

  For a second her heart pounded in her chest as she tried to gain her bearings. What had happened? Where was she? The last thing she remembered was—

  She sat bolt upright as memory returned, her hands tangling in fur.

  Blood and ashes.

  Dmitri!

  Gemma nearly fell off the hard bed she lay upon, and then froze. There was no sign of anyone else in the room. Indeed, she could barely see a foot in front of her face. A thin sliver of light cracked through a glass pane high in the roof, revealing a single star, but she suspected the cloud of smothering London smog dulled its light.

  Night then.

  But what was...? She picked at the thing beneath her, feeling out its soft shape. A fur-lined cloak. And not one of her own.

  She'd spent the past month wondering if the face she'd half glimpsed in her state of semiconsciousness had been real. He'd saved her life in the museum when one of his comrades tried to kill her, but when she'd woken she'd thought she'd imagined it.

  And then she'd been so certain she was being followed. Everywhere she turned she felt him hovering there, like a ghost that haunted her. A glimpse of a face she thought she recognized before it vanished in th
e crowd. Gemma had thought she was going mad, stricken by years of guilt and nightmares. She hadn't dared say anything when someone broke into the COR safe house and killed Zero before she and the Duke of Malloryn could question the dhampir woman.

  It was him. It had to be him. I felt him in the house. But Gemma had long since learned Malloryn expected proof. And...

  He died in Saint Petersburg. Dmitri died.

  One of Malloryn's own spies had confirmed it, saying he'd seen the assassin enter a building just before it exploded.

  She'd never dared believe otherwise.

  Gemma pressed a hand to her chest, where the scar between her breasts remained. He shot you. He's not the man you thought he was. So don't think this means anything other than danger for you.

  But why the hell had he locked her away in here?

  Why hadn't he just killed her?

  One wall of the room was crafted of steel bars, with an elegant scrolled effect to the iron. Gemma peered through the bars and then rattled them. Solid. Where the hell was she? An orangery? An observatory?

  Her skirts scuttled over something dry and rasping on the slate floors. Gemma knelt, the objects crackling into dust in her palms. Leaves. Long-dead leaves. She patted her way up the building, following the trail of dry leaves and finding a gnarled vine that clung to the walls. Rough stone met her palms and the room held the dry, still air of a mausoleum. Her heart started ticking a little faster. What if he'd put her in a crypt?

  There was no sound outside the walls.

  Wherever they were, she didn't think it was very well-populated. She should have been able to hear something; even in the dead of night London was full of life and sound.

  A brief tour of the room revealed it was round and scattered with pots of dead plants. The windows were covered with slim panels of some sort of metal, crafted so expertly there wasn't even a hint of a crack between them through which she could slip her fingernails. The roof soared far above her; though she suspected she might be able to climb the gnarled old vine attached to the wall, her head turned unerringly toward the scrolled iron of the bars caging her in.

  When it came to escaping, she'd been in tighter scrapes than this.

  And Gemma's rule was simple: take the easy option first.

  A good thing she came prepared.

  There was no sign of her weapons, lock-pick set, or any of the various other sundry items she carried about her person. He must have patted her down, which left her vaguely disconcerted. Even the pins in her hair had vanished, leaving her hair tumbling precariously down her back.

  Clever man.

  He clearly knew what she was capable of.

  Or thought he did.

  Reaching down her dress, she tugged the bodice away from her breasts, revealing her corset. A thin slit gaped in between the under layer of the corset and the smooth silk of the exterior, through which she wriggled her finger. Something hard and thin met her touch. There. Got it. Gemma began to tug, drawing the wire out of the seam.

  Thin enough to use as a deadly garrote, when she bent it into shape and manipulated it, she found herself with a makeshift lock pick.

  Not a sound whispered in the darkness of the hallway beyond.

  Gemma knelt and caressed the edges of the lock. Inserting the wire, she began to manipulate the interior, using the wire to "feel" the lock. She couldn't see a damned thing, but that didn't matter.

  Who would have ever guessed her blindfolded lessons as a child would ever come in handy?

  "Thank you, Lord Balfour," she whispered into the night as the lock gave a satisfying click. It was the first time she'd ever been grateful for what he'd done to her as a child.

  Victory. Gemma's lips curved dangerously.

  She stilled, listening for any sound of alarm, but nothing moved in the darkness.

  Had he left her here?

  Time to find out.

  It was not a crypt.

  Gemma crept down a winding staircase, catching the odd glimpse of twinkling lights in the distance through the narrow gaps between the boarded-up windows. Close to London then. An enormous empty manor full of dust and dry leaves, and the smell of charred timber. She could barely breathe for the thrill of rushing blood through her veins.

  Dmitri was here. Somewhere.

  He had to be.

  The staircase opened up into a wide hallway, the floors a ripple of shadow. Black and white marble tiles, she guessed, though chipped and pitted and scarred by signs of fire. Wallpaper hung in strips from the walls, and someone had slashed the paintings that still hung there, marring the aristocratic faces she caught a glimpse of.

  She slipped into the massive foyer of the mansion, moonlight gleaming through the open panes of the door, reflecting back off the broken shards of glass that hung there. Inch by inch Gemma crept toward freedom, easing her weight forward onto her toes so the faint heel of her boot made no sound.

  She was almost there when instinct lifted the hairs along the back of her neck.

  "Going somewhere?"

  Heart leaping into her throat, Gemma spun around, settling into a defensive stance as her gaze darted through the shadows.

  She hadn't heard a damned thing.

  A whisper of movement caught her attention. There. In the shadows by the staircase.

  "Who are you?" she breathed.

  Obsidian, he'd said. But he looked like her Dmitri, and she desperately, desperately needed to know the truth. Had it truly been him? Was her mind playing tricks on her?

  The silver gleam of the moon marked a bar of light across the floor, separating the pair of them.

  All she could see were shadows rippling as someone moved in the darkness. A mocking laugh breathed into the air. "You pretend not to know me?"

  "Step into the light," she whispered, the drum of her heart hammering a pulsing rhythm upon her ribs.

  "Why?"

  Gemma swallowed the tight fist of nerves in her throat. "I want to see you."

  Moonlight gleamed off the polished shine of his boots. She caught a glimpse of the wet shine of his leather breeches as the shadow stepped forward.

  Gemma held her breath, taking a half step backward. A dance of retreat.

  Light spilled over his tall frame and his sculpted face, delineating the fine arch of his nose and the harsh slash of his cheekbones.

  It was him.

  It was truly him.

  Sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the muscled strength in his forearms. His hands were covered in the liquid-black of leather. A trim waistcoat fit him like a glove, nipped in to display that narrow waist, though it strained over the broad planes of his chest. He'd dyed his pale hair and brows brown, as if to try and blend into a crowd of humans, but this man would never be able to fade into the background of a crowd. Not with that face. Those cheekbones. She'd seen his face a thousand times in her dreams, but she'd never truly believed she'd see it in the flesh again.

  Gemma's heart skipped a beat as Obsidian tilted his head slightly to the side in a move she'd seen a hundred times before. His hair brushed against his collar. An eyebrow arched mockingly, as if to say, did you miss me?

  There was nothing of the man she'd loved in his cold, arctic gray eyes, but every inch of that gesture pulled at her heart.

  "You died," she whispered.

  The explosion that rocked the Winter Palace had killed him, according to all of Malloryn's reports.

  "Apparently you didn't try hard enough."

  A faint frown tugged her brows together, and then Gemma realized what he meant. "I didn't set the explosion. I thought that was your side!"

  "Why the hell would we try to destroy the palace of the Czarina who'd just signed our treaty?"

  "Well, someone did. I wasn't even in the country anymore. I was aboard an airship, far to the west."

  "Indeed."

  She eased back another step, licking her lips nervously.

  "Do you truly think you can outrun me?"

  No. Gemma lifted her chi
n a show of false bravado. "In these skirts and my favorite heeled boots? I doubt it. You've always been faster than I am, even in bare feet."

  Her options were rapidly narrowing. No weapons. Nowhere to hide.

  Gemma's heart pounded rashly. "The question is... do I have reason to run?"

  "I don't know." His rough voice sounded dangerous. "You tell me."

  "You've been following me."

  He took another step through the bar of moonlight.

  Gemma took a step back. "You killed that dhampir who attacked me in the museum."

  "What dhampir?" The bastard was taunting her.

  "And you healed me with your blood," she whispered. "Ava spent days trying to work out what was wrong with me and why my craving virus levels went through the roof then returned to normal. I knew. I knew deep in my heart what you were, and what you'd done. I barely caught a glimpse of your face, but I could feel you there. Some part of me knew it was you."

  "Very good, Gemma. You're almost there."

  "What do you want from me?"

  Silence.

  A tense, prickling silence in which she could almost feel his gaze sliding over her body like a caress. For the first time, she saw hesitation within him. He didn't know himself.

  She released a shuddering breath. "If you wanted me dead, then I would be dead. You've had more than enough chances."

  "If I wanted you dead, you would be. All I would have had to do was stand aside."

  Referring, no doubt, to the dhampir in the museum who'd tried to kill her.

  "Perhaps I'm not that easy to kill."

  "Perhaps."

  Gemma took another step backward. "So what now?"

  "Are you going to come quietly?"

  She tipped her chin up. "What do you think?"

  The faintest of smiles touched his mouth, but then she blinked and wondered if she'd imagined it.

  "Loudly. Quietly. It doesn't matter. You will come in the end."

  "Interesting choice of words."

  His gaze flattened. "You're not escaping me, Miss Townsend."

  We will just see about that. She turned and fled, fists pumping at her sides. Not toward the door, but the window beside it.