by Bec McMaster
He had a sudden blinding realization: All these years she'd been content to keep their arrangement practical, and yet she'd been so overwrought in the past few months in a way he couldn't understand.
He'd never, ever have thought to question her loyalty. She'd been with him from the start.
But what if her loyalty wasn't in doubt?
"Gemma." He caught her eye and tried to communicate his thoughts with her, tapping a finger to his temples.
Gemma's eyes widened, and then she turned back to the baroness.
"Put the pistol down, Isabella," he soothed, hearing the elevation chamber return, no doubt with Byrnes and Ingrid. His heart started pounding. Thank all the gods. They were nearly here. "You don't want to hurt yourself. I don't want you to be hurt. You can still walk away from all this." He took a step toward her. "I'll make sure you're treated well."
"And I'll make sure he keeps his word," Gemma whispered, just behind him. "Please, Isabella. Don't do this."
Isabella started laughing. "Oh, God. Listen to you. You're saying exactly what he told me you'd say."
"He?" Malloryn's hearing intensified, a prickle of tension running over the hairs on his arms.
Isabella stepped back out of reach, hate twisting her smile into something ugly. "The Master."
"You know who it is."
Everything stopped.
The world around him abruptly stood still.
Time.
Movement.
The only sound was the pulse of his heart. Balfour. It had to be Balfour.
But Isabella had hated the other lord. They'd spent years working together to bring him down. How could she betray him to Balfour?
"Malloryn, don't," Gemma warned. "Isabella, please. We don't care about the Master. Only you. Please put the pistol down. It's over."
Byrnes and Ingrid skidded around the corner of the stairs, sliding to a halt when they saw the scene.
"I know who it is," Isabella said, glancing toward Byrnes and Ingrid. "I know what he wants. He wants to see you suffer, Malloryn. He made you a promise once. But you'll be last, Malloryn. You'll be there to watch them all fall. Do you know who it is yet?"
Of all his former enemies there was only one who'd hated him this much.
"He wants you to see your beloved city burn."
It struck him like a bullet to the chest.
"He wants you to see your queen die."
The heat drained from his face.
"He wants to take all your playing pieces off the board. One. By. One."
No. His heart became a frozen pulp in his chest, his ears ringing. Her words confirmed every little doubt he’d been having lately.
"I killed him," he whispered, as she confirmed every suspicion he'd had.
"Did you?" Isabella's laughter rang like the tolling of bells. "You never know how much the craving virus can heal."
The body went into the ground. I saw him buried. I put him in the fucking coffin myself, where he could rot, just as the queen ordered. He stared at her through a world that felt like it was turning in slow circles around him, as if he were caught in the middle of a waltz. Shook his head slowly as all his nightmares came true.
I cut his throat.
Stabbed him in the heart.
Shoveled the fucking dirt over him myself.
How could a man survive that, blue blood or not?
"Now you know," Isabella whispered. "Now you know who you're dealing with. He wants you to know he's out there. He wants you to be looking over your damned shoulder every second of every day. Wondering who he's going to take next."
"You won't get near the queen," he said softly. "It's over."
"I was never meant to get near the queen. This bullet isn't for her." She clicked the safety off, her hands shaking and tears streaming down her face. Those green eyes begged him to save her, even as her mouth spat those hateful words. "You challenged him once. You said there was nothing of your heart left to take, but he wanted to test this theory.
"Goodbye, Malloryn. Just remember, this time the joke shall be on you. I was never the Chameleon. Just the one meant to set her in play." Isabella put the pistol to her chin, her face going blank through her veil of kohl-lined tears. "London Bridge is falling down...."
Malloryn jerked forward, one hand outstretched. "Don't! Don't do it, Isabella."
"Falling down, falling down."
Tears streamed down her face as she stared at nothing.
"Wait!" he yelled as she pulled the trigger.
And then it was too late.
Chapter 24
"Malloryn!" Byrnes yelled, sounding so far away.
Malloryn caught Isabella in his arms as her body slumped toward the floor, shock searing through his chest. The weight of her slumped against him as he went to his knees, trying to lay her down.
There was blood all over his hands.
Blood all over her skirts.
Her hair—
He had the distant feeling he'd never be able to wash it off.
"Isabella?" A foolish question, for he'd seen the glorious light from her eyes vanish.
"Is she—?" Ingrid paused, a step away from him, visibly swallowing down her words.
Clearly realized how futile they would be.
"He got to her," Malloryn choked out, a hollow ringing sound echoing in his ears. "He put a fucking neural implant in her head and turned her against me."
"Who got to her?" Ingrid asked.
"Balfour."
"Balfour? As in Lord Balfour? The prince consort's spymaster?"
"Isn't he dead?" Byrnes added.
Malloryn rocked Isabella in his arms, clenching his eyes shut against the pain. He'd never loved her, but she'd been a friend, a lover.... If he'd paid her more attention, would he have seen the faint signs of her personality change? Would he have noticed the way the enemy was twisting her to his will?
Could he have saved her?
"London Bridge is falling down," came a soft voice behind him.
A familiar voice, but with each word, there was less and less inflection in her tone, as if what remained of her washed out of the words. He didn't know what set him off, but all the hairs on the back of his neck lifted.
Malloryn turned his head slowly.
Gemma stood there, staring blankly at nothing.
Gemma, who hadn't come rushing to Isabella's side despite their friendship.
A second epiphany burst through him like a starburst, sending a chill down his spine.
Just remember, this time the joke shall be on you. I was never the Chameleon. Just the one meant to set her in play....
It felt too easy... The way I escaped.
I thought they'd be tougher....
Taking Gemma had never been a trap meant for him, but a means for Gemma to recover from her surgery. She'd have been suspicious if she'd woken in the streets, dumped in some alley.
So they'd set the scene for her to escape.
"Gemma?" he asked as the full implication of Isabella's words hit him.
A blank doll stared back.
"Chameleon," she whispered again, as if she could hear some other voice and was merely repeating the instructions.
And then those blue eyes locked on him with a sudden, eerie intensity.
"Malloryn," she said.
Not her. No.
"Byrnes. Ingrid. Get the hell out of here." Setting Isabella down, he started to stand. "Get to the queen."
Gemma reached for the pair of pistols sheathed at her hips—
Malloryn threw himself down, rolling across the carpet, his hands reaching for his own pistols and finding them.
Bullets spat past him, and he heard Byrnes swearing. "What the hell? Gemma?"
"Get down!" Malloryn yelled.
He came up into the perfect firing position, and—
She didn't even bother to protect herself.
Simply strode toward him like some lethal weapon, her eyes blank and dull, and her pistols tracking Ingrid and By
rnes as the pair of them darted for cover.
The perfect assassin.
And he'd brought her here.
"Malloryn?" Byrnes yelled, his pistol in hand as he shielded Ingrid with his body.
He heard the question in his agent's voice.
And for the first time in years, he didn't know what to do.
He had a clean shot. Both his pistols locked right on the center of her chest as she swung back to face him.
And he couldn't do it.
"Disarm her," he yelled, rolling across the carpet as Gemma shot at him.
An explosion of sound echoed, heat roaring across his skin as her bullet sank into the wall. She was packing those bloody exploding bullets.
Bodies slammed against each other, Byrnes a pale blur as he tried to take her down.
Gemma lost one of her pistols. She spun, ripping something from the holster at her hip.
"Stop!" Malloryn screamed as he saw what she'd reached for.
Black Vein darts.
The only thing that could kill Byrnes.
Byrnes's eyes widened as if he realized, and he blocked her blow as she stabbed at him.
Gemma ducked under Byrnes's arm, spinning beneath his grip as she drove her knee into the side of his. It was like watching a blur. Chop. Chop. Block. Punch.
Byrnes met every blow, his forearms slapping against hers, but Malloryn could see he hadn't expected her to match him for speed.
Dhampir were faster than blue bloods.
But Gemma had been training as an assassin since she was a child. They'd stripped her reaction time from her, so everything was pure reflex. They'd taught her how to read the movement, so she was always several steps ahead.
Every time Byrnes countered one of her blows, she was ready for him, already disengaging and striking elsewhere.
Byrnes grunted as another knee took him high in the thigh.
"Step back!" Malloryn demanded, pistol trained on the pair of them.
He couldn't get a clean shot.
The dart flashed silver in the light as Gemma lifted it high, and Malloryn could see the beginning choreography of Gemma's final move as she lured Byrnes into a combination that would prove fatal.
"Ingrid!" Malloryn yelled as Byrnes took a terminal half step too far to the side, leaving himself open.
Ingrid slammed into Byrnes as Gemma drove the dart in. She screamed in verwulfen rage as the dart drove into her back. The pair of them crashed to the floor, but Malloryn had no time to see if Ingrid would be okay.
They'd never tested Black Vein on verwulfen before.
He took the shot.
Aimed for Gemma's knee.
A blur of movement, and Gemma cried out as his bullet clipped her in the side of the thigh.
Snarling in fury, she turned and threw one of her daggers at him.
It missed.
Her arm drew back again. He of all people knew exactly how many knives she had on her.
He'd given her the entire fucking set.
Malloryn threw himself behind a nearby statue, catching another glint of silver coming at him. It ricocheted off the marble, nearly taking his ear off. Malloryn didn't dare flinch—using the statue as cover, he aimed over the top of it.
"Get out of here!" he yelled at Byrnes and Ingrid. "Protect the queen!"
Byrnes dragged Ingrid to her feet, shoving his limping wife toward safety as he tried to pull the embedded dart from her back.
And Gemma hesitated for that fraction of a moment, torn between following them and moving in to finish him off.
His vision narrowed along the line of the pistol, Gemma's red coat becoming little more than a blurred target behind it.
A split second as she turned....
Malloryn cocked the weapon.
His lungs arrested.
The world vanished.
It would all be over....
Take the shot.
Not her, screamed something in his brain. Not the girl who'd saved his life all those years ago when he'd had nothing but ashes in his life. When she'd been the only thing that gave him hope in the endless black.
Breathing hard, Gemma spun around as if she sensed it, giving him the perfect shot.
Right between her breasts.
It was a mistake.
He knew it was a mistake.
But he lowered the pistol and shot her in the knee.
Her right leg went out from under her, and she nearly fell. Gemma screamed, her eyes bleeding to pure black as the craving arose in her.
"It's done," he said hoarsely as he stepped out from behind the statue.
She drew another pistol.
You'll be there to watch them all fall....
Balfour didn't want him dead. It was the only chance they had.
You're the only one who can stop her.
He stepped directly into the hallway, away from the statue he'd been using to shield himself, calling Gemma—and Balfour's bluff.
"Malloryn," she repeated, lifting her pistols toward the ceiling, as if she knew he wasn't to be touched.
A shaky breath left him.
"Put the pistols down, Gemma," he said, pointing both of his directly at her chest as he stepped forward. "I don't want to hurt you—"
Gemma shot him in the shoulder.
He staggered back, realizing the abrupt error in his thinking. Blue bloods could survive a great deal.
If the pair of us went to war, you win. When it comes to pulling the trigger on you, I hesitate. You don't....
How the tables were turned.
Gemma drilled a second bullet into his upper chest, and he hit the floor, the breath slamming out of him.
He couldn't stop her.
Not without killing her.
And even then he didn't know if he was good enough. Not when she was like this.
But he was the only one who might be able to take Gemma down face-to-face like this. He just had to get the pistol off her.
Then he gritted his teeth, and hauled himself to his feet, standing between Gemma and the doors to the throne room.
"All right, Gem." Malloryn spat blood. "Let's dance. I know you can't kill me."
She lifted the pistol and smiled an eerie smile. "True. But Balfour wants you alive. Ghost didn't say anything about being unharmed."
Ingrid lurched along the hallway beside her husband, her heart racing and the rush of blood stirring all her instincts. Something wet and sticky dripped down her back, and in some distant part of her brain she knew she'd been injured, but the wild within her had her in its grip, and all she could feel was the fury roaring through her veins.
"Lock the throne room doors!" Byrnes called to the pair of Coldrush Guards who’d snapped into a defensive stance as they heard them coming.
The pair of them looked puzzled, and Ingrid snarled at them. "Where's the queen? Is the queen inside?"
"Court's in session," said one of the guards.
"Where's your lieutenant?" Byrnes skidded to a halt. "Clear the court! There's an assassin in the Tower."
That inspired a flurry of activity.
"Yes, sir!" One man shoved the double doors that led to the throne room open.
Behind them, a sudden hail of gunfire barked.
Ingrid jerked. Malloryn?
She stared along the hallway, but there was no sign of him. Only the distant muzzle flash of light flickering in the darkened shadows.
If anyone could stop Gemma, it would be him.
Her verwulfen heart gave a solid squeeze. If only he could do it without hurting her friend....
They could get Gemma back. They had to.
They just needed to work out how to snap her out of this spell she was in.
"We need to get the queen out of here," Ingrid said, meeting Byrnes's eyes. "Just in case."
He nodded. "Are you all right?"
"Fine." Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears. The Black Vein made her feel strange, but it didn't seem to be working upon her the way it would have done to h
im. "Well, it didn't kill me, so it seems verwulfen are immune to Black Vein."
Something locked around her upper arm. A hand. Byrnes frowned. "You're limping."
"Gemma kicked me in the knee. I'm fine."
"Doesn't mean that poison's not circulating through your system."
"Concentrate, Byrnes. We've got a job to do."
He let her go, but she knew he wouldn't like it.
"What the hell's going on out here?" Jasper Lynch, the Duke of Bleight—and the husband of her best friend, Rosa, came striding through the double doors.
Behind him, she could make out dozens of craned necks, and an entire throne room full of ruffles and silk. Court was in session.
"There's an assassin loose in the Tower and we think she's after the queen," Byrnes said.
Lynch's gray gaze sharpened. "An assassin? How the hell did they get past the guards at the gates and the bottom of the Tower?"
"Long story," Byrnes replied.
"Can you get the queen out?" Ingrid asked. She suddenly realized the gunfire had died down.
Only silence remained.
A prickling of hairs rose along her arms.
"The throne room's secure," Lynch said. Which meant there was no way out, barring through these doors. Hidden passages riddled the tower, but not here, in the heart of the court.
Ingrid head turned toward the scene of the carnage.
There was a shadow rippling over the walls, growing larger as it stalked toward them.
Ingrid shoved Lynch back inside. "Barricade the doors. Whatever you do, don't open them."
He nodded.
The doors slammed shut, and she heard the rasp of something being slid through the handles.
A shadow made of curves and malice, smoke smoldering from the pair of pistols she held, Gemma finally strode into view. Her hips swayed like an exotic snake being charmed, her eyes blank and empty holes as she stared through them to the throne room doors.
"Malloryn's down," Ingrid breathed.
And Malloryn was the most dangerous one of them all. She couldn't believe it.
Was he...? Was he dead?
"What do we do?" she asked Byrnes.
A certain sort of coldness came over his expression, as he turned to meet Gemma. "We stop her."
