Blood and Bone (Royal Blood #6)

by Amity Cross

  “Vesper?”

  “You must stop this madness, Moltke,” she said, her accent slipping into a rather good British one.

  He scrambled to his knees, practically bowing at her feet, and I was all but forgotten. “How… How is this possible?”

  “You were played,” she said.

  “Played?” He shook his head. “No. I saw the evidence. It was irrefutable.”

  “It was planted. You know the job,” Banshee replied. “You know nothing is what it seems.”

  He stared up at her, his eyes misting with tears. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you come back to me? I looked for you… I searched…”

  “You searched in places you were not welcome,” she hissed. “All of this is because you can’t let go. You need to let me and this madness go, Moltke.”

  “We can get our revenge,” he said, ignoring her plea. “You and I. We can punish those who took you from me. Britain and Russia. We can kill them all.”

  “Stop it,” she said. “Please, stop it.”

  “I love you, Vesper. All of this is for you.”

  “I never asked for it,” she snapped. “I never asked you to kill for me.”

  “I’d gladly tear your enemies apart with my bare hands if it meant you would be avenged.”

  I stiffened as Moltke’s words slammed into me. They sounded extremely familiar… I’d said them before. I’d felt the rage flow through my body, and I’d used it to take my revenge on the men who took my life away. If Moltke could kneel in front of his lover and declare those things to her in the same way I’d declared them to Mercy…what made us different?

  I clutched my hand against my stomach, suddenly realizing the wound in my shoulder had torn and blood was dripping down my arm. I knew the answer to my question without having to ask it. We were the same. Moltke and I were the same.

  Was this the life I would have to lead if I couldn’t fight off the insanity? Was this the life that would constantly hang over my head if I allowed the monster to surface? I could let the beast take over and never come back…

  “Come with me,” he pleaded. “Come with me, Vesper, and we can finally be together.”

  Banshee shook her head as she drew her gun and clicked off the safety. “No.”

  He stared at the gun, utterly confused. “No?”

  “You killed them all for nothing,” Banshee said, her voice eerily calm. “For nothing, Moltke.”

  “No!”

  “You were played. Can’t you see that?” she said, kicking him away. “This is what they want you to do. They want you to murder all those people for their own end, not yours. You think you’re acting alone? You’re not.”

  “It’s a lie,” he said, falling back onto his heels. “They got to you, Vesper. They got to you.”

  She closed her eyes, her expression slipping. For a moment, anguish painted her features…then it was gone.

  “I can’t allow you to murder anyone else,” she said, turning her gaze back to him. She raised her gun, and Moltke’s eyes widened.

  “No,” he said, clutching at her legs. “You wouldn’t. Vesper…”

  The cold kiss of steel pressed into the back of my head, and I stiffened. Raising my hands, I snarled. Busted.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Bateman’s voice echoed through the room. Banshee stared up at him and uttered some foul Russian swear word. “Drop the gun, Banshee.”

  “What?” I asked as he moved around me, the gun following his movements. “You know her?”

  “Seems like she loves a double-cross,” he drawled as Mercy and Jackson came into view, led in by the two guards who had flanked Moltke moments before. I tensed, and Bateman clicked his tongue. “Don’t try anything, or your head goes pop.”

  Banshee hissed and dropped her gun to the ground. “Fuck you, Bateman. My parting gift to you should have been a bullet in the head.”

  Moltke snatched up her gun and rose to his feet. “You fucked her?” he roared at Bateman. He strode across the room and shoved the gun against the Englishman’s head. “If you touched her with your filthy cock, then prepare to die.”

  “Like I’d let him put that thing anywhere near me,” Banshee drawled. “Put the gun down, Moltke.”

  “X,” Mercy hissed, and I glanced her way. The guards had forced her and Jackson to their knees, guns pointed at the backs of their heads.

  That’s when I saw the present Bateman had wheeled in with them. The bomb.

  This whole situation was fucking impossible. I ran over different scenarios in my head, and all of them came up ending in blood. Lots of blood. If I moved, the guards would shoot, and Moltke would put a bullet in me. He might die at the end of it by Banshee’s hand, but we’d still be dead.

  I wanted all of us to come out of this alive, and Moltke, Bateman, and his crew the ones choking on their own blood. Right now, I couldn’t see a way for that to happen. Not yet…

  Banshee’s gaze darted to the bomb, then to me. I tried to read her intentions, but she was a closed book. Nothing shone behind her eyes, and I began to shake my head as I put two and two together. No! She couldn’t…

  “Perhaps you’re right,” she said to Moltke. “Perhaps I should have done things your way a long time ago.”

  “Bitch!” Mercy exclaimed, attempting to rise to her feet, but she was pushed back to her knees.

  Banshee glanced at her briefly, and then turned her attention back to Moltke and Bateman. “When I found out what they did…”

  “You’ll come with me?” Moltke asked hopefully.

  “Don’t believe a thing that bitch says,” Bateman snarled, and before he could take a step, Moltke raised his hand and fired the gun.

  I flinched, but I didn’t need to worry about the five massive tanks of pressurized and highly flammable gas. The bullet slammed into Bateman’s heart, and he dropped like a stone. His eyes stared up at the ceiling, glazing over as blood began to pool beneath his corpse. Fuck…

  The two men who held Mercy and Jackson raised their guns and pointed them at Moltke and Banshee. The rest happened faster than I thought possible. Banshee stepped forward, pressed a soft kiss against Moltke’s lips, took the gun from his hand, and shot the two guards in quick succession. Bam. Bam.

  “Get Jackson out of here,” I hissed at Mercy.

  “But—”

  “Go!” I shouted at her as I pulled my gun and turned to face Banshee and Moltke. Looked like the mercenary’s heart wasn’t so cold after all.

  “Let me do this one, love,” Moltke said, curling his hand around hers and prying the gun from her grasp. “I do like to finish what I’ve started.”

  Banshee slid her hand over his shoulder as he turned to point the gun at me. Smiling, she ran her fingers lovingly through his hair. “Shall I go after the other two?”

  “No,” he murmured. “They won’t be hard to track down. Revenge is a never-ending merry-go-round after all. She’ll be back.” He smiled at me and laughed softly. “Then when I kill the other one’s family…he’ll be back.”

  “If you say so, love,” Banshee said, letting him go. She wandered over to the bomb and began inspecting it.

  “Time to die, Blood,” Moltke snarled. “I’d like to draw this out, but it seems like you have a skill for resurrection. I’ve got to make sure the deed is done this time. I’m sure you can respect that, being an assassin and all.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, tightening my grip around my gun. “It’ll be a matter of who’s got the faster trigger finger.”

  “Vesper, love?” he called out to Banshee.

  She sighed, her gaze taking in Moltke. “I didn’t want things to end this way,” she murmured.

  Moltke narrowed his eyes. “What…”

  Her hand slammed down onto the bomb, activating it, and the timer flashed at two minutes and began counting down.

  1:59…

  1:58…

  “What have you done?” Moltke roared at her. “The fail-safe…”

  I
stared at Banshee, my head spinning. Once the bomb was activated, it couldn’t be shut off.

  “Go!” she yelled at me. “Please!”

  The gravity of what Banshee had just set into motion slammed into me in that split second, and I understood. I understood completely.

  Turning, she launched herself on Moltke, and they fought, rolling across the floor, punching and wrestling for control of the gun. I didn’t wait to see how it ended up. I stumbled toward the opening Mercy and Jackson had disappeared through, my shoulder slamming against the door. Pain erupted through the gunshot wound, and I ran.

  Blood had been running down my arm unchecked for far too long, and I blinked hard to force my vision to clear. A dull orange glow appeared in front of me, the outline of a body in the doorway right ahead of me.

  “X!” Mercy shouted, gesturing me forward.

  “Run!” I yelled. “The bomb…”

  I crashed through the door, Mercy’s arm winding around my waist, and we emerged outside into the cool night air. It wasn’t until we were across the yard and in the vacant lot that I fell to my knees. My chest heaved as I fought off the drowsiness the blood loss had forced on me.

  Mercy was in front of me, her hands pressing against the wound on my shoulder. I was vaguely aware of Jackson talking to someone as I went to swat her away from me.

  “The Veltium-34,” I muttered. “She engaged the bomb…”

  “Banshee… She’s still in there?” Mercy’s eyes widened.

  Even as she said it, I knew there hadn’t been enough time for her to get out before the chemical deployed. Banshee was inside that building, suffering a fate that was too horrible to comprehend…all to stop Moltke. One life for the many. I couldn’t fathom it… Fuck, my shoulder throbbed.

  “We’ll be safe out here,” Jackson said, kneeling beside us. “You need to lie down, X. It’ll slow the bleeding… Help is coming.”

  So that’s who he was talking to…

  “MI6?” Mercy asked.

  “Who else?” he replied with a tight smile.

  Falling onto my back, I stared up at the night sky and began counting the stars that were bright enough to shine through the light pollution of the city. One, two, three, four…

  What did I know about sacrifice or love? Not as much as Vesper Cunningham, aka Banshee.

  Hold on to your love, Xavier Blood, and never let it go.

  I would never know her true intentions, if she did it for love or the greater good, but I did know one thing…

  Banshee had sacrificed herself to save us all.

  Chapter 29

  Mercy

  Hospitals stunk. Like literally stunk of disinfectant, piss, and death. In no particular order.

  The last time I was in a hospital was when Vaughn was shot and Mei had her arm broken in a car accident caused by Lorelei. That was the thing about this job. Someone was always getting injured or killed.

  At the thought of Mei, I frowned and glanced at X through the window set into the door of his room. He lay on a bed with a bag of blood hooked up to an IV in his arm, replacing some of the red stuff he’d lost at the facility.

  He would have to go say his good-byes to Mei at some point. How was he going to handle that? The thought worried me.

  X’s gaze met mine through the glass, and he gestured for me to come in. Slipping into the room, I closed the door behind me. “How are you feeling?”

  “They wanted to give me a transfusion,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “Good,” I replied. “You lost a lot of blood, all things considering. Don’t be such a baby about it.”

  “What’s happening with the facility?” he asked as I leaned against the closed door.

  I’d gotten Jackson to fill me in earlier while the doctors stitched up X’s gunshot wound. I didn’t want to deal with the red tape MI6 would lay down for us in the wake of all the things that had happened since Section Seven was leveled. At some point, X and I would have to deal with endless questioning and debriefing and probably a lie detector test or two. I was totally looking forward to that. Not.

  “The Veltium-34 deployed,” I said. “The facility is in total lockdown while they clean the place up. Could take them years apparently.”

  “Moltke?” X’s gaze was searching, and I knew he was more interested in what had happened to Banshee, given what she’d done to try to stop the planned attacks on MI6.

  “They found remains inside,” I began carefully. “Jackson hacked into the report so we could get the facts, bless him. There were two sets of DNA. One male, one female.”

  X nodded. “I see.”

  There were only two women in that building last night, and I was one of them. They’d do a great deal more testing, but there wasn’t any doubt in my mind that it was Banshee and Moltke. She’d made the ultimate sacrifice in the face of rekindling her lost love. To choose the greater good over her heart had taken a great deal of balls.

  “Mercy…” he began.

  “Yeah?”

  He frowned and lowered his gaze, and I wondered what was playing on his mind. “Are we good? You and I?”

  Crossing the room with deliberate steps, I leaned over the edge of the bed and slid my fingers over the stubble that lined his jaw. “Of course, we are.”

  “I know I fucked up…”

  “X. Shut the fuck up.”

  His lips thinned, but he abided by my wishes and remained silent.

  “So when can you blow this popcorn stand?” I asked, threading my fingers through his.

  X nodded at the door a second before it opened. “After this suit has his way with us, I presume.”

  Glancing over my shoulder, I peered at the man who’d walked in unannounced. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a head of dark brown hair that had been cut into a severe short back and sides. He wore a slate gray suit, his shiny red tie loose around his collar. The guy looked like he’d had a busy day.

  “Agent Blood, Agent Reid,” he said, nodding curtly. “I’m Agent Breckinridge, but everyone calls me Agent Breck. I was appointed head of Project Black Heart in Agent Folsom’s stead.” He lowered his chin slightly, and I didn’t have to ask to understand they had been good friends.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked X.

  “What can we do for you, Agent Breck?” he replied sharply, his fingers tightening around mine.

  “It’s more about what you both can do for us.” His gaze flickered to mine. “There’ll be a debriefing and a round of questioning relating to the mission Agent Folsom gave you, but for now, I’d like to talk about your future at the Agency.”

  I frowned and glanced at X. MI6 was rolling out the welcome wagon? We’d broken about a billion laws in our attempts to get Moltke brought to justice, so the notion was highly surprising. Besides, X and I hadn’t had a chance to talk about what we wanted to do now that we were free from Section Seven. Things hadn’t really worked out for us there when things were normal, so going one hundred percent legit at MI6 wasn’t really tickling my fancy.

  “What kind of future?” I asked.

  “I’ll get straight to the point,” Breck said. “You both look like you’d appreciate the notion. We want you to come work for MI6 as field agents. There’s no doubt you’re both highly skilled and qualified for the job.”

  I glanced at X. “MI6? Section Seven was already a stretch…”

  “This isn’t black ops,” Breck went on. “It’s legitimate work protecting British interests on an international stage. With the rise of modern terrorism, there are more threats than ever. I’d hate to play the world peace card, but that’s what it’s about these days.”

  X shook his head. “I understand, but we’ve been through a great deal to get here, Agent Breck…”

  “I get it, I do, but think about it,” he said, holding out his hand. “That’s all I’m asking of you for right now. If you want to talk more, you know where to find me.”

  X’s poker face didn’t slip once as he shook Breck’s hand. “We�
�ll be sure to think a great deal about it.”

  When Breck turned to me, I took his hand and shook it, never once letting go of X’s. “Thank you for coming to see us,” I said, holding him in place for a moment longer than normal. “I appreciate your directness.”

  “Likewise.” He smiled, and I let him go. “Take care.”

  Once he was gone, I turned my attention back to X.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked, watching as his expression slipped. I loved that he let down his guard with me. In the days following his defection from Royal Blood, witnessing his emerging emotions was like a world of black and white exploding into color. Right now, he was very colorful.

  “I’m thinking…” he began and tugged me closer. “All I want to do right now is take you home to the cottage and fuck you blind.”

  I shivered, my juices starting to flow at the thought of nothing but me, a naked X, and nature to keep us happy.

  “Blind?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “I’d really like to see what I’m doing, you know.”

  “It’s a turn of phrase, Mercy.”

  “Duh.”

  “I’d also love to see that smart mouth of yours wrapped around my cock.”

  “You’re such a dominant asshole.” I laughed, and if I didn’t love him, I probably would have ripped his favorite appendage off and choked him with it.

  He smiled, but it quickly faded. “We’re free, Mercy. We can go anywhere we want.”

  The realization hit me square in the chest, and my body began to zing with the possibilities that now lay before us. We had no one to answer to but ourselves. The bad guys were gone, our friends were safe, and all we had to worry about in the short-term was X’s shoulder healing. It was an amazing feeling.

  “Yeah,” I said, leaning toward him. “We’re fee…”

  Pressing my lips against his, I kissed X with everything I had.

  We were finally free.

  About six weeks had passed since the night Banshee and Moltke perished in that facility.