by Bec McMaster
It continued, but Byrnes's attention had been caught by something else. He could hear footsteps padding behind the closed doors at the far corner of the room, and a slither of shadow darkened the door briefly, softening the air with scent.
Lilies.
And something else... something that was becoming clearer as the day continued, as if the overpowering scent of perfume was wearing away, leaving a musky hint of something else. Something... all woman.
No. Hell, no.
Every nerve in his body grew tight. Byrnes stalked toward the door on silent feet, pressing his fingertips against the paneling.
"Fuck me," Kincaid muttered.
From Ava, "Well, it stands to reason. Verwulfen were cleared by the treaty too, you know—"
"And what would we need one of them for? It's not like this is a frigging alliance of any sort—"
Every one of Byrnes’s hunting senses was alight. His mystery was beginning to clear up, and it was drawing a conclusion that he didn't particularly like. Not at all.
A light, husky laugh mocked him through the door, and then movement danced in the room beyond. Going. His prey was going.
Byrnes slipped through the doors before he could think about it.
There was no one there. Only another door, swinging shut slowly, and her scent, becoming obnoxiously clearer the closer he got to her. He knew that scent hiding beneath the perfume. It had driven him crazy a year ago, when someone—the Nighthawks’ guild master—had this smashing idea about pairing him with an outside bounty hunter on a case nobody could seem to solve. His bloody case. The case he couldn't solve.
"Just work with her, Byrnes. She's good at what she does, and she's an even better tracker than you are." Garrett's voice echoed in his memory.
Byrnes grit his teeth. Garrett had known he worked better alone. He always had, and it got on every one of his last nerves to know that not only could he not find the answer in this particular case, but that they expected that she would.
They’d lasted an entire day working together.
And then it became a competition.
"Bet I catch the killer first," that husky voice whispered in his mind.
"I bet you I do," he'd shot back, and stepped toward her, into her space. "And when I do, you're going to get down on your knees and—"
"And?" she'd drawled, straightening a little, her eyes lighting with a challenging fire.
It changed what he'd meant to say. “And kiss my boots” had been his intention. That was not what had come out. The instant he'd stated his intentions she'd taken a step toward him, closing that last inch between them, and reached up to whisper in his ear.
"Be careful what you wish for, Byrnes." A mocking finger traced over his shirt so lightly he barely felt it, yet the not-quite touch sent a shiver through him, and their eyes had met then, as something more than words had been exchanged. "I don't think you'll want my teeth anywhere near your balls." A smile that gripped his cock like a vise. "Not that that will ever happen, but it does add a certain little incentive toward the case. When I bring this bastard in, I have my own terms, and you'll meet them."
"Name them." The shock of his sudden interest had flared through him, and he'd caught her wrist, stopping her hand just above the waistband of his leather breeches.
"If I solve the case, then I get to tie you to my bed, and do anything I desire to you. Anything at all."
A mistake. He should have made her be more specific, but just at that moment she'd flexed her wrist in his grasp and raked her fingernail over the leather protecting his cock.
"Done," he'd said. After all, he'd never lost before.
If there was one person who could get into his room at the guild and leave that taunting note, knowing just knowing how much it would get his itch going, it was her.
The devil in disguise.
Pushing open the doors to the next room, he came to a halt. It too was empty.
And then someone spoke. Someone he knew all too well.
"Looking for something? Or is it someone?" said an amused voice from the side.
Her.
Byrnes met a pair of eyes that were lit from within with a bronze glow. She hadn't changed one inch from that debacle last year, where he'd been left tied to his bed, naked, with a lovely little message written across his chest in ink, which all of his fellow Nighthawks had found absolutely hilarious.
"Ingrid," he said.
"Did you miss me?"
TWO
"MISS YOU?" Byrnes stated flatly, though the gleam in his blue eyes wasn't cold. Not at all. He took a menacing step toward her before pausing, his lean form falling into absolute stillness.
Ingrid Miller smiled. She'd worked with Byrnes for only two weeks—or worked against him, perhaps, when he'd declared that he didn't need her and could find the suspect before she could—but in that time she'd come to know him well enough to predict him.
He hated emotional displays, especially in himself. His control was absolute. And she'd just caused him to break both of those self-governed rules.
Call it the devil on her shoulder, but when it came to Byrnes, she absolutely could not help herself.
"Miss you?" he repeated. "Why yes... I believe I did. I have a little debt to repay."
"A little debt?" Ingrid glanced at him from beneath her lashes in a most un-Ingrid-like way. "What a curious choice of words."
Instantly his gaze flattened, and she laughed.
"I searched for you," he said stiffly.
"Did you?"
"I spent months looking for you."
"You wouldn't have found me, no matter how much time you spent looking for me." You wouldn't have found me, because I wasn't here. Not that her quest to Norway had been successful, even with all of the lovely bounty money she'd earned by bringing in the so-called Vampire of Drury Lane all by herself. The humor drained out of her, but she managed to keep her smile on her face.
Some mysteries took time.
She certainly wasn't giving up on this one. And now Ingrid had received this offer, with more money on the table, should her work prove satisfactory to the Duke of Malloryn. More money meant more informants she could pay, more searchers she could employ. She'd find the family she'd been stolen from all those years ago. One day.
She just had to be patient.
"Where did you go after the Drury Lane case? You weren't in London. You weren't in any of the towns nearby. You weren't even in bloody Scotland!"
"That's not really any of your business."
"Oh, I think it is." Byrnes was in her space. They were of a height, especially with her in her heeled boots, but she never felt unfeminine around him, the way she sometimes felt with other men. Byrnes always challenged her to be an equal, and that look in his eye had always made her feel distinctly feminine.
"You left me naked and bound to my bed. I've been thinking about what I'd do to you to repay the debt for the last year." His voice dropped. "Oh, and Ingrid, I've had time to get very creative about it."
"Poor Caleb. It sounds like I got to you."
He hated it when she called him Caleb. His teeth ground together, and he reached out to cup her cheek. One thumb brushed against her cheek, then lower, to her mouth, sinking into her plush lower lip and pressing just firmly enough to rouse a fire in her blood. Byrnes leaned closer. "That happens when a woman makes certain promises, and then reneges upon them."
"I promised to get you naked," she whispered around the press of his thumb. "You were naked, if I recall. We never agreed upon anything else."
"You wrote on me."
"It was a lovely little poem. 'There was a young Nighthawk from Matlock; Who had a fairly significant—"
"I remember," he growled under his breath, blue eyes alighting with fury and desire.
Ingrid's smile deepened. "I'm certain you do."
I am going to repay this debt tenfold, his eyes seemed to say.
You can certainly try, replied her smile.
That made
his eyes narrow.
"Miss me, Byrnes?" she murmured, her voice dropping to a whisper as her body softened toward his. The devil always had this effect upon her. "It certainly sounds like it."
"Only because I mean revenge, Miller."
Miller. God knew she'd missed that, strangely enough. Ingrid's smile softened and she bit the thumb that still lingered on her lip. The heat in his gaze turned intense, and he sucked in a sharp breath.
"Admit it," she said, sucking his thumb gently. One of her hands curled in the lapel of his coat as she drew free of his hand. "It was more than revenge."
The look on his face told her everything. Everything.
A part of her wanted to grab a fistful of his hair and yank his mouth down to hers. The second she did, they'd be upon each other, Byrnes slamming her back into the wall, and Ingrid lifting her legs to wrap around his lean waist.
She knew it, because that's precisely what had happened the one time she'd dared to kiss him. The vision sent a shiver of need straight through her, as if she could remember every second of that moment, every self-destructive instinct that had driven her to throw herself into the abyss of desire.
No, their interest in each other had never been the problem. It was the fact that she couldn't trust him.
Ingrid stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest. Sometimes she was tempted to reach out and touch, but the warier part of her knew it would get burned when it came to Byrnes. Far easier to keep him at arm’s length and pretend this was merely desire between them.
"One day, Miller," he said, noting the way in which she'd disengaged, "One day you're going to pay your dues—"
"But until then," a male voice said behind them, "would it be at all possible for the pair of you to join us?"
They staggered apart with a start of surprise. The Duke of Malloryn stood in the doorway, both hands holding the doors wide open, and from the look on Byrnes's face she hadn't been the only one taken unawares.
Which was almost unforgivable, considering the two of them had the greatest hunting senses of anyone in the house.
"Of course." Ingrid recovered smoothly. "After you, your Grace."
Malloryn's icy gaze raked over the pair of them, “This had better not become a problem.”
“Of course not,” Ingrid replied.
“Because if it does….” Malloryn didn’t need to add anything else as he turned to head back to the library.
And she needed this job too much to disobey.
"Revenge is going to be very sweet," Byrnes whispered in her ear as he brushed past.
She followed him, feeling that little thrill tingling through her blood, unable to stop herself from whispering, "Just remember: two can play at that game."
Malloryn shot them both a cool glance as they entered the library, but Ingrid merely smiled and took a seat next to a young woman with blond curls, who looked at Byrnes, and then at her with a slightly shocked expression.
"Ladies," Malloryn called, taking the center of the room. "Gentlemen. May we begin?"
* * *
"AS YOU ALL KNOW," Malloryn said, standing with easy authority by the wall, "three years ago the prince consort was overthrown by his queen and society went through quite an upheaval. Humans and mechs had their rights restored"—this with a tip of the head to the burly Kincaid—"and Echelon society was changed forever."
"Aye," said Kincaid. "Bluebirds fuckin' sang, and everybody lived happily ever after. 'Til the Packenham Riots, and the burnings in Manchester, and the disappearances in Begby Square."
Malloryn smiled. It wasn't friendly at all. "Like I said, everything has changed. Some changes have been well received. Some have not. The queen and the ruling Council of Dukes would like to think that Britain is on its way to greatness but others seem not to hold that same opinion. That's why this team has been called together.
"Someone in particular means to cause trouble for the monarchy and they're using the populace to do so. The Packenham Riots weren't just circumstance. Someone murdered that poor young mech and before her blood had even cooled, there were pamphlets being circulated in the streets, which makes me think it was planned. I want to get to the bottom of who is stirring trouble before another riot breaks loose. And that's where all of you come in."
"I had friends as died in the Packenham Riots," Kincaid said. "Why should I help you? Your Echelon used your Cyclops war machines to mow down half the mob that day."
"A mistake, in hindsight," Malloryn admitted. "And you're not helping me. I don't even particularly want you on this team. You're a hothead and I don't entirely trust you, but you came highly recommended by my friend the Duchess of Casavian, and I need someone with a particular skill set that's hard to find. You fit that description."
"And what’s in it for me?" Kincaid demanded.
"For you? A comfortable wage and the help of one of my best inventors for that project you've been working upon,” Malloryn replied. "Someone who has recently passed his Bio-mech examinations with the Royal Mechanics Society.”
Kincaid reeled back as if struck and Byrnes sipped his blud-wein. Bio-mechanics dealt directly with the application of mechanical limbs and organs that were fused directly to a man or woman’s flesh as if they were one. Oh, there were cruder mech limbs in circulation, but only those within the Royal Society knew how to deal with the process called fusion.
Which meant that Kincaid needed some sort of limb or organ that crude mechwork couldn’t cover, and was shocked to realize that Malloryn knew of it. For himself though? Or someone he knew?
Bio-mech was ridiculously expensive. If Malloryn could gift that so negligently, then what else could he offer the rest of them?
Byrnes's heart raced. Bio-mech, medical technology... was there an answer for his mother's fate? "And the rest of us? What can you do for us?”
"You all have something you want and I have the means to provide it. But we can discuss that later. In private.” Malloryn gestured to the mysterious woman at his side, the one in blood red silk. "This is my colleague, Isabella Rouchard, the Baroness Schröder. She will be in charge of this team."
Charlie Todd stuck his hand in the air. "Arguments aside... what team? Why precisely are we here? To find the instigators of the riots? That was over a year ago."
Isabella Rouchard leaned on the back of her chair, every inch of her thick black hair tamed into an elegant chignon. "The queen has tasked Malloryn with putting together a team of highly skilled participants to discover who is behind these incidents that threaten national security. We have… information networks, but we need more. We need people who can deal with and contain threats, and are equipped to both delve directly to the heart of a mystery, and then handle it.”
"Why would you choose us?” Kincaid asked.
Malloryn shuffled some files on his desk. "Don’t assume that you haven’t been thoroughly vetted. All of you came recommended to me by various members of the Council of Dukes who rule this city. I have spies—I don’t need more of them. But what I don’t have,” he said, picking up the files and gesturing toward Byrnes, "is someone trained to investigate.” One of the files hit the desk and that gaze turned to Ingrid. "Someone who works private commissions to find what others can’t find and has ties to the verwulfen community; someone who understands the mech world,”—this at Kincaid—"someone who knows the rookeries and how to steal the eyes from a man’s sockets." Charlie Todd. "An inventor trained in detailing crime scene investigations." Ava. His hard blue gaze turned to Miss Townsend. "And—”
"Someone you swore you’d never work with again,” Gemma Townsend said softly, her challenging gaze locked on Malloryn’s.
There was a moment's pause as the two of them stared at each other.
"Someone experienced in the arts of espionage,” Malloryn corrected emotionlessly, dropping the final file onto the desk.
Miss Townsend looked away, as if there was far more to it than that.
Interesting.
"There are others who ha
ve already been briefed on the situation,” Malloryn said. "In my absence the baroness will be the leader of this group and you will report directly to her. Jack Fairchild is our resident inventor, whom Miss McLaren will be working with, and Herbert will handle… security. Anything else?"
Every single hand in the room went up, but Malloryn ignored them as he circled the room and gestured to the baroness. "If you would, Isabella. It’s easier if I show them."
The baroness wheeled a screen into place and Malloryn flicked a switch on the projector at the back of the room.
Byrnes leaned forward in his chair as a photograph appeared: a street, middle class by the look of it, with abandoned handcarts and steam cabs sitting under a line of washing. He recognized the place immediately and that old thrill tickled through his veins. Begby Square. An unsolved case. There was nothing more interesting than a riddle that remained unsolved.
That alone might convince him to go along with this.
"The Packenham riots were just the beginning. In March, an entire street of people vanished near Begby Square. Despite Nighthawk assistance not a single person has been recovered out of fifty-three. Nobody knows where the Begby Square people are, or what happened to them. In most of the houses dishes lay covered with half-eaten dinners, and washing was hung to dry as though it were a normal day. Only a single baby remained behind, crying in his crib. No blood, minimal signs of violence such as scattered dishes, and no tracks or scent trail. It all happened within the space of two hours, just as evening fell on March sixteenth."
Malloryn flicked the slide. A sandy arena sprang to view, spattered with blackened shadows of blood and covered in bodies. "The Devil's Pit, beneath the Barking Dog Tavern on the outskirts of Whitechapel. The entire crowd was slaughtered, and most of the combatants. Nobody knows who did it, but the doors were locked from the outside. Considering the location we left the scene to Blade, the Devil of Whitechapel, to solve. So far, he's got nothing. No scent, no tracks, just slaughter."
Byrnes's interest sharpened. He'd heard nothing of this, but that was not unusual. The Devil of Whitechapel was a force of his own, and had been part of the consortium that overthrew the prince consort during the revolution. He policed his own territories with his gang of ruffians, and Nighthawks were rarely invited in. Charlie Todd, however, didn’t look surprised, and he was one of Blade's lieutenants.