by Bec McMaster
"May I ask, what precisely is your relationship with Byrnes?" For there was a familiarity there that was beginning to grow quite obvious.
"We're brothers," Debney said, the words spilling out of him as if one confession suddenly unloosed a tide. "Though he wouldn't call it such."
"Ingrid," Byrnes growled through her earpiece.
"Brothers?" How fascinating. "And how did such a thing come about?"
Debney's face brightened. "Oh, I was three when Nanny came to live with us—or Byrnes's mother, I should s—"
The curtains suddenly wrenched apart and Byrnes stood there. "Are we keeping an eye on Ulbricht, or gossiping like a bunch of little old ladies?"
"Well, it is terribly interesting," Ingrid replied.
"If you want to know something, just ask," Byrnes replied coolly. "I detest people gossiping about my life as though I'm not living it."
Touché. Ingrid tilted her head. He was correct: Ulbricht had to be the focus.
At her side, Debney looked like he'd seen a ghost, and made some sort of gasping noise.
Byrnes shot him a disgusted look. "Christ, Francis. It's not as if I didn't know. You followed Christopher Lamb around like a girl with the swoons the summer I turned fifteen. It was fairly obvious to anyone with eyes. And I am a Nighthawk. Grant me some credit."
"You never said a word about it," Debney managed to rasp.
"What was there to say? It was your business, not mine." Slipping a hand behind Ingrid's back, Byrnes nudged her toward the ballroom, his voice lowering for her ears only. "Just as my past is my business. Stay out of it. Five minutes."
That stung, which was her own fault. She knew better than to develop an interest in him. Pushing past, she tilted an eyebrow at Debney, "So much for your idea that he saw you as some kind of threat. I'm going to mingle."
* * *
THE TARGET WAS Ulbricht's study.
Leaving Debney in the ballroom—with strict instructions to stay there in plain sight—Ingrid ghosted up the stairs in search of the ladies’ retiring rooms. After she’d powdered her nose she returned to the hallway, and then darted away from the ballroom deeper into the depths of the manor house.
"Where are you, Byrnes?"
"Come and find me," he whispered back. "If you can."
So be it. Ingrid breathed in deeply. Blue bloods had no personal scent, but she knew what type of cologne he was wearing tonight, and... there.... A trace of it.
Shadows darkened the halls. There were few lights here, merely fireflies of fuzzy goldenness burning at certain distances along the hall. Ingrid stalked Byrnes's trail, smiling a little with anticipation as the smoky, lemon verbena scent of his cologne grew stronger.
It was darker here and there were no lights at all. The sounds of the party grew muted. Ingrid thought she heard a rustle, and then—
A hand darted out of the shadows, curling around her wrist and drawing her into an alcove by the window. Byrnes snapped the curtains closed with a flick of his hands, pressing her back against the glass of the window. There were books scattered on the low padded bench, inviting a passer-by to sit and rest for a moment, but there was no resting here. Something had caught his attention. Ingrid arched a brow, but he clapped a hand over her mouth, his hard body pressed against hers. She could feel the whisper of his breath against her cheek, and that old thrill went through her. That attraction that she simply couldn't fight. The second he realized she wasn't going to make a noise, he withdrew his hand, pressing one finger against his lips for quiet.
Seconds later she heard it: a pair of footsteps rustling against the rug in the hallway. Tilting her head to the side, she caught a hint of cologne that she recognized, and something else... a scent that made her mouth twist in distaste.
Ulbricht, and someone else.
"Are the preparations all in order?" Ulbricht murmured, and fabric rustled as she shifted.
Byrnes's hand came to rest on her hip, a gentle caress that startled her. Ingrid glanced up from beneath her lashes. She was fairly certain that this was gentlest touch he'd ever laid upon her.
Focus, she told herself sharply.
"Lady Zero is seeing to it now," came the low, terse reply. "What I wouldn't give to see the look on his face when he realizes what is in store for him."
"The Sons of Gilead need to know what happens when one of their own crosses the group." Ulbricht's words were crisp with satisfaction.
"Yes," said the other voice, amused now, "we cannot have any of them thinking for themselves, can we?"
"You almost sound as though you admire him for his defiance."
"The sheep irritate me. He would have made a good addition to our elite order. The rest of them are pawns, to be pushed wherever the Rising Sons deem worthy, with barely a thought in their heads beyond how much they would like a return to the act of taking thralls, or blood-slaves. None of them think beyond their own immediate world and needs."
Ulbricht sneered. "That's what makes the SOG so useful. Their loud, bleating voices hide what's really going on behind the scenes. They'll keep Malloryn's attention long enough for us to do what really needs doing."
"Do you think so?" mused the stranger. "Malloryn's no fool."
"I'm not afraid of Malloryn. He'll get what's coming to him for betraying his own class." Ulbricht sounded disgusted. "But enough of this. We shouldn't be seen together."
Ingrid looked at Byrnes. Both of them were barely breathing.
"I'll meet you at the grotto, once this entire unsavory business is concluded," Ulbricht said, and began to stride away from them, judging by the sound of it.
"If you're not afraid of Malloryn," murmured the stranger to himself, "then you're the fool, Ulbricht."
His footsteps also vanished into the distance, and Ingrid let out the breath she'd been holding. She didn't dare move—to be caught after that revelatory little conversation would be disaster.
But... there was something about being held in the warm darkness of the manor, silent behind their curtains, that made her nervous. Move, and they might be caught. Stay, and she would become victim to the heated lure between her body and Byrnes's.
It was already starting. His breath against her throat; his hands resting easily on her hips, as if they belonged there. Their hearts pounded in the heavy stillness of the night, shockingly loud to her ears. Byrnes listened to the sound of echoing footfalls, intent and focused, but as her face slowly tilted towards his, he looked down, blue eyes gleaming in the faint moonlight as his own awareness flared to life.
They stared at each other.
Hard fingers turned soft on her waist. Byrnes’s piercing gaze shuttered beneath a sweep of thick black lashes, and his mouth rested a hairsbreadth away from her temple. It would have been easy to push him away if he'd simply moved toward her, but he didn't. She was growing all too aware of the softening flex of her own hands against his chest, thumbs caressing the hard planes of his pectorals beneath his shirt, tempted to do more, to explore. This gentleness both tempted and confused her.
Their last case had been a haze of arguments, and that one heated kiss when passion had finally overtaken him and he'd thrust her against the wall behind the theatre, taking what they both wanted. Seduction had never owned any part in it.
"If you keep looking at me like that, Ingrid, then we're not going to see the inside of Ulbricht's study at all," Byrnes whispered. His voice told her that the thought wouldn't bother him too much, even as their responsibilities pressed down upon them both.
Ingrid let go of the breath she'd been holding. She'd always been attracted to him. That wasn't the problem. "I believe the hallway sounds empty. Let's go."
A hand caught her wrist, and Ingrid glanced up.
"Later," Byrnes insisted, and his eyes had darkened from that compelling blue to the pure, sweeping darkness of a blue blood's hunger.
Ingrid shook his hand free. "You and I aren't a good combination. We mix like potassium and water."
His teeth gleamed as h
e smiled. "Explosive?" Pressing closer, he nuzzled the edge of her ear, and a thrill went right through her. "You and I... It would be a night to remember. That's not always such a terrible thing, Ingrid."
"It is when one considers the debris left behind." Like her own shattered heart. She'd always been too intrigued by him, and knew herself well enough to know that this—what lay between them—was not the same as the handful of liaisons that she'd had in the past to assuage her loneliness.
Byrnes’s gaze grew heavy-lidded and sleepy as he looked at her, and the speculation there was enough to make her wary. If he looked too hard at her, perhaps he might see something she thought best kept hidden.
Stupid bloody heart. Longing for something that was best kept at arm's length.
Ingrid let out an unsteady breath and slipped through the curtains in a swish of skirts. Byrnes trailed on her heels, but she knew that discussion had simply been set aside, not finished.
“This one,” Byrnes noted, trying a handle. Locked.
It took a swift jiggle with the lock pick that she'd hidden in her bodice to get through the latch. Byrnes remained a cool presence at her back as she slowly turned the handle and peered inside. Ulbricht's study. Success. Within seconds, they were both inside, moving like stealthy shadows. Perfectly in unison, silently understanding every look they gave each other. A twitch of his brow indicated that the desk was hers, and Ingrid complied.
This... this was what it could be like between them, if they truly worked together. Byrnes moved immediately to the bookshelf, sliding books out, and rifling through them.
If only she could trust his pride and his ability to let her in.
"Ulbricht has guards on rotation, disguised as footmen," Byrnes whispered abstractedly, his focus completely on the mission now, as if by promising her a “later” he'd been able to entirely compartmentalize his lust. "I've been timing their routes. We've got ten minutes...." Glancing at his pocket watch, he amended, "Closer to nine now."
Ingrid let out another breath, and with it the last of her own fragmented thoughts. Time to focus. "Do you think there'll be anything incriminating here?" Piles of paper were neatly shuffled into place on the desk, which gleamed. Ulbricht had fastidious tendencies.
"The problem with the Echelon is that they firmly believe that they're sitting on a throne on top of the world, and that the rest of us are mindless, spineless cattle who couldn't do anything, even if we dared break into their manors and find evidence. I've only ever encountered one blue blood lord who has absolutely nothing of interest in his study, and that's Malloryn."
"You broke into Malloryn's study?"
Byrnes gave her a faint frown; a warning to keep her voice down. "I wanted to know more about this covert operation he's running."
"And?"
"Nothing," he responded gruffly, finished with the bookshelf and beginning to search for hidden drawers in the cabinetry. "Though he did have certain traps in place for the unwary, which is interesting. Almost as though he expected someone to go through his things. He's got all the important information hidden away somewhere, and his study at Baker Street is a complete sham, well stocked with treatises on livestock rearing, the best way to feed cows, Bio-mechanics, and welding temperature suggestions for creating mech limbs. Terrifically boring stuff, I kid you not. One would almost suspect him of having some private joke on the rest of the world."
"Or certain spies."
Ingrid sorted through the papers, trying to keep them in their rightful place. Receipts, stock movements, a pile of newspaper clippings featuring incidents where blue blood lords had been stoned in the streets, or executed. She turned her attention to those, pausing for a moment. Not proof of anything, but an interest in the poor hamstrung blue bloods' plight. Clearly where Ulbricht's sympathies lay.
Ingrid lifted a newspaper clipping of the queen's birthday celebrations, frowning as she saw the way someone had stabbed a pair of holes through Queen Alexandra's eyes. "He hates her," she whispered, easing her thumb against the newsprint. "Ulbricht hates the queen."
Byrnes had been running his fingers over the inside of a previously locked cabinet, when he rattled a hidden latch. "Got something," he whispered, and set to work unearthing the small drawer.
"What is it?"
Byrnes withdrew a slim folder from the hidden compartment that he'd unearthed.
"Insurance," Byrnes read off the top of the folder.
"Insurance against what?"
"Subject X," he murmured, reading the document within the folder. "Hmm, something something formula... bloodthirsty... rampage through asylum.... Here we are: 'The debacle with Subject X has created instability at the facility. Though how could we have predicted that he would escape his cell and lay waste to so many of the staff? All evidence indicates that he was responding well to the elixir, and his transformation appeared to be almost complete. Erasmus suspects he has formed an attachment with the Byerly girl, the one who nurses him, so he instructed her to work in another of the wings so as not to distract X. It is believed that the board members will vote for foreclosure of the asylum, possibly destruction of the specimens. I cannot imagine the Duke of—'" He flipped the piece of paper over. "Hmm. That's strange. I wonder if the rest of it slipped out."
"What does that have to do with Ulbricht?"
"I don't know." Setting the folder down, he began hunting through the cabinet with more focus. "But it's caught my interest. Perhaps thanks to the part about 'bloodthirsty rampage' and the hidden compartment. We do have a ravaged body on our hands, after all, and nobody hides something unless it's important."
"Focus, Byrnes. We want information on the SOG. Not scientific experiments." Ingrid continued her sweep of the room, finding a curled up piece of parchment in the fireplace.
Unrolling it revealed several symbols. None of the letters made sense—some sort of odd language, possibly a code, but.... "I've seen this symbol before," she said, tapping the picture. "Tattooed on the inside of Ulbricht's wrist."
Byrnes glanced over, eyes narrowing at the half sun symbol. "I've seen it tonight too, though I cannot remember where. I didn't take much notice of it."
"A half sun," Ingrid murmured, then her eyes lit up. "Or the Rising Sons?"
"What do they have to do with the Sons of Gilead?"
"You heard Ulbricht and his crony in the hall. I think the Sons of Gilead were created to cover the fact that the real faction—these Rising Sons—are up to something. The SOG might think themselves important, but I'd be surprised if they knew just what they were being used for. It's all been talk of recruitment drives and funding down in the ballroom."
"And the Rising Sons? What's their purpose?"
"Anarchy," she whispered, staring into nothing and seeing that photo of the queen with her eyes stabbed out. "They're up to something, some plot against the queen and Malloryn, and we need to discover what it is before it gets too late."
Ingrid folded the small piece of coded letter, then slipped it inside her corset. Silence strained the air. "What?" she asked, arching a brow and looking up. "I might as well use what I have."
A faint smile played about Byrnes's lips. "I didn't say anything."
"Jack can decode it for me when we return. If it wasn't important, then I think it would be written in plain English."
"Agreed." Byrnes suddenly cocked his head on the side, holding a stalling hand up, and pressing the other one to his earpiece with a frown. Then he was moving in a flurry toward the door. "Debney," he shot over his shoulder. "They've got Debney." A frown drew his brows together. "Ulbricht's there. Something about betraying their sons? Or their—"
His face suddenly paled, and Byrnes pressed the communicator even tighter to his ear. Then he was off, moving toward the door. "He's screaming."
EIGHT
"DAMN IT!" Byrnes paused in the gardens, scenting the air.
There'd been no sign of Debney in the ballroom. Frustration burned through him. He'd been following Debney's cologne trail but
it had suddenly vanished as he walked into a scent bomb that obliterated his senses with its sudden intensity.
"Hell." Ingrid reared back as if slapped, and he was reminded that her scent-tracking abilities were even more sensitive than his. "I cannot smell a bloody thing."
Another scream pierced his eardrum: Debney begging someone to stop. Byrnes held the communicator close against his ear, pacing in each direction. Unlike Ingrid's jeweled ear cuff, he'd had to be more surreptitious with the listening device planted on his half brother. Thank God. If it hadn't been planted within Debney's collar, they might have found it, and then Debney would be dead before either of them knew it.
"—please, please, please... Make it stop! Make it stop!" Silence filled the sudden void, as Debney gasped.
"Where's the verwulfen bitch?" Ulbricht hissed in Byrnes's ear.
"Don't know," Debney cried out. "I swear I don't know! Last... saw her in the ballroom."
"You're lying."
"I'm not!" Debney squealed.
"What's happening?" Ingrid demanded, drawing Byrnes back into the here and now with a faint touch against his sleeve.
"They're trying to get him to give us up." Byrnes turned. "Where would they have taken him? They can't be in the manor. Not with all those guests.... Damn it, I thought he'd be safe in public view!"
"What about what Ulbricht said about the grotto?" Ingrid paced to the top of a small hill overlooking the sprawling gardens as she squinted into the night. "There! Byrnes! I can see torchlight!"
She was right. A ring of torches flickered in the distance.
"Is there anyone else?" someone asked through the communicator, in the kind of voice that sent a shiver down his spine.
Byrnes held his breath.
"No." Debney gasped. "Just her. And me."
Debney. You bloody stupid fool. Trying to be a hero.... Byrnes squeezed his eyes shut, then took a deep breath. The debt had just turned the other way. He had to get his half brother out of this. No matter what the cost was.