by Bec McMaster
"This time, we will have our end. This time, only one of us will survive," Balfour promised.
"Then do it," Malloryn taunted. "Kill me. I know you want to."
At that, a faint smile touched Balfour's lips. "You arrogant little cur." He began stripping off his gloves, one finger at a time. "Did you think it would ever be that easy? I don't want you to be a martyr. I want you to suffer. Death is too easy. Death is a release. No. I want to make you hurt. I want to destroy each and every aspect of your life... the way you destroyed mine. I want to break you."
You already broke me.
The boy that he'd been—the arrogant youth who'd thought himself above punishment—had died a swift, merciless death as he held the bloodied form of the girl he loved in his arms and begged her to come back to him.
From the second Balfour put a bullet in Catherine's chest, he may as well have started digging that boy's grave.
Auvry was dead. Buried. Gone. Only Malloryn remained, a thin veneer of civility straining over the ligaments and bare bones of his rage.
And he laughed.
The sound filled the cellar, making Balfour flinch back in surprise.
"Do you think there's anything you can do to me that hasn't already been done?" he breathed, when the laughter choked in his throat."You already killed the woman I loved."
And he'd never dared love again.
"Did I? We're here to test that theory."
A chill ran through Malloryn as Balfour whisked the velvet from the table, revealing a pair of objects. "I'll even give you a clue as to what I plan."
The heat drained from Malloryn's face as he recognized the threat.
Not torture.
But something designed to cripple, all the same.
Two miniatures. Two women, their oval faces gleaming on darkened canvas. One as blonde and radiant as the sunlight, and the other dark and smiling a secret, sensual smile.
This was his Achilles heel.
"I must admit, it's been difficult to decide who to hurt first. I couldn't guess which one held your affections more, so I took both. On one side we have the glorious soprano, Mrs. Danner, and on the other, we have the calculating duchess, Adele."
That noise he'd heard.
He'd been right all along. There had been someone in his house.
"Which one will you choose to save?"
The breath exploded out of him.
Pain screamed through Malloryn's wrists as he tore at his restraints, but there was no way of escaping. Horror flooded through him. No. "You bastard! They're both innocent. This is between you and me—"
"It has never been solely between you and me. You made sure of that when you stole my blasted thrall. Killed my puppet prince. Ruined my power base here in London. So now I will return the favor. You might have enough time to save one of them," Balfour promised. "Even now your Company of Rogues rides to your rescue, guided, no doubt, by that beacon in your head."
Balfour wanted them to find him.
"Or perhaps both will die," Balfour mused. "I would enjoy that, I think."
"You son of a bitch. You—"
"Now, now, Malloryn. Mind your temper. You wouldn't want me to think I'd actually scored a blow." A smile stretched thin. "You can pretend you don't have a heart all you like. I will always find it."
"They are innocent."
"Are they?" Balfour examined his pocket watch, and then exchanged a slow smile with Dido. "Ready to enjoy the fireworks, my dear?"
Dido gave Malloryn a long, narrow-eyed look. "You should cut his throat now."
"But that's not half as much fun," Balfour chided. Grabbing his cane, he headed toward the door. "I am being generous, Malloryn. You have half an hour to find and rescue both women. Or fail. Sweet Adele is at the Ivory Tower, where you first laid eyes upon her. And your mistress is at the opera where you met. Both sites are loaded with enough dynamite to blow the entire room—and each woman—to pieces. Alas, you only ruined half my stockpile. You have half an hour until the fuses light."
Dido put a small clock on the table, its hand ticking one minute past half-eleven.
"I am interested to see which choice you will make. The soprano? Or your wife? I guess we'll soon find out."
Loud shouting echoed above them.
Balfour gave him a sinister smile. "Looks like the cavalry's arrived."
"No!" he screamed, as Dido opened a secret door in the wall.
"Tick, tock, Malloryn." Balfour faded back into the shadows. "Make your choice. When the clock strikes midnight...." His voice lowered as he began to vanish into a secret tunnel behind a tapestry. "Boom."
"Are you all right?"
Byrnes tore his shackles open, but Malloryn shoved him out of the way, fighting free of the ropes around his ankles. Everything hurt, but there was no time for that now.
"What is it?" Byrnes asked sharply.
"He's got Adele and Giulia Danner." Malloryn raked his hands through his hair. "How many Rogues are with you?"
"Only me and Ingrid. The others are working in pairs across the city, trying to track you. We heard the tracking device start clicking a half mile away."
Two of them. It might work. "Giulia's at the opera house. Find her and get her out. Balfour said there's enough dynamite there to blow the room to pieces, so be careful. And hurry." He turned on Byrnes. "I need a weapon."
Byrnes tossed him a knife and a pistol. No doubt he had several others.
"You're going after Adele?" Ingrid asked breathlessly.
It had never been a choice.
"I'll take the Tower. If you can get in contact with any of the other Rogues, tell them to head in my direction. I may need help finding her."
The Ivory Tower.
Of course.
This was where it all began. Where it all ended.
Malloryn galloped into the courtyard, his horse's flanks foamed with sweat. He'd hired it from a startled hack driver by the simple expedient of tossing one of his gold rings at the man.
Several guards lowered their stunners, recognizing his face—and the look upon it.
"Your Grace?" Halstead, the new Master of the Coldrush Guards, asked. "What is it?"
"Is the queen here?" he demanded, swinging his leg over the horse's bare back and hitting the ground.
"No, she's—"
"Lock down the tower and start evacuating people. I have credible news of a threat. There may be explosives on the grounds."
He barked orders as he surveyed the grounds. Ivory Tower stood at the heart of the walled compound, soaring into the heavens like a marble finger pointing directly toward the stars. There was no way Balfour could have gotten explosives inside it, was there? Malloryn had changed the guard rotations, virtually locking it down after he received the letter from Balfour.
But then, it wasn't the only building in the complex.
Four towers stood at each corner of the heavy stone walls that circled the bailey: Thorne, Oak, Shield, and Crowe.
Adele could be anywhere on the grounds. But where, damn it? He didn't have time to search the entire keep. He needed a location.
Halstead reported back.
Nobody had been seen entering the grounds with any large shipments. No one had been admitted to the tower in twelve hours who hadn't been expected.
That didn't mean Balfour's agent hadn't been able to get in.
But he was running out of time.
Think, damn it. Malloryn turned, his gaze locking on Crowe Tower, where an open clock face loomed. It had been rebuilt in the wake of the revolution but was little used. A couple of minutes until midnight. Adele had to be here somewhere. The second hand ticked toward—
There was a faint light in the window up there, behind the open clock face, almost like someone had lit a candle.
Of course.
He was running before he thought about it. The enormous brass minute hand ticked closer to the hour. Two minutes. At most. That was all he had.
Bursting through the door, he found
himself at the base of the tower.
Malloryn flew up the stairs. He shoved open the door into the first level, and a string tied to the door jerked, a flash of light igniting in the corner. As he watched, fire raced along the trail of gunpowder. Hell. Malloryn started sprinting, following the trail.
Up more stairs. Thighs straining and lungs burning. The gunpowder led to a cask, and the second it hit the cask, everything went white.
BOOM—
The concussion smashed him off his feet, slamming him back into the wall behind him. Pain exploded through his head, his ears ringing. Somehow he crawled onto his hands and knees. The hallway loomed ahead. Another trail of gunpowder ignited, leading higher, higher....
A small charge set at each station, as if Balfour wanted him to get close enough to taste success.
"I don't want to kill you, Malloryn," echoed that hated voice from their confrontation in Russia. "I want to destroy every single thing you ever loved. One by one. Until you are crippled and alone, with their deaths on your conscience—"
"Adele!" He staggered up the stairs, trying to fight off the wave of double vision that afflicted him.
The trail of gunpowder hit the closed door ahead of him, vanishing beneath it. A series of pops and crackles suddenly exploded behind the door. No. Malloryn threw his shoulder against the timber, rebounding sharply. Again. This time the lock shuddered. A scream echoed within as smoke began to creep out from beneath the door.
The fury ignited in him. The craving. Suddenly the world was nothing but shadows, and he could feel his sight and hearing sharpening, his mouth suddenly aching for the taste of blood. Adele. She belonged to him, and damned if he knew what was going on between them, but he wasn't about to lose her.
Malloryn bellowed in rage and threw himself at the door.
It burst open, sending him rolling through flames and smoke. The entire room was on fire. Her wedding gown hung in the corner, flames chewing their way through the fabric.
"Adele!" he yelled, fighting through the smoke. "Adele?"
Flames licked at the walls, revealing a half dozen barrels stacked around the room. His heart stopped in his chest—
—and then someone coughed.
A figure was bound to a chair in front of the open clock face, slumped behind the thick hood.
No time to think. The flames had almost reached the first of the barrels and the second they went up there'd be nothing on this earth that could stop the tower from burning to the ground.
Malloryn drove into Adele, his arm locking around her waist as they plunged toward the open clock face. The pulley mechanism that opened and closed it flashed past his eyes, and at the last second he grabbed hold of it, the two of them swinging out into the open—
Not a second too soon.
The entire top of the tower exploded.
Heat seared his back, burning straight through his coat. Then he was falling as the pulley's rope suddenly cut off, Adele screaming in his arms, her hands bound behind her back. The ground flashed up toward them, and Malloryn stuck his feet out—
He hit, the impact jarring through his left ankle and flipping him forward. Somehow he bore the brunt of it with his shoulder, pain screaming through him as the joint popped from its socket. Adele slammed against him, and then they were rolling head over heels until they finally came to a stop.
He could barely move. Barely lift his head off the cobblestones. His ankle and shoulder were on fire. But Adele gasped in a sob, and somehow he managed to scramble across to where she lay, his useless arm hanging in its sleeve.
Once again his vision turned to shadows as the heat of the craving swept through him. Safe. She was safe. He'd never wanted to kiss her so much in his life.
"You saved me," she sobbed.
"I've got you," he gasped as he tore the ropes from her wrists.
Malloryn yanked the hood off her face with one hand—
—and stared directly into the terrified eyes of Mrs. Danner as she threw her arms around him.
Chapter 28
His heart jacked through his chest, kicking behind his ribs as Malloryn caught Giulia's arm. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Giulia.... What was she doing here? What was—? Where was Adele?
"You came for me," Giulia gasped, bursting into tears.
And that was when he knew how Balfour had played him.
Suddenly he could move again, pushing her away from him. No. No, not this. Anything but this.
Somehow Malloryn staggered to his feet, aware that dozens of Coldrush Guards were streaming from the Ivory Tower, watching as Crowe Tower burned. He felt weightless. Distant from his body. Unerringly, his head turned toward the east, toward the opera house where he'd first met Giulia.
The opera house, where he'd sent Byrnes and Ingrid to rescue the soprano at his feet.
And as he watched, an enormous mushroom cloud of fire suddenly bloomed into the sky.
Adele wriggled in her ropes.
She couldn't see a damned thing, and there was a hood over her face. First thing first. Using her teeth and her shoulder, she managed to get hold of the edge of the hood and then painstakingly drag it off her head. It hit the floor beside her, and Adele took her first blessedly cool breath of air even as light blinded her.
Where on earth was she? As her eyes slowly adjusted, she took in the stage around her, the red velvet curtains—and the spotlight shining directly upon her.
"Hello?" she called.
Adele began to notice the elegant chairs and the sumptuous carpets. She'd been here. Many a time. The opera. She was tied to a chair on the opera stage.
"Devoncourt?" she yelled, and her voice echoed through the room.
That rat bastard.
He'd kidnapped her, and tied her here and—
There were half a dozen barrels all around her, marked ominously with painted green flames, but no sign of anyone else. Clearly, nobody expected her to escape, and the barrels.... There was a good reason she might be here alone.
Adele swallowed hard. She knew the symbol for Greek Fire when she saw it. And judging from that ticking sound, there was some sort of explosive device stacked among the barrels.
Devoncourt had left her here to die.
And he'd done a jolly good job of tying these knots.
I am not going to die in the bloody opera house.
And certainly not at Devoncourt's hand.
If she couldn't loosen her ropes, then she would have to cut them, or abrade them. She glanced down, at the coiled spring attached to the chair she sat in. Any sharp jerk might trigger the mechanism there. So, not only would she have to cut her ropes, but she'd have to do it gently.
Not a great deal of time to lose then.
It was a good thing she'd come prepared.
Adele gritted her teeth and tried to force her blood-starved fingers to work. They flapped uselessly against her lacy sleeve. She couldn't remember much of her kidnapping, but as her fingers groped blindly, she hoped whoever had been behind it hadn't thought to search her.
Almost there.... Her fingers brushed the hilt of the small knife she always carried up her sleeve. Come on. Sweat dripped down her temple. Then she caught hold of the hilt with her fore and middle fingers.
It took her perhaps ten minutes, but Adele finally gasped in success as she managed to tumble the hilt into her palm. Her fingers snapped closed around it.
Time to get out of here.
Before those barrels exploded.
"Where is she? Where is she?"
Malloryn shoved through the smoky crowd outside the opera, finding Byrnes and Ingrid sitting on the steps of the palladium opposite the burning opera house. All he saw was blood and ash marking Ingrid's face, and Byrnes's protective arm around her shoulders.
The world started buzzing again. Malloryn staggered to a halt. "Adele?"
There was no sign of her.
"Adele?" Byrnes's frown drew his eyebrows together, and Malloryn watched as the other man suddenly realized exactly what
had happened.
Ingrid looked up, her nostrils flaring with pain as she held her arm across her chest. "I'm sorry."
"It went up just as we breached the opera house door," Byrnes said gently, but Malloryn didn't hear any of it. "We were too late. I'm sorry...." A gurgle died in his throat. "It was all I could do to get Ingrid out of the way in time."
Malloryn finally managed to take in what remained of the opera house. Rubble lay strewn across the square, fire licking at what was left of the building. Men manning water pumps seemed to be streaming from nowhere, and as he watched, an enormous column of marble toppled, shattering across the cobbles.
"Stay back!" someone called.
There was no way anyone inside could have survived.
This was his fault.
And suddenly Malloryn was on his knees, the heat—what there was of it—draining from his face, and the world rushing away from him.
"Malloryn?" Byrnes caught him by the arm, and the duke groped for his hand blindly.
Adele.
That was when he knew what she'd meant to him.
Chapter 29
Adele surfaced from the Thames with a gasp, filthy water streaming down her face, her skirts threatening to suck her under.
There was a boat nearby, and she kicked toward it, going under a couple more times before her hand finally caught in the mooring rope.
It took an enormous amount of effort to draw herself onto the banks of the Thames, and she collapsed there, shivering with cold.
Fire raged and bloomed in the distance. She was somewhere near the base of Waterloo Bridge. Slowly she sat up, staring at the opera house. It was on fire... or what was left of it was. It struck her then. How close she'd come to being inside that building when the explosion occurred....
A wave of trembling broke over her. Somehow she forced herself to her feet, her teeth chattering.
This was the third time the Opera House burned.
She could barely remember escaping. All the doors had been locked, and she'd returned to the stage, somehow managing to open one of the trapdoors by pulling on several of the ropes. Then she was working her way through the bowels of the building, ending up in a tunnel below it.