by Bec McMaster
"She was an enemy spy."
He knew that voice. Saw the light shining in his eyes as it swung from side to side, binding his gaze to it.
"She tried to kill you."
Those words, branded into his head. He punched the floor, tearing his gloves.
"She betrayed you."
No.
"She never loved you."
"Remember the fire, Dmitri?"
And he could smell it now, almost feel the heat on his skin as he woke to find the bed canopy alight and flames dripping down the walls, trapping him inside the room where he'd made love to her.
"She tried to kill you."
What the hell was the truth?
Because both images felt like actual memories, and suddenly he didn't know which one was real—and which was the lie.
Chapter 9
"If you think you can just kidnap me and leave me here to rot, then you have another think coming!" Gemma snapped, rattling the bars on the cell.
Silence.
Nothing.
"Dmitri?" she yelled.
There was no answer. That bloody rutting bastard. She pushed away from the bars, shaking with a combination of fear and fury. The chain around her ankle scraped over the slate floors, hauling her up just short of the sealed windows. She was still wearing her cursed corset, undergarments, and stockings, and her skin itched as if it wanted to be free of the confining garments. The heavy drape of the fur cloak protected her from the afternoon chill.
No sign of him. She'd spent yesterday calling out to him, but he'd never come. The only hint he hadn't abandoned her entirely was the flask of blood she'd found in her cell when she woke, which was somewhat disconcerting, because she thought she slept lightly.
Be patient, she'd told herself, though the wait grated on her nerves. Gemma knew she wasn't built for patience. She was built for action.
And what would her friends think right now? Would they be looking for her?
What would Malloryn think?
What was going on out there in the world? Were they still hunting the Chameleon? What if the assassin struck now, while she was out of the picture and the queen was vulnerable?
"Damn you to heck," Gemma cursed, glaring through the thin bars.
She had her lock pick still.
The only problem was, she wasn't certain if Obsidian was merely ignoring her, or whether he was no longer in the manor.
You have one chance to escape. Don't you dare waste it on impatience.
He'd ignored her curses.
He'd ignored her yells, and the way she rattled the bars.
But Gemma wasn't about to give up.
Try and ignore me now, you cold-blooded bastard.
She started singing. Loudly. "Oh, there was a young Nighthawk from Matlock...."
Gemma threw herself into the chorus with an obnoxious gusto that would do an opera singer proud. Fourteen verses in, footsteps echoed along the hallway.
Her heart shifted gears and Gemma peered through the bars, trying to see down the narrow corridor. "Obsidian?"
She wasn't going to call him Dmitri. Not anymore. The man she'd once known was dead—he'd told her that himself. All that was left now was the icy facade that wore the same face as the man who'd stolen her heart.
Once, a long time ago.
As if the thought of him conjured him, a dark shape began to take form. Gemma's shoulders slumped in a mixture of relief and frustration. She'd almost thought herself alone. She'd nearly decided to pick the lock, which would have been a disaster, for then he'd know she still carried her pick.
"What the hell is all this racket?" Obsidian demanded.
"I was trying to get your attention."
"Well you got it," he growled. "Along with half the neighborhood. You sound like a strangled cat. Is this some new method of torture?"
Gemma's eyes narrowed on him through the bars. "I'll have you know I have an excellent singing voice."
"If you're trying to convince me you're telling the truth about what happened between us, perhaps you'd best prove you're not an exceptional liar. You said that with a completely straight face."
"I am. I took singing lessons last year. My tutor, Francois, said I had an ear for certain octaves."
"Now that," Obsidian said, "is a man who knows how to skirt the truth."
Gemma subsided with ill grace.
He watched her pace, his gaze narrowing to thin slits as he caught a glimpse of her pale stockings through the swish of the cloak.
You were the one who stripped me. So you can suffer the consequences.
Far be it from her to blush and shield flashes of her skin like a virgin. She knew men found her form pleasing. She was counting upon it.
Yet the sudden heat in his eyes cast her plan back in her face.
Her skin itched from the inside out. "You've barely fed me. I've been trying to take small sips, but there's scarcely an inch of blood left in the flask you provided, and my... my hunger is beginning to make itself known."
The color drained out of her vision as if just thinking of it roused the predator within her.
Not. Now. She sucked in a sharp breath. The craving virus stoked the fires of a person's primal self. When the hunger rose, she stopped thinking. All she wanted was blood or sex. Or maybe to kill something.
She wanted his fist in her hair as he tilted her head back, revealing her throat....
Gemma clenched her fist, letting the bite of her nails against her palm distract her. What the devil had that been all about? She wasn't prey; she was the predator.
"Unfortunately, blood's a little short in supply," Obsidian countered. "Someone blew up two of the draining factories last month and poisoned the other three. We're all on rations."
It was Gemma's turn to narrow her eyes. "Did you have anything to do with that debacle and the Sons of Gilead?"
"I watched. It made a merry bonfire."
This time it was her turn to pace. "Why? Why would you do such a thing? Why try and destroy this fragile peace in London? People will die because you took away the ability to feed most of London's blue bloods. Who are you working for?"
"People already die," Obsidian replied coldly. "And it's a nice attempt, Miss Townsend, but I'm not planning on telling you a damned thing."
"I'd prefer it if you called me Gemma. We are acquainted, after all."
"Are we?" Obsidian slid closer to the bars, not quite daring to step all the way into the light. "Sometimes I wonder if I know you at all."
Of course. He wasn't glaring at her for any particular reason—no doubt the morning sunlight hurt his eyes. If he chanced to step into it, his skin would redden and burn a little. It was the one advantage she owned over him—Obsidian might be stronger and faster, but he couldn't stomach the light of day.
His gaze met hers, and he smiled a little. "But you're not lying about your thirst, at least. Look at it itching all the way through you."
"Bite this," she breathed in pure frustration, biting her clenched fist at him. It was the sort of insult she'd heard among the Echelon, in reference to telling a blue blood he'd find no easy prey here, but a fist instead.
"My preference is something a little softer." Obsidian's eyelids drooped lazily, and she had the flushed sensation he was trying not to glance at her stockinged feet.
Never one to miss a chance, Gemma let the cloak fall open a hint. "If you want something a little softer, then you're going to have to come on this side of the bars."
His face shuttered immediately. "As fascinating as this little conversation is, Miss Townsend, I was trying to sleep. What do you want?"
"Freedom."
"You're wasting my time—and your breath." Obsidian shook his head, and then turned to go.
Gemma rushed the bars, grabbing hold of them. "No, wait!"
He paused.
Half turned his head toward her.
"I want... water to wash with. Hot water. And soap. Preferably something perfumed."
"I'm n
ot certain you understand the predicament you're in." Rattling the bars, he gave her a pointed look. "You're on the wrong side of these. I don't have to take orders from you."
"It's been two days," she growled out. "I am tired, thirsty, and wretchedly cold. I stink."
"Blue bloods have no personal scent."
"I feel like I stink," she growled out. "One is not meant to be laced so tightly for so long."
"Miss Townsend."
"Hot water," she begged. "Even a small bowl of it. I would do anything for a bowl of hot water and soap."
Those dangerous eyes turned sleepy-lidded. "Anything?"
"Anything," she breathed.
"Fine." He slid his hands into his trouser pockets. "Drop the cloak."
Gemma tugged the strings of his cloak loose, letting it slide from her shoulders. The heavy fur-lined fabric pooled around her bare ankles, the sudden biting chill of the air pebbling her skin. "And now, Obsidian?"
"Ghost was right," he said coldly, looking his fill. "You will do anything, stoop to any level, in order to ensnare me."
A game to see how far she would let him push her.
Damn him.
Gemma hauled the cloak up around her shoulders. "Not all of us have the luxury of power. You have something I want. I have nothing to bargain with. If you're hoping to shame me, then please take your smirking face elsewhere. I am done with being shamed. All I wanted was a simple luxury. Clearly, I miscalculated your level of empathy." Somehow she laughed. "The mistake, I believe, was in thinking you had any."
Hauling the warm fur around her bare arms, she retreated to the marble slab she'd been sleeping on and turned away from him before deliberately raising her voice to earsplitting levels. "Oh, there was a young Nighthawk from Matlock—"
"Ghost." She let the word fall into the still air as Obsidian appeared at evening with a fresh flask of blood.
She hadn't been thinking earlier, but trapped in this barred room, all she had was time to think and resurrect every word spoken between them.
The Company of Rogues knew they faced an unknown alliance of dhampir. Created by Dr. Erasmus Cremorne at Falkirk Asylum, according to the information Malloryn had handed her, most of the dhampir patients had died when the asylum burned to the ground.
It wasn't a project the common people of London would have felt easy with; trying to force the evolution of blue bloods that were fated to turn into vampires. Vampires were monstrous entities, capable of tearing entire streets of people to pieces. Back in Georgian times, there'd been a spate of vampire attacks, resulting in the Year of Blood, before the Echelon had brought in strict rules.
Any blue blood who reached craving virus levels of 70 percent or higher was to be reported to the authorities as standing on the edge of the Fade, that moment in time when the color began to bleach from their bodies in preparation for the transformation into a vampire.
Yet, it was only in recent years they'd discovered there was one more way for a blue blood to evolve.
The Falkirk project had been kept quiet. Meddling with blue bloods almost on the verge of becoming vampires? The human classes would have rioted.
So Falkirk burned, all the records within it were lost, and it was only in the past year, with dhampir surfacing out of the dregs of myth, that Malloryn began to find traces of information about the project.
There was no way of telling how many dhampir were arrayed against them.
Gemma needed that information.
Suddenly, escape was not the first thought in her mind. Could she do some good here? Could she gain Obsidian's trust? Learn more about who COR faced?
"Ghost is your fellow dhampir, is he not?" she continued, as Obsidian shot her a sharp look. "And he knows about me." She paused. "He knows about Russia, and what lay between us."
And he had warned Obsidian away from her.
"He's the one who sent that dhampir to kill me, isn't he?"
The muscle in Obsidian's jaw flexed. "You're not going to gain anything else from me, Miss Townsend."
Oh, I already have.
"I never realized why your hair was so pale in Russia. I thought it your natural coloring, or perhaps you were close to the Fade. We had no inkling then, of dhampir. You were at Falkirk, weren't you?"
A flinch.
"Or was it the Russian court who experimented upon you?" No flinch. "No. You were born Russian, I suspect, but you were experimented upon here. When did you arrive in England? Were you a blue blood before you were sent to Falkirk? You had to be. According to the Duke of Caine's records on the facility, only blue bloods were interred there—"
"Do you want this, or not?" His hand clutched tight around the flask, knuckles splayed white.
Struck a nerve, by the look of it. "I'm only curious," Gemma protested, uncrossing her legs from where she sat on the marble slab and pushing to her feet. "There's not a great deal to do to pass the time, apart from think. You can only blame yourself for not providing adequate entertainment."
And she couldn't help thinking about the past.
Her feelings... had been real, had they not? But how could her love have existed when he'd been a virtual stranger? She knew nothing about him, nor he her. Only a bunch of carefully concocted lies the pair of them wove as they danced about each other.
It made a mockery of what they'd shared.
I loved a man who didn't exist.
"Don't be too curious." He withdrew the flask as she reached for it, and Gemma's eyes narrowed.
Slowly, he let her take it.
"Drink," he commanded abruptly. "Then turn around and place your hands behind you."
Gemma unscrewed the flask with greedy hands, tipping it to her lips. She preferred to take her blood in her cup of hot tea, or laced into her wine, but beggars couldn't be choosers. The second it hit her throat, the hunger exploded through her, flaming through her veins like a fuse racing toward a stick of dynamite. Fatigue sloughed away from her, and the constant bone-deep chill vanished.
She gulped down half the flask before she realized he was watching her.
"You've been starving me," she pointed out, patting the blood from her lips. "This is hardly the situation for etiquette."
One did not gulp one's blood as if one was an animal. It was meant to be sipped and savored, to prove you had complete control over the violence of your hunger. Especially when one was a woman and prone to "hysterics" and hence had more to prove when it came to controlling oneself.
But right then, she didn’t care.
"Are you done?" he murmured, holding out a thin rope.
And Gemma remembered the other part of his request. She lowered the flask, then set if on the floor and slowly turned around, forcing her wrists together. She needed to gain his trust.
She wasn’t sure if he had hers.
"Where are you taking me?"
"Somewhere you requested," Obsidian said softly, tugging the ropes around her wrists tight.
"Is that...." Gemma's jaw dropped as Obsidian pushed her through the door into a tiled room. "A bath."
Steam curled off the elegant bath in the center of the wash chamber. Bubbles popped on the surface, and though the room held the chill of autumn, the scent of lavender filled the damp air. A single candle burned on the vanity.
"I was forced to fix the boiler," he said, "but the tap still works."
He'd done more than merely fix the boiler. The room was swept clean, though dust was piled in the corner. From the state of the rest of the dying manor, she suspected he'd cleaned the bath too.
"Thank you." Gemma glanced at him from beneath her lashes. "You found soap."
"As requested." A blank, blank face. "There is also a clean gown and undergarments on the vanity, though the sizing may not be quite right."
What was going on here? She didn't think it a kindness. No, he wanted something.
Was this the plan all along? Capture her, soften her, then... learn something from her? She still didn't know why he'd taken her.
&nb
sp; Or....
"Are you planning on watching?"
Hard hands spun her around, tugging the knot of the rope free. "Would you enjoy that?"
"I'm not entirely certain I've forgiven you for earlier." She realized she was staring at the bath. "Though I suspect I could work up to it."
A lot of things could be forgiven for hot water and soap.
"Don't try anything. I'm not going anywhere," he said, as she rubbed at her wrists. "Don't waste your time. You have twenty minutes."
Then he turned back to the door and gave her his back, as if to prove he had no damned intentions of watching at all.
Gemma cleared her throat. "There is one slight problem."
Long strands of brown hair brushed his collar as he turned his face in profile. Though he clearly dyed it, there was a faint ashen color leaching through, as if the silver blond sought to reassert itself. "Miss Townsend," he warned.
"I have a friend to assist me at the safe house." Sweeping her tangled black hair over her shoulder, she turned around, presenting the problem to him. "Consider yourself lucky you are not a woman and can dress yourself. I cannot unlace my corset without assistance."
"I swear to God, Gemma." His voice came out hard, and a little part of thrilled at the sound of her name on his lips.
"It's not a trick," she shot over her shoulder. "Have you ever tried to wear one of these infernal contraptions? And it isn't as if you had any compunction about stripping me out of my dress the other night. Unless, of course, now you suddenly do, hmm?"
"Fine." Drawing his knife, he jerked her around again.
Obsidian sliced the ribbons apart along her spine, the corset gaping with an abrupt jerk.
Gemma caught it to her breasts, her pulse suddenly pounding. "That corset was pink velvet with seed pearls hand-stitched to it! It came from Emerson's!"
"It was ruined anyway."
She stared down in dismay. "It cost me an entire week's worth of wages!"
"Then perhaps the Duke of Malloryn should be paying you more. It's just an article of clothing. You can replace it."
He didn't understand. She'd spent her entire childhood dressed in a nondescript training outfit every other Falcon trainee wore. They'd called her cadet, and shaved her head for the first twelve years—all the better to prevent another student from gaining a crucial hold during their bouts. When she'd won her way free of the Falcons, Gemma had found herself fighting to find her identity. She was the one who chose her gowns now, silks and velvets and frivolous undergarments that clung like a second skin. Decadent colors she'd never been allowed to wear; gorgeous boots she'd spent a small fortune upon. As a spy, there was little she could own that held any value, and no point in collecting items of a personal nature just in case she had to flee if her cover was broken and leave them behind. Her wardrobe was the one aspect of her life she could control, that could remind her of who she was now.