Mission: Improper: London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy (17 page)

It wasn't going away.
Ava glanced up from beneath her lashes as Kincaid scratched at his jaw.
Her vision locked on his fingers, on his throat, his pulse, his....

She thrust the whiskey flask at him and stood abruptly; anything to get away from him.

"Hell," Kincaid swore as the whiskey sloshed over his hand.
"What are you about now?"
He looked up, and then every muscle in his body stiffened as he saw her eyes.
Something ugly crept over his face, and Ava lowered her damning eyes that were no doubt as black as tar.

"I think I'm having some sort of...
out-of-body experience."
She pressed her hands to her heated cheeks.

"You mean, you wanted my blood," he practically snarled, facing her like a spitting cat.

"Yes....
No!"
She clapped a hand to her eyes, and hunched over herself.
Oh God, it won't go away.
"I do
not
want to drink your blood, like...
like some sort of animal.
I'm...
a young lady.
Not a monster."
She patted her own pockets.
"And I didn't bring my own flask."
Why hadn't she brought it?
She knew the risks.
The formula must be taken at regular intervals, and she had at least another two hours until she needed to take it, but she was feeling not at all herself right now.
Oh, she'd had moments since she was infected with the craving virus, but not like this.
Ava gulped in a breath of air.

"Yeah, well, I only got whiskey, not blood."

"I wouldn't drink blood if you had it!
I carry my own protein-enriched synthetic formula with which to sustain myself in the absence of blood."

"You're a blue blood and you don't drink blood?"
Kincaid sounded incredulous.

"Not all of us like what we've become," she retorted, "and after the first few months I began dabbling with a formula to sustain myself.
It's not the same, but I appear to be able to survive on it."

Those enormous arms crossed over his barrel chest and an evil expression touched his face.
"Then what happened just then?"

"I momentarily forgot myself," she stammered.
"And it's your fault!
You...
unlaced my gown!
And you were touching me, and sitting so close to me...
and sometimes I cannot help the way I feel, the thoughts I have!
You don't understand what it's like!"
She took a step away from him, for his cologne was beginning to distract her again.
"What matters is controlling these urges when they arise.
And not allowing them to overrule the senses."

Kincaid’s brows slowly drew together.
"You didn't just want my blood."

It wasn't what she'd expected him to say.
"Pardon?"

"You said it was because I unlaced your gown and was touching you."
One eyebrow went up.
"So just what was going through your mind when you started looking at me like you wanted to strip me naked and eat me all up, princess?"

"I most certainly was
not
looking at you like that!"

He took a step toward her, and she took one back.
They faced off, and a trace of heat crept into her cheeks.

"It's just...
animal passions.
That's all the craving is.
Sir Richard Doyle presented a scientific treatise on the subject, about how blue bloods call it their 'darker half,' or the 'darkness' inside them, but...."
He was stepping closer.
"But it's just the primal side of one's nature, drawn to the fore...
just....
What are you doing?"

"All them big words sound pretty, luv,"—he smiled—"but let's call it what it is.
You feel the same itch as I do, as any man or woman does."

Reaching out, he caught both lapels of the coat she wore around her shoulders and tugged her a little closer to him.

"Now," he purred.
"Look at that."
Another tug jerked her against the wall of his chest, and then her hands were pressing there, and she couldn't stop herself from flexing them, and good God he was like warm steel, and—

"You're so firm," her mouth blurted, without any direct interference from her brain.

She made a sound, deep in her throat, as he took one of her hands and started dragging it down his chest, lower....

"It's even harder down here," Kincaid whispered, his gaze dipping toward his belt as if to point out the obvious.

I'll just bet it is.
After all, as delightfully naive as everyone thought her, she was well aware of what had been going on behind that sheet.
And of what, precisely, Kincaid referred to.

The thing that surprised her, however, was how tempting it was to let him keep dragging her hand lower.

He wasn't Byrnes.
Indeed, she wasn't certain that she even liked him.
But Kincaid was warm, and his body deliciously firm beneath her touch, and she was a scientist, after all....
Curiosity began to itch.
And other areas of her body.

What would it be like, just once, to set aside all of that cursed thinking that constantly overwhelmed her and just feel?

Kincaid's pull on her wrist softened as her fingertips grazed his belt buckle.
As Ava glanced up beneath her lashes, she saw the smile die on his mouth.
The moment dragged out as he looked at her—looked
through
her—as though seeing every naughty little thought that was scampering through her mind.

"Bloody hell.
You were thinking about it."
He sounded almost as surprised as she felt, and not at all as cocky as normal.

Ava tipped her chin up as she took a step away from him.
"I was not.
And...
and I am not giving your coat back!
Not until tomorrow."

Then she fled.

T
HE MAN
THAT answered to the name of Ghost lashed out with economical grace, the staff a whirling blur in his hands.

The lad facing him met the first attack with his own staff, then the second glanced off a hastily thrown defense.
Ghost ducked beneath a blow and retorted with a sharp swing of his staff that swept Henrik's feet out from under him.
As soon as the fellow hit the mats, Ghost drove the butt of the staff into Henrik's throat and held it there, not quite hard enough to crush the cartilage.

"You still expect me to strike at your upper body," Ghost told him.
"Watch my hips and shoulders to see where the next move will come from."

Henrik gurgled and frantically caught the staff in both hands to alleviate the pressure.

"It makes you weak and susceptible to a strike at your feet or legs—" A disturbance at the door caught his attention.
Ghost glanced up from beneath pale lashes and saw the man standing just inside his training room.
He relented and stepped back, swinging the staff up under his arm as Henrik gasped for breath and touched the indentation in his throat.
"Continue practicing with the others.
You have a week to improve this flaw.
The next time it happens in a spar, I'll kill you.
Now leave us," Ghost commanded, and the pale youth scrambled to his feet and nodded respectfully to the man at the door as he hurried out.

"He's coming along," Obsidian murmured, tugging his gloves from his fingers one by one as the door eased shut.
His silvery hair was tied back in a neat queue.

"They're weaker than we are."
Ghost placed the staff in the wooden grooves where it usually lay, then swiped his shirt off the nearest chair and swung it around his neck, holding on to the ends.
There was no sweat on his skin, but his muscles felt nice and loose.
Henrik had at least taken the edge off him.

"That's to be expected," Obsidian noted.
"We were the first, and without Dr.
Cremorne to recreate the transformative elixir, we can only guess at the precise measurements required for it.
They're still stronger and faster than a blue blood and that's what we truly require."

Ghost waved the conversation away.
It wasn't important.
The recruits were merely cannon fodder.
He, Obsidian, and the other original four were the important ones.
Sliding apart the pair of doors that led to his study, he strode directly for the blud-wein decanter in the corner and poured two glasses of it, though truly it was more blood than wine these days.
"I didn't expect to see you until Monday."
His tone held no disapproval, but Obsidian circled the desk warily and tugged a folder from under his arm.

"News."

Ghost offered him one of the glasses, and they chinked them together, then each took a sip.
"Good news?"

"Our enemy is moving faster than we expected.
Malloryn suspects something," Obsidian replied, taking a seat.
"He's put together a special group, though I only caught wind of it yesterday.
His Grace is remarkably difficult to follow for a duke.
One would think he'd had
dhampir
training."

"We were warned that he wasn't what he seemed."
Interesting, however, as Obsidian was one of Ghost's best agents, and if he was having trouble tracking Malloryn, then that meant something.
Ghost sank into his own seat and flipped open the folder.
There were sepia photographs inside.
The top one displayed a man and a woman arguing in the street.
The woman was tall and somehow vibrant, and the fellow had the look of a blue blood about him.
A dangerous one.
"Do we know them?"

"Part of Malloryn's taskforce.
He's a Nighthawk," Obsidian replied.
"Caleb Byrnes.
She's verwulfen."

Ghost's eyes met Obsidian's, but he was curious more than anything else.
"That shouldn't be a problem."

"They took out one of Zero's vampires at Lord Ulbricht's," Obsidian replied, and Ghost took a closer look.
"Don't underestimate them."

"How?"

"Don't know.
I wasn't there.
But I saw the creature's body.
Head shot with one of those exploding bullets that certain members of the population seem to be employing these days."

"Maybe someone got lucky."
Ghost dragged the folder closer to him.
That was interesting; certainly more interesting than biding his time and training the latest batch of inept recruits.
"How many of them did the vampire kill?
And what were they doing at Ulbricht's?"
How had Malloryn's agents gotten a handle on that little plot so swiftly?

"No kills, I believe.
The intruders escaped whole.
As for why they were at Ulbricht's gathering, I don't know."

"Yet," Ghost said, and it wasn't a question.

"Yet."
Obsidian frowned.
"I know we were told to wait, but I don't see why we shouldn't simply kill Malloryn now.
The Master might want to drag this out, but I'd much rather tie up loose ends.
Malloryn already proves that he's no fool.
The more chances we give him to ferret out what we're up to, the more chances he has to destroy this scheme.
And if he already knows about the Sons of Gilead plot, then he's halfway there."

Ghost flipped through to the next sepia-toned photograph.
"Dying is easy.
The Master has a score to settle with Malloryn.
He wants him to see the destruction first, to watch as his precious new empire is crushed beneath our heel.
No, Malloryn shall be the last one to die.
And the SOG are little more than one head of the snake.
Losing a pack of puppets costs us little.
They don't even know who's really pulling their strings, and they're only part of phase one.
Who is this?"
he asked, pointing to a heavyset man with a mech arm who was striding down the stairs of a house and settling his hat in place.

"A mech."
Obsidian immediately dismissed him.
"The others don't seem to like him very much, and he's easily killed.
The younger fellow at his side is also unknown.
A blue blood by the look of him."

Ghost glanced at the lad's colorless hair, pale eyes, and snow-white skin.
"Clearly.
Also clearly not someone from the Echelon."
No, the young man had the look of a survivor about him from the way he watched the streets.
Fancy clothes couldn't hide that.

"I'll keep an eye on them and try and figure out who they are."

Another photograph, this time of a pretty young woman with blonde curls and small half-moon glasses.

"Ava McLaren.
She's a Nighthawk too," Obsidian explained.

"Then it’s possible Malloryn is utilizing the Nighthawks for this?"
That wouldn't bother him, though it gave his enemy more manpower than expected.

"Possibly, though it's not common knowledge, even among them.
I broke into the Nighthawks Guild last night to confirm.
Both Byrnes and McLaren are on a leave of absence.
McLaren's a scientist, little more."

"That was a risky move."

"Nobody even saw me.
You'd think for a building full of blue bloods they'd have some idea of when they were compromised.
The problem is, they've accounted for both human and blue blood.
They had no idea how to counter for something like
us
."
Obsidian glanced away, tapping his fingers on the chair.

Ghost's eyes narrowed in on that betraying movement.
His best agent was uneasy, an anomaly that he'd rarely seen in Obsidian.
Ghost slowly turned over the last photo, and understood why.

Hollis Tremayne peered out of the window of the house.
She was no longer blonde, and it took a moment to recognize her, but Ghost was immediately drawn back into the past, into Russia.
He traced the glossy black curls and her pretty heart-shaped face before closing the folder.
"So Hollis survived.
What happened?
You don't usually miss."

"I wasn't aware that I had, until yesterday," Obsidian replied in a chilly voice.
"The last time I saw her I shot her point-blank in the chest and she fell into an icy river.
She was human and she shouldn't have survived.
There was no trace of the body, but I was badly burned, thanks to her.
I barely managed to escape, let alone search for her."

"Is this going to be a problem?"
he asked, sitting back in his chair.
That entire mess in Russia had been catastrophic, and he'd nearly lost his best agent.
Obsidian wasn't the kind of killer who had a weakness, but Russia had revealed it, and it owned a soft luscious mouth and a lying tongue.

"She calls herself Gemma now."
Obsidian met his eyes.
Not a muscle moved in his expression.
"And no, it won't be a problem.
It wasn't difficult to pull the trigger last time, but now....
When it comes time to finally set the next phase into action...
she's mine, do you understand?"

"Understood."

Obsidian flowed to his feet.
"I'll continue to keep an eye on the house, and on Malloryn.
Permission to leave?"

"Permission granted."
Ghost kept his thoughts to himself as Obsidian took his leave.
Leaning over to the communicator in his desk, he pressed the buzzer that would summon Henrik.

It only took a minute.
Henrik appeared, barely out of breath, his moonlight-blond hair wet from a bath.

"Yes, sir?"
Henrik snapped to attention.

Ghost opened the folder again, and slid Hollis Tremayne’s—or Gemma Townsend's—photo across the desk.
"You've been granted a reprieve from training," he said.
"I have a task for you.
Find this woman.
And don't come back until you've killed her."