Lynch’s fingers twitched. How long had he been down for? One minute? Two? The amount of time the hemlock would paralyze him depended on how high his craving virus levels were. If his CV levels were high, then he might begin to regain control of his body before she’d fled the scene. Not a thought to relish, especially with that look in his eyes.
Rosalind snatched her knife up again and sheathed it in her boot. Sparks sprayed off a welding rig nearby. She crouched low, looking to see if anyone had seen. If they had, then Lynch’s life would be in danger.
You don’t even have to wield the knife. Just walk away and leave him here. Defenseless.
One second of hesitation. It would be so easy…but something stopped her. A hitherto unknown sense of mercy. This was the second time in as many months where she’d allowed someone to live whom she probably shouldn’t have. Rosalind cursed under her breath and bent low to grab his wrists. Dragging him behind a boiler, she hid him from sight.
“I want you to know that you were beaten,” she murmured, kneeling beside him. His eyes glittered in the shadows, red furnace light flickering over their dark depths. A promise of vengeance. She nodded slowly, acknowledging it. This—what she had started here tonight—would not end until one of them had the upper hand.
“I’ll come…for you…” He could barely speak, but the words sent a shiver down her spine.
A vow. A deadly promise.
Anticipation flared as she turned and walked away. The world was bright with color, her body still dancing with energy. Awake. “I’ll watch for you then.”
“I’ll watch for you then.”
A hand curled around his shoulder and Lynch jerked awake, the shattered remnants of the dream slipping from his mind as his study came to life around him. Blinking, he looked down at the mess of paperwork he’d been leaning in and the ink that stained his hands. There was crusted blood under his fingernails, where he’d tended the wound in his side. Though it had already healed, courtesy of the blood-craving virus that made him a blue blood, the action had weakened him.
Garrett stepped back, arching a brow. “You need to go to bed.”
Scraping a hand over his tired face, Lynch shook his head. “I need to find Mercury. The analysis on the crate?”
With a scowl, Garrett strode across the room and knelt by the fire. He teased the meager coals to life again with the bellows, then added a stick of kindling. “Where’s Doyle? He should be looking after you better than this.”
Lynch scraped his chair back from the desk and stood. “He’s already been in here nursemaiding me. I sent him away. The crate?”
“The steel within appears to be some sort of steam-driven part. A boiler pack, Fitz suspects. Could be used for all manner of machinery.”
Fitz would know. The young genius had never met an invention that didn’t fascinate him. Lynch’s lips thinned. “Useless then?”
“Not quite. I’ve sent Byrnes to the enclaves with some men to inquire of the make.”
“They’ll find nothing,” Lynch stated, turning toward the liquor cabinet. “The mechs in the enclaves are remarkably closemouthed these days.”
“Ever since the prince consort set the Trojan cavalry on them two months ago,” Garrett replied.
Lynch poured himself a snifter of blood, measuring it carefully. He screwed the lid of the flask back into place. “Be careful where you say such things.”
“We’re in the guild headquarters.”
“And no doubt the Council has at least three spies in here.” Lynch lifted the snifter and drained it, the cool blood igniting his senses. His vision swam, painting the world in black and gray for a moment. Slowly he put the glass down. He wanted more; he craved it. And just as certainly wouldn’t allow it.
“You think they’ve got men inside the guild?”
“I’m certain of it.” The Council knew too much of his affairs for it to be coincidence. Lynch swiftly changed topics, to one he wanted to pursue. “There’s been no sign of the woman?”
Garrett leaned back against the desk, his arms crossed and his gaze neutral. Too neutral. Lynch hadn’t asked how much he had heard through the aural communicator; its range was limited, but Garrett had found him quickly enough to have been in the vicinity.
“The men returned. No sign of her. The scent trail ended near Piccadilly Circus. One of those chemical bombs the humanists use to obliterate all scent had been dropped.”
Clever girl. Lynch’s eyes narrowed. He’d fallen for her ruse like a green schoolboy and the thought rankled. She was out there somewhere, no doubt laughing behind his back. The worst of it was that his men had found him before he’d recovered, lying on his back still partially paralyzed. Garrett had covered for him, sending them after the fleeing revolutionary, but they’d seen enough.
“I’m still not quite sure how she gulled you. You’re no pigeon, ripe to be plucked.” Though Garrett’s manner of speech was so precise as to mimic the Echelon, sometimes his base roots showed in his language choice.
“That makes two of us.” Lynch’s voice was hard and dry. A warning for Garrett to drop the subject.
The encounter frustrated him. Sex and the female form were distractions he’d long since thought himself invulnerable to. That she’d gotten under his skin so quickly and easily chafed at him.
Sex was just another need, another form of hunger, and he thought he’d controlled those needs well. He strictly controlled the amount of blood his body required and bedded a woman when he felt the urge arise. Not once had either need ever overruled him. Until now.
And all it had taken was that little whisper of sin in his ear, her knuckles stroking down over the leather carapace of his abdomen. He’d barely seen her face, just her lips beneath the edge of the mask as she tempted him with her offer.
Sensory memory flooded through him: the faint hint of her breast in the cup of his hand, her long legs locking around his hips as she arched against him, the exhale of her breath burning against his lips…
Damn her. Even now his body stirred and he knew why.
A body was never enough. He’d seen and slept with some of the most beautiful women the Echelon had to offer and rarely remembered their names. But this one haunted him. A mystery. A challenge. A part of him hungered for the next encounter, longing to take it further. This time he’d have the upper hand and he intended to make full use of it, to pay back every ounce of humiliation on her flesh and leave her gasping for more.
He couldn’t wait.
Closing his eyes, Lynch forced his body to cool. The thoughts were madness—the hunger speaking, his own personal demons. He was the Nighthawk, damn it, and when he got his hands on her, he’d arrest her and hand her over to the Council.
Case solved.
When he opened his eyes, Garrett was watching him, entirely too perceptive. Chestnut colored hair swept over his brow, a drawcard for women’s eyes everywhere. Or perhaps that was the smile Garrett flashed at them. He had his uses, despite his weakness for anything in a petticoat. Put him in a room with a woman who refused to say a word, and before five minutes were out, he’d have her signed confession and every intimate detail of her life.
Garrett knew women inside and out. And he knew when a man had been bested by one.
“If you breathe a word of this…”
A slow, stealthy smile crept over Garrett’s mouth. “I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”
Two
The candle guttered in the chill breeze as Rosalind climbed down the ancient stairwell. Once, a long time ago, it had been designed as access from an abandoned surface station to the underground train platform below. Now it was boarded up and long forgotten, except for the timber slats she’d carefully broken and then forged into a slender gap—access to her world, the musty caverns and dark tunnels they called Undertown.