Of Silk and Steam (22 page)

The bomb had obliterated half the street and several houses. If she concentrated, she could just make out the sound of frightened screams cutting through the ringing in her ears. Dozens of women and children tumbled out of the Warren, staring at the gaping hole in the street.

“That was larger than expected,” Barrons mouthed at her.

“I’m not a scientist,” she snapped back. Movement shifted; a man fleeing across the roof opposite them. Mina pointed, and Barrons snatched up his pistol again, aimed, and then fired.

The fellow catapulted off the roof, the body hitting the ground so hard she could almost imagine the sound of it.

* * *

Shadows materialized out of the looming darkness of the streets. Blade thundered into view, his face drawn tight with terror and his fists pumping at his sides. He saw the Warren, standing safe and whole, and staggered to a halt, black eyes raking over the bomb’s devastation. Mina hovered behind Barrons, her shoulder pressing against his.

“They’re safe. The duchess and I were patrolling the vicinity when we came across the bombs.” The two men clasped hands and Blade’s shoulders slumped in relief. Mina couldn’t take her eyes off Barrons. Why lie like that? Their eyes met. Barrons glanced away with a carefully neutral expression as he explained the situation, leaving out certain details, such as why precisely she’d been helping him.

“Thought she was—” Blade couldn’t say any more.

“This was what Morioch was waiting for.” The sound of artillery faded and Barrons’s gaze cut toward the wall. “Sounds like they’re retreating for the moment.”

“That bastard.” Fear gave way to an almost feral fury on Blade’s face. “That bleeding coward.” His hands dipped to his belt and returned with one of those barbaric unsheathed razors he favored. “I swore if he touched my wife I’d return the favor—”

“That’s not your greatest concern,” Mina broke in. All eyes were suddenly upon her, including Barrons’s. “I recognized one of your enforcers. He was helping the two men who tried to bomb the Warren.”

Recognition lit Barrons’s dark eyes and he swore. “Henley. I didn’t note it ’til now, but she’s correct. He was trying to kill her.”

If anything, Blade’s expression darkened further. “Where is he?”

“No longer breathing,” Barrons replied. “I took care of it.”

“That means Morioch knows your defenses, your weaknesses, your strengths,” Mina said.

“He was obviously counting on Henley and his men to destroy the Warren and break the heart of the rookery. If that had happened, we’d have come running back,” Barrons said grimly, “and he would have hit the wall with everything he had.”

“You cannot assume Henley was the lone Falcon slipped into your ranks,” Mina finished. “Why else would the duke call off the attack? He must know it failed.”

Blade’s nostrils flared with fury. “Barrons, I want you on guard here, just in case there is someone else. I’ll leave Tin Man at the gate, but I want you inside where nobody can see you. Get yourself cleaned up. I’ll check on Honor and then…” His voice turned silky soft. “Then I’m gonna make sure that bastard don’t ever forget the first mistake he made in this war.”

Mina couldn’t help a shiver.

* * *

Her room looked like it had been ransacked when Leo returned her to it. “Did you do that?” Mina asked, trying to shrug out of her borrowed coat. Her arm caught in the sleeve, and her right fingers were too badly burned still to be of much use. Skin, new and pink, stretched over them and she tried not to think too much about what they looked like as she tried to wriggle out of the coat. Tingling pinpricks made three of her fingers numb as the craving virus healed her.

“I was trying to find out what you’d taken with you.” Hands curled around her upper arms, the press of his fingers firm enough for her to feel his innate strength. “Hold still.”

Liar.
The room was almost destroyed. It spoke of a recklessness and anger that she’d rarely seen Barrons display. A hint of chaos beneath that cool, calm mien he always wore.

But what had stirred it to the surface? Her disappearance? Or something else?

Barrons stripped the coat off her carefully, then turned her to face him. No sign on his face of the chaos around them. Only dark smudges of ash and dirt, his hair roughened, and a faint burn mark along his stubbled jaw. Smoke clung to his hardened body armor, burning her sensitive nostrils, but underneath that was the heated scent of bay rum and starched linen, scents that she always unconsciously associated with Barrons.

The shock of the explosion had left her almost numb, but now her ears were ringing and her heart raced as the reality of the situation penetrated. She was in the middle of a war, with no allies and no way of getting back to her queen.

Doubt and confusion were two emotions she rarely encountered. Her plans saw to that. If something went wrong, she always had another option to fall back on. But she’d failed. She’d made choices—the safety of the women and children here over the safety of her queen. Nothing in the past two days had gone according to plan, and she was well out of her depth.

With a man who didn’t trust her, yet had still lied to protect her. A man who…might be an ally? If she could trust him…

I
don’t know what I’m doing.

So tempting to reach out and wipe some of that dirt and ash from his skin, to press her lips lightly against his. Not to take him to bed or to push at the blazing, dangerous connection between them, but something else that made her skin feel hot and tight and her chest clench up, like a vise winched tighter around her lungs.

If he reached out and took her in his arms, she wouldn’t push him away at the moment, but she wasn’t quite certain how to ask for it.

“Why did you lie to Blade?” she whispered instead.

Dark lashes blanketed his eyes. His fingers found the buttons on her shirt and he started undoing them. Mina slapped at his hand with her good one, but he simply pushed her back against the door and pinned her there.

“Behave,” he warned, “or I’ll take my belt to you.”

That made her jaw drop open, a little curl of heat flickering low in her abdomen. Not entirely an unwelcome thought, as troubling as that seemed.

“If you think I will drop such questioning simply because you’ve turned into a brutish thug,” she warned, “then you are very much mistaken. You lied to him about my aborted escape. Why?”

Those eyes looked up, filled with a troubling darkness. “Blade is not someone I would push at the best of times, most especially when his voice changes and his grammar corrects itself. That’s when he’s at his most dangerous, when the hunger is completely in control of him.”

Blood-lust.
She shivered. “You’re protecting me.”

No answer passed his lips, but she saw the truth in his eyes, and it floored her. He didn’t trust her; that much was clear. But though he doubted her and had to be wondering why she was so adamant to return to court, his fingers gently peeled her shirt open, his eyes probing for the cause of her pain. “Where are you hurt?”

The moment was lost. Mina dragged her shirt from his fingers, closing it over her corset. The fine French lace was the worse for wear now, a little like herself. “I’m fine.”

“Mina, I can smell it.”

Smell it—? Then she realized what he meant. The little slash under her ribs wept blood against her skin, soaking into her corset. “It’s nothing,” she murmured, pushing away from him. Not enough blood in the last couple of days conspired to weaken her. If she’d been stronger, this should have healed by now.

“Duchess, let me see what—”

“It will heal.”
Duchess.
That hated word. Trust was an ambiguous thing in the air between them. No reason not to show him but…it felt uncomfortably like she was opening herself up to him. “I shouldn’t see why you give a damn.”

His eyes narrowed. “So be it.”

The world upended as he caught her around the waist and gently lifted her up against his shoulder. Mina snatched at his shirt with her good hand, tempted to kick him. “Put me down.”

“As my lady wishes.” She didn’t like the tone he was using, like all that anger was leashed, just beneath the surface. Then she didn’t have time to think about it. Her backside hit the seat of a chair and Barrons jerked the shirt down over her shoulders, trapping her arms. “It seems I won’t have to use my belt, after all.”

“What are you doing?”

He tugged the sleeve carefully over her burned hand, then slipped the other off her left wrist with considerably less aplomb. “Getting some bloody answers.”

Her wrists were dragged behind her and something looped around them. Her shirt. Mina’s mouth dropped open, then she kicked out. “Don’t you dare tie me up.” She might as well not have bothered. The shirtsleeve pulled tight around her wrists, and he tied her to the lower rung of the chair.

Mina brought her boot heel down on the rung at the front. The vibration ricocheted up her leg, but the rung didn’t break on the first strike. Barrons caught her knees before she could do it again, trapping her.

Breathing hard, she glared at him.

“You’re bleeding again.” That black gaze dropped to her side and the corset she wore. His cheekbones tightened with a fierceness she recognized, his lips parting as his gaze locked on her breasts.

“Of course I am, you manhandling oaf!” She strained to move her knee under his heated palm. Couldn’t shift him. “Get off me!”

Something heated his expression. Something that made her body still. “Or?” he murmured, fingers wrapping around the inside of her knees as he forced her legs to part.

Mina forgot how to breathe.

“You need blood,” he said. “And with your wounds, mine will give you more of what you need than anything human.”

Her gaze shot to his, her heart stumbling a little.
His
blood.
She’d never once taken from the vein. It was socially unacceptable for a woman, and more than that, she liked being in control of her own blood-lust.

“No, no, it’s fine. If you just fetch me…” Her voice trailed off as he withdrew the small, leather-bound fléchette case from inside his shirt. Mina swallowed. She could still feel the imprint of his hands on the inside of her knees. “What are you doing?”

He opened the case and selected a sharp blood-letting razor. Setting it aside, he began to roll up his sleeve, the veins on the inside of his wrists pulsing.
Oh
God.
Mina’s tongue darted over her lips, her gaze focusing on the pale skin of his forearm.

“Do I have any choice in this?” she demanded.

“Of course.” Barrons set the razor to his skin, slicing sharply across the vein. Blood welled, the almost bluish color that gave blue bloods their name. Putting the razor down, he caught her gaze. “You can choose not to drink it.”

Hardly a choice at all. She could scent it now, her mouth watering as she twisted in her bonds. The wound at her side pulled, reminding her of her weakness. Cursing him, Mina stilled, looking up once more. A hot, wicked flush started burning deep within, the scent of her arousal flavoring the air.

Barrons’s expression tightened, as if he too were aware of it. Stepping between her spread legs, he looked down at her for a long moment, then held his wrist out, blood spilling into the hollow of his palm. Barrons’s nostrils flared, but he held himself still, waiting for her to take what he offered.

“Damn you.” The world was nothing but shadows. Something swelled up within her: a need so fierce she’d never felt it before.

Blood-lust.

It wasn’t the same as sipping her blood from a champagne flute or lacing her brandy with it. Mina bit her lip, focusing on that dark splash. He rested a boot between her parted thighs and leaned on it, holding the bloodied slash closer to her, tendons clenching in his forearm as if she wasn’t the only one fighting personal demons.

“Your choice.” A mocking whisper.

Mina looked up, seeing the dare in those devil-black eyes, the intensity in his expression. He wanted this as much as she did.

So be it. Mina leaned forward, her tongue darting out to trace the small, already-healing slash. She never took her eyes off him.

The taste of it exploded through her body. A breathy gasp and then she bent her head and pressed her lips against the cut, her dry throat working. Moaning a little. Pulling that sweetness inside her body. Drowning in its volcanic heat.

Sensation cascaded through her and her thighs clenched, locking around his boot. Rubbing against it until he drew back, straightening and circling behind her, leaving her with only his wrist pressed against her lips. It wasn’t enough. She pressed her knees together tightly, fighting the building ache between her thighs, an ache that wouldn’t go away, building like the pressure of a storm front. It left her restless, her teeth sinking into the tender flesh of his forearm as she sucked hard, hoping that he burned just as much as she did.

Barrons’s fist clenched. A swift jerk on the back of the chair and she tilted backward, her lips breaking from his skin in a shocked gasp.

He leaned down, claiming her mouth with his own, tasting the blood there. One fist in her hair. A strange upside-down kiss that made her restless again, her hips shifting on the seat and her nipples hardening.
More.
Oh God, she wanted more.

Then his hand was moving down her body, sliding over her breast and lower. Teasing across her stomach, between her thighs, pressing hard there. Mina cried out and his tongue plunged into her mouth. He was merciless. Absolutely, single-mindedly merciless. Two fingers rode over her sensitive flesh until she was rubbing against him herself, determined to bring that storm cresting over her.

Mina’s thighs clenched around his hand. Suddenly there was a hand over her mouth and she came with a scream, her hands jerking against her bonds, her entire body rigid.

Then his hand was gone and the world came into focus again, slightly blurred around the edges. He was saying something. Harsh words delivered right next to her ear. Mina sucked in a sharp breath, her body still molten. Still twitching in places.