Of Silk and Steam (31 page)

But it wasn’t a romp; it was war. And people died, including those who probably shouldn’t have. All across the courtyard, there were sounds of celebration, but also slumped figures kneeling over the still and bloody forms of their fallen comrades. Leo felt sick. This was the price, and they’d all known they had to pay it, but it was one thing to plot a coup, and quite another to see the results in gruesome detail.

Time was ticking slowly by. Lark’s head lolled against Charlie’s chest, that dreadful whistling sound echoing in her lungs. Leo sat there beside him, one hand on the lad’s shoulder as they waited. He squeezed tightly, feeling the mass of sinew and tendon beneath his grasp, knowing how it felt to realize that he’d been the one responsible for nearly killing someone important to him.

After what seemed like forever, Lark erupted into a hacking cough, blood spattering Charlie’s face. Leo grabbed her shoulders and helped Charlie tilt her onto her side as she gagged up copious amounts of semi-congealed blood.

“She’s healing,” he said in disbelief, wiping her mouth on his sleeve as Charlie eased her against his shoulder.
Bloody
hell.

“Thank you.” Charlie hugged her tightly enough to squeeze the breath from her lungs. There were no tears in his eyes, but Leo felt that grateful look like a punch to the gut. One victory among so many other failures.

“She’ll need blood,” he said. “The moment she can swallow. There’s still no guarantee that she’ll survive.”

“She’ll survive,” Charlie said fiercely. He stroked the dark hair off her brow, his expression softening as he looked down into her face. “She’s stubborn like that.”

No need to comment on what Leo saw in the lad’s expression. Trouble, that’s what it was, but he could completely understand the lure of it. Then he glanced at Tin Man. The fellow would have followed wherever Lark and Charlie went. There’d be a price for this; Charlie just hadn’t realized it yet.

Footsteps sounded nearby. Byrnes dragged Stanton across the yard, the unconscious man’s arm slung over his shoulder.

“Stay here,” Leo murmured to Charlie, finding his feet and pocketing the detonator very carefully. “I need to tell Blade about Honoria. Maybe send Rip back to the Warren to make sure she’s safe.”

Then it would be time to climb those thousand stairs in the Tower again. Time to find the missing piece of his heart…if she was still alive.

Mina was pressed hard, dancing out of the way as the Falcons lunged. Whoever they were, they’d been trained well, using each other’s strikes to counter their own until she staggered, the backs of her legs hitting the throne.

Malloryn appeared out of nowhere, deflecting a blow meant for her.

“Thanks.” Mina lunged forward, stabbing a Falcon in the thigh as Malloryn parried another blow. For a second they worked together, but then she realized he was trying to shield her with his own body. Mina tripped on his boot, frustrated.
I’m not some pampered princess.
But he’d always been smothering, especially when she’d broken off their affair.

“Behind you!” she yelled.

Balfour slammed a dagger into Malloryn’s side. Malloryn gritted his teeth and twisted, slashing his sword across Balfour’s throat. The spymaster fell back, clutching at the blade, blood pouring between his fingers. Malloryn tried to go after him, but his leg gave out beneath him and he went down on one knee, holding his side. A Falcon grabbed Balfour by the shoulders and hauled him away as Mina defended her ex-lover.

“Stay down,” she snapped at Malloryn, putting herself between him and the two Falcons she’d been fighting.

“Mina!” The queen crawled to her side, her hands still holding the bloodied knife.

“Stay with Malloryn.” Mina winced as one of the Falcons nicked her arm. Cool blood splashed down her sleeve, the muscles screaming in her shoulder as she tried to counter the next blow.

A man flew through the air, smashing into one of the Falcons and sending them both tumbling. Caine had thrown him. Mina could barely spare the duke a shocked glance as she met the remaining Falcon’s thrust with a quick
prise
de
fer
of her own. Blood dripped into her palm. Clapping a hand to the wound and panting, she parried another thrust, the jarring force of the steel in her hand ringing up her forearm.

Blood
and
blazes.
Desperation sunk its hooks into her. “Go!” she said to Alexa. “To the Nighthawks!”

“Not without you!” the queen cried, staggering to her feet beside Mina and holding her pathetic little stiletto as if she had some idea how to truly use it.

Blast
her.
Yet the flush of emotion speared behind Mina’s eyes.
We
always
said
we’d do this together.

Another woman appeared out of nowhere, kicking the Falcon in the back of the knee and driving him to the ground. Mina promptly ran him through, staggering back in relief as the woman—clad in strict black—countered the attack of the two on the ground, whipping her blade across one throat and then spinning low to slash her sword across the back of the other’s thigh. A master of the blade.

Lady Peregrine.

The Nighthawks.

Mina’s sword tip lowered to the ground and then Alexandra was there, easing her back onto the throne of all things. Mina’s fist curled in her queen’s sleeve. “Whatever you do, stay with Lady Peregrine.”

Lady Peregrine stepped closer, her sword held low and ready as she surveyed the melee. “Are you injured?”

“Nothing serious.” Mina’s arm was afire now, but at least the bleeding had stopped. Alexandra tore at her skirts, tying a very fashionable bandage of green silk around Mina’s upper arm.

“I’m fine,” Mina told her, but the queen was crying, endless streams of tears washing her pale face.

Two men faced the entire gathering of Nighthawks who’d surrounded the throne. The rest of the room was emptying, debutantes and thralls having fled in fright.

The prince consort leaned in one of his Falcon’s arms, breathing heavily but not dead. Not yet.

“You swore,” the prince consort sputtered, blood spraying the fine linen of his cravat. His feet kicked at the ground, as if to get away, but he and the Falcon were trapped against the wall. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. “You swore an oath to me!”

Caine took a threatening step up onto the dais, his sword held low and ready. Emotion burned hotly in his pale blue eyes. “And you spat it in my face.”

“Don’t do this!” the prince consort said shrilly. “You’ll destroy everything we ever worked for!”

“Perhaps…change is coming. It seems inevitable.” Sadness flashed through the duke’s eyes. “But by the blood I swore to you, I shall see this done myself.” His arm lifted. “That much I owe you.”

Caine, the only man with the strength to drive that piece of metal through the prince consort’s breastplate, sent it straight through the prince consort’s heart and into the Falcon holding him upright. They both stiffened, the prince consort’s feet drumming helplessly as blood bubbled over his lips.

The duke twisted the blade and then withdrew it with a flick of violet blood across the marble floors. As one, the assembled crowd held their breath.

He turned, tilting his head toward Alexandra, emotionless once more. “Long live the Queen.”

Minutes dragged by. Orders. Nighthawks setting up a guard on the queen as Alexandra ordered her husband’s body burned. Balfour was missing and Malloryn had sworn to find him, but otherwise, they were in control. Mina caught the queen’s sleeve.

“I have to go.” Urgency burned through her. “I have to find Barrons.”

“Barrons?” Alexandra demanded. “But I need you here. There’s so much to do—”

I
have
done
enough.
This, at least, was for herself. “I don’t know where he is.” She flashed a look at Caine. “I don’t know if he’s still alive, if he’s hurt. If he’s…” Her voice trailed off.

Lynch knelt beside them, his hand settling over the queen’s. “I’ll keep her safe,” he said to Mina. “The last I saw of him, Barrons was going to find several Falcons who were keeping watch with a detonator. The entire Tower is full of explosives, as I understand. The prince consort meant to see us all dead.”

All of the heat washed out of her face. “Leo could be dead then.”

“I doubt it. That flare the prince consort fired was meant to be the detonation signal. The very fact that we’re still here means Leo is alive.”

Or was alive.

The queen gave a wan smile. “I assume this means you have changed your views on marriage?”

Mina gave the queen’s hand another squeeze, torn again. “Do you need me…?”

Alexandra reached out and kissed her brow. Her lips were wet with tears. “You have done enough, Mina.” The pressure of her lips eased. “Go. Go and find your man. That’s a royal decree.”

* * *

The smoke was clearing, but still she couldn’t find him. Mina shoved through the crowd, pushing past bloodied Nighthawks and some of the ruffians from the rookery. The world sounded strange. Diluted. As if she were traveling through it but no one could see or speak to her.

A tiny sphere of icy cold began to grow in the pit of her stomach, little fingers of it seeping outward, slowly locking through each muscle. There were so many people tromping through the Tower grounds that it made sense she wouldn’t find him immediately. Of course it did.

He’ll be here. Somewhere.

The cold finally reached her skin, a bone-deep tremble that started from within.
Please. Please let him be alive.
The alternative…she couldn’t even think of it.

Not in the yard. She turned toward the other towers that stood at each corner of the wall. Ravens screamed as they circled Crowe Tower, disturbed out of sleep by the noise and the fires.

A man’s form appeared, leaning against the arch that led into Crowe Tower. Mina froze, her lungs tightening in her chest. Not quite believing her eyes. “
Leo
,” she whispered, but the word was almost soundless.

As if he heard it, the man looked up, dark eyes locking on her from across the yard, looking at her as if she were the world,
his
whole world. She felt it deep within, her heart finally starting to beat again in her chest—or perhaps it always had been but she could only feel it now. One hesitant step toward him, then she couldn’t hold herself back. She broke into a run, darting between men and women alike.

Leo took a step toward her, wincing as he put his right foot down. His arms opened and she ran into them, her body hitting his with a thump, his arms curling around her and crushing her to his chest.

“You weren’t there.” She gasped. “You weren’t there when I looked, and all Lynch could tell me was something about a bomb and a Falcon and—”

“Did you miss me?” His hoarse voice rumbled through her chest. Hands stroking through her hair as he drew back just enough to look at her.

If she could have cried in that moment, she would have. Something shifted in his expression at the sight. A little bit feral, full of need.

“I thought you were dead,” she admitted in a small, choked voice. “I thought—”

And he knew. He saw it, his expression hardening. “I wasn’t going to die, Mina. Not with everything left unsaid between us. I was always coming back for you. I always will.”

“Promise me—”

His mouth met hers, cutting off the words. A hard, fierce kiss that said so much more than words ever could.

Mina melted against him, a whimper in her throat. Then he was dragging her back into the shadows under the arch, his hands relentless as they stroked her back and bottom, cupping her hard against him.

Firelight gilded his face as he drew back just enough to catch his breath, his eyes cast into saturnine pools of darkness. “I’m close to the edge tonight,” he said hoarsely, as if she couldn’t see the rise of the hunger in his eyes, driven there by strong emotion. She slid her hands into his hair, feeling the unyielding stance of his body. Trying to control himself.
Fair
warning.
She didn’t care.

Mina fisted her hands in his collar and dragged him against her, her mouth finding his. Their mouths met again, hers just as hungry as his. Reaching out, she shoved blindly at the heavy wooden door, plunging them into the heated darkness inside the tower.

Hard hands bruised her hips, pushing her back against the wall. Leo understood the kiss as consent, biting at her throat and lifting her thighs until they locked around his hips. The heated length of his erection ground against her, and Mina was suddenly desperate for it. Shoving at his coat, his shirt, baring skin to her touch, biting at his throat until he gave a soft groan in the dark.

“Mina… Oh God…” He caught a fistful of her hair and jerked her mouth back to his, grinding his cock against her sensitive flesh. “I need to be inside you.”

She wriggled, trying to undo her buttons. “Bloody Blade. These cursed trousers.”

A masculine laugh sounded close to her ear, drawing to a heated purr at the end. “They have their appeal.” Hands slid over her hips, his body disengaging just enough for her toes to touch the ground. Leo tugged the leather down over her hips, following with his breath and lips.

A kiss to her navel, trailing lower as he dragged the trousers down over her thighs, trapping her knees together. Mina stilled, a hand trembling in his hair as his breath wet her skin, teeth sinking into the edge of her drawers, then gliding lower until his face nuzzled into the intimate hair between her thighs.

Her heart was pounding fit to tear her chest apart. “
Leo
,” she whispered. A single word that meant so much.

Tongue darting between her thighs, he made a sound, half groan, half growl. He dug his fingers into her flesh as he held her legs shut, that wicked tongue stealing into places that made her shudder.

“Blood and glory,” she moaned, throwing her head back, aching desperately to part her thighs and let him in. “
Please.
”

“Please what?”

Teeth sinking into her lip, she looked down, unable to see him in the dark. But she could feel him, his tongue tracing her clit, those broad shoulders spread before her. “Just let me…
Ah
…” Her head thrashed back, teeth bruising her sensitive lip. “Damn you. Get these trousers off me.”

He let her thighs part, just an inch or two, and sucked her clit into his mouth. Hard.

Mina screamed, pushing her knuckles into her mouth, her teeth sinking into them. The pressure built. She threw her head back, driving his face against her body with her hand, not caring in that moment about embarrassment. Just need. Pure, selfish need.

And he gave it to her, kissing her as deeply as he had done her mouth. His tongue darted inside her, then swirled around her clit as if he traced the letters of her name. She couldn’t take it anymore. “No… No…”

“Yes,” he breathed.

It fractured her. Blew her apart and left her gasping against the wall, one hand fisted in his hair, body racking with violent convulsions that finally ceased as he drew back. God, if she wasn’t leaning against something, she’d be a quivering pile on the floor right now, as Leo pressed a gentle kiss against her thigh.

Her whole body trembled. She could feel him slip the hem of her trousers over a boot. Callused hands slid up the back of her legs, cupping her thighs, lifting her easily as he stood and resumed his rightful place between them.

Dazed and floating in a pleasure haze, she slid her hand between them, tugging ruthlessly at the buttons on his own pants, diving that hand inside to cup him as soon as she could. A hiss whispered against her throat, Leo giving a little thrust into her palm. Every muscle in his body tensed. Fingers unsteady, she guided him between her legs, rubbing the slick head of his cock over the wetness there.

Mina moaned as he pushed inside her, sliding her fingernails down his back, raking them into the slick leather of his coat. It clung to his shoulders. She wanted it off, her mouth seeking his and tasting the heat of her own body there. Leo twisted his shoulders, the coat hitting the floor with a meaty slap as he thrust within her. Then his shirt… She couldn’t drag it open. There were buttons…bloody buttons… Her mind went blank, filling with him, with the force of those slowly increasing thrusts, the hard rasp of the stone at her back rough against her bottom.

“Mina…Mina…” His mouth was a delicious thing. Bloody hell, he knew how to kiss. “You feel so fucking good. I don’t think…” He shuddered, pressing his face against her shoulder as the next thrust took her deep and hard. “I don’t think I can—”

“Then don’t,” she whispered, digging her nails into the hard curve of his arse. His pelvis ground against hers, just holding her there, as if he were trying to push his whole body inside her. Circling his hips just enough so the grind rubbed her sensitive clit, until she was moaning a little with harsh, breathy sounds of need, sounds she’d never heard from her own throat.

Her whole body clenched, locking tightly around his as she came with a sob. Then he was fucking his way into her, pounding her brutally against the wall, one hand outthrust against the stone, the other beneath her arse, holding her there. His body pinned hers, chest pressed against her own as he fucked her in a wild, desperate assault that she knew she’d feel tomorrow.

She had not been the only one who’d felt a little lost tonight. This…this was a claiming. And she encouraged it, let him take everything she had from her and still demand more. Everything that had not been spoken between them—the tension of the past, the fear of the present, and the hope for the future—broke between them. Leo sank both hands into the flesh of her hips as his thrusts became stronger, slower, deeper somehow, bruising in their intensity.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she clenched everything inside her. It tore a torrent of filthy words from his lips as he swore and quivered, the hot spill of his seed drenching her inside.

He collapsed against her, his breath came in hard pants against her shoulder. His forehead pressed against the wall, the stubble on his cheek brushing against her jaw. He simply held her there, as if he had no plans to ever let her go.

Mina tipped her head back and breathed hard, listening to the pounding of their hearts between them. Sensation was beginning to return. One boot on, the other…lost somewhere. Trousers clinging to her left ankle but not the right. A mess.

She laughed then. Nobody would ever believe this to be her. Bitten and marked, her hair tumbling around her face, body full of the sensation of him. And this
was
her, she realized. A part of her that she’d never, ever allowed to surface, a part that only Leo had ever brought out in her.

Mina pressed her lips against his shoulder, one hand caressing the back of his head. Most of all, the sensation she felt was strangely…tender.

I
don’t want to let him go
. A weakness, she’d once believed. But she didn’t feel weak, not at this moment. She felt amazingly strong, like a phoenix bursting from her own scattered ashes, blazing anew. Far from undoing her, he’d been the making of this new, fearless creature that prowled inside her.

He owned her. The most terrifying thing in the world once. But he could only own her if she allowed it, and she held that power in her hands. For the first time, Mina felt as if she were truly seeing the world, realizing that by locking herself away, forcing herself not to let any man in, that…that had been the true weakness.

“You’re not alone,” she whispered.

His heart rate had been slowing against her. She almost felt it skip a beat as Leo jerked his head up, his half-hard cock moving within her. Mina winced a little.

“What did you say?” A hard demand that she couldn’t read.

Old doubt resurfaced, but she refused to let those shadows back in. “I said that you’re not alone. The w-way I feel… I was so frightened that you were dead and…” Her voice became a whisper. “I think I love you.”

It was hard, in the darkness, when silence fell. Her heart leaped in her chest and Mina froze. For the first time in years she’d dared to bare herself to someone else.

And there was no response.
I’m afraid that I’m standing here alone in this new world…

Mina pushed him away, yanking her trousers on, her hands rough and trembling, and her mind blank as—

“Mina.” Hands caught her arms as she tried to duck past him. “Mina, wait.” Leo caught her face in his hands, and then his lips found hers in the dark. Instinct told her to run, but he wouldn’t let her, soothing her with the sweetest, most tempting kisses, his hands cupping her face and holding her there as if she were infinitely precious. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then felt herself softening against him.

Finally he drew back. “You surprised me. I never expected you to…tell me such a thing.” Those tender hands rubbed up and down her back, softening the tension from her spine. His voice grew rough. “Maybe because I wanted to hear it from your lips so much.” He cleared his throat. “Here. Stand still.” He knelt again, a faint shadow in the blackness. Taking her foot, he slipped her boot back on, easing it gently over her calf. She caught only the faintest glimmer of the whites of his eyes, but she knew he was watching her.

“I told you once that you didn’t understand my motives,” he finally said. “Hell, Mina, I didn’t understand them either. I wanted you. I just didn’t know what I wanted
of
you.”