YOU ONLY LOVE TWICE
With the clock ticking down, the Company of Rogues must find a deadly killer and stop them from assassinating the Queen... before London burns.
Gemma Townsend failed her mission once, and knows love is a weakness she can never afford again. When offered a chance at redemption, the seductive spy is determined to complete her assigned task: to track down a dangerous assassin known as the Chameleon, a mysterious killer whose identity seems to constantly change. As her investigation leads Gemma into a trap, she's rescued by a shadowy figure she thought was dead—the double agent who stole her heart five years ago, before he put a bullet in her chest.
Born in fire. Brainwashed. Betrayed.
A man with few memories thanks to the harsh conditioning he was put through, all Obsidian knows is that Gemma betrayed him, and he wants revenge. But one kiss ignites the unextinguished passion between them, and he can't bring himself to kill her. As they find themselves on opposite sides of a war, they must question everything they believed to be true. Because it soon becomes clear someone is lying and the Chameleon might be closer than either of them realized. Can Obsidian break the ties of his allegiance? Before his only chance at redemption—and love—is lost forever?
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EXCERPT
Gemma took a breath. "Hullo?" she called, taking a cautious step forward. "Curse you, I know you're there."
Silence.
The museum remained still and musty around her. This was where she'd first felt Dmitri's ghost; the day a mysterious pale man stabbed her, and she'd expected to die.
She hadn't died.
Instead, she'd woken up with her wound already pink and healing, and her craving virus levels skyrocketing in her blood.
Something happened to her that day at the museum. And she needed to find out what.
The faintest shift of leather on the marble floors caught her ear. Gemma froze. She'd thought she was imagining things, but that was definitely the sound of someone else here.
"You healed me," she whispered, turning in slow circles, hunting for him. "I should have died but I didn't, and I couldn't understand why..."
A listening sense of silence this time.
"I want to see you," she suddenly demanded, her voice ringing out loud and sharp. Gemma stepped forward, her fists clenched. "Damn you, show yourself!"
Movement shifted out of the corner of her eye. She spun around, her skirts whisking against her ankles.
Something sharp bit into her neck. Gemma slapped a hand there, feeling the tiny dart that stuck out of her skin.
A man stepped out of the shadows. Gemma's breath caught in her throat as he took a step toward the light. First his shoe appeared, and then his slacks, and then hands gloved in black leather.
Broad shoulders. Pale, moonshine hair that brushed against his collar. And that breath-taking, oh-so-familiar face. A face that mimicked those she'd once seen on a painting of Lucifer's fall.
"Dmitri," she breathed, heat flooding from her extremities and centering in on her heart, like some sort of protective mechanism. Her body was stiffening up, her legs losing all feeling. Hemlock. He'd used hemlock on her.
Everything flashed before her eyes. St. Petersburg. Dancing under gilded lights. The taste of his mouth the first time she kissed him, her gloved hands sliding over his roughened cheeks. The shock of the bullet ripping through her chest, and the icy plunge she'd taken into the river that literally stole her breath.
"You survived," she slurred, as her knees went out from under her.
The floor pitched toward her, but he was there. Strong hands caught her before she hit the floor, and he slung her up into his arms.
"Dmitri died," the man said, in a toneless voice. "All that's left now is Obsidian."
And then the world vanished around her as everything went dark…