Heart of Iron

He couldn’t see. Couldn’t smell anything but smoke.



“Lena,” he whispered, shoving desperately to his feet. She had to be here somewhere.



And that was when he heard it.



Faint sounds of the woman he loved, screaming.



***



Colchester shoved her into an antechamber, his sharp bloodletting knife in his fist. Lena stumbled over a chair, tripping on her damned skirts. He’d cut her, the blade slicing through her cheek and flinging fat droplets of blood onto the pale carpets.



The chair splintered beneath her as she fell. Lena pushed herself to her hands and knees and saw the heavy antique leg of the chair beside her. Snatching it up, she scrambled to her feet and turned to face him, brandishing it like a club.



Colchester locked the double doors with a threatening click. Leaning against them, he smiled lazily. “And now, I finally have you alone.”



“Not for long,” she reminded him. “Will won’t be far behind.”



“I doubt it.” He looked up, toward the floor above them. “That explosion should have ripped most of the Great Hall and the hallway apart. ‘Neither fire nor iron told against them,’” he said, repeating the famous quote about verwulfen, “but not even he could survive such a thing. I’m afraid you’re on your own.”



On her own. A tremble started, deep within her body. “You knew,” she said. “You knew it was going to happen.”



Colchester’s gaze slid toward her. “You will never prove such a thing.”



“You smiled. Right before Astrid started winding the transformational. And you very strategically placed yourself nearest the door.”



She sidestepped around a small writing table as he stepped toward her. The horror of it shocked her. She’d known that the letters she carried between the Ivory Tower and Mandeville came from someone high within the Echelon, but she had never expected it to be him.



“A happy coincidence.” Colchester picked up the edge of the table and flipped it aside. “Nowhere to hide, my dear.” The small bloodletting blade sliced the air threateningly. Back and forth.



Lena licked dry lips. Where had her courage gone? Her confidence? Where was the surge of invincibility that she’d felt in the yard? She darted behind the sofa into a shaft of sunlight.



Colchester prowled forward, a hunter completely at ease. If she let him, he would kill her, right here, and nobody would ever know who’d done it.



Colchester leaped onto the sofa and over it, his coat flaring around him as he came through the beam of sunlight. She barely had time to think before she swung the chair leg up and smashed him across the face with it.



Dark blood flew, spattering the cream walls. Lena scrambled over the sofa, a surge of excitement running through her veins. Colchester’s screams chased her, and he came to his feet, clutching his ruined face. His entire cheekbone caved in, bone gleaming through the torn flesh.



The sight of it excited her in a way it shouldn’t have. She felt herself trembling, a sweep of severe cold rushing through her veins. “Come,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you anymore.”



As she tilted her face up, he suddenly froze.



“You little whore,” he whispered. “You filthy beast. You let him infect you?”



He hadn’t seen her eyes ’til now. Lena hefted the chair leg. “It’s the greatest gift any man’s ever given me.”



The words incited him to a rage she’d never seen before. Ignoring his ruined face, he flipped the sofa up and over, then smashed aside the small reading table. Debris sprayed everywhere as he tore down a bookcase.



Turning on her with a snarl, he held his blade with deadly intent. “I could have given you everything.”



“You threatened to take everything I had away. I hated you. I feared you. I don’t anymore.” Blood was burning in her veins, ice cold. Her heart pounded as she took a step toward him. “You’re the monster, Colchester. Will is a greater man than you could ever hope to be. You’re nothing beside him. Nothing.”



He screamed in rage and launched himself at her. Before, the movement would have been too fast for her to follow, but some part of her had recognized the shifting of his body weight, a precursor to movement. As he leaped, she swung the chair leg, driving it up into his ribs.



The knife scored across her shoulder. It felt like ice, sizzling once, the pain swiftly fading. Colchester curled over the club she wielded, then drove forward, smashing into her body.



Lena hit the floor hard. The breath smashed from her lungs, his body riding hers to the floor in a tangle of skirts. She could feel his cold breath on her face, his hands tightening around her throat. Maddened eyes glared down at her.



No fear. There was no fear in her, even as her vision narrowed, darkness threatening to loom. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his knife, discarded on the rug. Groping for it, she caught the handle in her fingertips as Colchester put all his pressure on her throat.



The room darkened. Numbness spread through her until all she could feel was the knife handle. Clenching her fingers around it, she drove it up, straight into his chest.



He screamed, his hands springing from her throat, the short handle of the blade sticking from his chest. Rearing over her, coughing bluish blood, he met her gaze. “Take you…with me.” His fingers closed over the knife and he wrenched it from his chest in a surge of fresh blood.



Lena screamed as the blade rose.



The knife never fell. Instead, an explosive sound ripped through the room, fresh blood spattering her.



Colchester roared in pain, his left arm missing from the elbow down. Black flooded into his eyes, a sign that the demon in him had taken control. He’d feel no pain now, barely even notice the blood that poured from the stump of his ruined arm. She must not have hit his heart.



Looking past him, Lena stared at her rescuer in shock.



Smoke curled from the muzzle of a pistol and Rosalind stared at her grimly. She wore black leather from head to toe, men’s clothes that somehow suited her, covered over with a long black coat that flared at her hips. A neat little cap covered her distinctive hair and a mask hid the lower half of her face.



Turning, Colchester grabbed the knife from the floor—from the ruined fingers that lay on the carpet—and flung it.



“Look out!” Lena screamed.



Rosalind staggered backward, clutching at the blade in her side. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispered, the pistol dropping from nerveless fingers. “We found out, only this morning, what they’d planned. The transformational was gone and so was…so was my younger brother, Jeremy.”



Colchester staggered toward her. “You’re a humanist,” he snarled.



Lena rolled to her feet as Rosalind’s knees gave out. “No!” She darted forward, driving her body against Colchester. They both went down.



Colchester grabbed her hair with his remaining hand and yanked her head back. Lena clawed at his face, catching a glimpse of the black soulless misery of his eyes and his shining white teeth as he went for her throat.



“NO!”



The bellow shook the air. Blunt teeth sank into her throat, biting hard enough to tear the flesh. Lena screamed.



Then suddenly rough hands tore Colchester away from her. Will towered over him in all his fury then turned and flung the duke into the wall.



Colchester dropped to his feet. He met Will halfway, staggering from blood loss but no less dangerous. Lena saw a flash of silver as he tugged a knife from his boot with his remaining hand.



“Will!” she screamed. “He’s got a knife!”



Will blocked the swing, his fist straining as he forced the duke’s arm back. Slamming him into the wall, he drove the blade toward Colchester’s face.



“Let’s see how you like the taste of the blade,” he snarled and drove it into the duke’s throat.



Lena turned away as Colchester made a gurgling groan. The bright scent of hot, fresh blood filled the air and the rasp of the blade as it cut through his windpipe.



The body hit the ground with a meaty thud, the head almost decapitated. Lena looked around, her chest rising with her harsh breath. Will’s fist was bloody, the knife clenched in his fingers. A dark, violent expression rode his face and he turned slowly to look at Rosalind’s slumped form.



Lena darted between them, holding her hands out. “Will. No.”



Bright copper burned in his eyes. He stared at her, lip curled.



“She saved my life,” Lena told him. “She shot him.”



“She’s the person behind the bomb.” He took a menacing step forward.



“I came to stop it,” Rosalind corrected. With a deep breath, she yanked the blade out of her side and winced. Blood bubbled against her waistcoat. “I was too late. We never wanted this. After the smoke clears, the Echelon will comb the city hunting for whoever did this. We can’t afford the scrutiny. Not yet. We’re not strong enough.”



“Did you find your brother?” Lena asked, helping her to her feet.



“There’s no sign of his body upstairs. He must have escaped.” Rosalind’s voice was flat. “I knew he was fond of Mendici. I allowed it. I should have realized the mechs had poisoned his mind, filled him full of glorious stories. They sent him to deliver the transformational. The bastards sent him to die.”



The world was beginning to intrude. Shouting and screams. Footsteps pounding through the corridor outside.



“We have to get going,” Lena said, taking Rosalind by the sleeve and looking up at him. “If they find us here over the body, they’ll kill us. He’s a duke. Nobody can know what happened here.”



A violent quiver went through Will’s body. His eyelids lowered, a lazy, dangerous look at Rosalind that sent Lena’s heart into a paroxysm. “If it weren’t for you, he couldn’t a grabbed her.”



Rosalind bent low, snatching something off the ground. Grabbing Lena around the waist, she hauled her back into her body, shoving the pistol under her chin. The muzzle bit into her soft skin and Lena froze.



“Don’t move,” Lena warned him. “She’s got the same bullets you were making for me.”



“Firebolts. Take off an arm or worse,” Rosalind snapped.



“Let me go.”



“And have him tear my head off?” Rosalind snarled. “Not bloody likely.”



“He won’t hurt you,” Lena said, catching and holding his gaze. “I give you my word that he won’t hurt you.”



“I’ll give her to you,” Rosalind said. “But if you make one move toward me, I’ll shoot her first. I swear.”



Lena staggered into his arms as Rosalind shoved her in the small of her back. She barely had time to think before Will pushed her behind him, using his own body to protect hers.



“Will!” She snatched at his coat, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I promised her you wouldn’t hurt her.”



“But I didn’t,” he whispered. “This is twice you’ve threatened her life—”



“I saved it once,” Rosalind replied, pointing the pistol straight at his chest. She licked her lips. “That counts, doesn’t it?”



“Barely. You wanted to kill Colchester more than you wanted to save Lena.”



“I’m a practical woman. Two boons for the price of one.”



“You ever come near her again and I swear I’ll rip your head off.”



The pistol lowered a fraction. Rosalind clapped a hand over the wound in her side, bending over a little. “I promise. She’ll never see me again.” A faint grimace. “I have certain things to put in order, it seems.”



“How are you going to get out of here?” Lena asked. “Without the guards seeing?”



“Same way I came in.” Rosalind crossed to the bookshelf Colchester had half torn from the wall. She swung it open, revealing a hidden staircase. “The whole place is riddled with tunnels. We stole the schematics months ago. Come.” She gave Will a wary nod. “I’ll get you out without anyone seeing. We can part ways at the bottom. That makes me even, no?”



Lena rubbed the small of his back, coming out from behind him. “Will?” They had to get out of here without anyone seeing them.



He nodded to Rosalind. “You go first. Where I can see you.”



Twenty-eight



Opening the door to Leo’s steam carriage, Will helped Lena into it. Violent shivers shook her body and her eyes were distant. When he’d asked her what was wrong, she’d tried to summon a smile and a shrug. Before he could chase her thoughts down, Blade and Honoria appeared.



Blade and Leo had gotten Honoria out, then Leo had gone back in to help. Smoke poured from the building and the tower guards were frantically trying to assert control.