looked down this road."
There was a subtle withdrawal as she stared
past him, toward the ceiling. "I never looked down
this road either," she admitted, but it sounded sad.
"You've dreamed of it though," he pushed. "I
could see it in your face when you were holding
Phillip that time at dinner."
Ingrid bit her lip and turned back to him. "I
never used to dream. Not when I was trapped in
the cage, because if you dared to dream, then you
would dare to hope. And nothing hurts more than
having that crushed and thrown in your face."
A fierce, bloody desire filled him, and he
kissed her mouth. "I sometimes wish Lord Balfour
hadn't died in the revolution. Then I could take him
apart with my bare hands for you."
"So do I." No smile, no regret from her. Only
bloody violence gleaming in her eyes. "I never
dared to dream when I was trapped under
Balfour’s hand. But when we escaped from him,
life changed. It was still hard, don't mistake me.
But... we'd escaped Balfour. That was all I’d ever
wanted. I grew into a young woman in Undertown,
because it wasn't safe for a free verwulfen to be
seen above ground, but I was out of the cage. The
dreams that I'd never dared dream came true. And
something else began to grow in my chest, in my
heart. A sense of something missing. Then three
years ago we won the revolution, but it always felt
a little hollow for me, because"—she looked away
—"that something was still missing."
"Your family."
She shrugged, as if careless of her feelings.
Or perhaps trying to dismiss the depth of them.
"Maybe I'll never find them. I think that sometimes
in the middle of the night. And... I might not have
dreamed of children before, but if you asked me if
I wanted them? Then yes, yes I think I do. Holding
Phillip fills that hole inside me. Not all the way,
but for a moment I belong."
"Trust me." This time his tone was dry. "You
belong to Rosa. And her brothers. I've learned that
in the last week."
"And Rosa belongs to Lynch," she said with
another careless shrug. "Jeremy's been walking out
with young Evelyn, and even Jack's been making
calf eyes at Debney."
Byrnes reared back. "What?"
She rolled her eyes. "Right under your nose.
You call yourself an investigator."
He frowned.
"I belong to them," she continued in a softer
voice. "And I always will, but it's not the same.
Because they all have that someone else, and I will
always remain the interloper."
"No, you're not. Don't ever stop dreaming of
that, Ingrid." He wanted to curl her in his arms,
take away the hurt he saw deep within her. It
became a physical ache in his chest. "Dream that
dream. You deserve it.”
Ingrid looked up at him, resolve firming in her
eyes. "Then I will. I want a family of my own. Just
as I suspect you don't."
He shifted. "It's not that easy."
"I thought we were being honest with each
other?"
"I am." He rolled to the side again, landing
flat on his back and staring at the ceiling. "It's not
that I don't want children. It just... scares the hell
out of me."
Ingrid rolled over him, kissing his shoulder,
but she never took her gaze off him. "Why?"
Why? He stilled, and knew she felt it. There
was a knot growing hard in his lower abdomen. A
knot of hard emotion, of things felt but never
admitted to. The only person who had ever gotten
close to seeing it had been Lynch, and even then the
duke had only skimmed the top of it.
He didn't want to speak of it.
But he had promised her honesty.
Byrnes cleared his throat. "What if I'm
terrible with them?"
"What if I am? Sometimes I fear I'll drop poor
Phillip on the floor. He's so... squirmy."
He looked at her. Really looked. "What if I'm
a danger to them?"
Ingrid sobered, then the bronze rings around
her pupils seemed to intensify, as if she understood
what he wasn't saying. "Why would you think
that?"
Another hesitation. Hell. "I'm a bastard,
Ingrid. But if you were to line me up with Debney
and my father... then you'd think I was the heir. I
look at myself and see him sometimes." And there
was nothing he hated more.
"You never speak of your father."
"That's because I killed him."
Silence.
He waited—waited for her revulsion, or
something else to come. But Ingrid simply rested
her head down upon his shoulder and slid her arm
across his chest. It shook him all the way through
and he caught her hand in his and clasped her
fingers in silent relief. Maybe Lynch was right.
Maybe Ingrid was the only woman who could ever
handle the darkness within him.
"Did he deserve it?"
"Yes." That one word nearly overwhelmed
him. All of it began to come back to him. The
hatred, the rage, the shame, and worst of all... the
helplessness. He swallowed it back down, but it
sat like a hot coal in his chest, threatening to choke
him.
And she knew. Another kiss touched his
shoulder. A confirmation. "What was he like?"
"There was a darkness in him that scared me.
A darkness that was nothing like the hunger of the
craving virus, though he was a blue blood. He
liked to hurt people. He enjoyed it. I don't know
why, but it gave him some sense of power. H-he's
the reason my mother is the way she is. He hit her
one night because he thought he could—she was
just a servant in his eyes, just his mistress—but
this one time, she fell and hit her head on the
fireplace. And she was never the same.”
Ingrid's hands squeezed his. "He doesn't
sound very much like you at all, Byrnes."
"When I was a little boy, I was terrified of
him, but I would have done anything to keep my
mother safe. I could fight and be beaten bloody
myself, or I could rage and scream, but nothing
helped. Indeed, it only worsened the situation. My
father would say, 'Are you angry, boy?' and I
would nod, and then he would strike her down,
then come back to me and say, 'That is what your
anger has earned your mother.' He would say, 'You
made me do this. Do you want to make me do
more?' If I tried to stop him, or grew angry, he
would hurt her again. And again." Byrnes took a
deep breath, burying his face against Ingrid's
abdomen. Hands slid through his hair, and just that
simple touch eased the pressure inside him, the
raging emotion that he couldn't quite contain.
"There was nothing that I could do to stop him. I
didn't dare let my anger rule me, or my fear, or
sadness. Eventually I learned to bury all of my
emotions so deep, until it felt like they were not
there anymore. And that last time he hit her, I was
so numb. I kept waiting for her to get up. But she
didn't. If I had stopped him—"
"He sounds like the kind of man who could
not be stopped," Ingrid said softly.
Byrnes looked up and fell into the bleeding
compassion in her eyes. Grabbing her hand, he
kissed her knuckles. "But I did stop him in the end.
I killed him," he whispered. "It just... happened. I
lost control and I had a knife, and I wanted to kill
him. I wanted him to die for what he'd done. And I
can't remember all of it, but afterwards... Christ,
afterwards I looked up into the reflection in the
window, and there he was. In me. I thought it was a
ghost at first, but then I realized I was covered in
blood. His blood." He could see it all over again.
Lived it. "There's a darkness inside me that is
capable of anything. Anything.” Emotion washed
in upon him. Byrnes sucked in a breath, but it
suddenly felt as though there was not enough
oxygen in the room. "I... I—"
Warm arms slid around his shoulders. "Just
breathe," Ingrid told him. "In and out, Byrnes."
And so he did. Ingrid became his lifeline in a
sea of darkness, and as his breathing began to
match hers, he realized that although he'd never
looked down this road before, suddenly he didn't
think he could see himself doing anything else.
She was his future.
She was his meaning in life, the reason to
keep on fighting, keep on breathing. And if she
wanted children, then he would stand by her side.
Together they could achieve anything. He firmly
believed that.
"That's how I became a blue blood, actually."
Facts were easier to deal with, than the complex
emotions filling him. "There was so much blood,
and that's when Debney found me." There was a
vile taste in his mouth. "The look on his face—he
was shocked. And I just lost it. 'Why didn't you
stop him?' I screamed. I told him that it was his
fault, because I knew it was mine, and I couldn’t
bear to feel that way.”
“It was your father’s fault. Not yours. Not
Debney’s. Don’t take your father’s guilt away from
him. He sounds like a monster. And you’re not him.
I've known monsters in my time, Byrnes, and you're
nothing like them. The fact that you're even
worried about it should tell you that."
Byrnes buried his face against her throat and
sucked in a long, slow breath.
"I know how you feel," Ingrid whispered.
"Sometimes you make yourself so hard that nothing
gets in. Nothing can hurt anymore, because you
know you've reached the limits of what you can
endure." Her hand stroked down his back. "If you
stop caring, then it can't hurt anymore. It's a shell,
something that words and blows just glance off, but
something I learned, Byrnes, is that the shell is
brittle. It will break, eventually."
It took a long time to be able to find the voice
to answer that. “You sound as though you speak
from experience.”
Ingrid shifted. “We all have our breaking
point.”
“What was yours?”
“My family,” she admitted, tracing small
circles on his chest with her finger.
"That didn't sound very hopeful."
"I'm not going to find them, Byrnes." Ingrid's
eyelashes shuttered her eyes when she saw him
looking. "I think I know that, deep inside, but if I'm
still trying...."
"Why don't you think you'll find them?"
"Because I've spent years searching for them."
Her fists clenched, frustration flooding through her
and tears hovering on the edge of her eyelashes.
"Years, and so much money, and... nothing. Going
to Norway didn't help. I've travelled through towns
all along the coast, but I could walk past them and
not even recognize them. Last year was my fifth
voyage. I don't remember enough to help me, and
Balfour was the only one who kept any records of
my sale, and he's dead! I'm trying to run an
investigation with no clues, and no matter how
much money I promise, too many girls went
missing during those years thanks to English
raiders. I can't stomach it anymore. The families...
coming to me, hoping that I belong to them and then
discovering that I don't. And worse than that are
the people who see the reward I'm offering for
information and pretend to be something they're
not." Ingrid covered her face with her hands.
This time it was his turn to drag her into his
arms, wrapping them around her as if he could hide
her from the world, from her pain. "Don't cry."
"I'm not crying."
His chest was wet, but he didn't call her on it.
"This one time," she whispered, crying
silently against his shoulder, "...there was a couple
who seemed so perfect. Everything fit. Everything.
I truly thought that I had done it... and then the
woman slipped up." A long sigh went through her
as her body softened.
"It's all right, Ingrid." His throat burned with
the ache of all she'd lost. "You're not alone. Not
anymore."
She cried for a long time as Byrnes simply
absorbed it.
It took him a long minute to realize that she
was asleep, worn out by her grief and her
confession. Byrnes continued to stroke her hair,
resting on his chest.
He didn't dare move, just in case he woke her,
though he couldn't stop stroking his hand through
that mess of hair. There was a fist lodged
somewhere in his chest that felt like something he
almost recognized. A little fist of hurt and worry
and protectiveness that wasn't going to shift.
This. This was what it felt like for the ice
around his heart to melt. It felt like he was taking
his first breath in years, through a raw, bloody
throat. It was terrifying and yet exhilarating.
"Ingrid," he whispered almost soundlessly, and that
simple name turned the key, unlocking something
he'd thought long buried.
He'd spent so many years feeling nothing, or
not understanding what he did feel. Aloof,
watching the world around him, fitting together the
pieces. It was what made him such a good
investigator, but the lack of those emotions was
what stopped him from being truly brilliant.
And a plan formed.
"If there's one thing I don't do—it's give up,"
he whispered.
Byrnes could find anything. It was what he
did. The very thought of it made him nervous—this
was no simple pledge, and there were stakes here
that could rip a woman's heart from her chest. A
woman who had slowly, somehow, curled her own
fist around his long-frozen heart.
"I'll find them, Ingrid," he whispered,
pressing a kiss to her hair. "No matter how long it
takes me. I promise I'll find them for you."
But not yet. Now he had a group of vampires
and anarchists to discover.
THIRTY
DAWN GLOWED GOLDEN on the horizon.
Finally.
Byrnes waited as Jack inspected the small cut
on the back of his head where he'd inserted the
tracking device an hour ago. It had already healed,
thanks to Byrnes's CV levels, but they were taking
no chances that Zero would smell any blood on
him.
Jack began to clean his instruments, as
Debney paced the room. Byrnes hadn't been
entirely surprised to see him here. Not after
Ingrid's little revelation about the two men, but the
pacing was getting on his nerves.
"Heavens sake, would you sit down?" he
growled. "You're making me dizzy."
Debney promptly sank into a chair, knotting
his hands in his lap. "I'm sorry."
It took the edge off his words. "Don't you
think you ought to go home? Get some rest?"
"I don't think I can," Debney muttered.
"Ulbricht's still out there somewhere, and... well...
You're going to be careful?" Debney asked, and the
words were so perfectly pronounced, that Byrnes
hesitated.
Flippant words died on the tip of his tongue.
He eyed his brother. Was Debney actually worried
about him? "I'll be careful," he promised.
Debney let out a slow breath.
"Ingrid will watch his back," Jack added,
resting a hand on Debney's shoulder and squeezing.
"Nothing's going to happen to him."
Their eyes met, and Byrnes found himself in
the middle of a moment that was awkwardly sweet.
He stepped out of the way before Debney tried to
do something ridiculous, like hug him.
There were limits.
Heels clicked on the hallway floor.
"Slight problem," Ingrid said, sailing into the
parlor. She wore her protective armored corset
over a loose white shirt, and a tight pair of leather
pants that showcased those Amazon legs to
perfection. He couldn’t stop himself from looking,
remembering them wrapped around his hips.
Malloryn followed on her heels, slipping his
embroidered coat from his shoulders. "I'm a
problem now, am I?"
That tore Byrnes’s attention off her legs. "I
thought you were in meetings?" The last thing they