She stopped. No one in the room needed hear the rest.
“And if it’s somehow keeping him from bleeding out?” Chase asked.
“If that’s the case,” Pippa said, her tone turning gentle, “then we prolong the inevitable.”
“Lady Harlow, while I am certain that you are exceedingly competent in all areas of science,” Chase said, “you will forgive me for questioning your skill as a doctor.”
Pippa paused, looking to Cross. Waiting.
“In light of the current circumstance, I shall ignore the tone you’ve taken with my wife,” Cross said. “We cannot wait for the surgeon. It could be hours.”
Chase swore, the reveal of emotion from one so stoic harsh and unsettling for the rest in the room.
“He won’t die,” Bourne said, the words half vow, half prayer. “He’s Temple. Stronger than all of us. Haler. Christ. He’s big as an ox. Unbeatable.”
Except, he had been beaten.
“Bring me the girl,” Chase said.
Cross was simple and direct. “No.”
Bourne was more colorful. “Over my rotting corpse does that bitch gain access to this room.”
Chase did not rise to the anger. “She will see what she’s done to him.”
“I would prefer she experience what she’s done to him.”
Chase looked to Asriel. “Bring me the girl.”
Asriel did not hesitate again. Chase’s will was done.
“You watch her. She’s as likely as her brother was to take a knife to any one of us.” Bourne lifted his hand to his eye. “And she’s got a surprising right cross.”
Pippa looked to him. Her wide eyes blinked once behind her spectacles and Bourne resisted the urge to fidget. “She hit you.”
“I wasn’t expecting it.”
Cross couldn’t resist. “I don’t imagine you were.”
He returned his attention to Temple’s wide expanse, watching as Pippa cleaned around the knife, her task Sisyphean—blood blossoming anew with every swipe.
After long moments, she said, without looking up, “You can’t plan to reveal yourself to her.”
Chase looked to her. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“She can’t know who you are,” Cross agreed with his wife. “She’s not to be trusted.”
Pippa brought a clean cloth to Temple’s brow as they all watched, wiping away the sweat and sawdust that clung to him from the ring.
Bourne spoke, “If she knew . . .”
The words trailed off, completion unnecessary.
If Mara—if anyone aside from a trusted few—knew Chase’s true identity, the Angel would be in peril.
And the Angel’s peril belonged to them all.
T here was a gruesome painting of Prometheus on the wall of Mara’s prison cell. A torture scene.
The hero lay prone, chained on his back to a rock, his face a portrait of agony as Zeus, in the form of a wicked black eagle, tore at his flesh. Punishing him for insolence. For stealing fire from the gods. For thinking he could beat them.
It was a terrifying piece, enormous and threatening, no doubt designed to make those who defied the Angel aware of the consequences of their actions and amenable to confession.
A vision flashed, Temple collapsed on the floor of the ring, the life spilling from him as she screamed.
Kit had stabbed him. With her knife.
Fire from the gods.
The door opened and she turned, her words out before she could stop them. “The duke. He lives?”
Temple’s second, the man who had stood sentry outside the orphanage, tall and broad with skin dark as midnight, did not reply, instead silently indicating that she should walk ahead of him into the dark hallway with a seriousness that suggested it would be a mistake to push him for an answer or to ignore his instructions.
He’d clearly been trained by Temple.
Heart pounding, she did as she was bid, and as she passed him, he did speak, his voice low and gruff. “Try nothing.”
She wanted to tell him she wouldn’t. That she hated what had happened. That, had she known it would come to pass, she would have done everything in her power to stop it. That even at her most angry, she’d never intended to hurt Temple. But she knew the words would be futile and their meaning mistaken for lie or worse. And so, instead, she held herself straight and tall and made her way past him into the dimly lit hallway.
The corridor was lined with men and women in a variety of uniforms—from livery to lady of the evening—each face pale with shadow and concern. Each gaze hot with loathing.
She longed for the mask that had been taken from her after the fight.
They watched her with angry eyes as she made her way through the already unsettling passageways designed to overpower with their size and curvature—designed to make it exceedingly clear to all who passed who held the power. Designed to dissuade Prometheus from thinking he might fare well in his quest.
“I hope you’re taking ’er to Chase,” one of the women said, blond and beautiful and filled with vitriol. “I hope ’e plans to deal with ’er.”
A murmur of agreement rolled through the too-small space at the suggestion, and a man nearby added, “She deserves everything Temple got.”
“She deserves more,” a wicked shout came from behind her, and Mara crossed her arms tightly, moving more quickly, desperate to get away from them. From their hate.
And then her escort opened a door and she threw herself from the hallway into the chamber, pulling up short as she realized where she was.
Wishing she had remained in the corridor beyond.
She was in Temple’s rooms, where she’d watched him strip his shirt earlier in the evening. Where they’d sparred. Where he’d kissed her on lips and more, giving her a taste of a vast amount of pleasure to which he had access. Where she’d tried to stand firm and tried not to notice his muscles and sinew and bone. His warmth. His vitality.
Vitality that was gone now. A woman and two men leaned low over him, candlelight wrapping him in its warm glow, highlighting the paleness of his skin, still as death. She closed her eyes against the words, wishing she hadn’t thought them. Willing the word death away.
She stepped toward him, a knot in her throat. “My God,” she said, her chest heavy with fear and sorrow, unable to stop herself from reaching for him before her guide placed a strong hand on her arm and stopped her forward momentum.
The Marquess of Bourne turned at the sound of her voice, and she noted the bruise blossoming at the inner corner of his eye, feeling the related sting in her right hand. He pointed at her. “You don’t come near him.”
There was hatred in the words, and a different woman might not have replied. But she could not bear another moment of not knowing. “Is he dead?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“No,” she said, the truth coming on a flood of relief, knowing that the quiet word would mean nothing in this room, but wanting to say it nonetheless. Wanting to remind herself that she’d never intended to hurt Temple. Never. Not since the beginning. And certainly not now. “No.”
He raised a brow. “I don’t believe you.”
She met his gaze. “I didn’t expect you would.”
“Enough, Bourne.” The woman at the table looked up and Mara recognized the blond, bespectacled woman from the mysterious room where they’d watched the fight earlier. “We can’t wait any longer. We must extract the knife.”