And then he jerked the knife free of Corvus's throat, and the bloodied lord slumped to the ground unconscious.
"Deal with him," Malloryn said, turning away, his sleeves absolutely drenched in blood.
Byrnes flipped Corvus onto his front and hastily bound his arms behind him with his belt. "He's bleeding quite badly."
"He'll survive." Something dark and bloodthirsty settled over Malloryn's expression. "Blue bloods can survive almost anything, after all."
"All trussed up." Byrnes hauled Corvus to his feet. "Let's go."
"Not yet!" Adele gasped, and met Malloryn's blackened eyes. "Membership rolls! There must be a list here somewhere with all the names of Angel's Fall members. This is Balfour's recruiting scheme."
"I think Devoncourt will realize you're involved if his membership list goes missing," Byrnes said.
"They already knew."
Ingrid surveyed the spatter of blood on the floor. "But if we set fire to the place he won't know what we've taken."
"Good point." Malloryn started toward the lantern in the corner and set it on the desk. "If we find that list, we don't need Devoncourt," he said, tugging open drawers and rifling through sheaves of paper with his bloodstained hands. "I'll have proof enough to get a warrant passed through council. I can shut the Rising Sons down in one night and cut Balfour's allies in half."
Adele slammed an enormous ledger open, her heart skipping a beat as she found a list of names hidden in a secret compartment cut into the back of it. "Here," she said, her voice rising. "I think I've got it."
Malloryn tore it from her fingers, his expression tightening. "This is it. Let's get out of here."
He paused by Corvus. "And bring this prick. I'm not done with him yet."
"Are you all right?" Malloryn demanded as he helped Adele inside the carriage. Ingrid took one look at the pair of them and then shut the door, granting them some privacy.
Adele's hands shook, and her eyes were wide. She reeked of blood and smoke. "We succeeded in our endeavors, and that's all that matters. We have the list now. I'm fine."
"You're not fine." He reached out and took her hands in his, trying to rub warmth back into them. He could just make out the lick of flames in the distance, where Angel's Fall burned. So much for subterfuge. "I should never have sent you in there. You're untrained. You can barely defend yourself."
"That's why I have you," she whispered. "We weren't to know it was a trap. And you rescued me."
But what if I didn't make it in time?
He closed his eyes and fought the thought down, as the craving whispered through his veins. He was still raw and on edge, struggling to rein in the darkness inside himself. He'd never lost control like that, and there was a rather bothering sensation that lingered in his chest.
One that wanted to stop the carriage and rip Corvus down into the street where he could finish what he'd started.
One that insisted he hold her, just so he could feel the heat of her body against his and know she was safe.
One that demanded he claim her.
Right here.
Right now.
Fighting against the urge was taking everything he had in him, and he needed to have his head about him. Maybe if he just granted his hunger a little taste of what it wanted, it would be easier to restrain. Malloryn gave into the lesser of several evils.
Slipping onto the bench beside her, he eased her onto his lap. Adele rested her head on his shoulder with a grateful sigh. "I knew you were there. I knew you would come."
The utter belief in her voice left him a little breathless.
But it was the contented purring of the darkness inside him that left him on edge.
Troubling.
"So that was Dido," she whispered.
"Yes." He pressed a kiss to her hair, breathing in her familiar perfume. The tension in his chest eased a little more. "Can I ask you a question?"
Adele glanced up.
"It seemed as though Dido made a deal with Lord Corvus. He would grant her... something, in exchange for you."
Every inch of her stiffened.
"Is he the one who hurt you?"
He didn't need to know the answer. It was there in every line of her body. Adele burrowed her face back into the warmth of his coat, closing her eyes. "Yes."
Then he's a dead man.
"You'll never have to worry about him again," he promised, and for a second he was looking at a gray-tinted world as the craving roared through his veins. So much for controlling it.
Her fingers stroked the collar of his coat, and her voice was very small when she asked, "What are you going to do to him?"
Rip his fucking head off.
But that was not the correct answer. That was not what the Duke of Malloryn would do. It was what the monster inside him—stirred to protective lengths somehow—wanted to do.
Malloryn leaned into the caress of her fingers, easing out a steady breath.
Why did she affect him like this?
It was more than the usual protective urge he felt toward women.
More than Balfour's hovering presence.
No. This had everything to do with Adele, and nothing to do with Balfour's plots.
"Malloryn?" she whispered, brushing her thumb against his lip.
"I'm going to ask him a few questions," he managed to say. "And then I'm going to see that he is guillotined very, very publicly."
There was one nice thing about being friends with the queen.
"He'll hate that."
"I know."
"Good," she said, a little viciously.
But nothing about this situation was ‘good'.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Chapter 19
"Go to hell, Malloryn." Corvus spat a mouthful of bloodied mucus at him as Malloryn strode inside the cell he'd been granted inside Thorne Tower, home to political enemies, traitors, and criminals of the important kind. "I'm not going to tell you a damned thing."
The muscle in Malloryn's jaw ticked. Corvus had been the one who'd molested Adele the night she trapped him into marriage, and she'd managed to escape only by using a knife on him.