Page 34 of You Only Love Twice
And what would her friends think right now? Would they be looking for her?
What would Malloryn think?
What was going on out there in the world? Were they still hunting the Chameleon? What if the assassin struck now, while she was out of the picture and the queen was vulnerable?
"Damn you to heck," Gemma cursed, glaring through the thin bars.
She had her lock pick still.
The only problem was, she wasn't certain if Obsidian was merely ignoring her, or whether he was no longer in the manor.
You have one chance to escape. Don't you dare waste it on impatience.
He'd ignored her curses.
He'd ignored her yells, and the way she rattled the bars.
But Gemma wasn't about to give up.
Try and ignore me now, you cold-blooded bastard.
She started singing. Loudly. "Oh, there was a young Nighthawk from Matlock...."
Gemma threw herself into the chorus with an obnoxious gusto that would do an opera singer proud. Fourteen verses in, footsteps echoed along the hallway.
Her heart shifted gears and Gemma peered through the bars, trying to see down the narrow corridor. "Obsidian?"
She wasn't going to call him Dmitri. Not anymore. The man she'd once known was dead—he'd told her that himself. All that was left now was the icy facade that wore the same face as the man who'd stolen her heart.
Once, a long time ago.
As if the thought of him conjured him, a dark shape began to take form. Gemma's shoulders slumped in a mixture of relief and frustration. She'd almost thought herself alone. She'd nearly decided to pick the lock, which would have been a disaster, for then he'd know she still carried her pick.
"What the hell is all this racket?" Obsidian demanded.
"I was trying to get your attention."
"Well you got it," he growled. "Along with half the neighborhood. You sound like a strangled cat. Is this some new method of torture?"
Gemma's eyes narrowed on him through the bars. "I'll have you know I have an excellent singing voice."
"If you're trying to convince me you're telling the truth about what happened between us, perhaps you'd best prove you'renotan exceptional liar. You said that with a completely straight face."
"Iam. I took singing lessons last year. My tutor, Francois, said I had an ear for certain octaves."
"Now that," Obsidian said, "is a man who knows how to skirt the truth."
Gemma subsided with ill grace.
He watched her pace, his gaze narrowing to thin slits as he caught a glimpse of her pale stockings through the swish of the cloak.
You were the one who stripped me. So you can suffer the consequences.
Far be it from her to blush and shield flashes of her skin like a virgin. She knew men found her form pleasing. She was counting upon it.
Yet the sudden heat in his eyes cast her plan back in her face.
Her skin itched from the inside out. "You've barely fed me. I've been trying to take small sips, but there's scarcely an inch of blood left in the flask you provided, and my... my hunger is beginning to make itself known."
