Page 78 of You Only Love Twice
"Anything else I can get you, sirs?"
The barmaid was suddenly there, and neither of them had noticed her coming. Obsidian sat back in his chair as she leaned forward to mop up the ring of beer on the table that some previous resident had left. She thunked a foaming tankard of ale in front of Silas. "The special of the day's the mutton stew, though I recommend the shepherd's pie."
"No, thank you," Obsidian said, not taking his gaze off his closest friend. "I don't think we're interested in eating."
"As you wish." The barmaid dried her hands on her apron with a saucy look in Silas's direction, before moving to the next table.
"What sort of message does Ghost want you to deliver?"
"Not the bloody kind," Silas said. "If I ever got that instruction, you wouldn't see hide nor hair of me ever again. I know who wins an encounter between the likes of us. I'd be on the nearest airship to the Americas before you could so much as sneeze."
"The message?"
Silas sighed. "He wants you to come in for reconditionin'. Said she's clearly been twistin' your head again. He could forgive that."
"Ghost forgives nothing."
"Aye, but he knows he needs you. Balfour's twistin' the thumbscrews, and nobody else has got your skills."
True. Obsidian rubbed at his mouth as Silas took a mouthful of his ale.
While a blue blood could still enjoy food and drink in moderate proportions, thedhampirstruggled to consume food they'd once found pleasurable. Silas forced it down.
"And what else is he going to insist upon?"
"You know the price."
Gemma's life.
"No," he said, so softly Silas shivered. "If he touches one hair on her head, I will kill him. Brother or not. Balfour or not." He leaned toward Silas, staring his brother in the eye. "Tell him if he thinks I cannot get to him, then he is mistaken. If he hurts her, then the last thing he will ever see is my knife. Or better yet... he will never see me coming at all."
Silas eased out a breath. "You're one intense bastard when you want to be. I think my balls just shriveled up a wee bit. But I'll tell him you said that. I think I might enjoy watchin' him go a little paler round the gills. Now he's got his crew of sycophants, he's been gettin' a little too big for his boots."
Obsidian traced the wet ring Silas's mug had left behind. In the space of a few days, Gemma had torn his life apart. There was no place for him at her side, and yet... what else did he have? "If he wishes me to come in, then I will consider it. Andmyprice is Gemma's life."
He couldn't keep watching over her like this.
Sooner or later one of his brethren would slip past him, and then he would lose her for good.
"I will come in. I will accept his orders. I will play my part. But Gemma is not to be touched. He needs to rescind the assassination order."
"You want to tell Ghost what he is or ain't to do?"
Something stirred within Obsidian. He'd spent too many years bowing to Ghost's will because he simply didn't care enough to fight him.
Now he cared.
"Yes."
"Well, now. I guess this means we know where you stand on the Gemma Townsend issue." Silas peered into his glass as if it contained the mysteries of the universe. "I watched him torture the memory of her out of your mind after Russia. Ghost was furious your loyalty had been swayed. You would scream, again and again, as he put you under and reprogrammed you. You forgot her. Became naught more that Ghost's pet assassin.
"And now here she is, walkin' back into your life, and it's like I'm watchin' something come alive within you. And I can't help but wonder... what would it be like to know that sense of loyalty to someone? Stronger than what we forged in the Cremorne Institute. Unbreakable."
Taking a deep breath, Silas carefully placed both hands on the top of the table. "Just tell me one thing... Is she worth it?"
Obsidian had no answer to that. His and Gemma's relationship had always been a thing fraught with danger. There'd been moments of lust between them, fragments of... quiet times where he could remember her kissing him, and feeling as if the entire world lay in his grasp.
So much had been lost. No, stolen from him.
