Page 1 of To Catch A Rogue
Prologue
Light buzzed behind his eyelids. The throb of the airship’s engines groaned through the hull, a constant vibration that threatened to drive him mad.
The Duke of Malloryn blinked, a sense of urgency forcing him to swim up through layers of consciousness.
With the return of his faculties came the pain, and he almost cast up his accounts as he came back to himself. Agony lanced through his back, his shirt clinging to blood-crusted skin where they’d whipped him.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
The brutal beating he’d taken when they first brought him aboard ached within his very bones. Blood dripped from the barely healed gash in his side where Dido had planted a knife between his ribs when he’d dared to taunt his torturer. But there was no point dwelling on pain.
Malloryn lifted his heavy head and took stock of the situation.
They’d hung him from a set of chains in the hold, winched high enough that he was forced onto his toes. The strain to his shoulders told of torn muscles, but it was the blinding ache in his ribs that made his vision waver. Broken, he suspected.
Getting out of here might prove difficult.
Especially if you’re heading where you think you are.
Sound echoed through the airship. Shouts. Loud bangs. Someone cursing in Russian, a confirmation of his greatest fears.
The airship finally docked, landing jarringly. They'd transferred him aboard the airship two days ago, when the kraken submergible Dido had stolen docked in Königsberg.
The knot in his stomach grew tighter. He knew where he was. There'd be no hope of escape here.
The Crimson Court was the most dangerous place in Europe. Malloryn had allies here, but he also had enemies. And even those who'd done him a good deed in the past would consider the price and what they could gain from it before they moved to help him.
He was all alone with no hope of escape.
He swallowed hard, the first flare of panic swirling through him. All his games, all his spies, the information empire he'd tried to build, and it came to this.
There was not a damned person who could—or indeed would—save him.
He saw Isabella's face again. Recalled her bitter words the night before he married another woman:"You love nothing, Malloryn. You care for nothing. Our lives are but mere pieces on a chessboard to you. I hope one day you realize youhavenothing. I hope all your games are cold comfort to you when there is not a damned soul in this world that truly cares for you."
Could he even remember what love felt like? He tried to recall Catherine’s face but there was nothing but regret and guilt, a twisted morass of violent emotion in his chest as his mind tauntingly replayed the moment she died.
The moment Isabella died.
I'm so sorry.
But did it matter? His grief would not bring her back. His grief had never brought any of them back.
And he realized Isabella's face was starting to overlay the memory he had of Catherine. The two women merged into one in his mind, both their faces staring at him accusingly.
"Balfour did this," he whispered to himself.
But for the first time in years he found no comfort in the familiar words. Vengeance could not slake the tide of guilt.
Because he knew the truth.
You did this.
You cost both of them their lives in your foolish quest for vengeance.
And now you're going to pay for it.
