Page 172 of Dukes Are Forever
"Can't hear them," Byrnes said, his head turning to-and-fro. "Ingrid will know the way."
"What is Balfour thinking?" Charlie demanded, leaning on the edge of the bannister and peering down the hollow core of the tower. "How are we going to get out of here?"
Malloryn joined him, squinting through the smoke. The entire ground floor of the tower must be on fire.
"Gemma?" he demanded, pressing the tuning button on his auditory device.
A long, staticky silence dwelled.
"Little... busy... right now," she finally gasped. "Rising Sons overrunning... Thorne Tower. Obsidian's helping me... take out the cannons, just in case they get... hands on another one. Kincaid and Herbert with us."
"Right." He depressed the button, turning to the other two men. "Gemma's team is handling the crisis at Thorne Tower. Ava said something about explosives being packed inside every household automaton in the entire building." Of which, there were hundreds, always sweeping unobtrusively or removing household waste. You barely even noticed the damned things anymore. "We've got to find Balfour and get out of here before this entire bloody place goes up."
The queen was going to kill him.
She'd deliberately stressed that he not get her tower destroyed.
"Come and find me, Malloryn."
The words ghosted down the stairs, almost on the edge of hearing.
He paused. "Did you hear that?"
Byrnes looked up grimly. "Sounds like a dead man to me."
There was one more level to the tower: the atrium, where blue blood duels were fought and won, and rogue blue bloods had been executed in the past.
"Malloryn?" Charlie asked.
His body moved as if some invisible puppet master tugged on his strings. "He's here," he whispered, looking up. "Balfour's here."
* * *
Ingrid shovedAdele through a pair of double doors into what looked like a sitting room as a knife buried itself in the frame.
Behind them, Lark was ducking and weaving, using every inch of her speed to avoid Dido's deadly swords.
"Keep out of this," Ingrid snarled, her eyes lighting with fierce bronze as she turned toward Dido and drew her own knife.
Thedhampirwoman was a whirlwind of steel as she kicked Lark firmly in the chest. Lark staggered back into Ingrid, and then Dido was turning on Adele, her eyes alight with maniacal glee.
"I'd like to extend an invitation, Your Grace," the assassin purred. "Lord Balfour would very much like to meet the woman who's captured Malloryn's heart."
It wasn't the sort of encounter she'd survive.
Adele turned, yanked a vase off a pedestal, and threw it at the woman as she advanced. Dido deflected it with an arm, but it didn't slow her.
"As for me," Dido murmured, fingers caressing the hilt of both swords. "You killed my sister-at-arms. So I thought I'd just bring Balfour your head. We can put it in a pretty box for your husband and tie a bow on it."
Adele scrambled over the daybed, the sword slashing through her skirts.
"Adele!" Lark screamed.
And then Ingrid threw herself at Dido, driving both of them to the ground. The tall Amazonian woman drove a pair of staggering punches into Dido's ribs, and the pair rolled as they wrestled for supremacy.
"Adele!" Lark tossed something toward her.
Adele snatched it out of the air.
