Page 175 of Dukes Are Forever
The ticking sped up.
"Move!" Malloryn yelled, yanking Charlie toward the door.
They were barely through it when a blast wave went up, slamming him in the back and sending him sprawling across the marble floors. Charlie hit the railing of the staircase, his eyes widening as he started going over it.
Somehow Byrnes managed to grab him and haul him back to safe ground.
"Thanks," Charlie mouthed.
Malloryn shoved to his feet, his ears ringing. Little bits of shrapnel had shredded his arms, and he could feel the craving rushing through him as it sought to heal him.
Bit by bit, the whining in his ears stopped. Behind him, the doors were gone. Half the wall had vanished. Smoke billowed from the remains of the sitting room and flames licked at what was left of the furnishings.
And there was still no sign of Balfour.
Byrnes frowned behind him. "Malloryn?" He had his fingers on his communicator, his face paling.
"What?" he barked.
"It's Ingrid," Byrnes said, and took off sprinting before either he or Charlie could stop him.
"Damn it! Byrnes!" Malloryn went after him, but as he rounded a corner, he slowed to a halt.
Half a dozen blue blood lords were sprinting up the stairs toward them, heavily armed, as Byrnes burst right through the center of them.
Every single one of them wore a golden sash over their court attire, with a pin jabbed into their breasts: a rising sun in stylized gold.
Devoncourt was in the lead.
* * *
"Tell Byrnes I love him…."
The words echoed through Byrnes's head as he sprinted through the tower, trying to find his wife.
The second he'd heard them through the communicator, he'd known.
Ingrid was verwulfen to her core, and Malloryn had given her an order to protect his wife. It didn't matter what Ingrid had to do, she would give her life for that command.
He had to find her.
Before it was too late.
* * *
"Here's my pistol."Lark gave it to Adele. "Don't go anywhere. Shoot anybody you don't recognize."
Here goes nothing.
Putting her knife between her teeth, Lark caught hold of the velvet drapery and ran at the gaping window.
Leaping through it, Lark sailed through the air, trying not to look down. They were nearly at the top of the tower, and for a second she could almost hear Charlie telling her there were at least a thousand stairs from the base to the top, which wasnot what she needed to be thinking about right now. The second she started swinging back toward the tower, she gauged the drop and let go.
Air whistled past her ears.
Her heels slammed right between Dido's shoulder blades, and Lark turned her fall into a roll, coming up with her knife in her hand. She crouched over Ingrid protectively.
"Get up," she said, never taking her eyes off the assassin. The woman was backlit by the flames burning in the ballroom.
