“Isn’t it? Nothing we’ve done has made one ounce of difference. He doesn’t recognize any of us; indeed, he sees us only as threats.” Garrett’s expression softened as he looked at her. “But he’s called for you, many times. Maybe she can do what we can’t.”
Rosalind pushed past before Doyle could say another word, feeling breathless. “Is he dangerous?”
Garrett’s lashes brushed his cheek as he looked down. “We have him restrained. He only becomes violent when we enter the room.”
She swallowed the hard lump in her throat. That moment in Undertown where he’d pinned her to the wall had frightened her. She shouldn’t even be here; both Jack and Ingrid had argued against it until she’d agreed not to go, if only to placate the pair of them.
But she couldn’t leave it alone. She needed to see him, needed him to be all right.
She missed him.
Gathering her skirts in her hand, she swept up the stairs, falling into step beside Garrett.
“I remembered something,” she said, “about the attack. They mentioned a Dr. Doeppler—the man who created the drug that…that did this to him. Perhaps he has an antidote?”
Garret shot her a sharp look. “Dr. Doeppler?”
“In the East End,” she replied, her gaze narrowing on the door to her own study. She felt light-headed, each step deliberately laid.
“I see. I’ll send someone to see to the doctor.” His gaze dipped to her clasped hands. “Don’t be scared. I don’t think he’d hurt you or else I wouldn’t allow this.”
Garrett opened the door and ushered her inside with a cool hand in the small of her back.
“What if he doesn’t want to see me?” she whispered suddenly. The silence in the rooms was almost deafening. “What if it sends him over the edge again?”
“There is that risk,” Garrett admitted. “That’s why he’s bound. He can’t get to you, Rosa.” A hesitation. “But I fear you might have to do this alone. If he sees me—He doesn’t react well to the sight of any of us, and I fear if he sees me by your side…he’ll perceive a threat.”
“He’s afraid of you?”
Another odd hesitation. “Not quite.”
“Garrett, please.” She actually laid her hand on his arm. “Tell me what you’re not saying.”
“The darkness inside him—his demons, whatever you wish to call them… They’re focused on you, Rosa.”
A frisson of fear—and something else—traveled over her skin.
“Sometimes it happens with a blue blood,” he added quietly, “when he desires a woman beyond all else. It’s a possessive, driving force within him. To protect you, to have you with him, to—” He actually colored. “A need to claim you as his own. I believe it’s the only thing that saved your life in Undertown. His bloodlust was stirred, but with it roused the darker side of his nature, the part that recognizes you as his.” Something bleak traveled through those pretty blue eyes. “We all have the capacity for it, Rosa.”
A disaster. She could never escape him if this was the truth. And Lynch would demand more of herself than she could give. “What would happen if I don’t go to him?”
“If we can’t find a way to bring him back, then we—I—will have to kill him.”
Pain filled his eyes and with it came the realization that Garrett was a better man than she’d ever suspected. To do such an act would hurt him beyond reparation. But he would do it if he needed to—that ingrained sense of duty that she suspected Lynch had had a hand in instilling.
“I’ll try.” The part of her that had been trained by Balfour was screaming at her, forcing her to look at this strategically.
Heat burned behind her eyes and she gathered herself and stepped to the door of his study. Her careful strategies be damned. No matter how much she’d tried to deny this, she felt something for Lynch. Something strong. Something that almost made her feel human again.
She couldn’t leave him behind if she was the only chance he had of recovering.
Rosalind knew as soon as she touched the door handle that Lynch was awake. She could almost hear him listening and sweat touched a damp hand to her spine.
Resolutely, she turned the handle.
The sight of him stole her breath. Spatters of dull, drying blood flecked his chest and the bed sheets, his arms yanked high above his body and bound with enormous iron manacles that someone had driven into the wall with what looked like railway spikes. The sheet covered his hips, but they’d bound his feet in much the same way and from the vial and pair of needles on the bedside table, they were dosing him regularly with hemlock.
She slowly closed the door behind her. Lynch watched her, those black eyes gleaming in the flickering dance of candlelight. A predator’s eyes. Not the man that she longed for. Not her clever adversary, her dearest enemy.
“Hello,” Rosalind whispered, trying to still her racing heart. “I’ve missed you, my lord.” Her voice sounded loud in the room, silence broken only by the slight shifting of sheets as his head turned to track her.
This was what she had hated and feared for so long. Balfour’s eyes had been like that, black and emotionless, when he’d cut Nathaniel’s throat in front of her.
Rubbing at her chest, Rosalind crossed to the window and jerked the curtains back, unable to stand the dark anymore. What did she believe now?
Behind her, the low exhale of his breath caught her ears. When she turned, Lynch twisted his face away, hiding from the almost-blinding light. Of course. Blue bloods tolerated sunlight, but they preferred darkness, with their overly sensitive eyes and pale skins. The higher their CV count, the harsher they felt it and right now, with the bloodlust ruling him, he’d be even more sensitive.
Rosalind tugged the curtains half-shut. “I’m sorry. But I can hardly see.” Her nose wrinkled up. The room smelled like blood. She opened the window and a cool breeze stirred the curtains.
“Have you eaten?” she asked, her voice strengthening. She eyed the rusty stains on his shirt. “Have they bathed you at all?”
The answer of course was no.
Crossing briskly to the door, she reached for the handle. It was only then that she realized how relaxed his body had been, for he jerked to attention, the manacles cutting into his flesh.
“No!”
Rosalind paused. Their eyes met. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I’m only going to send Garrett for some fresh sheets and water.”
Breath heaved in his chest, his eyes glittering dangerously. Rosalind slowly turned the handle. “I won’t leave the room,” she promised.
Garrett waited in Lynch’s study, leaping to his feet with a desperately longing expression as soon as he saw her.
She shook her head, not daring to step over the threshold. “I need warm water and soap,” she told him. “Fresh sheets for his bed too, and some blud-wein.”
Garrett nodded, his shoulders slumping in relief as he sprang toward the door. Rosalind didn’t have the heart to tell him there had been no change.
Closing the door, she turned back to Lynch. His lip curled and he glared through the wall, an angry purr sounding in his throat.
“That’s enough,” she said, stepping between him and the door. His gaze lit on her and she shivered.
The corded muscles in his throat clenched and he strained against the manacles that bound him. Rosalind hurried to the bed. “Stop it,” she said, laying her hands on his chest. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
