Whirling so fast his black cloak flared, Dorian plunged into Northwalk Abbey, bellowing Murdoch’s name. The bedrooms had to be on the second floor, so he dashed up the stairs, his boots barely touching the carpets. “Murdoch,” he roared. “Farah!”
Tallow ran around the bend of the hall to the right. “B-Blackwell! He’s here!”
Murdoch sat propped against the wall outside a splintered door barely clinging to the hinges. A maid held pressure to his side with a heavy cloth.
“Murdoch.” He dropped to one knee next to the injured man. “Who did this?”
“Bullet grazed me flesh.” Murdoch waved him off. “Go. He has her,” his steward bit out through drawn, white lips. “Warrington.”
The bastard isn’t dead.
“No!” Dorian exploded to his feet, his ice becoming that foreign fire, the one that stole his thoughts along with his breath. “Where did he take her? Which way?”
Murdock shook his head. “They never—left the room. I was by the door.” He winced and swore as the maid pressed harder on his side.
Dorian leaped into her bedroom, lit by a lone lantern. Walters and Gemma were already searching the balcony and beneath the bed. “She’s not ’ere.” Gemma moaned fretfully. “We looked everywhere. There’s no way anyone could have leaped off the balcony and lived, it’s too high.”
Every muscle in his body tightened. “Murdoch,” he gritted out. “Is there a chance you lost consciousness? No possibility that they might have gotten past you?”
“Not a one,” Murdoch rasped. “Passing out would be a mercy.”
Panic threatened to choke his rage, and Dorian refused to let it. “Warrington’s a dead man,” he announced to the men who’d only just crowded in through Farah’s bedroom door. “And so is the imbecile who allowed him in. Which one of you was it?”
“It’s impossible, Lord Blackwell,” Kenwick marveled. “We’ve attended our posts like you ordered. Not one of us has been late or remiss. We wouldn’t dare fail you.”
“My wife is in the hands of my enemy.” The truth of it burned through his blood, making him wish a man could die more than once. He’d murder Warrington exactly the number of times he’d put his hands on Farah. The man’s soul would expire before his body gave out. There were ways.
And this time, he’d stay dead.
“We’ll find her,” Kenwick promised.
“You’ll answer for losing her,” Dorian vowed.
The man went whiter than Murdoch. “Blackwe—”
A shot volleyed through the castle, freezing them all. Then another.
“Farah,” Dorian gasped. It had come from inside the castle, from inside the walls. Dorian walked to the east wall and pressed his hands against it, then his ear. She was behind there. He knew it. She wasn’t dead. That shot wasn’t for her. She was alive! She was alive because he was still alive. And if her heart ever stopped beating, his soul would follow her.
Feeling like an animal trapped in a cage, he hurled his body against the wardrobe, shattering the wood. He would tear this bloody castle apart brick by fucking brick. Starting with her bedroom.
* * *
“Good-bye, Lady Northwalk.”
Farah reacted before she thought, slapping at Warrington’s wrist as he pulled the trigger.
The gun went off right next to her ear. She could no longer hear, but she could kick. And so she did, her foot coming up as hard as she could drive it between Warrington’s legs.
Another bullet pinged off the stones, but Farah felt no pain, and so she lunged for the pistol, easily pulling it from Warrington’s hand as he crumpled to the earth, clutching himself.
Fumbling for a moment, she got the pistol pointed in the right direction, and slowly backed away from Warrington. “Don’t move,” she yelled, the sound still muffled. Every limb shook with a violence she’d never before experienced. Her left ear rang loudly, and another sound, like rushing water, competed for dominance, but she was alive.
She was alive.
The foul words that spilled from Warrington’s lips rivaled the filth of the pit. And Farah began to wonder just how she was going to climb the stairs—they were almost as steep as a ladder—while still training the gun on him. Should she run first and get help? Or make him climb at gunpoint? Should she just kill the bastard and be done with it?
The idea held appeal, and yet her stomach protested.
A loud explosion, like the shattering of wood and brick, startled her. Warrington took that moment to lunge toward her, his teeth bared as if he planned to bite.
Farah leaped back toward the corner, screamed, and pulled the trigger.
Warrington staggered, a hole opening just below his sternum, and fell. She felt rather than heard the vibrations of footsteps sprinting toward her.
The ringing had started to fade, and she might have heard a man scream her name, but she just stared and shook, wondering if she shouldn’t empty the gun into the fallen man, just in case he rose again.
Warrington’s eyes blinked rapidly. His mouth, ringed with blood, worked over words, though she couldn’t hear any of them. The world began to spin, the ground beneath her feet pitching like a ship rolling on an angry sea.
A dark shadow leaped from the stairs, his long coat flowing behind him like demon wings, landing in between her and Warrington.
Dorian.
He looked like the devil, come to take his minion. His hair black as obsidian. His scarred eye glittering with so many dark things, Farah couldn’t identify a single one through her shock.