And, for the first time since he’d taken to the ring twelve years earlier, the Killer Duke fell.
She couldn’t stop watching, unable to tear her gaze from the awkward angle of his legs and the river of blood pouring from him, spreading dark and ominous over the sawdust on the floor. A tall, ginger-haired man was in the ring then, on his knees at Temple’s side, stripping off his coat, barking orders, bending over to inspect the wound.
And then Mara couldn’t see at all, her view blocked by the dozen men already in the ring, trying to get to him. Each eager to be the first to make the call.
“He’s dead!”
“No,” she whispered, refusing to believe it.
What had she done?
Temple was too strong, too big, too alive for it to be true. She struggled against the arms holding her in an iron grip, desperate to be free. Desperate to get to him. To prove the words wrong. “No. It can’t be true.”
The arms around her tight almost to the point of pain. Bourne’s voice was a vicious promise at her ear. “You shall pay dearly if it is.”
Chapter 12
T he men of The Fallen Angel stood watch over their fallen comrade.
It had taken three men to carry Temple from the ring—Bourne; Asriel; and Cross, the club’s financier—and the trio was winded when they barreled through the great steel door into Temple’s private rooms—the place he had crafted for quiet and peace.
They’d cleared the large, low table, and lay him on it before lighting every candle in the room. Without needing to be asked, Asriel left in search of hot water, linen, and a surgeon, though there was no promise that a surgeon could help. There was no promise that anyone but God himself could help. And to the owners of The Fallen Angel, God had rarely taken kindly.
Cross moved with quick, economical precision to investigate the wound. “Stay awake, you heavy bastard. You’re too big to fall.”
Temple struggled. “I shouldn’t be here,” he said, his thoughts clouded and his tongue heavy. “I’ve a fight.” Cross angled one of Temple’s arms outward to test the location of the knife and Temple bowed off the pallet at the pain, fighting the movement.
“You’ve had a fight,” Justin, the club’s majordomo, said quietly from a few feet away. “You’ve had two.”
Temple shook his head, the movement loose, like a broken doll, a sign of delirium. “No. He’s run the dice too far this time. Too long. There are too many of them.”
Bourne came to hold him down, swearing harshly. “That was a long time ago, Temple. Years. We don’t run dice on the streets anymore.”
The door to the room opened, and neither man looked toward the sound. This room was as secure as if the King himself were here, clinging to life. If someone were entering, it was because they had access to the darkest secrets of the club.
“Justin, get back to the floor.” Chase had arrived. “We do not stop the fleecing of the aristocracy simply because Temple’s suffered a flesh wound.”
Bourne cut Chase a wicked look. “It took you long enough to get here.”
“I was the only one who remembered that we have a club to run. Where will Temple be if we bankrupt ourselves while he convalesces?”
Cross did not look up from the knife. “This is more than a flesh wound.”
Temple struggled against his partners’ hold. “I have to get to the fight! Bourne can’t beat them!”
“We beat them together,” Bourne said quietly, his face pale with frustration and worry. “We fought them together.”
Temple’s eyes shot open and he met Bourne’s gaze. “We will lose.”
Bourne shook his head. “Not with the devil on our side. Chase came.”
“I saved your ass then,” Chase said, leaning in, something catching in the words—something the founder of the Angel would never dream of admitting to. “I saved it then, just as we shall save it now.”
Temple shook his head. “I have to fight . . .” The words faded away, and he went limp on the pallet.
Bourne turned instantly to Cross, his voice gravel. “Is he—”
Cross shook his head. “No. Passed out.” He inspected the place where the knife was buried deep in Temple’s chest, thick and deep halfway between shoulder and breast. “It might not be fatal.”
The words lacked conviction.
“As none of us are doctors,” Bourne said, “you’ll forgive me if I am not comforted by your diagnosis.”
“It might be muscle. Nerve.”
“Pull it out.”
Cross shook his head. “We don’t know what that would do. We don’t know if it would—” He stopped, and the words rang in the room despite his not saying them. Kill him faster.
Chase swore, low and furious.
“Justin?” Cross called and the pit boss pushed his spectacles high on his nose, waiting for the order. “Summon the surgeon. And my wife.” The Countess of Harlow’s knowledge of human anatomy was impressive, and she was the closest they had to a doctor if the surgeon weren’t nearby.
Chase spoke low and dark. “And get me everything there is to know about Christopher Lowe.”
Bourne looked to Chase. “I presume he’s gone?”
“Lost in the fray tonight.”
Bourne swore, harsh and wicked. “How?”
“Security was so concerned about Temple, they forgot that their job was to protect the exits. I shall have all their heads. Every damn one.”
“They care for him,” Cross said.
A golden brow rose. “Interesting, that. Considering they could have captured his killer if they weren’t all wailing like banshees. They shall answer to me for behaving like children who lost their sweets.”
“You’re a cold bastard,” Cross said.
Chase ignored the words, instead turning to Bourne. “What happened to you?”
A bruise was blossoming on Bourne’s face, coloring his right eye socket black. Bourne scowled. “I would prefer not to discuss it.”
Chase did not seem to mind. “Where’s the girl?”
“Locked in Prometheus, where she belongs.”
Chase nodded. “Good. Let her think on what she’s done.”
“What do you plan to do with her?”
The founder of the Angel stood over Temple, watching his shallow breath, the barely-there rise and fall of his massive chest, the way his normally brown skin had gone sallow under the threat of death. “I shall kill her myself if he dies. With pleasure.”
“Lowe thought she’d betrayed him,” Bourne said.
“She tricked us all.” Chase did not look up. “I did not think she had it in her.”
Cross raised a brow. “She faked her death and blamed him for it.”
The door opened again, and Philippa, Lady Harlow entered, out of breath, spectacles askew, Asriel on her heels with hot water and linens.
Pippa ignored everyone in the room, heading straight for Cross, touching her husband’s shoulder in a fleeting expression of comfort. After Cross lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, she turned her attention to Temple, running her fingers along his shoulder and down the skin to the place where the hilt of Lowe’s knife protruded, perverse and unnatural.
She pressed at the flesh and Temple groaned.
“You hurt him,” Chase said, warning in the words.
Pippa did not look back. “That he can feel pain—that he can protest it—is a good thing. It indicates consciousness.” She turned to her husband. “The surgeon left once the first fight was complete. They’ve sent several men to search for him, but we mustn’t wait. You must pull it out. Straight and true. We must treat this wound before—”