“Do try not to mark the atrium, Sir Henry,” Morioch called. “The marble is Italian. Very costly.”

Blade circled Vickers, balancing low on his feet.

Vickers got up and scrubbed blood from his nose. His eyes were darkening with fury. “You fight like an alley cur.”

It was intended as an insult, Blade assumed. “Aye.”

“Whatever was the queen thinking?” Vickers said, countering the next two strokes with exquisite ease.

“Mayhap she wanted to see me slit you a new smile.” Blade waved the razor at him. “I don’t think she likes you.”

Vickers’s gaze narrowed on the deadly weapon for a moment. “I grow weary of this toying. I thought to give you a somewhat honorable death, but why bother? You have no honor, and there is none to be gained from defeating you as a gentleman. Let me show you what a sword is for.”

The rapier streaked toward Blade with vicious speed, but he blocked it. Barely. Then Vickers flicked his wrist and the tip sliced across the overlapping leather plates of Blade’s manica. He danced back on light feet as Vickers showed him just how easily he could pierce his defense. The swords tangled, Vickers lunging forward with elegant appeal and disengaging just enough to score a strike. Something stung hot and furious across Blade’s cheek. The scent of coppery blood filled his nose as the duke actually turned his back on him and bowed to the crowd. Blade wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand.

Barrons caught his eye, gesturing swiftly with his hands as though trying to show him what to do. Someone clapped for Vickers. The duke of Morioch, of course, a smile on his thin lips. On the dais, the queen was watching, her hand secured beneath her husband’s.

And Honoria was staring at him, her lip clenched between her teeth. She gave him a reassuring smile when their gazes locked, but he saw the truth written in her eyes. He could not defeat Vickers like this. The man was incredibly fast. Monstrously fast. And his skill with the rapier was superior in every way.

“That is called the botta-in-tempo. A simple form, but highly effective,” Vickers lectured. He held the point of his sword low, as though daring Blade to attack.

All right, then. Blade hefted his own sword. If he couldn’t win fighting Vickers’s way, then he would do it with his own. He made another preemptive strike.

Vickers met the expected attack with a disdainful expression. “Pathetic, really—”

Blade spun low under the point of the swords, his heel sweeping Vickers’s left foot out from under him. The little razor sliced in beneath the edge of Vickers’s breastplate. Blade felt it bite in, and then Vickers was falling with a surprised snarl, trying to bring his shield up in time. Blade leaped forward, the heel of his boot crunching into the breastplate. It crumpled beneath the force, the breath leaving Vickers in a rush.

The duke’s head hit the marble, and his eyes widened in horror as his hair started shifting.

What the hell? Blade missed the chance for another crushing kick as Vickers rolled. His hair tumbled half over his face as though he’d been scalped. A bloody wig.

Blade flipped the tip of his sword and the wig sailed through the air, landing outside the circle. The room gasped as one, and Blade froze as Vickers looked up with a murderous gleam in his eyes. His scalp was pasty and bare, the skin flaking around a few straggling tufts of wiry hair. The sudden stench of sweet rot escaped him.

“You son of a bitch,” he swore quietly. No wonder Vickers was faster than Blade. This was no blue blood he faced but a man well into the Fade.

Shocked cries rang through the room as they saw the duke’s changed appearance. A man wearing enough heavy powder and rouge to hide the effects of the albinism. No doubt beneath the heavy breastplate and the padded shoulders, they would find the duke’s body starting to wither into the lean, stringy muscle tones of a vampire.

“A vampire,” Blade spat. Elation soared through him. It didn’t matter now. Vickers would die. By his hand or by the executioners. And Vickers knew it.

A look of fury and despair flashed over the duke’s face as he scanned the horrified crowd. They drew back from him, surging for the exit. His peers and so-called friends, and they turned their noses up at the first sign of the Fade.

Slowly, Vickers’s gaze locked on Blade.

“You’re done,” Blade laughed in sheer amazement. “You die today.”

“Damn you,” the duke spat and launched himself at his opponent.

He was no longer playing. This time he meant to kill. It took everything Blade had to turn aside a furious strike that almost decapitated him. He staggered back, step after step, barely keeping the rapier between them.

Launching a rebutting kick against Vickers’s shield, Blade somehow turned the man off balance. The razor slashed across the duke’s face, almost an echo of Vickers’s previous blow. Blood splashed off the end of it, and a lady screamed as it spattered across her face. “It burns! It burns!”

Blade ducked, sweeping under the next strike. He saw a chance and barreled forward beneath the edge of steel, his shoulder striking Vickers in the chest. They both went down, but a twist of Vickers’s h*ps sent Blade rolling over the top of his shield arm, momentarily leaving the duke open.

Wrong bloody side. His razor was in the other hand, but he tried to slash at the duke’s face with his rapier. It was too unwieldy, and Vickers jerked his head aside as the sword harmlessly raked over the tiles.

Both of them rolled, coming to their feet in low crouches. Vickers ripped at his shield and flung it aside, crumpling a quartet of youths with the heavy steel.

As Blade watched, he wiped at the blood staining his cheek. Smooth, pasty skin met Blade’s incredulous eyes. Vickers’s wound had healed itself.

“There are advantages, it seems,” Vickers said with a deadly smile. “I shall die, but by God I shall take you with me.”

The line of metaljackets had formed up between the pair of them and the crowd on the dais. The prince consort had not shifted, his face a blank mask of cool interest. He meant to see this duel finished. Only then would he move to destroy Vickers. And perhaps see two enemies vanquished in one day.

This time Vickers was prepared for his opponent. As Blade swept under his sword, Vickers countered with a dagger that had somehow appeared in his hand. It sank with a meaty thud between Blade’s ribs, opening up the vampire’s claw marks from the tunnel. Blade staggered, blood patterning the floor with dark, almost violet drops.

Vickers gave him no time to catch his breath. The rapier slashed down Blade’s face from eyebrow to jaw. Blood dripped into his left eye and he turned instinctively, barely avoiding the responding attack. A reflective strike with the razor glanced off Vickers’s crumpled breastplate with a steely shriek.

Blade barely had time to blink before the sole of a boot appeared in his vision. For a moment the world disappeared, and then he found himself on the floor, his head ringing from the crack of the tiles. As his head lolled to the side, he caught a glimpse of Will’s furious form trying to force his way through a pack of restraining blue bloods.

And then Honoria, her face white with terror as she shoved her way through the metaljackets, the chain around her throat hauling her to a halt. She ripped at it, and though the duchess of Casavian had twice her strength, the end somehow sailed free. Honoria swung the chain and it sailed through the air, wrapping around the duke’s raised weapon.

He jerked almost contemptuously, and Honoria gave a cry as she fell onto the floor in front of Vickers.

Vickers straightened, curling his fist around the chain. An ecstatic laugh burst from his lips. His eyes were flooded with a demonic matte black. “And now I have you both.” He raised his sword, looking straight at Blade. “This time, you watch your love die.”

“No!” Blade screamed.

No, the darkness echoed.

A moment of the constant fight, the edge of control slipping through his fingers. And then he made a conscious decision. He could not win, not against Vickers’s superior strength and speed. And so he let the darkness flood over him, through him, sinking itself into every cell of his body.

The room fell away. Color leeched from the world. And Blade leaped for Vickers.

His body cut through the air, almost as if time slowed around him. Vickers lashed out with the rapier, sending the stroke meant for Honoria toward him. Blade twisted minutely and it swept past him, the cool air of its passing rippling against his throat. The edge of his rapier sank through Vickers’s crumpled breastplate like cutting through soggy bread, the force of the blow driving the duke back.

Twisting his wrist inside the hilt, Blade felt the wrist guard unlatch, and then he was free of its cumbersome weight. He rode Vickers to the ground, ignoring the sudden flood of heat as the dagger pierced his side again.

Somewhere in the distance someone was screaming “mine!” over and over again. Blade drew his fist back and smashed it into Vickers’s face. Blood burned his skin like acid, but the thought was distant, the rational notation of pain for a form long since gone.

The darkness wanted only to kill, to protect what was his. Blood sprayed across the floor, darker than his own but not quite the viscous black fluid of a vampire. Then bone gleamed in the pulpy mess of Vickers’s face.

“Blade!” A hand caught his arm and he spun, drawing back his fist with a snarl. Honoria froze, her shackled hands held in front of her in a placating manner.

“You must come back,” she whispered. “I need you to let him go.”

“I am always me,” Blade replied in a cool voice. The body on the floor in front of him was nothing but a mess of flesh and mangled bone, the face crushed to so much pulp. He looked down in puzzlement. There was blood all over him, a mixture of black and gray. His hands hurt.

Honoria reached out, taking his hand in hers. They trembled and he gripped them strongly. “Please,” she said. “They will not allow you to live.”

He looked around at the shocked crowd. Though danger stalked the arena, none of them had fled. Bloodlust now overruled their fear, and the metaljackets that surrounded the circle gave them a feeling of invulnerability.

His lip curled. He could mow the metaljackets down before they even saw him coming. It was simply a matter of…

Honoria squeezed his hand. “No.”

He stroked her face, leaving a smear of blood across her cheek. “You are mine. They tried to ’urt you.” The clink of the chain caught his attention and a growl curled through his throat.

“No,” she said, catching his hand and pressing it against his cheek. “Vickers tried to hurt me. He is dead. And you must let go before they decide to kill you too.”

“I can kill ’em all,” he said. Could she not see how easy it would be? They were peacocks, fluffing their feathered fans.

Honoria hesitated. “Please. For me.”

He shifted uncomfortably. He wanted to kill. He had only just begun. “Wet the walls with blood…”

Honoria caught his face in her hands, drawing his attention back to hers. “For me.”

He didn’t want to. But she was insisting on it.

“You’re bleeding,” she said. “I need to see to your wounds before—”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“It hurts me to see you hurt.”

“For you, then,” Blade said. As he closed his eyes he sought the burning flame deep within. Honoria’s presence helped calm his racing heart and the dark hunger inside him. “Because I love you.”

“I love you too,” she whispered.

The darkness evaporated from his mind at her words, and he opened his eyes, wincing at the sudden rush of color. Pain flared like someone had stuck a dozen or more holes in him. He looked down at the bluish blood spattering his clothes and the floor.

“Bloody ’ell,” he muttered, his knees giving way beneath him.

Honoria caught him under the arms. Her breath was a half sob. “Thank God. Oh, thank you.”

Chapter 31

Blood covered Honoria’s hands, warm and slippery. Blade staggered against her, his eyes blinking with the onslaught of weakness. And the danger wasn’t over yet.

The crowd drew closer, as though lured by the thought of weakness. Leo stepped within the circle and wordlessly slipped beneath Blade’s other shoulder. Honoria had not quite forgiven him yet—perhaps she never would—and yet she thanked him with a quick glance.

A hush fell over the spectators as the prince consort stood. “There is a reason we do not allow rogues to live freely,” he said with the kind of quiet assurance that made people strain forward to hear. His icy blue eyes locked on Honoria’s and the muscles at the corner of his mouth shifted slightly. “Their dangerous lack of control and breeding can lead to catastrophic misfortune.”

“As catastrophic as having a vampire in your midst, beneath your very noses?” Honoria said and then shut her mouth as Leo grabbed her arm and gave it a warning squeeze.

Morioch examined his nails. “The duke of Vickers is dead. The point is moot. The question now—after that vicious showing—is whether we allow a rogue, so blatantly on the verge of bloodlust, to live.”

Leo swore under his breath.

Honoria glanced around the room helplessly. Anticipation lit not a few faces in the crowd. “What does he mean? Leo?”

“He’s going to put it to a vote for the council,” he replied under his breath. “I can sway one or two, Honoria, but the rest are either in the prince consort’s pocket or playing their own games.”

A little stirring of panic started to tighten her chest. “No,” she whispered.

“For Blade’s sake, keep your mouth shut.” Leo relinquished the weight of his burden to Will, who had forced his way through the crowd. Then he stepped forward. “Bloodlust presumes that one cannot return from such a state. The lucidity in the man’s eyes begs to differ.”