“No?” He straightened, a smile twitching behind his neatly groomed beard and moustache. “You’re right, my dear. Ravishment wouldn’t interest you. My apologies.”

Mina arched a cool brow, but his words, as polite as they were, stung a little. She had no choice but to prove herself made of ice. It was one of the few weapons she had at court, but it didn’t mean she felt nothing. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“Straight to the point.” His smile deepened. “Like a knife. I like that about you.”

“Goethe—”

He gave his head a tight little shake and her lips compressed. Too many here knew what that single name represented. The Duke of Goethe was one of the seven dukes who ruled London—or six dukes and one duchess, to be more precise. She knew, though, what the rest of them thought. The House of Casavian was virtually powerless on the Council of Dukes, just one more vote among many.

She wanted them to think that. “Sir—”

“Do you have the note?”

“I do.” Their eyes met. “I shouldn’t give it to you. I shouldn’t encourage this.”

“You’ve hardly been encouraging,” he replied blithely, holding out his hand.

And she had her orders. Mina’s lips thinned again as she reached into the valley between her breasts and produced a tiny waxed note from a pocket inside her corset. It was cool from her skin—just another difference between a human and a blue blood.

Goethe reached for it, but she held on just a fraction longer. “What you’re doing puts you at risk. If the prince consort finds out—”

“He’ll push me into a duel.” The pressure increased and Goethe came away with the note. “Be at peace, my lady. I know the consequences and I accept them.” He tucked the note somewhere inside his coat and then, with a faint bow of the head, strode past her.

Bloody arrogant man. Ten years ago this might have ended in a duel, but she suspected the prince consort was no longer firmly in command of his darker nature. Something every blue blood faced eventually—or would have without the recent discovery of the vaccination for the craving virus and its effects on a blue blood.

Drinking a vaccinated person’s blood could hold the Fade at bay, though it was too late, in her mind, for the prince consort. His madness was only escalating, his thirst dangerously uncontrollable.

No, the prince consort wouldn’t challenge Goethe to a duel if he realized the duke was courting his wife in secret.

He’d kill him.

Wind whispered through the nearest hedge, and a prickling sensation rose on the back of her neck. Mina tugged her velvet hood tighter around her face and kept walking. The scent of the breeze off the nearest canal left much to be desired. She took a deep breath and turned her face just as something blurred out of the hedges.

An arm wrapped around her throat, a knife coming up sharply. “Don’t move, lov—”

Mina caught her attacker’s wrist and used his own momentum to flip him over her shoulder. The heel of her slippered foot struck him a glancing blow to the throat, and then she wrenched his shoulder behind him, using her heel to roll him onto his front.

The effort left her breathing hard, warm darkness rolling through her vision as the hunger of the craving urged her to finish the task. He was bleeding. The rich, coppery scent left her a little dizzy and made her swallow.

Mina closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. For years she’d thought herself the only female blue blood in London. The Echelon had long feared a woman’s nature too sensitive to deal with such dark hungers, and she had to ensure she comported herself with decorum.

It wouldn’t do to let the hunger control her. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of being proven correct. And so she forced the hunger down ruthlessly, deep inside her heart of ice.

“I don’t have anything worth stealing,” Mina whispered, bending low and locking his shoulder just shy of dislocation. “And unfortunately for you, I am more than capable of defending myself when called upon. However, you didn’t know that. You expected to find a pigeon, ripe for the plucking. Now…” Another hard yank on his arm that made him grunt in pain. “If this had been another young woman, she would have been at your mercy. For her sake, should I be merciful?”

The man gathered his fingertips beneath him. “B-bugger y-you.” Then somehow he spun, rolling in the direction of his trapped arm to free it and shoving her out of the way. A boot lashed out at her but Mina darted to avoid it, cursing her skirts. As the man found his knife and rolled to his feet, she triggered the small pistol strapped to her wrist and it slid into her palm.

“Drop it.” When his hand clenched on the knife, she took a step forward. “You move too fast to be human, which makes me assume you’re a blue blood, though you don’t have the look of an aristocrat. A rogue blue blood, then. Which makes you dangerous.”

A flash of white teeth. “You have no idea, Duchess.”

That was the problem with being one of the two known female blue bloods in London—for she too had moved too fast to be human. “I do wish you hadn’t said that. I’ll only ask this once more: drop the knife. I’m using firebolt bullets, built to explode on impact, and I assure you, I won’t miss.”

With the chemical components in the firebolts, Mina wouldn’t need to be particularly lucky. She’d seen them take a shark-sized chunk out of a man’s chest.

Frustration gleamed in the man’s dark eyes, but he dropped the knife. Then his gaze flickered over her shoulder. Something behind her.

Mina wasted no time, bringing the flank of the pistol down sharply across her attacker’s forehead. He fell unconscious at her feet, just as she jerked the pistol up and stared through the sights at the newcomer.

A tall man coalesced out of the darkness as if he’d been made for shadows. He moved with a dangerous, deadly grace that spoke of speed, of strength…of restrained violence. The predator in her recognized another predator. Her heart stirred, a restless sensation sinking through her skin.

The world faded around her as she focused the pistol directly between the eyes of the black velvet mask he wore. He was tall, but the cloak obscured most of his body. It didn’t, however, disguise the broadness of his shoulders or the lean flash of his thighs. A man in his prime.

“Stay back,” she warned.