My Ruthless Prince (8 page)

"I meant no disrespect, sir. I just want you to be careful. Blood is not always thicker than water."

"Get out of here," the Highlander muttered, waving him off in what passed for Virgil as gruff affection.

Beau turned, met Max's wry glance, and discreetly shrugged. Then the agents returned to the upper regions of the house and set off to gather supplies and put their affairs in order for the mission.

V
irgil let out a long, weary exhalation after his boys had gone. He shook his head to himself at their warnings about Niall.

To be sure, these men were more like sons to him than the younger copy of himself locked in the nearby cell, who stared at him with such hatred like some cursed, malevolent mirror every time he went in to try to talk to him.

He knew they only nagged him out of concern, and that, indeed, they had a point. By all rights, he
should
be using harsher measures to force Niall to talk, but even Virgil, old, battle-hardened warhorse that he was, could not bring himself to do it.

The deep decades-old heartbreak that he had buried within himself had now resurfaced, skewing his view of this situation more than he was ready to admit.

It wasn't Niall's fault that he had been turned into a Promethean.

Thirty years earlier, Malcolm's hatred had driven him to kidnap Virgil's betrothed and marry her himself, virtually holding her hostage as a way to tie Virgil's hands against bringing the full force of the Order against his Promethean cell.

What Malcolm hadn't known was that Virgil had already lain with Catherine, not long after the traditional Scottish handfasting ceremony betrothing them. They hadn't been able to resist each other, and Virgil's honest intentions toward the bonny lass were clear. As a result, she was already pregnant as their wedding date approached.

So, when Malcolm, along with his henchmen, had abducted her out of her parents' home, he had taken both Virgil's intended wife and unborn child away from him.

When he first learned it, he had lost his mind in such a fit of Highland fury that it had taken three of his fellow agents to hold him back, at least long enough to get control of himself and begin to consider a rational plan.

His first concern was for her safety. And that was ultimately what had defeated him.

Every time he had planned or set out on a rescue operation in the ensuing years, he had called it off at the last minute, knowing that Malcolm would not hesitate to kill both Catherine and the baby boy who eventually was born. Virgil had not been head of the London station at that time but a field agent. One of his teammates, in fact, had been Rohan's father, the previous Duke of Warrington. His fellow fighters had urged him to let them conduct a raid. If he was too close to it, his friends would do it for him and get his family back.

But Virgil did not dare. He knew his brother all too well. The up-and-coming Promethean leader would cut their throats before the Order agents had even gained the building. Any attempt at rescue would only bring them death. So, for their own safety, he had let his brother keep them . . . as hostages.

All that had happened long ago, though such wounds never healed.

Catherine had not long survived her forced marriage to Malcolm, murdered, he had heard, during an attempt to escape with the baby.

Once she was dead, Malcolm had kept the boy and raised him as his own.

Virgil had never expected to get his now-grown son back in his custody. He had Drake to thank for that.

Perhaps this Emily Harper and he had something in common, Virgil mused. For as much as the girl refused to give up on Westwood, Virgil felt the same toward his long-lost son.

Of course, it was rather awkward, because Niall had been brought up to believe that Malcolm was his sire and that Virgil was his hated uncle.

Virgil had told Niall the whole difficult story a few weeks ago, but his son refused to believe it, despite their obvious physical similarities.

He did not remember his mother but seemed to consider Malcolm not just his father but his closest friend.

Virgil had never been so jealous in his life. But he refused to blame the lad. He'd come around in time.

He had to believe that.

He had never stopped loving his son from afar though they were strangers. It wasn't Niall's fault, after all, that Malcolm had warped his mind with all that occult Promethean filth. Virgil clung to his faith that Niall could still be saved.

After all, if James Falkirk could undo Drake's Order training and turn him into a Promethean, then surely, Virgil could do the opposite, he reasoned. He could win Niall over for the Order.

That was why he had gone easy on him. He had to show his son there was another way than the Promethean creed of force and pain and cruelty and "might makes right."

He was sure that if he could just break through the hatred Niall had been taught from his cradle, then his splendid grown son would begin to feel the bond between them. Somehow, he had to win Niall's trust.

Hoping that something might coax the lad to share some information about this Waldfort Castle in Bavaria, he rang for Niall's supper from the kitchens; Gray soon sent it down to the Pit on the dumbwaiter.

Virgil picked up the tray and carried it down the tunnel roughly hewn into the rock.

There were several of these subterranean passageways connecting the various functional sections of the Pit. This one led from the agents' meeting chamber to an underground cavern divided into three holding cells.

Only one was occupied at present.

Behind the bars of the middle cell, Niall Banks had been the Order's guest for a month and a half, ever since the night they had found him beaten to a pulp on the floor of the Pulteney Hotel--Drake's handiwork. By now, his dislocated shoulder had pretty much healed after Virgil had returned it to its socket.

As Virgil arrived in the torchlit hollow of the Order's in-house jail, bringing the prisoner his supper, he remained on his guard, still uncertain how sophisticated Niall's training had been.

He dared not underestimate him, but to his expert eye, with years of evaluating the countless warriors and agents he had trained from boyhood, Virgil detected a hint of spoiled, civilian softness in Niall Banks, though the red-haired man was a giant, like many of their Highland blood.

Faced with Niall's flat stare, Virgil hid the surge of fatherly pride to behold the braw specimen that he and Catherine had produced. He himself was six-foot-three, but Niall had even an inch or two on him. The lad must have weighed about eighteen stone. Massive. Even more heavily muscled than Virgil had been at Niall's age, in his prime.

They looked so much alike that surely Niall perceived the truth, Virgil thought, unless he was being willfully blind. Malcolm was only five-foot-ten with blond, spiky hair and ice blue eyes.

But Niall refused to accept the news of who his real father was because he did not want it to be true. What he wanted was to become the next head of the Prometheans, following Malcolm.

Niall had apparently been groomed since boyhood for this eventual post, and with all the cult's delusions of grandeur, fully expected to rule the world one day, if even from the shadows, as was the Promethean way.

Well,
thought Virgil, ignoring the fact that he was making excuses for him again, the truth about who had sired him was a lot for the lad to take in.

He ignored the knowledge, as well, that a man of thirty could hardly be called a lad. Most of all, he ignored the murderous hatred in Niall's eyes.

He could not bear for Niall to hate him. Losing his son had been bad enough, but to be despised on top of that was worse.

Treasuring the chance to take care of his son as he had not been allowed to during Niall's boyhood, Virgil carried in the covered tray of food. He went and set it on the high table pushed up against the wall across from the cells, out of the prisoner's reach.

Niall got up from his cot and sauntered toward the bars.

"I brought your supper," he told him gruffly.

"Well, give it to me, then."

"If you want this food, I need some information."

"Oh, really?" Niall replied with a mocking smile.

Virgil rested his hands on his waist, keeping a wary distance. "What do you know about Waldfort Castle?"

"Why?" he countered.

"Just answer the question. Who owns it, and how do we get in?"

"Go to Hell," Niall said.

Virgil took a step closer, restraining an impulse of fatherly discipline that made him want to take Niall out to the proverbial woodshed. "My agents want your blood," he said. "I cannot continue to hold them in check unless you give me something."

Niall stared at him for a long moment. "The owner is Count Septimus Glasse. He's the head of operations for all the German principalities."

"There. Was that so hard?"

"Can I have my bloody food now, or is starving me for information part of what you consider being a good father?"

"How do my men get in?"

"How should I know? I've never been there. I don't know!" he reiterated at Virgil's look of doubt.

Virgil suppressed a sigh, feeling old. Reluctantly, he took the tray over to the cell. Niall approached on the other side of the bars. Virgil took the lid off the tray, made sure there were no utensils for Niall's use as weapons, and that the plate was tin, not glass, which could be broken and used as a blade.

Satisfied that there was nothing on the tray but food, he slid it into the short, horizontal opening in the bars fashioned for that purpose.

Niall took the tray with a nod of thanks, but as Virgil turned away, Niall suddenly cast the tray aside and grabbed Virgil from behind, snaking his arm through the bars and throwing it around Virgil's neck. He pulled him back against the bars with a crash.

Aghast, Virgil struggled to tear away the massive arm cutting off his air.

"You think you're my father?" Niall snarled in his ear. "Do you think I give a shit if you are? I'll kill you just the same." His choke hold tightened.

Virgil clawed at the giant arm around his neck. "Don't--do this! You are my son!"

The chokehold tightened. "No, I'm not. You're nothing to me."

They were the last words Virgil heard.

N
iall's heart pounded. He refused to think about what he was doing but just held on.

When the old man stopped struggling and slumped, Niall used all his strength to hold the body up with one arm while he reached his other hand into Virgil's coat pocket and searched for the keys that were kept there. He'd made a mental note of that detail weeks ago but had bided his time since then, waiting for the proper moment.

Listening intently a while ago, he had heard the agents leave. He had to get out of here before they came back.

His fingers suddenly grasped the keys. He shoved the body away from the cell door.

Virgil's corpse dropped to the ground.

Niall did his best to still the shaking of his hands and unlocked his cell, triumph throbbing in his veins as he slid the door open.

He helped himself to his uncle's weapons, then checked his pulse, making sure the man was dead. A part of his mind or soul was screaming at what he had just done, but he did not stop to think.

All that mattered was escape.

Not that he was afraid of them. How weak they were! He still couldn't believe he hadn't been tortured. But it seemed old Virgil had no stomach for such work.

God knew the man had been foolishly easy to lie to, for Niall
had
been to Waldfort Castle once before, about two years ago. That was where he had first met the black-haired lunatic who had dislocated his shoulder, James's so-called bodyguard. If he ever crossed paths with that bastard again, he would finish him off.

The pistol he took from Virgil's body was loaded; Niall checked it to be sure, then stole the old man's knife, tucking the large, sheathed blade through his belt as he crept down the tunnel.

As he approached the meeting room, he listened intently for any telltale sound that one of the Order's agents might still be in the next chamber. He could hardly hear above the pounding of his heart; but if they had wanted his blood before, they'd stop at nothing now to snuff him out for what he had just done.

He did not intend to give them the chance.

He paused and listened hard at the edge of the tunnel, but there was only silence. Pistol in hand, he glanced around the rough-hewn wall of the tunnel into the adjacent chamber.

Empty.

He stepped into it the torchlit chamber, searching for a way out, but what he saw made him pause. He scanned the chamber, fascinated.

Damn.
The Order's inner sanctum.

As Niall crept across the meeting room, he wondered if this was what he might have been a part of if Virgil's claim about being his father were true.

Might he have ended up as an agent of the Order rather than the heir apparent of the Prometheans?