Immortal Devices by Kailin Gow Page B

“For either of us. She won’t come between us, she won’t be a menace.”
    “You didn’t kill her, did you? I know it would take a Device, but…” Scarlett tailed off. She loved Rothschild, but she also knew just how dangerous he was. Would it stop her loving him if she knew he had killed Cecilia? No, nothing would stop that. Nothing.
                “I did not even harm her,” Rothschild promised. Behind them, Cruces and Tavian flashed back into the world. Rothschild jumped himself and Scarlett away again, landing on a patch of open moorland this time. “I simply made a deal with her instead. In exchange for my help in getting to the lands of the fey, she would stop interfering with us. A much easier way to be rid of her.”
                “What about Gordon?” Scarlett asked. “Where is he?”
                “Somewhere safe,” Rothschild promised. “Without any magic or abilities, there is no reason for anything to happen to him. He is simply out of the way.”
                “I thought…I thought you would harm him,” Scarlett admitted. She felt ashamed of that instantly, thinking something so awful about Rothschild given all that she felt about him.
                Rothschild shook his head with a wan smile. “I am not quite so bad as Cruces and Tavian must have made me out to be, dear Scarlett. Once you get to know me better, I hope you will see that. Then, we will not have to worry about anyone coming between us.”
                Scarlett laughed at that and turned to kiss the vampire passionately. “I already love you more than life itself,” she promised. “No one will come between us.”
                “The way no one could have come between you and Tavian? You and Cruces?”
                “Those aren’t the same,” Scarlett promised, because clearly they were not. Those moments had been mere infatuations compared to this. “I love you. Nothing can change that.”
                Rothschild shook his head. “If only it were true.”
                He used his ring to jump them away again as Tavian and Cruces got close, sending them into the space between worlds once more. Scarlett, determined to prove how much she loved him, kissed the vampire deeply yet again.
                “You are as exquisite as the treasures you will help me to uncover,” Rothschild breathed. “You will help me, won’t you Scarlett?”
                “With anything,” Scarlett promised, and in that moment, she meant it.
                “I must finish the work of the Order, no matter how hard it is,” Rothschild said. They were still between worlds, floating in empty, swirling space. It seemed that Rothschild was holding them there for now. “Cruces knew that once, but he came to love humans too much. He spent his time helping them rather than his own kind. He lost sight of what had to be.”
                “And what is that?” Scarlett asked.
                Rothschild looked like he might actually answer. He looked at her deeply and nodded, as if to himself. He even opened his mouth to answer. At that moment, however, another form struck him from the side, travelling with immense speed. Cruces.
                Scarlett barely had time to catch a glimpse of the vampire as he slammed into them. His hair was wild and his expression wilder. He had a grip on Tavian’s wrist, and the gypsy fey floated along behind him through the void. All of Cruces’ concentration was on Rothschild, however, and the vampires struck one another with hideous force.
                So much force, in fact, that Scarlett could not keep her grip on Rothschild. For a moment, she scrambled to try to grab some part of him, but she had left it too late. She started to fall away from him, though in this place concepts like falling had little meaning. A horrifying thought came to