“We take the guard in the back. Quick and clean. Then we move to Jeremy’s quarters. No alarms.”
I nodded, but my eyes were still on her as we took our positions. She moved like smoke — soft, fluid, impossible to catch. I handled my guard with a single strike and turned to see her already taking hers down, one brutal twist of her body sending the man crumpling to the ground.
She didn’t break a sweat. Didn’t even blink.
“Stunning,” I said under my breath.
She looked up, arching an eyebrow, and I realized too late I’d said it out loud. I coughed, played it off, and started helping her clean the scene.
We moved together like two parts of the same machine — no wasted breath, no second-guessing. We’d always worked like this, long before the kisses and the late nights and the part where I handed her my heart without asking if she wanted it.
I passed her the tools to stage the scene, and she took them with a surgeon’s precision. I couldn’t help thinking how much she carried — her past, her family, the blood on her hands. And still, she never hesitated.
When she pushed open the bedroom door, I followed close, cutting off the exit while she drifted toward the bed like a shadow. Jeremy stirred. His eyes blinked open, and panic hit him like a truck.
“I-I kept my end of the deal! I won’t talk—”
“Oh, Jeremy,” she purred, and her voice sent a chill down evenmyspine. “You think this is about you?”
She moved closer, twirling the needle between her fingers like it was a paintbrush, like she was about to create a masterpiece out of vengeance. Her voice was sweet. Her smile was venom.
“She saved my life. You think I’ll let anyone threaten her now?”
He lunged.
But I was already moving.
I grabbed his wrist mid-swing, twisted hard, slammed him back against the headboard, and pinned him down with all my weight. My eyes burned into his.
God help anyone who tries to touch her.
She didn’t even flinch. She finished the injection like he was nothing more than a whisper from a past she was ready to erase.
“You crazy bitch, I’ll kill you!” he choked out.
Elizabeth leaned in, her lips brushing his ear.
“Oh? I’d love to see you try... from hell.”
His body convulsed once, then twice — and then it was over.
The moonlight spilled through the shattered blinds behind her, washing her in silver. Her braid swung behind her shoulder, her eyes gleaming with something dark and holy.
This. This was why they called her the Night Orchid.
And standing there, watching her finish what she started, all I could think was —
She’ll never need me.
But damn it, I’ll always be right behind her.
In awe.
In love.
And ready to burn the world for her.
Elizabeth
