“Ah.”The tension in my shoulders eased.“I know why.I’m gonnalooooovekilling Alobaz.I’ll also grow to love to hate him.Up until I kill him, of course, which means not for long.I’ll take him down.Then I’llloveto see him dead.Dead, dead, super fucking dead.Love and hate are closely linked, after all.”
Love and Hate were, indeed, sisters.Two of the most feared demigods.
The voices and rustling from the street surged in volume.A boy shouted to someone, “He’s coming.”
I peeked my head around the corner.Marina poked out behind me.
And there he was.
There he fucking was.
Alobaz Hawxley, sauntering down the street from the east as if he himself were a god.As if he didn’t have a care in the world.As if he actually believed he owned the whole wide world.
A gaggle of women dressed much like I was followed him, their awe and adoration for the man beaming through bright makeup.
My eyes narrowed.
I patted myself down, tapping every hiding spot that held a blade or vial of poison or an amulet, confirming everything was in place.I wouldn’t have to case the castle.The end I’d been working toward since discovering Teo was dead had arrived.
Here was my prey.
Chapter23
Lure Him First, Kill Him After
“What are you waiting for?”Marina whispered from beside me in the alleyway as we studied the street—or rather, its newest additions.“Aren’t you going to go to him?This is your chance.You won’t even have to bother with the fortress.”
Nearly as much as Rafaela had cautioned me about Alobaz, she’d warned me about her childhood home, the one she continued to refer to as the Abysmal Fortress—or themean, stone-hearted bitch, depending on how much olandule she’d consumed and if Alonso was present.
I dipped my head and hissed at Marina, “I can’t kill him out here.Too many witnesses.It’d be a lot to track them all down, make sure there are no loose ends.And I couldn’t miss any, not even one.”
“I don’t mean tokillhim.I mean to … you know.”She gestured toward my figure, a hand up and down the length of me.
“Oh.”
“Lure him first.Kill him after.I thought that was the plan.Make him pay for our dear Teo.”
“It was.I mean, it is.”
“Then…?”
I scoffed and straightened my back, checked that my breasts were primped and enticing—they were—and that my bustier cinched my waist just so, a sliver of bare flesh revealed between its hem and that of my skirts—it did.
“I can’t just stagger out into the street and say, ‘Hello there, stranger.Want to fuck me?There’s nothing suspicious going on here, I swear.I have absolutelynoidea who you are.’I have to use finesse.Make him think it’s his idea.”
Marina leaned forward, taking in the approach of Alobaz and his retinue.
It could only be Alobaz.
Even if I hadn’t seen renderings of him, I would have recognized this man as the general of the Domdurron Empire.No one but Alobaz Hawxley could radiate such arrogance and superiority that I could actually feel them from where I stood.
The ego on this, asshole.He believes the entire Opalese revolves around him.
Hate mingled with a strangled pain and erupted at once in my heart.
Never before had I experienced hatred like this.Not even for those who’d caged me, caged Teo.At least they’d left us alive.
My hatred pulsed in time with the beating of my heart.My power responded, my blood thrumming too.
