Then his device began to buzz.
With an aggravated sigh, he went to retrieve it. “Shadowborne Chief Agent reporting.”
Eve didn’t speak until he returned to sit at her counter. “I get that Chief Agent is your rank. Shadowborne?”
“League name.”
She stopped washing her pan to look over at him. “Like the Tavali?”
He shook his head. “Ours aren’t aliases. The League doesn’t let us keep our real names. Part of our programming. We’re assigned numbers or humiliating insults during training that are supposed to harden us. If we survive training, they give us a name to use after we make our first official kill.”
Lovely. “So Jinx isn’t your real name?”
He gave her an adorable smirk that seemed so very unassassin like. “It is. I’m defiant that way. But only those who are almost friends know it.”
There was no missing the bitterness in his tone. “You really don’t like working for them, do you?”
“Most of us don’t.”
Eve returned to scrubbing her pan. “Is that why you’re sharing so much information with me?”
“Not really. It’s more the fact that this is longest I’ve been around anyone in more years than I can remember who wasn’t a Leaguer. It’s nice to have an actual conversation again.”
Once more, his device went off.
Growling in a way that made her remember exactly how dangerous he was, he picked it up and repeated his rank into it. Then he pulled his link out and tapped his ear.
Eve focused on cooking while he called someone else.
“Chief Agent Shadowborne. I’m on assignment and I need this to stop buzzing before you give away my position.”
He rubbed at his cheek, then winced as he accidentally touched a bruise there. “I’m your superior officer and I’m telling you what I’m doing. Now lay off this or, when I return, we will have words andI’m going to wreck your fucking world.”
His gaze narrowed dangerously. “Yeah, you do that. Make sure you spell my name right. S-H-A-D-O-W-B-O-R-N-E. And get yours right, too. A-S-S-H-O-L-E.”
He tapped his ear an instant before she burst into laughter.
“Should I ask?”
“I just got reported for my language.”
Her stomach jerked at the thought. “I’m going to assume that’s a bad thing.”
Jinx gave her a droll stare. “What are they going to do? Beat me?”
“Are they?” She scrapped the toasted scramble onto a plate and put it in front of him.
He took the fork that she offered him. “Probably. But, given how much pain I’m already in, I doubt I’ll feel it.”
She winced at the nonchalance in his tone. “Howareyou moving?” She was tough, but honestly, if she’d taken a beating like his, she doubted if she’d be able to move for a week.
Jinx held up a bottle that his friend had brought in with the backpack. “That’s what these are for.”
“Are those legal?”
“Hell, no. But we don’t live long enough to have to fear the consequences. Besides, if I grew a third arm, it could help me with my kills.” Winking at her, he placed the pill on his tongue and swallowed it with a bite of her food.
Aching for him, she went to the fridge and got him some juice.
