Khayrivven would have screamed in frustration had not people still filled the yard behind him, and a small, saner part of him forced him to remain undetected.
The knife he’d picked up—Lory’s knife—was a dead weight on his weapons belt. He should have listened to his instincts, damned the consequences, and stayed right with his mate.
A shudder ran down his spine as he allowed himself to think the word for the first time, because, now that she’d claimed him, too, there was no doubt that was what she’d chosen to be. Inside his chest, a bright orange glow reminded him she had to be alive, or he would have already been crawling in agony. At least that was what the old books he’d studied said.
Lory had grown up thinking on her feet. She was swift in combat, skilled with a knife, a dagger, a sword—damn, all blades—she was a weapon herself. Forged in the searing heat of Dunai’s streets and the unforgiving instructors of Ashthorn Ward, himself included. She’d punched the man unconscious, for the Guardian’s sake; she could handle herself.
And yet… Yet something primal had awoken inside of him the moment she’d set those mesmerizing eyes on Brady and murmured an invitation to him. The moment Brady’s hand had touched her… Khayrivven was still battling down the monster that had awoken in him, eager to raze the world if anyone else ever touched her like that.
Remaining remotely rational was only possible because of the years and years of making himself do things, because of which he could now barely look in the mirror.
He could sit this out. Hehadto—or Lenya would realize his concern wasn’t that of a teacher for his student but running so much deeper than this era could ever understand.
Rubbing a hand over his face, Khayrivven wiped his expression of all emotion and leaned his shoulder against the wall, counting down the seconds until Lenya opened the door again, or the glowing bond inside his chest went out, throwing him into utter despair.
Thirty-Two
Lory
“Who would have thoughtthe good Lord Niely would put up such a fight,” Lenya purred with too much amusement to make Lory feel anything other than the utter revulsion he deserved. “Who would have thought you’d get yourself cut, not once but twice?”
Oh, she wanted to punchhimin the face for it. The locked door next to her hadn’t been the issue, but the time and place he’d chosen. Anywhere else—a back alley, even an open street in the middle of the day—she’d have known how to handle. But this palace, full of hidden passagesand deadly doors…
Lory shook her head, wondering if she should say something in her defense or just swallow Lenya’s reprimands.
“I wish you were here,”she thought at Khayrivven instead, well aware he wouldn’t hear her.“I’m so tired, and once I stop being angry, I know I’ll cry.”Because she’d taken a life—deserved or not.
His form flickering in the dim light, Lenya stalked from her left to her right, scanning her bloodied dress. His astral form. When Khayrivven had first mentioned it, she had struggled to imagine what an astral projection would look like, but as she stared back at the Master of Whispers, he looked exactly the same, dressed in black with a sword at his hip. Well, his deep umber skin was slightly luminescent, and the edges of his form blurred as he moved, but apart from that, he did seem like his corporeal version.
“At least you chose a spot that made for an instant kill … despite the mess you made.” A frown formed on Lenya’s face; he folded an arm across his chest and lifted his free hand to his chin, smoothing an invisible beard. “You could have made the kill out in the alcove and dragged the body into the pyramid,” he scolded. “Since the slice through his throat suggests you know how to take the voice of your target as you dispatch him, I am certain you could have managed the same effect outside—before you compromised yourself the way you did.”
He paused long enough for Lory to feel the urge to say something.
She held her tongue, trying not to let her eyes wander to the front of her dress, to the proof of what she’d done. Or to the corpse a few feet away.
“You did manage to lure Niely away from the crowd, though. That was well done.”
Lory hadn’t expected any praise, and no matter how true, Lenya’s words felt like a slap in the face.
“We might use you more often to take care of enemies among nobility since you have such a talent to useallyour assets.”
Despite the suggestion in his voice, Lenya’s assessing gaze was academic, clean and cold, and showed no interest. With a nod to himself, he gestured at her hand—the knife still clutched there.
“Put that away, and report back to Ashthorn Ward. The doors on your way will be keyed to your powers for one passing. Get rid of the body on your way out.” His form started flickering. He had nearly vanished when his form flared into full view one last time. “And don’t leave any traces.”
Then he was gone.
Lory didn’t knowhow she made it through the endless corridors with a dead body in tow, but somehow, she did. She’d cut off strips of her skirts to tie them around her wounds and around Niely’s neck. Even when his heart had long stopped beating, blood was still dripping from his throat. Once that had been taken care of, she mopped up the pool of blood with another piece of her skirts and stuffedthe fabric into the front of Niely’s tunic. The rain-soaked textiles wiped away the last of the crimson stains so that they wouldn’t be suspicious should anyone else get to this secret corridor tonight, and once it dried and dust covered the spots in question, they would be well enough concealed to draw attention. Time would do the rest.
She was panting as she dragged Niely’s body along the narrow path connecting the palace and Ashthorn on the face of the rock they’d been built upon, glancing up every other second to make sure no one spotted her, but the path had been so expertly carved that neither of the buildings were visible most of the time.
Halfway to the hidden door into Ashthorn, she peered over the edge, estimating the distance to the desert beneath. If she dropped him there, wild animals would feast on his flesh in the night, and birds of prey would pick his bones clean. And in a month, even his skeleton would be nothing more than bleached spikes in wandering dunes.
With a shiver of disgust, she lowered him to the ground, sliding her hands out from beneath his armpits, where she’d been pulling, and started the process of taking off every piece of fabric, metal, and gemstone he had on his person. When she was done, she hauled him up with what was left of her strength and dragged him onto the hip-high wall of hewn rock. For a moment, he teetered there, until Lory gave him a final push.
Swallowing her nausea, she watched as the corpse fell into the wet sand. Before she turned away, she bowed her head, paying her respect to a man who might have deservedthe punch she’d delivered, and a stab—but not death. Not like this. Not a planned assassination.
And even though the rain washed the blood off her hands, she’d never forget the feeling.
