Page 34 of Bond of Passion

“You’re new here. You get to kill the assassin?”

“Ah, yes.” No. She didn’t want to kill him. Not yet. Not until he’d fallen in love with her. This was too soon. But how the hell was she going to get out of it? She doubted she could just promise these guys, who had all apparently died at Tavin’s hands, that she’d kill him eventually. Hell, if someone tried that crap on a Neethul, they’d end up dead.

A Neethul wouldn’t be standing here dithering, either. A Neethul would just suck it up and kill Tavin.

Theesumtrellopioshinegencha. Never pass up an opportunity to kill those who wronged you.

Deja’s mom had been a fan of that particular bit of Neethul wisdom. But it did seem to apply in this case. These demons had probably tortured Tavin enough to make up for what he’d done to her. She didn’t need to drag all this out and make him fall for her. She could just walk right up to him, tell him who she was, and enjoy the look on his face as she sank her blade into his chest.

The male grunted again. “How did he kill you?”

Wow. Seemed like an impolite thing to ask a person. But then, what else did one talk about at a gathering of assassination victims?

“Dagger,” she said, feeling a fresh rush of anger. “Through the heart.”

The guy contemplated that. And grunted. Maybe his species communicated that way. “Lucky you. You got it fast.”

Lucky? She was hardly lucky, and it hadn’t been fast. At all. Awareness, the knowledge that the love of her life had stabbed her, had lasted for what felt like hours.

“Yeah, lucky me,” she spat, practically tasting the bitterness in her voice. It was getting easier and easier to let go of the fall-in-love plan in favor of the kill-him-now plan. “How did he kill you?”

The guy shot Tavin a glare, his green eyes focused like lasers, his lips twisted in hatred. “In a fire. He burned me to death.” At Deja’s soft gasp, he turned to her and smiled. “Oh, I got even. It took Anius extra time to heal him. Almost couldn’t.” He inhaled deeply. “He smelled like my cousin’s barbecue joint. If you breathe deeply enough, you can still catch a whiff.”

She was trying not to breathe at all as she glanced over at Tavin. Anius must be the fallen angel. How sick was it to heal someone after torture just so they could be tortured again?

“Before I set him on fire,” the guy continued, “he admitted that his contract specified how I was to die. His contract,” he spat. “Now I will find the person who hired him, and he will burn even slower than Tavin did.”

He regarded her expectantly, and she realized he wanted a response. “Of course,” she said quickly. “That only makes sense.”

The door creaked open and Gorm, the Viking guy from outside, walked in, his huge, booted feet clomping on the wood floors. When he saw Deja, he grinned.

“Hey, missy. Did you get here in time to see the good stuff?”

Good stuff? Like the disembowelment? Her anger faded as she remembered Tavin’s suffering. She was a shittyNeethul.

If she spoke, she might throw up, so she just smiled and nodded.

He winked at her. “You’re in for a treat now.” A shudder of what she could only describe as ecstasy shook him from his blond beard to his booted feet. “I’ve been dreaming of this for years. I was going to pound a railroad spike through his skull to kill him, but you ruined that.” He held up a spike and a mallet. “Don’t suppose you’d like to do it that way?”

Her stomach lurched, and she had to swallow bile before she could speak. “Is that…is that how he killed you?”

“He pushed me in front of a train,” Gorm said. “Figured this would be the next best thing.”

“That’s very…poetic.”

He shoved the spike and mallet at her. “So you’ll do it?”

Refusing outright seemed unwise, given that he was a giant and she wasn’t even supposed to be here. What if there’d been a sign-up sheet or something, and she wasn’t on it?

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you, missy!” He clapped his hand on her shoulder and gave her a big grin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go break some bones.”

* * * *

Specks of light pierced Tavin’s eyes and brain like shards of glass.

“What?” His groggy voice caught in his sore throat. Was he getting sick? Where was he?