Page 97 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘Quiet. Follow me.’

Kade bites the inside of his cheek hard but keeps the formation tight as Lachlan heads up the gradual slope towards the dead husk of what was once an impressive building. Too big to be a mansion, too modern to be a castle. Kade searches himself for any sense of familiarity, but nothing comes, or if it does, it cannot override the sickly feeling of dread.

Something is wrong.

There’s no cover on a direct approach to the building. It’s too exposed. Lachlan himself must have designed it like this all those years ago when he was bodyguard to the Penhalyx children.

‘Stay here,’ he orders, rising from the final chunk of cover, an overgrown patch of brambles at the base of a tall oak tree, and heading towards the Estate.

Kade opens his mouth to object and then remembers Lachlan is very much immortal, and therefore this move makes the most sense. Moody and wrong-footed, he watches as Lachlan casually approaches the building. There are a handful of people standing at what were once double doors, but it’s too dark to yield any details whatsoever.

‘The fuck is he doing?’ Kade mutters to himself, knee jogging as he crouches, fingers making rapid rhythms to match his heart.

‘Keeping you safe,’ Riley answers.

A brand-new voice emerges like velvet against silk from directly above.

‘Some things never change.’

All too late, Kade realises his own instincts were warning him that someone was above them... in the fucking tree.

Kade sweeps Riley behind him, automatically covering him while the rest of the team aim their guns up at the leafy darkness.

‘I mean no harm, my friend,’ the voice says.

‘Show yourself or get shot,’ Kade warns just once.

‘I will drop down. No bang bang, please.’

Kade’s finger is on the trigger. ‘Slowly, then.’

The leaves rustle.

A branch strains.

Someone drops out of the tree with enviable grace and rights themself where the moon cannot touch. The trunk’s shadow conceals all but a dark grey shape. Kade’s gun stays trained on the body.

‘No shots fired, none returned,’ the voice bargains, brushing off leaves. ‘Just as we agreed, Lock.’

‘Who the fuck is—?’

No fucking way.

Kade glances to the right and, sure enough, there’s Lachlan.

He can’t fully voice his own anger, the acidic burn of betrayal, because he’s protecting Riley right now and has a sneaking suspicion about who this is. Even so, he hisses, ‘You motherfucker,’ at Lachlan.

‘He’s not gonna hurt anyone,’ Lachlan insists. ‘Are you, Silly?’

Vasily Sorrenko is tall and broad through the shoulders, with a solid, muscular build. A white silk shirt is open for several buttons from the throat, around which a delicate gold chain and pendant hang. His coat is teal velvet, long and antiquated, with embroidered gold leaves and ivy. His pants are dark corduroy, similarly embroidered. A belt of overlapping alloy hangs low around his waist, pale gold with a cold green cast, like sunlight reaching the bottom of a pond.

Long, dark hair sways around his lower ribs as he moves, slightly wavy.

‘Is good to see you, Jules.’

His Russian accent is satin-soft.

The open V of his shirt reveals tattooed cornflowers blooming across his chest, their slender stems tangled with ivy that seems to wrap around his collarbone from beneath. They spill over his right shoulder and climb his throat, half-open petals following the line of muscle to his upper jaw, where a butterfly sits beneath his ear and the blossoms vanish into his hair, obscured. Gold rings sit on his fingers, some elaborate and unusual, and beneath them, his fingers are tattooed too with the same flowers and ivy that wind up around his wrists, hidden by his coat sleeves. His boots are polished to a gleam. As he steps out from the cover of the tree he was hiding in, the moonlight catches on all his gold.