Page 44
So do I.
We hit the top landing together, nearly shoulder-checking each other through the doorway. Maksim has made it halfway across the office, gun raised with both hands now, eyes huge.
He fires, but the shot goes wide because he’s terrified and terrible.
Kento reaches him first.
That stolen knife flashes in his hand and plunges straight into Maksim’s chest with enough force to drive him backward into the wall.
At the exact same time, I throw my second blade. It buries itself in the side of Maksim’s head.
Maksim’s body jerks once, pinned by two deaths at once, blood painting the peeling office wall behind him in a red fan.
Then he slides down between us and hits the floor.
I stare at the corpse, then at Kento, whose hand is still on the hilt of my knife in the dead man’s chest.
“You stole my kill.”
Kento’s mouth curves. “No, prince.” He glances down at Maksim, then back at me. “We shared it.”
I see him step over Maksim’s body with that look on his face, and every instinct in me starts screaming.
He smiles, and it looks deeply, deeply wrong.
“Time to collect my prize.” He licks his lips.
I step back. “We both won!”
His grin widens. “Did we?”
“Yes!”
“There isn’t a cliff here,” he says, glancing briefly around. “I’ll let you stab me instead.”
I pull a new knife and point it at him. “Stay the fuck back.”
His eyes drop to the blade, then back to my face.
“I’ll kill you if you get near me.”
His grin doesn’t falter. “I’ll let you.”
I back up another step, but he keeps moving until the knife between us is the only thing holding the rest of him off, and even that doesn’t seem to concern him much.
“Kento.”
“Mm?”
“Don’t.”
His eyes glitter with hunger. “For a man who threatens to stab me so often,” he murmurs, “you sound nervous now that I’m giving you permission.”
I tighten my grip on the knife. “I don’t need your permission for anything.”
“Then do it.”
He glances down at the blade braced between us, then back up at me, and there’s something so unhinged in his face now that it nearly takes my own balance with it.
