Hartt appeared near the fireplace in his room in the guild and braced himself. The door to the right of the marble fireplace, beyond one of his armchairs, burst open and he pivoted to face it.
Fuery stormed inside, his violet eyes ringed with black as a frown pinched his dark eyebrows. Hard.
His friend strode right up to him, halted and growled as he pivoted away and started pacing, heading for the only window in the wall directly opposite Hartt and then striding back towards him.
Guilt churned Hartt’s stomach to hot acid as Fuery raked his hands over his overlong blue-black hair, tugging it loose from the silver clasp that held the top half of it tied back. The twisted emotions running rampant through Fuery trickled into him too, had him crossing the room to his friend and stepping into his path, because he knew what had tipped Fuery over the edge.
He had sensed Hartt’s pain during the fight, had experienced echoes of each blow through their blood bond, and had been worried about him.
He clasped Fuery’s shoulders through his tunic and rubbed his thumbs against them as he struggled to find the right words, torn between apologising and telling his friend that he was fine, and saying whatever might comfort him and ease the grip the darkness had on him.
Now that he was close to his friend, he could feel the darkness within him and how agitated he was.
How close he was to suffering an episode that Hartt had no way of knowing how it would end.
Fuery was unpredictable still, easily went off the deep end and succumbed to the darkness. Whenever it happened, he could do anything from holing himself up in his room and snarling at anyone who tried to enter, to going on a murderous rampage he wouldn’t remember when the darkness finally lost its hold on him.
His brother-not-by-blood despised it when he forgot things and Hartt hated it too, because he hated seeing Fuery suffering, hated that he wouldn’t believe Hartt when he told him everything that had happened and reassured him he hadn’t done anything terrible while in the throes of the darkness.
“I told you not to go alone,” Fuery growled and tried to pull away from him.
Hartt held him firm, refused to let him work himself up over this by pacing, and debated whether or not to fill Fuery in on the new development. He went back and forth about it as he palmed Fuery’s shoulders, kneading the tension from them, and finally settled on telling him.
Because he hated lying to Fuery.
Fuery was the closest thing to family he had now—was closer to him than his real brother had ever been.
Plus, Fuery would probably live up to his name if he discovered Hartt had been keeping things from him—like the times his murderous blackouts were in fact rather bloody.
“We have a… problem.” Hartt picked that word carefully out of the hundreds his mind supplied for Mackenzie. Beautiful. Distracting. Dangerous. Delicious. Delicate. Strong. Tempting. Problem certainly seemed to encompass all those things.
“A problem?” Fuery tensed, his violet eyes darkening again.
Hartt kneaded harder. “Just a little assassin. Competition is healthy.”
“Not when it clearly tried to kill you.” Fuery broke free of him and started ploughing fingers through his hair again.
“It wouldn’t have gotten that far.” Hartt sank onto the black silk covers of his double bed and rubbed a sore spot on his left side where Mackenzie had tried to pulverise his kidney. “She is no match for me.”
She was, but Fuery didn’t need to know that.
“She?” Fuery ground to a halt and turned a look on him.
One Hartt knew well.
“I do not intend to kill her,” Hartt said before Fuery could go there.
Apparently, Fuery had a problem with killing all females, even ones who wanted his friend’s head. Although, Hartt wasn’t sure Mackenzie really wanted to kill him. Just as he wasn’t sure he really wanted to kill her.
“I will eliminate the mark and she will leave me alone.” He was confident of one of those things anyway. His gut said that she was liable to come after him with even more gusto if he managed to fulfil the contract before she could.
“She will leave you alone when you drop this contract.” Fuery gave him a dark look as he paced between the black marble fireplace to Hartt’s left and the door in front of him. He pivoted and leaned against the onyx wall there. Well, sagged against it. Fuery tipped his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose, and concern swept through Hartt, had him rising to his feet again.
“I cannot drop this contract, Fuery.” But he would do it in a heartbeat if it gave his friend relief.
It had been a mistake to take it on, a rash decision on his part. As soon as the client had listed his conditions, Hartt should have told him he would need to wait for Fuery to return so he could discuss it with him.
He had known the moment the male had stipulated that he wanted Hartt on the job and wanted him to work alone, because he didn’t want to alert the vampire to the fact someone was looking to end him, that Fuery would want him to refuse it.
But for some godsdamned reason, Hartt had accepted it instead.
The foolish thing he had almost done tonight came rushing back, and again he had the feeling he had a death wish these days.
It wasn’t just the fact he was working alone for the first time in countless decades that led him to that conclusion.
It was the target.
Hartt had no love for vampires. The filthy creatures had been spawned from corrupted elves millennia ago after all, a wretched shadow of his own kind that most of his species wanted to pretend didn’t exist and the rest wanted to hunt to extinction.
He wasn’t normally one to hunt vampires, but the prestige that came from taking down a vampire of high standing and fearsome reputation was always rather appealing.
And the prestige his guild would receive from taking down this mark was far beyond any recognition they had received in the past.
It almost made it worth it. Almost. Had it been any other vampire, it would have been one hundred percent worth it, but this wasn’t just any vampire he was hunting.
It was Lord Van der Garde.
The King of Death himself.
One of the most dangerous males in Hell.
“If you will not renege on this contract, then you must take me with you.” Fuery’s words snapped him back to the room, had fear surging through him as he locked gazes with his friend.
Hartt shook his head, not hesitating for even the briefest moment. “No.”
He only had to look at Fuery these days to see the progress he had made, how his visits with the exiled Prince Vail and his witch mate Rosalind were helping him claw his way back from the abyss, and how Shaia’s love was healing him.
All that work could be undone in the blink of an eye on the battlefield. As an ex-soldier, Fuery had been trained to harness the darkness that resided within all elves in order to make himself stronger in a fight, and it was something he still did even now, even when he feared it would steal control and turn him into its mindless slave.
“I won’t risk you, Fuery.” Hartt crossed the span of polished black stone floor to him and gripped his shoulders, weathering the scowl Fuery levelled on him. He wouldn’t change his mind about this. Fuery could rant at him all he wanted, but Hartt wouldn’t be swayed. “It is too dangerous.”
“It is too dangerous for you too,” Fuery barked before he had even finished.
Hartt sighed. He was well aware of that. Fuery wasn’t the only one who had let the darkness steal too much of his soul, had allowed it to corrupt him and turn him into something most elves viewed with disgust and scorn.
A tainted.
But taking on the darkness had been the only way to save Fuery from it, to stop him from becoming lost.
His brow furrowed as he looked at his friend, as he thought about everything that had happened recently. He had come too close to losing Fuery, and it was still a raw wound inside him, one that made his heart sore whenever he looked at hi
s friend, whenever he thought about what might have happened if it hadn’t been for Shaia or the blood bond he shared with the male.
“Back down,” Hartt whispered softly, silently imploring his friend to do that for him. He needed to know Fuery wouldn’t do something reckless, like following him or coming to him when he was in a fight. He needed all of his focus to be on his mark, and it wouldn’t be if he feared Fuery would attempt to intervene, placing himself in danger.
Fuery’s frown melted away and he sighed. “I will, but only if you swear to call on me for backup if you need it… whether it is to deal with the mark or the assassin.”
A sudden, violent urge to snarl and snap his emerging fangs at Fuery bolted through him, had his ears growing pointier as they flared back against the sides of his head.
“It has been some time since I have seen you turn aggressive.” Fuery canted his head to his right and before Hartt could think of a reasonable excuse for his outburst, he added, “I can understand why you do not want to share the contract. I do not like to share my marks either… the darkness does not like to share.”
It didn’t, Fuery was right about that, but Hartt had the dreadful feeling it hadn’t been aggression of that nature that had made him want to turn on his friend and attack him.
He had the terrible feeling it had been something far worse, born of the thought of Fuery being near Mackenzie.
Desire.
And a dark need to possess her.
Chapter 5
Mackenzie took the steps up from the London Underground two at a time, passing an elderly couple as they helped each other up and tuning out their conversation about which stores they were going to hit on Oxford Street.
She wasn’t here to shop.
As much as Jasynder, her second in command at the guild, insisted that she needed a new wardrobe. Something a little more spicy—whatever that meant. Mackenzie presumed her friend wanted her to pick up short skirts and low-cut tops that revealed more than they concealed, exactly the sort of clothing the demoness liked to wear.
Syn called it making use of all her assets.
She had lectured Mackenzie on it when she had walked back into their small guild building in the far north of the free realm in Hell. Apparently, if she had used all her assets to her advantage, she would have had no problem defeating the elf.
She wouldn’t have suffered an embarrassing defeat herself.
“He cheated,” she muttered into her purple woollen scarf as she pulled it up over the lower half of her face and burrowed into it.
A passing man gave her a wide berth on hearing that and flicked her a wary look to boot, as if she was going to launch into some anti-man rant. The elf hadn’t cheated like that. He was nothing but an enemy to her. She certainly wasn’t interested in him becoming anything other than dead, buried and in her past.
Mackenzie pulled the phone from the pocket of her knee-length grey wool coat and checked the message she had received when she had reached out to her client demanding a meeting, contacting him on a number she had no doubt he would torch once the contract was done.
The café it mentioned wasn’t far now.
She tamped down her nerves, something she’d had to do far too many times in the last day. They had been shot since she had teleported away from the elf, using a gift she rarely relied on these days. In fact, it had been so long since she had used that ability that she was surprised she still remembered how it worked. She had stopped using it when someone had witnessed it and started asking too many questions, probing into what she was.
Just as the elf had.
Mackenzie spotted the café ahead of her, close to a junction in the broad street that formed a crossroads with Oxford Street. Cream stone buildings towered on either side of the four-lane road, red double-decker buses and black taxis reflected in the windows of the stores on the ground floors.
The temptation to hail one of those taxis and get the hell out of Dodge rose within her as she spotted a lone male sitting at one of the tables outside the café.
She sucked down a breath and stoked her anger, bringing it up like a shield so he didn’t notice how nervous she was about meeting with him again. There was something about him that set her on edge, had brought her close to turning down the contract when she had first met him.
She should have rolled with her first instinct.
The contract had seemed like a miracle dropped in her lap, the perfect way of elevating her guild and getting more clients and more coin flowing in. She had known it was too good to be true, but she had convinced herself otherwise.
She didn’t have to work too hard to fan her anger towards an inferno. She only had to think about the insufferable bastard her client had also hired, one who had taken pity on her and let her live, as if he had the damned right to decide whether she lived or died.
That decision rested solely in her hands.
She was deeply aware of that, had faced death countless times.
Mackenzie stormed up to the black-haired man and yanked the seat opposite him out. She sat in it with as much spit and fire as she could manage. He arched an eyebrow at her. His impossibly blue eyes held a flicker of warmth as that eyebrow lowered, his firm mouth lifting into a hint of a smile.
As if her anger merely amused him.
He casually lifted the elegant white cup from its saucer, sipped the frothy coffee in a demure way that reeked of class, and lowered it again. He had come dressed for the wintry weather, pairing a black roll-neck jumper that reached up to his square, stubbled jawline with a thick woollen onyx coat that hugged his lean frame and looked as if it had been tailor-made for him.
Probably on Savile Row.
He leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs, causing the fine material of his black slacks to pull tight over it and revealing an expensive-looking leather Chelsea boot. She bet her left tit that his boots hadn’t been made in a sweatshop in a poor country. This man had the air of one who demanded only the best and hired the finest craftsmen to make his clothes, no expenses spared.
Which was totally why he had hired her guild.
“You mentioned there was a problem in your message.” His posh English accent lent a regal bearing to him that wasn’t necessary to make her feel the vast difference in their positions.
She scraped and scrounged together enough coin to keep her guild running and this guy was probably sitting on millions he had no use for. She planned to relieve him of some of the terrible weight of his bank balance.
“I want more coin. Turns out you hired more than one guild. If I’m going up against that guild, I think I deserve a better incentive. Whatever you offered them, you’ll pay me when I fulfil this contract.” She was surprised she made it through her well-rehearsed speech without revealing the nerves running rampant inside her.
She told herself to be strong as she waited, to be firm. Syn had been coaching her all morning in how to be unmoving and how to not take no for an answer. She could do this.
“Or you could do the honourable thing and end your contract with them,” she snapped and grimaced.
Way to let her temper get the better of her.
He sipped his drink again, taking far too long about it, a blatant attempt to make her squirm, and then in a calm, measured, and unaffected tone, said, “If competition is a problem for you, perhaps you are in the wrong profession?”
He stood slowly, tugged his coat down and smoothed it.
His blue eyes lifted and locked with hers. “We can dissolve this contract now if that is what you want?”
Mackenzie blew it again, shot to her feet and lunged for his arm, grabbed it like some desperate fool. Beneath her fingers, his muscles tensed, and she went rigid too when he slowly looked down at her hand.
She was quick to release him.
She cleared her throat and straightened, shot for calm and unaffected too, but failed dismally judging by his raised eyebrow. “No, it isn’t what I want. What I want is for you to end your contract with t
he other guild.”
“I am afraid I cannot do that.” He smiled in a way that chilled her blood in her veins. “A little competition is a healthy thing. The other guild does not appear to have a problem with it.”
She clammed up on hearing that. Damn that elf. She wouldn’t be the one to back out of this or make him appear better than her.
Even when he was.
She shut down that thought, screwed it up and tossed it in a mental trash can and set fire to it, burning it to cinders. He wasn’t. She had worked her ass off building the reputation of her guild since she had inherited it and she was determined to lift it up to the place where it belonged.
At the top of all the assassin guilds in Hell.
“I don’t have a problem with competition.” She tipped her chin up. “I do have a problem with the pay. What are you paying them if they get this contract done? Double? Triple what you offered me?”
The smirk that curved his lips said it was more than that, that she had amused him by failing to negotiate, and had revealed how desperate she was. A dangerous thing. Desperate people could be manipulated, easily bent to the will of whoever offered them relief from whatever had them in its grip.
In her case, he had offered an extremely dangerous, but prestigious mark, and she had snapped his arm off without even caring about the remuneration. It was little wonder she amused him. Sensible assassins like the bloody elf had probably demanded he pay his weight in gold, if not more, for asking them to risk their lives by taking on such a powerful vampire.
Well, she was negotiating now.
Even when she knew it wasn’t the right time to do so.
The contract was in place and he was probably going to tell her to take a walk, and sure, she would deserve it for trying to change the terms of their deal.
“Very well,” he said, catching her off guard. She almost gaped at him. He reached down and lifted his coffee, taking one final leisurely sip of it. He saluted her with the white cup. “If your guild fulfils this contract, they will receive exactly what I agreed with the other guild.”
He set the cup back down and walked past her.
Scorched by Darkness: Eternal Mates Series Book 18 Page 4