“But you would kill me.”
“I’m getting a headache.” He could feel her sidle in on him, trying to force him into a corner.
“Would it help if I angered you again?”
He scoffed. “This must be what it feels like to be driven crazy. It’s a bit painful.” He dropped into a chair and sighed in frustration as she moved to stand before him. “Now what?”
She leaned down to meet his gaze. “I don’t understand you. What is stopping you from killing me?”
“I can’t just kill you. It would be wrong.”
Confusion twisted her face. “But I am dangerous. You would be saving countless lives, including Darius. Surely that would justify my death.”
He held his hands out before him in the hope to stave off any more of her logic. “It doesn’t matter what you did or will do, I can’t just kill you in cold blood.”
She sat. “So what would allow you to kill me with a clear mind?”
“Why is it you are always trying to talk me into killing you?”
“Does it anger you?” Her voice held no emotion.
“You’re insane. You’re insane and you’re trying to take me with you. Is that what’s going on?”
“So if you wouldn’t just kill me, what would you do with me?”
Did he hear impatience in her voice? What was she after? He settled down to draw her out. “You belong in a cell, behind bars, far from anyone you might hurt.”
She stood and stared down at him, searching his face. “Why did you give us the Astrian?”
“What is an astian?”
“Astrian. The sculpture, of the horse. Why did you bring that to us?”
“You were looking for it.” Just a fact.
All right; she wasn’t going to give him anything easy. “Where did you get it?”
She shrugged and moved off toward his kitchen. “I found it. It was sparkly, I liked it, so I took it.”
“Will someone be looking for it? Be angry at you when they find it missing?”
She smiled with a coy laugh. “Not likely.”
“Does that mean—”
“They are dead. They will miss nothing.”
She opened cabinets, shuffling aside contents as he stood and followed her. “So, you don’t know what it is?”
“No.”
He snatched a vial from her hand and replaced it in the cabinet. “Even if you didn’t know what it does, why give it to us? What purpose could you possibly have?”
She tilted her head and a bright innocence shone out of her eyes. “Is everything you do for a purpose?” She grabbed the vial back and turned so he couldn’t take it again. “Perhaps I just wanted to see what you would do with it. Maybe I was curious as to why you wanted it so badly. What is this?”
He watched her turn, curious as she scrutinized the vial.
“It is a sleeping draught.”
They turned to see Darius, hands clasped behind his back in the living room. “Good evening Eylsa.”
“Darius,” she said.
“Are we going to kill me tonight?” Darius asked.
She shrugged and turned the vial in her hands. “Why can’t you sleep?”
“Do you never have trouble sleeping?”
She replaced the container in the cabinet and closed the door with a quiet click. “I usually drop straight off.”
“No guilt for you, huh.”
She glanced back at Brendan but he couldn’t read her expression. “Why do you think I haven’t killed you?”
Darius propped himself up on a stool at the breakfast bar. “It doesn’t really matter what I think, does it? Why do you think you haven’t killed me?”
Her face went blank as he watched her. “It doesn’t matter. It will not change anything; you will still die eventually.”
Darius nodded. “My death is a certainty. What remains to be seen is whether or not you will kill me.”
She took a step back, muscles rigid. “You think I will fail.”
“I think I am far from the men you are used to going after.” Darius kept his voice calm. Brendan, afraid to break the spell, kept himself still and quiet.
“That will not stop me.” She swept from the room and was gone.
Brendan wiped his hand down his face. “Do you really think she won’t kill you?”
A ponderous glow filled Darius’ eyes. “I’m not sure she can. Why draw this out if she could have killed me already?”
“Maybe she’s afraid she can’t take you.”
“That’s not it. I’m starting to wonder if she is not so much curious about us as about herself. I think she is curious as to why she didn’t kill me that first night as she planned.”
“Well, as endearing as that is…I’m afraid I have spilled dinner.” He waved toward the empty pot in the sink.
Darius smiled as he shifted the pot. “I see you are still having issues with little Eylsa.”
“Yes, I am having an issue with your would-be killer.”
“Then we should see what we can put together.”
* * *
The darkness held around her as she waited in the shadows. She stared up at the window above her, whose curtain flapped in the breeze. This was the job. All her research, all her watching had told her nothing, nothing about why Darius protected his men, nothing about why they followed him, and worst of all, nothing about why she cared.
Moonlight glinted off the blade as she lifted it but she didn’t move from her cover. She could do this, and had done it countless times before. Kill the man, receive her reward, return to Master.
She slipped the knife back into her belt and closed on the wall. Her deft hands glided over the siding and picked out holds as she climbed. Reaching the second story didn’t even increase her breath.
Perched on the windowsill, she surveyed the room. No traps—this would be easy. Just drop your leg into the room, raise your blade, and pierce his heart. She pulled the blade, let its weight comfort her nerves. She had never had nerves before. Just cross the room and kill him, it will be over then. No more confusion, no more strange food forced on her. No more uncomfortable questions she couldn’t answer.
Then why was she just kneeling there?
Why couldn’t she just kill him? Her anger was rising, causing her hand to quake. The knife rattled in her fist. Angrily she spun and drove the blade deep into the wall beside her, pulled the homing device from her pocket, and pressed the button.
She ran through the halls, her heart and mind racing as she blew through the door. She sank to her knees, dropping her face to the floor.
The sheets on the bed shifted before her. “Eylsa? What are you doing in my room so late?”
She cringed. “Master, I am sorry to disturb you.”
He slid his feet over the side of the bed.
“Master, I must speak with you. I cannot kill Darius. I don’t know why…I tried, I did! I don’t know what happened!”
“Did he defeat you?” His voice was low and dangerous.
She drew a deep breath, her body tense with anticipation. “I couldn’t attack him.”
His response was clipped. “What?”
“I don’t know why, I tried, I really did! He felt…different.”
“He felt different? He felt different! This is your excuse for failure?” His voice grew louder with each word.
“I am sorry, Master.” Her voice sounded strange in her ears, high and fast.
“You have not yet begun to be sorry.”
chapter 4
Her body quaked as she curled tighter into a ball and prayed for the wave of pain to pass.
At least seven of her ribs were broken, her arm as well. The searing burn in her abdomen screamed of internal bleeding and her vision was so blurry she wasn’t sure what was in front of her. For three hours she had lain and was still no closer to being able to move. She needed food, water. Master would have cared for her, eventually, after he felt she had learned her lesson, so why hadn’t she stayed? And why had she come here,
of all places?
A spasm wracked her body and tore a cry from her throat. Blood dripped from her lips as she struggled to draw breath past her crushed chest. Her eyes slid shut and she willed herself to silence as she listened for any indication that the people downstairs had noticed.
In agony, she extended her good arm and pulled a bag toward her. She rummaged through the contents, discarding them by feel alone. Somewhere within its depths was a mending draught if she could only find it.
“Like some help?”
She jumped, and the movement tore another cry from her mouth.
Brendan leaned against the wall behind her. He crossed the floor in silence, crouched beside her, and peered into the bag. “I told Darius I thought I heard something up here. He said I was just being paranoid.” He lifted the vial of mending draught and twisted the cap off. “This what you were looking for?”
She tried to grab it from him but he held it out of her reach. He slid his arm around her shoulders and lifted her gently as he held the vial to her lips.
“Does your makeover have something to do with the blade jutting from Darius’s wall downstairs?” he asked as she gulped the liquid.
She would not meet his eyes.
“Okay, I don’t need to know.” He lifted her from the floor. “We can’t have you up here staining up the floor.”
“Where are you taking me?” Her voice was low and raspy.
“Would you rather stay up here and suffer by yourself?”
She curled tighter into his chest, fist balled into his shirt. “I’m getting blood on your clothes.”
He murmured, “It’ll come out.”
She gasped as he lowered her onto a soft mattress.
“You’re pretty roughed up; I’ll go see what we have that will help.”
She rolled away from him as he left the room. A few moments passed before she heard footsteps returning and then Darius’ voice.
“Boy, you weren’t kidding.”
“Actually, she looks a little better than when I found her.”
She cringed as Darius laid a hand on her shoulder. “Eylsa, drink this. It’s water with a little something to help you sleep.” He waited for her to drain the glass before he continued. “Who did this to you?”
“It was my fault,” she croaked. “I failed.”
Cade kneeled on the bed beside them. “What could you possibly have failed at that would warrant this?”
She lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes.
* * *
“Was that an answer?” Cade glanced up at the men around him but they just stared back.
Brendan shook his head as he stared down at the woman curled on the bed, sleeping. “I think it is the only one we are going to get right now.”
“What did she say when you found her?”
“Nothing.”
Darius pulled a sheet up over her. “Why would she come here?”
Brendan glared at him as he turned and lifted a threatening finger. “I know what you’re thinking, old man. Don’t make me beat sense into you.”
“It’s just curious, isn’t it? When she is injured she comes to us rather than staying with this master fellow.” Darius’ eyes sparkled with possibilities.
“Considering it’s likely that he put her in this condition, doesn’t seem odd to me at all.”
Cade inspected a large bruise along her neck. “Looks to me like any safe harbor would have been appreciated.”
Brendan worked to keep the anger pushed down. “Don’t give her more credit than she deserves, Darius.”
Darius pointed at the ceiling as he entered the hallway and forced the younger men to follow. “You are forgetting the blade in my wall.”
Brendan scratched his ear as they started down the stairs. “I think you are just seeing what you want to see.” Was he trying to convince Darius or himself? “You want that girl to be an innocent for you to save and she isn’t. I know it’s hard for you, but you cannot save everyone.”
Darius glanced over his shoulder toward the room above them. “Not everyone, but this one…”
Brendan rubbed his temples. “Why? Why this one? Why an assassin of all people? It’s like having a pit viper curled in your bed!”
Cade lifted a pot of tea from the stove as they entered the kitchen. “I hate to be a pessimist, but Brendan is right, Eylsa is a bit rough.”
Darius smiled as Cade handed him a steaming cup. “Can you see no benefit in keeping her safe from this man? Why an assassin, you ask? How quickly you forget the seven bodies. Saving her would save the lives of those she would be sent to kill. Leaving an organization like the Trinity with such an asset would be disastrous. She is rough, but can you think of nothing that makes you think she can be saved?”
Brendan couldn’t stop his hand from flexing. “Are you serious? Anything she did was done for her own purposes. She is just a good actress, that’s all.”
“Do you truly believe that?” Darius looked at him seriously. “Brendan, after she brought us the Astrian? After she helped you when you burned your hand?”
Brendan threw up his arms. “She’s the reason I burned my hand in the first place! And she didn’t even know what the Astrian was. Oh, and I’m pretty sure she took it from someone she killed!”
“She has made mistakes, but I hate to tell you, so have you.”
He glowered. “You can’t possibly be comparing me to her?”
Darius pulled a chair out from the table and sat. “How do you think you would have turned out had you been through what she has experienced?”
“But you don’t know what she’s been through!” Brendan snapped. “Maybe she’s just a twisted person.”
“But maybe she isn’t. There is much documentation of young Yagrecians being swept away from their homes. It isn’t out of the realm of possibility. Has she not seemed strange to you at times?”
“She’s an assassin! I’d be more confused if she didn’t seem strange at times!” Brendan sank into a chair beside Darius. “One of us will be here at all times until she recovers. I don’t like how you are thinking right now.”
Cade nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
Darius waved at a cabinet behind him. “Brendan, there is some bone draught in there somewhere. See if you can get her to drink it, would you?”
Brendan huffed as he stood to shuffle through the bottles in the cabinet and found the draught. He could hear Darius as he tried to convince Cade on his way up the stairs. Eylsa was wrapped in the blankets when he opened the door, her face buried in the pillows. He brushed hair back from her forehead.
“Eylsa?”
She moaned.
“I need you to wake up now. I want you to drink this.”
She pulled the sheets up tighter to her chin and turned her head from him. “I don’t want it.”
“Come on, it’ll make you feel better.” He put the cup to her lips, but she kept her mouth clamped shut. “You came here, remember? We are the good guys; do you really think I’m trying to poison you?”
She gave him a suspicious glare but let the liquid trickle past her lips. She grimaced. “It tastes bad.”
“I know, I’m sorry.” He set the cup on the side table. “We can move mountains but we can’t make a bone draught that won’t make you want to throw up.”
She shivered. “That couldn’t have been poison. Poison would taste better.”
He chuckled. “It likely would.” He slid her back to the pillows and tucked the sheets back. “Can I get a look at your ribs?”
She sat up with calculated movements and lifted her shirt to expose a horrible black bruise spreading across her side. He couldn’t stop the sharp hiss as it left his lips. “They sure did a number on you.” He probed her side and cringed as she flinched. “Sorry. They are definitely broken.”
“They will heal.”
He caught her gaze. “You were punished for not killing Darius, weren’t you?”
She turned to stare at the wall acro
ss from her.
“You came here for a reason. We have helped you. Why don’t you tell me what happened?” He cupped her chin to turn her face back to his but her eyes were distant and haunted. “Why did you come here?”
She dropped her head. “I had nowhere else to go.” She lay back.
He couldn’t hold his sigh as he draped the sheet over her body. “Are you comfortable? Would you like a fire?”
She curled up, facing away from him. He laid his hand along her arm. “Just try to get some sleep. No one will hurt you here.”
He got up to leave and dimmed the lights as he went.
“Brendan?”
He turned back and rushed to the bed as she struggled to sit up. His mind raced with anxiety. “What’s wrong?”
She took deep, even breaths as she waited for the pain to subside. When it did, she opened her eyes and then snaked her arms around his chest, pulling him toward her. She buried her face in his shoulder. “Thanks.”
He was still breathless as she let him go and curled back onto her side.
A moment later, he collapsed against the door behind him. He ran a hand down his face, mentally shaking himself. His heart hammered in his ears and his mind flashed with images of her soft arms and wide blue eyes. What was wrong with him?
“You’re failing.”
He glared at Darius, who was in front of him. “Shut up, old man.”
Darius’s deep laughter was a rasp on his pride. “You are fighting awfully hard on this. What could it hurt to give in a little?”
“She could kill us all for one.” And who could stop her when she stared up at you with those wide eyes?
“I’ve never known you to fear death.”
“It’s not mine I’m worried about.”
He gestured downstairs. “Cade is making some broth, should be done soon.”
Brendan drew a deep breath and dropped his eyes to the floor. “What if you are wrong?”
“Won’t be the first time.” He clapped a hand to Brendan’s shoulder. “Let’s go and help Cade.”
* * *
Ashlan smashed a crystal vase against the wall. “How could you lose her?”
King Mavrin steepled his fingers and leaned his elbows on the desk before him as he watched his son’s tantrum. “She will return.”
An Assassin's Redemption: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Romance Novel Page 6