The Priest's Assassin

by V. C. Willis

“Dante. Call me Dante,” I corrected, stiffening in my chair.

  “Dante,” she echoed flatly. “But it is my responsibility as your Master Assassin to train you in our ways, teach you the secrets, and more importantly, show you how to disappear when the time arises.”

  “Traibons have a knack for that by nature,” grumbled King Traibon under his breath. “So much so all my sons have managed to elude me.”

  There was a round of snickering around the table before I interjected, “So, that settles it then. I get to play assassin a little longer, John continues his journey as a priest, Princess Sonja will get to go home, and Valiente won’t…” I rose my glass of red wine to the knight in question, “…have to keep stealing kisses from my lovely cousin Ruth.”

  “Dante!” Ruth flustered, grabbing her goblet and tossing it across the room.

  Laughing, I finished mine. “We set out tomorrow. Try to rest, dear cousin.”

  “You’re one to talk,” she hissed over King Traibon’s laughter.

  Walking over to my father, I offered a hand to shake with the assassin. Red Wine obliged, and I yanked her forward. A blade pressed against my neck, my face close enough to smell her, to see the strands of brown hair and some of the braid coiled in the hood. She tried to break free from my grip, and I tightened it.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” she spoke in a hushed manner.

  “How many knots?” I wanted to know. I needed to know. This smell…

  “It is of no concern to you.” She broke free, and the blade was gone as if a mere coin trick. “I advised you not to get so brazen with me, little prince.”

  I gave her a knowing glare before leaving the war room. My father had paused, his heated glare stinging against my back. He didn’t move, and he didn’t intervene. Instead, he watched with such deep curiosity that it made my skin crawl.

  She smells like a Traibon, but that isn’t my sister, nor direct kin. So, who the hell is she?

  Chapter 2

  Sword versus Shield

  Gathering books from my desk, I paused, lost in my racing thoughts. Shaking my head, I looked to the tomes in my hands, trying to ground myself once more. One book had pages ripped from it, the edges feathery against my fingertips. If we even made it to the Cathedral by some miracle, exactly how many more tomes were in the same state? Is this worth our lives? Worth John’s life to find even a clue on matters long forgotten? Someone had taken the pages that were titled “Types of Soul Weapons and Their Properties” as hinted by the table of contents in its front matter. The author was unknown, and the age of the books damn-near archaic, though the vocabulary made me suspect they may very well have been daemonis or someone from the Old Continent.

  KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK

  Frowning, I abandoned the stack. I could sense it was John, and my mood soured further, inhaling to hold my breath and steady my nerves. I don’t feel like I can trust myself around him after that night…

  “I don’t want company. Go away,” I shouted over my shoulder, twisting to lean on the desk.

  “Not even with me?” John’s voice sent a shiver through me, the door closing, and he slid the lock. “Usually if you don’t want to be disturbed, a lock does a mighty fine job of it.”

  His words coaxed me to turn and face him. “And what has brought my beloved priest to my bed chambers so late?”

  John’s blue eyes looked to the ceiling, nodding as he spoke, “I think I can come up with more than one excuse why I’d be here tonight.”

  This ache in my chest, the way my heart races at the sound of your voice—how can I refuse you? At last, I caved and smirked. “I should know better by now to ask such a dangerous question of you.”

  “You should.” John closed the gap between us, reaching behind me to retrieve a book. “No luck figuring out the author, I take it?”

  “To think such a thing as a Soul Weapon exists in more than one type,” I confessed, putting the distance back between us as I made it to my wardrobe. “Did they teach you about fighting magic in the priesthood?”

  “That’s just it.” John separated the collection and stacked the books he had stolen from the catacombs in their own tower. “They teach us to defend ourselves, how to handle someone suffering from the Madness, what makes human and daemonis the same and different, yet not a word of magic. Then, there’s the library in the catacombs they forbid us to step inside without the archbishop’s approval or devoting ourselves in its servitude for five or more years. What lies under the Cathedral seems completely different from the game of politics unfolding above it all. I’d say that place has some hint of magic or at least has some clues as to its existence.”

  “Is that so?” I pondered, rubbing my jaw.

  “In fact, there are weapons in cases, books written before the church was built hidden on the wrong shelves, and yes, many of them talk of the old ways or in the old tongue. Magic—these speak of it as if something found in the Old Continent far past the Hidden Swells or the Frozen Queen’s Tundra beyond the Perines Mountain range. According to the text, those who followed the Grandmother who founded this land sought to live life without magic. I find that hard to believe. Unfortunately, much like these books,” John flipped open yet another book with the ragged edges where pages once laid, “many have pages burnt or ripped from them. I figured the two of us could divide and conquer in hopes of finding enough hints to piece together what the Fanged Lady and the Madness truly had in common.”

  “Right.” Scanning the dusty items in the wardrobe, I reached for my leather satchel. “You had to serve the library and catacombs for three years in order to gain access to those books. How do you intend getting back in there? Will you have to join for another three years?” I snorted.

  “It’s supposed to be five years.” I spun to lock eyes with him, my heart skipping a beat.

  John, you didn’t abandon the church or your duties so easily? “But you were there for ten years, seven in training, and three…” Anger rose in me. “What did you do?”

  He laughed. “I may have bought myself a break to come back home to… sort out my grandfather’s death and burial. That became possible when Bishop Marquis took an unsavory interest in me and decided to back my establishing the church in Glensdale. So, if you’ve been pondering if I knew he was up to no good prior to my return, my love, I was. Though, Brother Montgomery had made it very clear I would need to finish my time there with him and insisted I return by next summer. Can’t blame the old man. No one ever volunteers to do the extended years in the old crypt anymore. He was desperate for someone who could do some heavy lifting.”

  Closing my eyes, I shook my head. The old farmer whispered, Don’t let John’s innocence cloud you. Sometimes I think he does it on purpose since the boy is as clever as a fox when it comes to getting his way or taking what he wants. A smile grew on my face, oh how right you were, old man.

  “Look, I just couldn’t bear another day wondering if you were still there waiting on me.”

  Here it is, the very conversation I had spent a year trying to avoid since his return last spring.

  “So, I came home. Not for the sake of the farm, but for you specifically, Dante.”

  “And I was still there.” I flustered through a pile of abandoned clothes, none of which fit my physique anymore since I had last touched or gazed upon them. “Shit, I’ll need to see if the tailor can work through the night. I didn’t think…”

  “Dante,” John fussed, “I came back so I could bring you with me.”

  “And what would you have done if I came back here before then? Would you have known to seek me out as the Blood Prince?”

  John laughed. “Prince, maybe not, but as royalty to the house and non-bloodeater I had pieced together rather well. If you think leaving the farm would have freed you from my determination to be with you, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  Another echo from the past
haunted me, and a shiver shook my shoulders. And I mean he’d go above and beyond to get what he wants if it means crushing a hornet’s nests in both fists and walking through a river in a blizzard. That boy is stubborn, I tell you. I snorted at the memory.

  Biting my lip, I couldn’t look at him nor express that I had thought to seek him out in Captiva City like a love-stricken fool on more than one occasion. Instead, I went to the only chest drawer that had clothes that fit me and picked out the most mundane among them. Curses and slurs filled my mind. Everything princely I tossed carelessly to the ground. I had indulged, laying with my lover, and drinking my wine without worry over the winter months.

  How careless… how foolish I have been to allow myself to dream so freely.

  “Dante.” His voice was sterner now.

  Again, I dared not meet his gaze. He’d already expressed his frustrations when I stopped allowing him to share my bed with me a few weeks ago. I had bit him, fed on him out of the pure joy of the act, and it had rattled me. Falco. My time with the Viceroy had flooded me, and I feared becoming the lust-filled bloodeater my ex-lover had been for me. This wasn’t what I wanted: this need to feed on the very thing I promised to protect.

  “Dante, look at me,” demanded John.

  It was strange, talking with my father and comparing the difference between me and the other bloodeaters. For them, including the King himself, any blood would do. They craved it all the same. As for me, I gagged at the thought of taking in any blood from anyone but John. It seemed that perhaps my transition was not as much of the Fanged Lady’s doing, but something more archaic and forgotten. Ashton was like that, but he never told anyone how he did it, and my father didn’t say another word of him. My curse had only strengthened while everyone had weakened and started to lose their appetite for drinking from the flesh.

  How could I let my guard down so easily? It’s never so simple.

  John’s hand gripped my shoulder, twisting me to face him. His lips locked with mine. The force of the gesture knocked me into the chest, bottles toppling in a great clatter. Deepening the kiss, John’s hand snaked under my shirt, the heat of it gliding over my torso. I moaned, the sweet taste of blood filling my senses as the wound on his tongue opened. Hungry, I pulled him into me. His shirt thin, my hands caressed the rolling hills of his back muscles. My fingers followed the divot of his spine downward until I could force my way inside the back of his pants and squeeze his ass. I could feel how hard he had become, how much he wanted to make love to me.

  I can’t do this… Ending the kiss, I searched his eyes. “I hate how easily you break me.”

  “If you’re going to ignore me, you shouldn’t leave your door unlocked for me so often.” He grinned, starting to kiss my neck.

  Chills rippled over my skin as his beard prickled at my neck. “John, are you trying to tell me we won’t be able to return for two years?”

  He suckled at my neck, hands sliding down the center of my torso. John heard me; he didn’t want to answer. Granted, was I not doing the same a moment ago? Meanwhile, my body betrayed me as it reacted to his advances. Inhaling swiftly as his fingers began to unbutton my pants, I braced my hands behind me on the chest. I wasn’t going to stop him; I didn’t want to stop him.

  “Shouldn’t we tell someone?” I offered, leaning back to deny him my neck.

  “I did. I told you, just now.”

  “John.” I scoffed, but it soon shifted to a moan as the heat of his fingers found what they had sought. “Truly infuriating.”

  “You are.” He sank to his knees. “But I love that about you.”

  “I can’t say the same.” The stroking of his hand made every muscle in my body taut. “But I meant shouldn’t we tell my father? Or Ruth?”

  “Don’t worry, I left a note, but I did discuss this with Valiente,” he muttered, his breath washing over my cock.

  “Valiente,” I echoed flatly, the unyielding jealousy biting at me. “Why bother talking to him about it?”

  John looked up, his blue eyes striking as he knelt before me. “Because it makes you jealous hearing that name leave my lips.”

  The heat in my cheeks made me look away. “Is that so obvious?”

  Lips slid down my cock, and I grunted, the wave of pleasure hauntingly beautiful. He slid back and forth slowly as if tasting everything my body offered. The velveteen tongue caressed the underbelly of my hardened shaft, tipping me closer to the edge. It seemed the absence of play had killed my ability to hold up against my own desire. My hips rocked, wanting to ride deeper down his throat. John gripped the back of my shirt, knuckles digging into my muscles. He pulled me closer, deeper, and I released.

  Panting, I closed my eyes in defeat. “You can’t be doing this when we leave here.”

  Wiping his chin, he didn’t look at me, just whispered, “I know.”

  “Two years is a long time.” My heart raced as I watched him sit on my bed. “A long time to put back the broken vows.”

  “I know,” he repeated. “Now fuck me, Dante. Break me once more before we need to pick up the pieces and began this game all over again.”

  Laughing, I let my pants fall to the floor and pulled my shirt off. “One more time…”

  And I will be back to being the stoic shield watching my beloved sword fight his way through life once more. Perhaps fate only gave us this fleeting moment to be as one, but it feels like an eternity of pain is all that will follow.

  Chapter 3

  Basque, Colonel, Jasmine, Elegance, and Biscuit

  Basque snorted, his feet dancing and making all the guards nervous. Every muscle in the black stallion twitched with anticipation. He knew he had work to do and was excited to spend time with his masters once more. The leatherworkers tailored a saddle and bridle set for him after it was clear he would do far more saddle riding than wagon pulling as the horse of a prince. The silver flourishes on the black-dyed leather made him look worthy of a warhorse, minus the fact he couldn’t sit still. The other horses watched him with ears back in disapproval. Steam rolled from his nostrils, the air still cold enough to entertain clumps of snow and ice on the cobblestones this early in the morning.

  Seeing no packs on Basque, I frowned at the stableman struggling to hold his lead.

  “Where are my saddlebags?” I demanded.

  “I’m sorry, my Blood Prince. He wouldn’t let anyone near him. After he broke my assistant’s ribs, I dare not risk life or limb.” The man bowed deeply, his voice and body shaking as he addressed me. “I offered a draft horse, but they said to just bring the bags. In fact, they insisted you’d take care of the matter personally. I’m so sorry to have failed at such—”

  I rose my hand to silence him. The damn horse acts like a monster. The entire town fears him, or worse, has been kicked or bitten by him. He’s spoiled… Looking to Basque, my glare made him stand still and at attention. The attendants all around spoke in hushed murmurs, some in awe while others chuckled at the idea of it.

  “I see we’re still terrorizing Glensdale in my absence, Basque. No, I apologize. Will your apprentice be alright?”

  “Y-yes, just a broken rib is all. They paid for his doctor,” he sounded astonished over the idea. “I just…I don’t have any more helping hands at my stable. He’ll recover in about a month they say. I can make do by myself, but if I come to harm…”

  “You did good.” I patted the man’s shoulder, making his shaking cease. “Now, step aside. I’ll handle this.”

  Reaching down, I scooped up the bags. They were empty, but Basque didn’t refuse me when I slapped the leather over his back, buckling it into the saddle. Everyone whispered in admiration how well the monstrous horse behaved for me, but no one paid heed to what I offered the brute before starting. What they don’t know is how I bribe this asshole with a pocket full of peppermints every time. Basque knew if he let me have my way, he’d be rewarded han
dsomely.

  Absolutely a spoiled creature. Won’t do a damn thing until I offer him sweets unless John asks it of him. Granted, I can’t help but think if someone tried to pry into the saddlebags, they would be seeing stars or buried six feet down. I like those odds.

  Glancing over at the other horses, it seemed we would be riding with a few I had broken in personally. John would be riding my old mare, Jasmine, a docile grey dappled Walker. Valiente had been gifted one of Ruth’s older warhorses. We called the old chestnut Colonel, and he’d seen a battle or two, probably killed a few men and had his share of scars to show for his services. He wasn’t as large as Basque, but a close second. As for Princess Sonja, she would be riding a retired stallion named Elegance, another Walker from the Royal stables who was a dappled grey color. All the other bags were well-packed, the horses freshly shoed and groomed per standard royal, or even high nobleman, standards.

  They did what they had been trained to do. I hate thinking all this hard work was for nothing, but I’m sure my father will make it up to them. We can’t have run-of-the-mill clergymen riding on horses fit for a prince. It’s so blatant with the emblems and tassels in the colors of The House. We can’t hide who we are like this, even the braiding in the manes and tails is a dead giveaway.

  “I’ll need all their braids undone,” my bark made all within earshot flinch. “Royal emblems and tassels removed. We can’t let the enemy or The Tower’s guards think we are royalty or even of higher class than the knights and priests we are traveling as.” My voice roared, sending the stablemen into action. “I know this isn’t per regulation, but it’s necessary. I apologize for the added work.” Tugging on the saddlebags, they were in place, and I could move on to the next step. “Any gear above your own means needs to be removed, even if it means trading with the staff here. They shouldn’t be of finer cloth, no emblems, and best if looked as if used once or twice.” I scoffed at the blankets and bedrolls, all of which had The House’s royal seal on them. “We need to look like clergymen returning to Captiva City, not royalty from The House going south for vacation. Grab the maids and butlers and have them help.”