“Of course.”
“Yes. Yet you told the spymaster we’d require double the price,” Varesh said.
“Because I don’t like him. He’s an asshole, and he had unlimited access to a king’s coffers. What I said about the rainbow dragon’s threat level was true. I never said we wouldn’t level the playing field before we went in.” She’d never expected to lose a single person, already positive the beast he made its home somewhere beneath the city.
“Varesh, any progress on finding the entrance to the hoard?” Her brothers were the magical savants of the hunting party, as talented in uncovering magical doors as she was with disabling wards.
Her brother glanced away from the wall he scrutinized. “Nothing yet. I’ve looked for all of the common magical designs. If he belongs to the clockwork mechanic, it—”
“Something feels strange,” Ja’Vruk muttered.
The hairs on her nape rose. Giashka glanced behind her and noticed Kor was missing. “Where’s Kor?” Irritation flashed tension down her spine. She’d instructed them to never break away in fewer than groups of three, even when they had reason to believe their prey had been incapacitated.
“Kor was right behind us,” Varesh muttered as he knelt beside a wall and traced the mortar with his fingertips.
“He’s not.”
“Probably stepped off to take a leak,” N’Juk said, shrugging.
Her brother Talishim rolled his eyes. He crouched beside another wall farther down the way with both palms parallel to the stone. They glowed beneath his fingers in an intricate pattern of circles inscribed with wards. “I think I’ve found somethting over here. Anyway, you did bitch about them whipping their cocks out in front of you before, Gi.”
“I said they could at least turn their backs to me. It’s basic manners—”
Silver glittered past her on the left and sank in N’Juk’s throat. Faster than Giashka could comprehend what happened, the big fellow gurgled and clutched the end of a feathered dart. Then the shadows flew at them.
Rosalia launched three darts from her wristbow in rapid succession, but only two struck their intended targets. The fast-acting sedative did its work, a pair of gargantuan men reduced to harmless sleeping giants. The heavily armored woman among them sliced the third out of the air with a curved scimitar. Fuck! One dart left.
One of the twins disabling Xavier’s protections jerked to his feet. Before he could get his bearings, she dove at him, leading with her right knee and putting her body weight into it. Because he’d located the door, because he’d uncovered the way in, he had to die.
Of course, every one of them had to die. It was the only way to guarantee Xavier’s safety.
She had to be merciless, fighting as ruthlessly as she knew he’d fight to protect her. The way he had protected her when he scorched a wagonload of royal guardsmen and tore her from imprisonment. The way he’d no doubt continue to fight for her to the very end.
She landed on the Linradeshi man’s chest and drove him down to the ground. His head cracked against hard stone as she ejected her wristblade and drove it home into his throat. Ignoring the hot splashback of arterial blood that spurted from the slice, Rosalia spun off of him to her feet.
Dancing moves came into play, turning her lithe and graceful, but also forcing her to choreograph each movement in advance, predicting the outcomes and her enemies’ reactions.
“It’s the girl!” cried one of the two muscled men still standing. Someone swore, and the leader—something told her the woman with the heavy black and jade plate armor was their leader—shrieked while charging with both blades raised.
She came at Rosalia like a living whirlwind of swords, a fucking storm of blades that never ceased moving. Rosalia stumbled back, wristblade and anellan clashing against weapons designed to remove her head. Metal rang, and a blade sliced past her defenses across her ribs, leaving a deep groove in the leather and slicing into skin.
Rosalia squinted through the tears and stumbled back, taking another slice that would have spilled her guts. The Linradeshi woman’s blades turned her leather into tissue paper.
Footsteps echoed to her rear. Visualizing the sword coming down on her from behind, and also visualizing herself elsewhere, she blinked away again. The world around her erupted in gold and fire, and then she was behind the giant who’d meant to cleave her in two.
She drove her wristblade up the center of his back until her leather-guarded knuckles pressed against his spine.
“Farzan!” the other Nairubian bellowed, voice echoing against the stone.
When she withdrew her blade, the man slumped to the ground, his chest slashed open by his own leader. Hate-filled green eyes glittered at Rosalia from over a black, half-mask inscribed with Linradeshi sigils.
Rosalia had exchanged their places. She didn’t understand how, but she’d done it, her body blazing with heat and energy, sizzling down her fingertips and glittering on her skin.
“Giashka, az hei azan mai!” the other Linradeshi male shouted, darting in and grabbing the woman by the arm. He tried to pull her back, but she only tore herself free from him.
“Nei.”
“Yi, az han shen,” he pleaded, desperation raw in his voice.
“Nei!”
A hammer swung toward Rosalia from the left. She jerked to the side a split-second too late to avoid the remaining Nairubian who thundered across the chamber, upon her before she realized it. Though it only clipped her shoulder, it still introduced her to a whole new world of pain that reverberated up and down her left arm. Desperate, she thrust out her right hand and activated the grappling hook. It tore her away to safety, back to the catwalk above them.
Her uncooperative fingers tingled, left arm all but dead as she vaulted over the ledge into cover. Dislocated possibly. Several possibilities danced through her fractured thoughts.
She had seconds until one of them was up the ladder. Less until they fired upon her with crossbows or—
Metal clicked against the stone wall beside her head then a grenade flashed, turning her vision white and disorientating her. Her head felt like a miniature explosion had detonated behind her eyeballs. She stumbled back against the wall, jarring her shoulder against brick, but a sharp pop and sudden relief from the pain restored control of her arm, pure luck reducing the dislocation.
Thank you, gods.
Still out of it and half-dazzled, Rosalia jumped down to face the remaining three fighters just as the Nairubian warrior charged. Her final dart deflected off his oversized warhammer. It whipped through the air, weightless in his hands, swinging left and right as she maneuvered around him and saw their leader rushing to his defense.
After ducking a hammer blow, Rosalia thrust her elven dagger vertically beneath his chin. Before he fell, she was already diving toward the leader, body turning head over heels then slicing horizontally through the air, legs together, arms crossed over her chest. Somehow, she cleared the narrow field between the swinging swords, though one came perilously close to beheading her. Her feet collided against the woman’s heavily armored chest, and they both hit the ground.
Rosalia rolled aside and to her feet, her opponent just as fast and already standing, spinning one of the two scimitars she held. Then the fight recommenced, two blades against one. Two steps took her from in front of her opponent to behind her, a flawless teleport removing her from the path of a blow that should have ripped across her midsection.
The fewer of them there were, the more viciously the remaining warriors fought, wild and frenzied yet controlled at the same time, boxing her in. Her mind and body tired, and a tiny voice, a little whisper of insight, told her she was almost out of luck. Slices littered her midsection and glanced off her bracers as they wore each other down with vicious stabs and desperate feints.
Finally, Rosalia broke through the woman’s defense and plunged the anellan above the edge of her breastplate. Before she could drive it into the cluster of veins and arteries connected to her heart,
a barbed whip lashed around her left ankle and dragged her back a step, tearing her off balance and stabbing through the leather boot.
Aiming her right bracer at the protruding dagger pommel, Rosalia ejected the grappling hook. A splash of blood and satisfying gurgle ensued.
Adrenaline pounded through her veins as she kicked her left leg forward and jerked her attacker off his feet. Instead of digging in, the barbs miraculously loosened, allowing her the freedom to somersault backwards through the air, sticking the landing on her uninjured ankle while her cloak billowed around them.
Before he whirled to face her, Rosalia sprang up and wrapped both legs around his neck, practically sitting on his shoulders until she swung her upper toward the ground. Her weight took him with her, flipping them both in a summersault with his head locked between her thighs. His forehead cracked against the damp stone.
No matter how he beat her thighs or thrashed, she never let him go. Even after he was motionless and his fingers slipped away, Rosalia held on until she felt the final threads of his life slipping away.
The slumbering giants followed.
No one could survive, though she had to limp into the attached passageway to find the first man felled by the sedative. Chest heaving and sweat trickling into her eyes, Rosalia mopped one forearm against her brow. Her ankle throbbed, screaming for relief, but she didn’t have time to tend to her injuries when…
Xavier!
Fear for him launched her into motion, banishing her pain. She raced for the hoard and thrust herself through the wall, passing through it with an effortless glide. Rosalia came out of the teleport beside the cold box.
Please let him be alive.
Her fingers lingered on the handle, curving around cold metal. Please don’t take him from me yet.
Her beating heart tried to rend her chest open. Not yet. Not ever.
Somehow along the way, despite the severity of the situation binding them together, the ancient relics, the lies by omission, the terror, and the death, she’d fallen in love with the weredragon, and she didn’t know how she could possibly continue her quest without him.
He’d become her partner in crime. Her mentor. Her lover.
The man she loved.
No matter how much she wanted to deny it, Xavier Bane meant more to her than a teacher and bed partner.
Rosalia tugged open the door to find Xavier where she left him, still but alive, his bare chest slowly rising up and down with each even breath. Thanking every god, she stretched out alongside him on the chilly floor, placed her ear over his heart and listened. It beat powerfully, thundering beneath her. Each inhale sounded clear.
He’d live. Now she only had to wait for him to awaken.
Author’s Note
Thank you for returning for the second part of Rosalia and Xavier’s story! I had a blast creating this tale and can’t wait to present you with the final book. Rosalia and Xavier will return early this spring in Diamond in the Rough.
About the Author
Domino Taylor is one-half of the pen name Vivienne Savage. This is her debut as a solo author and her first complete, unassisted work. A video gamer by nature, she considers herself a horror movie aficionado and spends her evenings reading historical romance. She also enjoys the outdoors, jogging with her dog, riding horses, and going to renaissance fairs. Domino is a former correctional officer, registered nurse, and the mother of a brilliant son and daughter.
For more information
www.dominotaylor.com
[email protected]
Fool's Gold: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 2) Page 20