foyer. Wild, dark eyes lit with anger found mine. Slamming the doors in her wake, an assassin sped toward me.
“Sir, it’s Kost.”
All sounds, save the fire, died. Even the voices bleeding through the walls halted. With their senses heightened by death, the rest of the assassins living in Cruor would’ve heard the sentry’s panicked entrance.
I stared at the woman. A rare glimpse of fear threaded its way through her gaze, setting my pulse on high alert. I’d only passed along the bounty to Kost, my second-in-command, yesterday. “What about him?”
Emelia hid behind a sheet of glossy black hair. “The Charmer. Somehow, she got the best of him. She’s at the gate.”
My blood cooled. “Are you certain?” Jobs weren’t without risk, but given our talents, we rarely encountered issues. Fueled by fear and dark rumors, we were often met with stunned terror instead of the wrong end of the blade.
Calem, a top-tier assassin and one of my closest friends, turned to stone beside me as he glowered at the front door. “Want me to greet them?”
“No.” I fought for control. Cruor was the only family I’d ever be able to claim as my own, and Kost was the first of my newfound brethren I’d grown to call brother. If anything had happened to him… “Is he still alive?”
Emelia cleared her throat. “Yes. She’s held him hostage somehow. I can’t see… There’s so much blood.”
My mind reeled. With night slipping through the windows, the bronze chandeliers winked to life throughout the manor. Shadows pooled in the dark corners of the room, crawling along the floor and snaking toward my quaking fingers. I was their leader. I had to protect my own.
“Where’s Ozias?”
Perma-smile wiped clean from his face, Calem only turned his chin away from the door long enough to offer me a quick glance. “Out back. Training some of the new recruits.”
Calem’s stiff spine told me he wasn’t going anywhere, and I couldn’t blame him. Kost was a brother to both of us. Slipping my hands into the pockets of my trousers, I hid my balled fists to keep the calm facade in place. “Emelia, get Ozias immediately.”
Since I’d sent Kost alone to deal with the bounty, I had little in the way of details. We only collected information we absolutely needed. Anything else invited room for judgment, and moral quandaries only caused problems.
Emelia disappeared in a plume of shadow and smoke, calling on darkness to speed through the night unseen.
Calem fidgeted. “Can I murder the Charmer?”
I understood his sentiment well. I’d lost too many loved ones before not to acknowledge the unease in my gut. Losing Kost wasn’t an option. We might have been agents of death, but that didn’t mean we welcomed it in our own home. Killing was a by-product of a centuries-old decree left from the time of the First King. Exiled from cities sanctioned by the king, yet forced to fulfill his contracts simply to survive. Death was necessary.
But not like this.
“Let the Charmer come.” The roaring fire cracked over the hushed silence immediately following my order. The manor kicked into full gear, bodies appearing out of every nook and cranny as members rushed to get a glimpse of Kost’s captor. They pressed firmly against the iron railing lining the second story, fingers wrapping around metal flowers welded to the bar. Thorns among roses—such was the life of the assassin.
I needed to protect them, as our former guild master, Talmage, had done. Tossing a quick glance to the fireplace mantel, my gaze snagged on a framed oil painting. Talmage stared back at me. Weighted down by heavy wrinkles, his gaze peered through me. The first time I saw those eyes had been from the flat of my back as he’d raised me from death.
“You chose your death. Kost found you without armor, without weapons, and with a smile on your face. I can’t say this life will be easier, but it will be new. You can move on. You can forget. We leave everything from our past in the ground.”
I thought death had wiped my slate clean when I followed Talmage and became a member of Cruor. I didn’t realize how wrong I was until it was too late. If death couldn’t cure me, then nothing would. All I could have was Cruor, and even that required a delicate balance between love and loss.
Never again would I trigger my curse, I vowed. Never again would I lose someone important. And now some Charmer with an army of