Reign of Darkness (The Prince's Assassin #2) - Ariana Nash Page 0,125

is.”

“We should get off the road,” Yasir suggested.

Vasili leaned heavily against Niko’s side. He nodded, still trembling, and that was all the encouragement Niko needed.

The track meandered through a forest and eventually brought them into a vast open entranceway to reveal what had probably once been a grand limestone manor house. But like everything else in Loreen, it had cracked and decayed with time. Boards covered all the first-floor windows. The left wing had clearly been gutted by fire. Recently, by the scorched vegetation. But the roof was intact, and Niko’s legs weren’t going to hold him up much longer.

Yasir pulled off a few of the planks and heaved the front door open. “Welcome home, Lord Yazdan.” His voice echoed in the grand foyer and up the sweeping staircase. A pigeon startled from its perch somewhere and fluttered above their heads, losing a few feathers before finding another perch. Considering the thin layer of bird shit coating the once-colorful tiles, the birds had moved in some time ago.

“Lovely,” Vasili grumbled, the first word he’d spoken since Loreen.

Yasir readied his gun and set off to search the building for any sign of intruders while Niko looked at the staircase as though it were a mountain to climb.

“The upper floors will make good vantage points,” Vasili said as he carefully extracted himself from Niko’s arm and used the banister to haul himself up the stairs.

At least the first room they came to was pigeon-free. And it had a bed, albeit a filthy one, with an excellent view of the estate’s overgrown approach road. Niko wedged himself against the bay window and peered through the grubby glass.

His thoughts drifted with no anchor. Aches and burns and twinges began to reassert themselves. Looking down, he regarded the lightweight leather armor and had no memory of clothing himself or where he’d been before waking in the street. The entire left side of the armored jacket was torn and frayed, caked in dried blood. Elf blood or his own? He didn’t dare look for wounds.

He braced against the wall to stop the room from suddenly spinning.

Firm, cool fingers spread against the back of his neck, offering strength now Niko’s had failed.

“You’re safe,” Vasili whispered. The brush of his lips against Niko’s ear spilled shivers down his spine. Gods, he wanted nothing more than to rest on that bed with Vasili beside him and never wake again. “The flame, Vasili,” he croaked, hastily looking over his shoulder.

Vasili merely smiled. “I’m fine, really. Your concern is touching but unnecessary.” His fingers stroked down the back of Niko’s neck, and Niko leaned into him, needing that anchor.

Fine? The flame had devoured him. He’d seen it. How was he standing and walking and functioning like before? “Loreen?”

“It’s lost.” Vasili let his hand slip away.

“You did all you could.”

“No.” He blinked. “I did not. When I saw you, Nikolas—saw what he’d done to you—No, don’t talk. Shut up and listen for once—I should have been the one to turn you.”

“That’s not a comfort.” That was not what he’d wanted to hear from Vasili.

“I planned to,” the prince admitted, his face grim, “right from the very beginning, before we met. I’d pull the rumored Yazdan bastard from obscurity and make him mine, but as soon as I found you, you refused to bend to my will, you refused to follow orders, you were obstinate and brutal, you saw right through the walls I’d built around the truth, and for the first time in my life, I doubted my resolve.”

“I, er… thank you? I think.” Niko leaned away from Vasili and against the wall. So Vasili wished he’d been the one to fuck him up instead of Amir? Gods, he was tired of the double-crossing, the misdirection and all the little lies.

“You were too stubborn, too damned right,” Vasili went on, “too everything that makes you who you are, and I told myself it didn’t matter, that when the time came, I’d still make you mine, but that time came and went.” Vasili backed off, opening a new gulf between them. One of honesty. “I had every opportunity to turn you. But I couldn’t, not even to save the city. Amir… I’d dismissed him as ignorant. I was wrong. Those things he said in the street. I didn’t know he felt that way… I should have. And he was right. In all of it. Like you said, I push people away. I don’t know how else to live.” He looked at the room,