grimaced and rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb. “Look… I was… The darkness took control. I wasn’t trying to kill her.”
“You weren’t?” Fuery sounded horrified.
Looked it too when Hartt risked a glance at him.
“I was… I don’t know. Just… I don’t want to talk about it.” Hartt knew he couldn’t leave it at that. All three occupants of the room had leaned towards him, curiosity rising in their eyes to warn him they were going to keep probing about Mackenzie until he cracked. He gritted his teeth, sucked a breath through them and then closed his eyes and clenched his fists in his lap. “I wanted to convince her to drop the contract.”
He writhed inside as he waited for someone to break the silence that followed, dreamed up a million responses from each of them and feared which one would come true.
In the end, it was Rosalind who spoke.
“Is she pretty? I bet she’s pretty. It’s always the same with you elves. See a pretty face and you want to save them.”
Vail loosed a long, weary sigh. “I saved you because you are my mate, little wild rose, not because I thought you beautiful.”
She gasped. “You don’t think I’m beautiful.”
Vail’s sigh was exasperated this time. “Rosalind.”
“Sheesh, he called me by my name. I’m in trouble. Moving on.” For a female who believed herself in trouble with her mate, she certainly sounded bright and amused. “Um… searching for a suggestion… searching… still searching… oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you just ask Grave about the client? If it’s someone he’s wronged, well, the list is probably as long as my mate’s—”
Vail growled.
She cleared her throat. “I meant to say arm. I was going to say arm.”
She most certainly had not intended to say arm. Not judging by the rosy hue on her cheeks or the heat in her eyes.
She tipped her chin up in a way that reminded him painfully of Mackenzie.
“The list of people Grave has wronged is probably rather long, but it’s worth a shot.”
Hartt didn’t think it was. “Your plan is that I discover whether my client is a witch by asking my mark about him? I have a mission—kill the King of Death. That is what I intend to do.”
“I do not like this,” Fuery put in. “Something about it just does not seem right and it never has.”
They’d had witch clients in the past and there was no reason for him to feel suspicious about this one. His friend was just being jittery and was upset because Hartt had taken on the client while he had been away.
Fuery placed a hand on his left knee, his violet gaze imploring Hartt, silently begging him to listen to Rosalind. Hartt’s gaze shifted to her and then her mate, and then drifted back to Fuery, an unsettling feeling growing inside him too as he considered the possibility that the male he had met might have been a witch.
The witch.
Chapter 9
Mackenzie sagged against the ground, her left cheek pressing to the black grit as she released the breath she had been holding. Her left leg ached, her hip on that side throbbing madly from the blow Hartt had delivered to it, and her nose was sore, stuffy with blood. Those weren’t her only injuries. She stared at the nasty gash on her right forearm, but her focus was elsewhere, on the burning grooves carved across that side of her chest.
Four long streaks.
Made by claws.
His claws.
A wave of fear washed over her, had her heart pumping harder even though she was alone now and she was sure he wouldn’t come back. That other elf had taken him, disappearing in jagged black lines that had streaked the air long after he was gone.
An elf who had looked as if he had wanted to do more than maim her. He had wanted to murder her, and in the pit of her soul, she felt certain he would have if Hartt hadn’t stopped him.
She remained where she was on the ground outside the town as she pondered that, as she tried to piece together the puzzle that was Hartt and failed dismally. She never had been good at that sort of shit, but she was sure this time her failure was because Hartt was missing a few pieces.
His sanity being one of them.
She had seen the heat of battle overcome more than one warrior in her time, had witnessed instincts kick in to protect someone when the chips were down, but