CHAPTER 61 ROHAN
ROHAN
T he house on the north point was, to all appearances, empty. Rohan broke his own rule and entered through the front door, not even bothering to mask the sound of his footsteps. The spiral staircase awaited him, and he took it up one flight to the fourth-floor corridor.
My room. The door. It was open. Rohan slipped into silence as easily as another man might pull on a different shirt. That silence—unnatural to some but not to him—stayed with Rohan as he made his way down the hall, as he pushed the door open just a bit more…
Brady Daniels, it appeared, was not out in the forest after all. Not watching. Not waiting. No, Brady Daniels was currently standing over Rohan’s discarded tuxedo jacket—and he was holding a golden dart.
“Mine, I assume?” Rohan announced his presence. He eyed Brady’s hold on the dart, the way the scholar’s deep brown fingers made a fist around its barrel.
Rohan was no stranger to breaking grips.
“You’re welcome to try to take it from me,” Brady said, seemingly mild-mannered to the end, but he was not wearing the jacket of his armor , and there wasn’t a pair of glasses in the world thick-rimmed enough to mask the fact that, with muscular arms bare and his abdomen visible through a dark tank top, Brady Daniels did not look nearly so scholarly.
He did not look the least bit harmless .
Where Rohan’s muscles were long and lean, Brady’s were solid, defined enough that Rohan could make out, up and down his arms, where one muscle ended and the next began.
Where Rohan’s skin was unmarked with scars, Brady had several, as well as a tattoo on the inside of his left arm, a black spiral lined with writing.
His shoulders were as wide as Rohan’s own. But I have the greater wingspan.
Not that this was going to come to a fight.
“Violence would not be appreciated by the game makers,” Rohan commented, sauntering just a bit closer to his target. “It might even get us kicked out of the game.”
“Us,” Brady repeated. “Or you , if I refused to fight back. I am notoriously nonviolent.”
The scholar was just standing there, waiting for Rohan to attack.
You’d like that, wouldn’t you? If I did Savannah’s dirty work for her?
“I’m curious,” Rohan said. “How exactly did I end up in your sights—or your sponsor’s?” Rohan put no heat in that question. He and Brady Daniels were just two fine and civilized men, having a little chat.
“Kind of egocentric,” Brady commented, “to assume that I’m targeting only you.” His grip on the golden dart never loosened. Rohan briefly wondered where Brady’s jacket was.
And then his gaze settled on the lines and exact fit of the lower half of his target’s armor.
“It’s not a crime to be an egotist,” Rohan declared.
“More of a badge of honor, really, and let’s face it: You always know exactly where you stand with a person who cares first and foremost about themselves.
It’s the ones who give away their hearts to this person or that whom you really have to watch out for.
Love breeds desperation, and desperation is such a dangerous bedfellow, don’t you think, Mr. Daniels? ”
Rohan could practically see Brady assessing the meaning beneath those words—and this entire exchange. Yes, I know you made Savannah an offer. And yes, I know about the messages from your sponsor.
“My thoughts are my own.” Brady did not rise to the bait. “And so is your dart.”
With that, Brady went to walk past Rohan, and Rohan side-stepped just enough to ensure that Brady’s shoulder hit his—solid contact, in a move so smooth that to any outside observer, it would have painted Brady as the aggressor.
Rohan feinted like he might defend himself, but he did not. He was too busy helping himself to something that Brady had been keeping tucked into his pants—the item that Rohan had seen, in the lines and fit of Brady’s remaining armor.
Another photograph.
Rohan waited until Brady was gone to make his way into the bathroom—and up onto the bathroom counter.
He rose to his full height and lifted the photograph to a light overhead.
It took longer for this one to heat up than the others had, with the fire, but eventually, the words—the message—became clear.
One of three. It’s time.