Chapter 4
The black assassin clothes Vander had given me fitted like they were painted on my body.
The long-sleeved top was skintight and so were the pants, but the material was soft and pliable.
I could move easily in them, but I was used to looser clothing.
Every curve I had was on display, and that made me a little uncomfortable.
My outfit differed from the other assassins’ I’d seen by the inch-wide ring of silver around the high collar.
He never said what it meant. Maybe a lower status?
Any clothes of his would be too large, and I wondered who these once belonged to and why he had them in his closet. There was no name on the collar.
I stepped out of the washroom to Vander facing me in the center of the bedroom with his arms crossed.
The morning sun shone in through the windows, revealing that his dark hair had red to it, more of a very dark auburn color than the black it had looked in the night.
Those bright blue eyes slowly moved down my body, not in a scandalous way, but as if he was assessing and scrutinizing my appearance.
It still made my cheeks warm. I fidgeted with my gloves, unsure what to do with my hands.
His gaze stopped on my feet. “Why are you wearing your old boots?”
“The boots you gave me are too small.” I couldn’t even get my foot in them all the way.
“Do you have giant’s feet?”
I glared at him. “No.”
He dropped his arms and raised his chin. “No what?”
“No, sir.” Spending every waking and sleeping moment with this jerk was going to be harder than I thought.
He stepped closer. “Hands behind your back. Grab your right wrist with your left hand. Stand straighter. Push your shoulders back.” I followed his commands immediately. “Chin up. You’re in the League of Assassins now, you don’t look down for anyone. You meet people’s eyes, especially leadership.”
I lifted my gaze to his and met his stare. A shudder ran down my spine. There was something innately predatory about him that had the hairs on the nape of my neck rising.
He stepped behind me, and my spine tingled. “Good. Your feet should be slightly farther apart than shoulder width. Make sure your core is tight. This is our standard stance.” I turned my head to watch him circle back to my front. “How are your ribs today?”
“They hurt worse than yesterday, sir.”
“They always do. Walk for me.”
I blinked, unsure what he was talking about. “Walk where?”
“To the door and back.”
“Um, alright.” Stretching and putting weight on my injured leg made it impossible not to limp, but I hid it as much as I could.
I felt like the horses that pranced around the corral at auction, though I more likely resembled a duck with this waddle.
Once I reached the door, I turned on my heel and moved back toward him, hyper-aware he was once again studying me.
“How bad is your pain on a scale of one to ten?”
“One being a scrape and ten burning alive?”
He cracked a smile for the first time, hinting at his nice teeth. “Have you ever caught fire?”
“No, but I can imagine it would be incredibly painful.”
“Alright, we’ll use that scale.”
“A six. Is it fair to say I feel like I was run down by a horse?”
“I saw how hard Morrow hit you. It’s fair.
” He tilted his head side to side as if contemplating something, then went to the washroom.
It sounded like he was rifling through the cupboard, and he returned with a small, brown-tinted glass bottle.
“It’s a white willow bark tincture. It will ease the pain some. Three drops under the tongue will do.”
I wrapped my fingers around the bottle and pulled the dropper top. It tasted terrible. I gave it back. “Thank you, sir.”
He tossed the bottle on his bed and marched for the door.
“When we return, you’ll go through the manual I gave you and familiarize yourself with our rules.
Your apprenticeship will be nearly a year unless you don’t pass the final exams and assessment next May.
During this year, you will follow my lead, and I expect you to do well, I don’t care that you’re not from here.
You’ll have to try harder than the others.
You won’t see or communicate with your family or anyone you knew before until your apprenticeship is over.
You are here to train and kill vampires, nothing else matters. ”
An entire year without seeing or speaking to my family? I felt homesick already.
“What happens if I don’t pass?”
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. I got the impression he wouldn’t let that happen.
“You keep training until you do.”
I shut the door behind us and winced at the tightness in my leg, and the ache in my ribs, as I struggled to keep up with him in the corridor.
I gripped the railing as we moved down the spiral stone stairwell, leaning on it more than I normally would.
A breeze whistled through the open windows, bringing with it the smell of wheat fields.
I paused to peer out over the land. It was difficult to see beyond the forest, but through the breaks in the colossal trees surrounding this place, I spotted the tops of the highest buildings in the city.
It must be a mile from here. I hadn’t realized we had walked this far.
“Keep up,” he said over his shoulder.
I hobbled down the stairs, cursing and gritting my teeth with each step. How long did it take this tincture to work?
Once we hit the main floor, he pushed open a heavy wooden door into the courtyard. The chatter was loud and playful. The smell of food made my mouth water, and the sun was out. The heat of it warmed my clothes and seemed to ease the pain in my side.
Groups of people filed in through other doorways on all sides of the keep. The stone tables and benches started to fill up quickly with assassins and their apprentices. It was easy to tell who was who. All the apprentices had battered faces.
“You may go sit wherever you’d like on the left side.” Without so much as looking at me, Vander strolled ahead.
“I thought apprentices did everything with their trainer,” I muttered to myself. He paused mid-step and glanced back at me. My stomach dropped straight to my dirty boots.
He turned and, taking hold of my arm, backed me up the way we’d come in, stopping us before the door.
“You don’t get to sit with fully fledged assassins, you’re an apprentice.
You’re barely a step above the peasant you came in as yesterday.
Let’s get one thing straight—I’m not your friend, I’m your trainer.
You agreed to do everything I said, so start by keeping your mouth shut when I tell you to do something. ”
Damn, who spit in his morning tea? I gulped but kept eye contact. “I meant no disrespect, sir. I was just... thinking out loud.”
“Learn to keep your thoughts to yourself then.”
Letting out a slow breath, I nodded. He made his way over to a table and sat across from a woman with sharp shoulders and straight jaw-length bronze hair.
I quickly spotted Taewyn and Celine and was relieved to see friendly faces.
I tried my best not to limp as I stalked across the courtyard to their table, but felt like I was waddling again.
A catcall whistle made me pause to find.
.. Morrow. He wiggled his brows and made kissing noises as I walked by.
His table of all male goons snickered. This man was going to be a nightmare.
An angry heat rose in my chest, but I stamped it down.
“Hey, loth, how do those ribs feel? You screamed loud enough for the vampires to hear.” Morrow gripped his side and threw himself into the man next to him, pretending to scream in pain.
I was starting to hate him more and more, but I knew he wanted to get a reaction from me. He wouldn’t get one. A few tables over, Taewyn waved and made room for me on the stone bench beside him.
“How was your first night? It’s great being here in Drakthar, right?
The spell to get in is pure genius, too.
I couldn’t believe the way the rose bushes just rolled to the sides.
” He grinned, crinkling the skin around his eyes.
“It’s mysterious and gothic. Much different than the scholars’ building. ”
The swirls and designs carved into the gray stone walls and along the dramatic archways weren’t like anything I’d ever seen before. It was remarkably beautiful. I was used to small log homes and boarded-up windows.
But I missed my own bed already and my family.
I’d never been away from them before. Kayda and Ivarr would have to help our father with the carvings even though they didn’t like it the way I did.
Grandma Esha and my mother needed more fabric to make the baby’s clothes and blankets.
I hoped selling the golden nugget in my bedroom drawer would be enough to get them comfortably through winter.
My father was a good hunter, so we never starved, but we didn’t have excess either.
I missed Kace and his teasing too. The way he looked at me as I was pulled away, the desperation in his voice, still played in my mind.
“It’s been painful... quiet.” My jerk of a roommate hadn’t made my transition here any easier either. The lack of screaming in the night was the most welcome thing about this place.
Taewyn chuckled. The cut over his eye already looked better with only some minor redness.
“Yeah, you took some hard hits, but you’re standing, so that’s good.
I didn’t know if you’d make it to breakfast.” He passed me a silver plate from the center and gestured toward the food.
Scones, slices of bread, fried eggs, and cubed potatoes waited on large platters.
The cut apples looked crisp, too. I immediately went for the bread and bit into it before even getting butter.
It was soft and chewy. Food was the second thing I liked about this place. They appeared to have it in abundance.