Chapter 22 #2
“Stop, Lory.” His words were clear, but his tone was a plea for her to do the opposite, to explore him the same way his hands roamed her chest, and his hands dug into her thighs. “Stop, or this will very quickly become the one place at Ashthorn where I lose my self-restraint.”
“Would that be such a bad thing, Captain?” The teasing note in her tone made Khayrivven pause a heartbeat before sucking in her bottom lip, nipping gently.
“Depends on whether you want to remember this place as the one where you set your captain on fire.” His chuckle skittered along her skin, and something hard hit her back, almost knocking the breath out of her, but she didn’t reach for the blindfold, unwilling to let go of this moment, where Khayrivven seemed to let slip a different sort of control.
Whatever mask he usually wore whenever she laid eyes on him seemed to crumble when he knew she couldn’t see his tells.
“What a bold accusation, Captain,” she gasped as he ground into her, the heat pooling between her legs no longer the only one. “I wouldn’t dare torch you the way you supposedly did me.”
Lory’s skin burned where Khayrivven’s tongue glided along her neck, not the scalding, painful sensation she remembered from when the flames had eaten her up the first time her magic showed, but a searing sort of excitement that made her want to scream his name and push her hand between their hips to free his arousal and wrap her fingers around him.
“That was an obnoxious lie to save you, Gutter Gem.”
Guardians, that tongue, that mouth, as he kissed his way down her chest, sucking in the tip of her breast through the fabric of her shirt.
“And I’d lie again.” His breath was a cool breeze against her heated skin. His hand was beneath her shirt now, fingers circling her nipple, while his hips pushed her harder into the wall. That sweet friction…
“I’ll lie and deceive and watch the world go up in flames if it means you’ll live.”
Wait—what?
Khayrivven’s body went rigid against hers, his mouth hovering over the sensitive spot beneath her ear as Lory reached for the blindfold, pulling it down.
The narrow corridor had near-black walls, Khayrivven’s clothes and hair blending into the darkness, but his face…
His eyes held the calm before a storm, his cheeks flushed and mouth shimmering where his tongue flicked over his bottom lip.
He wasn’t fast enough to pull up the mask, but she could already sense the man who’d just confessed his ruthlessness fading away.
“Why did you save me, Khayrivven?” The question hung in the air between them like a sword ready to take a head.
Khayrivven didn’t set her down, nor did he remove his hand from where it still rested against the bottom of her breast. Instead, he measured her face as he caught his breath.
It was that silence between them when Lory realized how deep in trouble she truly was, and her criminal past and her magic were only the bottom of it.
Somewhere between hating Ashthorn and everyone who’d had a hand in bringing her here, and fighting for her life, she’d missed that a fraction of her heart had opened to the captain who’d damned her—then saved her.
She was falling in love with the captain, and for the first time in her life, Lory was afraid of what he’d say.
I want to know what else you can do, Gutter Gem, he’d said when she asked him before, but the look on his face told her he might be just as afraid of his own answer as she was.
He blinked a few times, the fire in his eyes guttering like he’d stuck a torch in a bucket of water. “We should go. Our mission is awaiting us.”
Even as he said it, his hand slid to her waist, tightening its grip as if he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet, and Lory held on to his shoulder like he’d evaporate into smoke if she let go of him.
But she didn’t dare repeat her question.
Perhaps he wasn’t ready to face what was obviously building between them.
No matter the reason he’d saved her a second time from certain death, the connection between them was more than a spark of heat.
Deep in her chest, Lory felt that Khayrivven held the power to destroy her heart.
Carefully, she unhooked her ankles behind his hips, sliding down his front and instantly hating the distance between them as Khayrivven stepped back, his hands slipping off her, hanging loosely at his sides.
“Where are we going?” With a glance around, she cleared her head, trying to smother the embers inside her chest, refusing to die down, even as he led her the last few turns along the dark corridor to where the first rays of sunlight pierced through a slit in the wall above what looked like a steel door barely high enough for Khayrivven to fit through.
“It’s a surprise.” A hint of mischief returned to his tone, but his expression turned back into the contained anger from before he’d kissed her.
“But I’ve been there before, and it’s lively,” she repeated what clues he’d given her before, watching him open the door by pulling two levers at the side.
Daylight flooded the hallway, exposing every crack in the dark-gray stone walls and every wrinkle on her uniform, while Khayrivven became a dark silhouette against the brightness of the sun. Ducking his head, he stepped over the threshold, gesturing for her to follow.
“You’ll need to be patient for a little while longer, Gutter Gem.”
At least, he hadn’t returned to using her last name or her rank at Ashthorn, rather calling her that infuriating nickname that was now driving heat through her body, as if it was an actual endearment.
With her hands, she patted the sides of her hips, where her weapons belt hung empty. “Will I need a dagger?”
The way his mouth tightened made her worry wherever they were going would be the last place she’d go in her life.
“At least, tell me if I’m going to survive whatever this mission is.”
Khayrivven gave her an unreadable look. “You will survive this like you’ve survived any other day on the streets.” He paused, chewing on his lower lip for a moment. “But I’m not certain I will.”
As if he hadn’t just given her another mystery to solve, he studied her stepping through the door, and shut it behind them, before breaking into a jog along what was obviously the wall fencing in the palace premises.
From up here, she had a view on the entire city—her city, where she’d stolen and hidden from city guards, where she’d fought for survival every last damn day of her life.
She’d thought breathing the air outside Ashthorn’s walls would give her a sense of freedom, but the only thing she saw as she scanned the endless ocean of limestone buildings with tall pillars marking the districts like lighthouses was pain. Pain and misery… and ignorance.
Except for the few families breeding ashlings for Ashthorn Ward, the people dwelling in those houses didn’t know of the hypocrite Ulder was. They didn’t know that some magic wielders were allowed to live and that the worst of them were given a choice to kill in Ulder’s name or die.
What a blissful existence. What a lie.
As she followed Khayrivven along the wall, climbing down a narrow, hidden staircase carved into the stone, a part of her yearned for the days when finding her next meal used to be her only problem.
The baking heat of the midday sun beat down on them as they slipped through between the first buildings, tall, impressive structures of the richest district of Dunai.
Here, no one bothered to be out on the street at this time of the day, and they didn’t need to hide in the sparse shade along the walls to avoid spying eyes, but Khayrivven set a fast, stealthy pace anyway, leading her through the narrowest alleys the district had to offer until a tall pillar of limestone announced they’d crossed into the next.
It was only when they reached the less reputable districts of the city that the streets started filling with people, their faces sweaty and their clothes dusty.
No one paid Lory and Khayrivven any heed as they fell into the pattern of the loose, slow-moving crowd, with Khayrivven, either great at faking the slumping walk of the hard-working men or acting on muscle memory, Lory didn’t dare ask.
By the time the sun started biting at the pale spots of her face, they’d reached a way too familiar part of Dunai: narrow streets of packed dirt, one or two-story limestone buildings, barred windows shutting out the midday heat.
“Where are we going?” This time, Lory made sure it sounded like a demand rather than a request.
Khayrivven glanced at her over his shoulder, the glinting hilt of the saber painting flecks of light on his olive face. “Just a little farther.”
Without a warning, he turned into a side street, stopping in front of a stack of empty crates beside an empty rain barrel. “We’ll make the rest of our path across the roofs.” Not an order but an invitation for her to start climbing.
So, Lory did. Not because it was what he wanted but because she hadn’t seen this part of the city—her part of the city—for too long.
From up there, on the roof, she’d have a view of the streets she used to run with Evven; she’d see the corner where she’d snagged a fig for her brother and the alley where she’d dragged a bag of grain from a driving cart.
She’d see who she used to be instead of who she was forced to become.
Khayrivven was right behind her when she hopped onto the crates, then the barrel, reaching for the drainpipe and scaling the side of the low building.
By the time she heaved herself over the edge of the roof, he was beside her, swinging his long legs up and crouching as if worried they might be seen.
“Are we hiding, or is this just general Ashthorn field trip protocol?”
Khayrivven gave her a humorless laugh. “It’s always better not to be seen, especially in our line of work.”
Our line of work—
“So, you are an assassin?” Lory couldn’t say she was surprised.
“And a captain and a hand?” She wiped back a strand of hair escaping from her braid and got to her hands and knees, peering over the edge of the roof to observe the slow-moving stream of people dispersing at the small square the street opened into. “Anything else I should know?”
Khayrivven joined her by the corner, pointing at the other end of the roof, where a wide gap separated them from the next. “Let’s continue this conversation on the other side.” Without a warning, he half-straightened, rocking back on his heels before sprinting for the leap.
Lory only realized she was holding her breath when he landed safely and soundlessly on the brown roof tiles, rolling over and stopping in a half-crouch once more.
The air streamed from her lungs in an exhale of relief, and she followed his lead, running and jumping so she didn’t need to think what it might have meant.
Before she was back on her feet, Khayrivven took off, running for the next corner and leaping over the gap, and the next, his movements feline and his balance impeccable.
Lory didn’t hesitate to sprint after him, her heart lighter than it had been in months, even before her first trial, when she’d chosen to steal from General Ycken’s brother after a too-long night at Lu’Shen’s.
Speaking of Lu’Shen’s—wasn’t that the brothel’s ornate facade a few buildings ahead?
Lory could almost smell the incense and sweat hazing the air as she followed Khayrivven across the city at neck-breaking speed.
Her pulse was racing from the strain of keeping pace with him, and her breathing was labored, but not a hint of pain in her shoulder held her back, not one regret. Out here, she was free.
At least until the young captain stopped at the edge of a flat roof, right across from Lu’Shen’s, his cheeks flushed and his expression disgruntled.
When Lory came to a halt next to him, he turned his head, glancing down at her with unreadable gray eyes. “Go inside. Find the Madame. She’ll take care of today’s mission.”
Without any further explanation, he turned around and started walking toward the other end of the roof.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
Khayrivven stopped, eyeing her over his shoulder, and Guardians be damned if his eyes didn’t mark every last inch of her body as if memorizing the state he’d left her in so he’d have a baseline for later. “The next time I see you, pretend you don’t know me.”
Before Lory could demand to know when that would be or where, or what she was supposed to do inside a brothel, Khayrivven stepped over the edge of the roof, not even bothering to look where he was going.
Lory’s heart skipped a beat as she waited for the crash, but all she could hear was the slow hum of voices coming from the streets and the faint sound of music from Lu’Shen’s.