Chapter Three #2
“Thank the gods you’re here,” Solana said, feigned relief making her voice high and breathy.
“These muki came out of nowhere and attacked us. I don’t think they’re dead, so we should go before they wake.
” A believable lie, since their bodies were still there.
Solana’s blade not only alerted her to nearby muki, but also gave them a true death, unlike other weapons she had used, which only made them dissipate into thin air like they did with the sun.
The bodies were an inconvenient trail of breadcrumbs at a time like that.
It was illegal to kill muki—a false hope masked as a kindness to those who were once loved ones.
The king’s gifted military were responsible for detaining and transferring them to a secure facility underneath the castle.
There were rumors about the chorus of moans that could be heard at all hours of the night and day, like the drone of bugs in the thick forests by the sea.
But the Masters hardly ever made their way so far as Qhilli, and Solana and her people had no way to detain and imprison one monster, much less dozens or hundreds.
They killed to survive. Solana killed because it was a mercy to the muki and the client.
Being haunted by loved ones was a fate she wouldn’t wish on anyone.
And it paid well enough—most of the time.
If the Masters were there to punish her for that, she would make it as difficult as possible for them.
“We’ve come just in time, then,” Nikolas said, and his voice was different.
Older and rougher. He stepped to the side and the third hooded figure stepped forward and into the light.
Sami subtly pushed Solana back another step.
She twisted her free hand into the fabric at his waist, ready to yank him out of her way.
The figure pushed off his hood and stalked toward the first muki Solana had killed, dropping to a knee before the creature. With a gloved hand, he nudged it so that it flopped onto its back, its head practically severed from its body. Most definitely dead.
Solana’s heart lurched. There was no talking her way out of this, which was just as well—she had never been great at talking. But unfortunately for her, she was gravely injured, and her dagger was currently in Sami’s hand, who seemed frozen to the spot.
“Silly me, I must have sliced too hard,” she said out loud, proud of her unbothered tone.
The man looked over his shoulder at her. Solana could just see the hint of silver hair in the moonlight, a flash of teeth as he smiled, a sliver of something victorious in his voice as he said, “How silly of you.” He unfurled to his feet, each of his movements slow and intentional.
“I think we should run, now,” she whispered to Sami through her teeth.
“A good idea, for once,” Sami said. He turned and grabbed Solana’s free hand, pulling her several steps down the alley before coming to a screeching halt.
Two more figures stepped out from a passageway between buildings, their Masters badges sparkling in the watery light, long blades held at the ready by their sides.
Thick hoods and thicker shadows obscured their faces.
Solana felt the cold point of a sharp blade dig into her upper back and slowly raised her hands in surrender.
“Fuck,” Sami breathed. Solana agreed. They were entirely, royally fucked.
“Turn around,” a voice commanded. Solana obeyed slowly, the tip of the blade dragging across her shoulder blade, upper arm, and then her chest, until it came to rest over her heart.
She followed the length of it to a hand that belonged to Oskar.
In her periphery, she saw Nikolas’s sword tip pointed at Sami’s throat and the glint of her dagger in his upraised hand.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” the silver-haired man said, slowly stepping forward. Solana pressed her lips together and barely kept from rolling her eyes at his pathetic attempt of intimidation.
Up close, she could see that his eyes were a murky color that bordered on gray and black, that a fine layer of gray hair covered his jaw and chin and contrasted strangely against the tan of his skin, and that, despite the color of his hair, his face was young and strong, perhaps only a few years older than her twenty-seven.
His appearance was shocking, made even more so by the swirls of dark ink that peeked out from underneath the collar of his pitch-black cloak.
The way he stood, hands clasped behind his back, weaponless as if he had nothing to fear and barely sparing a glance for his companions who doled out his every command, told her everything she needed to know about him.
This was a man with a silver spoon up his ass.
A man who snapped his fingers and expected compliance.
Solana wanted to upend that expectation, to rattle his carefully laid plans, whatever they may be, but it wasn’t just her life on the line.
“He had nothing to do with this,” she said, pointing at Sami with her head at the same time he said, “I killed them.”
Solana bit back a scream of frustration.
The silver-haired man looked between them, amusement carved into the creases of his face.
“You’re both under arrest for the murder of”—he paused and glanced at the dead body lying against the wall—“two muki. If you do not comply, I will be compelled to use lethal force. Your weapon.” He held out a hand to Sami, and Solana watched, belly filled with dread, as Sami gingerly placed her dagger in the stranger’s palm.
Solana wondered if he would be able to feel the way it pulsed with heat whenever a muki was nearby.
If he could intuit its desires the way she could.
The urge to snatch it from his hand was almost too much to ignore.
She shook with restraint as he turned it this way and that, inspecting first the blade that never dulled or rusted, the hilt that never weathered, then the bloodred stones in the pommel she knew were worth more than everything she owned combined.
Often, she had considered selling it—her traitor father’s prized possession—but each time, she found herself unable to. It may have been his, but it had come from her mother. A gift she had promised to cherish while her mother lay dying in their small bed.
Over the years, she had grown unhealthily attached to it.
It had aided her in hunting since her very first kill.
The calluses of her palm had formed to perfectly fit the hilt.
She even slept with it beneath her pillow.
Perhaps it had become something of a crutch, and now she was struggling to quell the panic that surged in her chest when the silver-haired man slipped it into a killing grip.
Metal-gray eyes slowly rose to meet hers, sharpened to a point as they scanned her face, seemingly noting and committing every detail to memory. His head tilted at whatever he saw. “It’s yours, then,” he said, so easily perceiving her weakness. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
Before Solana could ask what that meant, the silver-haired man lifted her dagger and placed it at Sami’s throat. “On your knees,” he commanded. Nikolas stepped back, his movements well-oiled, as if they had rehearsed this exact scenario a dozen times.
Solana’s anger simmered.
“He had nothing to do with this,” she repeated, desperately trying to stay on her feet even as the ground swayed. Blood poured from her side with every panicked beat of her heart.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” the silver-haired man said. “I will give you no further chances after this.”
“Solana, listen to him,” Sami said as he dropped to his knees.
“Suri, bind his hands, please—”
“With pleasure,” came the sultry voice.
Solana took a step forward. “Don’t you dare put your hands on him.”
“Solana, don’t—”
But his warning was lost to a knee slamming into her wounded side. Solana crashed to the ground with a groan, ears ringing, the sound of Sami’s voice screaming her name from far, far away.
Her head spun, and her shoulders screamed as someone pulled them back and shoved her face into the ground. Unnatural cold settled over her wrists and forearms, and then she was being lifted by each arm, pulled forward and out of the alley, her feet dragging on the ground uselessly.
“Don’t hurt him,” she demanded. “I’ll kill you all.” But her words were pathetically winded, just a scrap of a threat from a wounded and bound woman.
They spoke a murmured conversation over her head, words that made no sense, and led her down a street that widened and cleared, and she knew they had made it back to the center of the square.
The spots of black that had threatened to consume her vision receded enough to see that they approached a group of tethered horses, the saddles on their backs a glossy black leather studded in silver.
Giant beasts that huffed with impatience.
Around them, the street was completely empty. She saw a flicker of movement in a nearby window. Heard the barely audible click of a door cracking open. Solana shook her head, hoping whoever it was saw and understood.
Nobody needed to die for her, including Sami, and after twenty-seven years of living on this godsforsaken land, the Masters would not be the thing to kill her. She was going to free them both if it was the last thing she did.