CHAPTER EIGHT
Eli Tirich had been relaxing on his designated armchair as Aurora made their dinner. Yet again, another sparring session was lost, and dinner preparation was used as punishment. In the past twelve months, she had improved immensely at hand-to-hand combat. Eli would never tell her that, of course. Her ego had only grown since the previous year, and he really didn’t want it to get any bigger.
Aurora had been feeling antsy. She was becoming uncharacteristically jumpy if approached by anyone. They usually never stayed in any Quartaine for longer than a year. They would have already moved to another small town, in a different Quart by now. It was something Eli had made sure Aurora got used to. But they had been in the same place now for almost two years.
Eli could tell it was making Aurora nervous.
He loved living in Zenith. The small town was peaceful and quiet. He and Aurora had lived in many towns in the Spring Quartaine, but this one had to be his favorite. He knew how dangerous it was, and he knew what he was risking, but he couldn’t bring himself to pack up their life once again and move somewhere new. He had grown sick of starting over, and he was sick of new beginnings.
Eli hated moving Aurora around constantly. He knew she didn’t care. They had been doing it since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, so she had no idea it was not the norm. Moving was the one thing she didn’t whine about because it felt so natural to her.
He despised that she was so used to it. If things were different, she would have lived a completely different life. A life where spies and assassins were not a constant worry. He had never hidden who he had been from Aurora. He had wanted her to know who and what he was, a talented and deadly assassin who had always been extremely valuable to the Guild. The Phantom, as he used to be known, was the best assassin who lived and served so many people and Quarts.
Aurora understood why they moved so often. Eli was on the run from the Guild, but he never told her the reason why. It was the one thing he kept to himself. She would never pry; she knew better. She was aware of how cagey he was about his past and how he would go rigid, his tone changing from playful to serious when she brought up his past with the Guild.
Aurora served them both a dish of fish and potatoes with a basket of fresh bread. It was simple but filling, and should he complain, he knew she would point out he should be thankful she could cook anything at all. Aurora knelt at the small table in their living room and placed the dish in the center and the bread to the side. Quickly fetching plates and utensils, she returned to the table and took a seat on the floor across from Eli. They didn’t have much furniture in the cabin. The less they had, the easier it was to quickly pack up and move somewhere else.
She had barely settled and had reached to fill her plate before he coolly demanded, “Close-range stances, now.”
Glaring at him, Aurora responded, “Can’t I do it after we eat? Can’t I even enjoy the meal I just slaved over?”
Eli’s eyes narrowed slightly, the skin around his scar straining.
He had made sure Aurora knew how he got it. The incident happened when Eli had been hired by an anonymous client through the Guild. All he knew was they had specifically requested him. The Guild had been ready to reject the request, not trusting the secrecy the client was adamant about keeping. Eli, being a young and arrogant assassin, had convinced the Guild’s inner circle to let him go.
The person who hired him failed to mention in the briefing just how protected the target was, causing Eli to miscalculate his actions and reactions. He had survived just barely, earning a permanent scar over half of the right side of his face. He had been outnumbered and barely made it out of the job alive. The injury just caused his anger to increase, and out of spite, he became even stronger, more determined, and more talented.
Through his misplaced ego, he earned not just a scar but the name that stuck with him throughout his Guild career. It was from finally succeeding at the assignment, The Phantom was born.
After some hunting, the original target was soon killed, along with his guards. Eli’s ability to disappear into the shadows and hear his targets before he should have made members of the Guild and people that knew of him as a ghost.
The guard that had personally blinded Eli got special attention. He took his time with the male, not neglecting to blind him before eventually killing him. He never told Aurora the gory details of what was done, but he imagined with her imagination and seeing Eli fight, she’d be able to figure out that it hadn’t been pretty. Quickly he rose in the ranks of the Guild. Many fae were taught to respect and fear both his true name and the name he had earned.
“Now, Little Wolf,” Eli responded, his tone coaxing and yet firm.
Sighing dramatically at her given nickname, Aurora rose up from where she sat. Walking backward, so she would hit any of the furniture around them, she began showing him the stances that he had drilled into her the second she could hold a dagger in her hand.
Eli watched as she moved through each stance easily, looking for weaknesses. As she moved he corrected her, not without complaints from Aurora. In the Guild, she would have been punished in some way every time she talked back. The thought of Silas handing out those exact punishments made Eli suppress a growl. He never liked the male for the three hundred and fifty years he lived in the Guild.
They were not in the Guild, he had made sure of that, he could let things slide and allow Aurora to speak her mind how she preferred. He only let it go so far. He did not accept disrespect; anytime she took things too far, he made her do extra exercises that made her think long and hard before she spoke.
Aurora turned to Eli, looking for his approval as she always did.
He simply nodded in her direction, a silent well done. Eli had never been an overly affectionate guardian. Aurora had asked if becoming a father-like figure to someone had ever been a goal of his. It definitely wasn’t a role he had adjusted to well.
He made sure Aurora knew he cared for her deeply, even though he didn’t say it. He didn’t need to; he showed it. From the way he watched over her when they were out in the town, or how he was so specific on her training, even how he would make sure she was eating enough.
Aurora never needed the physical affection or loving words that most fathers in Zenith seemed to give their children.
Eli was not her biological father, no matter how much Aurora wished he was. It was something he knew she longed for. She definitely looked like his child with her chestnut brown hair and sage green eyes. It was no surprise when people in the towns and villages they lived in automatically assumed she was his child. The only difference between the father and daughter was her porcelain complexion. Where her skin was as pale as a moonlit night, Eli’s held a golden hue, his skin sun-kissed and glowing.
It was something he knew she envied, and occasionally, when she was being a brat, he couldn’t help but rub it in her face. Because no matter how often they trained in the sun or how much time she spent under the sun rays of Summer or Spring, it never changed how fair her complexion was.
Eli would often tease her and call her a Day Walker, a creature he had often killed. He had explained stories of how he would slay ugly creatures on his way to the Guild.
The Day Walker’s skin was deathly pale due to the lack of sunlight they experienced in the dark caves they rarely left. Thin skin stretched over their wiry bodies. Walking on all fours, deadly claws would rip into the earth underfoot. Their wholly black eyes were extremely sensitive to the sunlight, but once the sun set and darkness overtook the land, their eyesight became impeccable. Sharp canines protruded from their gums, ready to rip through their victim”s flesh, drinking their prey dry of the warm blood that filled their bodies.
The first time Eli called Aurora a Day Walker, she punched him.
Rightfully so, Eli hated the bastards. Her reaction was priceless, though, and the memory was added to the few good ones he held close to his heart.
Anytime she was mistaken for Eli’s daughter, he noticed Aurora would always smile, and her cheeks would glow with pride.
To her, Eli was her father. As a youngling, she had told him at first with her actions, then later in words, nothing could change her feelings about it. Not even if one day she met her birth parents. He would never confirm if they were still alive, not that she ever asked him.
Eli had told her he had found her at the young age of four. She had been so young she had no memory of being found by him or the circumstances leading up to it. After that day, she was constantly with him. They moved around often, and she had grown used to it. He never had lovers, as a matter of fact, Aurora had never even seen him show interest in any male or female. His focus had always been on her.
He had raised her, protected her, gave her the things she needed to grow and learn. Then when he deemed her old enough, at the age of seven, he taught her to wield a dagger. It was then her training began, and the rest was history.