So Prim wasn’t at all interested in the shifter and she’d defended Dante to him. Not just when Roan had attacked him with his gift, stupidly thinking Dante was responsible for Sol’s death, but also when she asserted he wasn’t just an assassin from the Cavs. She’d basically even admitted she had feelings for Dante--or at least something had been going on when Marnie walked in on them.
You know why.
It’s the same thing she’d told Dante when he asked why sleeping with what’s-his-name would have been a mistake.
Of course, she might have just said those things because she knew Dante was listening. But he didn’t think so. She spoke so passionately, it had to be genuine. He was under the impression she’d even forgotten he’d be able to hear their every word.
He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. To again tell himself that she didn’t matter. But he knew that was a lie when he saw her lying on the floor, her face pale and contorted, her scream still echoing off the dungeon walls. Lunin, the damn place must have been made specifically for sounds to reverberate, haunting the prisoners with never-ending screams of their peers.
He would have crawled across hot coals to get to her to make sure she was alright. With the lingering effects of Roan’s gift, it nearly felt like he had.
But she was the least of his worries right now--at least, that’s what he told himself.
Sol was dead.
It seemed anticlimactic, somehow. Dante thought he would feel a great weight lifted off his shoulders, but he felt nothing at all. Sol was there being his slimy self one minute, then choking and gasping the next. Then silent. Perhaps it would have been more satisfying if Dante had been the one to kill him. Or perhaps it would feel more satisfying after Dante scoured the Cavs to make sure no one else has a problem with him--or his family.
And then there was the new problem of the shifter’s bullshit addition to their agreement. The only lead they had was the six locations Sol had mentioned. It would take weeks, maybe months to follow that trail to the end, even with the avian shifters. And Roan expected him to play toy soldier until it was done. The shifter hadn’t been wrong, though. It was a fair trade for the life of crime Dante had lived, which Blukke kindly reminded him as they exited the dungeons.
So he would.
The guards outside the door stared at Dante and Blukke as they waited for Roan and Prim to emerge. Blukke had been leaning casually against the wall, but under the guards stares, Dante nudged him with an elbow and the bowerbird shifter straightened, mimicking the stance of the others.
Dante kept his focus straight ahead as he quietly spoke to his friend. “You stick out like a sore thumb. You’d been her escort for all of what--five minutes--before you were calling her darling and touching her? Surely you could have surmised that’s not how guards act.”
Blukke breathed a laugh through his nose. “I think it was more like thirty seconds before I called her darling. But I didn’t touch her until we were leaving the dungeons.”
“You won’t touch her again. She asked you not to.”
“Technically, she only pointed out that I didn't have to touch her. She never asked me not to.”
Dante turned to look at his friend now, who was already looking at him with a mischievous smile and wagging his brows. Dante didn’t smile back, but his voice held no anger as he replied, “You’re a pain in the ass.”
“You know you love me, brother.” Blukke winked.
Roan and Prim emerged from the dungeons and Dante’s heart dropped at the sorrow on Prim’s face. She had to know it wasn’t her fault she didn’t return the guard’s feelings and that she had no reason to feel guilty. He supposed it didn’t matter, though. If Blukke confessed to being in love with Dante and he had to reject him, Dante would certainly feel badly. Luckily, the cad was only interested in women, and usually only for a night.
Prim didn’t glance their way, only walked quickly toward the opposite hallway, her blue dress swishing around her. Dante watched her go, glad her body was hidden under those layers of flowing skirts so as not to tempt his traitorous mind from thinking impure thoughts about her. Blukke took off to catch up to the handmaiden, and only then did she pause and turn around.
Prim looked over Blukke then shifted her gaze to Dante. “Can I trust him?”
Roan answered No as Dante answered Yes. Prim kept her eyes on Dante, nodding once before continuing her quick pace away from him, allowing Blukke to follow.
Roan looked Dante over with a fiery gaze.
Dante stayed planted by the wall, making no indication that he knew what Prim had just told him. “Shall I head to the Cavs now or wait until Blukke is off his escort shift so we can go together?”
“Now,” the shifter said, running a hand through his red hair. “We can go together.”
Well, shit.
#
The fighting pit was abandoned.
Even in the middle of the day, there were some lowlifes who had nothing better to do than drink and bet, but the regulars Dante had come to expect to be here were nowhere to be found.
The subterranean dirt ring in the center of the building was splattered with blood as it always was, but so too was the higher level where the audience stood. Fights did break out there, so it wasn’t that unusual for the stone floor to be bloodied, but by the sheer volume and the assaulting coppery smell, Dante knew the royal guards had fought through the crowd to get to Sol yesterday.
Dante toed through the silent arena as he led Roan to the stairwell tucked in the back corner. This was the first time he’d ever seen it unguarded. The ascending stairs disappeared into darkness as the little light the grimy windows on the first floor provided faded into nothing. Dante didn’t need light to know where he was going, but he lit the wall sconce for Roan’s benefit before continuing to the second story and Sol’s office.
Dante could hear the breathing of a single man before they reached the landing and cast a phantom hand to grip him. He heard a grunt before the man called out to him, recognizing his gift. “You’re too late, Dante. The royal guard took him.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Then why are you still here?” Dante called back, remaining out of sight in the stairwell.
He knew the man to be the guard who had blocked his way out the last time he’d been in Sol’s office, Hector. The human had the gift of pain, but not like Roan’s. His gift elicited emotional distress, though it seemed to work just as effectively as physical pain. Like Roan, however, he had to be in contact with his victim.
“I value my job. You know he wouldn’t be very forgiving if he came back to find his office ransacked. The men who took him only looked around. They were smart enough not to take anything. I’m here to make sure no one with less smarts comes by.”
Dante stepped onto the landing, Roan following closely behind to find the large man standing next to the single door. His size was attributed more to his stomach than his muscles, his bald head shining in the candlelight of the single sconce on the landing, his bushy mustache twitching.
Hector gaped at Dante’s navy uniform. “You orchestrated it? How long have you been double dipping?”
Dante didn’t bother to correct him, to tell him he had nothing to do with Sol’s capture. That was all Prim. “He’s not coming back, so you needn’t feel guilty for letting us ransack it.”
Hector narrowed his eyes. “Why would I trust the word of a two-timing thief?”
Dante ignored him. Everyone in the Cavs was a two-timing thief.
Roan took a step forward. “You’ll see for yourself when I throw you in the cell next to his rotting corpse.”
Hector pressed his lips closed, suddenly far less combative.
The shifter pulled a set of keys from his pocket, trying two before a third unlocked the door. He lit a wall sconce as Dante followed him. The office was just as dark and dirty and unassuming as it always was.
“You pulled those off Sol?” Dante asked, gesturing to the keys. When Roan nodded, he reached a hand out. “We should look in his locked desk drawer first.”
Roan didn’t pass him the keys, but he did stride straight to the desk, testing the keys again until the bottom drawer opened. Dante was next to him a moment later, both men reaching in at the same time. Roan extracted a stack of parchment while Dante pulled out a small glass vial and a bag of coin.
As Roan read through the papers, Dante inspected the vial in the candlelight, having already peered into the bag to make sure it was just gold and tossing it on the desk. The vial was mostly empty, but the dried drop of dark liquid at the bottom revealed it hadn’t always been. Dante brought the vial to his nose to take a sniff.
Blood. His gift wasn’t so impressive as to be able to identify who it belonged to; all blood smelled the same. He had no idea why Sol would have it locked in his drawer.
Roan passed the papers to Dante and Dante handed him the vial in turn. Reading over them, Dante learned they were just other pending high-paying jobs. Each listed far more information on them than the princess’s paperwork had, including the name of both the victim and the client. One also included the name of the assassin who had accepted the job. Dante shook his head, thinking about how pissed the woman was going to be when she completed the task only to learn she wouldn’t be receiving her seven thousand golds.
The last page listed his own name. Tossing the other papers on the desk, Dante walked to the single lit sconce, dipping the paper into the flames. He watched as they consumed the words:
Target: Dante Lagnar, 28
Status: Gifted half-breed, level 9.
Location: Unknown. Ties to Pregg.
Known relations: Delle Lagnar, 37, perfect dragon whisperer, red beast. Marnie Lagnar, 15, perfect human, likely a dragon whisperer but as yet unclaimed.
Objective: Elimination
Offer: 10,000
When only a blank scrap remained, he tossed it into the empty fireplace before turning to Roan, who had been watching him.
“Blood,” Roan announced as if Dante hadn’t been able to ascertain that himself, holding up the vial. “Does he demand such payments?”
Dante shrugged, running his hand along the inside of the drawer to ensure there wasn’t a hidden compartment. “Not that I’ve heard of.”
“What would he be doing with it? What did he do with it?” The shifter corrected himself—the vial was empty. Whatever purpose it served, Sol had obviously already used it.
“No idea,” Dante said, looking around the office. There was nothing else of note here, he knew.
“What’s a level nine half-breed?” Roan asked, keeping his attention on Dante, not bothering to continue their search.
Dante paused his flipping through useless ledgers on the single shelf lining the wall. “Sol had a system to denote how dangerous a target’s gifts were, ten being the most dangerous.”
Roan picked up the stack of papers and the bag of gold, shoving them back in the desk drawer and locking it. He pocketed the glass vial. “The others listed what kind of mith or human they were. Yours listed half-breed.”
Dante glanced at the bit of burnt parchment left in the fireplace. “Did it? That doesn’t make sense. You must have misread it.”
Roan huffed through his nose. “Does Prim know?”
Dante placed the ledger he’d been holding back on the shelf. “He wouldn’t have left anything worthwhile out in the open. That drawer held his secrets. He burnt the order for the princess in front of me. It’s long gone.” Dante walked out the door to stand in the landing, looking over Hector. “What do you want me to do with him?”
Roan joined him, his hand in the same pocket he’d stashed the vial. “Does she know?”
Dante sighed, looking at the guard. “You should be focused on our task, not what a woman knows or doesn’t know about me. Especially considering she is not your woman.”
Roan squared his shoulders at Dante. “She’s not yours, either. She belongs to no man. She’s loyal only to Kallia and Wassalia.”
Dante took a step closer, tilting his head. He felt no need to stake claim over Prim. He had no claim over her. He didn’t even know if he wanted a claim over her. But the shifter was pissing him off and needed to be put in his place. “She didn’t tell you about the nightgown, then?”
Roan’s features tightened as he stared at Dante, leaning close. When Dante didn’t back down, he snarled, “Kill him.” He pushed past Dante to descend the stairs.
Dante looked at Hector. “Will that be necessary?”
The burly man shook his head, his stubbornness from earlier replaced with fear and compliance. “I’m not trouble, Dante. You know that. I don’t meddle.”
Dante had a list of about ten people in the Cavs he’d pegged to be the biggest headaches once word got out that Sol was gone. Hector was certainly not one of him. He was security, not brains. He only followed Sol’s orders for the paycheck. He had no loyalty to the man himself.
Dante released the man and followed Roan down to find the shifter looking around the arena. Hector had the good sense to remain upstairs.
“You didn’t kill him,” Roan said quietly without turning around.
Dante gripped the back of a haphazardly placed chair. “No. He’s not going to cause any problems for the crown.”
Roan shook his head. “You saw the parchment for the princess’s job?”
“Yes.”
The shifter turned to give Dante his full attention, his face now carefully blank. “What did it say?”
Dante drummed his fingers on the chair, thinking. “Not much. It said nothing about the target or the client. Only that the location was Hogard and there was an option for the objective. One hundred thousand golds for elimination or three hundred thousand for transfer.”
Roan stared at him for a few moments before shaking his head, looking away. No doubt thinking what a piece of shit Dante was for accepting. Rightly so. “Nothing else?”
Dante blinked. “Yes,” he said, suddenly remembering.
Roan whipped his head back to him, raising a brow. “Well?”
Dante shook his head, cursing. “I can’t remember. There was something. Some kind of symbol or seal or shape. But I can’t recall exactly what it was.”
Roan sagged, then took a deep breath. “Let’s get to it. Gather everyone with authority here so we can tell them the news and make it clear the Cavs are no longer going to be a breeding ground for…” Dante knew he wanted to say something about brutes or assassins--some kind of dig at Dante--but the shifter didn’t. “Illicit activity.”
“And that there is no longer a price on my head or Princess Kallia’s.”
Roan nodded, and the two men exited the fighting pits to spread the word.