FOREVER KNIGHTS: #7 King of Assassins

He pushed her out of Winter Haven and kicked the door shut behind him. Still gripping her wrists as he guided her through the mud. Aiming for his tent.

“I hate you!” She seethed. Rain trailing her pale face. She ripped a wrist free and swatted at his face.

He slapped it away. Looking bored to tears. Still clenching her other wrist in a vise grip. “I stayed away for months because you asked me to. I won’t be doing that again.”

She gasped in outrage.

“So, let me be very clear.” He enunciated in a low tone. “On how this little dominion of yours works, Barter Queen. If you’ve a man with some semblance of honor or willingness to stand up in this fortress, he could send those careful walls you’ve built here crumbling.” He waggled his fingers in a trickling motion to emphasize the fall of her kingdom.

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” She shot out. “I somehow occasionally forget you’re nothing but a killer, but don’t mistake that for license!”

“I don’t need your license.” Dark blue eyes narrowed on her. “A man with honor like that, will eventually think he’s duty bound by some misguided inner code, to report to the king exactly what goes on here. Taxes that aren’t being paid. A place where killers and wanted men gather. Where whores are tossed on their back, and coin tumbles freely without consent of any king.”

Except for me.

“I wish you were as fool as they think you!” She tossed her head back toward the rickety wooden structure swaying on the water.

“So, do they.”

“I could forgive you if you were.”

“Forgive me or not.” He shrugged. “I am what I am.”

“Where are you taking me?” She spat. Suddenly looking around her in panic.

“You know very well where I’m taking you.”

To the same place I always take you when I return. To my tent. To rip your damn clothes off.

“I won’t go with you.” She wrenched her wrist from his grip, and he let her.

His eyes blazed over her every jerking movement as she slid in the mud. When she gained her footing, he still stood immovable, before her. Watching her like a predator with an eye on prey. “Yet.”

“At all! Ever again.”

He chuckled coldly. Weak words from a woman with no will against me.

“You’re not funny. Nothing about you is funny!” She charged.

“I don’t intend to be.”

“You never are!” She retorted. Taking a sliding step back from him.

Rain pelted them. Saturating her scarlet curls.

“You’re breathtakingly fierce in your fine rage.” He cupped her chin. Running a thumb along her bottom lip reverently. “But be careful you don’t take it too far. In-front of those men,” He gestured behind them with his other hand. “I’m as like to cut you as to kiss you.” His hand stroked down her neck to finger the fine scratch there. Marked by the one dried line of blood running from it.

“That man didn’t deserve to die.” She whimpered.

“Perhaps he didn’t. But he did just the same.” He murmured dispassionately. More focused on his hand sliding over her collar and down to part her cloak. Blue eyes trailing its progress.

“Why?”

“I told you why!” His head snapped up. “You let him be here. In our inner sanctum. He wasn’t vetted. And was a threat. A threat I ended. Like I do all of them.”

For you.

She spit in the mud, showing her fury.

He groaned in his throat. Taking in the sight of her fiery blue eyes tossing daggers at him. The white line around her full mouth, her heaving chest, all gave away her fight against her body’s reaction.

To me.

She’s trying to put distance between us. Trying to fight.

“I’m not going to fight with you about a man neither of us knew or cared about.” He stepped closer. His arms wrapping her lower back to jerk her against him as the rain poured faster. His mouth took hers with the same ferocity he did all things.

He kissed her hard and deep.

She shoved him back and slapped him hard.

Making him toss his head back. Roaring with laughter like some dark demon.

When his head fell forward. His eyes shined in slivers of moonlight. “Strike me viper. But it’s only yourself, you’re poisoning.”

She twisted against his grip.

He let her go. Watching her storming off with as much dignity as she could muster in the slick mud. Sliding every which way only made him laugh harder.

“Everything I do!” He shouted.

Is for you, Barter Queen.

“When are you just going to give in to him?” Nauvree asked Murah.

She looked up from wiping a tankard out with a bit of cloth. Setting it along the bar for later tonight. “What do you mean?”

“You know very well, what I mean.” He eyed her over his tankard. “You two have been engaged in the longest running segment of foreplay I’ve ever witnessed. And I’ve had some time to witness many things…”

She admired this man. With his short cropped blonde hair and alert blue-green eyes, he was good-looking. Though easily as dangerous as any other man in the Blue Lark Guild, he and his friend, had some sordid code of honor that made them truer than most. Such as Savage Jack, for instance.

“Everyone knows full well, I don’t dally with clientele.”

“We’re all your clientele.” He argued.

She gave him a pointed look as if that was proof of her point.

The Nauvree eyed her askance. “Do you really think you could keep this place running without him? He brings in four times the profit of any assassin in the Lark.”

“A fact of which, I’m very aware.” She slammed another tankard down. “However, he and his crew are haphazard, careless, violent…”

“We’re all his crew.” He softened his tone. “You can’t control him.”