Page 28 of Agency

His eyes widened in pain, and then he was rasping something, his lips wordlessly moving.

“What was that, Grigori?” I asked, leaning in and turning my ear to better hear him.

“Shot. Epi.”

“Epi? EpiPen, you mean?” I brought around from behind my back the white cylinder I’d fished from his breast pocket after returning from the restroom and held the medical device up for him to inspect. “This, right?”

His eyes widened, and he nodded furiously, as if his life depended on my giving him the EpiPen. Which, won’t lie, his life kind of did.

“Peanut oil, Grigori,” I whispered, one of my fingers going down to wipe some of my makeup from his lips. “In my lipstick. I guess granola was the least of your worries.”

Eyes widening in anger, he groaned as he began to try and lift me from his arms. He couldn’t, though. He was too exhausted, too tired and wrecked from the combination of oxygen starvation and the Viagra speeding up his heart.

“Please,” he rasped. “Please, don’t. I’ll pay.”

Not wanting to prolong this any longer than I needed to, I leaned forward to grab the pillow from the head of the bed. My breasts pressed into his face for a split second, and his rasping, desperate, death-rattle of a moan reverberated through my chest.

Somehow, that was worse than seeing the look in his eyes. Far worse.

Shudder coursing its way through me as my fingers locked on the bedding, I yanked back the covers and exposed the pillow below. A cold, clammy feeling passed over me as my fingers clutched the pillowcase. Goose feathers, probably. Maybe duck. Who knew? But the pillow was heavy, thick, and exactly the type I would have chosen during one of my childhood pillow fights with my aunt. She’d never pulled punches, and I learned never to, also.

I glanced down to Grigori’s face as I straightened up.

Fear. Realization that he’d soon die. Then, dread. Dread of what might be coming next for him after having lived the kind of life he’d led.

Breasts inches from his gasping face and eyes still locked on his, I paused.

Is this how I’d look when all this was over? Is that how I’d feel when I inevitably died by the same sword I’d lived my life by since joining, then leaving, the service?

Would I be no different than this absolute piece of shit? Or would I go into the great hereafter with wide, clear, open eyes, and without a single regret?

But didn’t I already have regrets? Hell, I already had one from this morning, on not taking up Morgan on his offer… And there’d be more, especially if I kept going this way.

“Bitch,” Grigori said, his voice barely louder than silk on skin. “I’ll fucking kill you. They’ll kill you, cunt. But not before we rape and tort—”

And then I was pressing the heavy, feather-filled pillow onto Grigori’s face, his eyes already rolling to the ceiling.

“Almost had me going there, Grigori,” I muttered as he bucked and struggled beneath me, evacuating his bowels in the process. “Almost had me feeling bad for you. Try harder next time, okay?”

But, even if he’d changed his reaction at the end, the feeling had been there. The feeling of a life not well lived. The feeling of regret, and the knowledge that more and more of these regrets would continue to pile up, until there was nothing but them littering my path through existence.

Great.

Fucking great.

Chapter Eight

Ambyr

Ihadn’t even been able to tell Morgan my real name.

Best sex of my life in absolutely fucking years, both night before and that morning, and I couldn’t even tell him my real fucking name. What kind of life was that to have?

I finished cleaning the peanut-oil infused lipstick from Grigori’s face with the washcloth I’d purloined from the restroom, let out a deep sigh as I looked down into his dead eyes.

Hadn’t even been able to fuck him two nights in a row.

Morgan, I mean. First guy I’d met in forever that was worth more than a one night stand, and I had to lie to him over and over. Hell, I nearly even went against my first inclination to kick him from the room.