Page 11 of Of Nightmares & Fire (Elusive Umbra #1)

Chapter eleven

Kyros

As the flimsy wood door clicks shut behind me, my muscles grow even more taut with tension, as does the clench of my jaw.

I may not be a man who sets out to save innocent women, but I am a man who prides himself on his control.

Control that the woman in that room just nearly took from me without even knowing.

I take a deep, steadying breath, building up the control that I had felt slipping away like water through my fingers, water the color of her ocean blue eyes.

The moment she would have touched me, I would have ruined her.

Even now, I can't get the image of her face from my head.

Closing my eyes, I pull another lung full of air and then blow it out evenly. I need to get out of this damn tavern .

I take my time heading back downstairs; I can't be in the bedchamber with— her . I’m frustrated and distracted when Zinya comes down the stairs and sits heavily into the seat in front of me and my half-drunk bottle of whiskey.

“Can’t sleep either?” She questions pouring a measure of the alcohol into the tumbler I opted not to use when I asked for the bottle.

“For very different reasons, I’m sure.” I say, taking in her pink cheeks and glowing skin.

She and Mavros have had a thing for years.

They share lovers, but neither will admit that they are ultimately made for each other.

They compliment each other on tasks, in battle, and in any given situation.

Sometimes it's subtle when the match is lit and the flame catches, but eventually the fire grows and it’s impossible to deny.

Other times when the fire catches, it threatens to burn the life you know to the ground and take everything you think you know about the world with it…

“Where’s the girl?” She questions, and I blink up at her. It's been hours since I left her in the room that was meant to be mine. It has to be the early morning hours now, and while I need to sleep eventually, I can’t bring myself to go back in there with her.

“Hopefully sleeping.” I say with a grunt and then take a swig from the bottle. “She is trouble, Zinya. You need to keep Mavros away from her.”

“I don’t keep Mav from anything, and you know it. I wouldn’t worry too much; she doesn’t seem interested in him .” She quirks her brow at me, wanting a reaction .

“I’m not worried about what she’s interested in.

I worry about Mavros. This job is important; it's why we have such a large group—the best of the guild. Yet, he’s treating it like every other task.

He can’t be distracted. Not on this one.

Distraction in Eathian means death, Zinya.

You know that.” I tell her, and she rolls her lips and smiles close-lipped into her tumbler, then takes a drink of whiskey with a shrug.

“Even so, you, of all people, need to trust that when it comes down to it, he will do the right thing. He might be full of shit right now… but you know as well as me, once we are in front of King Connard, he will put on the show he is meant to. We all will.” Her brows pinch as she continues to stare at me, then she stands and shakes her head.

“Try to relax a little while you can, Ky.”

“Will you go check on her? The girl?” I don’t know why I ask, but I also haven’t seen that asshole Leoric in a while either. Hopefully he’s passed out in a puddle of his own vomit.

“The distraction? Yeah, Ky. I’ll go check on her.

” Her gaze lingers with mine for a moment, making me question myself more than I ever have, but when she turns away, the only thing that brings me back down is the anger I have for King Connard and how very soon I will be face-to-face with the dickhead.

Leoric passes Zinya as she heads up the stairs, and I grind my teeth as he makes eyes at her suggestively.

Guess he's not dead… yet. I have no doubt that she can handle the asshole herself, but I still need to deal with what he did in the hallway upstairs.

He's drunk; I can see it in his eyes and the way he sways while standing still, but regardless, my men won’t behave as he did without punishment .

Zinya scoffs, telling him where to shove it, and saunters up the stairs to check on the woman sleeping in my bed. With any luck, this will be the last night we have to stay in this damn tavern, and we can be on our separate ways, but with a peek out of the shuttered window, I doubt my own thoughts.

Leoric notices me sitting in the shadows of the corner of the room and gives me a wide berth. Little good it will do him, though. I stand up, and he freezes when he notices my trajectory.

“Leoric, I think you can imagine why I am coming to chat with you…” I say, clamping down on his shoulder.

“I—I didn’t know,” he stammers, looking up at me with round, bloodshot eyes. The brown nearly blends with the deep red in the shadows.

“You didn’t know that you were forcing yourself on a woman that just said no to your advance?

No, I don’t think that’s what you’re saying at all.

Do you wanna know what I think, Leo?” I bend down so I can whisper in his ear.

“I think you just didn’t know that you’d been caught.

You would have taken her right there in the hallway, wouldn’t you have? ” Each word, I let leak with malice.

He's trembling under my grip, his eyes even rounder than before. I’ve never liked this asshole.

He is an ass kisser and smells like he's bathed in onion soup that’s been left out for days in the cruel desert sun.

If he wasn’t one of the best dune guides, he wouldn’t be here at all.

That and the fact that I can’t rend a portal anywhere in the contested kingdom of Eathian without it bringing unwanted attention.

Had I done that, this mission would have ended the moment it began. No magick usage and all that bullshit.

Instead, we had to let this asshole guide us from Diemos through the dunes.

His magick is powered by the stars, and whether it is day or night, he would be able to find his way through.

Unlucky for him, he isn’t the only one that has that ability, and Queen Phaedra won’t blink twice when I tell her about his untimely demise.

“You know I wouldn’t mess with someone you’ve claimed. I—” His words are cut off as I pick him up by his throat and slam him against the wall that I have backed us up to.

“Claim or not, you will not mess with someone who is clearly not interested in your vile touch.” I hiss through bared teeth.

He shakes his head, but I don’t release him.

Claimed? I let his feet scramble to find just the tips of his toes to relieve some of the pressure that is surely building behind his eyes with the lack of oxygen to his brain.

My grip is unrelenting as I lean in close to his ear and whisper to him.

“There is a special place in Zameil for people like you. The ones that use their power difference to make the world an uglier place. The ones who aim to break what is not yet broken. I have sent many men just like you to burn there. You know what the difference is?” I ask him.

“MmmMMmM,” He shakes his head trying to speak, but while his lips turn white and his face a deep mulberry, he isn’t able to get any words but a hum out of his mouth.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m going to tell you.

” I smile, but it's laced with venom. “We usually aren’t on the same team when I snap their necks.” His eyes bulge, and he thrashes, trying for his life to get away from me, but he and I both know there is no use.

Once I have my mind made up on a target, it’s only a matter of time before I meet my mark.

I lean back and look into his round eyes; my smile now faded, and shadows are dancing in my eyes.

He begins convulsing with the lack of air to his lungs; his chest jumps with need as his body realizes he is on the brink of death, but he won’t take another breath.

Reaching up with the other hand, I wrench his head to the side with a quick snap.

His eyes fix over my shoulder, and his body stops its fight as his soul leaves this plane and moves on to the next.

“Well, fuck, I thought we needed to keep on task?” Mavros says, coming up behind me as I drop Leoric to the ground with a heavy thump.

“I don’t need to hear your shit, Mavros.

Since you are here, grab his feet.” I tell him, jerking my chin out in the direction of the corpse at my feet.

He purses his lips as he shakes his head but still bends down to lift Leo by his ankles.

I hook my arms under his shoulders, and we take him to the room he was supposed to be sleeping in.

His bunk partner must be with someone else tonight because the room is empty.

It doesn’t surprise me; most of the team we brought will mostly always revert to finding a body to fuck after they have exhausted all the food and fighting…

Mav drops his feet a little too early before tossing him on the bed and laughs when his body falls to the floor instead. I give him a sidelong look.

“Stop fucking around. Get him onto the bed so we can get out of here. I don’t need anyone asking questions. ”

“You didn’t seem too worried about questions when you killed the fucker in the middle of a damn tavern… Any one of those drunkards could have seen you.” Mav says. He has a point, but in the heat of the moment, I only saw his hands where they shouldn't have been.

“They didn’t. I’m not fucking stupid, Mavros.” I growl, shoving the asshole as I move past him, and he laughs.

“What did he do to cause you to lose your shit?”

“I didn’t lose my shit.”

“You killed a man who was our guide, in the middle of a tavern in Eathian, on the way to meet the king and court his daughter while on what you call the most important mission we have yet to face… I think it’s a pretty fair assessment to say, you lost your fucking shit.

” He tilts his head as he says it, looking back at the body behind me.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s taken care of now.” I bark in response.

“Sure, whatever you say, brother.” He claps me on the back as we step into the hall. Zinya is coming from the room I left the distraction in…

“Good, I was just coming to look for you.” She says as she sees us. “The girl is having some pretty lucid nightmares.” Her eyes catch on mine. “The room almost feels charged…” She looks between Mavros and me, and I grind my teeth. Great.