Page 46 of Shadow Waltz

I prowled toward them, pressing my hands to their chests, kissing each in turn—soft, filthy, full of promise. I palmed the first one through his underwear, feeling the desperate heat of him, licking the head through the cotton. He whimpered, arching up, begging with his eyes.

“Patience,” I teased, kissing down his body, tasting the salt and sweat, letting my hands worship every muscle, every scar, every inch of skin.

But in the hush that followed, my mind went colder. Calculations flickered through the haze of lust and sweat. Every heart in the room was thundering, every muscle tight with want. That, I realized, was a weapon. Their distraction. Their hunger. The fact that, right now, they wanted me more than they wanted anything else.

The first guard gasped when I pressed my lips to his hip, my hand sliding around to the small of his back. I saw the knife’s handle poking from the shadow where his jacket had fallen, carelessly kicked aside when he’d stripped at my command. Stupid. Or maybe just human.

I ran my hand up his thigh, then past his waistband, and in one smooth motion, I snatched the knife, flicking it open and plunging it upward into the soft spot beneath his jaw. He never had a chance to scream. His eyes went wide, shock and pleasure blurring together for a moment—then blood welled, hot and sudden, spilling over my hand as I twisted the blade, cutting the cry off in his throat.

The second guard barely had time to react. He lunged, a wordless shout tearing from his lips, but I was already moving—pivoting on my knees, flinging the dying body aside and rolling into his legs, using his own weight to pull him off balance. He tried to bring his gun around, but my elbow smashed into his wrist, the pistol clattering uselessly away. He swung, wild anddesperate, but I drove the knife into his thigh, then up—deep and punishing—into the soft hollow below his ribcage.

He screamed, blood gushing over my knuckles, and tried to claw at my face. I headbutted him, hard, breaking his nose with a sickening crunch, then slit his throat with a clean, practiced motion. His blood sprayed, hot and metallic, across my face and chest. He choked, gasped, then collapsed beside the first, twitching.

The third guard was faster. He bolted to his feet, grabbing for a weapon, every bit the predator now. He managed to draw his pistol, but I hurled the knife, catching him in the shoulder. He staggered back, cursing, then fired—a wild shot that tore a hole in the wall, plaster dust raining down.

I dove for the nearest corpse, snatching the fallen pistol, and rolled just as he fired again. The bullet sang past my ear, close enough to sting. I came up on one knee, gun in both hands, blood dripping from my arms and chin.

He was circling, eyes wild, blood pouring from his shoulder, the knife still jutting out obscenely. “You little—” he spat, and fired again, missing by inches.

I let him empty the clip, listening to each round, counting. On the sixth shot, he hesitated, and I surged forward—feinting left, then diving right. I closed the distance, slamming the barrel of the gun into his wrist, forcing him to drop the empty weapon.

He caught me with a brutal punch to the jaw, stars exploding behind my eyes. I tasted blood, felt my lip split, but I barely registered the pain. I went low, sweeping his legs, tackling him to the floor. We rolled, grappling in a tangle of limbs and blood and violence.

He was strong—maybe stronger than me—but rage and desperation lent me speed. He tried to choke me, hands crushing my windpipe, but I raked my nails down his face, gouging at his eyes, and he shrieked, momentarily blinded.

I snatched the knife from his shoulder and drove it into his gut, twisting, feeling the resistance give. He fought, bucking and clawing, even as blood poured between us. I smashed his face into the floor, once, twice, until he stopped moving.

For a second, the world was nothing but my own heartbeat, ragged and fast. I staggered to my feet, drenched in blood, chest heaving.

Rajesh was still on the chair, eyes wide with horror, hands shaking. “What have you—” he choked, the question half-formed, terror etched into every line of his face.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, smearing blood across my cheek. “It’s over,” I rasped. “For them.”

He tried to scramble back, hands searching blindly for anything to use as a weapon. But there was nowhere to go. He was exposed, undone, the proud silver fox now reduced to a sweating, shuddering animal.

I stalked toward him, slow, savoring the reversal. “You wanted to see what I was really worth?” I murmured, voice low and ruined. “Here it is.”

He whimpered, “Ash, please?—”

I pressed a bloody finger to his lips. “You begged so sweetly before. Let’s see what you’ll beg for now.”

Rajesh whimpered beneath my touch, sweat slick on his upper lip, his chest heaving. For all the power and money, for all the games he’d played with men like me—he looked small now. Soft. Almost pitiful. He wasn’t the king of anything. Not anymore.

I could see the moment he realized it, the exact second the old mask slipped away and left only fear. “Ash—please—” His voice was barely a whisper, breaking, ruined.

I let my hand fall from his mouth and reached inside my jacket, fingers closing around the hilt of the knife I’d stashedthere, always for this moment. The steel felt cold, familiar, almost like a promise.

Rajesh’s eyes widened, his breath coming in little gasps, tears tracking through the blood on his cheeks. “No—no, Ash, you don’t have to— We can talk, we can make a deal?—”

I knelt before him, close enough for him to smell the blood on my skin, the raw heat rolling off my body. The memory of his hands, his mouth, his need—they were nothing now. All that mattered was the end. The final act.

He tried to shrink away, but I caught his wrists, pinning them to the arms of the chair, pressing the knife’s point into the soft flesh just above his belly. “Do you know,” I whispered, “what the last thing a dying man feels is? It’s not pain. It’s regret.”

He sobbed, chest shaking. “I—I’m sorry—please, I’ll give you anything, I’ll?—”

“Anything?” I cut him off, my voice flat. “You already tried to buy me, Rajesh. I’m done being bought.”

His lips trembled, words failing. He looked into my eyes and saw nothing he could bargain with—no hunger, no fear, just the hollow certainty of the moment.