Page 12

CHAPTER 12

E irik

It’s not real. The kiss is just a decoy.

Still, there’s no fighting the lust that takes over my body, soul, and mind as Sasha’s soft lips part under mine. Her breath mingles with my own as she allows my tongue inside her mouth. There’s no resistance from her, no reserve, nothing she withholds from me. I take what is offered without remorse, without restraint.

I shouldn’t. I know it’s wrong. I know that the lust that surges through me is dangerous, know that I’m close to losing control.

I know that if I take Sasha for myself, she may never forgive me. Because once I have her in my grip, I’ll never let her go.

I close my hands around Sasha’s upper arms as she pushes the softness of her stomach against my painfully hard cock. Pre-cum already drips inside my pants and I would like nothing more than to bury my cock inside Sasha’s sweet pussy, over and over, until she screams and begs for release. But I can’t.

It takes more strength to push her away than any battle I’ve ever won.

As our bodies break contact, Sasha looks up at me. Her face has a dreamy expression and her lips are swollen and red, partly open as she blinks at me. I nearly kiss her again, but then she seems to shake some sense into herself.

She takes a step back and I open my hands to free her arms from my hold. I have to fight against my instincts as she distances herself from me with another step, but by then, her gaze is back to its focused state and she swallows.

“Let’s go before we cross paths with someone who’s going to ask questions,” Sasha says, already moving in front of me.

She doesn’t reach for my hand this time.

I follow shortly behind her as she resumes her quick, meandering way around Sargul’s fortress. A few minutes later, she stops in front of a copper-embossed double door that seems both ostentatious and ridiculously out of place in the middle of a thief’s palace.

“Those are Sargul’s private rooms. If I’m going to find what you need, it’s in there.”

She speaks without looking at me. It’s like she’s afraid to meet my gaze. I wish it didn’t bother me so much, but it does. It bothers me very much.

Sasha walks up to the access panel to the side, her fingers flying over the numbers.

An audible click follows shortly, and she rushes forward, then dips inside. I go with her and see that she’s already working on a similar panel inside the room.

“Alarm system,” she says with her back turned to me. “Sargul is nothing if not careful. No one lives that long as a smuggler without taking precautions.”

I grunt in response, frustration welling inside me that she won’t meet my gaze. I want her to look at me, if only for a second, but my little thief is already on the move.

She’s surprisingly fast on those short legs and in the blink of an eye, she’s already gone behind a single swinging door. I linger around the main room, looking at the private apartment of the smuggler who doubled as Sasha’s adoptive father.

There’s a huge circular bed in the middle of the space, set on a heavily carved stone slab. It’s as ostentatious as the copper door, the choice of a man who fancies himself above the common thugs he controls, but who has the same gaudy taste.

Next to the bed is a long and low sofa, piled high with pillows, and in the corner another door. It’s nothing like the embossed copper door to his private bedchamber. No, this door is pure steel and as I move closer, I can tell it’s not just a door.

This is a safe of some sort. A safe of the utmost security.

“That’s the Vault,” Sasha calls from the side room. “There’s no use trying to get in there. It’s programmed to Sargul’s DNA and his retinal scan. He even installed a dead man’s booby trap there, so if someone kills him and takes his eye, it’ll blow them to smithereens.”

Not bad, I’m forced to admit.

I turn to watch as Sasha rummages through what looks like a small office. She’s not careful in her search, taking no care to disguise her invasion. She knows she won’t ever be able to come back here.

She huffs and puffs with frustration as she opens drawer after drawer, skipping around Sargul’s safety measures without a hitch.

“It has to be in here,” she groans as she flips a heavy-looking chair over and starts to work on a safe, located directly underneath. “Sargul always keeps a record of his jobs. It’s insurance that his clients don’t get any ideas to tie up a loose end after the deal is done, as he says. But the record on your heist isn’t where it’s supposed to be.”

The sound of the copper door opening and closing makes Sasha jump, and she lifts huge eyes up from where she crouches on the floor. I swivel around, my spikes tingling, ready for violence.

“That’s because this job isn’t like any other job before, Mouse,” a man says as he walks inside the room. He’s tall and broad with the heavy musculature of one who knows hand to hand combat, but also with the gut of one whose days of fighting are long behind him.

By the expensive leather coat and red velvet vest he wears underneath and the layers of wide gold chains around his neck, I don’t need an introduction to know this is Sargul.

The top smuggler in this city and Sasha’s adoptive father.

But as tall and strong as he seems, he is nothing compared to the woman who steps right behind him. She is almost as tall as I am, maybe six feet five or seven, with shoulders broad enough to put any gladiator to shame. In her hand gleams a long, wickedly curved weapon and her stare is that of a predator.

She’s Sargul’s bodyguard, then.

The woman’s face splits into a feral grimace and she whirls her curved sword in the air in a pinwheel pattern. The blade moves fast and the woman’s well-practiced movement is effortless, but it won’t win her a battle against me.

“Naeve, put the weapon down!” Sasha squeals.

Sasha rushes forward, trying to get between me and the bodyguard, but I grab her and pull her behind me.

“Tell your little friend to surrender, Mouse,” Sargul says with a soft tone that hides worlds of violence. “You wouldn’t want your new boyfriend to get hurt, now do you?”

Sasha moves at my back, but a single snarl from my lips stops her dead in her tracks.

“Who hired you to steal from me?” I ask, focusing my attention on Sargul, but keeping close track of the woman called Naeve.

“Why would anyone steal from the likes of you?” Sargul bursts out laughing, the sound booming in the wide room, bouncing on the walls and back. “Who are you?”

In a single movement, I shrug my cloak to the floor and allow my spikes to extend to their full length. They become black and deadly, morphing my entire body into a lethal weapon. Naeve doesn’t stop her blade’s pinwheel, but her eyes widen momentarily and she hunches lower on her knees. She’s not backing down from the fight, either from hubris or loyalty, time will tell.

Sargul shows no outward signs of fear, the old smuggler lifting his chin up in appreciation. In appreciation for what? I can’t say.

At my back, Sasha cries out, but she has the good sense not to get close to me.

“Ambassador Eirik.” Sargul’s face is devoid of fear, but his eyes are sharp as he glides them over to Sasha. “You disappoint me, Mouse.”

“Don’t look at her. Look at me,” I snarl, moving to insert myself between Sasha and Sargul’s gaze, but he doesn’t even seem to notice it.

“Did you get caught at least?” he asks her, his mustard-colored eyes serious. “Or did you just give us up for a bigger payout? How much was it? The price of a passage, I bet. And maybe just a little bit extra if you let him fuck you.”

Wrath boils in my veins, spreading to my limbs, and I take a step forward. Naeve does the same, her twirling blade close enough to send wind on my face, but I don’t pay her any attention.

“Just give him the name of the buyer and let us go,” Sasha says from behind me. Her voice isn’t confident like when she spoke to me. It lacks the bite, the spunk that makes my cock twitch. It’s the voice of a defeated woman. A woman I don’t want her to be.

“I don’t think so, Mouse.” Sargul shakes his head and steps to the side. He flattens his hand on the control panel inside the room, and Sasha whimpers from behind me.

“Just let us go,” she pleads, but he’s not listening. “I made him promise not to hurt you, but if you keep going, he won’t have a choice.”

Sargul chuckles, the sound dark and devoid of humor.

“Too bad Naeve didn’t make that promise.”

And that’s all the warning I get before Naeve lurches forward. Her blade turns fast, shielding her entire body in a gyrating rotation of death.

She defeated many opponents this way, I can tell. Too bad for her that none were Huugwors.

I take a step back and from the corner of my eye, I see Sasha cowering at the far end of the room. Good. I can’t worry about her and Naeve at the same time.

I crouch, watching her twirl her blade, allowing her to feel confident. Cocky, even.

She takes a hasty step forward, and I feign to stumble back. The grin comes back on her face as she thinks she has the upper hand. But she’s good and she doesn’t fall for my deception completely. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t hasten her attack. She just presses on, forcing me against the back wall. I allow her to think she has the upper hand for just a bit longer, giving her the illusion she’s going to have an easy victory over me.

Just when she passes by the upturned table, I bolt behind it, sweeping with my foot at the same time. Naeve’s twirling blade follows my movement perfectly and she would have inflicted much damage if she’d noticed the chair.

If she hadn’t been so confident.

But she didn’t. Her blade embeds in the chair and my foot strikes, casting her off balance. Her curved swords fly off her hands and clatter to the floor. She doesn’t fall, though. No, she’s too good for that. She stumbles, but regains her balance and rolls on her shoulder, retrieving two more blades from her belt. They’re smaller, more like daggers than swords, but she wields them with practiced ease as she comes back to her feet.

“It doesn’t have to end this way,” I tell the woman. I’m still intent on keeping the promise I made to Sasha if I can. “Just surrender and give me the name of the buyer and you’ll never see me again.”

Naeve doesn’t answer; instead, she roars like a beast and springs forward, her twin daggers in her fists. It’s no longer a game. She goes for the killing blow as she stabs with both fists on each side of my body. There’s no way I can continue this without fighting back.

So I do. I easily duck under her. She’s fast and efficient, but she’s still human and no match for my speed.

I bring my elbow up as I get back to my full height, my spike running a long gash along her chin and up her back. Naeve screams in pain and surprise, but she doesn’t crumple to the floor like I expect her to.

No, she twists, her daggers still firmly in her grip. She stabs at me in wide swipes, her reach almost as long as my own. I evade each of her attacks, but I can’t just defend myself anymore.

I spare a thought for the promise I gave Sasha. I have no choice but to break it now.

I vaguely register Sasha crying out, screaming words that have no meaning in this instant.

I kick Naeve straight in the chest as she takes another stab at me, this time from my right. The blow lands squarely between her breasts and she flies all the way over the upturned chair and glides five feet on the floor behind it from the force of the impact. Her daggers clatter to the floor, ripped out of her hands, and slide up to the wall.

She’s still down when I make my move, raising my arm above her head, intent on dealing the killing blow. Naeve straightens just in time to see me lift my arm, my spikes gleaming in the low light.

“No!” Sargul’s voice beams in the room. “That’s enough!”

I pause just long enough to glance at Sasha.

My little thief stands behind Sargul, a short knife pressed to the man’s throat. She pulls him off balance, forcing his back to arch backward and down as she pushes the blade under his chin.

“Stay down, Naeve,” Sasha calls. “Don’t move a muscle or I’ll slit his throat.”

I straighten and take a good look at my little thief. She’s so small, her limbs delicate and fine, her skin like porcelain. But her eyes are that of a warrior and I have no doubt she’s not one to make empty threats.

“Don’t do this, Mouse,” Sargul says, but shuts his mouth as Sasha pushes the blade harder on his skin, hard enough that a trickle of blood pearls down the man’s neck and stains his collar.

“I’ll tell you what’s going to happen.” Her voice is steady, nothing like the voice of the broken woman she was just minutes ago. “You’re going to give us the name of the buyer and we’re going to leave.”

“And how are you going to do that?” Sargul says. “This place is crawling with my men. You won’t get far.”

“Yes, I will.” She presses a foot behind Sargul’s knees, and the man kneels in front of her. “The only question is will you give me an answer or will you make the Huugwor take it from you? Because in the end, you’re the one who taught me that everyone has a breaking point.”

There’s a pause as Sargul considers what Sasha just told him and Naeve gathers herself into a sitting position.

“Ozura,” he finally mutters, like it tastes bad in his mouth. “The buyer is Lady Ozura.”

“The Gemstone Queen?” Sasha blinks, confusion clear on her lovely face, but not for long. “Okay, now move slow and steady and open the Vault.”

Sargul’s face becomes a mask of hatred as he understands Sasha’s plan, but he doesn’t argue. Sasha has him move to the Vault’s panel, and he presses his hand on it, then brings his eye level with the retinal scan. A second later, the lock clicks and the door swings open.

“Now get in,” Sasha says, jerking her head to Naeve.

The warrior woman obeys, walking slowly inside the Vault, limping heavily and leaving a trail of blood behind.

“Now you.” Sasha brings Sargul close to the opening, then lets him go. Sargul walks in a few steps, then turns back.

“You betrayed family, Sasha,” he says with a dead tone. “You’re dead to me. You better pray the Huugwor gives you enough to leave Tartarus, because if I ever lay eyes on you again, it’ll be your last day.”

He opens his mouth to speak again, but I cut him off by slamming the door shut. A second later, the muffled sound of fists pounding on steel come from behind it.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sasha says, then turns around and walks away.

Another moment later, I follow.

What Sargul doesn’t know is that if I ever lay eyes on him, I’m going to be the one who kills him.

No one threatens what’s mine.