Page 37 of Wild Flame (Wild Bond #2)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

M alik immediately released me and leaned back. Azrun gave a disgruntled, almost confused sounding huff.

I scrambled to my feet, and he stood as well. “Leida, why are you—” But his words halted as I watched his eyes take in what I was wearing, then dart to the open window I had just come through. The bemused look fell from his face. Then his eyes went to the stolen dagger he clutched in his hand. The same one that resembled the dagger the other assassins had who tried to kill first Zara, then me.

His entire frame went rigid. His gaze returned to me, a mixture of dawning realization, betrayal, and fury blazing in them.

My heart clenched at that look. The look that I had never wanted to see directed at me.

I turned and bolted back towards the window. But I only made it halfway before a steel band wrapped around my middle. I fought like a madwoman to get free as Malik yanked me against his massive chest, cutting off my escape.

“Be still!” he demanded, as I bowed and bucked. My elbow clipped his jaw in the struggle, and he cursed.

I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. True panic had taken over now, and all I knew was I needed to get away. I couldn’t face this. I wasn’t ready to see the hatred and betrayal in his eyes. I wasn’t ready to lose him—for this to be over. It was too soon.

“Leida, stop this now!”

Azrun growled, and I realized then that fighting was useless. Even if I did manage to escape him, Malik would only have Azrun bring me back. I was caught. Well and truly.

I let my body go limp in his arms.

Malik’s voice was at my ear, low and deadly calm. “Now, my queen , you are going to stand here and answer my questions.” His arms around me tightened almost painfully. “And I will have the truth. And I pray to the Nine you have a better explanation for what is going on here than the conclusions I am coming to.”

Swallowing hard, I nodded shakily, acquiescing. Even still, Malik waited several seconds more before he finally relaxed his hold.

I quickly stepped away from him, putting several feet of distance between us. The light in the room brightened as Azrun breathed fire on the rarely used hearth. The flames surprised me, but I held my ground. Malik’s expression was past fury and now had shifted into cool indifference. It was the kingly mask he wore when out in public, and I hated it. Mostly because he had never directed that expression at me before. Feet apart, his bare arms folded across his chest, he looked massive and intimidating in a way I had never seen him.

“You are an assassin?”

I fidgeted with the tight fabric of my suit and nodded, unable to speak aloud.

“How long?” he demanded.

I stared back at him. “Ten years.”

“Did you kill someone tonight?”

I jerked back. “No.”

“Amal Uden?” he asked.

I blinked. “Who?”

“The murdered nobleman we were discussing at the banquet your first night in the palace. That was you?”

My eyes darted to my knife, where it now sat incriminatingly on the table next to him. “No. That was . . .”—I swallowed—“someone else from my Order.”

“So, there are more of you?”

I stayed silent. I felt no loyalty to Silvanus any longer, not after he had tried to kill me, but . . . explanations felt useless.

“Your knowledge of the poison . . . And that night I found you on the roof, you admitted you killed someone. I thought it was drunken rambling, not . . .” He trailed off. His jaw was clenching so hard I thought it might break.

He had never brought up that night I got drunk and went to the roof, likely out of consideration for me. I hadn’t realized I had actually told him anything, let alone nearly incriminating myself.

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I knew it was hard for you to open up, but I didn’t realize it was because you were lying to me.”

Azrun sat on his haunches, looking back and forth between the two of us as we spoke.

“I didn’t lie.” My protest came out more harshly than I intended, so I softened my next words. “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything. I didn’t—didn’t know how to . . .”

He glared down at the floor, then back up at me. “Is this the real reason your father sent you here? Do you work for him?”

I gaped at him. “No. No! Of course not. I would never want to hurt . . . I had no ulterior motive in coming here. If you will recall, it was you and my father who had the hidden agenda.”

He considered me. And from the look in his eyes, I thought he believed me, in that at least. But then his expression hardened. “And Zara?”

My heart was pounding in my chest. I had known this question was coming. Again, I didn’t answer.

“Tell me it wasn’t you!” he thundered, making me jump. “Tell me it wasn’t you who tried to assassinate my sister!”

His words pummeled me, and I flinched with each one. I wanted to shrink in on myself, retreat behind my wall like I had done so many times before. But instead, I forced myself to meet his eyes, to stand there and take it all. I deserved his wrath and his censure, all of it. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer him. Hot tears streamed down my face. When had I started crying? How did I even begin to explain why I did what I did or why I hadn’t killed Zara that night?

At the same time, underneath all that, there also rose a burning desire to defend myself—to explain. But all the words I came up with seemed inadequate. He needed to know—to understand—why, what made me choose this path.

“Say something!” he demanded.

The inferno of fury in his eyes sparked my own, and suddenly there were so many words that it felt like I was drowning in them. Like if I opened my mouth, they would come spilling out in a wave and I would never be able to hold them in again. Not even my fear of losing him, or the walls I had built around myself, could hold back the tide this time. So I broke.

“You want me to say something?” I shouted. “Fine. I’ll say something. Yes, I am an assassin, or at least I was. I’m not sure what I am now. And yes, I killed people. But I did what I did because I made a vow, and I hated it. Every. Single. Moment.” I pressed my fist to my chest. “It tore me apart, but I thought I was doing it for a reason—that it was the price he demanded.” I fought to keep my voice from trembling. “Though most of those I killed were far from innocent . . .” I knew this because I often had to watch my subject before killing them in order to assess the best way to do it. “It still ripped out a piece of my soul each time.”

“You made a vow? To whom?” he asked. “Your father?”

“My father had nothing to do with it. He’s never had any use for me, save for selling me off to you. I made the vow because I was desperate . . . and what I am—what I became—is the price he demanded in exchange.”

He stared at me. “Who is he? In exchange for what?”

Slowly, I reached into my suit to the small inner pocket I had carefully sewn into the lining to hold my talisman. I couldn’t risk losing it on an assignment, but I also couldn’t be parted from it. Malik and Azrun tensed as I did so, but I held up a hand.

Pulling my talisman free, I held it out toward him in my open palm. The stone was smooth and rectangular, but not perfectly so. The rock had a clear crystalline quality with veins of pink throughout, but at its heart, suspended inside, was a perfectly preserved delicate white flower.

“I know you’ve wondered about this,” I said. “Even though I’m sure you know of my kingdom’s tradition of carrying talismans representing our connection to the gods. Most of my people carry many. This is my only one. I had always felt an affinity towards The Maiden since I was a little girl. When I found this rock washed up on the shore one day, with the flower inside, it felt like a sign, and I have kept it ever since.” The white flower, known as a gypsy blossom, was one of the goddess’s many symbols.

“Leida.” Malik’s voice was still laced with anger, but it had lessened somewhat. “What does this have to do with—”

I flipped the stone over in my hand. Malik stopped speaking as he saw what lay on the talisman’s other side. For this side was not crystalline and beautiful, but charred and blackened by dragon fire. At its center sat the symbol of The Assassin, the lines of the fist clasping a bloody dagger were crude and simple, but clear.

“This happened the night I got my scars. When I told you about that night . . . I didn’t tell you everything.”

His eyes flared. He didn’t like that, but he simply ordered, “Explain.”

“I told you, Helene and Nova followed me that night. What I left out was that . . . Helene wasn’t just injured, she was dying and so was I. As I lay there on the ground, half over Helene’s burned body, I knew I would soon feel her last breath, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Helene, my sister, the only thing I loved in this world. So I prayed. I prayed and made a bargain with any of the gods that would listen. I promised that if they let her live, I would serve them in any way they saw fit. I blacked out for a time, thanks to my own injuries, and when I woke again Helene’s breathing had evened out, and I could already see that she was healing. I knew she would live and so would I. The gods had done their part. It wasn’t until I glanced over and saw my talisman laying not too far away and saw this symbol that I knew to which god I now owed my allegiance.”

Malik said nothing as I put the talisman back in my pocket and continued, “Nearly a year later, when I was somewhat recovered, I went to The Temple of Nine and told the high priest about my vow. I didn’t know it at the time, but he is the leader of The Order of Assassins. And he uses us—them—to carry out the dark god’s will. He’s the one who trained me—to fight, to kill.” I explained how my parents had known about the training for a time, though not its true purpose and not that it had continued even after we were ordered to stop. “Helene suspected something was going on, of course,” I told Malik. “But she was busy with rider training, and I never told her what truly happened that night. Nor what I had to do as a result.”

Malik hadn’t moved at all as I spoke, but at this demanded, “How old were you? When all this was going on . . . when you had your first kill? How old were you?”

“Why does that matter?”

“How old were you, Leida?”

His voice had sharpened, but I wasn’t completely sure it was really directed at me this time, so I answered, “Fifteen.”

“Realms, Leida,” he bit out. “You were a child.”

His comment reminded me of that night before the scorpion attack when he had made much the same observation. I shrugged. “That didn’t matter. Not to Silvanus, and not to me. I had a mission—a vow to fulfill.”

He closed his eyes, and his chest expanded as he inhaled. Azrun rumbled a growl, and I looked his way, but the beast’s gaze was on his rider.

Rushing to explain further, I admitted, “That night you found me on the roof . . . it was the anniversary. Ten years. Ten years since I—that I’ve been this.” I spread my hands to indicate what I wore.

Malik’s gaze met mine again, and this time something in it had changed. It was still hard as steel, but had also softened somehow. “What happened with Zara?” he asked, his voice much more subdued now.

Distantly, I registered that Azrun had left, but that wasn’t important right now. “With Zara,” I swallowed hard, “that—she was different. The job was off from the start . . .” I explained about everything that had happened that night, and didn’t leave anything out. “I was tormented about what I had done the rest of our trip to Taveran. I have never, not once, not fulfilled an assignment.” I shook my head. “Then I got here and met Zara, and I knew I couldn’t go through with it.”

His expression had shifted from anger to something else. “Leida—”

But I didn’t let him interrupt. The flood gates were well and truly open now. I gestured to him. “And then there’s you. You with your arrogant smirk and your big body and how sweet you are with Zara and the way you love your people. And you’re always in my space—the library and the garden, making me feel like . . . like I can’t breathe.” When had I started crying again? Had I ever stopped? “And the way you just—you saw me,” I finished lamely.

“Siren,” he tried again, stepping closer. “I, of all people, can understand doing something you hate because you feel you have no other choice. Or being moved by a misguided sense of duty. Why did you not just tell me? Come to me? Explain?”

I sighed. “Because I knew if I told you what I had done—what I was —you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me. You would never look at me with that fire in your eyes again. I was afraid . . . if you didn’t kill or imprison me, you would make me leave. I would have to return to Nevgard. And I can’t go back there, Malik. I can’t go back to that cold, unfeeling prison. Not after all this," I gestured around. “Not after you.”

Suddenly, his body was pressing into mine, and my back was against the nearest wall. His hand came up to hold my face, his eyes blazing down into mine. His tone was a mix of anger, frustration, and even exasperation as he growled, “You are not leaving. Ever. Do you hear me? You are my wife, my queen, and I never want to hear you say that again. You will always belong here.”

His fierce declaration brought more tears to my eyes. His gaze dropped to my mouth and my body suddenly came alive with need.

“Siren,” he growled, his eyes returning to mine. “Do you hear me?” The rumble in his chest made it rub against mine as he spoke.

I licked my lips, salty from my tears, and his eyes tracked the movement. “I hear you.”

He leaned close and his warm breath fanned against my thrumming pulse. “Good.”

For one taut second, neither of us moved.

Then his mouth was on mine.