Page 35 of Decoy

His gaze snapped up with a glare, rather ineffective midst his deathly pallor. “There’s no reason to sound so amused. I admit I’m not particularly fond of…that stuff, but my aversion hasn’t inhibited my ability to kill; I have many murders to my name.”

But even with his half-hearted defense I could see the full picture of this man shrouded in shadow. “And yet…you haven’t killed at all.”

He glared a moment more…before suddenly giving up the fight. He slumped against the tree, as if the exhaustion from the burden of his lie had finally overcome him. “I’m admittedly rather delayed in that aspect of my training.” He caught sight of my twitching lips and became instantly defensive. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s immensely amusing. Targeting a princess seems a rather lofty ambition for someone with no experience in murder. Do you truly believe you’ll effectively murder someone trained in combat as your first kill?”

“While your skills have admittedly been quite the surprise, it’ll only provide a memorable challenge.” But his voice was defeated.

“I suppose you have to kill someone considering your claims to the title of assassin.”

He didn’t immediately answer, as if weighing the risk of his honesty now that his two biggest secrets had been exposed. “It’s my darkest secret that I haven’t—” He swallowed the words, unable to make the admission. “While many kills are tallied under my name, they’re all the work of my friend. If my father knew…” Shame twisted his expression.

“You seem to be in the wrong field of work.”

He snorted. “Don’t I know it. I’m an utter failure.”

“On the contrary: valuing life is a sign of strength, not weakness.” Though I couldn’t help but wonder how an assassin had survived so long with such a secret. It only escalated my desire to better know him into a curiosity so powerful it demanded to be quenched.

“Then why do I feel so weak? I’m haunted by the events of last night when I almost—” He swallowed and his gaze finally met mine. “Part of me fears you’re nothing more than an illusion conjured by my guilt in an attempt to ease my conscience. I had no idea you’d be able to detect poison, forcing me to endure several agonizing minutes when I believed I’d actually killed you. I’ve never experienced such torment, worse than eventhis.”

He forced himself to glance at the blood that had seeped through the makeshift bandage binding my wound. A sliver of concern penetrated his anxiety.

“How big is your cut? It’s not deep enough to kill you, is it?”

I bit my lip, his inquiry too innocent for me to laugh at him, even as I admittedly found it immensely entertaining that for all his skillset suited for his line of work, he retained an inaccurate perception of how much blood loss was actually fatal.

“It’s just a scratch.”

“Are you sure?” With apparent effort he forced himself to bridge our distance and gingerly took my arm, ensuring that his fingers were far enough away from the blood so as not to accidentally touch it. He held his breath as he lifted my injury eye level, and though he paled he didn’t look away. “Can I do anything to tend to you?”

I basked in the surprising warmth of his touch. I hadn’t felt this comfortable in years, not since I’d had a family to rely on or anywhere to call home. It’d been so long since my obsession with revenge hadn’t guided me forward. Rather than wanting to continue to run towards it, for the first time I only desired tostay.

“I’m fine.” But it was a lie; I’d never beenless fine.

He didn’t seem inclined to immediately release me, so I carefully extracted my arm from his hold. “In discovering your weakness I now only have to be on my guard against bloodless methods of murder. Should be easy enough.”

“You’d best study up on your poisons in case there’s another surprise exam.” Once again the threat sounded insincere, especially with the conflict raging in his eyes…and while one side clearly didn’t want to kill me, he still fought against the part of him that needed to for whatever motive had guided him to this point. The question that remained was whether it’d be strong enough for him to overcome his aversion in the end, and whether I’d have time to fulfill my own mission before he acted.

I sensed our time together drawing to a close, and though I’d made some very interesting discoveries like the advisor hoped, they seemed too precious not to keep to myself.

I started to hand Luke back my borrowed dagger, but he shook his head. “You’d best remain armed considering I haven’t yet relinquished my claim on your life.” He turned to depart but paused to glance hesitantly back. “You should be proud of your knife-throwing skills.”

I swelled at the compliment. “Thank you.”

His gaze darted once more to my arm, as if despite my reassurances that I was fine he was still anxious to tend to me, a contradiction to the threat he’d just given. “I’m curious, but…haveyouever killed anyone?”

I met his gaze evenly. “Absolutely not.”

“Your skills with the knife gave me every reason to doubt.” But he seemed rather cheered by this commonality that connected us, never mind neither of us had any reason to become closer.

My own secret thrill at this similarity had no place midst our present circumstances. I struggled to refocus my wandering thoughts back to the matter at hand, but it was impossible. How strange that it’d been his display of weakness that made him all the more intriguing—and thus everything between us all the more complicated.

CHAPTER11

I’d been so caught up in my battle of wits with Lord Luke and the unexpected revelations I’d since uncovered that I’d failed to acquire any information that Sir Rupert would find useful. Even if I felt inclined to share the secret, I doubted the advisor would deem Luke’s aversion to blood of any worth. While the old Blair wanted to exploit the information, I found myself with a strange desire to protect it for his sake, one I didn’t understand considering we were supposedly enemies.

I also failed in obtaining anything of worth from the other guests in the hours that followed. It wasn’t for lack of trying; during afternoon tea I pursued them with greater fervor, my recent interaction with Luke creating a strange desperation to findanythingto shift the advisor’s focus to another suspect. Yet time after time I found nothing. My despair rose with each failure. If I didn’t find anything soon…

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