Page 31 of Hexbound
"It doesn't matter, Miss Hawkins. I believe that destiny is a matter of taking your own fate into your hands and wielding it. If the Chalice is to be my undoing, then I will go down fighting."
"I should never have stolen it."
His lips quirked. "You seem the superstitious sort. Perhaps it was your destiny to do so? Perhaps we were always bound to cross paths?" His tone made it clear what he thought of that, but the words struck her.
She looked at him, a funny feeling tying up her insides. When she'd first met him, he'd been little more than a shadowy figure she'd swiftly grown curious about, watching as he went about his life for the last two weeks. But to actually come to know the man.... And to speak of destiny, which shedidbelieve in.... "Are you mocking my poor superstitious ways?"
A smile softened his face. She'd thought him cold, at first, but she was gradually coming to see the warmth in him. He merely hid it, or no, not hid it, but guarded himself against getting too close to other people.
Verity looked down at her hands. Her heart was beating a little faster. Maybe it was because her life had turned topsy-turvy in the space of a day and she needed something to hold on to, but she was swiftly coming to recognize she quite liked him.
She'd never felt like this before.
Keep to the course, Verity Anne. Don't lose your head over a man, just because he was kind to you and has a nice smile. There has to be an angle here somewhere.
She needed to make him stop smiling, make that teasing tone of his vanish. "How many people have you killed?" she blurted, and drank most of her wine.
A quick flash of dark eyes speared through her. “Thirty-eight.”
The way he said it was not a boast. No. He lost the smile, which was exactly what she'd hoped for. "I thought that those drawn to the Grave Arts relished the act of death."
Again she was the recipient ofthatlook; the one that said he clearly would prefer to pull out his own fingernails rather than discuss this matter with her. "Have you ever killed someone?"
The heat drained from her face. "Once."
"I crave the power death brings," he admitted, in a slow, careful tone, as if feeling out his words. "But it's one thing to sink yourself into that blaze of power—where you feel on top of the world, invincible—quite another to watch someone's eyes cloud over, and realize they'll never take another breath again. Never see their families. Never laugh at something one of their friends said."
"A Sicarii with a conscience?" Until now, she'd not have believed such a thing existed. The sickles in the shadows were the bogeyman of the Order, used to cow such rebels as her into good behavior.Keep your head down, or the Sicarii will come for you. They don't like them as uses uncontrolled magic, or don't toe the line. Their line.
Bishop watched her. If his face remained expressionless, his eyes told a thousand stories. She could see him gathering his thoughts. "Verity, the Sicarii aren't just monsters who hide in the dark. Some of us are normal people—like you or your friends. We simply share a... duty."
"To kill those who stand in your way?"
"Those drawn to the Grave Arts naturally crave the power that comes from death, the same way others get energy from sex, or from cutting themselves. Some Grave Arts practitioners use their skills to ease the suffering of the dying, some turn to necromancy—though that is forbidden now—and some join the army, or become Servants of the Empire, to serve the Queen in her empire expansion. For others, like me, there's only one option left.
"I serve. That's all. The thought of sitting by someone's deathbed and trying to pretend that I'm not craving the rush of power that comes when they take their last breath sickens me. It makes me feel like a vulture. I'm no necromancer, and I've tried being a Servant of the Empire. It didn't work out well."
"Why didn't it work out?"
"It's a long story." Bishop took a sip of his wine.
Dragging her knees up in front of her, Verity hugged them, resting her chin on them. "Humor me. It's not as though I've much fight left in me tonight, and I know you're only going to spend half the night pacing through the house. So if you're not going to tell me why you can't sleep, you could at least tell me about the Sicarii. Convince me they're not evil."
"Far better if you never know of the Sicarii at all, Miss Hawkins." He stood then, peering down at his empty glass. "I think that you should find your bed, at least. We have a lot of work to do on the morrow."
She gaped at him. "What? Why?"
"Because not all Sicarii are like me, Miss Hawkins. Some of them like killing, and the less you know, the better."
Bishop trackedher footsteps upstairs as Verity readied herself for bed. Alone at last. Though the room felt oddly large and silent without her in it, and that troubled him a little. Dinner had been strangely comfortable. There'd been an intimacy about it, the small table gilded by the ring of light cast by a single candle. Verity's intrusion into his life and his household was quite obvious, but... he couldn't say that he disliked it.
God, he'd liked it far too much. Every time she glanced up at him from beneath those dark lashes, he'd had to shift in his seat, as if the Lover Boy hex still afflicted him. All he could think about was that kiss in the alley.
It was a distraction he didn't want and didn't need right now, and if he didn't get moving, he'd be facing another erection again.
Bishop snagged the whisky decanter with a sigh, and then pressed the indentation above the fireplace, heading for his secret study.
He hadn't been in here since the night she'd stolen the Chalice. The safe still hung open, useless now without anything to guard, and the walls were lined with books, candles, and the items he used for more complicated spell craft that required focus and ritual. There was a stand set with a half dozen globes, a thin glasslike substance along the wall, and it was to them that he turned.
