A huff ripped from my chest as Audrey barreled right into me. Irritation crackled through my veins, and I shoved her off me, getting ready to tell her to watch where she was going. But the words died on my tongue as my gaze found her face.
Pain swirled in her eyes. Not physical pain, but more like… hurt that came from deep inside her. It looked like someone had just carved open her chest and plunged a dagger into her heart.
I snapped my gaze to the people behind her. Apart from the professionals behind the tables, the only ones left in this row were three people. A man and a woman who looked to be about the same age as my parents, and an attractive woman with dark hair and gray eyes who looked to be roughly our age. The man was resting a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. I frowned.
Audrey, who had straightened again, flicked a glance over her shoulder, and the hurt in her eyes bloomed again.
I looked from her pained face and back to the three strangers.
I’m going to cut their hearts out.
Surprise clanged through me. The thought had shot through my mind so fast that I barely even knew where it came from. Why would I care if they had hurt Audrey? I was planning to kill her myself.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she snapped back. Her usual infuriating arrogance was back on her face as she tried to sidestep me and walk away. “Let’s go. I think I’ve found a cook.”
My hand shot out and I grabbed her arm. Holding her trapped next to me, I stared her down. “Answer my question.”
“You’re making a scene,” she snarled at me through clenched teeth while she was trying to make it look to everyone else like we were just engaged in a casual conversation. “And we need to leave before I’m spotted.”
“You said no one in this city would recognize you.”
“Best not take any chances.”
I slid my eyes to the dark-haired trio up ahead. They appeared to have finished whatever they had been doing and were now moving towards the other end.
“Now, take your hand off me,” Audrey continued in a voice dripping with cold threats. “Before I make you.”
“Don’t make threats you can’t back up,” I answered, but I released her arm.
After cutting me a scathing look, she stalked around the corner.
Remaining where I was, I watched the three strangers disappear on the other side, while marking their faces. If they were able to identify Audrey as a dark mage, we might need to kill them. Yes. That was the reason I had to memorize what they looked like.
Once they were out of sight, I twisted around to see where Audrey had gone. Her dark green dress fluttered around the corner of a table farther down as she strode into one of the rows closer to the middle. Blowing out an annoyed sigh, I stalked after her.
The crowd parted before me as I plowed straight towards where she had disappeared. As I turned the same corner, I found her standing in front of a wooden table halfway down, talking to a young man with curly brown hair. A small sign on the tabletop in front of him read chef.
As I weaved through the packed space and approached them, I futilely wished that I had been wearing my leather armor. In this kind of throng, it was easy for an attacker to just stick a knife through someone’s ribs without anyone seeing. But unfortunately, wearing armor inside Eldar was out of the question. It would have drawn too much attention, so I had to settle for a pair of normal pants and a dark shirt. Though I supposed it didn’t matter. In the noble heart of Eldar, there were no villains who would want to kill anyone. Or so they thought.
I smothered the paranoid instincts that had been ingrained in me after living with only dark mages around me for years, and instead turned scrutinizing eyes on this cook that Audrey had found. I flicked my gaze up and down his scrawny body as I came to a halt next to Audrey.
“Oh, here he is,” she said in a bright and cheerful voice that sounded nothing like her usual tone. “So yes, as I was saying, my husband and I are hosting a dinner for Elise Dawson and her friends.”
“How exciting,” the young man replied, and his brown eyes lit up with hope and endless possibilities.
“Yes, isn’t it? Anyway, we’re having it tomorrow, so we would need someone who can put together a grand meal in a very short amount of time. What would you prepare if we were to hire you?”
While she continued to quiz the excited-looking cook, I shifted my gaze back to Audrey. I nodded at the appropriate times, but I wasn’t really paying much attention to his explanation of how he baked cakes and seasoned meat. I couldn’t get that look in Audrey’s eyes out of my mind.
Over the years, I had both said and done a lot of awful things to her. But she had always taken it in stride. Giving as good as she got, though I hated to admit that. I had stabbed her a few times, and during our first meeting, I had put a boot to the back of her neck and forced her face down against the floor while trying to get her to beg my forgiveness for settling on my lands. I had choked her, beaten her, cut her, insulted her, and explained to her in excruciating detail exactly how I was going to torture her to death one day. But never, in all the years we had been waging this war on each other, had I seen pain like that in her eyes.
It was so rare for me to see anything but cocky arrogance and spitfire hatred on her face that I couldn’t help but wonder who those people had been. And more importantly, what they had said to her to make her hurt like that.
That same stunned surprise clanged through me again. Why did I care? I had been trying to kill Audrey for years. Maybe instead of worrying about her little feelings getting hurt, I should seek out those three strangers and ask them what they had said just so that I could do the same to her. After all, it would give me a huge advantage over her that I could use once we had kidnapped Lance Carmichael and ended his crusade against dark mages.
“Right, husband?” Audrey suddenly said while jabbing an elbow in my ribs.
Jolted out of my thoughts, I scowled down at her. “What?”
Annoyance flickered in her eyes.
While resisting the urge to roll mine, I painted a smile onto my face and instead said, “Right. Yes, sweetheart.”
“Fantastic,” she said as she turned back to the young chef. “Then it’s decided. You’ll come by our house first thing tomorrow so that you have all the time you need to prepare the dinner for us.”
The young man pressed his hands together in front of his chest. “Thank you so much. You won’t regret this.”
They finished up the final details while my gaze drifted back to the chattering crowd of people around us, unintentionally looking for those three dark-haired people. I had to ask Audrey who they were when we got back.
After all, they could be enemies who would jeopardize our mission.
And then we’d need to deal with them.
Yes, that was it.
