An entire room full of criminals turned to watch me as I strode through the door. There had been a murmur of voices hanging over the tavern when I had opened the door, but as I closed it, the wide space fell completely silent.
The men and women sitting at the mass of tables took one look at my face and the dress I was wearing, and then chuckled.
“I think you’re in the wrong place, love.”
The voice had come from a muscular man with tattoos along both arms. He sat at a table towards the back where he had a full view of the entire room as well as the door. I flicked my gaze up and down his body in a calculated move before letting out a huff of amusement.
“No, I’m exactly where I want to be, Henrick,” I said.
A ripple went through the crowd. Several people touched their hands together, making small balls of fire appear in their palms. The added magic brightened the otherwise gloomy room and cast dancing shadows over the dark wooden walls. Steel glinted in the firelight as a few people drew their knives.
Henrick remained leaning back in his seat, his hands resting casually on the table full of half-empty mugs of ale. “You know who I am?”
“Yes. You’re the leader of this gang, and you all specialize in particularly noisy attacks.”
“And you are?”
“Someone who has a job for you.”
He huffed out a laugh. “I don’t think so.”
“I haven’t even told you what the job is.”
“You don’t need to.” He raked his gaze up and down my expensive and well-tailored dress before giving me a pointed look. “I can tell just by looking at you that you’re from a social class that I don’t wanna get mixed up in.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. So whatever the job is, the answer’s no.”
A sharp smile slid across my lips.
Several people shot to their feet at the sight of it, but before they could do anything else, I slammed my palms together and threw a massive cloud of poison across the whole room. Cries of surprise were abruptly cut off as my magic forced its way down the gang members’ throats. I kept the strength of the poison high enough that they couldn’t do anything other than sit there and choke, but low enough to make sure they didn’t lose consciousness or die.
Henrick tried to push himself up from his chair so I increased the intensity for him. A strangled noise came from his throat and he staggered into the table before collapsing back into his seat.
“No matter what the job is, the answer is no, huh?” I said.
Only the sound of people choking and clawing at the tables in front of them answered me. I locked eyes with Henrick. He had one hand hanging uselessly down his side while the other gripped the edge of the table so hard that his knuckles turned white.
Holding his gaze, I raised a hand to point at a man with dark red hair a few tables away. The redhead sucked in one last gasp and then toppled from his seat. Lifeless eyes stared up into the dark wooden ceiling.
The pointing was for dramatic effect rather than necessity since I could increase the strength of my poison at will. I wanted Henrick to actually see his people die.
I pointed towards a woman with curly brown hair, and a second later, her lifeless body hit the floor next to the chair. My hand moved to a man with a scar down through his eyebrow. His forehead banged into the table in front of him as he died too.
Panic and fear pulsed in Henrick’s brown eyes.
While still holding his gaze, I killed another handful of his people. He opened his mouth as if trying to speak, but only strangled gurgling came out. I poisoned a few more people before finally staying my hand.
Cocking my head, I raised my eyebrows expectantly at the tattooed gang leader. “Care to reconsider?”
He nodded desperately. I let them all choke for another few seconds before pulling back my twisting cloud of poison.
The whole room sucked in a collective breath. It was followed by coughs and then gasps of air.
After inhaling deeply a couple of times, Henrick met my gaze again. “What do you want us to do?”
I explained what I wanted them to do and then tossed some money on the floor. “Your usual rate, I’m told.”
No one moved to pick up the money. They all just watched me with wary eyes.
“If you fail me in this, I will pay you all another visit.” I flicked a lazy hand towards the dead gang members around the room. “And that time, I’ll just send in a cloud of poison through the window and kill you all instantly without even bothering to walk through the door. Am I making myself clear?”
“Yes,” Henrick answered.
“Good. Remember what I said. Wait for the signal.”
Before he could reply, I spun on my heel and strode back out the door.
That had gone more or less as I’d predicted. I had killed a few more people than I had originally planned, but I was still angry that Callan had succeeded in making me beg for mercy last night. It was so ridiculously embarrassing and it made me hate him even more. And at the same time, I also desperately wanted to fuck him again because by all hell, that had been unlike anything I had ever experienced.
All of those contradictory feelings messed with my head and made more rage than usual burn in my chest. So to deal with that, I had killed a few more people just so that I could feel powerful and in control again. And I had to admit, it did work.
I had only made it to the next cross street when the person responsible for my little killing spree appeared.
Callan Blackwell crossed his arms as he came to a halt in the middle of the street. “How did it go?”
“We have our distraction.”
“Good.”
After closing the distance between us, I stopped as well and raised my eyebrows at him. “And yours?”
“It’s done. We have the waiter.” His dark gaze slid in the direction of the tavern around the corner. “How did you get him to take the job?”
“I started killing his friends until he agreed. You?”
Callan’s eyes shot back to my face. For a moment, he only stared down at me. Then he answered, “Same.”
A huff of laughter escaped my chest. “Great mi—” I cut myself off before I could finish saying ‘great minds think alike’ because there was nothing alike about us. Instead, I cleared my throat and just repeated, “Great.”
Boots thudded against the stone behind me. I turned around so that I faced the street I had just come from right as a tall man with white blond hair and icy blue eyes barreled around the corner.
He jerked back in surprise and skidded to a halt when he found us just standing there in the middle of the street. Recovering, he cleared his throat and drew himself up to his full height.
“We will not be taking the job,” he announced.
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Excuse me?”
“Henrick is weak and too soft at heart, but I refuse to let our gang be bullied into doing anything.”
A snarl ripped from my throat as I stalked towards him. Callan followed. The blond man was a lot taller than me, so I had to crane my neck to look up at him as I stopped a single stride away.
Poison dripped from my voice as I pointed in the direction of the tavern. “You did see me kill a dozen of your friends back there, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m not afraid of you.”
I touched my palms together. Glittering green magic snaked down my arms a second later. “You should be.”
He slapped me.
The force of the strike was enough to snap my head sideways, but it was the surprise rather than the hit that made me stumble a step back and lose the grasp on my magic. Shock clanged through me. He had slapped me. Actually slapped me across the face. I couldn’t even remember the last time someone had dared to do something like that to me.
Lightning crackled in front of me. I turned my head back towards him, but my stunned bewilderment had cost me precious seconds. No one slapped a dark mage. It was such a ridiculously absurd thing to do, which was of course exactly why he had done it. Because it had bought him the time he needed to launch his real attack. While I finished twisting my head back, his other hand shot up as he prepared to discharge a lightning bolt straight into my chest at point blank range.
He sucked in a gasp, and the white bolt of lightning in his palm fizzled out.
I blinked at the scene before me as that palm seemed to be dropping lower towards the ground than should be possible.
A thud sounded.
For a few seconds, all I could do was stand there and stare at the severed hand on the ground. Blood leaked out and painted the pale stone beneath it red.
Then an ear-splitting scream pierced my stupor and I snapped my gaze up. The blond guy was clutching his arm while more blood dripped down onto the street from his severed wrist. Callan still stood next to me, but he had taken a step closer to the screaming man, and a force blade vibrated in his grip.
I glanced down at the hand that the guy had used when he slapped me. Callan had cut it off.
Before that thought had finished ricocheting through my brain, Callan grabbed my attacker’s collar and hauled him closer while shortening the force blade into a knife. I just watched in complete confusion as Callan shoved the vibrating half-translucent blade into the man’s chest and carved his heart out.
The screams were replaced by a wet squelching sound as Callan ripped the heart out of the hole he had cut into the guy’s chest. Releasing his collar, Callan let the man’s body topple backwards and crash down onto the street.
Blood coated his hand as he looked down at the heart he still squeezed in his fist. Then his dark brown eyes snapped up to mine. Something flickered in them, too fast for me to decipher.
I opened my mouth to say… something, but I never found out what because Callan jerked his chin at me and stalked towards the tavern I had just left.
“Come on,” he growled.
“Uhm,” I said, because I really wasn’t sure what to say at this point.
Had he cut a man’s hand off and carved his heart out just because he had slapped me? It went against everything I knew about Callan Blackwell. And if it were true, I wouldn’t even know what to do with that information.
Thankfully, I received my answer and was proven wrong when Callan spoke up again.
“Let’s show them what happens to people who don’t follow orders.”
