Birds of Paradise

by Anne Malcom

  At first, I’d thought he’d heard us. That he’d sat there and listened and then come to conclusions—dangerous ones at that—and he was stewing on them. But Lukyan wasn’t like that. He would’ve confronted me immediately. He didn’t talk often, but he made sure he talked about the things that mattered.

  He didn’t stew on things.

  But something was brewing.

  Something that scared me.

  “What’s coming, Lukyan?” I asked, his hand still painfully circling my wrist.

  His face flickered with something, but he didn’t answer.

  “I know something’s changed,” I continued. “That you’ve been carrying it. What is it?”

  He didn’t answer for the longest time, as if he thought the silence would answer for him. “I need to leave for a handful of days,” he said instead of answering my question.

  Not what I was expecting.

  But my stomach dropped nonetheless. With the already stark emptiness I’d feel wandering around the house without Lukyan’s overarching presence.

  And then there was something else. I would always be chained here, if something didn’t change. The bird in the cage, watching her master come and go as he pleased, but also knowing that her cage was his too.

  It hurt more than the muscles locking up beneath my skin as our stillness reminded me of the rigmarole Lukyan had put me through.

  “For a contract?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as pathetic as I felt.

  Another pause. Another moment to stare inward at myself and glare at all my imperfections that made me so fucking helpless. So restricted.

  I vowed to try harder to push past my boundaries with my newfound strength.

  “For a meeting,” he said, voice blank and strange.

  I suspected there was more to the story, so I waited for Lukyan to offer me more.

  He did not.

  And the following day, he left me bruised, lips swollen from his kiss and soul disturbed by his eyes.

  Lukyan

  “Ah, Lukyan, I was beginning to become afraid that you would not come,” his father greeted him with a cold nod.

  Lukyan sat across from him, ignoring the woman sitting beside him.

  His wife.

  His father’s concubine.

  “I’m exactly on time,” he replied. “And am a man of my word. I said I would come, so I am here.” His focus was on his father, but he did note the jerky movements of the impeccably groomed and classically beautiful woman across from him to try and attract his attention.

  Bait.

  Always with her it was bait.

  Beauty was the hook. It drew victims in, before they realized much too late that only death lurked behind that beauty.

  Lukyan was not a victim.

  Lukyan’s father hadn’t aged much at all since their last meeting. His hair was still the same midnight black as before, shining like oil against the dim light of the restaurant. Lukyan was sure it required more frequent appointments to the salon to keep the flecks of gray from being visible. His face was much like Lukyan’s own: sharp, masculine, ice blue eyes.

  Unlike Lukyan, his father did not wear a suit. Instead, he was wearing a bloodred cashmere sweater and camel-colored slacks. His mistress was wearing the same blood red, but her skintight dress garnered more attention than his father.

  “Are you not going to greet your wife?” his father asked, sipping at a glass of red wine.

  Lukyan clenched his jaw, careful to make sure the action was not visible. It was integral to school his features in front of his father. Even more so in front of his wife.

  She was arguably more dangerous.

  Lukyan had once told Elizabeth it was the most beautiful of all his contracts who had committed the most atrocious acts. Who were rotten and decomposing behind that pleasing exterior.

  His wife was the epitome of that generalization.

  The reason for it.

  She was striking. The years hadn’t changed that. Though he was sure Botox had a lot to do with that.

  He found himself immediately comparing her with Elizabeth. Where Elizabeth had dark hair that she’d most recently cut into a severe bob—the cut he very much liked—Ana had white-blonde hair, tumbled down her back, long and expertly styled. It framed her features, softening them. Whereas Elizabeth’s sharpened them even more so, made her face that much harsher.

  Ana’s skin was tanned, glowing even, flawless. Her lips were full, glossy, the kind every man imagined wrapped around his cock. Elizabeth’s were thinner, still full but subtler, more interesting. Her skin was pale, milky, without even a freckle to betray sun exposure. Though her skin was not flawless, under inspection, one would discover pockmarks of scars peppering her face. Not from adolescent acne but from adult torture. The pain from such scars seeped into the skin of her face, sculpted her high cheekbones so they were sad, intense, but not beautiful.

  Ana’s eyes were vibrant green, wide and innocent, because she took great pains to make them appear that way. She was excellently skilled at hiding the rot and ugliness deep behind them.

  Elizabeth was not. The ugliness and pain weren’t behind her eyes, it was pouring out of them, defining her entire person, crippling what might’ve been beauty had life been kinder to her. Had she let herself rot like Ana had. But instead she wasn’t beautiful—she was something more than that. Infinitely more complicated and infinitely more precious.

  Ana was beautiful. In every sense of the word.

  And ugly. In every sense of the word.

  “Ana, you’re looking well,” Lukyan said tightly.

  She smiled, baring an array of perfect white, porcelain teeth. “As are you, Lukyan,” she purred, her eyes daggers slanted at him.

  He darted his head back to his father, ensuring his bored expression stayed in place. “Now that the appropriate and redundant pleasantries are done, we should get down to the reason for the summons,” he said. “I fulfilled the last task I was set, and then I made it clear of my position.”

  Lukyan’s father smiled. Like the woman he was fucking, it was a predator’s smile. “Your position outside the family interests, yes? To disown the family who made you what you are.”

  It was designed to coax Lukyan into a reaction. Most of his father’s taunts were. He was yet to receive one, and Lukyan knew it bothered him. Renewed motivation to never give him one.

  “I made myself what I am,” Lukyan replied, voice cool. “You are free to think what you want with that statement and my actions. It will not change them.”

  His father’s finger trailed lazily over Ana’s bare shoulder. She leaned into him. Again, this was a design to affect him in some way, though Lukyan wasn’t sure how. Not since the moment he’d met her had he let his guard down. She interested him, yes. He’d taken her to bed on multiple occasions. The sex was nothing more than a performance for her. As was everything in her life.

  Lukyan held nothing toward the woman he was legally bound to. He’d kill her in a heartbeat if he could. But she had insulated herself well from that. Not just by snatching his father in her talons; that was part of some twisted plan, he was sure. Her lineage and bloodline meant she was little more than untouchable.

  But no one was untouchable. She just hadn’t annoyed Lukyan enough to put sufficient effort into her death. And into removing himself from suspicion for it.

  “That isn’t why your father requested this meeting,” Ana interjected.

  He doubted his father requested this meeting at all. The man was shrewd, smart, deadly. But he was susceptible to manipulation.

  Ana was the master of manipulation.

  “I guessed my father wouldn’t drag me here for merely that,” Lukyan commented.

  “We’re moving ahead on the original plan with Daksha.” Lukyan’s father took back the reins he pretended to have such an ironclad grip on.

  Lukyan leaned back. “Christopher has been found, then?” he asked with feigned disinterest.

  “No,” Lukyan’
s father told him what he already knew. “But the Hades family is full of eligible bachelors, each vying for control over the main interests the clan holds.”

  It took everything Lukyan had to hold on to his disinterest. He did. “Is that so? Smart.”

  His father inspected him, as if he was waiting for something, as if he knew something.

  Ana was still grinning. It was expectant. Self-satisfying.

  They thought they knew something.

  “Yes, we think so,” Ana said. “But we’ve been hearing noises of something that might disrupt such plans.”

  “Noises don’t disrupt plans, poor organization does,” Lukyan replied.

  His father’s cheeks reddened. Ana put her hand on his arm to placate him.

  “Which is why we’re speaking with you,” Ana said. “We just want to make sure all our ducks are in a row, so to speak.” She gave him a meaningful look. “All the bodies are buried.”

  Lukyan didn’t falter in his stare, though his blood cooled. He didn’t speak either. They were still trying to gain the upper hand by tricking him into reacting.

  Ana crossed her legs, unperturbed. “We’ve been informed that you’ve acquired a new plaything.”

  Lukyan clenched his fists under the table. He counted to ten in his head. “Jealous, Ana?” he asked.

  She laughed. It was musical and attractive. A siren’s call. Death awaited any man who answered it. His father’s death would come eventually, at her hands. He had no doubt of that.

  But he wasn’t troubling himself with that. His father had earned death ten times over in his life. He was reevaluating whether she had annoyed him enough to bother himself with her death.

  “Oh, perhaps I’m a little jealous,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes and leaning forward so her breasts all but spilled from the material encasing them.

  Lukyan didn’t even blink in her direction. Elizabeth’s breasts were smaller, not as perky and less likely to gain every man’s attention. But anyone who was a real man didn’t want a woman who gained every man’s attention. Because men were sheep, and they followed more sheep. A real man wanted a wolf, someone who would chase away the sheep.

  “I will always have a soft spot for you, my husband.”

  Lukyan quirked his brow. “The only soft spots you have are the ones you pay for.” He didn’t need to look at her breasts.

  She leaned back abruptly, her smile dimming.

  “It’s a curious thing, you acquiring a woman mere months after you’re sent to take care of the Hades woman,” his father interjected.

  “Not exactly,” Lukyan countered. “I have many contracts in play at any one time. There are plenty of women involved in such contracts. Some are alive. Most are dead. Like the Hades woman.”

  His father inspected him for the trace of a lie he would not find. “Why is it that you find yourself playing house?”

  “I’m assuming this information came from Morris. If so, then he would’ve told you what I’m doing is the furthest from playing house as that could get. Eli’s dead body will attest to that.” He paused, waiting for either of them to challenge him. “I understand this is a delicate time for you, Father. Full of weakness. But you will not find it with me. Suggesting so will be a grave mistake on your part.” He fastened his eyes on Ana. “For either of you to make.”

  He stood, buttoning the jacket of his suit calmly.

  “Now, I’m assuming this was all you were looking for?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, because if he stayed for a second longer he worried he might lose his cool and shoot them both here, in the crowded restaurant he assumed they chose for that exact reason.

  But they didn’t know who he was now.

  Who he had to protect now.

  A restaurant full of people wouldn’t stop him from ending the people who meant Elizabeth harm.

  Nothing would.

  16

  Elizabeth

  One Week Later

  We were having dinner. We weren’t speaking.

  But that wasn’t unusual for us.

  What was unusual was Lukyan’s behavior. He seemed… unsettled, for lack of a better word.

  He had come back much the same as when he’d left. Though his eyes were just a little bit harder, our silences lasting a lot longer. Our lovemaking more ruthless, violent, and almost desperate.

  It wasn’t bad. It surpassed any one singular thing. But it signified something, something that crept closer to us with every passing day, something that told me I had a ticking clock on how long I could let my mind cage me in this place.

  That told me the world was going to come rushing in, whether or not I was inside these four walls.

  Tonight was no different.

  It was one week after Lukyan arrived home.

  We’d spent the first day in bed.

  The next day we’d spent training, but he went easier on me because of my stiff and bruised body resulting from his furious touch the night before.

  The rest of the week, we settled back into our routine, but he was noticeably absent for large chunks of the day, saying only that he had “business to attend to.” I itched to know more, but I knew he’d only tell me more if he wanted to.

  Tonight, he was still unsettled. If anything, more so.

  Though it was only miniscule things that betrayed this. The way he tapped his finger against the wood of the table when he kept picking up and putting down his knife and fork. His jerky glances toward me, not holding my gaze in his steel stare like usual.

  It was unnerving.

  I finally put my knife and fork down. “Okay, out with it,” I commanded.

  “With what?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re a hit man, Lukyan. You can’t feign innocence,” I said dryly.

  He clasped his hands together, leaning forward on the table so his elbows met the wood.

  I quirked my brow at this.

  Lukyan, my Lukyan, the one who broke every rule humanity laid down as things that needed to be followed in order to have a humanity—he was a stickler for table manners. My reform school teacher’s dream.

  The murderer part, not so much. But I reasoned she would likely look past that because he knew how to use the correct forks and how to fold his napkin.

  He noticed my quirked brow because he noticed everything.

  “I was wrong,” he said.

  I leaned forward myself. “I thought it was extra chilly in here. Hell really must’ve frozen over.”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. But no smile. In our time together, I had not seen one. I still wasn’t sure if I’d ever see one in my lifetime. But who knew how long that was.

  “Yes, I’m aware of your amusement at me uttering such a statement, given your earlier mockings on me thinking I know everything,” he said dryly. “But to my credit, I know a lot about a lot of things.”

  “But not everything?” I asked innocently, eyes wide.

  Another mouth twitch. It might’ve been teased into a full-blown almost grin had it not been for the touch of dread in his eyes.

  “Not everything,” he agreed.

  “Well, you’re still young… ish. There’s time,” I teased.

  He blinked at me a couple of times. “There is still time,” he agreed. “For a lot of things.”

  There was another meaning behind the words, one I was just shy of getting.

  “This is the time for me admitting I was wrong in a particular conversation we had at this very table.” He glanced at the wood as if it might hold the memories. Then he looked back up at me. “You once told me knowledge was power. I disputed it. And that was wrong. In my dealings with any adversary, any enemy, I defeat them by learning everything about them. More than they know about themselves. I’m patient. I watch. Wait. And when I think I’ve got enough information, I watch and wait some more.”

  “Like you did with me?” I asked, still feeling a sting from a past, but not as crippling, since I knew had it not been for our past, we wou
ldn’t have this present. We would’ve have a tentative future.

  He nodded once. “But I was wrong then too. Because I will wait a lifetime getting enough information about you. Knowing you. And it won’t be enough. Won’t satisfy me. You are the eternal well, Elizabeth. Never running dry.”

  I sucked in a rough inhale at his words, at the ease with which he said them, and the slight glimmer of warmth behind them. Even when he said he loved me—which he’d only done twice since the first time—the sentence was encased in ice. I had to chip around it to find the warmth in it.

  He didn’t give me time to let it fill me, reach my bones. “When I know everything, or think I do, that’s when I strike, defeat my enemy,” he continued, words impassive and glacial once more. “Which is what I should’ve been doing with my greatest enemy.”

  I waited. He didn’t speak. “And your greatest enemy is…?”

  “You,” he said. “More specifically, the part of you that still lets your life, your pain, control you instead of feed you. The part that means the outside world is lost to you.”

  I froze. The elephant in the room was being addressed. I didn’t know why it hit me like it did—like a ton of cement—because it was inevitable. There was a time limit on how long I could go without dealing with this.

  “I need to learn everything about it: where it comes from, what fuels it in order to defeat that part of you. Destroy that part of you. I know I said that you’re the only one who can ultimately do that, and I still agree.” He paused. “That doesn’t mean I can’t help.”

  I swallowed. “You are. I’m just—”

  He held up his hand. “I don’t want any more self-depreciation about weakness,” he interrupted. “We’ve had enough of that. It may be a weakness, but you’re human. I hear we’re prone to it as a race.” He stood, buttoning his suit jacket formally as he did so.

  I was right, my etiquette teacher would’ve overlooked the murderer thing.

  “I’ve got something for you,” he said.

  I took this as an invitation to stand and I did so. I let him lead me silently down toward the basement. Mostly because I didn’t want to talk, because I was scared of what he was going to say. What I was going to have to hear. What I was going to have to face.