Den of Mercenaries

by London Miller

  “What do you want, Luna?”

  She shook her head hard. “I don’t—”

  “I don’t know isn’t good enough for me. I won’t assume what you’re thinking—I don’t want to. Now, tell me what you want.”

  “He doesn’t deserve to die quickly,” she said, only loud enough for Kit to hear. “He should have to suffer the way I suffered.”

  Kit’s eyes darted over her face a moment before he looked over his shoulder and barked an order that sent the Wild Bunch into movement. They slipped past them, grabbing hold of Benjamin and dragged him across the floor to a steel table bolted to the floor.

  Forcing him down onto it, they restrained his wrists, then his ankles, and another one over his neck. Then, they took knives and cut the man’s clothes away until he was completely naked.

  All the while, he hurled insults.

  After he was strapped in place, the Wild Bunch exited the dungeon, leaving the three of them alone.

  Once they were alone, Kit looked back at her. “There’s a balance—give and take, if you will—in this world of ours. When something is taken from you, it’s only right that you receive something in return.”

  “An eye for an eye,” she said, earning a small smile in return.

  “I can’t give you what he took, but I can give you something else. I can give you his life.”

  When he dropped his hand, she almost felt cold without him.

  Stepping away from her, he plucked a stool from a nearby corner, setting it a few feet from the table and gave it a pat.

  Luna walked over and sank onto it.

  “Have you ever heard of lingchi?” he asked as he pulled a blade from a rack of them, spinning the blade round in his hands. “It translates to ‘death by a thousand cuts.’ He’ll suffer for the next seven hours,” Kit said, turning his gaze down onto his captive, trailing the tip of his knife across the man’s shoulder. “If that appeases you?”

  Her idea of suffering had been merely to shoot him somewhere other than his head so he could bleed out. Kit’s method of suffering …

  “That’s … yes.”

  “Right then. Don’t worry,” Kit said, this time to Benjamin who had grown deathly silent as he stared up at Kit in horror. “I’ll start with your penis and work my way out.”

  The first cut drew a sharp cry from Arnold’s mouth, the second one just as loud. Luna didn’t think she had ever heard screams quite like those—gut-wrenching sounds that made her stomach feel like it was dropping.

  But she never moved, nor did she look away as Kit applied each cut with expert precision. He was a killer, she reminded herself, a master at his trade, and she was seeing the full extent of that.

  She didn’t know how much time passed as she sat there watching him work before she noticed a peculiar thing about him.

  He wasn’t sweating.

  His hands weren’t shaking.

  Nor were his pupils blown out the way Lawrence’s had whenever he did violence.

  Kit seemed entirely unaffected.

  Even as the blood began dripping from the table onto the floor, nearly covering his arms up to his elbows, he didn’t seem bothered at all.

  Luna should have been horrified at the violence before her, but as she watched Kit work, she might have fallen a little in love.

  Chapter 9

  Movies, Luna realized, only ever showed bits and pieces, fragments of what it really meant to learn a trade.

  And she was learning this the hard way.

  Once Benjamin had finally stopped breathing, Luna’s training had officially begun.

  With none other than Kit.

  It almost felt as though she had been hung in suspense until he could be the one that was actually training her, and once it was time to start, she knew almost immediately that it wouldn’t be anything like what she had done with the Wild Bunch.

  Originally, she had thought she would spend a few days on different tasks—a week for guns, two for knives, and more for everything else that she would possibly have to learn, but those days quickly added up to weeks, and weeks turned into months.

  She wasn’t just learning how to shoot a gun, he’d explained during one of the many nights she spent in his weapons room.

  Anyone could shoot a gun.

  He gave her manuals inches thick that taught her the intricate details of the various weaponry he had stored in his home.

  There were days when she wasn’t actually handling a weapon, but reciting facts when he quizzed her until she could remember it all with ease.

  From guns, they moved on to knives, and even that was an in-depth lesson, but she found herself rather fascinated by the knives than wielding a gun.

  She couldn’t help but recall the precision he used when he cut Benjamin to pieces, wanting to be able to do that.

  The first time he set a throwing knife into her hand, she familiarized herself with the weight of it. If it was possible to love something before she even knew what to do with it—she loved that knife.

  “They’re harder to kill with,” Kit had told her that day, seeing the way she looked at it.

  “Then I’ll learn to make it easy.”

  No matter how she nicked her hand, or how the blade clattered to the floor when it missed its target, she never gave up.

  Not her first attempt, or the 105th.

  She practiced, and practiced more, until the moment when she let that blade fly out of her hand, shooting like an arrow through the air, and watched it sink into the very center of her target.

  But she soon found that the weapons were easy—it was learning hand-to-hand combat that was hard.

  She had thought that it, too, would be easy to learn, but it took work—and a hell of a lot of pain.

  It wasn’t Kit that worked with her on this, but Aidra. Luna wasn’t sure where Kit had disappeared to, but she wasn’t given much time to think about it when Aidra stepped foot in that gym.

  She was relentless, and whereas Kit seemed a bit more patient when it came to the mistakes she made, Aidra was no-nonsense.

  “Your own body is your biggest weapon,” Aidra had said from day one. “Your gun can jam, a blade can be struck from your hand, so your last line of defense comes down to you, understand?”

  Luna couldn’t count the number of times her back had hit the mat over the weeks she trained with Aidra, but each time she got back up, it was harder to get her back down again.

  Her confidence had grown to the point that now that she was entering the gym where Kit was already waiting, she didn’t feel that same level of trepidation she had before she’d begun sparring with Aidra.

  Luna wasn’t sure where he had disappeared to over the last few weeks, but she was a little glad he was back.

  There were a set of bars bolted just above him, his taped hands wrapped tight around them as he both lifted and dropped his weight, the muscles in his arms and back straining with the movement. It took careful control, she knew, the way he measured out the seconds, twisting his torso from left to right before he finally dropped to his feet, turning back to face her.

  She shouldn’t have noticed the sweat dripping from his torso, or even the way those muscles flexed as he pushed his hair back out of his face.

  She shouldn’t have noticed anything about him, but that didn’t stop her from drinking him in.

  Kit wasn’t shy about his own perusal, his gaze trailing over her in that languid way of his that felt quite blatant.

  What did he see when he looked at her?

  Grabbing a towel from a stack of them, he wiped it over his face before tossing it aside. “Are you ready?”

  Were they going to spar? And if they were, was he going to remain like … that? He was almost naked, and the second that realization hit her, she was picturing what he might look like completely free of his clothes.

  Mouth suddenly dry, Luna nodded, forcing bare feet, one after the other, until she was on the floor opposite him.

  “Sometimes, weapons aren’t re
adily available, and in the likely chance that you have to get out of a situation by yourself, you’ll need to know how to handle yourself accordingly.”

  “That’s what Aidra told me.”

  And that was what they’d been working on for weeks now.

  “Yes, but the likelihood of you going up against a man is far greater, and training with one will prepare you for what to expect.”

  “So I’m going to be fighting you?” she asked.

  “Unless you would prefer Fang,” he said dryly, pulling a roll of tape from his pockets.

  “Not really,” she muttered even as she extended her hands for him to apply the tape how he’d done his own.

  “This once, I’ll go easy on you. Your goal is to strike me at least once.”

  “Only once?” she asked, not thinking that it would be too difficult to accomplish that. Even if by accident, she figured she could hit him one time.

  A corner of his mouth curled up, his expression amused. “Let’s see if you can manage that.”

  When he finished, Kit tossed the tape off to the side. He crossed to the middle of the floor, crooking his fingers at her as if to say, “come on. ”

  Her first instinct as she flexed her hands was to strike immediately, to catch him unaware, but she could tell from the slight tension in his shoulders that he was expecting just that.

  Instead, she remained where she was, trying to guess her best method of attack.

  But she had never seen Kit fight, so the likelihood of her knowing how he would strike was low—the only way she could learn was to study his movements.

  “The clock is ticking, Luna.”

  Gritting her teeth, she walked slowly, carefully, until she was nearly upon him before bracing back on her heels.

  It was now or never.

  She threw a jab, one he immediately caught with a hand wrapped around her fist, but she pulled free, attempting again.

  This, too, he deflected.

  She tried again, angling her body differently, trying to stay light on her feet, but no matter how she struck, she never made contact.

  This time, when he caught another of her punches, he jerked her forward with a frown. “Is that the best you can do?” Shaking his head, he pressed his palm to the center of her chest and pushed, sending her back a few steps. “You’d be dead before you could blink.”

  Sweat had begun to bead on her forehead as she stared at him, embarrassment and desperation filling her. It didn’t help that she was nearly out of breath and he still appeared unaffected.

  “Where’s your fight?” he asked taunting her—goading her to try again.

  She didn’t have an answer for him, though that annoyed her too. They both knew he was better at this than her, he’d had years of training.

  Compared to that, she was a novice.

  But Kit didn’t accept her silence as an answer.

  Before she could see it coming, he swept a leg out, knocking her feet out from under her. Air exploded from her lungs as she hit the mat harder than she ever had before, the pain radiating outward. She didn’t even have the chance to recover before he was on top of her, capturing both of her wrists with his hands and pinning them to the floor above her head.

  “Is this the best you can do?” he asked again, a strange inflection in his tone that hadn’t been present before. “I thought more of you.”

  His words were punctuated with a slight squeeze of his hands, his words low and harsh as though he was disappointed in her.

  His hips were wedged between her legs, his body rock hard and brimming with tension. Even as she struggled beneath him attempting to free herself, he remained firmly in place.

  “You’re not even trying, Luna.”

  “I am,” she snapped back, annoyed with him for being stronger than her, and annoyed with herself for getting captured in the first place.

  “Lie to yourself, but don’t lie to me.”

  The more he spoke, the more agitated she became to the point that she was over whatever lesson this was and just wanted him to let her go.

  A now familiar blankness seemed to fall over him as he asked, “How far do I have to go?”

  Whatever response she’d thought to muster was stuck in her throat, and without meaning to, she had frozen beneath him, fearing the implication of his words.

  He wouldn’t hurt her, not like that.

  But as he shifted her wrists to one hand, using the other to fist her shirt, whatever spell had frozen her in place broke.

  “Let me go.”

  “The objective is to make me release you, not because you asked nicely.”

  The challenge was clear in his voice, and even in his actions because despite the way she trembled with rage, he was still pushing her shirt up, the cool air of the room kissing the bare flesh of her stomach.

  All too soon, she felt panic engulfing her, her heartbeat echoing in her ears, but she shoved it down, refusing to break.

  She was not going to be a victim again.

  Drawing her legs back, she attempted to get some leverage under her, roll them until she was on top and could more easily break the hold he had on her, but the move only made him press closer.

  She was trapped.

  “Get off!” she forced out between gritted teeth, her movements gone erratic.

  “Take a breath.”

  A distant part of her heard his words, but she was too focused on being captured and the feel of his weight on top of her. The rational part of her knew that it was Kit, but the panicked part could only grasp that it was a man lying over her, ignoring her pleas to move.

  God, that weight was such a sickening reminder, and worse it was how familiar it all was, and she hated that.

  How helpless she had been …

  Luna was suddenly free as Kit shot to his feet, her skin cold where his hands had been.

  “Get out of your head,” he said, his disappointment clear, even as he extended a hand to help her up.

  But she didn’t accept it as she struggled to her feet on shaky legs, just walked past him out of the gym, even as he called her name.

  Because in the end, nothing was greater than the disappointment she felt in herself.

  Luna wasn’t upset that Kit had bested her—that outcome was inevitable. She was upset because she instead of finding a way out of the hold he had her in, she had panicked, and he’d let her go. Worse, she hadn’t been able to remain near him after, too afraid to see more of that disappointment reflected in his gaze.

  Leaving him, she was able to escape to her room, barely paying attention to anyone she passed. Even as she paced the floor, she knew she needed to go back down, face him, and try again.

  She owed it to herself.

  If she could survive three years with Lawrence, she could survive a round with Kit.

  But the panic …

  The second she had felt trapped, she’d become powerless, too afraid to even think of a way to save herself.

  A knock at the door had her looking up, only to find Aidra standing there in the mouth of the doorway, her expression neutral. Unbidden, she looked past her, expecting to see someone else come in behind her.

  Aidra noticed where Luna’s gaze had drawn with a slight smile. “I’m afraid it’s just me this time.”

  Clearing her throat, trying to keep her face clear of any emotion, Luna asked, “Is he looking for me? Do I need to go back to the gym?”

  “I’m sure he knows where you are, and in regard to your last question … well, that’s entirely up to you, isn’t it? It is your choice, after all.”

  “Right.”

  But it didn’t feel like a choice, not really.

  It felt inevitable.

  She wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever, especially not when he was in charge of her training. Besides, this was his home, not to mention that he lived a floor above her.

  Aidra was quiet a moment before she said, “It’s never easy the first time—or anytime after, really. The fear is always there, read
y to drown you should the slightest touch evoke memories that are better left forgotten.”

  Since she had arrived at the château, Luna didn’t think Aidra had ever said something quite so personal. At first, she had thought it was because the other woman didn’t care to get to know her, but she soon realized that was just who she was.

  “But don’t let it defeat you,” Aidra continued. “Someone once told me that the war isn’t over until it’s over—don’t throw in the towel.”

  “Thank you,” Luna said, meaning it.

  Aidra stood. “Don’t thank me just yet. Kit won’t go easy on you because you’re afraid. Trust me, I know.”

  Luna figured it was safe to assume that Aidra had studied under Kit once.

  Aidra didn’t stay much longer, drifting back out of the room and leaving Luna to her thoughts—which ultimately turned to Kit.

  Or Nix, since it felt like he had been a different person down in that gym.

  For a long while she sat there, thinking of the past, of the girl that had always wanted to fight back against her captors though she knew her efforts would be futile.

  Before that place, she had never been in a fight, and that coupled with her lacking strength, there was no way she could have gone up against Lawrence and won.

  Kit was giving her a chance to change that.

  She wouldn’t fuck that up.

  Taking a breath, Luna exited the room once more, following the same route they had taken earlier to get back to the gym. Before she got close, she heard someone’s fists hitting hard against the heavy sand bag.

  She hesitated in the doorway, watching Kit as he sent his fists flying into the bag. There was power behind his hits, so much that she wondered how he was able to look so unassuming in a suit.

  Kit looked distinguished when he was fully dressed—nothing like any killer she had ever seen.

  But he was.

  “Come to try again?” he asked, looking back at her, his hands going out to steady the swinging bag.

  She toed her shoes off before stepping back on the mat.

  A curious expression crossed his face as he watched her draw near. Maybe, in the short time she had been gone, he had thought she wasn’t capable—that she was quitting well before she started.