Assassin's Honor

by Monica Burns

  She stiffened as the heat of him filtered its way through her robe to warm her skin. God, how could she respond to him so easily after what he'd done? Even worse was the way her body longed for him the minute he stepped away from her. She poured the orange juice, eager to escape his presence before she did something stupid. Like try to excuse what he'd done.

  The cool air of the refrigerator brushed across her face as she set the container of orange juice back on the wire shelf. When she shut the door, she saw Ares leaning against the counter, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. The nonchalance of his pose belied the tension in him. Something that was clearly evident in the way he gripped his beer bottle.

  "Did Lysander tell you we're going to the house tomorrow night?" His voice was a quiet storm in her head. Something was eating him up inside, and she hated to see him like this. God, what the hell was wrong with her. The man had lied to her, and here she was worrying about him.

  "Yes," she said. For a brief moment she stared into his eyes then looked away, afraid of what she saw reflected there.

  "I understand you studied the artifacts before you left White Cloud."

  He took a swig of beer before turning his head toward her in silent expectation. Did he think she was going to tell him about the Sicari warrior who'd owned the medallion or the dagger that had been in the possession of a Roman officer who could have been Lysander's twin? She shook her head.

  "Yes, I looked at them."

  "You changed your mind." It was a simple statement, but she heard the question in his voice and it puzzled her. It was almost as if he was disappointed she'd read the objects.

  "The more I know, the faster I can find the Tyet of Isis."

  "And the sooner you'll be free of me, is that it?" The sharpness of his tone sliced along her senses. His anger wasn't something she'd expected.

  "Yes. I always pay my debts."

  A violent oath escaped him, and she jumped at the sound. He stood up straight, and was less than a foot away from her in a fraction of a second. His stance was rigid and unbending as he stared down at her. The stony look on his face was at odds with the flash of emotion in his lake blue eyes. An emotion that unsettled her, but she refused to consider what it meant. He took another swig of beer before focusing his gaze on the bottle's label. If possible, the tension in him had sharpened to a razor-thin edge.

  "Why didn't you ask Atia to break the blood bond between us?"

  Of all the things she'd expected him to ask, this wasn't one of them. Her mouth dry, she reached for her glass of juice, but his hand snaked out and stopped her. The minute he touched her, she was on fire inside. She froze and stared down at his fingers wrapped firmly around her wrist.

  "Why?" He growled the single-word question with unexpected ferocity.

  "Because I didn't want to hurt her," she said quietly as she jerked her gaze upward to meet his. "And she will be hurt when she learns how you sealed our blood bond without telling me about the consequences. I didn't do it, because I thought you would."

  The note of censure in her voice made him drop her hand as if he'd touched a hot iron. She watched in silence as he took a long, hard draught of his beer. She debated whether to move past his hard, taut body or skirt the large island to leave the kitchen. The way her body's radar was acting, the best thing to do was to take the long way around. She turned to circle the counter just as his beer bottle hit the counter with a loud crack. Startled, she turned her head and saw him watching her with a tortured expression.

  "I would have gone to Atia before now, but if I had, I wouldn't have been here to see that nothing goes wrong tomorrow night." He straightened upright. "When I bring you back here safe and sound, I'll leave for White Cloud. I'll tell her everything, and you'll be free."

  Without another word, he picked up his sword and scabbard then left the kitchen. As he disappeared around the corner wall, she clutched at the marble counter to remain standing. She couldn't remember ever feeling so empty. If it weren't for the needles of pain jabbing at every inch of her, she might have thought she was dead. All the anger she'd been holding inside her melted away, leaving her vulnerable to the truth. God help her, but she loved him.

  She didn't want to love him, but she did. He was like a poison she couldn't resist taking. Even her wrist hadn't escaped him. It still hummed where his fingers had gripped her. Bent over the counter, she closed her eyes and tried to collect her wits.

  He'd had an air of hopelessness about him that tugged at her heart. And he'd actually been angry when she'd emphasized that she would pay her debt to him. Not angry, furious. Was it possible he didn't want to let her go?

  No. He would have said something. Tried to convince her to stay. She closed her eyes as she fought back a flood of tears. The thought of breaking their blood bond was agonizing. What the hell was she going to do?

  A soft footstep sounded on the floor and she stiffened, waiting for that familiar frisson that always skated across her back when he was near. She didn't feel a thing. Slowly, she lifted her head to see Lysander and that single eye of his watching her carefully. She offered him a wan smile.

  "You okay?" he asked quietly.

  "I was thirsty." She raised her glass and took a drink, ignoring his question. No doubt, he'd met Ares in the hall. "What are you doing here? Don't you have an apartment in the building?"

  "Yes, I have my own place." There was the merest trace of amusement on his otherwise stoic features as his gaze probed her expression. "And now that Ares is back, I can sleep in my own bed."

  "You make it sound like you had to stay here until he came back."

  "It's what a Primus Pilus does." The Sicari warrior rolled his wide shoulders in a casual shrug. "I become the guild's Legatus when he's not here."

  "Primus Pilus. What does that mean?"

  Curiosity nipped at her, and she pressed one hip into the counter as she watched Lysander get a glass from the cabinet. He shot her a quick glance before getting some milk out of the refrigerator.

  "It means First Spear," he said as he set the milk and glass on the island countertop before he went rummaging through a large bread drawer. He emerged triumphant with an unopened bag of chocolate sandwich cookies.

  "Isn't that a Roman military rank?"

  "Yes." Short and sweet as usual. Did he take lessons from Ares?

  With the milk and cookies in front of him, Lysander pulled out one of the padded stools from under the countertop and sat down. He opened the bag of cookies, took several out of the package, then shoved the bag toward her. She pulled one out and bit into it. He darted her a quick look before returning his attention to the cookie in his hand.

  "I understand you used your ability on several artifacts at the estate."

  The quiet statement made her choke on her cookie, and she quickly reached for her juice. When she'd recovered, she set her glass down then turned to study the warrior's stoic profile. Had Ares told him she could see the past when she touched an antiquity? The thought of another betrayal stung.

  "Did Ares tell you that?" she asked stiffly as she tried to rein in her fury.

  "No." Lysander turned his head to look at her. "As second-in-command, I have full access to the reports he's required to submit to the Prima Consul. And Sandro, one of our librarians, was the one who brought you the artifacts. He told me you'd asked for them."

  The knowledge that Ares hadn't betrayed her to Lysander was a relief, and yet his arrangements for her to see antiquities the minute she asked for them was a painful reminder of how he'd manipulated her. Almost as if he could read her mind, Lysander looked at her with that impassive expression of his.

  "Ares didn't tell Sandro to give you the objects when you asked for them. Atia did."

  The words caught her off guard for a second time, and her throat grew tight with emotion. She didn't want to feel the relief surging through her, but it was there nonetheless. Had he been telling the truth about his reasons for taking her to the White Cloud e
state? She shook her head in denial.

  "He took me to White Cloud so I could read those artifacts."

  "No. He took you there because he didn't feel comfortable leaving you behind in the care of someone else."

  "And exactly how much is he paying you to say that?" she said sarcastically.

  The warrior's expression didn't change, but there was a distinct and dangerous edge to his stiff posture as he pinned her with his eagle-eyed gaze. She immediately realized her mistake. Over the past two weeks, there was one trait she'd witnessed in the Sicari she'd actually spoken to at length. Honor was important to these proud people, and she'd questioned that virtue in Lysander.

  "I'm sorry."

  The man grunted his acceptance of her apology before he ate another cookie then followed it with a drink of milk. It was an incongruous picture given his physical size, appearance, and mannerism. It softened him. Made him seem almost like a little boy lost. His face stoic again, he folded his arms and rested them on the countertop.

  "You didn't tell Atia what you saw." There was genuine puzzlement in his statement that said he wasn't asking what she'd seen, but he was curious she hadn't shared it with Atia.

  "Not yet. I've been afraid to."

  "Why?"

  She met Lysander's steady gaze and shrugged. "Because if I'd told her what I'd seen, she might have changed her mind and not let me go back to find what my father left for me."

  "You make it sound like you saw where the Tyet of Isis is."

  She hadn't seen the artifact, but the objects she'd touched had left her shaken. The medallion's violent images followed by visions she'd experienced when she'd held the jeweled dagger had left her exhausted. The images from the dagger had been even more disturbing because the dagger's owner had looked so familiar. Aware that Lysander was waiting for her to respond, she shook her head.

  "No, I was worried Atia might think she doesn't need whatever my father left for me, but I do. I'm betting it's his notebook, and I think it will help me understand my visions."

  "And if there isn't a notebook? What then?"

  "I plan on telling her everything after I find whatever it is my father left me." She frowned as she met his gaze head-on. Lysander grunted his approval and took another drink of his milk.

  "I'm sure Ares has already told you how dangerous it is for you to return to your house."

  "Yes, he told me. But it's something I have to do."

  "And if something happens to you, who will you tell then?" His quiet question made her go rigid. The thought that Ares might somehow fail at keeping her safe had never occurred to her. Lysander turned his single-eyed gaze on her.

  "The Praetorians want the Tyet of Isis as badly as we do," he said without emotion although the scarred tissues on his demonic side twitched. "They won't hesitate to torture and kill anyone to get the information they want. Even alieni."

  The sobering words made her heart plummet as she remembered Ares showing her that terrible picture of what the Praetorians had done to Julian. If something did happen to her, then what she knew would be lost to the Sicari. She should have told Atia what she'd seen. Her gaze met Lysander's and she nodded.

  "If I tell you, will you give me your word you won't say anything until after tonight?"

  "I'll write up a report and leave it in my desk."

  Satisfied with his compromise, she took a sip of her juice before facing the Sicari warrior seated beside her. "The first object I touched was a gold medallion. It was in excellent condition. Almost as if it had been sealed in a time capsule. It dates back to the Roman Emperor Constantine. It was--"

  "Merda, she let you touch the coin."

  "The coin?" she asked in puzzlement as the warrior stood up and moved past the end of the island, where he proceeded to pace back and forth.

  "The first Sicari Lord coin the Order ever found." Lysander turned to face her. "It's kept in a vault in the Order's main headquarters in Venice. Only the Prima Consul could get that coin out of Italy, let alone the vault."

  "Is that a bad thing?" She frowned as she watched him resume his pacing. Lysander's agitation was completely uncharacteristic, and it worried her.

  "No." The Sicari warrior shrugged his shoulders. "It's just surprising."

  "You don't say," she murmured wryly. He arched his only eyebrow at her, but didn't comment. She suppressed a smile. "Why is the coin so special?"

  "Because it's the first piece of evidence we've found that says the Tyet of Isis might not be just a bedtime story. The coin was found in the late eighteen hundreds in the belongings of a wealthy merchant in the Languedoc area of France. A document written in Latin was with the coin. It described how the Sicari were hired as mercenaries to protect Cathars fleeing persecution from the Church. The Prima Consul at that time bought the medallion and took it back to Venice, where it's been ever since or at least it has been until now."

  "But what does the coin have to do with the Tyet of Isis?" she asked as Lysander faced her, his hip pressing into the countertop and his arms folded across his chest.

  "The Sicari believe the coin belonged to a direct descendent of the first Sicari Lords. A warrior entrusted with the secret of the artifact."

  "Aren't all of you direct descendents?"

  "We can all lay claim to the bloodline, but Sicari Lords are special," Lysander said with almost a note of reverence in his voice. "No one knows much about them, although it's said their abilities far surpass even the strongest of us."

  "In what way?" Emma asked, the image of the monk in her vision filling her head.

  "Immense physical strength, extended stamina." Lysander shrugged his shoulders. "The ability to move objects of immense size."

  "Enough to create a rock slide?" Excitement slid through her. Maybe she had seen something important.

  "Possibly." Lysander sat down on the stool to face her, a gleam of curiosity in his green eye. "Why?"

  "Because I think the monk I saw in my vision might have been one of these Sicari Lords of yours."

  "Explain." Although his face showed little emotion, the tension in his body showed she had his full attention.

  "If the man was a monk, he wasn't like any monk I'm familiar with. He killed a priest, but he didn't do it right away. He said something to the priest, and when the man nodded, he slit the priest's throat."

  "Just as a Sicari would do it," Lysander murmured as if mulling over her story.

  "I don't understand."

  "The Sicari always ask forgiveness before taking a life, and the monk in your vision appears to have done this."

  She didn't know how to respond to this new insight into a culture that was still so foreign to her. If her father were here, he'd be in seventh heaven filling in all the blanks of his research. As for herself, she'd be happy just to go back to the life she had before Ares. No, that wasn't true. She was going to be miserable when she left him. The thought made her wince with pain. Beside her, Lysander touched her arm.

  "What else did your vision show you?"

  "I saw a large group of men, women, and children hurrying down a steep cliff-side path overlooking a sea. The monk was behind them."

  "He was chasing them?" Lysander asked.

  "No." She shook her head. "Protecting them. He had two or three men with him. They were bodyguards for the group, but the monk was in charge."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "Because he's the one who stayed behind."

  Lysander stiffened beside her. "What do you mean he stayed behind?"

  "They were being chased by what looked like Crusaders. His men argued with him, but they eventually followed the others, leaving the monk behind. He must have killed at least five men before one of the knights managed to bring him down. But when he fell, he stretched out his hand, and seconds later a rock slide crashed down on all of them."

  "Then perhaps this Sicari Lord was carrying the Tyet of Isis."

  Excitement brightened his green gaze, and she realized he was just as eager to find t
he artifact as Ares. As if aware he'd shown more emotion than he cared to, he slowly and methodically sealed up the cookies.

  "You know I overheard your conversation with Ares before I came in here don't you?" His abrupt changing of subjects made her stiffen.

  "Is there a reason why you're telling me this?" She averted her gaze and stared down at her empty juice glass.

  "He's a good man, Emma."

  "That's what everyone keeps telling me." She heaved a sigh. "I know he's your friend, but maybe you don't know the man I know."