Like a Thief in the Night - A Strangers in the Night Story

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520 Macon GA 31201

Lke a Thief in the Night A Strangers in the Night Story Copyright © 2008 by Bettie Sharpe ISBN: 1-59998-865-8 Edited by Laurie Rauch Edited by Anne Scott Cover by Scott Carpenter

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

FirstSamhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: January 2008 www.samhainpublishing.com Like a Thief in the Night


Bettie Sharpe Dedication To my husband: I love you. Infinity! Ha! I win. And, to my sister: Sex and violence and assassins. Oh, my.

Chapter One Shanghai Two hundred years from tomorrow. In another time and place, they would have been lovers. If Arden had seen him on the street or in a smoky bar some Saturday night, she wouldn't have hesitated to lock him in her dark gaze, lick her lips, and move in for the metaphorical kill. She didn’t believe in happily ever after, but they could have had one hell of a night. Too bad that, tonight,the kill was far too literal. Sevastien Aniketos was asleep, but his eyes snapped open when Arden tightened her garrote. God and the Devil, what a beautiful man! Coal black hair, ice blue eyes, snarling lips she longed to taste before the life went out of him. He even struggled beautifully. His strong, long-fingered hands grasped at her, trying to find purchase on the slick, seamless surface of her stealthsuit. The synthetic black fabric was as slippery as a greased eel and just as hard to hold. Eventually, his hands fell away and his struggles slowed. “I'm sorry.” She'd never apologized to a kill before. “I wish things were different.” His last breath came with a sputter of blood. His pale eyes went lifeless. The snarl faded from his lips. She kissed him. He tasted of coppery cooling blood, of smoke and whiskey. His heart was motionless when she placed her hand over the old white scar on his chest, but Arden imagined she felt it beat. Regret was an alien sensation—simultaneously hollow, and heavy as a lead weight in her gut. She was a trained killer, stained to her marrow with a hundred sins more worthy of remorse than this swift, clean kill. But this was the deed she wished she could undo. She bowed her head over his and closed her eyes. “I wish things were…” “Different.” Her nerves sprang to life at the sound of the raw, raspy voice. Regret forgotten, she jumped up, reaching for her weapon, ready to kill him all over again. But his hands were on her, forcing her backward.


She landed on her back, pinned by the muscled weight of his body, staring up at the white scar on his chest. Watching his pulse beat in the thick column of his throat. The raw slice her garrote had left in his neck was almost healed. The new pink scar curved upward toward his ears, a gruesome parallel of the smile that curved his blood-flecked lips. “Hello, Arden. I have been waiting for you.”

Arden came to herself in a flash of awareness—not for her the long, slow awakening, the muzzy-headed confusion that often accompanied other people’s returns to consciousness. Her eyes opened and she took stock. What had changed? Everything. She was naked and tied to a cold metal chair in a windowless room. A bare fluorescent bulb flickered somewhere behind her, casting a wan, wavering shadow of her bound body onto the chipped tile floor in front of her. She looked up. The ceiling was low, dusty, girded with rusty pipes that dripped water and leaked steam at their ill-fitting joints. The walls were brick, covered with cheap plaster that had crumbled like a forgotten ruin and built up little dunes of plaster dust in the corners. A basement. She leaned forward in the chair. Her body strained against the nylon ropes tied taut around each of her wrists as well as her midsection, thighs and ankles. Her body moved—barely—but the chair stayed in place. It must have been bolted to the floor. Her captor knew how to tie a good knot, and he hadn’t been foolish enough to bind her hands together or to secure her to a free-standing chair. “Hello, Arden.” For the second time that night, Aniketos’ voice startled her. He was standing in the darkness behind her chair. She liked the way he’d said her name—so much so that it took her a moment to realize he’d used her given name, not her cover. Arden had a passport, a driver’s license, and an entire life’s worth of perfectly forged paperwork to prove she was Chen Jie, a twenty-five year old Shanghai-born photographer. No one but her handlers and her fellow assassins knew the name she’d been given when she became a killer. No one but him. “Arden,” he said her name again. His voice was as haunting as the memory of warmth in winter. It was less raw now, but still raspy. He had an odd, halting pattern of speech, as though he’d learned English late in life and still did his thinking in another, more ancient tongue. She couldn’t place his accent, but she’d had only a few sentences to guess by. Best to get him talking—she’d find no answers in silence. “Hello, Sevastien.” “Call me Aniketos. You did not ask how I knew your name.” “You’ll tell me. Nice day, isn’t it?” “It is evening, and not a nice one.” He came to stand in front of her. He didn’t make a sound when he moved, not a footstep, not a breath. He was dressed now—black pants and a gray, long-sleeved pullover shirt that caressed the muscles of


his torso and arms. His face was as beautiful as she’d remembered it—more so. Dark bronze skin, sensuous lips, and a profile that looked like it belonged on the wall of some ancient temple alongside jackal-headed gods or bare-breasted sphinxes. His black hair, by contrast, was cut in a short, modern style that looked like he had combed it with his fingers. How devious of the man to know that looking like he had just rolled out of bed would prompt a girl to imagine himin bed. And how screwed up was she to check out the man who had stripped her naked and tied her to a chair in his basement? The answer to that question was all too obvious. She killed people for a living; she was a very sick girl. She would just have to add this newfound taste for high-stakes bondage to her already long list of kinks. Aniketos held up his right hand and unfurled her inky-black stealthsuit from his clenched fist. It ate up the light around it like a black hole spun into cloth. “Hard to see and harder to hold. I hope you will forgive me for your current state of undress. Your previous attire made you a little too difficult to handle.” She strained her shoulders against the ropes. “You must have something else I can wear.” He smiled, a flash of white teeth against smooth bronze skin, and pulled up a chair. “I think not. I rather like the view.” Sense memory lit up her synapses—the taste of his blood on his lips when she’d kissed him, the weight of his body when he’d trapped her. She flushed hot, and then hotter still when she met his steady gaze. His pale eyes surveyed her, lingering on her pebbled pink nipples. “It’s cold in here,” she complained, hoping to explain away her body’s reaction. “And yet, you do not have goose bumps.” “Don’t you have questions for me?” “Of course.” He skimmed her body with another head-to-toe glance. “I spent two months watching you before I set this trap. I must say, you are a woman offascinating tastes. How do you like captivity? Is your cunt wet?” She spat at him. He leaned aside in a smooth motion that would have appeared casual if not for his speed. Quick reflexes, she noted. But she was faster. He drew her garrote from his pocket. “Interesting choice of weapon. Why not choose a laserblade, a pulsegun, or some other piece of modern weaponry? They work faster.” She tried to shrug. “Garrote is clean, classic, reliable. It won’t be shut down by a target with an electromagnetic-pulse panic button.” “You don’t mind being so…close to your victims?” She met his eyes. “I like it. I don’t shoot and run. My targets are always dead when I leave because I watch them die.”


He gave her a rude, toothy grin. She returned it. “I haven’t left yet, have I? Did you bring me down here just to pick my brain for pointers on the simple art of murder?” He looked up. “Pardon me, that line of inquiry was for my own edification. Curiosity is ever my strength and my weakness.” “Then we’ve that in common, because right now I’m curious as hell how you managed to play dead so well. I felt your heart stop.” He smiled, but didn’t show his teeth. “Magic.” “Do I look like the kind of girl who falls for fairytales?” “You look like the kind of woman who has been trained not to ask questions.” “I ask for what I want to know.” “Really. Do you even know who sent you after me, or why?” “I don’t need to know the specifics, but I can guess the general information. You live in a glass penthouse stuffed chock-full of stolen art. It’s easy to make enemies when you take what doesn’t belong to you. Maybe one of the thieves you hired to ill-get those fancy gains sold you out to an angry victim. I’m told we criminals are an untrustworthy lot.” He smiled, a strange twinkle in his eyes. “We are, indeed.” “We?” “I get my own ill-gotten gains.” Arden knit her brows and he flashed his teeth in a wolfish grin. “I am a thief, Arden—the best there is. And you are my latest acquisition.” “Am I?” Arden kept her voice steady. The man was clearly insane. So why was she still hot for him? Because, her inner voice chided,you’re hardly the poster child for sanity, yourself. And wouldn’t it be delicious to fuck a man who knows exactly what you are? A shiver ran through her. When she met his gaze again, he winked, as though he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. “Sevastien Aniketos does not exist. I created the persona and took out the hit for the express purpose of capturing you.” “Why?” He raked her with his gaze, icy blue eyes tracing the length of her body. “Aside from the obvious appeal of having a naked murderess at my complete disposal? I want information about the Darkriver Corporation’s wet works. Who better to get it from than one of their best assassins?”


Arden could hardly deny she was an assassin; she had sneaked into the man’s penthouse and strangled him in his sleep. But she wouldn’t admit she worked for Darkriver. He would have to do more than ask politely if he wanted that information from her. She furrowed her brows to make an exaggerated look of confusion. “Darkriver Corporation is an international private security firm. They have contracts to police several major cities and their peacekeeping forces are active in war zones all over the world. Darkriver doesn’t employ people like me, they catch them.” “That was a stupid lie, Arden.” His voice was low, deadly, and threatening by its very lack of emotion. She had expected he would get angry with her for playing dumb, that he would hit her and threaten her. Instead, he watched her. She returned his gaze, refused to yield by looking away. Silence stretched between them—charged, intense, and strangely intimate. She had never looked a man in the eye for so long before; not the men she killed nor the men she fucked. Her heart beat faster. She hoped he read it as nervousness and not arousal. She had been trained to resist torture, but this was something else entirely. She wanted to fidget, to cover her body, to squeeze her muscles tight around her traitorous twat. She wondered why he didn’t hit her for her lack of cooperation. She wanted him to. She wanted an interaction she could understand, and violence was an old acquaintance. She licked her lips. His gaze darted down to focus on her tongue, on her mouth. She smiled. Curiosity wasn’t his only weakness. “You should be frightened.” His voice was rougher than it had been the last time he’d spoken. “You are naked and bound to a chair in a basement. I could do anything to you.” “But all you’ve done is talk,” she taunted. “If you were going to torture me, you’d be showing me your tools. If you planned to rape me you wouldn’t have tied my legs together. If you were going to kill me, I’d be dead by now. Excluding those options, I can only conclude your plan is to keep me here and ask me psychologically probing questions until I die of frustration or boredom.” “Frustration?” He took her bait. She raised her eyebrows and made an “O” of her mouth to create an exaggerated expression of surprise. “Oops. Was that a Freudian slip? An advanced case of Stockholm syndrome? A closet kink for kinbaku ? Stop with the talk, Aniketos. I may like killing people, but I hate to kill time.” “You want to provoke me.” “Now why would I do that?” “You stall for time. You want me to lose my temper.” “What I want is for you to let me go.” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Which of those knots have you loosened?” He stood and approached her. It was too soon and he was too calm, but she seized her chance anyway.


She was not as deft with her left hand—a fraction of a second slower, a millimeter less precise—but she was quick enough to grab a fistful of his shirt and drag his face down to hers. She pressed her lips to his, hard and fast, before he could draw away. The kiss only lasted a moment, but it was explosive. The universe had been born in an instant; a mere moment could change everything. He tasted of cardamom, brown bread and bergamot when she pressed her tongue between his lips. His tongue met hers, pushed her back, sliding into her mouth with forceful ease. A tremor of pleasure rocked through her, turning her joints to jelly and making her heart hammer hard against her ribs. She wanted him. For that one brief instant, she lost herself to desire. She lost herself to the feel of his lips, the smell of his skin, the hot rush of his exhalations against her cheek. And, in that instant, she lost her chance. He wrapped his hand around her wrist and wrenched it away from his collar. The haze of lust between them shattered like warm glass plunged into a tub of ice. He stepped to the back of her chair, twisting her arm as he went. It only took him a second to tie her hand to the edge of the chair again. He pulled the ropes tighter this time—her fingers immediately started to tingle with the loss of sensation. “That hurts!” “It is your own fault. Was the kiss worth it?” She leaned her head back to meet his eyes. She licked her lips, slowly, before answering. “I liked it better when you were bleeding.” He stepped out of her field of view. She heard him take a breath. She waited for his answer, but none came. Cold, damp air tickled the back of her neck. The fluorescent light flickered out, and she heard a door open and shut somewhere behind her. He had left her, but the victory felt like defeat. She was bound and alone in a dark basement. “Feels just like old times,” she muttered as she methodically tested the ropes for another weak spot. Escape was the first lesson she had learned from Darkriver, survival was the second.

Arden had been little more than a child when Darkriver took her. She didn’t remember her family or the name they had given her. She didn’t remember her age. She remembered that her body had been almost as tall as a grown woman’s body, but as thin and flat as a boy’s. She remembered that first night. She had woken to darkness, to the damp press of stagnant air, to the stench of rotting meat. She had woken to the rasp of rough ropes against her skin and the unyielding angle of a high-backed metal chair beneath her. It took her a day to get free. Her tongue was swollen from lack of water. Her body stank of her own effluvia. Her wrists were raw and wet with her own blood. She used her hands to search the darkness for a weapon and found the sticky skin of a corpse just a few feet away. The same rough rope bound its rotting wrists. The high-backed metal chair had become this


prisoner’s bier. Her foot tapped up against a rusting piece of metal pipe. She picked it up and examined it by touch. It was jagged on one end. She wrapped her hands around the blunt end of the pipe and started searching for the door. She waited by the side of the door for what seemed like hours. Her heart pounded like a drum, but she kept her body as quiet as the corpse on the metal chair. Footsteps echoed in the hall. She tightened her grip on the pipe. The door opened and the man who had kidnapped her stepped through the door. He was young. The scraggly brown beard on his pocked cheeks did little to hide his rounded face. Though her other memories were hazy, she remembered the damp, greasy feel of his groping hands when he’d grabbed her off the street. She remembered how his breath had smelt of sausage and beer when he’d told her all the disgusting things he would do to her. He was a villain, but not a liar—he’d brought a pair of pliers with him, just as he’d said he would. Even then, young, alone, and frightened, she’d known she would only get one chance to strike. Instead of swinging the pipe at his head, as she had seen countless prisoners in the holotainments do, she lunged forward, jamming the jagged end of the rusty pipe into the young man’s doughy gut. He tried to scream, but the sound that came from his mouth was a wet, pitiful wail. She jumped over his bleeding body to get through the door and scrambled down the narrow passage beyond. She turned the corner and ran into a man in a policeman’s uniform. He caught her up in his arms and murmured, “It’s okay, it’s okay. We’re here and everything is all right.” The policeman stiffened when he noticed the bloody pipe in her hands. His expression changed from one of concern to one of disgust. He set her down and pushed her back. “What have you done?” “Captain,” a policewoman shouted from the other end of the hall. “There’s a man dead over here. It looks pretty brutal.” The policeman clamped his hand around her bloody, abraded wrist, heedless of her mewling whimper of pain. “I think I have the murderer right here.” She tried to shake her head, to tell the officer that the man was a bad man, that she had been tied up and had escaped, but the policeman just dragged her with him down the hall. Back to the scene of her crime. “God, that’s disgusting,” the policeman said when he saw the body of her captor sprawled in the prison room. “What kind of little monster are you to do this to someone? Why couldn’t you just wait to be rescued?” “We had better cuff her and take her in,” the policewoman said. “Crimes like this must be punished.” She shook her head and tried to pull away. The policeman’s grip on her bloody wrists slipped, and she broke free. She turned and ran. “Stop, murderer!” the policeman shouted. The sound of her heartbeat filled her ears. Shots echoed in the hallway behind her. When she turned the corner, hands grabbed her, clamping over her mouth before she could scream. The hands pulled her into a narrow opening in the wall and released her long enough to slide the panel shut.


“Sshhh, special girl. Don’t worry. The police are wrong. I know why you did it.” Her savior was a woman, small, with golden hair and kind blue eyes. “My name is Eden Black. I work for a company called Darkriver. Come with me and I’ll keep you safe from the people who want to hurt you because of what you did.” The blonde woman offered her hand and young Arden took it. Years later, Arden was sitting at a hotel bar surveilling a target when she saw a familiar face a few meters away. He had shaved the scruffy beard and acquired a scar across one eyebrow, but she still remembered the rattle of the pliers in his hand. She took the empty barstool beside him and whispered, “Didn’t I kill you once?” He looked up, winked, and made the same wet, piteous noise he’d made when she stabbed him years before. “A little fake blood goes a long way, but I like to think it’s my acting that really sells the scam.” She reached behind the bar for a glass and poured herself a shot from his bottle. “You were very convincing.” He took a longer look at her face. “And you were vicious, right from the start. I knew you’d make it through the program, but I didn’t know you’d turn out to be such a looker. How many have you killed?” She downed her drink. “Too many to turn back.” Chapter Two “I have her.” The man Arden thought of as Sevastien Aniketos lit a cigarette and swiveled his chair to face the communication screen on his desk. Thousands of kilometers away, a ginger-haired Englishman glared into his own comm screen. “Good work, Nikolai. How is she?” “Ruthless. Sexy.” Aniketos took a long draw on his cigarette. The Englishman blushed. “I meant, what’s her physical condition? Have you injured her?” “She is healthy. I have not hurt her.” “Have you interrogated her? Has she told you anything?” “I have asked her a few questions—nothing important. She has told me nothing of value. Right now, she thinks she has the advantage.” “Why is that?” “Because she knows I want to fuck her.” The Englishman blinked. Sir John Wright was a gentleman in the old sense of the word—mannerly, circumspect, protected from the vulgarities of blunt speech by the sort of wealth and power that made


most people afraid to piss him off. In Aniketos’ experience, Wright rarely discussed the baser aspects of the actions individual operatives took under the aegis of the Knighthall Group, and operatives never brought them up. It was all very civilized. “So fuck her. Torture her. Do whatever you have to do to make the bitch talk.” Coming out of Wright’s mouth, those crass, cruel words sounded like a blasphemy. “That assassin is as cold a killer as Darkriver ever hatched. I don’t care what you do to her. Just find the location of Darkriver’s Hatcheries. I want my son back.” “Patience, Sir John.” Aniketos puffed out a lazy ring of smoke. “These things take time.” “Easy to say when you’ve all the time in the world. We mere mortals must operate on a tighter schedule.” Aniketos stubbed out the cigarette. “Darkriver has had your son for more than three years. I watched Arden Black for almost two months before I set this trap. I need only three more days to gain her cooperation.Patience .” “Three days? How do you plan to convince her to willingly cooperate in only three days time?” “I will take away her other options. If she reappears after going missing for three days, with her target still breathing, Darkriver will believe she has betrayed them.” The Englishman smiled. “And even if Darkriver let her live long enough to tell the truth of what happened, they’ll hardly believe some Banbury tale about a man who can’t be killed.” “The very fear that secured her loyalty to Darkriver will become her reason to betray them—if we offer her protection.” “Brilliant! Perhaps I was not mistaken to call in the favor you promised my grandfather. We could use a man of your unique viewpoint. Are you certain you shouldn’t like to join the Knighthall Group?” “I am not cut out to wear a white hat.” “You’re hardly a villain, Nikolai.” “Consider me a self-interested outside party. I will help you get what you want as a way to get what I want.” “And what do you want from this undertaking?” “The assassin, of course.” Sir John’s thin lips stretched into an even thinner smile. “Are you going to add her to your collection? I imagine she’d look quite lovely in a glass case beside all the other weapons you’ve stolen” “You jest, but nothing I steal is commonplace. As a weapon—as a woman—the assassin is both beautiful and lethal. You do not understand how rare she is.” “I don’t understand why you want her,” the Englishman conceded, his gingery brows drawing low over his eyes as he regarded Aniketos. “And I don’t think you do, either. Not really.”


Aniketos suppressed a growl of annoyance. Wright spoke as though Aniketos should have a reason for wanting what he stole. Wright didn’t understand that the thrill of wanting, and of getting what he wanted, was reason enough. “Fortunately, my motivations are none of your concern, Sir John. All you need to do is come here in three days, and the assassin will tell you what she knows.” “Very well.” Wright nodded. “What do you plan to do with her in the meantime?” Aniketos raised an eyebrow. The Englishman blushed again. “I—er, I didn’t think.” “Relax, Wright. I do not plan to rape the girl. I may be a thief, but I do have my standards. I shall untie her and see what happens.” “That’s it? You’re going to stay locked in a luxury flat with an assassin for three days?” “Why not? What is she going to do—kill me?”

She was waiting for him when he returned to the basement. He should have guessed the ropes wouldn’t hold her. He could have used metal or glue restraints, but where was the fun in that? Lethal as she was, she couldn’t kill him. He had the advantage of height and strength. Without her stealthsuit, she would be much easier to grab and to hold, much easier to subdue. He supposed he should have found other clothes for her to wear. Stripping her wasn’t part of Knighthall’s standard interrogation procedure, but he wasn’t an interrogator. He was a thief. It was his nature to take things—chances, risks, liberties. She looped the rope around his neck the instant he stepped through the door. “This again,” he muttered, kicking the door shut behind him. She jerked the rope—a quick tug that should have snapped his head back—and followed with a hard twist meant to break his neck. He felt the bones split. A wash of ice water flooded his nerves before they reformed. All of this happened in less than a second. She was fast and lethal, but she hadn’t the strength to beat a man who couldn’t be injured. He shoved back and crushed her between his body and the wall. He felt the breath rush out of her, but she didn’t loosen her grip on the rope. He reached over his shoulder, grabbed a fistful of her dark hair and used it to pull her around to face him. She looked different than she had in the months he’d watched her. The first night he’d seen Arden, she had been on the prowl for a lover, as was her habit when she was not on a job. She’d worn black leather pants, high-heeled boots and a thin black top with no bra. Her short, dark hair framed her face in jagged wisps. She’d worn black eye shadow—too much of it—on her wide-set chocolate-brown eyes. She had


painted her Cupid’s bow lips with the sort of glossy, blood-red lipstick that would make a trail of her kisses look like a line of little wounds. Tonight, her face was bare. Her dark eyes were wide. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips were an almost rosy shade of pink. She had a gamine quality that belied everything he knew of her lethal nature. And she looked young, too young. He almost laughed at the thought—a man who had been born in an age where most people were married by thirteen and parents by fourteen worried over a woman who looked like she was well into her twenties. Besides, even if she were a crone with the memory of hundred summers behind her, she would still be young by comparison. He had watched civilizations rise and fall. He had stolen the treasures of a hundred ages. Time was a river that broke its path around him, carrying briefer, brighter lives away in the blink of an eye while he remained. But this small woman—this cold, old soul cast in hot, young flesh—pulled him into the current of time. He had endured eons, but she made him impatient. He wanted her with an urgency he had no right to. An immortal had no need to rush. Yet he craved her with an immediacy that had compelled him to take her when he should have tempted her, to seize what he might have seduced. Now, Arden was his captive. Angered and aroused, there was murder in her eyes. But Aniketos didn’t doubt he would prevail. He had seduced a thousand women in his long life. Though the assassin was unlike those others in almost every respect, she had one thing in common with her predecessors. She would yield. He smiled at the prospect.

Arden couldn’t stand the way her captor looked at her—cool, assessing, amused. She lashed out and raked her nails along the inside of his arm, digging in to break his skin. He didn’t so much as flinch. With a grimace of sick fascination, she watched as the marks she had scored faded before her eyes. His raspy whisper broke on a rumble of laughter. “You cannot harm me.” But she could hurt him. She whipped her head to the side and sank her teeth into his forearm. She bit down hard, tearing at his skin like a wolf tearing into a fresh haunch of meat. His blood ran over her cheeks and chin. Her mouth filled with the hot, coppery taste of him. He wrapped his free hand around her throat and squeezed. She coughed as she struggled to breathe, spattering his hand and face with a fine red mist of his blood. He didn’t ease his grip. She unclenched her teeth. She felt dizzy, high on adrenaline and low on oxygen. He leaned toward her until his face was centimeters from hers. She struck at him with her hands and kicked with her legs, but each blow was weaker than the last as she struggled for air. He watched her, calmly observing the signs of her suffocation. She wondered if he meant to watch her die. Turnabout was fair play, but she wouldn’t be back for an encore after her curtain fell.


His lips parted. She thought he would speak. He pressed his mouth against her jaw and licked his blood from her skin. His tongue was warm and wet, gentle as his hand was cruel. He licked her lips and she parted them. They kissed. It was hot and bloody, just like the first time. Arden felt like she was floating. It was probably lack of oxygen, but oh, what a way to go. He released his grip on her neck and used his hands to brace her arms beside her body while she was still dizzy from the sudden inrush of air. Lips still locked to hers, he pushed her back against the cold plaster wall and used his body to pin her there. Arden couldn’t help herself and didn’t want to. She rocked her hips against his body and met his tongue with hers. She moaned as he lifted her up to cup her hips against the hard length of his arousal. When he let go of her left arm so he could unfasten his pants, she didn’t fight him. She snaked her arm around his back, tugging at his shirt, desperate to touch his bare skin. He released her other arm so that he could lift her hips and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She savored the feel of his cock pressed between their writhing bodies, rubbing up against her shaved pussy, tantalizingly close to her clit. She canted her hips against the smooth, hard length of his erection, teasing her clit with the feel of him even as he tried to lift her to thrust his cock into her wet, ready pussy. They wanted the same thing but they were still fighting each other, each trying to touch and taste and take without giving too much in return. Brute strength won out in a matter of seconds. Arden felt no shame in the loss. He wasn’t gentle, but Arden had no use for gentle men. He impaled her in one hard thrust. She gasped, lightheaded from her struggles, stretched by his sheer size, aroused by his fierce strength. He was overwhelming, unrelenting, delivering each thrust like a blow. The old plaster wall cracked and crumbled against her back, and still he kept on. She opened her eyes and found him watching her, his gaze calm and clear. She raised her chin. “Do it again.” “What do you want?” She raised her chin higher, baring her neck like a sacrifice. His calm demeanor shattered and his body stilled as he held her gaze. His eyes narrowed. He wrapped his hand around her neck. There was nothing calm about his gaze now. He watched her with a madman’s intensity, weighing and judging her every physical response. She was choking, dying as he fucked her. His body moved. His keen eyes watched. His hand tightened on her throat. She came like a lightning strike, her body electric with pleasure even as her lungs screamed for air. Orgasm rocked her again, eating up the oxygen in her blood, echoing across her nerve-endings until her vision started to go black.


He released his hand. She sucked in a breath and came all over again. Life and Death and everything in between! Her nerves snapped with sensation, each breath brought a new wave of pleasure. Her hips rocked weakly against him as a rasping moan of satisfaction trickled from her bruised throat. He groaned as he slammed into her three more times. The muscles in his back tightened beneath her hands and he came with a shuddering curse that sounded like it had been forced out of him. She blacked out, but only for a moment. When she came to, he was carrying her across an expanse of soft gray carpet. She considered fighting him, but her muscles were weak and shaky—she was in no shape to win. He laid her down on black silk sheets. Was this the same bed in which she had murdered him just hours before? The windows were sealed tight with steel shutters, and she guessed that the doors outside were similarly secured. He stood to leave her. She grabbed his hand. Her grasp was weak, but he stayed to listen anyway. “Why didn’t you die?” Her voice was rough and her throat hurt. He flashed a toothy grin and leaned close to her ear as though he was about to reveal something of great import. “Magic.” She groaned. “I didn’t ask for a bedtime story.” “Perhaps you should get one. Do not ask me questions if you do not want my answers.” She struggled to get up but he pressed her arms into the bed on either side of her body. “There once was a very clever Thief…”

There was once a very clever Thief whom no lock could stop and no trap could catch. When there was nothing left in the world of men to challenge him, he decided to steal from the gods. He scaled the ziggurat that led to their glass heaven and climbed over the golden gates to paradise. The gods were petulant and petty. They were so caught up in their intrigues and squabbles they didn’t notice the Thief sneak past them. The Thief stole the key to Life and Death and hung it on a chain around his neck. With the key in his possession, Pain could not touch the Thief, Time could not age him, and Death could not hold him. Every time Death dragged the Thief across its threshold, he simply unlocked the door between Life and Death and walked right back out. The Thief was bathing in a river one day when the gods looked down from their heaven and saw the key to Life and Death hanging from a tarnished chain around his neck. They dragged him up the chipped, untended steps of their ziggurat to the wind-pitted halls of their glass heaven. Men had found other gods to worship in the last thousand years and these gods were as fragile as old papyrus, brittle and slowly crumbling to dust. True to form, they immediately started bickering about the best way to punish the thief. Finally,


the youngest god, who was something of a trickster, said, “Our power on this plane is fading, and when Death returns to take back the key, we shall be no more. Who better to keep it safe for us than the only man to ever steal it?” The gods cursed the Thief to guard the key. In time, the gods’ statues crumbled. Men forgot them and their heaven shattered when it fell to earth. But the key to Life and Death never faded, nor did the Thief who guards it still.”

Chapter Three The next morning, Aniketos’ prisoner stabbed him in the back with a steak knife while he was eating breakfast. She was silent in her approach, as befitted a professional. When she struck, the blow was sure and true. She pierced his lung and he coughed blood into his coffee before he reached back to pull the knife out. He turned from the dining room table to find her watching him, dark eyes alert for any sign of weakness. She was naked and feral as any animal, and beautiful because of it. She was taller than average for a woman, but slightly built. Her body was lithely muscled and long of limb, with high breasts, a narrow waist and slim hips. Her wrists and ankles were delicate, and her elegant neck was bracketed with a string of bruises in the shape of his hand. He wanted her again. Aniketos looked down at the knife he had pulled out of his back and shook his head. If he remembered correctly, these knives were part of a set of eight. She had four more clasped in her left hand. “It has been more than a day since you came here. You must be hungry.” He turned and walked to the platter of cut fruit on the sideboard. He scooped some into a bowl, and cut a piece of brown bread to go with it. “You have likely been over the flat several times looking for a way out and found nothing. Sit down and eat. You can try to kill me again later, if you like.” She didn’t like to be patronized. He dodged the first knife she threw, but the second glanced off his shoulder, cutting a shallow gash that healed before the knife even hit the ground. “Coffee?” he inquired, pouring a cup. She set her remaining knives flat on the blue-green glass tabletop and regarded him in silence. He slid the bowl and the coffee cup across the table to her. She sniffed the food as though she suspected it was drugged. Aniketos poured himself a new cup of coffee, cut a slice of bread, and sat down to eat. She watched him, dark eyes assessing. Finally, she gulped down a couple of bites of bread and drained the coffee cup in a matter of seconds. A drop of coffee spilled down her chin and onto her bare breast. He kept his face impassive, but beneath the table, his cock stood at attention. What had possessed him to keep her naked? He shifted in his seat to accommodate his growing erection. Question answered. He undid the buttons of his shirt, shrugged it off and tossed it across the table to her. “Cover yourself.” She nodded and shoved her arms into the sleeves. Her hand caught in the tear on the shoulder that her knife had made but her face remained impassive. If she felt any remorse for attacking him, she kept it well


hidden. She took another bite of bread and watched him. He drank his coffee and finished his bowl of fruit. She watched him the whole time. Her gaze wavered at times, falling from his face to his bare chest. Her chewing slowed, her breathing quickened. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to kill him or fuck him, though he wouldn’t have been surprised to discover she wanted both. She broke the silence. “If Sevastien Aniketos is just a name you created as bait to trap me, then who are you?” “A thief, a trickster, a dishonorable man—the kind your mother warned you about.” He winked and gave her his naughtiest smile. “Mother?” She laughed. “Cold-blooded bitches like me are hatched, not born.” She crossed her arms in front of her. The sleeves of his shirt fell past her hands. She looked anything but cold-blooded. He regarded her for one long moment before he spoke. “Tell me about Darkriver’s Hatcheries.” “Hatcheries?” Arden shook her head. “You said it yourself, you were hatched. It is not an accidental phrase. One of the founders of Darkriver Corporation was a former CIA behavioral psychologist named William Payne. A memo Payne wrote to his superiors at the Agency contains the phrase, ‘True killers are hatched, not born’.” “Fascinating.” Arden leaned her chin on her hand and stared wide-eyed at him in an exaggerated imitation of rapt attention. The next second, the expression slid from her face like rain from a windowpane. “I thought you said you were a thief. Why concern yourself with the CIA and spy business?” “These days, information is a treasure well worth stealing.” Aniketos smiled as he spoke. He always smiled when he spoke of thievery. He schooled his face into a sterner expression before continuing. “I know about Payne’s plans to use behavioral and cerebral modification to create the perfect killer. I know the CIA cut him loose because his process only worked on children and young adolescents who fit certain rare physical and cognitive parameters—and even the Agency couldn’t countenance that. “When Payne left the CIA, he teamed up with a billionaire arms dealer and a former Agency handler to start an international private security firm headquartered in Dark River City, in the U.S. He used his new funding and autonomy to set up his Hatcheries, and began to steal children who met the necessary parameters for his program.” Arden looked away and muttered, “What part ofI don’t know , don’t you understand?” “He stole you from your family, Arden. You, and countless others. And he got away with it because he stole children from ordinary families who did not have the knowledge or the resources to undertake a global search. But three years ago, he fucked up. He stole the wrong child. He stole the son of a man with the contacts, the resources, and the ruthlessness to declare war on Darkriver and win.” “I don’t care if this guy Payne stole the baby Jesus. I’m telling you, I don’t know a thing about it.” She fidgeted in her seat. There was no conviction in her protestation of ignorance. The Hatcheries were not


just a subject she knew, they were something she feared. He could see her façade of bravado crumbling. It showed in the uneasy movements of her body, the shy way she avoided his gaze. She was, perhaps, beginning to realize that he knew more about her employers than she did. “I want to know where you were hatched, Arden. This boy’s parents have been searching for three years. Information you possess could reunite them.” She turned to face him, her brown eyes narrow and shrewd. Perhaps she had finally decided to drop her unconvincing mien of ignorance. “What makes you so sure this child’s parents would want him back? In the three years he’s been gone, Darkriver’s doctors have mapped the neural pathways of his brain, eradicated links in his memory and excised all but the most necessary degree of empathy. “He won’t remember his name. He won’t remember his parents. He won’t be their child anymore. He’ll be a monster—without remorse, disdainful of love, craving only physical sensation and the satisfaction of a clean kill.” “Is that all you are? A monster?” “Darkriver casts all its killers in the same vicious image. I’m no different.” Aniketos suppressed a smirk. He knew Arden was lying—but did she know it? She was not like Darkriver’s other killers. If she had been, he would not have wanted her so fiercely. “You say you are not different, but you have lived where countless other of Darkriver’s assassins died—most by their third or fourth mission. There must be something different about you.” “I belong to Darkriver, same as all the rest.” Aniketos regarded his prisoner for a long moment. He had lived eons, minutes meant nothing to him. But minutes were life for her, time ticking away from a finite span of years. She fidgeted in her seat, struggling to hold his gaze. Her cheeks were pink, her lips were rosy. Her nipples were hard little points beneath the soft fabric of the shirt he had given her. He wanted her again. He wanted her body beneath him, fighting him, yielding to him. He wanted her loyalty and her ferocity. He wanted every second of her—up until the very last. He wanted her the way Darkriver had her—soul deep and to the marrow of her bones. And he would have her. But first, he needed the information. “Tell me where the Darkriver Corporation keeps its stolen children.” She looked away, yielding though she didn’t know it. “I’ve already told you too much. Anything else, you’ll have to pull out of me.” He stood. “Come. We both know you can withstand any method of physical torture I devise. What you cannot endure is the dissonance between your training and your desires. When you tell me what I want to know, it will be by your choice.” He turned to leave the dining room. He heard the muffled whisper of her footsteps rushing toward him, and then she was on him.


She knew where to strike. Her small fists slammed into his back, above his kidneys, like rubber bullets. She broke his knee with a sharp kick and he fell to the carpet. He waited for the bite of the knife, but her hands were empty. He kicked her feet from under her and she landed on the carpet beside him. Her advantage was her speed and agility. She should have rolled away from him and delivered darting blows from a distance. Instead, she launched herself at him, wrestling him even though he had the advantage of size and strength. He pinned her to the carpet with his body. His face was inches from hers. He could feel her heart pounding in her chest. “This is becoming a familiar position.” She struggled, but didn’t answer. “You could have brought the knives, Arden. You know I have an advantage in hand-to-hand, yet you chose to face me unarmed. Did you want to lose?” She tried to head-butt him, but he leaned aside, rolling her over until she was atop him with her legs straddling his hips and her naked pussy pressed against the place where his erection strained against his pants. She made a sound that was a little like a moan and he rolled her under him again. He levered himself up with one arm and ran his free hand down the length of her torso. He pushed the edge of the shirt aside to bare her shaved pussy. He traced her cleft and plunged his finger into her. She was slick and hot. He crooked his finger and her body trembled. Her reaction told him she had been ready for quite some time. Even as she had glared at him over her breakfast, she must have been wet. Even as she had declared herself a monster, she had wanted him. He could have taken her right on the table, spread her out on that hard bed of blue-green glass, that small piece of heaven. She writhed under him and he pressed his mouth to hers. She tasted of bread and coffee—his food—and she wore his shirt. Still, he would be a fool to think she was his. Claiming Arden would be like closing his fist on a handful of water. Too bad knowing didn’t stop him from wanting. He tore the shirt open now, baring her breasts to his gaze again, taking control while he could. He grabbed her wrists and pressed her hands into the carpet on either side of her body. He braced his weight on his hands, immobilizing her arms while he bowed his head to take her berry-like nipple into his mouth. She shuddered at the first touch of his tongue and groaned when he began to suckle. She was sensitive, despite her brutal nature. She responded to the softest touches, trembled at every new exploration of his tongue. He licked lower, tracing a trail down over the smooth skin of her belly. He wanted to torture her with tenderness, to break her with licks and kisses. She wrested her left hand free of his grasp and yanked his head up by his hair. “No.” She lifted her chin and bared her bruised neck to him. He was tempted to take what she offered, to close his hand around her throat while he fucked her, to


feel the panicked palpitations of her body as she suffocated. But he knew the power she offered him was merely an illusion. She was fast, ruthless and trained to kill. She could free herself at any moment. She wanted him, but she didn’t want to admit it. She had attacked him in order to let herself be caught. He shook his head and sat back on his heels. “No. This is not your preference. This is not what you do with the men you seduce on Saturday nights.” She reared back, eyes wide. “You really did watch me.” “All the better to catch you.” “And what did you see?” “I watched you pick up men. You catch their gaze and lick your lips. You approach and they are lost. “You take them home and fuck them. You kiss their lips and bodies. You suck their dicks and ride them until dawn. You have never made them fight you, choke you, hold you down. Do you think taking it rough means you did not want it? Your hungry eyes and wet cunt tell a truer tale.” She pulled his shirt closed over her breasts and glared at him. “Oh, yeah, Ibegged you to take me prisoner and fuck me.” “You are not in control of the situation, but you are still responsible for your desires. I have taken many things that do not belong to me, but I have never taken a woman against her will.” He stood and walked to the doorway. The next time he fucked her, Aniketos vowed, he would make her beg first. He turned and met her eyes. “The choice is yours, Arden. Come to me when you are ready to tell me about the Hatcheries. Come to me when you are ready to give me what I want.”

Arden watched him go, unsure what to do next. She clutched the shirt more tightly around herself, only to be discomfited by the way the soft fabric slid across her sensitized skin. It smelled like him, like sandalwood and smoke. He had finally revealed what he wanted from her, but it didn't make him any less of a mystery. Aniketos didn’t strike her as a sentimental man. If anything, she suspected his emotions were as warped and stunted as her own. Why would he go to such trouble to find a stolen child? Why did he want information about the Hatcheries? She had precious little information to give him. She had returned to the Hatcheries only once after completing her training, and that visit had been quite against her will.

London Three years earlier


“Why the hell was I called in from Macau?” Arden demanded as she paced the length of the elevator car. “I didn’t spend a month cozying up to that fat old gambler just to be ordered back to headquarters the day before I’m set to wrap a rope around his wrinkled neck.” “You’re needed here at the Hatcheries.” Eden had never been long on explanations. “The Hatcheries? Have the little vipers been chewing on their babysitters again? If so, don’t think to use me to fill the position. I bite back.” “We have a special case.” Eden’s voice was calm as the doldrums and as sweet as poisoned syrup. “The kid has been through the treatments, memory modification, cerebral restructure, but it didn’t take the way we expected. There’s something odd about his brain. The programming isn’t sticking. We need him to make the Choice.” “And all of a sudden, I’m some sort of specialist?” “The programming didn’t take so well on you, either. The psych team was this close to putting a bullet in your brain when I convinced them to let you make the Choice.” “Ah yes, the Choice.” Arden shook her head as she watched the floors tick by on the elevator’s display panel. Down, down, down. They had set her up to kill—to believe she had killed—and then offered her the Choice to join Darkriver. By the time she discovered the deception, she had become the killer she’d thought herself to be when she’d Chosen. There was no going back. “There’s no more zealous a sinner,” Eden once explained, “than a fallen saint. Convince a decent man that he is damned, and he will make a devil of himself to ease the pain of Hell.” The best of Darkriver’s assassins were special cases like Arden who’d had to make the Choice. The programmed agents lacked creativity, determination. They followed orders because they were unable to disobey. They were easily caught, easily killed and easily replaced. But the assassins who had Chosen Darkriver, they were clever devils, one and all. The elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors slid open. An antiseptic white hallway awaited them. “You’re an old hand at the Choice, Eden. What do you need me for?” Eden grinned. “You’re my protégé, aren’t you?” Arden shook her head. “You know I don’t work with kids. They give me the creeps.” “I wasn’t asking.” Arden sighed. “Lead on.” White hallways led to more white hallways. The air smelled of disinfectant. The hums and beeps of medical machinery were the only sounds. Arden suppressed a shiver as a ghost of memory washed over her. She had been here, she knew it. The memory had been excised from her brain, but the emotions of the experience lingered. Pain, fear and confusion.


Could she bring someone else into such a life? She had already made her Choice. She had lied and killed and broken every law of human decency. Why quibble at this? And besides, this choice, like every choice Darkriver had offered her, was really no choice at all. If she refused, they would kill her. They would kill the kid, too. Perhaps she was doing it a favor. Saving the kid’s life…by turning it into a killer. Eden led her into an observation room and gestured to a pane of one-way glass. The boy was sedated—laid out on a white bed beneath a white blanket in a white room. His thin brown arms were above the blanket. Someone had set him up like a corpse at a funeral parlor and folded his hands atop his chest. Someone had a sense of humor. His left hand was covered in a wash of red. An injury? Arden looked closer. Not an injury—a birthmark the color of dried blood. “You’ll have to remove the birthmark,” Arden observed. “It’s too distinctive.” “It doesn’t respond to laser therapy,” Eden replied. “His attending physician said the only way to get rid of it would be to take off the hand.” “Identifying marks are against protocol.” “Don’t think you can get out of this by citing protocols. Talent trumps protocol. The kid won’t be the first special case we’ve had, and his birthmark will be a hell of a lot easier to hide than that knife Keris has tattooed on the back of his neck.” She shivered at Eden’s mention of one of Darkriver’s other top assassins. She had worked with Keris once. Arden liked her kills close and clean, but Keris was a madman—he took on his targets with no planning, no forethought. He attacked with nothing but a knife in his hand and murder on his mind. He fought like a berserker and emerged from each assignment covered in his victims’ blood, smiling as serenely as a plaster saint—smiling as though he hadn’t just butchered every living thing unlucky enough to have seen his face. “Keris never leaves witnesses alive to report his identifying marks.” “This kid won’t leave witnesses, either. You’ll train him to be ruthless, if you know what’s good for you. The Director signed off on him, personally.” No one refused the Director—no one who wanted to continue living. And if Arden refused, the Director would probably send Keris after her before assigning him to mentor the kid. She imagined the boy’s face, wild-eyed and spattered with blood. She imagined not one, but two bloodthirsty berserkers loose in the world. If she agreed to Eden’s order, Arden could save both her own life, and the kid’s sanity. It was a win-win situation—except for the kid’s eventual victims. And, Arden told herself, if his victims were given a choice in the method of their own inevitable demise, they would undoubtedly prefer the sure strength of a garrote or the cool kiss of a bullet to the brain over the undulating edge and hooked tip of Keris’s favorite knife. She sighed and returned her attention to the boy. He was gangly, smooth-cheeked, still very much a


child despite his height. Twelve, perhaps. Other than the birthmark, he would do. With his café-au-lait skin, black hair and Eurasian features, he would blend into the populaces of India, Europe or the Americas. She took a deep breath. “When do we start?” “Whenever you’re ready.” “Then let’s get this over with,” Arden grumbled. “I don’t like kids.” “You had best learn to like this one. He’ll be your protégé, same as you’re mine.” “He has that much potential?” “Darling,” Eden brushed Arden’s shaggy bangs out of her eyes with an almost maternal gesture, “he’ll be better than both of us.”

She walked out of the dining room and into the hallway beyond. Aniketos had turned left, Arden went right, following the stark white hall that circuited the penthouse, taking the path that would lead her away from him. The exterior doors and windows were still sealed with steel security shutters. The walls and floors were thick, solid concrete. There was no way she could escape Aniketos’ trap, but that didn’t mean she would stop looking for a way out. She went more slowly this time, observing everything around her as she went. The flat was decorated in a minimalist style, with strange ornate flourishes. The carpeting was gray, the furniture was black, and the walls were white, but every tabletop, counter and interior door was made of opaque blue-green glass edged in gilt. The light fixtures, chandeliers and faceted doorknobs were made of the transparent version of the same glass. Old-fashioned, two-dimensional paintings, drawings and tapestries hung on every wall. Every corner housed small sculptures chipped out of rock or cast in bronze. Each item was cared for and carefully preserved. The place was a treasure trove of stolen art. An opaque glass door at the end of the hallway led from the living quarters to the more public areas of the penthouse. She passed through a great room with a two-story ceiling, a white marble floor, and thick black couches arranged around a massive fireplace with a mantle of carved black stone. The wall behind the fireplace was mirrored from floor to ceiling—the better to reflect light from the far wall which was nothing but windows—or would have been windows if not for the armor plating of steel security grates that blocked out even the smallest hint of light. To Arden’s left, a marble-tiled foyer ended at a pair of embossed bronze doors that had to be at least four meters tall. Arden knew the doors would be locked, but she couldn’t stop herself from tugging on the massive bronze handles, just in case. The doors didn’t budge. The hall continued on the other side of the room, and she followed it. She tried the first door she came to. The faceted glass knob turned freely under her hand. The door opened into a library with row after row of airtight temperature-controlled shelves. The youngest book


she recognized was at least three hundred years old, dating back to when people regularly printed and read books on paper. She searched the shelves of the library for any information that might help her. She found all manner of antique secrets and occult bullshit. In the pages of a four-hundred-year-old book on lock mechanisms, she found a yellowed scrap of cigarette paper with a simple formula scrawled in pencil beneath the title How to Turn Lead into Gold . “Useless.” She shoved the paper back into the book and left the library to search the remaining rooms. She needed a weapon. The next room held an array of sophisticated computer equipment. All of the machines were security controlled with biometric identification systems. She would find no help here. She crossed this room from her mental list and moved on. The third door led to a short, dark hall. The air in the hall was cold and damp. She pushed open the steel door at the other end. The basement room lay beyond, with its crumbling plaster walls and single metal chair bolted to the center of the floor. Her free hand curled into a fist. Darkriver didn’t have a monopoly on set dressing and mind games. The final room was set up like an archaeologist’s workroom. It was a labyrinth of pedestals and waist-height work tables containing fragments of pottery, broken bits of tarnished bronze, sandy shards of shattered glass, crumbling scrolls and crude little idols made of shell and clay. She checked the drawers beneath the worktables and found all manner of textiles—old handmade American quilts, Baroque European brocades, serapes, colorful kente cloth, swathes of patterned cashmere, ornate Japanese kimono, Indian sari silk, ancient scraps of cloth-of-gold. She tucked the swath of red sari silk beneath her arm. It would do for clothing after she bathed. There was a writing desk in the far corner. It was crowded with books and pens and paper. There was a crumbling old book lying open on the table, which, in turn, contained a photograph of an ancient clay tablet. Beside the book was an open notebook with handwriting stretching halfway down the page. Arden frowned at it. She hadn’t known people wrote things by hand anymore. She frowned and tried to puzzle out the looping, connected letters. There was once a very clever Thief whom no lock could stop and no trap could catch. When there was nothing left in the world of men to challenge him, he decided to steal from the gods. He scaled the ziggurat that led to their glass heaven and climbed over the golden gates to paradise. The words sounded familiar—as though she’d heard them before. She shook her head. “Fairytales.” She rolled her eyes. Gods and thieves and magic, what a waste of time. She had no time for the silly myths that silly people once believed. She needed a way out or a way to kill Aniketos—preferably both. She sneaked into the bedroom. The bed was empty, but the door to the bathroom was ajar. She crept up to it and peeked through the gap at the reflection in the heated mirror above the sinks. She saw the shower area reflected in the mirror. Aniketos was there, naked and surrounded by steam, his back to the mirror. The noise of the shower would cover the sound of her approach when she attacked him. Surprise would tip the odds in her favor.


But, God and the Devil, he was beautiful. She should have acted, but she watched him instead. She ran her gaze down his body, from his slick black hair to his wide shoulders to his long, strong arms and muscled back. His ass was a hard curve of muscles and his thighs were thick with sinewy strength. She felt a perverse thrill at watching him naked. He had stripped her bare and kept her that way, letting his eyes roam as he pleased. She had never seen his naked body. He hadn’t even taken off all of his clothes when he’d fucked her. Arden didn’t care if she was acting like a voyeur; this view was long overdue. Her nipples were tight. She put her hands beneath her shirt and cupped her breasts. A thrill of desire shot through her body. She savored the smooth, wet feel of her body’s response. She squeezed her nipples before sliding her right hand down to her pussy. Her clit was already aroused, and the first pass of her hand sent a shudder of pleasure through her body. She didn’t need to imagine her hand belonged to someone else, or that she was in some other situation. Reality was arousing enough. Arden had to admit there was a definite erotic appeal in watching a naked man who had no idea she was there. He turned around to tilt his hair back under the shower. Arden licked her lips. She wanted to take her time looking at him, to admire his muscled chest and ridged abs, to appreciate the lean, masculine beauty of his legs—but his cock made her mouth water. She couldn’t look anywhere else. He was shaved, and his sac hung heavily behind his penis. Even semi-erect, his cock was as thick as her wrist and long enough to hit all the right spots. She plunged a finger into herself and pressed the heel of her hand against her clit. She was close. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensation. Her hands worked while she kept her ears attuned to the continued din of the shower. A wet hand closed around her wrist. She opened her eyes and Aniketos filled her vision. He was silent as she looked him over. She ran her gaze the length of his wet body before returning to his hot eyes. “You are too twisted to resist.” He peeled the shirt from her body. “I had planned to make you beg me.” He grabbed her shoulders and wrapped his hot, wet arms around her. Beads of warm water dripped from his hair onto her skin, sliding down her back and over her breasts like a phantom touch. She raised her face to his. He kissed her. She opened her mouth and slid her tongue between his hungry lips. She snaked her arms around his back and pressed her bare breasts against his wet, naked chest. Slowly, he urged her back toward the bed. It was a halting journey. Every breath pressed his hard chest against her sensitive nipples. Their hands and arms jostled for position, each seeking to touch without care for the other’s explorations. Their legs tangled together, skin sliding against wet skin. She lost her balance when her legs came up against the bed. He held her up, keeping her body pressed


to his for one long moment before letting her fall back onto the bed. He moved to cover her body with his, but she sat up and pushed his chest back with her hand until he was standing again. Arden leaned down and ran her tongue along his cock. His muscles tensed. She opened wide and sucked the head of his penis between her lips. She pressed her tongue against the sensitive head, and slid her mouth up the length of him. She took as much of him as she could with her mouth and wrapped her hand around the base of his cock. When he groaned, she knew she had him right where she wanted him. She slid back down his cock, and pulled her sucking mouth from the wide head of it with a pop. She waited. He looked down at her, his pale blue eyes bright with anger and arousal. “You will not control me.” That’s what you think.Arden lay down across the bed, leaning her head back over the edge so she could see him. Even upside down, the man looked good. His cock was still wet with her saliva. She licked her lips. Saints and sinners, she wanted that cock back in her mouth. She wanted to suck him off, to fuck him with her mouth and throat. She wanted the taste of him on her tongue, the scent of him in her lungs. She wanted to take control of his every sensation, to hold the most sensitive part of his body mere millimeters from her teeth. She wanted the satisfaction of making him come. She moved her hands to her body, running them down her sides, and back up to her breasts. She caught his gaze and smiled. “Watch me.”

Aniketos looked down at Arden as she lay on his bed. Her long, slim body was spread out like a banquet before him. Her golden skin glowed against the black silk sheets. The angle of her head emphasized her long, slender neck. He had no doubt she knew exactly what she was doing; that she was displaying her body to tempt him, to pull him under her control. She was as cagey and conniving as she was beautiful and dangerous. And soon she would be his. She licked her lips, those soft pink lips. Her lips were such an innocent color, the rosy pink of a virgin bride. He remembered the way her lips had looked wrapped around his cock, a wicked combination of innocence and sin. “Are you watching?” Her voice was breathy. She wanted to control him, but she seemed barely in control of herself. She had been on the brink of orgasm when he’d caught her masturbating, and he didn’t think she was so far from it now that a few well-placed touches wouldn’t put her over the edge. She cupped her breasts with her hands, pressing them together while catching the nipples between her index fingers and thumbs. She made an enticing picture, and she smiled like she knew it. She kept her dark eyes on him, watching, assessing. She parted her lips and arched her back, thrusting her breasts up and her head further back over the edge of the bed. She slid one hand down her body to touch her cunt. She parted the lips there, stroking


herself as he watched. His heartbeat was loud, his erection was almost painful. He knew he was watching her too closely. More than one of his previous lovers had noted the unnerving intensity of his gaze, the way his passions bordered on obsession. But obsession was part of his nature. What else could see a man through long centuries while everyone he knew and loved aged and died? He wanted. He took what he wanted. What else was there? Right now, he wanted Arden. She was what he thought about, what he craved. She was as rare as any treasure he had ever stolen—beautiful and dangerous, a creature he longed to tame, though he knew her feral nature was the heart of her appeal. The only way to extinguish such an obsession was to sate it. He wanted her to yield completely, to grant him mastery of her body and soul. She met his gaze with a challenge in her eyes. She plunged one finger into herself. It emerged wet and glistening. “Still planning to make me beg?” He recognized her position. Her head tilted back to make an even line from her lips to her throat. It was the same technique sword-swallowers used to perform their amazing feats. Aniketos heard himself say, “I believe I have reconsidered.” She reached back over her head, arching her back still further and motioned him forward with a crook of her index finger. He moved closer, and closer still, at the tempting insistence of her imperious gesture. Soon, the bobbing head of his cock was mere centimeters from her mouth. She extended her tongue and licked the tip of it even as her hand on his hip guided him closer. His cock slid between her soft lips. She urged him further. Her tongue worked him as he slid his cock into the warm, wet haven of her mouth. He groaned as he began to move his hips, to fuck her mouth. He looked at her body, spread out before him. Her high breasts were just big enough to fill his hands. Her hand roamed over her own body, caressing her breasts, teasing her clit. She drove him mad, displaying her body while she sucked his cock. Did she know what she was doing to him? She made a sound, a low, smug hum that ran the length of his cock and settled into his spine. She knew.

Arden would have smiled if her mouth had not been otherwise occupied. Her left hand rested on Aniketos’ hip, guiding his movements, holding him off so she could tease him with her tongue then urging his cock deep into her throat. A fine tremor ran through the muscles beneath her hand. His breathing sounded hard and heavy. He was close, so close. “Arden.” One word—her name was both command and capitulation. Ah, that was it. That was what she wanted to hear.


She opened wide and slid him as deep as he would go. He slid away and she sucked him hard. She touched herself while she sucked him, her free hand taking up the course he had interrupted with his sudden appearance. His body tensed, his pulse pounding toward orgasm. His hips moved fast, fucking her mouth, shoving the wide head of his cock deep into her throat again and again. Her eyes watered with the effort of controlling her reflexes even as her body hummed with satisfaction at his loss of control. His hips stiffened, and his hands curled into fists. His cock swelled, pumping hot, salty come into her throat and mouth. She held him between her lips for a heartbeat before she slid her mouth from his shaft, licked her lips, and swallowed the evidence of her victory. She couldn’t keep the smile from her face as she looked up at him. There was a flush beneath the bronze of his skin and his pale eyes were heavy-lidded from his release. He met her smile with one of his own. He walked around to the opposite side of the bed, grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her forward so her head was resting on top of the mattress. He wedged his leg between her knees and knelt between her legs. He ran one hand up her body and pressed it between her breasts to hold her down as he pressed his lips against her belly. She was tired but still aroused. He parted her labia and put his tongue on her. His movements were long and slow, building up pleasure in layers until her body relaxed for him. He took his time, stoking her fires with long slow licks and then letting her ebb so he could tease her again. Minutes passed. The madness crept up on Arden slowly. Each time his tongue retreated, her body tensed, her hips arched up toward his lips. She was so close, balanced on a tightrope of spun glass. He suckled her clit, and retreated. She fisted her hand into his hair and pulled his head back to her. She heard a muffled laugh beneath the sound of his sucking. He pressed two fingers into her pussy, crooked them and pressed against her clit with his tongue. She shattered. She was flying and falling at the same time. She had never felt more alive or more afraid. He kept on her as her body shook, pushing her harder until her pleasure broke like a wave from a stormy sea. She trembled and shuddered as his ragged breath raged in and out of him. She still heard the shower above the noise of her pounding heart. And that keening moan, like a teakettle coming to a boil, was that her voice? He lifted his mouth from her, covered her body with his. She felt his hands on her pussy, guiding the wide head of his cock into the still-quivering heart of her. He was hard again, and merciless in his conquest, piercing her deepest places, pushing her body to a relentless crescendo. Desperate to regain control of her body, she caught her breath and held it until blue-white lights burst to life behind her eyelids—a galaxy of stars, the very color of his eyes. She lost hold of an instant—or was it an hour? Her body took the breath she had denied it and exploded into another orgasm as if to spite her. Dizzy and confused, she opened her eyes. He was still moving above her, inside her. She watched the scar over his heart move up and down as he pushed himself to climax. She raised her eyes to his face.


He was watching her. He had been watching her the whole time, waiting for her to look at him, waiting for this connection. His gaze was steady as a madman’s, she couldn’t look away. She wanted to look away. His eyes were too intimate, like he thought fucking meant something beyond mutual satisfaction. Like he thought taking her meant owning her. She was half afraid it did. Looking into his eyes, Arden imagined she saw something of herself in them—steady madness, amoral obsession, and unquenchable desire. An indelible synchronicity their opposing loyalties could not erase. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her. She feared he saw too much. His body shuddered with release, but he still watched her. She closed her eyes to shut him out. When she let sleep take her, she saw his face in her dreams.

Chapter Four Arden awoke to her third day of captivity with an atypical languor. Instead of jumping out of bed, she savored the feel of the silk sheets against her naked skin. She stretched, arching her back and enjoying the delicious soreness of her muscles. She didn’t know how many times Aniketos had taken her, or how long she had slept. She only knew that every time she woke, he had been there, watching her, ready with his hands and his tongue and his never-failing cock to fuck her until she forgot how to speak. And when her body was wrung of pleasure, he’d used his big, clever hands to massage her muscles. He had searched out every sensitive part of her, exploring her reactions, imprinting his touch on every centimeter of her skin. He had kneaded this deep languor into her body, used his hands to press this strange new sense of physical contentment right into her pores. He had made her crave him. What a devious man. Her stomach growled hard and twisted with hunger. Without Aniketos to distract her, she recalled that she had eaten only bread and fruit the previous day. She slid out of bed and washed quickly in the shower before going in search of food. She thought about pulling some of Aniketos’ clothes from the closet, but they smelled of sandalwood and smoke—the same subtle scent she remembered from his skin. She wrapped herself in the length of red silk she had found the previous day—a more difficult task than she had anticipated. She ended up wrapping the thing around her body several times and tucking the loose end into the top, above her breasts. The wide table of blue-green glass was empty when she arrived in the dining room. She continued on to the kitchen. Aniketos was there, his back to the door, cooking on an antique stainless steel gas stove. He was dressed much as he had been the previous morning—black pants and a loose-fitting gray button-front shirt. A smile tugged at her lips. She squelched the expression immediately. In only a few short hours, he had conditioned her body to react to his presence with pleasure, but Arden was not fool enough to mistake her sensations for feelings.


Darkriver had taught her to suppress her emotions, and like all her other lessons, she had taken it to heart. She had been trained to experience reactions instead of emotions. Where other people claimed to feel things in their heart or soul, Arden reacted with her body and mind. She felt pleasure instead of joy, rage in place of sorrow, and lust instead of love. So he gave you a good time, Arden told herself,that won’t stop you from killing him…as soon as you can figure out howto kill him. At the stove, Aniketos divided the contents of the frying pan onto two plates and turned to bring them to the dining room. He stopped when he saw her. She clutched the silk more tightly around her, but she didn’t look away from him. Despite the many different times and ways they had come together over the previous eighteen hours, the intensity of his pale gaze was unabated. He set the plates down on the counter and closed the distance between them. She watched him—her heart pounding—waiting for the instant he would touch her. His hands closed around her bare shoulders as he bent his head toward hers. Her stomach clenched with hunger, but she craved his touch more than she craved food. She opened her mouth and pressed her tongue against his. He tasted faintly of smoke again and of some salty food. His hands tugged the edge of the silk she had wrapped around herself and sent it sliding to her feet. She was naked again, pressed against him, her hands working furiously to part the buttons on his shirt so she could rub her aching nipples against his chest, so she could feel his heartbeat beneath her cheek. If he had made her crave him, then she had done the same to him. His clever hands were clumsy in their urgency, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she had far more immediate needs. She braced her hands on his chest and pushed him away. “God and the Devil, what have you done to me?” His breathing was harsh, but he answered with a wry smile, “I might ask the same of you. No matter how many times I take you, I do not have you. I do not have enough.” He pulled off his shirt and draped it over her shoulders. “I must find you some proper clothing.” He turned and retrieved her plate. “You should eat.” “You too.” She regretted the words the instant they came out of her mouth. They made it sound like she cared about him. Which she didn’t. The corners of his mouth quirked up into an amused smile. “I have been hungry before, it will hardly kill me.” She took her plate to the table before she looked at it. It contained an irregularly shaped piece of meat, a small mound of jumbled yellow matter and a pile of browned, burnt organic material. “What’s this food?” “Steak, eggs and hash browns—it was considered hearty breakfast fare the last time I was in the United


States. You are American, are you not?” “Who knows?” Darkriver picked operatives who would blend into the populations of their assigned locales. Darkriver had taught her to speak English like an American and Shanghainese like a native, but she had no memory of her life before Darkriver. She could have been from anywhere. She poked the steak with her fork and encountered something hard. “What’s this?” “The bone,” he answered, cutting into his own meat with one of the steak knives she had used as weapons the morning before. “You mean this steak came from an animal?” “A cow, to be precise.” She pushed her plate away. “That’s disgusting.” “Then I shall keep quiet about where the eggs came from.” “But you can buy perfectly decent vat-grown meat. Eating the flesh of animals is barbaric.” “And what is killing people for money?” She stretched her lips into a copy of his closemouthed smile, but didn’t say a word to answer him. He laughed, a quick, unwilling bark that made her want to grin with pride for having drawn it from him. He composed himself almost immediately. “You are already a barbarian, Arden. Stop complaining and eat.” Her stomach growled. She cut a piece of the steak and shoved it into her mouth before she could hesitate. It tasted good, like vat-grown meat but denser, less bland. Before she knew it, her plate was clean. She looked up and saw that Aniketos was still eating. She could not help but watch him. He was a mystery. He cut his steak one-handed, with deft precision, and used the end of his knife to bring each piece to his mouth. She knew from experience how agile his big, long-fingered hands could be. But beyond his manual dexterity, there was something economical about his movements. He seemed to complete every action with the least amount of movement and with absolute surety of its result. She had seen the same sort of grace in professional athletes who practiced the same set of moves over and over, day after day, over the course of years. Aniketos was like that, but to a much greater degree. Every movement he made had the same grace, as though he had a hundred years of practice for even the most mundane of tasks. “How old are you?” He stretched his firm lips into the closemouthed smile that told her more clearly than words that he did not intend to answer her question. “You would not believe me if I told you. You would accuse me of telling you tales.”


“Tell me.” “The truth is, I do not know. Counting the years of my life would be like counting the days in a decade—an exercise in minutiae.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.” “If you do not like my answers, do not ask me questions. I have questions of my own for you. Tell me about the Hatcheries.” She rolled her eyes. “We’re back to this again. Did you really think a hot fuck or six would make me spill my secrets?” “I may have entertained the thought. Would a seventh convince you?” “Nothingwill convince me. If you plan to torture me or to drug me, then take me back to that room you set up to look like a basement and get it over with. You still won’t get what you want.” “I have no need to torture you to get what I want.” “Oh?” She smirked at his conceit. “Darkriver will do it for me. You have been gone for three days, and I am still alive. They will assume you have failed the mission or betrayed them. Either way, they will not treat you kindly.” Arden felt the blood drain from her face. Darkriver had taught her to escape and to survive. They had taught her to kill and like it, and to withstand almost any torture. But above all, Darkriver’s most potent lesson had been this: do not fail or betray the Darkriver Corporation. The consequences were enough to make even the most callous of Darkriver’s killers tremble. She jumped to her feet and hurled her plate at him. The plate broke against his forehead, dragging a jagged cut into the skin above his brow. The cut had closed by the time he raised his hand to wipe the blood away. “You have been Darkriver’s loyal creature for almost two decades, yet they will repay your one and only failure with pain and death. Give me your loyalty instead. Tell me you are mine, and I will protect you from Darkriver’s reprisals forever.” “No.” Arden gathered the edges of his shirt around her and swept out of the room with as much dignity as a person could have when she wasn’t wearing any pants. She couldn’t escape, and she couldn’t kill her captor, but by God and the Devil and everything else she didn’t believe in, she could get herself some clothes. As resolutions went, it wasn’t earth-shaking, but it was a start. Once she was dressed, she’d figure out what to do about Aniketos’ offer. Arden knew it was in her best interests to give Aniketos the information he wanted. Too bad her best interests weren’t her only responsibility. She wasn’t a hero. She wasn’t even a good person. She was a killer, and she always would be. But she had saved a life once—she had saved a life by keeping a secret. If she left Darkriver, the company would


investigate all the things she’d left behind. And in a place so full of danger and distrust, secrets didn’t keep themselves.

London Three years earlier Arden waited in the dark for the sound of gunshots. How strange it was to find herself on the other side of this door, playing the role that Eden had played for her. She would save the boy from the policemen he believed were chasing him. She would tell him that she understood why he had killed the man with the pliers. She would offer understanding and safe haven at a place called Darkriver. And, after he took her hand, she would teach him to kill. A shot sounded in the hall beyond the door. She waited for the second shot, for the hurried thud of the child’s footsteps. There was no second shot, no footsteps. After silent minutes, Arden slid the hidden door open. The hall beyond was pitch black and cold as a Norwegian winter. She clicked on her flashlight. Her breath wound through the beam of light like steam. She heard a sound. A child crying. She followed it, playing her flashlight along the hall in front of her. Her beam passed across the boy. He was filthy—as she had been—bleeding and frightened. His black hair was a mess, his dark, almond-shaped eyes were wet with tears. “Ssssh,” she whispered. “Are you all right?” “I think I killed them,” the boy sobbed. The kid had a crisp British accent, like something out of a BBC miniseries. Little fucking Lord Fauntleroy. Too distinctive. She’d have to fix it. Arden reached him, put an arm around his shoulders, trying to feign sympathy and interest. “Killed who?” “The man with the pliers and the policemen who wanted to put me in jail.” Arden played her flashlight further along the hall. It found the first body, slumped and cold, without a mark on it. A few meters on, a second blue-uniformed body was crumpled against the wall. She shone the light on the floor beneath them, but there was no sign of injury or blood. Further down the hall, she spied a figure that appeared to be leaning against the wall. She played her light over it and saw that the body was held up by a jagged metal pole driven through the skull and into the wall behind it. Saints and sinners! The kid was a killer—natural-born and brutal. Maybe having a protégé wouldn’t be such a drag, after all. “How did you do this?” The boy offered her his closed left hand. The red birthmark wound outward from his palm like a bloodstain. She opened her hand beneath his and he dropped the contents of his fist into her palm. A


bullet. Now she really was interested. “How?” “I think about it, and things move. Only, it takes energy. I used the energy from the lights to get away from the man with the pliers. I tried to use the heat from the air to stop the policeman’s bullet, but the air was too cold. I didn’t mean to take the heat from their bodies.” The boy hugged her and she awkwardly patted at his back. “You’re some kind of psychic?” “I’m so sorry, so sorry,” the boy muttered. Arden didn’t believe in psychic phenomena, but she didn’t have any better explanation for the two unmarked bodies on the floor. She patted the kid’s back again. She was no good at comforting people, but he didn’t seem to notice. The kid hung onto her like she was the last lifejacket on the Titanic. She almost felt a little bad for him. “You’re psychic, kid. It’s not your fault.” She pried him loose and approached the first uniformed body. She took the head between her hands and twisted until she felt the bone break. She did the same to the second body. “What are you doing?” the boy asked. “If I burn the place down, no one will ever know these two didn’t die of broken necks—well, they won’t be able to prove it.” She rolled her eyes at the confusion written across his face. “I’m helping you, kid,” Arden explained. “You’ve killed three people. That makes you a dangerous person. But I know a place where they won’t mind that you’re a killer. Would you like to go there?” The boy nodded. “The only thing is, you can’t tell them about the psychic stuff. If you do, they’ll want to study you, lock you up in a lab and poke at your brain all day. Do you understand?” The boy nodded again. His tears had stopped, but his face was still wet and his eyes were frightened. “Don’t cry, kid. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.” She offered her hand. He took it.

She pushed open the door to the antiquities room and headed straight for the drawer that held the Japanese robe. The gold embroidered fabric was heavy and stiff, but it didn’t smell like Aniketos. She couldn’t think with the smell of him still clinging to the shirt he’d given her. She pulled off the shirt and flung it toward the corner before shrugging into the kimono. She was taller than the garment’s original owner, the hem just reached her ankles and the sleeves ended well above her


wrists. There was a wrap of some sort in the drawer beneath the kimono. She pulled it out—meters and meters of light silk. Arden looked into the drawer to see if there was a shorter piece of cloth she could use to tie the robe, and laughed aloud. Hah! She couldn’t believe she had missed this. Beneath the Japanese robe, a slim antiquekatana and a shorterwakizashi rested on black velvet beside corresponding woodensaya . She picked up the swords. Her hands fit the cord-wrapped grips quite nicely. She held them out, tested their balance.Perfect. She remembered the technique for fighting with two swords.Niten’ichi: two heavens as one. She tossed the silk sash into the air and chased it with the long and short swords. They cut through the silk without a whisper. Once, twice, a third time—four pieces of silk floated to the floor. What lovely weapons. She found a length of silk about a meter long and used it to tie her kimono closed. Then, she sheathed thekatana andwakizashi in theirsaya and slid each into her belt beneath the opposite arm. She heard the faceted glass doorknob turn and quickly sat at the writing desk. The long sleeves of the kimono hid the swords at her waist. She would let Aniketos approach her and take him by surprise. She bent over the book of translations of old myths and tales, intending to give the illusion of reading while she waited for him to enter. She ran her left hand over the page. The paper was smooth and cool beneath her fingers, the indentation of each letter was precise. There was once a very clever Thief whom no lock could stop and no trap could catch. When there was nothing left in the world of men to challenge him, he decided to steal from the gods. He scaled the ziggurat that led to their glass heaven and climbed over the golden gates to paradise. The door clicked open, and he entered. “Find anything of interest?” She looked up, embarrassed that he had caught her running her fingers over his handwriting. She removed her hand from the book and clasped it in her lap. “No, you do not need to answer.” He came to stand beside her. “You found the kimono. I shall assume you also found the swords.” There went the element of surprise. She stood, drawing the short sword and its sheath from her belt in one fluid movement. “You seem relaxed for an unarmed man.” “You cannot harm me. And I suspect that you no longer want to.” She took a breath and swung the sword before she had time for second thoughts. Thewakizashi was sharp as a laser. It cut through flesh and bone with minimal effort or resistance. Her erstwhile lover’s head landed on the carpet beside his feet. “So much for your suspicions, Aniketos.” She watched until his body stopped twitching before wiping the sword with the edge of the shirt she had


earlier discarded and replacing it in thesaya . She stepped over his body, daintily picking her barefoot way across the dry bits of carpet that weren’t wet and red with her lover’s blood. She picked up his head and regarded it. Thankfully, his eyes had closed. She didn’t think she could stand to see them again with the life gone from them. Stupid man. Why had he thought she wouldn’t hurt him? Why had he thought she could be something other than the killer that Darkriver had made of her? She sat his head down on a worktable beside a jar of glass fragments. She smoothed his hair before pulling her hand back. She had killed the man, she had no right to regret. She had no right to be gentle after the fact.

Mumbai One year earlier. “Do you ever regret it?” Arden’s protégé asked her as he reassembled a targeting rifle. She checked her analog stopwatch, waited for him to finish, and stalled the hands in their tracks with a click of the button. The kid had learned to control his strange ability. He rarely drained power from electrical equipment anymore, but like all hatchlings, his control was not absolute. It would be; she could teach him that. Until he learned complete control, she relied on mechanical tools that worked through gears and cogs, powered by torque instead of electric current. She taught him to fire antique sniper rifles and pistols, to use knives, arrows, and, of course, the garrote. He was a quick study—the sort of student who would make any teacher proud. Eden had been right. He would be the best. He offered the completed weapon for her inspection. The mark on his left hand shone red as fresh blood. It was too distinctive, that mark. She inspected the rifle. Perfect, as always. She withdrew a pair of black leather gloves from her pocket, and tossed them to him before returning the rifle. “Put those on and disassemble it. Never let anyone see your hands again.” He did as she told him, with only a fraction of a second’s delay from the gloves. He arranged the pieces on the ground in front of him for her inspection. “Do you ever regret it?” the kid asked again. He still had that damned English accent—a perfect example of Received Pronunciation. Someone had spent years teaching this boy to speak like a child of wealth and privilege, and not even Darkriver’s memory thieves had been able to erase the habit. Yet another thing about him that was too distinctive. She met the kid’s dark, almond-shaped eyes. She had saved his life, and taught him to kill. He was probably the closest thing to a son she would ever have, and the fierce pride she felt for him was


probably the closest thing to maternal love she would ever experience. “Whatever I might have been, I’m a killer now. How can I regret my nature?” “Not the killing,” he said. “Me. Do you regret lying to Darkriver about what I am? They’ll kill you if they ever discover what you’ve kept from them.” “The answer’s the same. How can I regret my nature?” She focused her binoculars on a target in one of the buildings across the street. “Reassemble the rifle and target the man in the black suit. Put the bullet through his heart.”

How could she regret her nature? Aniketos had known she was a killer. He should have guessed she would kill him eventually. Why this foreign pang of remorse? She slumped into the chair beside the writing desk. She ran her finger across his handwriting, leaving a bloody smear to mark her path. “What is it about that story that fascinates you so?” Arden jumped up to find Aniketos leaning against the worktable where she had left his head. He was naked and perfect, without a hint of blood on his bronze skin—though the carpet beneath his bare feet was still soaked in it. “How?” “Are you ready to listen?” He approached and took thewakizashi from her nerveless hands. She turned to the book on the writing table. “You’re the Thief in this story, aren’t you?” His pale eyes flicked down to the book before returning to her face. “Would you believe me if I answered yes?” “Where’d you hide the key?” He smiled, closemouthed and mysterious. “I thought you did not care for myths and fairytales.” “Maybe I should start.” She pivoted on her left foot and kicked out sideways with her right. Her foot shot past his shoulder and connected with the jar full of glass shards on the worktable. The jar tipped over, the lid slipped off, and blue-green bits of glass spilled out across the surface of the worktable. She watched. The pieces of glass began to rise. “…and their heaven shattered when it fell to Earth. All this glass—you’re rebuilding the heaven from the story.” “Piece by piece. It helps to pass the time.” She met his eyes. “What do you want from me?”


“What I have asked—your help in exchange for my protection. Darkriver cannot harm me. If you do as I wish, I will keep you safe from them for the rest of your life. I am quite possibly the only person on the planet who can truthfully make such an offer.” Arden shook her head. “I don’t think I have much of a choice.” Aniketos smiled. “I have worked very hard to leave you with only one choice.” “Why?” He reached out, stroked her cheek, and skimmed his hand over her jaw and down her neck to trace the ring of bruises he left the first time he took her. “Why do men keep tigers as pets? Some sorry quirk of human nature makes us long to tame creatures of dangerous beauty. I escaped mortality, but I am still a man. I wanted you. I took you.” Arden bit back a bitter laugh as she looked around at his cache of stolen treasures. “Am I another rare thing for your collection? Your eyes are steady as a lunatic’s when you look at me. I’d have to be blind not to notice your desire, and an idiot not to be frightened by it.” “Frightened?” “I’m scared of what you want from me, but I’m even more afraid of what I’m willing to give up in order to save my sorry hide.” She flipped the notebook closed and stood. “I’m not saying I want to be good—if I were a good person, I’d be dead now. But I wish I were a better person. I wish I were the kind of person who thought my freedom was worth dying for.” “You made the right decision, Arden. As one who has lived longer than most, I tell you this. There is nothing that is worth dying for.Nothing. ” He offered his hand, and she took it. “Tell me you are mine. Tell me you are mine until the day you die.” She met his eyes. “On one condition.” “You bargain with me?” “Yes. I have a protégé—a kid I trained. When we go get the kid you’re after, we bring him out too.” Aniketos’ dark brows raised slightly in surprise. “You care that much for another person?” Did she detect a hint of jealousy in his rough voice? “I made promises to him. I kept secrets from Darkriver. I’ll betray the Corporation, but I won’t sell out the kid.” “Very well. Say the words.” She cleared her throat. “I’m yours.” “Very good.” He lifted her chin with the edge of his hand and kissed her, as if to reward her for her obedience. She closed her eyes and breathed him in. Sandalwood and smoke. Heaven and Hell, was she a sucker.


He broke off the kiss, smiling like a man who had just tamed a tiger. “Come. You should wash the blood from your hands before our guests arrive.” He led her out of the windowless antiquities room and into the great room. The light was brighter. It took Arden a moment to notice the steel security shutters were open. She let go of his hand and ran to the window. Beyond the tinted, doubled pane of glass was not the city she had left three days before to sneak into Sevastien Aniketos’ penthouse, but mile after mile of barren desert plains. “You see,” he said. “It would have done you no good to escape.”

Chapter Five Arden leaned her forehead against the double-paned window and sighed. The interior glass was warm to the touch. She could only imagine what the temperature outside must be. The desert beyond the window was a wasteland. Even the few tough plants that usually lived in such climes were withered and black. Nothing moved, not an animal, not even a breeze. The land was not just barren, it was dead. “Where is this place?” “About five miles from Yucca Mountain.” Arden’s heart gave a painful start of surprise. She pushed away from the glass and whirled to face him. “The entire area around Yucca has been radioactive since the quake of ’02! Did you bring me here to kill me?” “Relax.” Aniketos laid a hand on her shoulder but it did nothing to calm her. “Rumors of the area’s radiation count have been greatly exaggerated. You should not go outside without a suit, but you are perfectly safe within the compound.” “This place is identical to the penthouse in Shanghai. You brought me here after you knocked me out.” “I did not move you. Thisis the penthouse in Shanghai. The faith that built my fallen heaven states that the way to the home of the gods lies beyond the stairs of a city’s tallest building, and that it is marked by the sign of the gods.” He pointed to the strange, twining symbol etched into the penthouse’s bronze entry doors. “Those are a fairly simple set of conditions to meet. That doorway will take you to the top of the tallest building of any city in the world.” She pushed herself away from him, away from the feel of his hand and the warmth of his body. “This is where things get a little too weird for me. You want me to believe in magic and gods and an immortal Thief who stole the key to Life and Death—fine. I don’t have any better explanation for how you put your head back on after I killed you for the third time. “But this, a secret compound full of stolen art and artifacts that exists in multiple locations at the same time? This is where I draw the line. Next time you want to hoax someone, do try to find a ruse that doesn’t read like it was pasted together from conspiracy theories and old comic books.” Aniketos spread his hands. “The world is a wider, stranger place than you can imagine, Arden. If gods


can wither to dust when men forget their names, what other impossible creatures have been conceived in imagination and born of belief?” “The way you’re talking, anything at all could be true.” “Just so.” She rolled her eyes. She would never get a straight answer from him, and at this point, she wasn’t sure if she wanted one. Every explanation he gave her added another layer of complexity. She had agreed to betray Darkriver. She was trapped in a radioactive desert compound with a mythical Thief who couldn’t be killed. The whole mess was starting to give her a headache. Or was the headache a symptom of radiation poisoning? She combed her hands through her hair. Good, still there. Arden groaned. She didn’t want to believe, she didn’t want to understand. She needed something basic, controllable. She opened her eyes and looked up at Aniketos. She locked her gaze on him. She licked her lips. She pushed him to the floor. His eyes narrowed, but he let himself fall. “You are not planning to attack me again. That I survived a strangulation, a stabbing and a beheading should prove that your efforts have little effect on my—” Arden straddled his chest and covered his mouth with her hand. “Shut up, will you? Every time you open your mouth, things get complicated. I’m a simple girl. I like simple things. I like sex and violence in pretty much that order. And since violence doesn’t work on you…” She leaned down and kissed him, biting at his lower lip until he opened his mouth. She plunged her tongue into his mouth, aggressive and hungry. She felt his pulse speed up as she stretched her body out across his. She kissed her way down his neck and ran her tongue over the scar above his heart, exploring the hard, puckered knot of skin with her mouth even as her hands roamed lower. His hands were on her, too. He pushed the edges of the kimono aside to trace the contours of her legs. He cupped her buttocks and ran his hands up over her lower back, kneading the muscles there, calling forth the memory of all that his talented hands could do. She traced her tongue down his chest, alternately laving and biting his nipples and skin. She was rough, but Aniketos had proven that he was not a man she needed to be gentle with. She ran her tongue over his flat abdomen and his muscles twitched beneath her lips. Yes, this was what she’d needed—a simple meeting of bodies, a struggle for control that she could and would win. The world felt right again with him beneath her, his hard body and harder cock. There were no questions, no allegiances and no explanations. Just the salty taste of his skin, the drumbeat of his heart, the slow tremor of pleasure in his muscles as his body succumbed to her will. His cock was already hard when she put her lips to it, straight as a flagpole and thick as a weapon. She traced the vein that ran the length of his shaft before stretching her mouth open to engulf the rounded head of his sex. His hips flexed involuntarily, a quick tremor that thrust his cock back toward her throat. What a heady feeling, to have the entire focus of a man’s attention trapped between her lips. She wrapped her hand around the base of him and pressed her mouth lower on his shaft, sucking and growling until his hand fisted in her hair and he urged her off him.


“My turn.” He grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. He yanked the tie on the kimono open, baring her body to his greedy gaze. She let the heavy, crumpled silk slide from her shoulders and hid her smile as she watched his cock swell at the sight of her. He grabbed her wrists and wrapped the silk sash around them, making a sloppy knot in his hurry to take control. She let him think he’d bound her, let him pretend she could be so easily subdued. He pulled her toward the stone fireplace against the mirrored wall and secured the sash to one of the iron sconces that flanked the fireplace. He stood back to admire his handiwork. The mirrored wall reflected the front of her body, even as his hands and gaze ran over the back of her. She smiled at her reflection, and her reflection smiled back—a pair of conspirators plotting to bring down their man. She arched her back and allowed a breathy, high-pitched moan to escape her throat. She watched his reflection in the mirror. His eyes widened with desire, his nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath. And then he was on her, body pressing against hers, his shaft thrust between her thighs, his hands engulfing her breasts. He slid one hand down to tease her clit and kept the other one at her breast. Three days and he knew what she wanted. Three days and he sought out all the sweet spots on her body with the unerring aim of an old lover. How could he know her so well in only three days? She remembered that while she had met him three days ago, he had watched her for far longer. He had watched her choose her lovers, watched her fuck them. Had he watched her then as he watched her now? With a madman’s intensity and a starving man’s hunger? Oh, she hoped so. A new wave of heat curled up from the core of her. “Did you watch me?” she panted. “Did you watch me with other men?” He lifted his mouth from her shoulder and met her eyes in the mirror. He had left a crescent-shaped purple bruise on her skin to mark his territory. “Yes.” He reached between them to guide his cock to her pussy. “Did you want me?” “Like a poor man wants plenty.” He thrust into her as he circled her clit with deft strokes of his talented fingers. “I watched you, hating the men who had you and craving the day when I would steal you from their sight.” “God and the Devil, Thief, you are one sick fuck.” She was close. Her inner muscles clenched, and her thighs and belly seemed to hum with anticipation. “And that, my lovely murderess, is precisely why you like me.” He thrust into her twice more. His cock glided over her g-spot, and he pressed his fingers on her clit, just the way she liked it. Her knees wobbled. She made an unwilling, inelegant sound, something between a moan and a shriek.


Orgasm hit her like a shove down a hill. She was falling, dizzy, completely out of control. Maybe her eyes rolled back into her head or maybe she was struck blind. Who cared what the reason was—she had no need to worry about trivialities like vision when she stood at the gates of heaven. Aniketos shuddered within her. His hot, sweaty body came to rest against hers. His skin smelled like sandalwood and smoke, and beneath that, the subtle scent of his body. His breath fanned hot against her shoulder. His hand slid from her breast to rest over her belly. “We should dress. The others will be here soon.” “Too late.” Arden twisted sideways to see who had spoken. They saw the figure stretched out on the couch behind them at the same time. A tall man in a crumpled black suit with a black fedora pulled over his face. His feet, shod in dusty, steel-toed boots, rested at one end of the seven-foot-long couch, and his head—face hidden by the fedora—rested at the other. Aniketos turned, putting his body between the stranger and Arden. “Hart.” Aniketos’ voice was low and dangerous, more a growl than anything akin to human speech. The stranger tipped his hat back. She caught a glimpse of golden skin, tawny hair and eyes—aneye, there was a black patch across the other—as yellow as a citrine. He kicked his feet off the couch and swung into a sitting position. “Pardon me.” His drawl was a none-too-convincing amalgam of every Western movie she’d ever seen. “I didn’t want to interrupt the uh, special moment you two was having. I would have waited outside, but the front porch is a mite radioactive.” “Can it, Hart. You could have waited in the dining room.” The man shook his head and dropped his voice into a precise imitation of Aniketos’ odd, halting accent. “You will recall that I am none too fond of that peculiar glass with which you have adorned your humble abode. This is the only room that does not have a glass door.” Arden giggled. “I do not sound like that,” Aniketos griped. Arden’s giggle turned into a full-fledged laugh. The stranger’s impersonation had been dead on. “Why don’t you turn around and admire the view from the windows for a few minutes.” The Thief’s voice was barely above a growl. “Shucks. There ain’t nothin’ purty about a nucular wasteland. But I guess you need time to untie your, uh, date.” “I can untie myself.” Arden slipped her wrists out of the knotted sash and brushed past Aniketos on her way into the bedroom.


Aniketos followed her, closing the opaque glass double doors behind him. “Get dressed. We have much to discuss.” He reached into the closet. When he withdrew his hand, it held her stealthsuit. Arden frowned. She had searched the closets and drawers. “How—” She began to ask the question, but stopped when she saw the edge of his mouth quirk up in that maddening, familiar smile. She already knew what he would answer, and didn’t care to hear it again. “I know. Magic.” “Actually, there is a touch-sensitive panel in the back wall of the closet. The biometric reader is set with my metrics. It will not open for anyone else.” “You bastard.” He tossed her the stealthsuit. She snatched it out of the air and headed to the bathroom to wash up and dress. The bathroom was as luxurious as every other room in Aniketos’ compound. The bath, shower and sinks occupied a large room tiled in black marble. The shower—a complicated affair with multiple jets and steam vents that was big enough to fit five people with no one left shivering for want of hot water—was enclosed in a stall made of the same blue-green glass. There was a ledge running around the top of it containing all manner of soaps, shampoos and bath oils. She turned on the shower and was about to step beneath the spray when she noticed a flash of movement reflected in the mirror. He was watching her. A shiver ran down her spine. She stretched, arching her spine, thrusting her breasts and ass out at the same time. She ran her hands over her body as she brought them to her sides. The door slammed open and her Thief stalked in. “Tease.” He was aroused again. His hard cock jutted out from his muscled body. His eyes flashed pale fire. His nostrils flared. God and the Devil, she was almost glad she couldn’t kill him. Taking that face, that body, that cock, out of the world would be a crime against humanity. She smiled. “Arden?” She came back to herself, forced her eyes to focus on his face. “You should have stayed outside. I wanted to watch you jerk off.” He raised a brow. “What? A woman’s not supposed to like to watch?” “It is unusual.”


She laughed. “More usual than you think, Thief. How about it?” He met her eyes for a moment, intense as always. Holding his gaze was like looking into the sun. But she wouldn’t look away, even if her eyes watered, even if she was struck blind. Sex was as much about power as it was about pleasure to Arden, and she would not yield. Finally, he nodded. He turned and poured out a measure of oil from one of the containers in the shower. He met her eyes again and wrapped his hand around the long shaft of his cock. His movements were slow, torturously so, hiding and revealing his shaft from her gaze. She wondered if he was gaining more pleasure from the sensation or from her frustration. A thread of desire filtered up through her body like the first swirl of smoke from a nascent wildfire. His come hadn’t dried on her thighs and she wanted him again. The slow curl of heat from her core, the cool kiss of air against her pebbled nipples. It was madness—this hunger, this strange mutual obsession. Every time she fucked him, she thought it would ease her wanting, but it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. At this rate, they would combust in little under a week. She abandoned the pretence of spectatorship and closed the distance between them. “Fuck me.” He held her off with one hand against her chest. “Tell me what you want.” She started to say, “I want your cock inside me,” but she saw the fire in his eyes, the mad intensity of him. She knew what he wanted to hear. When she thought about it, she realized that she wouldn’t even be lying. She took a breath. “You. I want you.” That closemouthed smile stretched across his lips, and she wondered what she had given him with that admission. It was no more than the truth, but she felt vulnerable. His expression lit with a fierce satisfaction and he pulled her to him. His hands were hot and slick with oil. He ran them over every centimeter of her body, rewarding her admission with every pleasure his hands could bestow. Her knees trembled and he held her steady. Turning her around so that she could brace herself against the glass counter, he massaged her back and thighs. His hands kneaded her buttocks, before slipping between them, slick and hot and seeking. She was no stranger to this act, but he treated her as though she were, gentling her body with his hands until she felt as though her muscles were made of honey. He pressed his cock into her anus, slow but steady. He kept his hands on her, caressing her neck and breasts and belly. She fingered herself and teased her clit as he eased into her. He pressed himself into her until his balls slapped against her skin and his hips pressed into the soft curve of her ass. He stilled to let her body accommodate his presence. She heard his breathing behind her, heavy, but slow. She looked up, met his gaze in the mirror. Intense as always, he watched her. She clenched her inner muscles and the edge of his mouth quirked into a smile. He began to move. His fingers tweaked her nipples as she used her own hands on her clit. A fine tremor built in her body, a pleasure so concentrated it was pain. He had taken her so many times over the past few days, pleasured her with every touch, entered her in every way. He had blurred the lines between their bodies. She felt as


though he were in her pores. If she were to cut herself, would it be his blood or hers that flowed from her veins? He leaned forward, pressing the hard muscles of his chest against her back until his lips were close to her left ear. “You are mine,” he whispered, voice as seductive as a devil on her shoulder. “Admit it.” She wanted to deny it, to say that she belonged to no one, but that would be a lie. She had belonged to Darkriver, and now she belonged to him. He had made her crave him. She welcomed him inside her. Her skin smelled of sandalwood and smoke. She could deny him nothing. “Yes.” It was easier to say this time, but the admission still clawed at her. “I’m yours.” He smiled, white teeth against bronze skin, as beautiful as a clean kill, and as inescapable. She closed her eyes against the sight of his triumph. She did not want to think she had been conquered. “Mine,” he whispered, giving her sensitized nipples a hard pinch. She came. It was a wracking explosion of sensation that rocked her tired muscles and burned her weary nerves. Her cry of pleasure sounded like a strangled sob and her eyes watered behind her closed lids. When her orgasm ebbed, it left a dull ache in her womb. Her muscles trembled with fatigue. He thrust into her, hands clenching tight on her hips as his cock swelled and he came. He gave a low growl of satisfaction before he pulled out of her. For one insane second, she wanted him back. She felt drained, empty without him inside her. How had she become such a weakling? Silent, she pushed herself past him and stepped into the shower. She wanted to wash the smell of him from her skin, but the soap all smelled of sandalwood. She scrubbed herself quickly, running the soapy washcloth over her face and hair, swiping at her body as though it had done something to anger her. He entered the shower behind her. His hand moved across her back, washing her with the gentleness she refused to grant herself. She shrugged him off and plunged herself under the steaming water, rinsing the soap and oil from her body. If only the memory of his touch would wash away with it. Fucking was the simplest thing in the world. How had it become so complicated? She prided herself on feeling lust instead of love, but what was she to make of this constant wanting, this craving that made her wet and ready for him the instant he so much as looked at her? Was this her own twisted version of love? Or the closest a killer could come to the emotion? But she wasn’t a killer where he was concerned. She couldn’t hurt him and she couldn’t kill him. Arden blinked in surprise. She had come to crave what she could not conquer. How fucked up was that?

Chapter Six


Arden felt more like herself after she donned her stealthsuit. Slick and black, it ate the light, making a silhouette of her body where once there had been soft curves and golden skin. The stealthsuit clung to her like a second skin, bulletproof and hard to hold, an impervious armor to shield her weak and wanting flesh. She ran a hand through her short hair and marched into the living room, swinging the doubled glass doors shut behind her. The stranger stood at the window, staring out at the desert. He exhaled a stream of smoke. A lit cigarette rested on the table beside him, leaving a trail of ash across the blue-green glass as it burned. He turned and picked up the cigarette without touching the table. “You’re the assassin?” The stranger regarded her with his one yellow eye. He stood still as a snake watching its prey. “You’re so delicate. You don’t look like you’d make a very good killer.” “I might surprise you.” Arden arched a brow and walked up to the window to stand beside him. “Who are you?” “Tiburon Drake.” “Drake. Why did the Thief call you Hart?” The yellow-eyed man laughed. “You’re smart to call him Thief. Who can keep up with his names? He was Nikhil when I met him in British India. I was playing guard for the East India Company, and your friend stole a ruby the size of a man’s fist out from under our noses.” “You didn’t answer my question.” “I don’t owe you answers. In fact, quite the opposite. Or did you think you could fuck your way out of spilling Darkriver’s secrets?” Arden lashed out. She kicked Drake in the face on his blind side, grabbed him by the hair and shoved his face against the table beside him before the stars could clear from his eye. He made a strangled sound. Smoke rose up from where his cheek pressed against the table. It smelled of burning meat. The blue-green glass was cool to the touch for Arden, but it appeared to be burning this man’s flesh from his bones. How interesting. “Arden,” Aniketos chided from the doorway to the bedroom. “Would you please be so kind as to let our guest up? We are going to need him later.” Arden let go of the man’s head and jumped back, dodging the punch he threw at her. Half of the newcomer’s face was a charred mass of flesh. The skin had burned away, and Arden could see the pale gleam of his cheekbone and jawbone through what was left of his cheek. But even as she watched, the wound healed. Flesh and skin flowed into the wound like water flowing into a hole. She rolled her eyes. “Great. Another one.” She turned to Aniketos. “How many of you are there?” “There is only one of me. I am human, but not mortal. Mr. Hart, over there, is mortal, but not human. However, his kind are very difficult to injure or kill.” “But the glass burned him.”


Aniketos nodded. “One man’s heaven is another man’s hell.” “I’ll thank you not to go spilling my secrets, Nikhil.” Arden looked up at Hart. His face was healed now, but there was a layer of black ash on the table. “You spilled your own secrets, Drake. Do not blame me if she used them against you. I promised a cooperative assassin for this venture, not a tamed one.” Drake tilted his head to the side, considering. The motion was quick, unnervingly reptilian. The angle of his head was odd, as though he had more vertebrae in his neck than came standard on humans. She shivered. Drake caught her gaze and grinned wide. His teeth were too white, and while his front teeth were filed flat, the teeth toward the edges of his smile had distinct points to them. She decided to ignore him the next time he provoked her. “Good girl.” Drake winked. Arden curled her hands into fists. She turned to Aniketos. “Why is he here?” “Mr. Hart will be our backup when we break into Darkriver’s hatchery to retrieve the child.” “Him? You’d best call in reinforcements. I could wipe the floor with him, and Darkriver has a half-dozen fighters who are better than me.” Aniketos gave her another closemouthed smile. A chime sounded. Arden turned to stare at the front door. “It appears the last of our guests have arrived.” Aniketos walked to the tall, bronze double doors at the far end of the foyer and opened them. Arden expected to see desert beyond the bronze doors, but instead she glimpsed a marble-tiled elevator lobby with tall windows at either end. The windows framed a postcard view of London’s skyline backed by a wash of winter-gray skies. A man in a gray wool suit stood outside the door. The man was tall and stocky with pale, pink-tinged skin and ginger-colored hair. He inclined his head and greeted Aniketos. “Good afternoon, Nikolai.” Those three words, rendered cold and precise in a perfectly inflected example of Received Pronunciation, told her everything she needed to know about the man. He was English, rich, most likely heir to some hereditary thing or other, and used to being in charge. “Wright. We are ready to go get your son.” Aniketos clapped his hand against the Englishman’s back in a friendly manner that seemed to set his guest’s teeth on edge. Arden wasn’t sure whether or not she still wanted to kill Aniketos, but she was pretty sure she liked him. He had a gift for annoying the right people at just the right time.


The Englishman flicked his gaze around the room with a casual sneer of disgust. “Drake.” The yellow-eyed man nodded. Wright’s eyes flicked to her and his cold expression grew colder. “So this is the assassin.” “Arden,” she supplied, not offering her hand. “It has a name. I didn’t think Darkriver named them.” She smiled, ignoring his insult, watching the place where his pulse beat against his throat. They both knew, Wright and Arden, that she could kill him between one beat and the next. His disdain was nothing more than bravado, like a man taunting a tiger from beyond the bars of its cage. “Naming us is one of the very first things our mentors do—right after Darkriver erases our memories of our families and the names our families gave us.” The Englishman winced.Yes, that hurt. Don’t stand too close to the bars, sir. This tiger has very long claws. “Children,” Aniketos intervened, herding the entire party to the couches arranged in a “U” shape before the empty hearth. “We have a mission. Arden, it is time to tell us what you know about the Hatcheries.” Arden settled herself on the couch opposite Aniketos and Wright. Drake had stretched out across the third couch, the one facing the hearth. “Yes, tell us everything,” Drake drawled, tilting his hat down over his eyes and leaning his head against the headrest. He pulled a cigarette case from an interior pocket of his coat and extracted a single cigarette. He licked one end, then reversed the cigarette and stuck the opposite end into his mouth. He drew in a breath and the cigarette caught fire, sending up a silver curl of smoke. Arden repressed a shiver. She had fallen into strange company, indeed. “The last time I was at the Hatcheries, they were located in London. I can draw you a map to the building. The hospital and laboratory facilities were several stories below ground. There were approximately seven hatchlings there, at various stages of the process.” “Was my son Jacob among them?” Wright addressed her directly for the first time. Arden shrugged. “I didn’t see a kid who looked like you.” “He takes after his mother.” Wright turned his pale eyes on Aniketos. “You haven’t shown her a picture?” The Englishman pulled a two-dimensional photo from his jacket pocket and slid it across the surface of the glass table that separated them. Arden picked it up and felt her world shift. She recognized the boy in the picture. She remembered those dark, almond-shaped eyes, the feel of his tears upon her hand. “You know him.” A strange twinge of sympathy made Arden blink. She met Wright’s eyes. “It would be best if you


believed he was dead.” “But he isn’t dead.” Wright’s angry gaze bore into her. “My son is alive, and I want him back.” “You don’t want what he has become.” Wright shook his head. “You’re lying. You don’t know my son. He’s stronger than that. His sense of right and wrong is absolute. Darkriver could never twist him.” Arden was silent for a moment. “There is no more zealous a sinner than a fallen saint.” “What do you mean by that?” “Your son has a red birthmark across the palm of his left hand.” “What’s this?” Drake tilted his hat back from his eyes and sat up to look at her. “Where is he?” Wright demanded. Arden clenched her fists on her knees. Couldn’t the man see she was being kind? She ground her teeth. “I will repeat. Your son is dead. You do not want what he has become.” “I’ll be the judge of that!” Wright shouted. “Tell me where the Hatcheries are, tell me where I can find my son.” “You agreed to do this,” Aniketos warned. Arden inclined her head. “Fine.” She turned to Wright. “Your son isn’t in the Hatcheries.” Wright’s gingery brows knit together in confusion and relief. “Darkriver hasn’t turned him into a killer?” “On the contrary, Mr. Wright. Your son has become the very best of killers. He graduated early from the Hatcheries a year and a half ago. The mark on his left hand earned him his sobriquet, the Left Hand of Death, and the assassin who taught him to kill chose his new name.” Wright’s pale skin turned a peculiar shade of green. “What did those bastards name him?” “I named him Jack.” Wright’s hands curled into fists. “You made him a killer.” “I saved his life and I’ll take you to him. We need to get him away from Darkriver. He isn’t safe there.” A vein stood out in Wright’s temple, and he plunged one hand into the interior pocket of his coat. “You’ve done enough.” A puzzled expression flitted across the Englishman’s face as his hand closed around the object he’d been reaching for. When he withdrew his hand, he was holding a small gold statue of the Buddha that was roughly the size and weight of a pulsegun. “Looking for this?” Aniketos set the disabled pulsegun on the glass table with a harsh clack. “I promised


Arden my protection in exchange for her help, Wright. I will not allow you to make a liar of me.” “How did you…?” Wright’s fury gave way to confusion. The Thief loosed a snort of laughter. “Distraction, my good man. You were so busy looking daggers at Drake and Arden that you failed to notice when I relieved you of your weapon and replaced it with an item of similar weight.” Wright’s gingery brows drew low over his angry eyes. “Do not glower at me, Sir John. I am a thief, it is in my nature to take things.” Aniketos paused and looked at Drake and Arden. “Ms. Black, shall we fetch your former protégé?” Arden nodded. “You have a plan?” “Of course.” Aniketos retrieved thekatana andwakizashi from the mantle above the fireplace and offered them to her. “I shall need you to kill me, one last time.”

Chapter Seven London Two hundred years, and one week from tomorrow The newsfeeds were awash with the latest lurid tale. A billionaire found murdered in his Shanghai penthouse. He had been strangled and decapitated. Some of the more enterprising tabloid feeds had even managed to secure footage of the grisly crime scene. The dead man’s body sprawled across thick gray carpet. His head lay beside it, pale blue eyes clouded and cold, bronze skin bloodless. Arden clicked off the newsfeed on her mobile comm and stepped into the shadowed doorway in the alley behind an unassuming London townhouse. She keyed her code into the pad beside the door. The light beside the keypad switched from red to green and the door unlocked with a click. That was a good sign. Darkriver hadn’t disabled her codes. She stepped inside, trailing her hand along the doorframe, tracing a miniature version of the twisting pattern that was etched into the doors to Aniketos’ compound in the invisible powder that coated her fingers. The entrance to the forgotten heaven lay at the top of a building, Aniketos had explained, but the exit could be anywhere. Drake and the Thief would walk right out of the penthouse and into Darkriver’s compound. The door swung shut behind her and she headed for the basement stairs. She descended the stairs, running her hand along the railing, marking her path in an invisible substance that Drake assured her he would be able to follow. She turned a corner and opened a listing wooden door to reveal an elevator platform. She took the elevator down, marking her trail by touch when she pushed the button. The ride down in the elevator should have been torture. Her heart should have been pounding in her ears, her blood should have been rushing through her veins. But Arden felt strangely calm at the prospect of betraying Darkriver. She felt as though this betrayal had been a long time coming.


She stepped out of the elevator and into the sterile white halls of Darkriver’s London installation. “Arden.” Eden’s voice had always been as sweet as poisoned candy. Tonight, Arden thought she heard a bitter edge to the saccharine allure of her mentor’s voice—the slightest hint of murderous intent. She turned to face the smaller woman. “Eden,” she said, inclining her head. “You had quite an adventure in Shanghai, didn’t you? Three days locked in with a corpse.” “No.” Arden smiled. “I didn’t kill him until I’d managed to find a way out past the security shutters.” “And what did you do in the meantime?” Arden stretched her lips into a closemouthed smile, but didn’t answer her old mentor. Eden tilted her blonde head to the side like a bird. She studied Arden through wide blue eyes. Her fair brows knit together for the briefest instant. Arden could tell that her mentor didn’t know what to make of her, that Eden couldn’t read her as well as she used to. Arden parted her lips to bare her teeth. The expression was as much like a smile as a crocodile was like a garden lizard. “Let’s go get a drink. I’ll tell you all about it.” “No, thank you,” Eden replied. “There’s a group of hatchlings downstairs and I have paperwork to see to.” Arden shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s been a long week. I’ll be in the pub.” Arden walked away, checking her watch. Three minutes left. The conversation had cost her time. She quickened her step and pushed through the dark-stained walnut door into the wood-paneled room that housed the installation’s in-house pub. A rogue’s gallery of killers looked up at her from the bar. They sat side-by-side, silent and stern-faced, with their drinks resting lightly in their hands. These killers cared almost as little for human companionship as they did for human life, but they came to the pub to drink because no one—not even an assassin—likes to drink alone. She smiled and gave a girlish wave before walking to the shadowed edge of the already dark room. She pulled out a chair and sat down. “Hail the conquering hero,” a masculine voice that hovered somewhere between adolescence and adulthood greeted her from the shadowed corner of the table. “Hello, Jack. How was the General?” “Too quick and too easy.” Arden’s protégé spat out his reply. “One shot from the roof of a neighboring building. He didn’t suffer enough to make me happy.” “They never do.”


“And what have you been up to? Rumor has it you finally went round the bend and sliced your kill up like a loaf of bread.” “Rumors of my insanity have been greatly exaggerated.” “I saw the pictures, Arden.” The boy leaned forward. At sixteen, his cheeks were still smooth, but his dark eyes had the same hollow shine as those of the killers at the bar. “He was strangled, stabbed and decapitated.” “Yes,” she agreed with a smile. “But he’ll get over it.” The boy’s eyes widened and his gloved hands clenched atop the rough wood table. “You have gone mad.” She checked her watch, and stared her protégé straight in the eye. “No, Jacob, I have not. In one minute and nine seconds, there will be an explosion. If you wish to be free of Darkriver, to lead your own life, go to the west exit of the installation. If you wish to remain, stay where you are.” “What will you do?” “I’ll go. I’ve traded Darkriver for a new master—one less likely to kill me for perceived failures.” “You won’t be free, too?” “I’ve been at this too long, kid. My choices are limited—do or die. And the Thief tells me that there is nothing worth dying for.” “The Thief?” “The man I killed. The man your father hired to get you back. The man who owns my loyalty and my life.” “Arden, you aren’t making any sense. Would you—” The room shook. The lights went out. “Go!” she hissed. “Go, and I’ll be right behind you.” A dozen killers drew their weapons and streamed out of the pub. Arden went with them. The hall outside was dark and smoky. It smelled of sulfur and ash. Something moved in the dark, and one of her fellows ran toward it. He barely screamed before he was dragged around the corner and into the darkness. A puff of smoke. The wet squish of tearing flesh. The hollow pop of bone being ripped from joint. The crowd of killers slithered away, leaving Arden alone in the dark hall. She took a tentative step forward. A scaly hand wrapped around her ankle, yanking her from her feet and dragging her around the corner into a mire of smoke and blood. “Arden!” Jack screamed.


She felt herself suspended upside down. She opened her eyes and they watered from the sulfur smell of smoke. A citrine-yellow eye the size of her palm stared back. “Scream for me, Arden,” the thing said. Funny how it had Tiburon Drake’s voice. She screamed. She heard the same squishy sound of ripping flesh and tilted her head back in time to see a set of wickedly curved claws tearing into the body of the man who had gone charging into the hall. Drake jostled her again, and she screamed again, fainter this time, as though the strength were draining out of her. “Aaaaahhh.” “Good girl.” The grip on her ankle relaxed, and she barely managed to right herself before she hit the ground. “Arden!” Jack came barreling round the corner. The temperature in the hallway dropped by twenty degrees. “Don’t strike! You were supposed to go to the west exit,” she snapped. Her protégé stopped in his tracks as he took in Arden crouched on the ground before a yellow-eyed creature wreathed in smoke with a dismembered body at her feet. His face still showed the expressionless mask she had taught him to hold, but the hunch of his shoulders conveyed his confusion. “What?” “It’s too late,” Drake hissed. The yellow eye turned to Jack. “Scream if you know what’s good for you, boy.” Arden’s protégé gave a half-hearted scream. “Egads!” She shook her head. The kid had never excelled at falsifying expressions of emotion. Arden blamed her training of him. Eden had once told her, “A teacher’s mistakes will always return to haunt her.” And once again, Arden’s mentor had been correct. Drake tore into the body on the ground with those wicked claws.Squish! Splech! Rip! It was starting to look like hamburger meat with tiny shreds of cloth and bone mixed in. Arden swallowed her bile. Drake licked his claws. “By the way,” she whispered. “I’m really sorry about…” “About kicking me in the head and burning away half of my face?” “Yeah. That. Let’s let bygones be bygones. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.” “Take the boy with you. He’ll have to get to the exit via a different route. Can’t have him running around when people think he’s dead.” Arden turned to Jack. “Come on.” They took off running. White halls twisted into identical white halls. Bodies and smoke and the stench of


sulfur marked the route that Drake had taken. “About your friend,” Jack began. Having met Sir John Wright, she knew where that oh-so-precise accent had come from. Despite all her efforts to teach Jack a less distinctive mode of speech, she had never been able to cure her protégé of it. He kept it even now, breathless and running full-tilt through blood-spattered halls. “He’s not my friend,” Arden gasped. “He’s a giant, fire-breathing lizard.” “You noticed.” “Would you be so kind as to explain?” “Sure, as soon as you explain how you can drain heat from the air and move things just by thinking about it.” “You don’t know.” “You got it. Left here. There’s an emergency stair on the other side of this lab.” They barreled through a white door, across a long, narrow white room, toward an identical white door at the opposite end. “That’s far enough.” A dart whizzed by Arden’s ear and embedded itself in the wall behind her. Arden whirled to face their attacker. Eden stood in the doorway behind them, her pale curls matted against her head, her round pink cheeks streaked with smoke. She looked like a Dresden doll that had been caught in a house fire. “Go, Jack. There’s a heliplane in the square outside.” Arden issued the order without a second thought as she drew the pistol holstered on her hip and fired a shot at her former mentor. Eden was already moving. Arden’s bullet buried itself in the wall. The temperature in the room dropped and Arden whirled to yell at Jack, “I said,go !” The boy obeyed out of reflex, darting through the door and halfway up the stairs before he even realized he had left the room. She whirled back around to face Eden, but it was too late. The smaller woman had already launched another poison-tipped dart in her direction. No time to dodge, Arden swatted at the thing, hoping to turn its path before the needle could pierce her skin. Her hand connected. The dart bobbled in its course and skittered into the wall before bouncing off. Arden leveled her gun for another shot. Her vision blurred. She squeezed the trigger but the shot went wide. Her blood went cold in her veins. She raised her left hand and spied a pinprick of blood welling up from


her index finger. Damn. She wavered. She heard footsteps on the stairs behind her. She turned to yell at Jack again, but Aniketos was there instead. He was dressed in black, his ancient eyes alight with fury. She raised her hand to show him the blood, to tell him she was a lost cause. She tried to whisper, “Go,” but she couldn’t make her mouth form the words. The world was rapidly shrinking around her. Her vision went black at the edges. How strange that everything should get so small so soon after she had learned that the world was wider than her wildest imaginings. Telekinetics, dragons and immortals. Old gods and glass heavens. What wonders might she discover if only she had more time? She couldn’t see her watch, but she knew her time was up. She had committed many ignoble acts to save her own life. How fitting that her one noble deed would be the thing to end it. She had been afraid of death, but now that it was here…she let her body relax and exhaled.

Aniketos caught Arden’s body as she fell and he laid her gently on the ground. Her breathing was faint. Her pulse was slow and sluggish in her wrist. He turned her hand over. A single drop of blood clung to her index finger—a pinprick of poison had killed her. He licked the drop away and sucked the tiny wound, though he knew it was too late to draw out the poison. “Didn’t she kill you?” A voice as sweet as sugar interrupted his grief. He looked up to see a pale woman with flat blonde hair and cold blue eyes. She was dressed in a black stealthsuit, much as Arden had been. There was a dartgun in her hand. He let Arden’s hand fall to the floor and stood to confront his lover’s killer. The blonde launched a dart into his chest. He looked down at the thing, plucked it from his body and continued his advance. “You’re dead,” the woman told him. “You have less than thirty seconds.” “I have eternity,” he replied. Even as Aniketos spoke the words, he saw his life stretch out before him. Long and empty. He had filled his life with wanting and taking, but now the person he wanted most was forever beyond his reach. He grabbed the blonde by her hair and shoved the dart into her throat. He caught the dartgun when it fell from her nerveless hands and emptied the remaining three cylinders into her neck and face. Her body shook and a fine film of foam built up at the corners of her mouth. Her blue eyes rolled back in her head and he let her body fall to the ground. He returned to Arden’s fallen form. He cradled her head. He kissed her cooling lips. He breathed his breath into her and her unresponsive lungs let it leak right back out.


The room was filling with smoke. If he had needed to breathe, he would have suffocated, but Aniketos was beyond such human frailties. He stayed with her body, savoring the last warmth of her skin, smoothing the dark strands of her short hair away from her pale face. He had lived eons, minutes meant nothing to him. But minutes had been life for her, time ticking away from a finite span of years. He had not expected the end to come so soon. He’d not had enough of her. He never would. It might have been seconds or hours before Drake walked into the room. The one-eyed man was naked, his long, golden body smudged with smoke and blood. There was blood on his hands up to the elbow, and dried blood flaking away from the corners of his mouth. “That was fun,” he mused, swinging the door shut behind him. He stopped and looked at Aniketos as he sat on the ground with Arden. “You’ll want to give her a proper burial. It’ll be a cremation if you keep standing around in shock like a newly minted widower. The building is on fire, Nikhil. Let’s take the body to the plane, shall we?”

Chapter Eight Aniketos laid Arden in his bed when he returned to his compound. He knew he should bury her, but he wasn’t ready to let her go. He wiped the soot and smoke from her cold cheeks, he smoothed her hair and folded her hands across her chest. A shadow stirred in the periphery of his vision. He turned his head to face the translucent shade that had crept into his home when his back was turned. “Hello, Death.” They were old enemies, Aniketos and Death. He had lived a thousand stolen lifetimes, and Death wanted nothing more than to drag him beyond the veil once and for all. “Thief,” the shade greeted him. The shadows solidified into the form of a woman—into Arden’s form. In place of spectral black robes, it wore Arden’s black stealthsuit. In place of Arden’s weapons belt, it wore a wide leather belt low on its hips with a large ring of keys attached. There were countless doors between Life and Death, and this shade bore the keys to them all—all but one. Death wanted the last key back. “You dare wear her face?” Aniketos clenched his fists, but did not leave his place beside Arden’s body. The shade with Arden’s face tilted its head to the side, parted its pink lips in a sigh. “Death is a personal matter, Thief. When I finally come for you, I shall wear your face.” “We both know that will never happen.” Death stretched its lips into Arden’s version of Aniketos’ closemouthed smile. “You are so certain. Yet look at you, mooning over a corpse, yearning for the touch of a woman you will never hold again.” Death waved its hand over Arden’s body, and for a moment, yellowed bone showed through the illusion of flesh. A dark mist rose from Arden’s body and formed itself into a second copy of Aniketos’ dead


lover. The second Arden was the true one. She looked down at the body on the bed, then up at Aniketos. Her lips moved, but the dead can make no sound. Her dark brows knit together. She tried to speak again with the same silent result. She turned to face Death. Her eyes widened in surprise before narrowing in anger as she surveyed Death’s imitation of her face and form. Her mouth twisted into a snide smile as she said something that made Death’s face go red with anger. Without warning, Aniketos’ lover pivoted and kicked her doppelganger in the head. Her foot passed through the spectral other, but Death still staggered back and rubbed its head. He laughed. Even in death, Arden was still feral and defiant. He could not let her go. “What do you want?” he asked. “What do you want in exchange for her life?” Arden’s shade shook her head and shouted silent denial. “You know what I want,” Death replied. “Her life in return for the key. And you shall come for me only when my body is injured or aged enough to die.” “Deal.” Aniketos seized a knife from Arden’s belt before he could rethink his decision. He cut open his shirt and plunged the knife into his chest, levering it across his sternum to break open his ribs and reveal his still-beating heart. The key was there, hidden beneath the scar in his chest, lodged in the very center of his heart. He pried it loose, holding tight to the slippery shard of glass. He would die if he let go of the key before his wound healed. He pressed his ribs back in place and his flesh knit together as though it had never been parted. The scar above his heart was gone. The key was still warm from the heat of his body, still wet with the red of his blood. He held the bloody bit of ancient glass out to Death. Arden’s shade shook her head and shouted at Death. She took Death’s shoulder and shook it, arguing. “Isn’t that sweet?” Death cooed. “She wants to save you.” Arden’s shade fell to her knees and folded her hands in a plea of supplication. She tugged at Death’s garment as tears streamed down her face. Death shook off her pleading hands and stepped forward to take the key. “Done and done,” Death said as it took the key. Arden’s visage melted away from Death’s form and it became a shadowed figure with skeletal hands and glowing red eyes beneath its cowled black hood.


Death pointed its bony finger at Arden as it began to fade away. “I’ll see you in about seventy years.”

Arden returned to life with a gasp. Her fingers were clenched beneath the tumble of blankets, her eyes were wet with the tears her shade had shed on the Thief’s behalf. She coughed twice as her lungs struggled to inflate. She began to shiver. Her body had cooled, her blood had stilled—she was alive, but she shouldn’t have been. Her soul had traveled through the ether of death and returned with more than just the memory of what it was to die. Beneath the blankets, she curled her hand more tightly around the souvenir, the miraculous memento mori , she’d brought back from her brief detour into death. When her eyes could focus, she turned them to Aniketos. She tried to glare, but her muscles twitched and stuttered as they awoke to her brain’s commands. He sat by the bed watching her. His eyes were narrow with interest where there should have been horror. She remembered that this was nothing new to him, this exquisite, painful sense of victory that came from cheating Death. His eyes had lost their strange, pale color when he’d given up the key. Now they were a dark and shadowed brown. But the intensity was still there; the unwavering obsession that had carried him through a thousand stolen lifetimes. She hated to see him trapped in fragile, perishable flesh. Her sluggish brain strained to make a connection. The next time Aniketos died would be the last. “You shouldn’t have made that deal.” Her voice sounded a thousand years old, dry and desiccated like something unearthed from a tomb. “I chose it.” The intensity of his eyes never wavered—it never had. “Why? Were you that desperate to hold me to my promise?” He looked away. “You are free of your promise. You died today. The rest of your life is your own.” His voice shook as though it had cost him a piece of his soul to say those words. From the very start he had wanted her, coveted her, craved her, watching her with a madman’s intensity and a starving man’s appetite. What did it cost him now to set her free? And, for that matter, why? He looked down at his clenched fists. “I was a fool to think I could steal you like a treasure and tame you like a wild thing. You were water in my hands. I closed them, and you slipped away.” He uncurled his fists. “I would like you to stay with me, but I cannot keep you. The choice is yours.” Choice? What did she know about choices? She knew Darkriver’s manipulations, and the rigged game that had brought her to Aniketos’s side. He was a fool to set her free. Didn’t he know she was dangerous? “I’m a killer, Thief. Dying didn’t change that. You’re mortal now. You know I could kill you, but you’re asking me to stay. Didn’t you tell me there was nothing worth dying for?” Aniketos ran his hand down the smooth skin of her cheek, his gaze no less intense for all that he’d set her free. “I did not choose to die for you. I chose to trust you with my life. It was no great sacrifice, you


already have my heart.” Arden blinked. He’d given up eternity because he was in love with her. How fucked up was that? Deliciously fucked up. Perfectly twisted. She was not the only one who had come to crave what she couldn’t conquer, to want the one person she couldn’t tame. They’d known each other less than a week, but they could have spent all of the Thief’s stolen eternity fighting and fucking and laughing, and neither would have won. How could she leave him? “I don’t know if I have a heart for you to steal, Thief, but I do know that I want to stay with you.” She pressed her hand over his mouth before he could say anything. “Don’t expect me to change, though. I’m still a killer and a cold-hearted bitch.” “Of course.” His lips slipped into that closemouthed smile—the one that drove her crazy. “Sacrificing yourself to get Jacob Wright away from Darkriver was only a temporary aberration into nobility. You may blame me, if you like. I have a habit of occasionally wandering into good deeds. I am a terrible influence.” “The worst,” she agreed. She thrust her free hand into his hair, holding tight, drawing his sly mouth down to hers. Theirs was no fairytale kiss. It wasn’t a sight fit for children, or for any adult foolish enough to believe that love is always gentle and kind. They were ferocious with each other, harsh and halting, struggling in a battle that neither would ever win—and that was the joy of it. She let his lips go so she could suck in a gasping breath. She pushed him away from her only so she would have room to unbutton his shirt. His hands were on her too, struggling with her stealthsuit, fighting the slippery fabric to bare her skin. He tasted her body as he uncovered it, centimeter by slow centimeter. His mouth lingered at the places where her pulse beat beneath her skin, traced the living veins to linger on the warmest, softest parts of her flesh. She shuddered beneath him, glorying in the feel of every touch.

When Aniketos entered Arden, she was more than ready, hot and wet and full of life. He pressed his hands over her wrists, not to hold her down, but to feel her heartbeat while he made love to her. He savored the heat of her breath, the warmth of her body, the sight of her pulse pounding hard beneath the delicate skin of her throat. In Arden’s body, Aniketos forgot the world of shades and gods and patchwork-glass heavens, and found a haven of flesh and life. She shuddered beneath him and he followed her over the edge. They lay panting together in a tangle of sheets as the sweat dried on their bodies. A long time after, she asked, “Will you miss immortality?” She closed her eyes, as though she feared his answer. “I would have missed you more.” “Too bad you can’t have both.” She rolled onto her elbows and looked down at him. “If you could be immortal again without losing me, would you?”


He narrowed his eyes. “Do not ask questions you do not want answered.” “I want an answer.” “Yes.” She smiled. “You said you were a terrible influence on me.” He frowned at her, puzzled. “Your bad habits are contagious, Thief.” She rooted around in the tangle of blankets and sheets beneath them and produced a ring of keys. Death’s keys. There were keys of glass, keys of feathers, keys made of smoke and keys made of mirror. There were keys cut from diamond and keys cast from shadow. There was a key to every forgotten doorway to the Land of the Dead—every doorway save one. “How?” “Distraction.” Arden smiled. “That’s what you told Wright when you stole his gun. Death was so intent on your bargain, he didn’t notice when I stole his keys.” Aniketos kissed her hard. When they finally came up for air, Arden looked down at the keys as she turned them over in her hands. “Where do you suppose they lead?” “I do not know,” the Thief told the Assassin. “But we have forever to find out.”

About the Author To learn more about Bettie, please visitwww.bettiesharpe.com or send an email to [email protected] .

Look for these titles Strangers in the Night

The Valentine Effect, Bonnie Dee Erotics Anonymous, Veronica Wilde


She joined a secret society of masks and sex games. What she found was a forbidden love. Erotics Anonymous © 2008 Veronica Wilde

As a writing student at an exclusive college, Chelsea Becker isn’t into the normal, boring dating scene. Nor is she interested in pledging a sorority. But when a botched class assignment results in a chance to do some “extra credit”, she discovers a secret society of famous erotica writers on campus. As an aspiring erotica writer, she’s willing to do anything to join. Her initiation tests include the exploration of her most risqué fantasies—including wordless sex with a masked “muse” whose scorching touch betrays the passion they’re not supposed to feel. Her initiation into Erotics Anonymous is supposedly just a game. But the lust her muse evokes is erupting into forbidden love… a love that will come at a very dangerous price.

Enjoy the following excerpt forErotics Anonymous

The next night at ten o’clock, Chelsea stepped out of her dorm to find a silver limousine waiting for her. No driver stepped forth to open her door or usher her inside. After an awkward hesitation, she opened the door handle and climbed in. The warm and darkened interior was an inviting contrast to the cold January night. As she sank back into the cushioned leather seat, the limo pulled away and began the winding journey through the campus. No music played; the driver remained silent. Chelsea clutched her long, black leather trench coat around her and watched the lights of her dorm recede. Her instructions for tonight had arrived via an anonymous email that morning. It ordered her to dress in a short skirt with no stockings, the top of her choice, and a long coat to cover it all. Her destination was a popular bar right near campus. Tomorrow she was to write about the night’s events and submit her story to the same email address. Her mouth was dry, her bare thighs were shaking and her panties clung to her wet sex. She was almost sick with trepidation at the mysterious initiation test she faced tonight—yet she was more deeply aroused than she had ever been in her life. The selection of the bar startled her. It was a dark and malty dive, packed to standing room only every night of the week with students. It was the least erotic or elegant locale she could think of. So why would the Society ask her to go there? It didn’t make sense. All the same, she was determined to fulfill their instructions. All last night she had tossed restlessly in her bed, thinking of the sexual and professional benefits membership in the Society could bring her. Not only would the literary contacts be amazing, but it would be a relief to associate with people who viewed sex as an adventure and an art—not a beer-fused hookup between two students who wouldn’t even acknowledge each other in the dining hall the next day.


And, of course, there was the possibility—the probability, even—that she would meet the man of her dreams, Jonathan Danvers. The limo pulled up outside the bar. The neon lights glowed in the frosty night. Taking a deep breath, she climbed out and headed inside. The bar was a sweltering den of darkness, noise and heat. As she squeezed through the crowd, she could barely hear the jukebox over the roar of conversation, laughter and clinking glasses. The surrounding faces were hard to make out in the dim glow emanating from red light bulbs over the wooden booths. She cast a wary glance around her, wondering what exactly she was supposed to do. Was it possible that Professor Deveaux had been playing a joke on her? This entire environment was appallingly crass. A tall, beefy guy in a baseball cap headed her way. “Hey, I know you,” he yelled over the din. “You’re in my sociology class. Are you here alone?” She shook her head and moved toward the back of the bar. Dressed in her long leather coat, cashmere sweater and short skirt, she was growing hot and flushed from the swarm of bodies around her. Feeling thirsty, she joined the crowd of people three-deep around the polished wooden bar trying to attract the bartender’s limited attention. Squeezed among much taller men, she felt unseen and unnoticed. At last, she found herself pushed up against the bar itself. A flutter of claustrophobia ran through her as the crowd closed in on all sides of her. Helplessly, she tried to push back and claim some breathing room, but to no avail. Nor did the bartender seem to notice her. The person behind her pushed her coat to the side and caressed the soft curve of her ass. Chelsea froze. How dare he? Who was this jerk who was so arrogant as to go around feeling up girls in public? She tried to turn around and confront him, but the damp bodies surrounding her were pushed too closely together. She was trapped. The anonymous hand began to stroke her thighs, running two fingers up her firm muscles that quivered with both indignation and excitement. She waited breathlessly as the strange hand continued its ascent underneath her short skirt. Mortified by her own arousal, she jerked against him, signaling her displeasure in the only way she could. This was completely unacceptable behavior, no matter how nice it felt. Yet the stranger only ran his hands under the delectable cheeks of her bottom, and gently flicked his fingers between her legs, signaling her to open her legs. She understood. This was her test and he was her Muse. Closing her eyes as her face burned hot, she spread her thighs for his hand. The stranger was stroking her through her panties now, playing with her pussy more masterfully than anything she had ever experienced. As he fingered her clit, her thighs became wet with a warm surge of arousal. His touch was so intimate, as if he already knew the needs and responses of her body. Who was this man? Once more she tried to twist around to see his face. But the crowd was so intense that she could only view the men on each side of her, both absorbed in their own conversations. She wiggled helplessly, both wanting him to continue and appalled at her own complicity. Gently, he dragged her panties down her thighs, stopping them just before the hem of her short skirt. She swallowed, another wave of fever staining her face as he brushed his fingers over her exposed sex. Never in her life had she allowed anyone to take down her panties in a bar or feel her up in public or arouse her so fiercely without even showing his face…


A man whose passionate heart has been torn apart. A woman who’s never risked hers. Can love bring them a new beginning?

The Valentine Effect © 2008 Bonnie Dee

Carrie Morrison is resigned to spending another Valentine’s Day alone, but Cupid brings her a surprise—packaged in the hot body of the father of one of her third grade students. When Enrique Torres stops by her classroom to discuss his son, sizzling chemistry erupts between them. Ric is a widower, father, garage mechanic, and the hottest Latin lover a woman could wish for to fulfill her Valentine fantasies. One hot night with Carrie in his bed leaves him wanting more, but she’s not sure if she’s brave enough for a relationship beyond a one night stand. But Ric isn’t about to let Carrie go that easily. She has healed his broken heart, and he’s ready for forever.

Enjoy the following excerpt forThe Valentine Effect

Watching him weave through the throng around the bar, Carrie realized he wasn’t really that much taller than most of the men in the club. He just seemed that way because his presence was so overpowering—at least to her. She turned her attention to the dance floor again, watching the couples spin around. In an unbelievably short time, Ric was beside her again, handing her a glass of soda. “How’d you do that?” She glanced at the bar, which she couldn’t even see for the crowd surrounding it. “What?” His eyebrows raised, honestly clueless. “Never mind.” The sweet, cold soda had never tasted so good. She chugged the glass empty in a few swallows, set it on the table, and pushed her hair back from her sweaty forehead. Ric drank a little of his beer before placing his glass beside hers and moving to stand in front of her, his hands at her waist. Head tilted back, she looked up into his face. He ran his finger down the bridge of her nose, felt the texture of a lock of her hair, then cupped her cheek and gazed at her mouth for a long moment. The anticipation of a kiss had Carrie’s heart racing and her body yearning toward his. She wanted to curl her hands around the back of his neck and pull him down to her, but waited, breathless, while his thumb traced her lips and his eyes examined the contours of her face and mouth. When she thought she


could stand it no more, he leaned down slowly and pressed his lips to hers. Just like on the dance floor, the bustle and clamor of the club faded away and Carrie felt they were in an impermeable bubble. She breathed in his scent. His lips closed over hers and his tongue flicked over the seam of her lips until she opened them and allowed it inside. The mingled taste of sweet soda and malted ale combined as his hot, wet tongue slipped over and around hers. She rested her hands against his chest, feeling the strength of his hard muscles, the heat of his skin and the rapid beating of his heart. He kissed her breathless again, leaving her gasping when he pulled away. Then he pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her jaw and neck. The soft movement of his lips was like a feather being trailed across her skin. She shivered and clamped her cheek to her shoulder to shut him out. “Do you want to leave? It’s hard to talk here,” he spoke near her ear to be heard over the music, then straightened to look into her eyes, his hands resting on her shoulders. “Maybe one more dance first?” A slow, sultry number was playing and Carrie couldn’t refuse the offer of another chance on the dance floor with him. “Sounds good.” She was ready to agree to just about anything he wanted under the spell of his breath-stealing kisses. Once more, Ric led her onto the dance floor. He held her for a moment in the classic waltz pose as they moved in time to the hypnotic beat, then he spun her around so her back was to him. One hand pressed against her stomach, while the other clasped hers. She leaned back into his solid body, which was like a wall at her back. His erection pressed against her rear as their lower bodies swayed in sync with one another. Carrie allowed her head to fall back against his chest and gave herself over to the sensual music and tropical rhythm. The song was in Spanish, which she remembered just enough of from high school to catch words likeamor andsiempre . Love and always. Ric brought her hand up to rest on the back of his neck, and then ran his fingers lightly down her arm, leaving chills in their wake. He ended with his hand on her ribcage just beneath the swell of her breast. Her nipples hardened at the proximity, aching for him to fondle them. She arched her chest forward slightly and pressed her ass back against him, all without losing the beat. They moved together in a slow, erotic dance. Just when Carrie thought it couldn’t get any sexier, Ric began to sing, softly, his baritone a counterpoint to the woman singing. The words could have been about buying laundry detergent. It didn’t matter. The sound of the foreign language and his husky voice had her quivering. Her pussy was a throbbing muscle of need, pulsing in time to the song and soaking her underwear.Need. Want. Now! Her body begged for fulfillment. After several moments of moving in a dreamlike trance, Ric twirled her around to face him and drew her close again. Resting her head against his chest, she listened to his thundering heart, while their bodies moved in perfect harmony. His erection nudged her stomach, and his arousal sent another wave of raging lust through her. If the dance didn’t finish soon, she’d fall on her back on the floor, legs spread wide. Finally, the song ended. Carrie stepped out of the circle of Ric’s arms and looked up at him. He inclined his head and kissed her again, a long, slow exploration of her mouth right there on the crowded dance floor. He took her hand again, such a familiar, comfortable feeling already, and led her from the room. Back outside, the rush of cool air felt like a blessing. She lifted her overheated face into the breeze,


letting it ruffle through her hair. “Little stuffy and smoky in there,” Ric said. “But the dancing’s fun.” “Thanks for taking me. It was great.” An awkward silence fell. She wondered if he was thinking about what would come next like she was. “Do you…?” she said at the same moment he asked, “Would you like to…?” They both laughed then she gestured at him to continue. “Go ahead.” “I wondered if you wanted to go back to my house for a while. Nando’s at my mom’s house. Overnight,” he added. Her mind raced, weighing the pros and cons of his place versus hers. She’d feel more secure on her own ground, but if she wanted to end the evening, it would be difficult to ask him to leave her apartment. At his place, she could simply make an excuse and go home. As the moment dragged out, Ric’s smile dimmed. “I’m sorry. That came out really sleazy, didn’t it? I don’t mean to sound like some kind of—” “I’d love to see your house,” she interrupted. “But I can’t stay too long, I have school in the morning.” Although I could take a sick day. When’s the last time I took a day for myself? “Great.” His smile lit his face, setting his eyes sparkling and calling up that delightful crease in his cheek. How could she not be entranced by a guy with a charming dimple, especially one who sang to her in Spanish, and danced with a sensuality that had her pulse pounding? Happy Valentine’s Day to me!

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