“If you’re finished poking your nose in my business,” he said, “I need you to kill someone.”
Finally, something I would enjoy. “Who?”
“A human, about so high”—Tadhg held his hand to his temple—“silver hair. Blackened teeth. Small scar on his stubbled chin. He killed Keelynn’s coachman and—”
“Padraig?”
A nod.
I didn’t care that the old man was dead, but Aveen would. Yet another reason she’d have to despise me.
“He took Keelynn’s carriage,” Tadhg added, dragging on the rest of his clothes and his boots.
A fat raindrop splatted on my crown. And then another. I ran a hand through my hair, giving the blackened sky a silent order to hold its infernal rain in before I ended up soaked. “You want the carriage back?”
“No. But retrieve her purse, leave it on my bed.”
“Anything else, master?”
“Yes.” Tadhg’s eyes swirled with black, and he gave me a smile I knew all too well. “Make him pay.”
* * *
I found my new best friend drinking away at a bawdy house filled with other humans. I knew I was in the right place because I found Aveen’s black coach parked right outside. I knew he was the right man because he had just used the ring I’d given Keelynn on our wedding day to up the ante in a game of cards. All I needed to do was wait until he was alone, which, thankfully, didn’t take too long. He used a purse I recognized as Keelynn’s to pay for a pint and a brown-haired whore, hauling her by the arm up the stairs at the back of the place.
I didn’t even give him time for one last ride, evanescing to their room before he could get his breeches unfastened.
The woman screeched, shrinking toward the headboard, clutching her dress to cover her breasts. It took the man a second to realize what she was trying to escape from. When he saw me sitting on the edge of the window, running my thumb along the blade of my dagger, the color drained from his face.
“I ordered a private room,” he slurred, dragging his sleeve across his lips. “So if yer here to watch, ye can feck off and find yer own whore.”
Instead of speaking to him, I directed my words to the woman. “I hope you don’t mind, but your client and I have a little business to take care of.”
“I’ve no business with ye,” the man countered.
The woman still hadn’t moved.
I let go of the darkness that lived within me, sinking beneath the cold black, loving the way it zipped through my veins, giving me access to power I rarely used. “Leave.”
She scrambled to her feet and stumbled toward the door. If the man noticed me summoning a tost, he didn’t mention it. His face contorted, the color returning in a rush of red. “Where do ye get off sendin’ away my—”
I cut off his words with my blade, sticking him in the gut and watching surprise flash in his eyes. And then I twisted the hilt, leaving him screaming. I loved it when they screamed. Power rushed through me when I tore my dagger from his gut, leaving a puddle on the floor.
When Aveen learned of her beloved coachman’s passing, she’d be devastated. Knowing that, I decided to take my time.
He tried to go for the door, but I appeared in front of him, slamming my fist into his face, relishing the pain in my knuckles. Pain was something I understood. Something I’d learned to accept. Much the same as death.
The man fell to the floor and let out a gurgling groan that sounded an awful lot like a curse.Hard to tell since his jaw was broken.
“I’d say I hope you learn your lesson about taking things that don’t belong to you, but you won’t have a chance.”
He spat on my boot before trying to slither through the growing pool of blood toward the door. I pressed my heel to his throat, waiting for his defiant eyes to go vacant.
I loved it when they were angry. So much better than the sniveling, sniffing weasels who pleaded for mercy. Pathetic. Begging did nothing but make you look like a fool.
He clawed at my ankle, leaving bloodied fingerprints all over the shiny black leather. All it took was one twist of my heel, and he stopped fighting.
I swiped my blade across his neck to make sure he was well and truly dead.