28
MAEVE
Stepping into the cold subterranean basement rooms, I fist my hands and inhale. The air tastes stale—filled with dirt, mold, and the small trace of urine—and I swallow it down.
As a child, the basement was an old friend. It haunted Collins, ignored Sloane, but became my home. Down here, under the harsh, ugly lights, locked behind heavy wooden doors, I could let the demons out and sustain myself on the screams of those who wronged me.
They weren’t innocents. The men I dissected were all bad in some way. When I was younger, I used to imagine them as Michael—see him yell, fall apart at my hands, have his blood stain my shoes. It never happened—not until I took back my power. But it was good practice.
Being here was cathartic. I exorcised my sins, embraced the dark, fed my twisted soul. Being herenow, slowly walking around Murray’s terrified body, that same sense of peace fills me. I’m lighter, back where I belong.
“Murray.”
He shakes, his body violently racking the leather straps. The buckles clink together, wind chimes in the air.
Killian comes up next to me and places his chin on my shoulder. He’s the devil on my side.
“Why is he here?” I have a good idea, but this is the part I excel in. The wait, elongating the time, is to really make them suffer.
“He’s the go-between,” the Reaper says, turning to look at me. His black eyes are wide with pleasure, feeding off my bloodlust. It’s rising steadily, this insane need to make my victim hurt.
I should’ve known I could never be normal—hide from my true self. Not when I’m salivating at the prospect of causing harm, and my body hums, igniting from the Reaper’s touch.
I am darkness—I was a weapon forged from the blackest of nights. It’s time I own it.
“The go-between,” I repeat, tasting the words.
“The assassins.” His lips brush my cheek, and I tilt my head, allowing him more access. Lowering to my neck, his tongue darts out, sampling my skin. He groans. “He’s the one sending them out to take you down.”
A spark explodes in my chest, warming my entire body with a vicious heat. He’s the one making the plans to have me killed. Murray James—the man I couldn’t kill due to some ridiculous rule the Board leveled on us—was actively participating in plotting my death.
He reads my face. Swallowing loudly, he shakes his head.
“No, Ace, I didn’t have a choice?—”
“Knife.”
Killian chuckles, sliding his black claw knife into my grasp. It’s cold, heavy, yet right. Everything settles in me, the rage warping into a calming hand. Exhaling, my shoulders drop, and I sink into it.
He places his hands on my hips, staring at Murray over my shoulder, chin perched.
“You’ve been with the clan for decades,” I murmur, waving the blade in the air. The light catches it just right, a wicked scythe to slay my victims. “A messenger that’s been a parrot of the Board to the clan.”
“Not just yours.” His eyes don’t leave the knife. “I travel all over. To the west coast, to the south. Wherever I have to deliver messages that can’t be written down.”
“Lest found out.” Killian winks, sliding to the far wall. He throws his jacket off, leaning against the cold cement walls in a black crop top and dark jeans. “We can’t have anyone knowing our secrets.”
“It’s a good system.”
“Is that why you can’t be touched?” I tilt my head, watching the sweat drop off his forehead. “If you die, the secrets die with you?”
He gulps. “Something like that.”
Digging my fingers into his scalp, I pull what little hair he has left and hold the blade to his neck. “So, what secrets are you hiding now?”
“I’m not—I can’t?—”
I tsk. “Such ashame.”
