Page 159 of Hellbound

The yellowed whites of his eyes ringed with fear.

She dragged the razor-sharp tip against the folds of his neck as he quivered.

The stench of fear rolled off him—pungent, acrid, thick enough to taste. A muffled whimper pressed through his gag.

You’ve terrified the poor thing, Vornaya admonished.

“Oh, Valdren,” Ksenia simpered, her hand stroking his face as she settled between his spread legs. “I thought you had darker appetites, but maybe I was wrong. I didn’t mean to cause panic…” Her smile was poisonous honey.

A relieved sigh pressed through his nostrils, his body slackening—foolish man, chastising himself for thinking such dark thoughts about her.

The whites of her teeth glowed in the candlelight and she slammed a hand over the gag, pinning his head back. The sapphire brooch at his neck bobbed.

Caromir plunged behind his collarbone, severing the artery with a precise thrust.

His scream was muffled against her palm as he writhed like a salted slug.

White-hot, incandescent power sang through her veins. She gasped, eyes fluttering, lost in the heat. And for a moment, she was invincible.

This feeling never grows old.

He struggled for half a minute before losing consciousness. The blood pooling within his chest cavity kept the crime nice and clean.

Slowly, she withdrew from her euphoria and back to the task at hand.

Ksenia calmly removed her blade to clean it in his bathroom sink before sheathing the weapon.

Only a minute or so had passed, and she spent the remainder of her time within his chambers, arranging him to be a picture of peaceful slumber, his head angled to cover the fatal wound.

His eyelids were drawn over his watery eyes.

She retrieved the stocking from his mouth, the lengths of rope, and the scarf before surveying her work with a critical eye.

She tossed the binds and gag into the fireplace and slipped from his chambers like any other courtesan into the night.

The next evening, screams rang out through the third floor of Hearth.

Valdren was an incorrigible drunk on the best of days, and the maids tended to wait until late morning before easing the door to his quarters open. Word had traveled that his curtains were drawn tight against the light, and no one had paid any attention to his slumped form in bed—still sleeping off the alcohol from the celebration, no doubt.

It was when he hadn’t roused for lunch and skipped the treasury dinner with Karsan and some Grastelian diplomats that a poor servant crept closer to the bloated man and discovered Valdren Kovar dead in his chambers.

“Well, at least it didn’t happen at Kindling, right?” Ksenia offered.

Her attempt at improving the situation was met with silence. The line of Bohdan’s back was stiff and unyielding as he walked before her toward Valdren’s chambers.

They entered the empty bedroom, where the corpse still lay prone with the covers drawn.

Valdren’s eyelids were shut peacefully, his mouth gently parted with all the pretense of a soft snore. But no breath came from his lungs.

His face was jaundiced, and his fingertips were beginning to purple.

“Do we have any witnesses who saw when he left Kindling?”

Ksenia flipped through sheafs of parchment in the middle of the room. “He left shortly after you and I saw him, according to the guards.”

“Did they mention anyone he walked out with?”

“No. He left by himself.” Ksenia scratched her chin thoughtfully.