Page 53 of The Silversmith

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“You told me you’re good at killing.”

“Yes.”

“How many people have you killed?”

“Don’t ask questions if you can’t handle the answer.”

My stomach dropped. I could handle more than he realized, but did I want to?

“Would you…” I shuddered, terrified by the potential truth. “Would you kill… for me?”

He didn’t hesitate. “I already have.”

I flinched and resisted the urge to retreat from him. Because I should, not because I wanted to.

He shifted from my left foot to my right, where he repeated his ministrations.

“Why?” I breathed.

He pressed into another beautifully painful spot. “You are my queen.”

That answer again. There was more, but I didn’t know how to find it.

Maybe if I helped him find peace or happiness of some sort…

“After all this is over, after I’m deemed ready to lead by Simeon and delivered to Elias, what will you do?”

“Does it matter to you?”

“I just…” I swallowed a lump of emotion in my throat. My cheeks flooded with heat. “There has to be a way to repay you for all you’re doing for me. I’m sure I can find a way to give you whatever it is that you want.”

His strong fingers brushed across the top of my foot. “I can’t have what I want.”

“Really?” I lifted a critical brow. “You said you do what you want, and that certainly seems to be true. Why can’t you have what you want?”

He slid my wool socks back onto each of my feet, closed his eyes, and confessed, “Because the whole gods-damned world has been hellbent on taking what I want from me— what’s mine—for a long fucking time.”

My throat tightened. “Your wife?”

He gave no answer but met my gaze with a hot intensity.

My stomach threatened to upheave its contents. With the way he looked at me, it was easy to forget about the mystery woman he’d told me about. He looked at me like she didn’t exist. He looked at me like there was only me.

“I’m sorry,” I rushed out. “I hope you can find it in you to let go of the pain. If you want to,” I added, forcing a swallow through my throat. “If you can.”

“I don’t let go, Ella.” Goose bumps rose up on every surface of my skin at the biting iciness of his tone. “Ever.”

A melancholic longing sluiced through me, and I withdrew from him out of impulse.

“Thanks.” I stood and willed my voice to be steady. “For the feet.”

But he fastened his hand around my wrist, holding me in place. And then he rose, towering over me, mere finger lengths away. I could feel the heat of his body. His cedar and leather scent was so close…

“The first time I lost what I wanted, I was young and naïve.” He locked eyes with me. My breathing came out weak and stuttered. “I let my guard down and it slipped through my grasp, but that will not happen again.” His fingers twitched around my arm. “I may never have what I want the way I want it, but the day I let go will be the day I’m buried as deep into the fucking ground as they can put me. Even then.” He lifted his knuckle to graze my cheek where I felt heat pulsing. “I’ll be damned if I don’t try to crawl my way back out.”