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“Maybe there is, but I don’t see it.”
“What about…” She pulled free and started pacing. Zeven settled back on to the bed. He passed her one of his long shirts which she pulled on without stopping her motion. “Since we don’t know the truth about what they really want, we’ll have to make our choices with the information we do have. They want me dead to keep their secret from getting out, right? What about if we just tell them that I’m not going to tell…that I’m with you and…”
“They won’t care. To be safe, they would kill you anyhow. Besides the usual fervor to keep our existence secret, there has to be more to it.”
“But… okay.” She crossed the room again, counting the steps and letting the pattern calm her. “What if we just spilled it to the press? If the secret was out, I’d no longer be a threat.”
He jerked as if struck. “You wouldn’t be a threat, but my people would be hunted to extinction. There is a very good reason why our existence is kept quiet. You haven’t had much positive experience with Valàfrn, but some are good people and don’t deserve to be hunted down like animals.”
“No good then.” That option was out for sure. Saving her ass by ruining his entire race would be a bit cold even if he was the only decent werewolf she’d ever met. “Okay, so they want me dead to keep me quiet…what if they think I’m dead?”
Zeven stood up so suddenly that she almost ran him over. Instead, they ended up bouncing together. Her momentum carried her right into him, and he swooped in to kiss her with a brief hot press of lips and sweep of tongue. He drew back and said, “It’s risky but might work.”
Her mind had sizzled to a stop with his touch. “What might?”
“If they think you’re dead, it should satisfy whatever step in their plan requires your death. At least, they should stop hunting for you.” He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “It could work. It might be possible to convince them, but doing so won’t be easy.”
She felt his relief and hint of optimism. But mostly she felt his doubt. He wasn’t at all confident in their ability to fake her death, but he seemed at least willing to entertain the possibility. “But you really think it could work?” Her mind raced forward clinging to the hope of getting free without Zeven killing in her name.
“Sure, it could work. We plan out some way that makes you look dead. I claim the last of the fee and we leave town.”
All the future plans skidded to a stop. They’d have to leave town. But she knew why. The clan that wanted her dead was local. She couldn’t stay here under their noses when she was supposed to be dead.
“The easiest and best way would be to leave Vegas. Wasn’t that what you intended to do anyhow?”
She nodded numbly. She had planned to run but now the panic was fading and the truth sinking in hurt a hell of a lot more than she expected. She met his gaze and found worry there. She kissed him again and pushed back the pain. If this was what she had to do, then so be it. “So now all we need to decide is how I’ll die?”
His eyebrows drew together. “I’m not sure.”
“Okay…” She took up her pacing again. “Poison wouldn’t make much sense. Have you ever used poison?” He shook his head, so she continued. “And why would I kill myself when they’d be so willing to do it for me? That means, any form of suicide is out. They think you’re after me or have me already. Wouldn’t it make the most sense to let them think you killed me?”
“It would make the most sense, but at this point they will want some evidence of your death. My word alone won’t be good enough.”
“So… we give them evidence. Why can’t we make it look as though you did succeed? How would you usually handle a target like me? What would you have done if the assignment had been for some other woman who put your entire race in danger? As long as we stick as close as possible to your usual style, they should believe it, right?”
His mouth closed in a hard line.
She stared him down. “I’m being serious. Whatever we come up with needs to fit your MO. How would you have killed me, if I wasn’t me?”
Finally, he sighed. “My first plan would have been to take out the target with a sniper rifle.”
She imagined him outside her house watching her through a scope, pinning her in the crosshairs from a distance and ending her life without ever knocking on the door. “Just that easy. You wouldn’t have asked what I did? Or why I needed to die?”
He dragged her close, capturing her face in one large hand and forcing her to meet his gaze. “I did ask you. I broke my personal rules because it was you.”
Did she want to continue on this path? Did she want to see the killer side of him, or would it be better to live out her life never knowing just how far he’d crossed into the darkness? It was stupid and dangerous, but she had to know. “But you wouldn’t have asked anyone else. You wouldn’t have checked the story or tried to find any other solution? You would have just killed the person?”
“No, Harley, I wouldn’t have checked. For the amount of money that they pay for the hit, they wouldn’t offer it if it wasn’t necessary. I would have killed the target and then collected the rest of my fee.” His words were cold and measured in ice, but his mind was open to her.
She knew his thoughts, his emotions. He wasn’t cold and dead inside like he wanted the rest of the world to believe. No doubt everyone else did believe that façade, but she saw deeper. Zeven didn’t want to kill innocent people. Not knowing if his targets deserved their fates or not drove him mad at times, but from the beginning he’d forced himself to look past right and wrong and try to see it as a job. But it wasn’t and the weight of that guilt sat heavy on his soul.
“I see.” How had her gentle lover formed this cold shell? Had his fight with his own clan begun the change? Was the guilt on his conscience, the cost he’d paid to keep her safe? Her chest tightened. Would she ever again see the soft look of an innocent young man, or was that man gone forever? She pushed the pain back and brushed the pad of her thumb across his lower lip. “So can we use a sniper rifle to pretend to kill me?”
A flash of something else crossed his mind. Something that made her doubt even what she’d seen in his mind. She opened her heart and reached out to him, instinctively finding the truth he hid deeper than even he could see. Zeven mostly screened his jobs very closely, so that he killed few and those ones usually did have it coming. Dangerous men who were a threat to everyone or like in her case a person who was supposedly a threat to his people.
His grip softened and his eyes slid closed. “I don’t think we can use the rifle. There would be no way to conceal that you were not dead or falsely prove that you were.”
“Not with make up or anything?”
