AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t kill women,” said the voice, as if that should be an obvious fact. “Unless I have to.”
“Then where is she?” Elma demanded, growing bolder. This man sounded like one of the fops at court, some brat looking for a payout. Was this a half-baked coup attempt? She began mentally listing every courtier who might betray her so soon after her father’s death.
A sigh came from the shadows. “Your maid is perfectly safe. I can’t say the same for some of your guards, but theydidattack me first. If they’d only let me get to you unhindered, they’d all be alive right now. Their faults, really.” He paused. “Are you going to cry now?”
“No,” said Elma.
“Good. It’s off-putting. I’d rather enjoy this.”
She didn’t dare reach for the blade she had hidden in the belt of her dress underneath her cloak. He would be watching, waiting for just such a movement. But if she could distract him…
“I hear you thinking over there,” said the stranger, a grin behind his words. “What do you suppose you’ll do? What schemes are unfolding in your head? I hate to do it, I really do, Your Majesty, but… I haven’t a choice in the matter.”
“Who sent you?” Elma said, now certain that this man was an assassin, and loquacious to a fault. With luck, he might talk.
“That’s a boring one,” said the stranger, shifting again in the darkness. She caught a glint of moonlight on steel and knew he’d shifted that way on purpose. “Who do youthinksent me, Queen of Frost?”
“You’re stalling for something,” Elma said. “What?”
There was a slight pause in the silence, as if she’d hit anerve. She sat up, shifted, and immediately, the stranger moved to mirror her.
“Now, now,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Don’t go and try to flee on me, snow rabbit. I’ll catch you in a second and rip out your throat with my teeth.”
In the darkness, he saw too much, every movement, every shadow. In the light, there was more to distract, more to show him until he missed what she was really doing. “I was looking for my tinderbox,” she lied. “Don’t I deserve to see the face of the man who would kill me?”
A low chuckle. “Already given up, then? Smart.”
Elma waited. He didn’t sound like a lowborn ruffian or a bloodthirsty monster. He would honor her request.
He sighed, a long-suffering exhale of breath. “Oh, all right,” he said, “if you insist.” There was movement in the dark, and he shifted sideways until a beam of moonlight illuminated him in ethereal blue-white.
Blinking, Elma stared across at the stranger.
He grinned wolfishly, gesturing at himself with a leather-gloved hand. “Take it in, Your Majesty.”
And she did. He was not, as she had initially feared, a snow demon. Nothing but a man sat across from her, so relaxed in his bearing that he could have been on a holiday jaunt instead of a killing mission. He was dressed head to toe in black leather, with a fur-lined cape affixed to his shoulders. Long fingers emerged from leather half-gloves, twirling a wicked blade as if it were a child's toy.
He was handsome, beautiful even, despite the shadows under his eyes and a broad scar that ran from just above his right eyebrow down to his cheek. His grin was as wicked as his blade, and probably just as deadly. But these weren’t the details that caught Elma’s eye, made her heart sink, and made the blood drain from her face.
It was his hair — bone white and starkly pale in contrast with his tanned skin.
“You’re Slödavan,” Elma breathed.
He flipped his knife into the air and caught it. Tilted his head. “None other. And now, Queen of Frost, I’ll give you a choice. How would you like to die?”
Five
Not at all, thought Elma, almost surprising herself. She didn’t want to die.
“At least tell me your name, before you kill me,” she said, sitting up straighter in the furs. If she could angle herself correctly without drawing attention to it, she might be able to access the dagger. Might be able to draw it in time.
A line formed between the assassin’s brows. “Why would you need my name at a time like this?”
Before Elma could track his movement, he leapt forward across the wagon, crouching over her, his blade only inches from her throat. In the quiet night, just above the endless howl of wind, she heard him breathing. It was an eager, hungry thing, the breath in his lungs. A predator’s anticipation.
“How about a blade across the throat?” He said, pressing his thumb to the space below her ear. He leaned close, so close she felt the faintest touch of warm breath on her skin.
She closed her eyes.
