Page 75 of A Game of Love and Betrayal

Her handler picked up on the first ring. “Hello?” He sounded groggy, and for a moment, Brynleigh felt bad. She probably woke him up.

“It’s me, Z,” she whispered.

“Brynleigh, what the hell?” Someone grumbled in the background, and it sounded like Zanri stumbled into another room. A door closed. “You shouldn’t be calling me. The risk?—”

“Fuck the risk,” she bit out. It didn’t matter that she interrupted him. She didn’t have time for his rambling. The guard could come back at any moment. “I had to call. It’s important.”

A sigh that could level cities slipped from Zanri’s mouth. Leather creaked, and she imagined him dropping into his favorite red, worn armchair. “Jelisette isn’t here.”

“I figured,” said Brynleigh.

As long as Brynleigh had known Jelisette, the older vampire had kept a standing appointment once a week. She’d never missed it.

“What’s going on?”

“I called to talk to you, Z. I need your advice, not Jelisette’s.”

Brynleigh already knew what her Maker would say. Jelisette would remind her of all ten rules and reassure her she was on the right track. The problem was that Brynleigh wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

“What do you need, B?”

She palmed her neck. “You’ve been watching the Choosing?”

“Of course. We all have.”

Her eyes fell shut, and she groaned. “I’m having trouble.”

That was an understatement.

“What kind of trouble?” Zanri sounded like he didn’t want to know.

That made two of them. These feelings were wrong. These questions were wrong. And yet, she couldn’t stop the next words from pouring from her lips. “Ryker is nothing like what I expected.”

“Brynleigh,” the shifter growled in warning. “The fae is your mark.”

As if she needed the reminder. The truth of what happened to Chavin haunted her every waking moment.

“I know what he is,” she hissed into the receiver, clutching the phone. “You think I’ve somehow forgotten that? Every day, I remember.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

She pressed the phone against her ear and picked at her pendant with her free hand. “I know what he did. I was there. But maybe…” She chewed on her lip. “Maybe he’s changed? Maybe the reason he was in hiding, the reason we couldn’t find him, was because he was turning his life around.”

Six years was a long time. People changed, learned, and became better all the time. Or worse. Brynleigh was the perfect example. In six years, she’d become a cold-hearted killer. It was plausible that Ryker was no longer the same man as before. Right?

A long silence came through the line. A thousand-pound weight bore down on her shoulders. The sound of Zanri’s breath was heavy in her ears.

Several minutes went by. Brynleigh’s heart rapped an unsteady beat. Her hands slickened, and she passed the receiver from one hand to the other.

“Captain Ryker Waterborn is your mark.” Zanri’s voice was ice, altogether void of emotion.

“I know,” Brynleigh replied.

“You entered the Choosing with one goal in mind. What was it?”

“Make him fall in love with me, marry him, and kill him on our wedding night,” Brynleigh automatically whispered the words that had been drilled into her over years of practice.

A rumble of approval. “That’s correct. And what is rule number ten?”

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