Page 7 of Creatures that Breathe

“And the rest?”

“Might be only mildly offensive if I knew your name.”

The spymaster lifts a shoulder in a careless gesture that seems to say, I’ve been called much, much worse. “Better attempts have been made for the same information with far greater rewards, but as it stands, if I told you ...” He lets the threat trail and curl around us.

I cross my arms. “You’re not going to kill me.”

The spymaster’s gaze raises to the ceiling as if he truly cannot believe I’ve asked to be spared. “Contrary to how harmless we may appear, our penchant for carnage remains unparalleled.”

Goosebumps break down my arms. “Regardless, you won’t kill me. I have information you want.”

Lev, a pillar of hair and muscle I’d forgotten, leans forward, intrigued. The spymaster is not so enticed.

I drop the bait. “You’re being followed.”

“By pitchforks, by bolts, by the righteous and the wronged.” The deep tenor of the spymaster’s voice hovers in the air like smoke. “Do you have information, or are you the last creature breathing to suspect that traitors of the crown have enemies?”

“Traitors? Or executioners?”

He stiffens, utters something thick and Slavic over my shoulder that makes the saleswoman swat her husband and flee from the tent. “Tell me, if you are here by altruistic means, how, after centuries of evasion, our enemies have finally closed in? How tonight is the night that I end, and you alone are the one to warn me, all out of the good in your racing, terrified heart.”

“Tonight is the night.”

He strikes, lethally graceful, erasing the distance between us, maneuvering to block the exit while cornering me between the glove stacks and wood tent post.

Face to face, my lungs empty.

I’ve been gathering bits of information on the Blackguard since Yaya first spat the word, but no one has ever described the male glaring down at me.

Black.

Sun-abandoned, life devouring black. Streaks of it radiate from his pupils like shattered obsidian slashing through cold gray steel.

He is looming and intimidating. He’s—

Stunning.

Youthful features, sloped angular cheekbones, a nobly defined nose, and a sharp chin. Crimson lips cracked at the center. Beautiful. Undeniably.

And it’s heartbreaking.

How he seems to resent it. Bitten lips, unkempt hair, the purple half-moons under his eyes. He’s Orion, the huntsman banished to the night sky, eternally doomed to yearn for his beloved Merope, who floats just beyond his grasp. Driven mad with yearning and still forced by Zeus to glitter and shine, to dazzle the mortals toiling below.

He stands as if he’s seconds from ending me, shoulders rolled in annoyance, jaw locked, snarling down from his pedestal, but subtle wafts of soap lift from his skin, clean and crisp, and effectively crack the visage of horror he clings to. “How would you know I’m being followed, if you weren’t already in the hunt yourself, if you didn’t crave a certain bloody retribution?”

My lips press into a line. “I don’t want anyone hurt.”

“Yes, that’s why you mentioned our stalkers. Knowing we’d sit them down for tea. How do you suppose we survive?”

“You hide.”

“I eliminate threats.” He emphasizes each word deliberately, as if I mistook him for a turtle cowering in his shell.

“Good thing I’m not a threat to you, then.”

“That remains to be seen.” It’s sort of a threat itself. Sort of violent and spiked. Hits like metal clashing. It’s supposed to make me quake or tremble, or any of the things I personally excel at.

Except it doesn’t.

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