Page 43 of Lady of Darkness

“Are you threatening me with a dagger to the throat?” Sorin growled.

“Me? Gods, no. Nothing however? She’ll go for the balls.”

Sorin snorted. “I have been training her. I know what she is capable of.”

Cassius said nothing. He just continued to eat, a faint knowing smile on his lips.

Despite Cassius’s warning, here he was. Sorin had left the castle at the end of the day and gone to the manor. He’d been crouched on a rooftop across the street for two hours now and hadn’t seen anyone on the grounds other than the usual patrols. It was nearly twilight. Lord Tyndell was likely still at the castle meeting with the king’s council. Drake hadn’t come home yet. Tava was doing whatever it was Ladies did here during the day and evenings, but then where was Scarlett? Cassius had hinted she was up and fine and moving about. The servants knew him at the manor. Maybe he should just go and knock on her door.

He shifted slightly, his legs getting stiff from crouching for so long. He scented her a moment before he felt the tip of a dagger at his back.

“Hello, General,” a female voice purred into his ear. “Lord Tyndell would be so curious to know what you’re doing on the roof across the street.” The voice was like silk and honey. It made every nerve in his body both tense and relax all at once. He slowly began reaching for the hunting knife at his side. “I wouldn’t do that,” the voice crooned, obviously noting his movement. “I’ll slit your throat before you even get that knife out of your boot.”

“Let him be,” came another voice. This one he recognized, and a part of him inexplicably sighed in relief to hear it in all its arrogant glory. Then, “Oh for the love of Saylah, let him up.”

Saylah? The goddess of shadows and night? Interesting choice of goddess to invoke.

“We’re just playing,” the first female voice purred again, right next to his ear, that dagger digging in a little harder. He felt it pierce through his jacket.He needed to see the person that voice belonged to. Her scent. He’d found it lingering here and there around the manor, but it was muted. He had scented it that first morning of training with Scarlett, too, when he’d thought someone else was in the gardens.

“Fucking hell,” Scarlett sighed, adding a string of other choice words. Sorin choked down a laugh. The female may reside with nobility, but her mouth was as vulgar as a warrior in a war camp. Whoever she was with, there were no filters, no pretenses. He felt the dagger leave his back, and he whirled, pulling a dagger from his own side as he did. He blinked in shock at what stood before him.

And completely understood her reference to Saylah.

Two women. Side-by-side. Both were completely in black, hoods up, hiding their faces, and they were walking arsenals. He couldn’t keep track of how many weapons they each bore. How they had managed to sneak up on him was even more baffling. Completely silent. Their scents almost completely obscured. One was a little taller than the other, and he honestly couldn’t tell which one was Scarlett. Had she not spoken, he wouldn’t have even guessed she was one of the women on the rooftop.

The slightly shorter one on the left reached up to pull back her hood. Silver hair glinted in the almost set sun. Sorin noted the vambraces at her wrists and a sword peeking over her shoulder. He had been training this girl, this woman, for nearly a month. He would have never, in ten centuries, pictured her the way she looked now. Despite her claims that she was not a Lady, he hadn’t been able to picture her outside nobility, outside of the life living in the Tyndell manor would be. Before him stood a Lady of Darkness and beside her was her twin.

A dark smile spread across Scarlett’s face, a look he’d only seen on her face one other time— that day he had tackled her in the training quarters. The day she’d said she would gut him and hinted that she’d taken life before. He hadn’t believed her then, but looking at her now, he had no doubt she’d been telling the truth.

She held a dagger in her hand. Not just any dagger. It was a wicked crooked blade of shirastone. A dagger that could kill a Fae if a user knew where to strike.He was guessing she knew where to strike. Cassius had clearly shared his Fae revelation with her then.

She slid the dagger into her boot as she said to him, “Whatisa lying bastard like yourself doing on top of the roof across from his commanding Lord’s manor at sunset?”

Sorin was still too stunned to say anything. He had been trainingthis?Had he known she could transform into what stood before him, his training techniques would have been very, very different. They would be from now on.

“Doesn’t it speak?” the woman beside Scarlett asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Yes, he speaks,” Scarlett sighed, her hands going to her hips. “Although sometimes you have to entice him with a treat.”

Sorin, finally finding his voice, snarled low and deadly. “It seems I am not the only one on this rooftop who has kept secrets.”

Scarlett raised her brows at his implications and a sultry look came over her face, her smile becoming cunning and cruel. She crossed the distance between them slowly, her companion standing back, crossing her arms over her chest. Scarlett stopped less than a foot in front of him, bringing her hand to his chest. She slowly, so slowly, walked two fingers up to his throat, then drug her nails along his collarbone. Her hand finally came to rest on his shoulder as she purred, soft and low, “I’ve never lied to you, General Renwell. I told you the first time I ever spoke to you.I am no Lady.”

Sorin had to work to keep his breathing even. He’d been so damn focused on that ring, on who her mother had been, he’d missed this deadly weapon right in front of him. If she learned to wield whatever power lay dormant in her veins? She was a wildfire waiting to be unleashed. “No, no you are not,” Sorin answered, his own voice low and callous. He reached up and gripped her wrist. Her companion tensed and palmed the dagger she’d been holding. It was also shirastone. How did they even have these weapons? They were extremely rare and very expensive here. “It appears you are walking death, and it makes me wonder why you have been holding back in training.”

Scarlett dragged her eyes from his grip on her wrist to his face,her smile savagely cruel now. “I find people to be a bit more… relaxed around me when they do not know the full extent of my abilities. I do love the element of surprise, but you’ve mistaken me, General. I am not Death Incarnate, and she is not your worry tonight. Death’s Shadow is who you must beware of.”

Sorin’s eyes snapped to the other woman. This was Death’s Shadow? This was the one whom people only whispered of in the streets? This was the one they feared more than death itself because it meant that the Wraiths of Death were coming for them? Death’s Shadow always found you first. Mortals believed Night Children and Witches were bedtime stories, but the Wraiths of Death were nightmares made flesh. And Scarlett was casually in her company? Piece after piece fell into place, and his head whipped back to Scarlett. “You were trained in the Black Syndicate? You were trained bythem.She’s the ‘her’ you are constantly referring to around me.”

The wicked smile remained on her face, void of any compassion. “See? I told you he wasn’t entirely moronic,” she called to Death’s Shadow.

“Maybe not entirely, but it still doesn’t explain why he’s on this roof when Cassius explicitly told him what would happen should he try to track you down,” the woman crooned, her body relaxing again.

“Cassius told you I would be here?”

“Cassius told me you’d asked about me and that you mentioned coming to check on me yourself,” Scarlett said, clicking her tongue in admonishment. “I do believe you were told my wellbeing was none of your godsdamned business.”

“Cassius has a big mouth,” Sorin muttered under his breath.

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