Page 94 of The Serpent's Bride
He laughed. His own chest was rising and falling with the exertion. “You still earned a reward. We will arrive at the estate tonight.”
Shit. So soon?She thought the family estate would be farther away, not a single day of sailing!
“I have a special dinner planned for us tonight. Very private and romantic. Just Raziel and Monica.” He watched her thoughtfully, gauging her reaction.
“Where you plan on murdering me, right?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
“The ceremony is tomorrow, this is something for us, before the inevitable.” Raziel kept his expression unreadable.
Shaking her head, she sighed. “Don’t lie to me, Raziel. I know what’s about to happen to me.”
“Hm. We shall see. Dinner, first.” If he was lying, he was just as good at it as she was. Which was quite possible.
Smiling half-heartedly, she took another sip of the water he’d handed her. “If you’re going to kill me tonight, Raziel, just give me a quick death.” She paused. “And maybe a shower, first.”
He laughed—and it sounded genuine. Her bit of morbid humor had surprised him. “Mmh.” Leaning in, he kissed her. Slow, but deep. It was sensual, and when he pulled away, she had to blink her eyes back open. She hadn’t realized she’d closed them. He smiled. “I would say you more than earned both of those. For now, I’ll leave you to your shower, my little murderer.”
His little murderer.
And soon, she really would be, wouldn’t she?
It was time. Nadi stared at the estate on the edge of the cliff. The castle looked skeletal from the yacht—a bleached skull on a cliff with empty eye sockets for windows, staring, unseeing, at the world around it. The roof had caved in over one wing, it seemed—the tower collapsing into the main structure of the building. But for a structure that was well over a thousand years old, it seemed…in shockingly good condition.
Especially now that it was sitting so far outside the reach of civilization and was left to the Wild.
Ivan had gone ashore with some of the yacht’s staff with hatchets and cans of gasoline to hack and burn away the vines and anything dangerous from the Wild that might interfere with the “ritual sacrifice” of Raziel’s bride. She could see the curling white smoke of the fires that they had built.
Dressing in a short, thinly strapped black dress and thigh-high stockings with garters, she brushed out her hair.
And slipped the two sharp paring knives she had stolen from the bar into the lining of her bustier, one under each armpit. They were flat enough that they wouldn’t leave a bulge or benoticed. As long as she didn’t curl into a ball or have to do any random crunches, they wouldn’t puncture through.
Raziel was insisting on them being the only two in the estate for the sacrifice. Just him. And her. Not even Ivan would be there. He likely thought he was giving her privacy in her last gasps of breath.
Little did he know, he couldn’t have given her a better wedding present if he’d tried.
TWENTY-SIX
The castle was a foreboding structure, the closer Nadi got to it. Even standing on the pier, it was a haunting sight. The more details of its ruined carcass of a structure Nadi could see, the less she had any desire to enter it. Something about it made her skin crawl. She didn’t know if she believed in ghosts—but if she did,that placewas haunted.
The wooden pier was old, and the steep and rickety stairs to the building some fifty feet up were built out of the same material. The planks were gray from sun and salt, the softer wood peeled away and leaving only the grooves of tougher woodgrain behind.
Taking off her high heels, she grumbled something about trying to make it upstairs in stilettos and splinters. But the wood was smooth beneath her toes, worn by sand and salt wind. The worst she’d have to worry about would be a stray nail or two.
Reaching out, Raziel tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, smiling at her griping. He had been in a strange mood since they had reached their destination—the Nostrom ancestral estate. He didn’t seem to want to be there any more than she did.
After the chefs had returned to the shore from preparing their meal, Raziel had then gone ahead alone. He said he had “setup to do” ashore by himself before sending for her and Ivan.
He’d meant it when he said he wanted them to be alone. Not even waiters would be there with them. Even Ivan would apparently be staying down by the pier with the skiff, alone.
It meant that she had her chance to kill Raziel. Just the two of them. But could she actually take him, one on one? She’d only get one chance. She’d have to wait for the right moment to catch him unaware and take her knives and stab them into his throat. It would take a little while to saw his head off with a paring knife, but…where there was a will, there was a way.
The mental image of having to kill him suddenly twisted something odd in her. It wasn’t pain. Not exactly. But it wasalmostregret? It was something to do with the way he was smiling at her, with somereal warmthin those ruby eyes…something felt like it had changed between them.
Hadn’t it?
What is wrong with me?
“Come. Before dinner gets cold.”
