Page 43 of Zel
He whirled in the direction where he sensed someone, certain he hadn’t hiked his skirts enough that anyone could have seen or realized the truth. But was someone there, hiding in the dark? Was some fool about to try robbing him? In case they were, Zel reached beneath his skirts to retrieve his dagger.
“Well now, look who’s without her fancy dance partner.”
Zel froze, for the voice had not come from in front of him where he watched the dark, but behind. He turned, not surprised to discover the oaf from earlier stumbling toward him. After likely spilling his guts somewhere nearby, the man hadn’t run off with his tail between his legs. Unfortunate. Forhim. Because here Zel didn’t need to worry about drawing attention.
“Whatcha gonna do with that blade, pretty petal?” the man asked, since Zel made no move to hide his dagger, and in fact raised it at the ready. Why did it always come back to that goddamned name? “Betcha I got something better to skewer you with.” He reached down to grab his own crotch.
Charming. “I doubt it,” Zel said, “but you are right that something needs to be skewered.”
If Ulrich was the shadowed night, then Zel was what lurked within, striking before his prey could react, with a crouch and a spring upward, and then his dagger lodged right through the man’s hand still holding his cock.
Zel twisted and yanked the blade free, but while the man would bleed out quickly, it was not as instantly fatal as other blows Zel might have struck. He watched the horror fill the man’s face, let it sink in for what precious moments Zel could enjoy it that, no, the man was not going to survive this, but before the release of death, he'd have to endure the loss of hismanhood. When it all finally became real to the man and he opened his mouth to scream, Zel sliced upward across his throat to silence him.
With a quick spin out of the way, Zel avoided the spray of blood that followed. The man toppled, too much in shock to clutch his neck, when he was already clutching his ruined genitals. The brutality of the kill would warn people it had been done by a Thieves Guild assassin. Not all kills required cleaners. Some were left as messages, and no one would know that Zel struck the blow.
He wiped off his dagger on the back of the man’s shirt before re-sheathing it.
His ninth kill. The one that was supposed to be Ulrich.
If Zel didn’t watch the light leave the man’s eyes, did it count? Did he not want for it to count? Or did he want this to be the ninth, so Ulrich might not become a number at all?
“Anyone who would attempt to take another without permission deserves only death.”
Zel spun again, first down the other end of the alley, where he had initially thought he sensed someone, but he still couldn’t make out anyone hiding there. Then he spun the other way, where Ulrich was on approach, having dropped his guise and looking absolutely ravishing in the moonlight with how he sparkled like the magic he had made dance to the music.
Zel adjusted his skirts, unsure how high they had been while he put his dagger away, but Ulrich couldn’t possibly have seen anything. Could he? Even if he hadn't, he had seen Zel coldly murder someone, leaving no second guesses about what the Thieves Guild truly was.
“M-my lord—”
“Might I ask, little cabbage,” Ulrich began as he descended upon Zel without further glance at the body nor any care that itlaid there, “for permission to complete the kiss you denied me inside?”
Heat flourished once more within Zel. Even beside a piss-stained wall and fresh corpse, the request for a kiss lost none of its magic. Perhaps it was the alcohol buzzing through Zel’s brain, but he could imagine no other answer than a breathlessly uttered, “Yes.”
And Ulrich kissed him.
ULRICH
Whatever extent of chastity’s chains Zel had already shaken free of were made clearer by how explosively their tongues collided with that first precious kiss.
Zel was a malicious marvel, cold and calculating and precise. But the receiver of Zel’s skills had earned it. Over the many centuries Ulrich's immortality had gifted him, he had learned that one truth remained in every age.
Some people deserved to die.
Zel was not one of them, nor was Ulrich’s little cabbage deserving of a worse fate.
Ulrich clutched Zel to him, right hand no longer gloved, with black and sunken skin freely exposed and claws digging intothe firm fabric and boning of Zel’s corset. The heat from the slighter body against him, the rapid pulse of Zel’s heart, loud and vibrating as their chests collided as passionately as their mouths had, was wonderful. This was no chaste peck, testing waters. Ulrich had been teased with a filthy promise of scuffed knees and an open mouth. Whether an honest declaration or drunken musings, it made him ravenous to have Zel, any part of his betrothed, as little or as much as might be offered.
Zel’s panting in the wake of their kiss only increased that want.
“You do not think it vile what I did?” Zel asked.
“He was the vile one. You, little cabbage, have proved a harbinger of justice.” Ulrich reached for Zel again but winced as the veins in his arm pulsed.
Zel saw the added glow, the pain it caused, and took hold of Ulrich’s blackened hand. Still breathless from their kiss, Zel lifted the hand to press wetted lips to Ulrich’s fingertips, and even drew one into his mouth, claw and all, keeping eye contact while tonguing it.
They knew Zel’s hair plumped Ulrich’s arm to life, as did Zel’s blood. Now, it was proven Zel’s saliva did the same, and Ulrich’s arm wasn’t the only part of him growing plump.
“Better, my lord?” Zel asked, for even when Ulrich’s finger hit open air again, the lingering wetness kept the hand looking whole and alive.
