Page 83 of Taming Seraphine

I drop my gaze to our feet.

He leans closer. “Capello and his sons threatened the people you loved and forced you to murder for them.”

A tight band of anger wraps around my ribs, turning my breath shallow. None of this is news to me. I don’t understand the point of rehashing a wrong I can never put right.

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, already knowing that none of this is even my responsibility.

“Because being a good assassin isn’t a badge of honor. It’s the mark of a person devoid of a soul. I don’t want you to lose what’s left of your humanity.”

“What about the guards who killed Mom?” I scrape out. “Are you going to tell me I should be the bigger person and forgive them?”

“Absolutely not.” He squeezes my shoulders. “You’re going to kill those four bastards and wipe them off your conscience. Then you’re going to spit on Capello’s grave and never look back.”

I nod, the pressure easing off my lungs.

“That’s why I won’t teach you to be an assassin,” he says, his grip on my shoulders loosening. “But I will teach you self-control.”

My chest fills with a mix of conflicting emotions. Relief that I might have a life outside of murdering and maiming. A life without trauma. There’s also a part of me that enjoys working side by side with Leroi, even when he’s being persnickety. A lump forms in the back of my throat, and I swallow.

“What about you?” I ask.

He cocks his head.

“Will you continue being an assassin?”

A flicker of something crosses his features, but it’s too quick for me to process, let alone identify. “It’s too late for me. I’ve been in this business for so long that I don’t know how to be anything else.”

I meet his dark gaze, not knowing how to respond because I can’t imagine myself never wanting to gouge out a man’s eyes for looking at me for too long or fantasizing about what Leroi would look like covered in blood.

What hope do I have of breaking free from my bloodlust if a man as normal as him won’t even try?

Before I can voice my thoughts, he wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Let’s get you some ice cream. Afterward, I can tell you what I’ve planned for tonight.”

THIRTY

LEROI

We sit side by side on a wooden bench watching the ducks circling the lake and I catch a glimpse of Seraphine from my peripheral. The sight of her licking her cone like it’s a cock has mine instantly hard and jealous.

This was definitely a mistake.

No matter where I turn my head, I’m painfully aware of how her tongue swirls around its rounded crown. If my attention strays too far from her ministrations, then her pleasured moans are there to remind my libido that she’s a siren sent to pull me into her allure, torturing me with pleasure and drowning me in desire.

It’s torture.

I clear my throat, shake off my inappropriate thoughts, and shift in my seat. Seraphine is my... charge? protégée? A disturbed young woman I swore to protect?

I can’t become like every man who ever abused her by allowing myself to think about her as a sexual object. Fuck knows she’s suffered enough.

“So good,” she says, her voice breathy.

My mind drifts back to the morning she rocked back and forth on my shaft with one blade pressed to my throat and another at the base of my dick. I hadn’t known where to look with her nipples erect and protruding through her shirt. Had she known what she was doing when she threatened me with castration and death? Or am I just a sick bastard who can’t resist her twisted charms?

“You’re not having any?” she says.

“I don’t like sweet things,” I mutter, my gaze fixed on a swan swimming toward a tight gaggle of ducks.

“You’re missing out.” she hums. “I could lick this cone all day.”

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