Angel's Assassin (9 page)

“I need someone to look after my daughter.
Someone to protect her.”

Damien slowly resheathed his sword. He nodded
his head in agreement. “He should be with her at all times.”

Lord Gabriel agreed. “Yes. She must be kept
safe, at all costs. No harm must befall her. I will pay
handsomely.”

“Of course,” Damien approved. “She is your
daughter. You should pay very well to attract the best man to keep
her safe.”

“Yes, I should pay very well,” Lord
Gabriel laughed quietly. Then, his expression turned sincere as he
looked Damien squarely in the eyes. “She wants
you
to be her bodyguard. I am offering you the
position. And I will pay you handsomely to keep her
safe.”

W
hen Aurora
opened her eyes again, it was dark. Completely dark. For a moment,
she was lost. Panicked. Disoriented. She made three attempts at
sitting upright before her weakened arms were finally able to hold
her weight.

“How do you feel?”

She whirled toward the voice but could not
see through the thick darkness. As she peered into the dimness, a
shadowy shape materialized near the wall. It broke away from the
rest of the darkness and moved toward her. She almost cried out.
Her body trembled as she pulled the blanket to herself like a
shield. The deathly memory again burst into her mind’s eye. A
flashing metal dagger. Blood. Dark eyes.

“Are you thirsty?”

Her voice vanished, lost in her dry throat.
Had the shadow come to kill her? Like her mother? Her hands fisted
in the blanket she held to her chest. Her body stiffened, ready to
flee.

“Aurora?”

The soft timbre of his voice formed a cocoon
of reassurance around her and melted her anxiety.

“Are you thirsty?” the shadow repeated.

Some semblance of reality returned to her. An
assassin would not ask if she were thirsty. She parted her parched
lips. “Yes,” she said in a dry, hoarse voice. She heard liquid
being poured and took the moment to look around. Moonlight seeped
into the room through the closed shutters of her window. Familiar
rich velvet curtains hung from the bedposts. The moon cast
well-known light patterns across the floor. She knew where she was.
Her chambers. The only difference in the familiarity of her room
was the sleeping man sitting precariously on a chair tucked into a
far corner.

A mug was placed in her shaky hands. She
stared down at the liquid inside. Memory returned. Poisoned! She
almost dropped the cup.

A hand steadied it in her hands. Another
memory shot through her sluggish mind, a hand gripping her wrist to
stop her from drinking the poisoned wine.

“Damien?” she called softly.

“Aye,” he replied.

A soft sigh escaped her lips and she raised
the mug to her mouth and drank deeply, trusting him completely. The
ale washed down her throat, bathing the dryness with refreshing
coolness. She lowered the mug and leaned over it as if inspecting
the contents. Marie. Oh, Marie, Aurora thought with the anguish of
betrayal. A beam of moonlight hit the inside edge of the mug and in
the shimmer of the dark liquid she saw the image of the trusted
servant. Aurora had been so sure Marie was loyal, so sure she would
never poison her. And she had been wrong. Dangerously wrong. “You
were right,” she whispered. Right about Marie. She looked up with
sincerity and gratitude. “I am sorry for not believing you.”

Damien stepped closer. “You are too trusting,
I’m afraid.” It was not a statement of recrimination, just a simple
fact. “Everyone is capable of deception,” he told her. He looked
straight into her eyes. “Everyone.”

His black tunic made him almost indiscernible
as he moved toward her. His skin gave him away, darkly tanned, yet
lighter than the darkness surrounding them. “Even you?” The thought
was almost too much to bear. In the short time she had known him,
she had come to trust Damien. To depend on him without the
slightest reservation or doubt.

“Everyone,” he said.

“You would deceive me?” she asked, wounded
deeply.

“It is as I told you. People will do what
they need to do to survive.” He looked at her. “Even you.”

“I would never harm another,” she insisted.
“No matter what.”

“No?” Damien wondered. “What if someone had a
sword to your father’s throat and told you that if you did not
poison…” Damien searched for a name. “…me, your father would
die.”

She tilted her head, wondering how many
people had harmed him to so taint his soul. “I would never hurt
you. How could I when you twice saved my life?”

“It’s easy to say in the dark, when your
father is in no danger.” The candle he held flamed to life,
spreading light in a circle about her bed. Damien raised it higher
and the flickering flame illuminated his strong face with a golden
glow. “But in the light of day, if the danger I portrayed to you
were true…we might see a different side of you.”

Aurora lifted her chin. “It would kill me to
have to make such a choice, but I would never hurt you. Not even
for my father’s life.”

Damien scowled slightly. His gaze searched
her face, touching every corner of it, looking for something. He
lowered his eyes. “I am your bodyguard now. Your father is paying
me to keep you alive and well.”

Her eyebrows shot up. With his statement came
a strange thrill that warmed her in places she had never felt such
heat before. She had implored her father, but never thought he
would hire Damien. She took another drink of ale, and the golden
liquid now tasted like an elixir of forbidden excitement. She
looked around. Except for the sleeping guard, she and Damien were
alone. “My father must trust you if he allows you into my
room.”

“You put too much faith in trust,” he said.
“He is paying me to keep you alive.”

She turned away from him and placed the mug
onto a table near her bed. “And tell me, Damien, what is it you
believe in?”

Damien fingered the handle of the dagger in
his belt. “I believe in the power of this,” he said. He jangled the
coin pouch attached to his belt. “And these always do what you
expect them to do.”

Material things. “You have no faith in
people. It must be a very lonely life you lead.” She swung her legs
from the bed, steadying herself for a moment. “Do you find solace
from the cold steel of your blade? And what of love? Do you search
for that in your pouch of coin?”

“Love?” Damien scoffed. “Love is the ultimate
trust, and therefore the ultimate illusion because it does not
exist. To search for it is a complete waste of time.”

Aurora’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped
open. Damien stood stoically before her, half in shadow, half in
light. “Some do not have to search for it. I feel the warmth of
love from my people, and the protection and kindness of my father’s
love every day. To think love does not exist is a sad, lonely
mistake.”

Damien shifted his stance, lowering the
candle to set it on the table near her bed. The shadows consumed
him as he stepped back. “The only love my father gave me was to
sell me into slavery. Otherwise he probably would have beaten me to
death.”

Her heart twisted. She peered into the
blackness, trying to see Damien, but it was as if he had melted
into the shadows. Slavery? Beaten? No wonder he did not believe in
love. She put some weight on her legs, and gingerly rose up to a
standing position. A momentary twinge of weakness settled in her
knees, and she thought her legs might buckle under her, but she
managed to stay upright. Aurora stood motionless for a moment,
realizing this was the first and only thing Damien had revealed
about himself.

“That’s not love, Damien,” she said softly as
she stepped up to him.

Damien stood silent for a long moment. All
she could hear was the steady sound of his breathing.

“I believe in love. And trust.” She stood
before him, her chin lifted just slightly. “And I believe that
people are good-hearted and kind.”

“I find it strange you can say such a thing
when two attempts have been made on your life. Where is the
goodness in that?”

His barb hit the mark. And for a moment, she
doubted her conviction. Whoever wanted her dead was certainly not
good of heart.

“Unless there is something about you no one
else knows. Something that makes others hate you enough to kill
you.” He moved closer to her. “Others can pretend to be what they
are not, so why can’t you?”

Guilt washed over Aurora. A secret. Her heart
began to pound in her chest. Damien saw everything. Could he see
the guilty secret of her mother’s death? She quickly pushed the
thought aside, straightening away from him. “I -- I don’t
understand what you’re saying.”

The shadows clung to him like an embracing
lover as he moved closer.

Aurora retreated until she felt the bed at
the back of her knees. It seemed wrong to be this close to him.
Precarious. The last thing she wanted to do right now was collapse
into his arms.

The glow of candlelight caressed every
powerful feature of his bronzed face. His strength and maleness
permeated the room, surrounding her, drawing her in. Shivers raced
up and down her arms.

Or was collapsing into his arms the only
thing she wanted to do?

His dark gaze swept her face in a languid
caress. He took his time, moving his stare over every inch of her
face. Tingles raced across her shoulders to the very points of her
breasts.

He swept the mug from the table and lifted it
to his lips, taking a deep drink, raising the cup up high. Some of
its contents spilled over his chin, dripping down the length of his
neck in a dark line.

Aurora watched his adam’s apple bob up and
down as he drank. The strongest desire to reach up and touch the
spilled wine, to touch his skin, enticed her. No! Her breathing
quickened at such a forbidden thought.

When Damien lowered the mug, his face was
peaceful and his eyes were closed as if he were in absolute bliss.
When he opened them, there was fire in them, a dark, sultry
burning. He lifted the cup to her. “Drink.”

She could not look away from his hypnotic
eyes. Such blackness. Such scorching heat. Such confidence. She was
drawn to them and nervous at the same time. Her gaze dropped to the
mug. To drink from the same mug he just drank from suddenly seemed
so sensual. So dangerously sensual. A sudden flush of heat between
her legs threatened to enflame her entire body. What was happening
to her? She swallowed hard.

The corner of Damien’s lip curled. He lifted
the mug to her mouth, running the rim over her lips.

Aurora’s breathing became shallower; her
senses heightened. The image of putting her lips where his had been
left her breathless.

She knew she should not, could not, give into
such base impulses. She was Lady of Acquitaine. Her people looked
up to her. She had to remain the image of impeccable decency. She
had to set a flawless example. She could not let her emotions rule
her. She turned her head to the side. “No,” she whispered. “I’m not
thirsty.”

For a moment, Damien did not move.

Aurora lifted her gaze to him. She met his
stare with a shaky resolve.

Damien lowered the mug, his eyes narrowing
slightly. Finally, he stepped away from her, merging into the
darkness once again.

With his absence, coldness seeped around her.
Aurora looked into the shadows, searching him out. She could not
see the outline of his body, but she could feel his gaze, a stare
gleaming with an animal hunger.

“You should rest,” he told her.

Aurora whirled as if released from a spell
and hurried into her bed, suddenly desperate to escape the intimate
inspection of those dark eyes. She pulled the covers up to her
neck. An unfulfilled restlessness tightened her lower stomach. She
was certain she just passed some kind of test. The only problem was
she had no idea how, or exactly what kind of test it had been.

She listened for him, but could hear nothing
except her own heart beating madly. She searched the shadows, but
the blackness hid him from her.

A strange yearning gripped her, a need to
make him believe in the love he was sure did not exist. She
snuggled under the cover, trying to banish the thoughts. It was not
proper to feel this way about Damien. And yet, it was Damien her
mind sought.

She could feel him all around her. Protecting
her. Guarding her.

Watching her.

D
amien waited
in the hallway for Aurora to dress. He leaned against the wall, his
arms crossed, his eyes closed as if resting. In truth, he knew
everything that was going on around him. Two guards were stationed
outside the door to Aurora’s room. One took his job very seriously,
barely moving the entire time. He cast Damien disapproving stares.
The other was older, and obviously bored. He continuously shifted
his position, making his armor clang slightly with each adjustment
of his legs or arms.

Damien mentally shook his head. He should
have said no, no to Aurora’s request to get out of bed. No to her
offer of joining her at the castle after the first time he saved
her. No to becoming her bodyguard. He knew the dangers of beginning
to like her. Yet, despite all of this, despite the final goal of
his mission, despite the nearness of his freedom, he wanted to be
close to her.

As the door opened, he couldn’t slow the
feeling of eagerness sweeping through him even before he heard the
rustling of her silken gown, even before he opened his eyes to see
her. And when he did, he could barely help but inhale. She was the
most stunning woman he had ever seen. Not a hair of her lovely head
out of place. Not a blemish on her exquisite skin. Perfect.
Flawless.