Vengeance (The Prince's Games Book 1) by Rebecca Grey (electric book reader TXT) 📕

I stare up at the ceiling. I press my palms against the floor and force myself to stand up, force myself to climb into the bed. Coils of springs poke through the fabric where my daggers have punctured its surface. The metal scratches and prods against my skin. Without the pillow, I fold my arms under my head and slip under the covers. I try to concentrate on how they feel against my skin, just to focus on anything that isn't the white-hot fury that makes my stomach turn.

I close my eyes, breathe through the feeling, and think about Marcello's silver eyes glowing in the dark.

***

"Atta girl," Arron whispers as I walk around the side of the building. Even though the leaves have fallen from the trees and litter the green grass, my steps don't crunch them underfoot. Pride blooms inside of my chest and I grin up at him.

A group of Dwarfs are nestled inside of the shed behind the home we'd been called to for a job today, or at least that's what we've been told. My lungs constrict. Something’s wrong...

I look around. Arron walks behind me, moving with the stealth I'm working so hard to learn. I might not be crunching the leaves under my feet, but my steps aren’t nearly as silent as his. I curse myself for it. Because that's how they'll know we’re here. It's because of me.

Trees rise up into the sky, their limbs cutting across the large full moon. There isn't a single cloud in the sky. Between the trees at the back of the small yard, a blue shed waits. One finger rises to Arron’s lips as we reach the shed and he touches the latch.

No. Don't. Don't do it! My thoughts shout warnings that I can't act on. My limbs are heavy, glued to my sides. My feet unmovable, as if they've suddenly been filled with sand and tied to cement bricks. Bile rises in my throat, stinging like acid and burning in my nose. I can taste ash on my tongue. Don't do it, Arron, I beg him soundlessly. Don't let him do it!

All I can do is stare at him. All I can allow myself is this millisecond to cherish the memory of his face, so vivid, so utterly real. His face is a long oval that appears as if at some point in his life his skull has been flattened to be so long. Under bushy gray eyebrows wide almond eyes hold a mischievous joy that never disappears no matter how hard our days are. Wrinkles cut into his skin around his eyes and in crescent moon shapes around his mouth. His white hair is slicked away from his forehead, secured in a ponytail at his nape.

I'm watching him too closely, thinking too much about the way my body feels numb, and how proud Arron looks at me right now to hear the wet, wild snarl that erupts as he opens the door. Claws slash through his flesh. Tendon and muscle tears away from bone. Blood. So much blood.

Thin blankets fall from my shoulders, pooling in my lap. I sit up, gasping for air. The cold evening air that fills even the captain’s quarters swirls through the room and makes the sweat on my back turn to ice. Still I'm hot. Too fucking hot.

I can feel how damp I've made the sheets. All of the fabric clings to me absorbing the perspiration that's come off me in large lake sized puddles. Every inch of the quilt above me presses into me.

As waves rock the boat, the hammocks hanging from the ceiling sway. Soft snores come from Juilliard, his long arm hanging off of the makeshift bed. His fingers curl loosely into his palm. The hammock next to him is empty. The rest of the room... empty.

The deck prism that the pirates have used to give light to the room has been removed from the windows and only the palest bit of light from the moon is cast on the floorboards. Some of the light carries to the desk and the empty chair there.

I can't... I can't lay here anymore. My chest is still tight with the remembrance of loss. If I try to fall back asleep, I'm scared that the dream will suck me in once more. The memory of Arron’s death, or what I call the start of it, is more like a nightmare and it visits me more often than I like. It steals sleep away from me. Not that I ever sleep particularly well.

The brisk air meets my legs as I strip the blankets off of me. Around my hips and down my thighs are sensitive, likely bruised, from sleeping with my blades still on me. Once I lose consciousness, I can't help but curl in on myself, making the hilts and the sheaths press into my skin.

I push the blonde hairs that have pulled from my ponytail out of my face and stand up on shaky knees. I don't care about the cold as I leave the office behind, making sure to close the door as quietly as I can so I don't disturb Juilliard. Perhaps that's too much of a nicety.

It’s so weird to me that I can even remember such details of that night. Exactly what the starless sky had looked like and every line in Arron’s weathered face. Even the way I’d felt ready for my first job when I’d tried so hard not to be prideful, because the way Arron had said pride comes before the fall still manages to haunt me. If I let my head get too full, if I drop my guard at all, then I'll likely end up dead, like my parents. They hadn't a clue how to fight back. They only knew how to hide, and in the end they were found. In the end, it was