The Thief King

42 | The Feather and the Mountain

His hair parted for his fingers as he drove them through for the dozenth time since arriving at the empty house. Kole sat, legs braced to support his elbows at his knees with his head in his hands. The bed lay unmade underneath him, half his clothes strewn haphazardly across the floor, a few female items mixed in between. Scarlet was in the next room, making a calming tonic for his riotous nerves.

His stomach churned and gurgled at what he was about to do—at the mere thought of the pain he was about to inflict. He'd volunteer to torture a man rather than go through with this. He'd even volunteer to be tortured. Fingernails grew back. Bones mended. Scars faded. But wounds to the heart...

A stab to the heart was a deathblow. Instant. Painless if done right. What he was about to do would not be painless, a deathblow would be considered mercy.

"I had to make do with the leaves available to me," Scarlet said, using her ample hip to push the door open. In his hands the mug billowed hot steam, floating above the dark, aromatic liquid that lay limpid and unassuming. Kole looked at it, and silently asked it if it would serve him blissful silence for the next few hours. He prayed it would gift him with numbness—oblivion. Oh what he wouldn't do for oblivion. To obliterate all traces of the anticipation and dread. When he showed no signs of drinking, Scarlet pushed it to his lips, tilted his head back, and waited for him to curse.

"Balls!" He pressed a hand to his burning lips.

"Ah, so he does reside in that head. For a moment there I thought my friend Kole had left this pretty vessel to inhabit some other prime property for women's eyes to rest upon."

He glared at her, his hand still pressed to his lips.

"Now, don't look at me like that Handsome," she soothed. "You're turning my thoughts to unsanitary distractions."

"You could have warned me," he hissed.

"Was the steam not warning enough?" She placed her hands on her hips and huffed. "To be quite frank, Kole, Sera will never believe you capable of bedding a woman like me acting as you are. She will see right through this lie."

"A part of me hopes she does."

"A part of..." Scarlet stared at him for a moment and then dropped to a crouch, resting her hands on his knees. "Kole, remind yourself why you are doing this, and keep doing so until you believe that this is the right thing to do. Because it is."

"It is?"

"It is." She squeezed his knees and stood. "Now" —she surveyed the room— "I can see the proof" —a sharp inhale— "smell it everywhere too..."

He removed his hands from his lips, the cold air felt soothing against the heat that pulsed there.

"And your lips look satisfyingly used too." Scarlet smiled. "All you have to do is act the part and we are set."

Act the part. What part? The part of a puppet? The part of a liar? When did he become so spineless? "I'm gonna be sick."

"Again?"

"Yes, again. This is wrong, Scarlet. Everything about this..." He shook his head. "Every fibre of my body is screaming at me to pick up those garments, dress, clean up, get rid of you...every...every." He stammered, searching for words that evaded him. He kept picturing every possible face Sera would show upon her entrance. Upon seeing him half clothed, amongst sheets that once were intimate to just them. They held secrets, hid them and welcomed more. Where skin had not touched skin it had touched those very sheets, and now they lay strewn across the bed and floor to suggest a different secret. A secret that would be soon known, and yet not known.