The Assassin Princess

The Vain Countess

“Talk! Now!” He commanded harshly. He watched the assassin appear from the shadows almost like a mist. The man’s cold eyes locked onto him.

“Your precious betrothed will fall,” the man’s voice was cracked from days without water, but Alaric could hear the malevolency in the threat.

“What do you mean?”

“You saw. I know you saw. She is the last of the Sylenic family. She will fall.” Alaric glared at the man, but a look of sympathy passed across the assassin’s face.

“She is a threat to the men who control my life. If I had wanted to kill her, she would be dead. You must know this. I didn’t want to destroy such a beautiful creature,” the man admitted as he hung his head in what Alaric assumed was shame. Alaric stared at him, stunned for a moment.

“She didn’t kill you, because she knew,” Alaric muttered as the man looked up. His green eyes were dark and stormy.

“I wasted time telling her who hired me. A true assassin would never have spoken,” the man agreed. Alaric was floored by this admittance. The assassin who had been sent to kill Calira didn’t want to kill her and stalled himself to keep his job from being completed.

“So Lord Caxton did hire you?”

“Yes. He is working with a group of men who call themselves Firians,” the man replied.

“What is your name?”

“Wesley,” the man answered. Alaric regarded the man’s name for a moment before nodding.

“Your information is useful. I will speak with my advisors and my fiancée to determine your fate, Wesley.”

**

Calira sighed in relief once the Countess announced she must return to her villa on the outskirts of Venta. All of her courtesy was gone as she watched the dark haired woman strut out of the room. Countess Dubare had all but told Calira that Alaric would keep her on as a mistress whether Calira liked it or not. Of course, the blonde knew that would never happen.

“Tired, are we Princess?” Alaric’s voice seemingly echoed across the room. Calira looked up and took note of the dark bags under his eyes. He looked drained.

“Not nearly as much as you look. What happened?” The question escaped her lips before she had a chance to stop it. She wasn’t interested in the man’s health. She wasn’t. She kept telling herself this as she watched him fall into the chair across from her, the chair that had once been occupied by the vain countess.

The Countess’s words continued to dig at Calira as she waited for Alaric’s answer

“You are a marriage of convenience, no doubt. Don’t worry. He will not bother you on your wedding night or any night afterwards.”

“The assassin,” Calira shook herself out of her mental stupor as she heard Alaric’s tired voice reach her.

“What about him?”

“You knew he didn’t want to kill you,” Alaric announced as Calira frowned. Realization dawned across her countenance.

“I figured it was either that, or he was a mercenary who had an ego too big for his own good,” Calira replied. Alaric frowned.

“And that was why you didn’t kill him when he turned his back to you,” Alaric remarked. It wasn’t a question and Calira knew it. She sighed as she brushed her curls away from her face. Alaric’s gaze was pinned on her and she felt herself shift beneath his eyes.

“Is there something you want to know, Alaric?” His name slipped from her mouth and she watched his eyes widen. It was the first time she had addressed him by his name since they were children. It brought back a sense of possessiveness in Alaric. As he studied the blonde woman sitting across from him, the image of her lifeless body sprawled across the cold, stone floor created an ache deep in his soul. Even though he had hated her for years, the thought of her dying because he couldn’t protect her burned at him.

“Will you accept a bodyguard?”