Born of Fire

Crossing her arms over her chest, she sat back and looked at him from under her lashes. “It can’t be any worse than Gildagard.”


He frowned. “Gildagard? What the hell’s that?”

She snorted at his disdain. “It’s my real name, you goob. After my maternal grandmother,” she said with a smile. “My father hated the name so much, he started calling me Shahara when I was still a toddler.”

His rich laughter warmed her. “Gildagard Dagan. You have to admit it’s pretty gruesome.”

Yes, it was, but she wouldn’t admit it to him. “Now that I’ve confided my greatest embarrassment . . .”

He shook his head. “I’d sooner turn myself over to the Rits.”

“How bad can it be?”

“Real bad.”

With that, she knew she’d never get a straight answer out of him. So she changed the subject. “Okay, if the Mothers were taking care of you, then how did you get back into filching?”

“How many questions are you going to ask?”

She shrugged. “How many hours did you say we—”

“Good Lord, woman. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that men have a specified word count set aside each day and if I don’t stop talking, my tongue will explode?”

She snorted. “Did you get that from Caillen or he from you?”

He smiled a smile that sent a rush of excitement through her. “I told you it was universal.”

She gave him the little pout she used on Caillen to swing him around to her way of thinking. “Please finish telling me your story.”

He kissed the tip of her nose, then pulled back to a safe distance. “School was expensive and the Mothers were misappropriating funds on my behalf. I began to fear that they’d get caught and punished. So I decided to use the one gift my father had given me.”

“Filching for major companies?”

He nodded.

“Shame on you.”

“I know. But if you knew the High Mother, you’d understand why I started. Had she ever caught them, she’d have tossed them into prison without a second thought. And from personal experience, I can assure you, they wouldn’t have survived five minutes.”

“But you did.”

“What can I say? I’m a tough bastard.”

Yes, he was.

And maybe it was his story or maybe their close proximity, Shahara wasn’t sure what had made her suddenly so bold. But before she could stop herself, she reached out and touched the stubble on his cheek that still held a faint discoloration from his beating.

He nipped playfully at her fingers.

Embarrassed, she dropped her hand and thought to distract herself. “So how did you meet Nykyrian Quiakides?”

He picked her hand up and toyed with her fingers. The circular motion of his thumb against her skin sent electrical waves up her arm and straight to the center of her body. “He was wounded from a mission gone awry and I went to pick his pocket. He started to kill me and then when he realized I was just a starving gutter rat, he tossed his wallet at me and told me I looked like I needed it more than he did.”

She scowled at what he described. Nykyrian was a trained League assassin—someone not known for any kind of compassion. All assassins killed without remorse or hesitation. “You’re messing with me again, aren’t you?”

“No. I swear. I knew he was dying from his wounds and I started to leave him to it, but I couldn’t. Not after he’d been kind to me—the Mothers had taught me not to turn my back on people, especially those who helped me. Before I could think better of it, I helped him back to where I was staying and tended his wounds.”

“An assassin?”

He nodded. “Because I saved his life, he paid for me to go to school.”

“Out of the goodness of his heart?”

“Yes and no. I also worked for him.”

“And what did you do?”

“Helped him gather information on targets. Provided a few toys for him to use while tracking and fighting. All legal.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and began to suckle the pad of her forefinger. His tongue slid sinfully over her flesh, doing terrible things to her will. “And he paid a damn good salary.”

“Which kept you off the street.”

He inclined his head.

“So tell me about Sheridan Belask. How does he fit into all of this?”

His entire body turned rigid. His eyes returned to their normal frigid state and he pulled her hand away. “What?”

A wave of embarrassment consumed her. “I saw your surgeon’s certificate.”

His breathing intensified with the anger that flickered in his eyes. “Why were you searching my things?” And before she could speak, he answered for her, “That was a stupid question. You were looking for a weapon.”

Shahara nodded. “So how did you become Sheridan Belask?”

Something strange passed between them then, a shared flickering heat that she couldn’t define. Shahara realized then that she was probably the only person he’d ever told about this part of his life.

It made her feel so . . .