“I have a job for you.”
Which meant that despite the threats and posturing, Deth hadn’t intended to impale Lore’s head on a pointy stick at all. “What do I have to do?” Lore asked through gritted teeth. “Collect another debt? Deliver a bloody warning to someone? Want me to fetch a pizza? Because you know how I love playing delivery boy.”
He hated playing pizza minion.
“You can bring me an all-meat topped with a certain human’s head. I’m giving you your hundredth kill.”
Lore stopped breathing even as his pulse revved. He’d been waiting thirty years for this. After he completed his hundredth kill, Deth would no longer have any hold on him. He’d be a free man. But wait… something wasn’t right. Detharu had avoided giving him an assassin job for years, unwilling to hand out that last assignment that would free both Lore and his sister, Sin, forever.
Lore studied Deth’s impassive face, seeking, but not finding, any clues to what he was thinking. “What’s the catch?”
Deth’s bony fingers made irritating clicking noises as he tapped on the arm of his chair. “You violated the terms of our bargain by breaking the subcontract with Roag and not killing the Seminus brothers. I missed out on my share and look like a fool. Therefore, I’m amending our agreement.”
Fuck. He knew it. “And what are your new terms?” he ground out.
“In the past, you have been allowed to refuse assignments.”
“And I paid the price in blood.” A lot of blood.
“You will not refuse this one.”
Uh-oh. A chill skittered up Lore’s spine. Deth was expecting him to refuse, which meant the mark would be a child or pregnant woman or something. “And if I do?”
“If you refuse or don’t succeed, then I’ll have Sin’s head in place of yours for your failure to kill your brothers.”
A red curtain came down over his vision. Stay calm. Stay… calm. Didn’t work. The rage inside Lore screamed to the surface, completely missing the usual transition period, and he lunged at the demon. “You fuck!”
The sentries caught him, one on each arm. Instinct and anger merged, and without thinking, he charged up his gift. The Ramreel clutching Lore’s right biceps didn’t even have time to scream. He fell to the floor, eyes wider in death than they’d ever been in life.
Instantly, the other one wheeled away, drawing his machete, which he jabbed into Lore’s ribs.
Detharu came to his feet, and the next thing Lore knew, Deth’s steel-gauntleted fist was in his face. Lore’s head snapped back and pain exploded in his skull. Fury contorted Detharu’s expression, peeling his lips from his sharp, blackened teeth.
“That was stupid, Lore. Even after all this time, you have not learned to control your temper.”
It chafed to admit it, but Detharu was right on both counts. Lore’s rages had been a problem since he was twenty, when he’d gone through the weird transformation that had given him an arm covered with tattoos. But that was just for starters. He also gained the “gift” to kill everything he touched with the tattooed arm, the ability to resurrect the dead or “feel” how a person had died, and a rampant libido that had to be addressed several times daily lest he go into rages that didn’t end until he either killed or had sex—sex that ended in the death of his partner.
But being sexually sated wasn’t a guarantee against the rages. Pain and anger could still set him off no matter how many times or how recently he’d relieved himself.
Breathing deeply, he willed himself to come down before the rage took him to the point of no return or before he did something stupid again. The move he’d made against Detharu carried with it a penalty of death.
Thing was, Lore couldn’t have hurt Detharu anyway. The bond’s magic prevented violence against one’s master. Lore couldn’t so much as touch Detharu unless the demon wanted to be touched.
And thank God Deth had long ago decided Lore wasn’t allowed to touch. Few of Deth’s assassins were so lucky.
Lore clenched his teeth, determined to keep from smarting off, but refusing to apologize. Instead, he gritted out, “Who’s the target? Who is my hundredth kill?”
Lore had forgotten all about the male in the shadows, but now he shifted slightly, his black, waist-length hair seeming to absorb all the light in the room. It was as if the dude wore his shadow like a cloak. That was seriously fucked up.
A sinister smile split Deth’s face wide open. “The target,” he said, “is Kynan Morgan. The very human you brought back to life.”