Venturing further into the room, her fingers had danced over the spines of several books, reading them as she went.
There were all sorts, like the classics such as Dorian Grey and a few by Jane Austen, but there were also rows of encyclopedias and tome-like books with lettering she couldn't read.
And these were all just by the door—she had yet to make it around the entire room.
Grabbing one of the first she saw, she thumbed through the pages, gaze drifting over words she didn’t understand. But she was fascinated by the scrawling letters and symbols.
It wasn’t long before she was losing herself in that room and within the pages of books, escaping her own reality to sink into another.
It was here that Kit found her, but this time she wasn’t curled in a chair reading one of the many books that lined the walls, rather she was studying a shadowbox that hung on a wall and the two instruments inside it.
To her, they just looked like … sticks. Just plain ordinary sticks that didn’t seem special in any way. But they had to be, she thought, since he had gone through the trouble of hanging them there.
“They belonged to my father.”
Luna had gotten used to Kit moving silently and showing up when she least expected it, so for once, she didn’t jump at his sudden appearance behind her. She held up the instruments, familiarizing herself with the weight of them.
“They look like very fancy sticks.”
His smile was rueful. “They’re called escrima sticks.”
Plucking one from her hands, he did a rather cool maneuver where he moved the wood between his fingers, letting it spin around his hand before he caught it again.
“Useful if you know what you’re doing with them.”
“Will I learn how to use these?” she asked.
“If that’s what you want.”
Smiling at him, she was lost in his gray eyes a moment before she blinked and came back to herself. “Were you looking for me?”
“I was. There’s someone you need to meet.”
Frowning, she asked, “Who?”
“Your future handler.”
She didn’t think anything had ever sounded more ominous.
“And who’s that … exactly?”
“His name is Zachariah, most in the Den call him Z.”
“What does being a handler entail?”
“In most cases, he oversees training at the compound, and assigns jobs to the those that accept the contract. And he’s usually the one to find the mercenaries that are brought into the Den.” He glanced down at her with a curious look. “You were a special case.”
As Kit swept through the doors of his office, Luna at his heels, she came face to face with Z.
A trainer of mercenaries …
Luna was expecting a big guy, one that looked like he had been in the American Marines for thirty years with the haircut to prove it, but what she found was a rather average-sized man with a stern expression and hair as white as snow, though he couldn’t have been no older than his late forties.
He studied her in that way Kit always did, but his felt more assessing, and whatever he saw in her, she thought he found it lacking.
“Zachariah, meet Luna—I’m sure Uilleam has told you all about her.”
She glanced at Kit, wondering just how much Uilleam had said, but the man’s expression didn’t change. Whether he was impressed or not, he didn’t let it reflect on his face.
“You’re what all the fuss is about?” he asked, though there was nothing mean behind his words. “Let’s hope you amount to something.”
Luna’s mouth gaped slightly, too surprised to say anything before he was looking back to Kit.
Sometimes it amazed him that of all the men in the Runehart lineage, Kit seemed to be the only one capable of manners.
Usually it was Uilleam he needed to keep in line, but his uncle seemed to be in a right state, and seemed ready to take it out on Luna.
For the second time in as many weeks, Kit was forcing a smile as he looked to the girl that continued to baffle him. “Luna, if you would excuse us a moment.”
A curious look crossed her face before she was leaving the room. He was supposed to be introducing her after all, and only offering her name wasn’t much of anything.
“Uilleam finds humor in being rude,” Kit said, still looking toward the door Luna had left out of. “I didn’t know you were the same.”
“When I’m made to take a flight on forty-eight hours notice to meet a trainee that’s technically not a trainee, I’m rude.” Zachariah leveled a look on him that demanded answers. “I thought you decided against delving into your brother’s affairs?”
He had.
And it had been a decision he hadn’t made lightly.
Uilleam hadn’t always been the Kingmaker, the criminal mastermind behind some of the greatest scandals in the world. Once, he had been just a boy searching for love from a tyrant that was incapable of feeling such things. It took years of nurturing the darker urges inside of him that Uilleam had finally changed to the point that he was no longer the innocent child he had once been.