Chapter 9
9 Chapter 9 Blood Protects the
Secret
Faye’s POVO
Someone had tried to poison me.
The realization hit me like ice water as I stared at the cup in my trembling hands. The liquid inside swirled with an oily sheen that shouldn’t belong in simple tea. My pulse hammered against my throat as I set the
porcelain down with deliberate care, every movement calculated to avoid detection.
My mind spiraled through questions that had no good answers. Who was this girl pretending to serve me? What happened to my usual attendant? Most disturbing of all, why did she wear Hardy’s house colors with such casual authority?
Could Hardy have ordered this? The thought twisted in my gut like a blade. No. Impossible. He had witnessed my abilities firsthand, seen their value. Unless he had decided they weren’t valuable enough to keep me breathing.
The door clicked open before I could process the implications further. The same girl stepped inside, her movements too fluid, too predatory for a simple
servant.
“Forgive me, my Lady.” Her curtsy was mockingly proper. “I nearly forgot something important p>
The sound of the lock turning sent alarm bells screaming through my nervous system. She turned back to me with that saccharine smile still painted across her features.
“The Lord insisted you receive this as well,” she purred, her hand disappearing into her apron pocket. “A
special gift, just for you p>
Steel caught the light as her fingers emerged. The dagger’s edge gleamed with deadly promise.
Every instinct I possessed roared to life. I threw myself backward just as the blade whistled through the space where my neck had been moments before. She wasn’t hurrying, wasn’t desperate. This was sport to her.
My back slammed against the couch hard enough to drive the air from my lungs. “What the hell are you
doing?” I wheezed.
Her expression twisted into something inhuman. “Completing a task that should have been finished before you ever put pen to paper p>
She struck again.
This time the knife angled toward my stomach, seeking vital organs with surgical precision. I twisted sideways, feeling the blade part fabric and skin alike. Fire bloomed along my ribs as I cried out, grasping for anything within reach.
My fingers closed around a wooden stool. I hurled it at her with everything I had.
The impact sent her stumbling, but she recovered with frightening speed. A sound escaped her throat that no human servant should make, low and guttural and hungry. Whatever she was, she wasn’t entirely normal.
Where were the guards stationed outside my
quarters? Where were the other servants who should have heard the commotion?
I dove for the table, snatching up the silver serving
tray she had carried in. The metal connected with her temple in a resounding crack that should have dropped her. Instead, she merely staggered and
snarled.
“Help me!” I screamed, rolling toward the far wall as another strike barely missed my spine. Blood soaked through my torn clothing where she had marked me, but already I could feel the familiar tingle of healing beginning.
This was exactly what I had trained for during those brutal years in the pack’s fighting circles. When you couldn’t shift, couldn’t rely on supernatural strength, you learned to survive through cunning and desperation alone.
Her blade found my forearm this time. I blocked with my elbow but couldn’t avoid the burning slice entirely. Another wound. Another scar that would fade before
long.
I lashed out with my foot, catching her in the solar plexus. She doubled over but didn’t fall. I tried to sprint for the door, but her fist tangled in my hair and yanked me backward onto the stone floor.
The impact rattled my teeth. I drove my elbow
up into her ribs, heard something crack, but she responded by dragging the knife across my shoulder blade.
Blood painted the floor beneath us.
She paused, breathing hard, waiting for me to collapse from blood loss. When I didn’t, when I struggled back to my feet with impossible resilience, her eyes went wide with something beyond rage.
Understanding.
“You…” she whispered.
My healing ability. She hadn’t expected that little surprise.
Desperation replaced calculation in her attacks. The blade became a silver blur, opening cuts across my arms, my legs, my torso. Each wound bloomed crimson before beginning its slow crawl back together. Not as quickly as usual, but fast enough to keep me breathing.
“Why won’t you just die?” she shrieked, her composure cracking completely. This wasn’t just about killing me
anymore. She needed me dead because she had seen what I could do.
She had witnessed my secret.
“You’re some kind of witch,” she spat, voice shaking
with terror now. “A cursed abomination p>
The knife rose high above her head as she screamed and dove forward. I threw myself aside but not fast enough. Steel punched through skin and muscle and found something vital. The pain was blinding, absolute, consuming.
But I didn’t die.
Even as she wrenched the blade free, expecting a fountain of blood that would end this, my body was already working to repair the damage. The agony faded from unbearable to merely excruciating as tissue began knitting itself back together.
“No,” she breathed, backing away like I had just crawled out of a grave. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t possible p>
She turned toward the door, ready to flee. Ready to
tell someone what she had seen.
I couldn’t allow that.
My secret was the only thing keeping me alive in this place. If word spread about what I could do, I would become either a weapon or a threat. Neither option
ended well for me.
My legs shook as I forced myself upright, vision swimming from blood loss and shock. Pain lanced through every nerve, but I grabbed the fallen serving tray anyway and hurled it at her retreating form.
Metal struck bone with a satisfying clang. She whirled around, fury reignited, blade seeking my flesh once
more.
“I’ll carve that unnatural healing right out of you,” she hissed. “I’ll cut you into pieces too small to mend p>
She launched herself at me in a frenzy of slashing steel. I ducked, blocked, twisted away from every strike I could manage. I wasn’t faster than her. I wasn’t stronger. But I fought like someone who refused to surrender.
Blood sprayed across the walls. My shoulder split open again. A gash appeared along my collarbone. My vision darkened at the edges, but my body stubbornly
refused to quit.
“Die already!” she screamed in frustration.
“I can’t,” I snarled back, surging forward to tackle her
around the waist.
We crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and fury. The knife skittered away across blood-slick stones. I landed on top, both of us gasping and clawing for advantage. Her nails raked toward my eyes while I fought to pin her wrists.
I slammed my elbow into her jaw, feeling the joint crack under the impact. She went limp for a precious few seconds. I used the time to scramble for the fallen
blade while she groaned and tried to focus her dazed
vision.
My fingers closed around the hilt just as she lurched back to her feet. Impossible. The head trauma should have kept her down longer.
She charged one final time, arms outstretched, mouth
open in a wordless battle cry.
I didn’t hesitate.
Both hands gripped the knife as I drove it upward, putting my full weight behind the thrust. The blade punched through fabric and flesh and found her heart.
Her momentum carried her into me, warm blood soaking us both as her body went suddenly, completely still.
A rattling breath escaped her lips. Then nothing.
She collapsed forward, dead weight pinning me to the floor. I lay trapped beneath her corpse, chest heaving, the knife still buried between us. My entire body screamed with pain and exhaustion, but I was alive.
The untouched teacup sat nearby, innocent as a lamb.
More dangerous than poison, it turned out, was crossing me.
Now I had blood on my hands and a body to explain.
A cold breeze swept through the room as the window swung open with a creak. I jerked upright, heart
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hammering, blood-stained hands raised defensively for another fight.
But the figure climbing through wasn’t another
assassin.
It was Hardy.
He stepped inside and stopped dead, taking in the carnage with those sharp dark eyes. The blood coating my skin. The lifeless body at my feet. The weapon still clutched in my trembling grip.
Relief hit me so hard my knees nearly buckled. He was
here. He was real. He was alive.
“My Lord…” My voice cracked like broken glass. “I killed her. I actually killed someone p>
Morh Lucia
Lucia Morh is a passionate storyteller who brings emotions to life through her words. When she’s not writing, she finds peace nurturing her garden.