To Seduce An Assassin (The Omaja Series Book 2) Read online

Elio came in to carry the trunk downstairs for her, and when Graciella followed him outside, Shirali and the children were waiting by the front gate to see her off. The coach was rolling over the stone bridge to their property, kicking up a bit of dust in the morning sunlight. On watching it approach, Graciella felt her heart beat faster with excitement.

  “Safe journey, my precious sister,” Elio said, hugging her. “We will miss you. Write to us when you arrive.”

  “I will.” She turned to Shirali and hugged her, then bent down to kiss the foreheads of Kunjana and her brother Sirin. Their piercing silver eyes peered up at her sadly.

  Shirali squeezed Graciella’s hand. “May you journey safely, and enjoy your time in my homeland.”

  “Yes, I’m sure I will. We’ll have so much to talk about when I get back, my friend.” Graciella touched the children’s cheeks once more. “You two take good care of your mum and of Uncle Elio for me.”

  “We will,” Kunjana answered for them both. Sirin just nodded solemnly.

  “All right, family, I must be off.” Graciella took Elio’s hand to climb into the coach, then seated herself. As the coach took off, she leaned out the window and waved, watching Elio, Shirali, and the children waving back at her.

  Once they were halfway across the stone bridge, Graciella settled back into her cushioned seat and adjusted her skirt around her legs. In two or three days, she’d be in Darpan, climbing the white marble steps to the magnificent palace where her sister lived with the handsomest twin brothers Graciella could imagine. It would be wonderful to see Jiandra and stay with her for a while, but if she were honest, she was even more excited about seeing Yavi again. It had been six long years. He and his brother were at least thirty by now, but if Yavi had aged in the same way as Yajna, then he would be more handsome than ever.

  She watched the trees, gentle hills, and stone cottages roll by, smiling as she imagined climbing those polished white steps and taking Yavi’s strong, olive-skinned hands in greeting. She hoped he’d be impressed with her maturity and her new, womanly body, because she was determined to win the affection of Emperor Yavi if it was the last thing she ever did.

  §

  Night fell over the frozen landscape outside Sangikar Fortress. Inside, Terijin turned around to face the gathered worshippers.

  They gasped at seeing his face.

  Terijin grinned. He’d sprinted all the way to Faril, with an energy he’d never felt as a mortal. When he’d stopped at a stream to peer at his reflection, he’d nearly scared himself with the sight. His face was white as a sheet, his eyes solid disks of luminous black lined with dark circles as one would see on a corpse. Then, he’d laughed, finding that his voice had deepened, become scratchy and thick. He was a corpse, a living one, one who could no longer be killed, one who craved and fed on fresh meat.

  Uman addressed the worshippers. “You see that Terijin has made the transformation. The Zulfikars must be baffled and terrified right now, to have the body of their cook, the man they murdered a few days ago, disappear right from under their noses.” He gripped Terijin’s arm, pushing him forward. “Here he stands before all of you. Not dead, but not quite alive either. Invincible. Bloodthirsty. This is my vision for all of you.”

  The followers nodded eagerly, chuckling amongst themselves. Terijin gazed at his leader’s face, waiting for him to continue.

  “Together we will build an army of Vyrkune. Unconquerable, undefeatable, hungry. We will consume Darpan and take back the throne of my father, Thakur, from the usurpers.”

  “Yes, milord,” Terijin and the others called out.

  “We will kill the last of the Zulfikars, the twin brothers as well as their foreign Villeleian queen. We will rule Nandala as true kings, not as simpering servants. We will be feared and respected by all. You will be my royal guard—” Uman grinned— “and I will make certain your every craving is satisfied.”

  “Long live Uman!” a large man in the back shouted, and the entire assembly took up the cry.

  §

  On his return trip, the palace courier avoided the main road into Nandala and took a narrow mountain trail, in hopes of avoiding crossing paths with the bandit group that had stopped him on his way south toward the Villeleian border. The moon hung high in the sky as he descended the mountain into the meadowlands below. He paused only a moment to water and feed his horse by a half-frozen stream, then set off again for Darpan. He had to get to the palace quickly, so he could warn the emperors that something sinister might be afoot concerning the queen’s sister.

  He eventually reached the city gates and galloped through the deserted streets toward the palace. The palace guard watched as he dismounted and threw his hood back to show his face. “I am Teldin, the courier. I have an urgent message for Emperor Yavi.”

  “The emperor has retired for the evening. He is probably asleep by now.”

  “Wake him, I beg you. This is important.”

  Two guards escorted Teldin to Yavi’s wing, and he waited behind them in the hallway outside the emperor’s door.

  One of the guards rapped on the thick wood. “Sire, we have a message for you.”

  The emperor opened the door almost immediately, dressed in his robe. A candle burned on the nightstand, signaling that he hadn’t been asleep just yet.

  He frowned, examining Teldin’s face. “What is it?”

  Teldin swallowed, bowing. “Sire, the day I left with Queen Jiandra’s letter to her sister, I was stopped by a group of highwaymen just north of the outpost on the border with Villeleia.”

  The emperor’s eyes narrowed. “What did they want? Your coin?”

  “No, Mahaj. I wasn’t robbed. All they did was read the letter, then tell me to make sure it arrived. Then they watched me go south, threatening to hunt me down if I tried to return to the palace to inform you.”

  “Did you deliver the letter to Miss Stovy?”

  “Yes, Mahaj. Three days ago. She said she would leave the next day, and meet our palace guards at the southern outpost as the queen instructed. She is surely traveling this way, getting closer to the border as we speak.”

  Emperor Yavi nodded. “I’d better join the guards at that outpost.”

  §

  Yavi dressed in his leather armor, put on his cloak, and crisscrossed his scimitars over his back. He rappelled out of his bedroom window in the moonlight, hoping his brother would not catch up with him this time or even realize he’d left. Yavi didn’t want to alarm Jiandra unnecessarily by waking them with the news. He could take care of whatever bandit activity was being planned involving Graciella’s coach by himself, and have her here at the palace safe and sound by morning.

  Moments later, he’d stolen Sikar from his stall and exited the western gate into the city, once again with a warning to the gate guards to keep quiet about his departure. He pulled his hood over his face, leaned low, and urged Sikar into a gallop through the cobblestone streets of the capital city.

  Outside the city walls, he rode past the open farmland owned by the palace, land they were desperately working to grow successful crops. The moonlight illuminated the rows of cabbage, potato plants, and cauliflower, all carefully spaced and tended by local peasants. The plants were fed with what limited water they were able to divert from a nearby half-dried-up, frozen riverbed. The heavy snow on the southern mountain range that winter would hopefully swell the river closer to its original width, and if so, they’d have plenty of water come summertime for the summer crops.

  That was Yavi’s fervent prayer, anyhow.

  He rode hard for a couple of hours, reaching the foothills of the southern mountains a little after midnight. He could see the torchlights of the guard tower just ahead and rode in that direction, alert for any sign of movement outside the outpost. He paused in the trees before reaching the stone tower, not wanting to alert anyone to his presence.

  He hoisted himself into a tall tree to get a better view. All seemed to be in order at the tower. A guard was walking the top of it
, holding a torch, keeping an eye on the road coming north out of Villeleia. Yavi watched the road as well for a while, calculating in his head how soon Graciella’s coach could be crossing the border into Nandala. If she’d spent the previous night in Caladia, she would have already been here by now, so he figured they must have stopped in Frocklin Grove, another two hours south of Caladia. There were no other inns that he was aware of on the northern stretch of Caladian road through the lavender fields; her coach drivers probably intended to drive her through the second night all the way to Darpan.

  Well, fine. He’d watch and wait, and he’d make sure he delivered Jiandra’s little sister to her safe and sound.

  §

  Terijin’s first assignment as Uman’s general was to kidnap the Stovy girl and bring her to Faril, and he intended to see that it was done without a hitch. Uman wanted to use her to control the twin emperors as well as strike a bargain with the queen, for the Omaja stone. He had sent Terijin with three mercenaries to intercept the girl’s carriage before it reached the outpost where guards loyal to the Zulfikars would be waiting to escort her to Darpan. That meant they would be extremely close to the Villeleian border, but Villeleia and Nandala were allies now, and Villeleia left their northern border unattended for the most part.

  Terijin and his men waited behind a boulder up on a bluff where they had a bird’s eye view of the road below. It was a clear, starry night, and they could see for miles. Soon, a torchlight appeared in the distance, heading north out of Villeleia. Terijin straightened up to see better from his lookout. It was a coach.

  “There,” he muttered to the henchman at his side. “It’s probably her. Let’s go.”

  They were easily in position and ready to pounce by the time the coach arrived. Terijin motioned to one of the mercenaries to jump, and he did so, landing on top of the coach. As he scrambled toward the driver’s seat, a second mercenary leapt onto the back of the coach, attacked the footman, slit his throat, and tossed him to the ground.

  Once the driver was killed and shoved off the seat, the mercenaries stopped the coach so that Terijin and the fourth man could open the coach and capture the girl. When Terijin yanked the door open, a knife immediately plunged into his neck. His air supply was cut off, and he panicked for a second, but then he grasped the handle and yanked the blade out. A booted, feminine foot planted itself firmly against his chest, shoving him back, hard. As he tumbled backward away from the coach, he saw his other henchman reaching in to grab the girl. She kicked and fought viciously, and landed the heel of her boot against the henchman’s jaw, causing him to stagger back a bit. From out of nowhere an arrow sailed through the air and struck the mercenary in the side of the head, and he crumpled to the ground.

  Terijin looked up, trying to see their assailant, but the arrow had come from the cover of a nearby grove of trees. A second arrow whistled through the air, striking the coach, and then a third that buried itself into the chest of the mercenary in the driver’s seat.

  A black-cloaked figure emerged from the trees, moving like a quick shadow along the darkened road toward the coach.

  At first Terijin thought it was Yajna, but then he saw steel blades flash in the moonlight, dual blades crisscrossed over his back. Yavi. He’d cut Terijin and his crew to shreds. Terijin scooted away quickly on his hands and heels, then stood and ran. Fast.

  §

  Yavi killed the bandit on the back of the coach by slicing through his chest with his scimitars and tossed the body into the nearby ditch. He strode over to the open door of the coach and pulled back the curtain, but the inside of the carriage appeared to be empty. He grabbed the torch from the driver’s seat, held it up to see inside better.

  Luminous, light hazel eyes framed by dark, arching brows stared back at him, and a full, soft pink mouth parted in surprise. Her dark, shiny hair was piled loosely on top of her head, and her sweetly rounded breasts heaved a little with shortness of breath.

  “Graciella?” he rasped, in disbelief that the beautiful woman inside the coach was really her. She was definitely not as he remembered her from six years earlier.

  “Are…are you Yavi or Yajna?”

  “Yavi. Are you all right?”

  Her heart leapt. She pressed a hand to her chest, offering him a wry smile. “I will be, as soon as I can breathe again. I fear my coachmen had the worst of it, poor fellows.”

  “Yes.” He glanced back at the driver’s body grimly, then retrieved her dagger from the side of the road, where the bandit she’d stabbed in the throat had tossed it. He cleaned the unusually dark-looking blood off on the shirt of one of the fallen mercenaries, then handed it to her by the blade. “You’d better keep this wherever you had it. It seems to have come in handy.”

  “Yes.” She raised the hem of her skirt a bit and bent forward to tuck the small dagger into her boot. Her breasts pressed together inside her neckline, jiggling a bit with the movement. “I thank you.”

  Yavi stood frozen at the doorway, catching himself glancing down at the creamy smoothness of her leg just before she let the hem of her skirt back down. He looked up and cleared his throat. “Well, so much for a warm welcome into Nandala. I’d best get you to the palace before the others realize I’m gone and start to worry.”

  She nodded, swallowing. “Do you want me to—to stay in here?”

  “Yes. I’ll drive the coach. Let me get my horse tied to it, and we’ll be off.” He closed the door, then reopened it and held up the torch again to see her face. “Sure you’re all right to continue your journey?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Call to me out the window if you need anything before we arrive.”

  “Okay.” She smiled then, a fetching grin that lit up her lovely face and showed off a row of pearly white teeth.

  Yavi cleared his throat again, shut the door, and went to get Sikar.

  The bandit she’d stabbed had survived and escaped, but Yavi didn’t want to waste time chasing him down at the moment. His sole mission now was the safe delivery of Graciella to the palace.

  Kitchen help, his arse. If he had his way, the exquisite creature inside that coach would never dirty her delicate little hands in his kitchen.

  §

  As the coach started rolling again, Graciella untied the restrictive strings of the cloak from around her neck to get some air, then sank back against the cushioned seat, fanning herself. Dear Gods, the attack was scary, and then to have Yavi suddenly appear in the doorway—she didn’t think her heartbeat was going to slow down for many miles. She had hoped to be washed, coiffured, perfumed, and dressed in her best gown when he first saw her, but instead she was sleep-deprived, had half her hair coming down, and her face was all sweaty from having to fight off those vile highwaymen.

  The attack wasn’t the only reason she’d had trouble catching her breath. Yavi’s exotic silvery eyes were as handsome as ever, his firm jaw still square, his silver hair still thick over his brow and cropped short. The only thing that had changed about Yavi of the Zulfikars in six years was the pained sternness of his expression. That had deepened, and it worried her.

  Four

  Terijin shoved the heavy wooden door open and staggered inside the dilapidated fortress. “Sire!” he shouted, hurrying down the stairs to the lower level. “Sire!”

  Uman met him at the bottom of the stone staircase, his eyes narrowing. “Where’s the girl?”

  “We were thwarted, Sire. By Yavi. I don’t know how he knew about our ambush, but he killed the three mercenaries. I alone escaped.”

  Without warning, Uman backhanded him, a powerful blow against his face that sent him skidding across the stone floor. When Terijin looked up, Uman was stalking toward him, his solid black eyes menacing.

  Uman bared sharp, black-stained teeth. “I told you not to return here without the girl.”

  Terijin held up a hand to deflect another possible blow before it could hit his face. “I know, Sire, but I couldn’t get to her. He killed two of my men with arr
ows before I could do anything, and then he rushed us with his swords. No one survives a sword fight with Yavi. He—he’s the best swordsman the Assassin Army has ever had.”

  “Enough!” Uman grabbed Terijin up by the front of his cloak and hauled him to his feet. “You are immortal now, you fool. Yavi’s swords can’t kill you.”

  “But if he slices me open with his swords—what will happen, Sire?”

  “You won’t die from those wounds, because you are already dead. In the future, you keep fighting until the enemy submits. The Zulfikars are mere mortals. We are the Vyrkune. The Undefeatable.”

  Terijin nodded nervously. “Understood. But we will need many more Vyrkune to eliminate the Zulfikars, Sire.”

  Uman paced away from him, then looked back. “Yes. I have a plan.”

  §

  The moon was high in the sky, and it was well after midnight when Yavi arrived at the White Palace driving Graciella’s coach. He signaled to the gate guards as he approached, and they swung the doors open for the carriage to pass through. Yavi drove it to the foot of the marble staircase leading up to the entrance of the palace, then leapt down from the seat to see about his feminine passenger.

  When he opened the carriage door, he found her huddled tightly in her cloak, just waking up from sleep. The temperature had dropped quite a bit as they had traveled farther north into Nandala, and he knew she wasn’t accustomed to such cold winters.

  Yavi reached inside the coach to grasp her hand. Her fingers were ice-cold in his warm ones. She stepped down out of the coach onto stiff legs, wobbling a bit, and held onto his arm for balance.

  “Easy, there.” He steadied her with a hand at her waist. “You’ve had a long trip without resting. You must be exhausted.”

  She smiled up at him, shivering. “Yes.”

  He resisted the urge to pull her into his arms to warm her. “Let’s get you inside by a fire.” He placed her delicate hand into the crook of his arm as he glanced over his shoulder at the guard who stood at attention beside the coach. “Get Miss Graciella’s trunk and bring it inside.”