We were carrying our payment, all of it. Goblin gold is lighter than normal gold, so one man could carry what it’d normally take a pack mule to haul. Mychael was doing the carrying. He had a satchel and pockets; all I had was an absurd amount of cleavage.
We were doing our walking-and-hiding thing again. Walk until we spotted another living soul, then hide in the shadows. And when we talked, we kept our voices low.
Markus was staying in one of the lavish homes on Ambassador Row, which was conveniently around the corner from—and within screaming distance of—Embassy Row with all the guards and weapons and death and destruction. A great place to visit in the middle of the night, if you had a death wish. A fly couldn’t sneeze on Ambassador Row without attracting attention of the fatal kind. Not exactly the ideal scenario for a kidnapping that Mychael said wasn’t going to be a kidnapping.
Not that I thought knocking Markus over the head and hauling him off was necessarily a bad plan. And it definitely wouldn’t take much right now to get me to knock Markus over the head. In my family, kidnapping was often the first step to productive negotiations with a rival or enemy. Any decent strategist knew that negotiations were better conducted from a position of power. For a Benares, that often meant a small room, a chair, and your rival blindfolded and tied to it.
I suspected Mychael’s plan involved warning Markus in some way that he was next on Sarad Nukpana’s menu, but if the two of us as Mychael Eiliesor and Raine Benares couldn’t be seen anywhere but the citadel, I didn’t know how we could do whatever Mychael wanted to do and still remain among the living, or at least the un-jailed.
I didn’t know because Mychael hadn’t told me.
“So are you going to tie a note to a rock and throw it through his bedroom window? Or toss a carrier pigeon over the wall and hope a trigger-happy guard doesn’t shoot it?”
“What?”
“How are you going to tell Markus that Nukpana’s uncle put a price on his head—and the rest of him?”
Mychael gripped my upper arm and pulled me into an alley.
“I think a personal visit would be best.” He gave me a look that spoke volumes, and then he sighed. “Though this would be much easier if you weren’t with me.”
I knew exactly what he was getting at. “So suddenly I’m not so indispensable?”
“Suddenly you’re a woman with a vindictive glint in those pretty gray eyes.”
I pursed my lips against a smile I felt coming on. “Compliments will get you nowhere.”
“Which one? Vindictive or pretty?”
I shrugged. “Either one works for me. But if you’re worried that I’ll choke the life out of Markus, I promise I’ll be perfect.”
Mychael chortled. “A perfect what?”
“Whatever Markus deserves.”
“No punching or choking.”
“I would never dream of it.”
“Raine.” That one word held a world of warning.
“Okay, I’d dream of it, but I wouldn’t do it.”
“Because you’d rather stab him.”
I just smiled. Mychael was getting to know me way too well.
“That’s not what we’re here for,” he told me.
“That’s not what you’re here for. If Markus had anything to do with Balmorlan kidnapping Piaras or getting Tam charged with murder, there are some impulses that I won’t even try to control.”
“Can you control yourself long enough for us to get into the house?”
My smile was tiny and perfect, maybe even demure. “Oh, you can count on it. I want to get in the same room with Markus. The question is how you propose to do that. We can’t exactly stroll up to the front door looking like this, knock, and hope we get invited in for drinks.”
“I thought we’d start by dropping our glamours.” Mychael dropped his.
I followed suit. I have to admit, it was a relief. My back was starting to hurt from carrying around what was no doubt Maire Orla’s pair of pride and joys. “Though what about the guards? If everyone’s supposed to believe we’re in the citadel and then Markus’s men see us, guess what? Cover blown.”
“We won’t be seeing the guards and they won’t see us.”
“Then what—”
“If you can’t control a situation, you have to know every detail, don’t you?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Mychael’s eyes twinkled from under the brim of his hat. “I’ll bet you don’t like surprises for your birthday, either.”
“No, I don’t. And what the hell does that have to do with anything?”
He leaned in close with a conspiratorial whisper. “Not all surprises are bad.”
Mychael took my face in his hands and those blue eyes gazed down into mine. There was no question reflected there, no uncertainty, and he sure as hell wasn’t asking my permission. Those eyes told me what he wanted.
He kissed me.His lips didn’t demand; they simply took. With delicious slowness. His fingers of one hand ran lightly up the curve of my ear, lingering for a breath-catching caress at the tip before sliding down to my throat, leaving a trail of tingle-inducing heat in their wake. By the time his hand slipped around the back of my neck and pressed me to him, my hands were on him, sliding up to his chest and around his neck. My hands didn’t ask my permission, either. Traitorous hands.
Mychael’s kiss turned into a tantalizing nibble, gently pulling my bottom lip between his teeth, sucking, teasing.
I opened my eyes and was met with twin pools of deep ocean blue, gleaming with mischief as he released my lips and planted light kisses on my nose and forehead. His lips lingered there, the warmth of his breath and body doing a fine job of banishing the night cold—or at least giving me something better to think about. His lips had released mine, but his arms were wrapped firmly around my waist and didn’t seem to be in a rush to let me go.
“What was that for?” I found myself short of breath.
“Hopefully, a pleasant surprise.”
I looked up at him, a slow smile spreading across my face. “Eh, I’ve had worse.”
Mychael grinned and his fingers found that ticklish place on my ribs and I squealed before I could stop myself. His lips instantly covered my mouth, muffling the sound. He took his sweet time muffling.
“See, not all surprises are bad,” his lips murmured against mine. “And some are more enjoyable than you’ll admit.”
“Was that a distraction to keep me from stabbing Markus?”
“That depends. Did it work?”
“As a distraction, it was first-rate.”
“My lips humbly thank you.”
“As a deterrent . . . sorry, no dice.”
Mychael pressed his lips together. I actually think he was trying not to laugh—at me. I narrowed my eyes and glared at him.
“That sounds like a challenge to me,” he said. “I’ll have to make every effort to do better next time.”
“So what’s your plan?” I asked. “For Markus,” I quickly added.
Mychael ran his hands down my ribs to my hips and back again before releasing me. “Very well. After we’re in the house and have informed Markus of the situation, I plan to find out the truth of his involvement in all this.”
I bared my teeth in a fierce grin. “Now, that’s a plan I can—”
“My way,” he told me firmly.
“Your way what?”
“We’re going to find out my way. No fists, no daggers.”
“And which way is that?”
“I’ll ask him.”
“You expect him to be honest?”
“I’ll know if he’s lying, and so will you.”
True. Part of me didn’t want to know that Markus was lying—or that he would lie to me. It was the same part of me that didn’t want to know that I had been a part-time agent and a full-time patsy. I thought I meant more to Markus than that, and if I didn’t . . . well, dammit, it hurt. It hurt like hell. Not to mention it made me feel naïve and downright stupid. I didn’t like either one. During my life, I’d been screwed over by professionals, people who’d done it before and would gleefully do it again. I really didn’t want to add Markus’s name to that list.
“What if he is lying?” I asked quietly. “Or what if he tells us the truth and admits he did it?”
Mychael’s expression was cheerfully grim. “Then we’ll do it your way.”
“Best idea I’ve heard all night,” I muttered. “So, how do we get in the house?”
“I thought I’d give my usual signal and Markus’s butler would let us in through the back door. A quick veiling spell and the guards don’t see us. Markus has plenty of clandestine meetings in the middle of the night.”
I just stood there, and then I think I blinked. I wasn’t sure if I had or not; I was too stunned by what I’d just heard.
“Your usual signal?”
“I’ve been there before.”
“Apparently. What about the not so little fact that Markus is Taltek Balmorlan’s boss?” I asked. “The sadistic son of a bitch who kidnaps people for his personal armory. Carnades’s new best friend. Minion to the late and leathery General Aratus.”
“You have suspicions but no proof that Sevelien condoned any of Balmorlan’s activities,” Mychael said.
“When his people are attacking my friends, suspicions are all I need. Just because Markus’s name isn’t on Balmorlan’s orders doesn’t mean he’s innocent.”
“Nor does it condemn him as guilty.” His look softened. “You’ve worked with him for how long?”
“Nine years.”
“That’s a long time, Raine.”
“Yeah, it is,” I admitted reluctantly. I didn’t want to let go of a perfectly good vindictive anger.