The song waned, and it left me shivering and hollow. A fearful sweat covered my body as an intense ache began in my chest. When an arm wrapped around my waist again, I fought the hold. I was saying something unintelligible and scratching at the arm keeping me from the song. But the grip was too tight.
The song? It was leaving me. So empty.
I shivered from the cold and felt the wetness of tears run down my cheeks. My heart was being ripped open, the pain of it overwhelming. I clutched my chest while I futilely fought the hold.
My face was soaked with tears when I became aware that the song had gone. Clarity slowly returned to me as the pai
n diminished.
An arm was tight around my waist, holding me upright as my toes only skimmed the floor. My chest pounded with confusion and uncertainty.
“What have you got yourself into?” a newly familiar voice asked from behind me. It took me a moment to place it.
The voice of an assassin.
“What did you do to me?” I breathed. My legs felt weak, and I didn’t know if I would be able to stand if he weren’t supporting me. I looked around, trying to understand where I was. The stairwell of the inn was dark as only one wall sconce lit it. The perfect place to be murdered . . .
“It seems you have made an enemy of a Saccar. I would pack up and leave as soon as you can,” he said, his grip still tight and his voice so close to my neck that it sent shivers down my spine.
His front was pressed against me, and I couldn’t even understand what he was saying as I recognized the close contact. I didn’t think there was an inch of my back that wasn’t touching him. I let out a breath as he shifted and every one of my nerve-endings was hyper aware of the movement.
A flush already covered my skin, but it became warmer with irritation when I remembered I had been walking to my death or Alyria’s, and I was more concerned with an assassin’s body heat. I needed him to put me down, so I could maybe form some thoughts.
I was confused and now irritated with myself, and I had no idea where I got the fortitude to take it out on an assassin. “Am I your next victim then?” I asked brazenly.
His arm tightened around me, and I sucked in a breath. “If I was going to kill you, you’d be dead already,” he said harshly.
I swallowed hard. “Then put me down.”
He pulled his arm away, and I dropped to my feet; and thankfully, I could stand. I steadied myself on the wall when a man started to walk up the steps, singing a tune. He was swaying, and when he looked at me, his eyes lit up.
“Well, if you aren’t an angel, then I’m the King!” he slurred cheerfully. “How much for the night, deary?”
My mouth dropped open. He thought I was a prostitute? I’d never been accused of that before. But neither had I stood alone in the stairwell of an inn with an assassin. I looked the drunk man over from his bloodshot eyes to his unsteady feet and suddenly wondered how my mother could stomach it. Or why she had chosen it.
I was about to tell the man off when the assassin spoke, “She’s taken for the night.”
What?
I didn’t even have time to disagree before he grabbed my wrist and dragged me up the stairs. “What the hell are you doing!” I hissed, trying to pull my wrist out of his grasp.
“Which one is yours?” he asked as he pointed to the doors on each side of the hallway.
I grabbed a door handle of one room to keep him from pulling me down the hall. “I’m not sleeping with you!” The handle slipped out of my hand from a yank on my other wrist. “I’m sure there are many prostitutes available. You only need to walk down the street!” I planted my feet on the floor, but I only got a dull pain from a splinter as he dragged me across the wooden floorboards.
He opened one door, and I heard a feminine shout before he shut it. When he opened my door, my heart was pounding so hard it was hard to hear his words.
“Yours?” he asked.
“No!” I lied.
He gave me a push, and I stumbled into my room. I spun around, ready to start fighting and screaming for help. Why I hadn’t started that before he got me to my room was beyond me. Panic wasn’t reliable.
He stared at me for a moment with his hand on the doorknob, his heavy gaze meeting mine as my breaths shallowed in unease.
He glanced around the small room before saying, “I’d get out of Cameron if I were you.” He then walked out and slammed the door behind him.
It felt like the lid of a coffin shutting on me.