Page 19 of Blood Slumberm
The Order of Hypnos’s bounty on the notorious Hesperine of Corona had been increasing for the last hundred years. Even a fraction of it would be enough to reinvent herself and fund any new life she chose to live.
And Troi’s life would end.
She tried to keep her voice steady. “We split the bounty fifty-fifty, as we agreed.”
“I’m the one who must decapitate the creature. I should get seventy at least.”
She had expected him to renegotiate, but not to torture her with such images. But could she really believe a few conversations with Troi over a lifetime of knowledge about Hesperines?
Knowledge fed to you by the Orders, the voice of truth reminded her.
Be that as it may, she couldn’t throw away her life for this ephemeral sense of compassion for a Taurus. What compassion would Troi have for her when this was over? No doubt he was playing her like that lute and planning a betrayal of his own.
Would he kill her for simply being a Pavo? Would he take her away with him and use her for blood until she died?
Did you feel used last night?demanded that dangerous voice.
“Forty-sixty,” she made herself say, “or I will let another Gift Collector through the gate before you.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Very well. But if you don’t hurry and get me inside before the mages of Anthros, you’ll get nothing but my hand in your hair, dragging you back to your temple.”
“I only need a little more time…”
Time to what? To reconsider her effort to free herself from Rixor and the Orders? To fall deeper under Troi’s spell, until he and his goddess took control of her destiny?
The Gift Collector loomed over her. “We are running out of time.”
“Unraveling the Hesperine spells inside is a massive effort. I’m earning my forty percent. Wait until the day after tomorrow, then come at dawn when he’s asleep. I’ll leave an opening in the spells for you.”
“I will be there,” the Gift Collector growled, “whether you’re ready or not.”
He turned on his heel and stalked away from her. The warm summer day seemed to fill with cold, dark visions of Troi, vulnerable in his Slumber, and the Gift Collector closing in on him with that deadly blade.
seven
Celandinestoodontiptoebut couldn’t catch a glimpse of what Troi was doing behind the dressing screen. “Are you certain you don’t need me to—”
“No.”
“The laces on your tunic—”
“We had laces one hundred years ago, Your Highness.”
“Fine, slugabed. But if you come out looking sloppy,” she threatened, brandishing a hair-brush, “Iwillwork you over from head to toe.”
“If you intend to do that,” came his deep, wicked voice, “I would prefer to be undressed.”
She threw the hairbrush, and it hit the dressing screen with an unsatisfying thump. He laughed.
“The ball begins in less than an hour,” she said. “We don’t have time for distractions!”
All the years seemed to have built up in her chest, and if one thing went wrong tonight, she would shatter.
“We’ll arrive on time, Celandine.”
His reassuring tone and the way he said her name calmed her racing pulse. But the emotions gripping her heart only grew more tangled.
It wasn’t too late to call off the Gift Collector. She and Troi could abandon the manor, leaving the necromancer to find nothing but an empty house.
