I pull her closer and kiss the side of her head. “Sorry I didn’t kill him for you when I had the chance.”
“He wasn’t your problem to fix,” she says on a soft sigh. “But enough about me. Are you all enforcers like Wraith?”
“I don’t know what you mean, James.” Jester feigns innocence. “We’re all law-abiding citizens.”
Her laughter echoes across the mountain. “Law-abiding citizens my ass.”
“I am the law,” Malice growls.
Jamie lets out an adorable gasp. “Judge Dredd.”
“Damn right,” Malice confirms.
“They’re enforcers.” Discord points to us, leaving himself out. “I’m something else.”
Her brows shoot up. “Cryptic.”
I roll my eyes. “Still with the dramatics, Discord?”
“And I have to live with him,” Havoc says.
Discord snorts. “You’re all just jealous.”
“I feel like I’m missing something.”
Discord sets aside his beer and pushes to his feet. He saunters over to Jamie and kneels in front of her. She leans into me, but he takes her hand and brings it to his lips. Stares her right in the eyes as he kisses her knuckles. But where her eyes are warm and alive, his are dark and cold as death. Discord may be young, but he’s the scariest motherfucker I know.
“That’s because you are.” He inhales Jamie, a slow grin lifting his lips. At twenty-two, he’s deceptively youthful. Pretty, almost. Could blend in with a typical college crowd. “See these guys? Some asshole comes to Mayhem, gets rowdy and starts trouble, talks smack about the Unholy, they beat the shit out of him. They send him home in pieces. And yeah, they get all up in someone’s face and kill him no problem. That’s their job, and they’rerealgood at their job. And then there’s me.” He leans in closer and drops his voice to an intimate whisper. “I’m the nightmare no one sees coming.”
Jamie’s lips part. But she snaps her mouth closed and swallows before rasping, “You’re an assassin.”
Discord leans away with a wink. “I’m good at my job, too.”
She sweeps her gaze over his deceptively angelic face. “But you’re so young.”
“Beethoven wrote his first composition at twelve or some such shit, didn’t he?”
“You know Beethoven?”
“I’m a killer, Jamie, not stupid.” Discord springs to his feet.
“Obviously.” Jamie lifts a brow and takes Discord’s measure. “I would hope the people you’ve executed deserved it.”
“Obviously,” he mimics before returning to his place at the other side of the fire pit. “Unlike your piece of shit of husband, we don’t kill the innocent.”
“This is true,” she agrees. Then to me, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I like your friends. Thank you for bringing me today. This was honestly the best day I’ve ever had.”
I don’t tell her the day was arranged for her benefit.
Nor will I admit that her words hit me right in the heart.
“Wraith,” Malice grunts.
“What?”
“She’s right. Today wasn’t terrible.”
“Look at Malice making a friend.” Jester’s snicker is cut short by the rock Malice throws at his head.
