Fortune Favors the Cruel Read online

  “You may talk about whatever you want,” he stated. “You are a free woman.”

  She narrowed her gaze on him. “If I’m to be your vassal, then I assume you’ll want to inform me of my wages at some point.”

  “Life. Survival. Freedom,” Lazarus replied. “You’re welcome.”

  Quinn didn’t respond to his dry comments. “New clothes would be nice. Thicker fabrics for the winter. Coin for food and provisions—”

  “Anything you need will be provided. That includes clothing and food. I haven’t let you starve yet, now have I?” Lazarus quirked a brow.

  “It’s only been two days,” she replied. “I have no clue what the future will bring.” She paused. “Especially since you’ve refused to answer my questions about where we’re going.”

  “I told you—”

  “Yes, yes,” Quinn cut him off with a wave of her hand. “You’ve told me we’re going to Shallowyn, but I mean after that.”

  Lazarus scowled. He did not appreciate being cut off, and she knew it. “You will know what I need you to know and nothing more,” he stated with finality.

  Quinn rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest as she glanced out the window once more. The sun continued on and her vision grew blurry. She blinked, clearing away the haze. Quinn focused on the coach’s outline, tracing it with her eyes as she pressed up against the side of the carriage when her sight fell on a strange lump.

  Flicking her gaze up to Lazarus and then back to the odd shadow, Quinn’s eyes narrowed as it moved. She opened her mouth. “Laz—” The shadow jumped, vaulting over the top of the coach and a thump followed as something large and heavy hit the road. Lazarus jerked upward and looked outside.

  He growled. “Stay here,” he commanded, reaching for the handle.

  “But—”

  “Stay.” He was gone in the next moment. It didn’t matter if the carriage was still moving along, he was outside and she was left staring at his empty seat after his quick exit, wondering how a nobleman had learned to move like that. Quinn slipped out of her cloak quietly and moved towards the door as the coach came to a shuddering halt. Quinn slid forward, stopping herself from falling by putting her feet against the edge of the seat across from her that had just been vacated.

  The horses let out a cry of dismay as a man shouted. Another thump came from outside as something hit the ground.

  A body, Quinn assumed. Maybe all Lazarus’ mutterings of danger weren’t just paranoia after all. She reached under her shirt and pulled the short knife she had retrieved from her satchel before they set out. Quinn let her hand fall back to her side as she flattened her back to the wall of the carriage.

  Footsteps sounded outside. Large. Heavy.

  Men’s footsteps, she decided. Men attempting to be stealthy.

  The first traces of fear whispered to her, calling her from outside the carriage. She held firm to her sensibilities, waiting for another cry to ring out. The door directly across from her swung open and a man dressed in black peered in. He wore a dull wooden mask over the upper half of his face, covering his features.

  Quinn acted without hesitation. A flick of her wrist was all it took, and the knife went flying.

  His lips parted beneath the mask as the dagger hit him square in the chest, sliding between two ribs with precision. It wasn’t a direct hit to his heart—but it was close.

  A hiss of breath was all that escaped him before Quinn brought her boot up and smashed it into his face. The wooden mask cracked beneath the impact, and his fingers released their hold on the edges of the doorway. The attacker teetered mid-air for a brief second before a heavy thud sounded as he landed, a plume of dirt particles drifting around him in the evening light.

  Quinn wasted no time, jumping from the carriage to land on his prone form, pinning him beneath her as she grasped the dagger and ripped it free from his chest. The pieces of his mask fell to the side. He gasped for breath. She didn’t care. Using the hilt of her dagger, she slammed it down on the top of his head, easily knocking the man unconscious as she watched his eyes roll back.

  Shadows twisted and twined against her, obscuring her in shadow as Quinn backed against the carriage. Two men came around the side of the coach and the tethers of darkness wove a barrier over her form. She didn’t notice the dark strands as they moved to circle her body. She watched as the two attackers didn’t seem to realize she was there when they turned their attention to their unconscious friend.

  “Did you see that?”

  Quinn could only see the outline of the men as the first turned to his partner.

  “There’s no one there,” the other said. He, too, was dressed in dark clothing. Both wore the same mask as the man she’d stabbed.

  The corners of her lips turned up in the slightest of smiles. The man before her was slowly bleeding out and giving off tendrils of fear. There were only a few of them, and in the obscurity of evening light, Quinn wasn’t as overwhelmed by the darkness that called to her.

  Two more muffled cries made the men jump into action, pulling away and turning towards the sounds of distress.

  They both moved to the front of the carriage where Lazarus had disappeared. While she couldn’t see much more than their figures, Quinn could feel the apprehension coming from them, the way it slithered into their hearts.

  “You don’t think…” the first began, a trickle of unease trembling in his voice.

  “There’s no way he beat Krone—that man’s a beast. He’s—” An almost inhuman roar split the air, filled with a savage fury. Quinn had little doubt who it was.

  The two in front of her whirled as he appeared behind them, seeming to materialize out from the shadows.

  “Who sent you?” Lazarus asked, a ruthless kind of malevolence working its way into his voice, unlike anything Quinn had ever heard before. She craned her neck forward, finding herself drawn into his deep predatory gaze. Though she wasn’t the one locked under his stare, she could feel the power behind it and it sucked her in.

  The two masked men flashed terrified glances at each other and took hasty steps back.

  “N-no one…” Quinn didn’t know who had breathed the answer, but Lazarus was obviously not mollified. He took a step forward, and in unison, they took another back, coming within an arm’s reach of Quinn.

  “Then you acted on your own and will suffer the consequences,” Lazarus growled, sounding more beast than man. Their fear bled off them in terrible but tantalizing rivulets. Quinn leaned forward and breathed it in heavily. A face flashed before her eyes—an image of a man with a cane. The distinct impression of previous fear hit her. Before anything more could happen, the man’s image faded and in its place was the scene in front of her.

  A flash of metal gleamed in the low light as a knife slid down the second masked-man’s sleeve, jutting out from beneath the jacket’s armhole.

  Lazarus moved impossibly fast, raising an arm to strike the first man just as the second moved to do the same to Lazarus. All the while, none of them had yet noticed Quinn.

  She slashed in a wide arc, running the blade clean through the weak tendon and bone that connected the back of the second man’s foot to his ankle. Blood splattered, and the armed assailant faltered. Lazarus struck down the first man, grasping his head between two enormous hands. He didn’t even have time to beg before a crack rang out.

  Lazarus released him and the body dropped to ground, entirely limp.

  Quinn blinked as wide unseeing eyes stared back at her.

  The man with the sliced tendon collapsed forward onto the road, blindly swinging his dagger in an attempt to protect himself, tendrils of fear sprung from his skin as his heartbeat thudded in his chest with wild abandon. Lazarus moved faster than the eye could see, and just like that day in her dressing room, he caught the man’s wrist. Both of them fell still.

  There were no last words. No warnings. No questions.

  Lazarus Fierté—as Quinn was quickly coming to realize—was a man of action. He
pried the blade from the soon-to-be-dead man’s fingers and jabbed it through his eye socket.

  The attacker’s mouth fell open, a scream attempting to leave his body, but with nowhere to go, it remained silent—trapped as his corpse dropped to the ground.

  Lazarus turned and looked at Quinn, squinting his eyes as if trying to see.

  “I thought I told you to stay inside.” He sounded gruff, not angry or frustrated, but like he had something in this throat. He didn’t glance at the bodies strewn around them. Neither did Quinn.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t listen.”

  If she thought he would have shown anger at those words, she was wrong. Instead, his gaze turned to the dark shadows clinging to her skin. “How are you doing that?” he asked.

  She frowned. “Doing what?”

  He waved a hand in her direction, fresh blood coating his fingers. “Cloaking yourself,” he said.

  Quinn looked down for the first time, noticing the darkness moving across her body. Even she couldn’t see much of herself there were so many strands of shadow moving around her.

  “I don’t…” she began, her voice stopping as she moved her arms and the shadows followed, “… know …” she finished softly.

  The first slivers of her own fear whispered through her chest, crawling up her throat. Lazarus took two mighty steps and extended his hand. Quinn looked up at it. Shadows or not, when she reached for him, as their hands clasped, they dispersed, and he hauled her to her feet.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, not with the usual concern people held, but something akin to it.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Get your things. We need to go.”

  Quinn pulled away and looked at him, and then looked to the men on the ground and finally the empty carriage with doors ajar. “That’s it?” she asked. “No explanation about why we were just attacked? Nothing?”

  Anger burned in her throat, but it was all ice. That freezing calm that took over whenever she got too upset. She stilled. Listless.

  Lazarus’ gaze shifted to her face, sharpening on her eyes. “Six men, Quinn. That’s how many attacked us tonight. When they don’t report back, it will be triple that the next time.” His voice was cut and dry, and while those embers in his eyes might have flared when he stared at her, Quinn was more clueless than the dead men at her feet.

  “Yes, and you still haven’t told me why they attacked us or who sent them,” Quinn replied, mockingly indifferent as Lazarus walked behind her. There was a stuttered gasp and then gurgling of breath before … nothing. Silence.

  Quinn turned to see him cleaning his blade on the hem of his tunic. The man she’d stabbed in the chest bled out like a slaughtered animal.

  “And I’m not going to until you can prove to me that you’re worthy of any semblance of trust,” he said as if they were talking about the weather. Quinn inhaled sharply with indignation, clutching her dagger tighter.

  “You’re the one who asked for my help,” she reminded him. “You came to me, not the other way around. Just who exactly are you, Lazarus?” she asked. She’d nearly killed a man tonight and had assisted him in dispatching the other—saving him—not that she thought it would win her any real favors with him. Talking to a donkey would yield better results, she thought.

  Lazarus looked at her with obsidian eyes and in utter seriousness said, “Someone you don’t want to make an enemy of, Quinn. If you don’t get us killed with your dallying, you might find out.”

  Tired, cranky, with the same crick in her neck and covered in blood, Quinn grabbed her satchel out of the carriage and came to stand before him.

  “I’m ready,” she announced with a bite. Lazarus glanced over as he adjusted the saddle on one of the carriage horse’s back. The black stallion nickered then fell silent when Lazarus put a hand on its side.

  “You ride?” he asked briskly.

  She shook her head as she bit the inside of her cheek because smarting off would get them nowhere. Like it or not, she was tied to his stubborn ass by contract until she fulfilled her end, or he relieved her of her duty. At this rate, neither would happen since it looked like she might actually be more likely to die working for him.

  He sighed, an irritated sound. “The way I see it,” he paused, sweeping himself up onto the saddle. Lazarus reached a hand down to her, and she eyed it distastefully. “You don’t have much of a choice in this, Quinn. Either ride with me or run behind. I don’t care much either way at this point.”

  Quinn took his hand. If there was one thing she hated more than the situation she’d found herself in, it was running.

  Lazarus grinned like he somehow knew it.

  Nightmare Shackles

  “Nightmares are fueled by reality.”

  — Quinn Darkova, former slave, ex-prisoner, and almost-killer

  Her backside hurt. Her body ached. Her head was pounding from sleep deprivation and the mental exhaustion of one bad thing after another with no real break. If she thought riding in the carriage for two whole days was rough, she was—once again—sorely mistaken. A day and a half on the back of a giant beast, with her back pressed against yet another giant beast, and she was ready to stab something—anything, if it meant she could get some decent sleep.

  Lazarus had ridden hard after the attack. She wasn’t sure if he was attempting to make up for lost time or to outrun the consequences of his actions. There was obviously someone that wanted him dead. Because of that, neither of them had slept.

  Quinn let her eyes drift closed as the wind on her face stung her cheeks. But almost immediately after her eyelids slid shut, the horse came to an abrupt stop and her eyes snapped back open.

  “What is it?” she demanded, looking around. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Lazarus replied. “We’re here.”

  “We’re here?” Quinn looked around the country road. They were stopped alongside a tall gray-bricked wall, crusted over with age and spindly dead vines. “I don’t see anything.”

  Lazarus nudged her to get off the horse, and with a grunt she complied. Quinn swung her leg up and over the horse’s neck and slid over the side. The impact jarred her, and she stumbled to regain balance. If Lazarus hadn’t dismounted behind her and grabbed her about the waist, she would’ve tumbled onto the dirt road.

  “I’m fine,” Quinn said sharply, pulling away from him.

  “Stop,” Lazarus commanded. “Your tunic is snagged on this …” She tried to step away and he tightened his grip on her waist. “The horse will spook if you keep jerking it.”

  Lazarus ripped the shirt from the buckle on the side of the saddle bag. She gaped down at the now broad hole in her tunic. Before she could say anything, Lazarus grabbed her forearm and began pulling her towards the wall. “Hey!” she hissed, smacking at his bicep. “What about the horse?”

  Lazarus looked over to the large black stallion as Quinn shifted on her feet, attempting to relieve the chaffing ache in her thighs. “I’ll send someone for it.”

  Quinn lifted a brow but didn’t reply. She wondered what it would be like to have people who would do the most asinine things for you just because you have money and didn’t feel like doing it on your own. Chances were, though, she’d never find out. She’d never have the money for that luxury, nor the patience for the life that type of wealth would require, and somehow that suited her just fine.

  Lazarus tugged her towards the wall, feeling alongside the dark stone for something. Quinn’s yawn was cut short as she jerked her gaze to where his hand had disappeared into a hole in the stone. Lazarus twisted his wrist and then pulled away, stepping back as a section of the wall shifted inward and to the side.

  “What in the dark realm …” Quinn whispered in shock as Lazarus hauled her through the opening. Almost immediately, the section that had been removed slid back into place.

  Quinn gaped as he led her through an immaculate wooded area. The silence—true silence—tipped her off that this wasn’t just some forest. There were no anim
als, no droppings, and the walking path was not uneven or overgrown. He pulled her through the trees and onto an open lawn where up ahead was a stone manor. Quinn blinked and took it in even as Lazarus pushed her forward, urging her to hurry.

  They reached a black staircase leading up onto the wide veranda. “You live here?” Quinn whispered as she continued to gawk. Not a single one of her masters had lived in something so opulent. Her gaze turned back to Lazarus as he moved towards the back entrance. Just how rich is this man?

  Lazarus and Quinn hadn’t set more than two feet inside when a tall, slender woman came around the corner. Her brown hair had early streaks of gray and while she was pretty, there was a harshness to her face that only age could cause.

  “My lord,” she said, clutching the top of her cloak to cover her nightgown. “We didn’t expect you for another day.”

  “Plans have changed, Lorraine.” Lazarus reached back, grasping Quinn’s arm once more. He pushed her towards the woman. “This is Quinn. She’s my newest vassal. See that she is given new clothes, food, and a room to rest. Is Draeven here?”

  Lorraine nodded woodenly, still shocked. Then, with a sense of familiarity and stalwartness, she inhaled and straightened. “Yes, my lord, he’s sleeping. As is everyone else. It’s the middle of the night. If you just got in, allow me to draw you a bath. You must be weary from your travels.”

  Lazarus shook his head. “There’s no time, Lorraine. I must speak with Draeven. See to Quinn.” Lazarus turned to stride away and stopped, turning back, fixing Quinn with a look. “Behave,” he ordered. Just one word and then he was gone, disappearing down a long dark hallway, leaving Quinn to glare after him—exhausted and in no mood for his attitude.

  Lorraine visibly pulled herself together and turned to the frazzled young woman with bloodshot eyes. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” Lorraine said. “Follow me.”

  Quinn trailed after her, staring up at the massive arched ceilings and ornate paintings on the walls, all the way to the carvings in the staircase bannisters. Everything about this manor screamed lavish. Expensive. Excessive, but not unattractive. Lorraine led her through a giant kitchen and up to the second floor.