“That’s kind of the assassin calling the executioner a killer, isn’t it?” At Tavin’s reluctant shrug, Lore continued. “Why are you working there, anyway? You used to kill people for a living.”
“So did you,” Tavin pointed out. “But now you’re working in the same hospital I am.”
“Yeah, but I work in the morgue. The people I have to deal with are mostly dead.”
Tavin grinned. “Only mostly dead? Not all the way dead?”
“What?”
“The Princess Bride?” Tavin prompted. “It’s a reference. Your dead people are only mostly dead?” When Lore stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, he shook his head. “The movie is a classic, man. Watch it sometime.”
“You sound like Wraith,” Lore said flatly. “Always talking about movies. And you didn’t answer the question. After the Horsemen destroyed the slave and assassin bonds, you were free. You could have done anything. Why did you decide to save lives?”
Tavin watched a hellhound block one of the kids from going into the water. When he tried to run around the hound, the big beast picked up the boy by the seat of his swim trunks and plopped him down near a group of adults. Damn. They were great babysitters.
When Tavin looked back at Lore, he saw the guy was waiting for an answer. “I decided to save lives because I have red in my ledger.”
“For real? You keep a ledger?”
“Dude, seriously? The Avengers? Black Widow? Watch a movie someday.”
“I have a kid. I don’t have time for movies that aren’t animated.”
Tavin had met Lore and Idess’s son, Mace. And, yeah, he could see why Lore’s time was in short supply. That boy was a handful. Right now, he was running ahead of a pack of shouting kids, taunting them with a ball he must have stolen from their beach volleyball game. When a hellhound tried to check him, he bit the canine.
The hellhound picked him up as it had the other kid, shook him, and carried him back to the adults between his jaws. But still. The kid had bitten a hellhound.
“Hey,” Lore said. “Speaking of assassins, do you ever think about Detharu?”
Tavin’s fist clenched around his water bottle. “I try not to. I try very hard not to. I hated that fucker.”
Lore snorted. “I did too. And he didn’t even chain me naked to his throne.”
Bitterness choked him like fetid grease in a clogged sink drain. Being chained to a throne had only been part of Deth’s punishment for Tavin not killing Gristlen in the contracted timeframe. Tavin had been chained and starved for food and sex until he went mad with pain and lust. Then, after devolving into madness but before succumbing to death, the bastard had summoned an audience. Deth had food, drink, and females brought in, and they’d watched Tavin attack.
Between Gristlen’s death and the torture, Tavin had been broken for a long time. Still was, in a lot of ways. His personal glyph wriggled as if to say, “Hey, don’t forget about how I fucked your life over!” As if he’d ever forget how an angel’s corrupted power had morphed the harmless worm symbol into an angry serpent for the ultimate lesson in be careful what you wish for.
“Do you know why Deth chained me to his thrown and did all that shit to me?” Tavin had always wondered how much his fellow assassins knew. And how much of what they’d heard was bullshit.
“I heard it was because he traded two good assassins for you, and then you fucked up your first assignment. Didn’t complete it.” Lore tipped his sand-flecked beer bottle to his lips and took a healthy gulp. “Is that what happened?”
“No.” Tavin had definitely completed the assignment. But only after running out of all other options and being backed into a corner.
Lore shrugged. “I also heard you got punished because you killed another assassin.” He kicked off his flip-flops and toed the sand. “Is that it?”
That was part of it. The part Tavin didn’t regret. Mako had been a psychotic asshat who’d deserved to die.
Lore waved at his mate, Idess, who looked as if she were trying to keep little Mace away from the dessert table. Jealousy formed a bitter knot in Tavin’s throat as he took in Lore’s family.
Lucky bastard. Not many Seminus demons found mates. In Tavin’s experience, a lifetime bond that could last centuries to a sex demon wasn’t what most females wanted. The problem was, if they didn’t mate by their second transition at a hundred years old, they most likely wouldn’t mate at all. They’d become evil, raping beasts that more often than not met violent ends at the hands of jealous males.
“You gonna answer?” Lore asked, his dark gaze fixed somewhere beyond his family now.
Tavin thought about deflecting. Walking away. Anything but talking about the shit that had gone down over a decade ago. Shit that haunted him to this day. But for the first time in his adult life, he had stability and friends, and if that wasn’t the time to open up a little, he didn’t know when was.
“I was sent on an assignment, and I fell for my prey.” There. He’d said it.
Lore’s head whipped around so fast Tavin heard the pop of his neck. “You what? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“And I killed another assassin. That part of what you heard is true.”
Lore contemplated that. “It was Mako, wasn’t it? I remember he disappeared around that same time.”
“Yep. Deth sent Mako when I failed to kill my mark by my deadline. I tried to make his death look like a Dar’grut.”
“Ooh, a Dar’grut. Smart.”
“Except Deth didn’t fall for it.” Dar’gruts—revenge rituals performed by the families of those killed by assassins—weren’t very common, mainly because assassins were good at not being identified. But every once in a while, a name got out, and families of victims weren’t merely allowed by Sheoul law to take revenge but were actually required to. “He didn’t have proof that I killed the bastard, but when does that matter?”
“Shit, man.” Lore shook his head. “I get it. I was supposed to kill Kynan. Deth was not thrilled when I failed to do it.”
That story had become legend among not only the Underworld General family but also every assassin den inside Sheoul. It wasn’t often that an assassin was sent to kill a guy protected by an angel, let alone an angel whose dad was known as the Grim Reaper. Making things even more bizarre, Lore had mated that angel and was good friends with his former target, Kynan.
“I remember,” Tavin said. “Sort of. I was kind of out of my mind during those days.”
Lore shot him a look of sympathy. “What Deth did to you was…” He shuddered, his gaze scanning the sun-dappled sea. As a fellow Seminus demon, Lore had needs that, if not fulfilled, meant agony, insanity, and death, just like Tavin. Tavin wondered if Lore’s human half tempered the demon half. Maybe he’d ask someday.
“Do you ever…?” Tavin trailed off, not sure he wanted to know the answer to the question lodged in his throat.
“Do I ever think about all the people I killed?” Lore shrugged. “Nope. They were mostly scum. And there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
That hadn’t been what Tavin had been about to ask, but close. “Do you ever worry that some of them will come back to take revenge?”