Angel's Assassin (27 page)

Aurora looked down at her fingers wrapped in
his protective grasp. “He only took my dress… and my ring.”

“Ring?” Damien echoed.

“My mother’s ring,” she explained.

Roke had demanded the ring as part of the
proof the task was done. The ring on her severed finger. Had
someone taken her without the heart to finish the mission? Had they
taken the ring as proof for Roke?

Aurora looked up at Damien. “It was a family
heirloom. The ring I made my mother go back for the night she
died.”

Why would someone take her here, take her
dress and her ring? It made no sense. If it had been simply for
robbery, she would be dead. If someone had wished to ransom her,
her ring could have been proof, as could her dress. But the dress
had been shredded and left throughout the forest. Like a trail.
Chills shot up his spine.

Aurora removed her hands from Damien’s and
looked down at her empty finger. “The only other time the ring was
off my finger was that night. It was much too big for me and it
fell off. But I knew she would be displeased if I lost it, so I
begged her to return for it. I begged her.” Aurora looked up at
Damien.

Something was not right. Something about a
lost ring stirred Damien’s memories. He heard distant voices from
his past. An angry woman berating a child about a ring. The voices
merged with memories of the sound of water, with wood creaking.
“Where did your mother die?” he asked Aurora.

Aurora looked up at him with such large,
clear eyes Damien wanted to embrace her and soothe the anguish she
was experiencing.

“The mill. My mother died at the old mill on
the northern border of Acquitaine. It burned down four years after
her death.”

“An old mill?” Prickles raced along Damien’s
shoulders.

Aurora nodded. “The miller was behind on his
tithe. Mother went to demand it. Somehow, the ring came off my
finger.”

Shadows of memory flickered in Damien’s mind.
Faded light peeled away the darkness to reveal a dim recollection.
The mill. Why did the mill set off alarms inside him? He could
almost see it in his mind’s eye.

“We went back for the ring. And she was
killed.” She stared at her empty ring finger. “The miller found the
ring a few weeks later and returned it me… We never should have
gone back for it.”

Killed. The word repeated itself in Damien’s
thoughts. He reached for one of his black boots. He kept his gaze
riveted on the boot so she wouldn’t notice the anxiety gripping
him. He had assumed disease had taken her mother Margaret. Or that
she had died in some accident. But the shadows in his mind were
taking solid form, like perfect paintings being drawn from the
memories of his past. The large wheel of the mill, cast in a blue
glow from the full moon, came into view on his mind’s canvas. “How
did she die?” he asked with trepidation.

Misery glittered in Aurora’s large eyes.
Guilt. “There was a shadow. A flash of silver. And then blood.”
Aurora’s eyes pooled with liquid. “She fell before me.”

Complete dread clawed at Damien’s body. He
could not move. He didn’t want to hear the rest, but he could not
stop the truth.

“He looked at me,” Aurora said with a shiver.
“The shadow looked at me with cold eyes. Dead eyes. Such black
eyes.”

And like lightning forking across the sky,
his mind split with the full blast of jarring memories. A woman
lying dead. A child hidden in a hooded cloak, a lone blond curl
escaping the hood’s confines. The mill wheel slowly turning. A pool
of blood. Teary, round eyes, eyes bluer than the deepest
sapphire.

“An assassin,” Aurora said softly. “I
remember the blade. He was there. Like a living shadow. He looked
at me. Those eyes. They were so cold. So evil.”

Damien remembered. Oh Lord, how could he not
have remembered? Anguish gripped him tightly; squeezing him until
he thought his heart would explode. Her eyes. He had looked into
those same blue eyes seven years ago. At the mill.

Where he had killed her mother.

A
urora
trembled at the memory. Those horrible black eyes, the same eyes
that had haunted her nightmares for so long, rose again in her mind
to lay claim to her sanity. But this time, she had a barrier, a
protector. Damien would never let anything hurt her. She leaned
toward him, but he stood so fast she almost tumbled to the
ground.

Damien raked a hand through his hair.

Distress pierced her heart like an arrow. She
had disappointed him with her weakness, with her fear. “I was
twelve years old when it happened,” she tried to explain. “I was
afraid. I didn’t know what to do. He could have killed me,
too.”

Damien looked at her with such torment that
she stood in alarm. “He could never have killed you,” he said.

She reached out and took his hand into her
own. “What is it, Damien? What is wrong?”

He hesitated, looking into her eyes,
searching desperately for something.

Was he looking for the goodness he had seen
earlier? Embarrassed, Aurora bowed her head. “Now you see, don’t
you? You see how flawed I am.”

Damien swept her into a crushing embrace of
despair. “No, never,” he said, holding her against him. His arms
tightened around her, as if he never wanted to let her go.

“Damien –” she whispered, alarmed at his
anguish. She wrapped her arms about his strong torso to soothe
him.

“I’m not who you think I am,” he whispered
into her hair. His voice was thick and strangled. “I never can
be.”

“You think so little of yourself,” Aurora
said softly, reassuringly, running her hands over the scars on his
back. “But you are wrong.”

“I’m an assassin.”

Aurora froze; her hands ceased their gentle
comfort. Had she heard him correctly? An assassin?

He stepped back, his head dipped in shame. “I
should have told you from the beginning.”

An assassin? Aurora’s image of a black
hearted, coldly calculating, vicious killer did not match the
character of the man who stood before her. Assassins were horrible,
honorless men who killed without emotion, who were paid to wipe out
a life. Like the assassin who had killed her mother. Evil.

But this was Damien. He could not be a
killer.

A tremor of apprehension sliced through her
as a terrible thought occurred to her. What if…? What if he was the
one she saw in her dreams? His eyes. She dipped her head to look
into Damien’s eyes.

Damien lifted his gaze, meeting her eyes with
resolution.

His orbs were dark, dark and anticipatory.
But they were not the eyes she remembered. Aurora scowled in
confusion. “There must be some mistake.”

Damien shook his head. “This is no mistake. I
am an assassin. I was sent here on a mission.”

Shivers raced up and down Aurora’s spine. She
studied his face. Grim resolve shadowed the sorrow etched in the
tight lines of his brow. He had been sent to Acquitaine. “To kill
someone?”

“Yes.”

“Whom?”

He lifted a hand to caress her cheek, to
touch her hair. “If I finished this last mission, I was to gain my
freedom. My freedom.”

Aurora scowled. “Your freedom?”

“My life is not my own. I am property. I have
no freedom.”

“A slave?” she whispered, her heart twisting
for him. His scars! What kind of master would harm their slave?

Damien’s jaw hardened. “My master bought me
many years ago. He trained me, taught me to be a killer.
Manipulated me. The one thing I wanted more than anything was my
freedom. And he knew it. He offered my freedom as reward for
completing this one last mission.” His dark eyes followed the curve
of the curl that lay in his palm. “But I couldn’t do it. I failed.
And there will be repercussions.”

“Who were you sent to kill?”

His eyes lifted to hers. “You.”

Aurora’s eyebrows arced in surprise. She took
a slow step back away from him. “But you saved my life.”

“I was saving you for myself. I didn’t want
another assassin taking my freedom from me. If someone else killed
you, then I would have failed and my freedom would be lost. But
then, I began to care for you. I didn’t want you hurt. I became
your bodyguard.”

Aurora’s heart melted. He cared for her.
“Then you are not truly an assassin.”

“Make no mistake. I am an assassin. The worst
there has ever been.”

Still, Aurora refused to believe what Damien
was telling her. How could this be true? How could her Damien be
the worst killer there ever was? He was kind and noble and
brave.

“I was never given a choice. No one ever gave
me a choice. Kill or be killed. Those were my options.”

Her heart ached for the hardships he must
have endured. An outpouring of compassion engulfed Aurora. His life
had been brutal. Unfair.

“I was trained to be a killer. It is part of
my soul. It is who I am.”

Aurora shook her head. “Who you were.”

“I can’t escape my past, Aurora,” he said
softly. “Not even for you.”

Part of her was screaming this could not be
true! His hands, so gentle and tender with her, had taken lives. He
killed people. Had they been innocent people, defenseless people?
Or had they been warriors? She opened her mouth to ask him, and
then promptly shut it. She did not want to know. She saw him kill
before. The assassin in the forest. But that was different. He had
been protecting her! Had he actually taken the lives of people who
were unable to defend themselves? She scowled at her thoughts. This
was Damien. She knew him. She knew what kind of man he was. She
lifted her chin slightly. “Then stop.”

Damien met her gaze with confusion.

“You are being given the choice now. Stop.
Take a different direction.”

Damien clenched his jaw tight. “It doesn’t
work like that. If I fail to complete this mission, I will be
punished and others will come to complete it.”

Aurora shook her head, desperately. There
must be some way to help him.

“It would not be fair to ask you to live a
life with a man like me.”

Aurora reached up to him, touching his cheek
gently. But his jaw was hard.

“You should marry someone honorable and good.
I am none of those things,” he said. “You see me as something I am
not and never can be.”

“You have done only good and honorable acts
around me.”

“You make me good. You make me
honorable.”

“You make yourself good and honorable.” She
reached out to place her flat palm against his chest, over his
heart. “It is inside of you. I can see it.”

Damien shook his head, straightening away
from her. “You see only the good in people,” he said. “It is not
the other people who are good. It is you. It is all you are capable
of seeing. But you can’t see the bad in people. And I am the
worst.”

“Damien –”

“You don’t understand,” Damien insisted. “I
have done things… terrible things. Things I cannot be forgiven
for.”

“My God forgives anything,” Aurora said
softly. “As do I.”

Damien grit his teeth in anger. “Why can’t
you see?” He lifted his arm and showed her the mark, revealing the
black circle with the black x branded into his flesh. “Look. I’m
marked. A reminder of who I am, who I will always be.” He lowered
his arm. “Why can’t you see what a monster I am? Why can’t you look
at me and see my real self? I stand before you telling you who I am
and still, you can’t see me. You won’t see it! Must I tell you what
I’ve done? Must I confess my sins to you?”

Aurora pulled back, stunned by his anger.

“You must know if you’re to spend the rest of
your life with me.” His voice was full of mockery and
self-loathing. And he changed. It was almost physical. Coldness
erupted from inside him, transforming him into Death. His eyes
hardened to black, emotionless glints. His lips thinned. There was
nothing warm about the man who stood before her. Nothing
familiar.

The change chilled Aurora. She had no doubt
the man who faced her now was an assassin. Tears entered her eyes
and she shook her head in denial. This was not her Damien. She
wanted to cover her ears so she could not hear what he was about to
confess. She wanted to cover his mouth so he could never tell her.
She would never believe he was a monster, no matter what he told
her.

But nothing could have prepared her for his
confession.

“I killed your mother.”

S
tunned
disbelief parted her lips.

Damien tried desperately to steel himself
against her anguish. But she already worked her way beneath his
defenses. It was too late for him. She was a part of him. He could
feel her pain as if a steel sword had pierced his chest. And he
hated himself even more for causing it. He wanted to take back the
words. He wanted to take back the deed.

“No,” she shook her head. “You could not
have. The eyes I see in my nightmares are cold and
emotionless…”

“I’m not the same man I was then. You’ve
changed me.”

She stared at him in incredulity. Then she
began to shake her head. “I don’t believe you. You are lying to me
so I think you are horrible.”

“It is no lie, Aurora,” Damien said
quietly.

Still, she shook her head, clinging to her
belief that he was noble. “Why are you trying to make me think you
did this?”

“Because I did. I am evil. I have taken so
many lives…” He shook his head. “I didn’t remember your mother
until you told me what happened. Even now, it is you I remember
more than her. Because I let you live.”

Her large, lovely eyes filled with tears as
belief filtered in. She reached back for her chemise and pulled it
in front of her, concealing her nakedness. “Why?” she asked in a
thick, strangled voice. “Why did you kill her? Why did you take her
from me?”