Nix. (Den of Mercenaries Book 3) (11 page)

L
una didn’t see
Kit again after Zachariah came, though the man didn’t stay very long. He had disappeared as quickly as the other man had, making Luna wonder where he had gone.

When had she begun to miss him?

Luna didn’t fully understand that this was the emotion she was feeling, not at first. She attributed it to melancholy, her desire to start training.

But, she soon realized that wasn’t the case because Aidra soon requested that she start exercising with The Wild Bunch. At first, that had been enough to deter her interest for a bit, but not long enough that she was no longer thinking about Kit.

It wasn’t until she found herself glancing out the windows every few hours, thinking that Kit would shop up at any moment.

She
missed
him.

Missed seeing him every morning for breakfast.

Missed finding him down in the gym or the pool as he worked out.

And worse, he hadn’t been gone very long, not even a week.

Pathetic.

There were more important things to be worrying about—mainly the training that still hadn’t really started rather than where he was.

Already, her mind had seized on different ideas about what the training would consist of, but thoughts wouldn’t live up to the real thing, she knew.

But until Kit was ready …

As had become her custom, she was tucked away in the library when Kit finally returned, finding her in her usual spot.

There was something different about him—maybe it was the way he walked, with a sort of confidence that couldn’t be ignored. He didn’t stop until he was close enough to lean against the chair she sat in.

There was a touch of a smile on his lips as he asked, “Would you like a gift?”

Sometimes, Kit said things that caught her off guard, but she was generally able to find an answer. This time, he’d stumped her. “Sorry?”

“A gift—would you like one? I can’t imagine you’ve had many over the last three years. If you’d like, you can consider it an early birthday present.”

“Thanks, but why are you giving me a gift.”

He had a gentle expression as he said, “I could say it has something to do with your training, but that wouldn’t be entirely true, would it? My motives are completely selfish.”

Luna almost laughed. “Kit, you’re not making any sense.”

“Then let me show you.”

He offered her his hand, palm side up.

Kit didn’t force her to take it, nor did he ask her to, merely stood there and waited as though he knew the inevitable.

After the briefest of hesitations where she wondered just what kind of gift he had for her, she took his hand.

Luna stayed a couple steps behind him even as she kept hold of his hand, following him out of the library and down two flights of stairs until they were walking alongside the pool towards a hidden archway that she hadn’t noticed until now.

The temperature had seemed to drop during their journey down, but she didn’t complain, nor did she question what was happening.

There were a set of doors at the end of the hallway, heavy metal with a handle like that of a bank vault. There was even a magnetic keypad to the right of it that Kit had to lay his hand on before gears shifted, and the door started opening itself.

It wasn’t until the gap grew bigger, the muscles in his arm straining as he pushed the heavy metal open that she could hear the muffled screams coming from inside.

Not just from one she realized the further she stepped into the room, but seven.

Seven men.

And their faces … she didn’t think she could ever forget their faces.

Now, their expressions were more subdued, sweat dotting their brows as terror reflected in their gazes.

Oh no, she could never forget those faces.

The way they used to smile and jeer, their excitement freely visible when Lawrence gave them permission to abuse her in any way they saw fit.

How eager they had been at the proposition of taking someone against their will.

Now, that excitement and joy and enthusiasm was gone, replaced with fear the likes of which she had never experienced first hand.

And all that fear was because of Kit.

She could tell from the way they cowered when he entered the room, whimpers muffled behind cloth gags tied around their mouths.

Luna tried to muster up sympathy for them, but she felt none.

Their wrists and ankles were zip-tied, the hardened plastic digging so hard into their flesh that she could see chafed and bleeding skin as they struggled on the floor in an attempt to get free.

Though she came to a stop in the middle of the room, Kit still moved on around her, first closing the door until the metal lock clicked into place, then eased across the room with all the grace of a predator.

Of course he wouldn’t be bothered by the sight of the helpless men—he’d put them there—but there was something rather transfixing about the way he moved about as though the stench of their terror wasn’t permeating the air.

Kit was in his element.

His hands dropped to the hem of his shirt, fingers dragging up the material until he was pulling it over his head and tossing it aside, the muscles in his back flexing with the movement.

In the low light of the room, she could now see the dark ink of the tattoo that covered the entirety of his back.

Wings.

They were massive, so big that some of the feathers extended over his shoulders, and down the backs of his arms stopping just above his elbows. They were incredibly detailed, almost lifelike, from the shading to the way the feathers laid as if in movement. But what made them different from anything she had ever seen was the detail of the smoke, as though those wings were on fire.

They were magnificent.

A phoenix.

It wasn’t just a name for him—it was who he was.

“They’ll all die tonight,” Kit said as he jerked the slide back on the gun in his hand, “but how they die is entirely up to you.”

Luna didn’t know what to say, or even what to think as she glanced behind her at the Wild Bunch who stood idle against the back wall, wondering if this was a regular thing for them.

Bizarrely, Fang offered a thumbs up.

“The choice is yours.”

Even as she turned back, staring down at men that had done the worst things to her, her mouth wouldn’t work.

“Don’t feel sympathy for those that don’t deserve it,” Kit said. “They didn’t.”

No, they hadn’t.

“Arnold,” she said with a point of her finger at one of the first men that Lawrence had invited into her suffering.

The man shook his head hard, tears spilling from his eyes as he begged behind his gag, his chest heaving with the force of his sobs, but he was put out of his misery soon enough as Kit pulled the trigger, the force of the bullet making the man’s head jerk back before he crumpled to the ground.

She watched his descent in surprise. Seconds was all it had taken to end his life—until he was nothing more than a shell.

As she had felt once …

The moment was made even sweeter as their looks of fear were turned on her because they realized that she held power over them now—even if her weapon was the man before her.

Luna pointed to another, and another.

It didn’t matter that they tried to shuffle away, to escape a death that was inevitable, but Kit’s aim never faltered.

By the time there was only one left, Luna was ready raise her hand once more, but paused when she saw just who kneeled before her. There were just some faces one couldn’t forget, and Benjamin’s was one of them.

Oh, how eager he had been the first time Lawrence brought him into that special room of pain.

I’m not a monster
, he had said with a gentle smile, as though his attempt at faux sincerity would move her.

You’ll
enjoy it
, he promised when he’d patted the spot beside him.

I’ll take care of you
, he whispered as he grabbed hold of her chain and forced her into a position of his liking.

But it wasn’t enough that he had wanted to use her, but he had gleefully called Lawrence over and very soon, his gentleness had turned to agonizing pain, and his ‘I’ll take care of you,’ meant beating the shit out of her until she couldn’t move.

Unlike the others, he wasn’t begging for his life, nor were his eyes wet with tears. If anything, he looked angry.

Furious even.

Kit didn’t stop her as she went to the man, glad that he was restrained so she could pull the cloth from his mouth.

It was barely out of his mouth before he was spewing, “Stupid fucking
whore
.”

Luna flinched at the venom in his voice, but she didn’t back down, she didn’t curl into herself as she once would have.

But even as she stood her ground, those words still hurt—a reminder that no matter where she went or how much time passed, that word would always follow her around.

It hadn’t been that long since she was locked in the Kendall Estate, forced to do another’s bidding—weeks, in fact. Both he and Lawrence had loved using that title with her.

Whore
.

As though that was all she was, and all she would ever be.

The word kept echoing over and over in her head, freezing her in place until she felt a hand slip beneath the fall of her hair, cupping her nape. She shouldn’t have known Kit’s touch, not this soon, but as quickly as she jumped in surprise at the sudden feel on his hand on her, she was settling again.

“Look at me,” he said next to her ear, not releasing his hold even as she slowly turned, aware that Benjamin was still spitting insults.

Gray eyes that seemed more blue in the dim lighting were trained on her, forcing her to focus on only him as he uttered one word.

“Breathe,” he said, as though it were that simple—as though his fingers weren’t curled around her throat.

As though because he commanded it, she was supposed to do it.

That notion baffled her, but Luna did draw in a deep breath, doing as he’d asked—the blood rushing in her ears finally receding.

“What do you want, Luna?”

She shook her head hard. “I don’t—”

“
I don’t know
isn’t good enough for me. I won’t assume what you’re thinking—I don’t want to. Now,
tell me
what you want.”

“He doesn’t deserve to die quickly,” she said, only loud enough for Kit to hear. “He should have to suffer the way I suffered.”

Kit’s eyes darted over her face a moment before he looked over his shoulder and barked an order that sent the Wild Bunch into movement. They slipped past them, grabbing hold of Benjamin and dragged him across the floor to a steel table bolted to the floor.

Forcing him down onto it, they restrained his wrists, then his ankles, and another one over his neck. Then, they took knives and cut the man’s clothes away until he was completely naked.

All the while, he hurled insults.

After he was strapped in place, the Wild Bunch exited the dungeon, leaving the three of them alone.

Once they were alone, Kit looked back at her. “There’s a balance—give and take, if you will—in this world of ours. When something is taken from you, it’s only right that you receive something in return.”

“An eye for an eye,” she said, earning a small smile in return.

“I can’t give you what he took, but I can give you something else. I can give you his life.”

When he dropped his hand, she almost felt cold without him.

Stepping away from her, he plucked a stool from a nearby corner, setting it a few feet from the table and gave it a pat.

Luna walked over and sank onto it.

“Have you ever heard of
lingchi
?” he asked as he pulled a blade from a rack of them, spinning the blade round in his hands. “It translates to ‘death by a thousand cuts.’ He’ll suffer for the next seven hours,” Kit said, turning his gaze down onto his captive, trailing the tip of his knife across the man’s shoulder. “If that appeases you?”

Her idea of suffering had been merely to shoot him somewhere other than his head so he could bleed out. Kit’s method of suffering …

“That’s … yes.”

“Right then. Don’t worry,” Kit said, this time to Benjamin who had grown deathly silent as he stared up at Kit in horror. “I’ll start with your penis and work my way out.”

The first cut drew a sharp cry from Arnold’s mouth, the second one just as loud. Luna didn’t think she had ever heard screams quite like those—gut-wrenching sounds that made her stomach feel like it was dropping.

But she never moved, nor did she look away as Kit applied each cut with expert precision. He was a killer, she reminded herself, a master at his trade, and she was seeing the full extent of that.

She didn’t know how much time passed as she sat there watching him work before she noticed a peculiar thing about him.

He wasn’t sweating.

His hands weren’t shaking.

Nor were his pupils blown out the way Lawrence’s had whenever he did violence.

Kit seemed entirely unaffected.

Even as the blood began dripping from the table onto the floor, nearly covering his arms up to his elbows, he didn’t seem bothered at all.

Luna should have been horrified at the violence before her, but as she watched Kit work, she might have fallen a little in love.

M
ovies
, Luna realized, only ever showed bits and pieces, fragments of what it really meant to learn a trade.

And she was learning this the hard way.

Once Benjamin had finally stopped breathing, Luna’s training had officially begun.

With none other than Kit.

It almost felt as though she had been hung in suspense until he could be the one that was actually training her, and once it was time to start, she knew almost immediately that it wouldn’t be anything like what she had done with the Wild Bunch.

Originally, she had thought she would spend a few days on different tasks—a week for guns, two for knives, and more for everything else that she would possibly have to learn, but those days quickly added up to weeks, and weeks turned into months.

She wasn’t just learning how to shoot a gun, he’d explained during one of the many nights she spent in his weapons room.

Anyone could shoot a gun.

He gave her manuals inches thick that taught her the intricate details of the various weaponry he had stored in his home.

There were days when she wasn’t actually handling a weapon, but reciting facts when he quizzed her until she could remember it all with ease.

From guns, they moved on to knives, and even that was an in depth lesson, but she found herself rather fascinated by the knives than wielding a gun.

She couldn’t help but recall the precision he used when he cut Benjamin to pieces, wanting to be able to do that.

The first time he set a throwing knife into her hand, she familiarized herself with the weight of it. If it was possible to love something before she even knew what to do with it—she loved that knife.

“They’re harder to kill with,” Kit had told her that day, seeing the way she looked at it.

“Then I’ll learn to make it easy.”

No matter how she nicked her hand, or how the blade clattered to the floor when it missed its target, she never gave up.

Not her first attempt, or the 105
^th
.

She practiced, and practiced more, until the moment when she let that blade fly out of her hand, shooting like an arrow through the air, and watched it sink into the very center of her target.

But she soon found that the weapons were easy—it was learning hand-to-hand combat that was hard.

She had thought that it, too, would be easy to learn, but it took work—and a hell of a lot of pain.

It wasn’t Kit that worked with her on this, but Aidra. Luna wasn’t sure where Kit had disappeared to, but she wasn’t given much time to think about it when Aidra stepped foot in that gym.

She was relentless, and whereas Kit seemed a bit more patient when it came to the mistakes she made, Aidra was no-nonsense.

“Your own body is your biggest weapon,” Aidra had said from day one. “Your gun can jam, a blade can be struck from your hand, so your last line of defense comes down to
you
, understand?”

Luna couldn’t count the number of times her back had hit the mat over the weeks she trained with Aidra, but each time she got back up, it was harder to get her back down again.

Her confidence had grown to the point that now that she was entering the gym where Kit was already waiting, she didn’t feel that same level of trepidation she had before she’d begun sparring with Aidra.

Luna wasn’t sure where he had disappeared to over the last few weeks, but she was a little glad he was back.

There were a set of bars bolted just above him, his taped hands wrapped tight around them as he both lifted and dropped his weight, the muscles in his arms and back straining with the movement. It took careful control, she knew, the way he measured out the seconds, twisting his torso from left to right before he finally dropped to his feet, turning back to face her.

She shouldn’t have noticed the sweat dripping from his torso, or even the way those muscles flexed as he pushed his hair back out of his face.

She shouldn’t have noticed
anything
about him, but that didn’t stop her from drinking him in.

Kit wasn’t shy about his own perusal, his gaze trailing over her in that languid way of his that felt quite blatant.

What did he see when he looked at her?

Grabbing a towel from a stack of them, he wiped it over his face before tossing it aside. “Are you ready?”

Were they going to spar? And if they were, was he going to remain like … that? He was almost naked, and the second that realization hit her, she was picturing what he might look like completely free of his clothes.

Mouth suddenly dry, Luna nodded, forcing bare feet one after the other until she was on the floor opposite him.

“Sometimes, weapons aren’t readily available, and in the likely chance that you have to get out of a situation by yourself, you’ll need to know how to handle yourself accordingly.”

“That’s what Aidra told me.”

And that was what they’d been working on for weeks now.

“Yes, but the likelihood of you going up against a man is far greater, and training with one will prepare you for what to expect.”

“So I’m going to be fighting you?” she asked.

“Unless you would prefer Fang,” he said dryly, pulling a roll of tape from his pockets.

“Not really,” she muttered even as she extended her hands for him to apply the tape how he’d done his own.

“This once, I’ll go easy on you. Your goal is to strike me at least once.”

“Only once?” she asked, not thinking that it would be too difficult to accomplish that. Even if by accident, she figured she could hit him one time.

A corner of his mouth curled up, his expression amused. “Let’s see if you can manage that.”

When he finished, Kit tossed the tape off to the side. He crossed to the middle of the floor, crooking his fingers at her as if to say, ‘come on.’

Her first instinct as she flexed her hands was to strike immediately, to catch him unaware, but she could tell from the slight tension in his shoulders that he was expecting just that.

Instead, she remained where she was, trying to guess her best method of attack.

But she had never seen Kit fight, so the likelihood of her knowing how he would strike was low—the only way she could learn was to study his movements.

“The clock is ticking, Luna.”

Gritting her teeth, she walked slowly, carefully, until she was nearly upon him before bracing back on her heels.

It was now or never.

She threw a jab, one he immediately caught with a hand wrapped around her fist, but she pulled free, attempting again.

This, too, he deflected.

She tried again, angling her body differently, trying to stay light on her feet, but no matter how she struck, she never made contact.

This time, when he caught another of her punches, he jerked her forward with a frown. “Is that the best you can do?” Shaking his head, he pressed his palm to the center of her chest and pushed, sending her back a few steps. “You’d be dead before you could blink.”

Sweat had begun to bead on her forehead as she stared at him, embarrassment and desperation filling her. It didn’t help that she was nearly out of breath and he still appeared unaffected.

“Where’s your fight?” he asked taunting her—goading her to try again.

She didn’t have an answer for him, though that annoyed her too. They both knew he was better at this than her, he’d had years of training.

Compared to that, she was a novice.

But Kit didn’t accept her silence as an answer.

Before she could see it coming, he swept a leg out, knocking her feet out from under her. Air exploded from her lungs as she hit the mat harder than she ever had before, the pain radiating outward. She didn’t even have the chance to recover before he was on top of her, capturing both of her wrists with his hands and pinning them to the ground above her head.

“Is this the best you can do?” he asked again, a strange inflection in his tone that hadn’t been present before. “I thought more of you.”

His words were punctuated with a slight squeeze of his hands, his words low and harsh as though he was disappointed in her.

His hips were wedged between her legs, his body rock hard and brimming with tension. Even as she struggled beneath him attempting to free herself, he remained firmly in place.

“You’re not even trying, Luna.”

“I
am
,” she snapped back, annoyed with him for being stronger than her, and annoyed with herself for getting captured in the first place.

“Lie to yourself, but don’t lie to me.”

The more he spoke, the more agitated she became to the point that she was over whatever lesson this was and just wanted him to let her go.

A now familiar blankness seemed to fall over him as he asked, “How far do I have to go?”

Whatever response she’d thought to muster was stuck in her throat, and without meaning to, she had frozen beneath him, fearing the implication of his words.

He wouldn’t hurt her, not like that.

But as his he shifted her wrists to one hand, using the other to fist her shirt, whatever spell had frozen her in place broke.

“Let me go.”

“The objective is to
make
me release you, not because you asked nicely.”

The challenge was clear in his voice, and even in his actions because despite the way she trembled with rage, he was still pushing her shirt up, the cool air of the room kissing the bare flesh of her stomach.

All too soon, she felt panic engulfing her, her heartbeat echoing in her ears, but she shoved it down, refusing to break.

She was
not
going to be a victim again.

Drawing her legs back, she attempted to get some leverage under her, roll them until she was on top and could more easily break the hold he had on her, but the move only made him press closer.

She was trapped.

“Get
off
!” she forced out between gritted teeth, her movements gone erratic.

“Take a breath.”

A distant part of her heard his words, but she was too focused on being captured and the feel of his weight on top of her. The rational part of her
knew
that it was Kit, but the panicked part could only grasp that it was a man laying over her, ignoring her pleas to move.

God, that weight was such a sickening reminder, and worse it was how
familiar
it all was, and she hated that.

How helpless she had been …

Luna was suddenly free as Kit shot to his feet, her skin cold where his hands had been.

“Get out of your head,” he said, his disappointment clear, even as he extended a hand to help her up.

But she didn’t accept it as she struggled to her feet on shaky legs, just walked past him out of the gym, even as he called her name.

Because in the end, nothing was greater than the disappointment she felt in herself.

* * *

L
una wasn’t
upset that Kit had bested her—that outcome was inevitable. She was upset because she instead of finding a way out of the hold he had her in, she had panicked, and he’d let her go. Worse, she hadn’t been able to remain near him after, too afraid to see more of that disappointment reflected in his gaze.

Leaving him, she was able to escape to her room, barely paying attention to anyone she passed. Even as she paced the floor, she knew she needed to go back down, face him, and try again.

She owed it to
herself
.

If she could survive three years with Lawrence, she could survive a round with Kit.

But the panic …

The second she had felt trapped, she’d become powerless, too afraid to even think of a way to save herself.

A knock at the door had her looking up, only to find Aidra standing there in the mouth of the doorway, her expression neutral. Unbidden, she looked past her, expecting to see someone else come in behind her.

Aidra noticed where Luna’s gaze had drawn with a slight smile. “I’m afraid it’s just me this time.”

Clearing her throat, trying to keep her face clear of any emotion, Luna asked, “Is he looking for me? Do I need to go back to the gym?”

“I’m sure he knows where you are, and in regard to your last question … well, that’s entirely up to you, isn’t it? It
is
your choice, after all.”

“Right.”

But it didn’t feel like a choice, not really.

It felt inevitable.

She wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever, especially not when he was in charge of her training. Besides, this was
his
home, not to mention that he lived a floor above her.

Aidra was quiet a moment before she said, “It’s never easy the first time—or any time after, really. The fear is always there, ready to drown you should the slightest touch evoke memories that are better left forgotten.”

Since she had arrived at the château, Luna didn’t think Aidra had ever said something quite so personal. At first, she had thought it was because the other woman didn’t care to get to know her, but she soon realized that was just who she was.

“But don’t let it defeat you,” Aidra continued. “Someone once told me that the war isn’t over until it’s over—don’t throw in the towel.”