The Guild of Assassins (30 page)

Later, when she finally came to her senses enough to be aware of her surroundings, she turned to look at him, weak and lightheaded, with a tingling sensation of happiness rising in her stomach threatening to overwhelm her. He was lying on his side, leaning on one elbow, watching her. His gaze stirred with a tenderness that made her heart quiver.

“Did you mean everything you said to me?” he asked.

She smiled. “As far as I remember. It all became a blur at some point. You tend to have this effect on me...Why?”

He took a breath. “I know this is not how marriage proposals are supposed to go, but you did mention the possibility.”

She held his gaze. “I surely made it sound that way, didn’t I?”

He frowned, peering into her face. “Is it something you would really consider?”

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

“You would marry me?”

“If you asked me to.”

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

His eyes widened as he held her gaze, his chest heaving in a breath that quivered like a suppressed gasp. He briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she saw a smile glimmer in their depths, mixing with the same fascination she saw before.

“I did hear you right,” he said. “You just agreed to marry me, didn’t you?”

She smiled at his stunned expression. “Yes, I did. Is there something in this decision that you find surprising?”

“Everything. And no, surprising is not the word. Astounding. Unbelievable. Impossible.”

“Why?”

“This decision,” he said, “would bond you to me. In everyone’s eyes, it would give me a
right
to you.”

She laughed. “It goes both ways, doesn’t it? In everyone’s eyes, it would give me a right to you too.”

He shook his head. “It hardly changes anything on my part. I am bonded to you already. I have been, for quite a while. For me, there could never be anyone else.”

She melted at the tenderness she saw in his gaze. Dear Shal Addim, he had felt this way about her despite his belief that she belonged to another man, despite his certainty that they could never be together. The realization of it was so overwhelming that she felt tears in her eyes.

“I am bonded to you too,” she said quietly. “I have been, since...” She paused, suddenly unsure. When had she first realized they were meant for each other? Was it the time when he talked to her in his delirium and everything he said matched the way she felt? Or was it before, when their fighting incident got out of hand and despite the impossibility of it she felt so good about their closeness? Or perhaps even earlier, when he had put his life on the line to save hers and she first got a glimpse of this remarkable man who always did what he believed was right? She had always been drawn to him, she realized. Ever since she was a girl, watching him rise in the Guild’s ranks like a shooting star, five years her senior, so glamorous that all she could do was join the crowds of his admirers without any hope of getting close. All the time they trained together in the Inner Fortress she hadn’t even talked to him for any length of time. And now, seeing him look at her this way, she felt surreal. Was she going to wake up and realize it was all a dream?

She remembered what he had said to her when they first made love. Being together was worth dying for. She now realized that she felt this way too. If she were to die right now, she would die with no regrets.

She reached up to his chest, tracing every sculpted muscle with her fingertips, watching his skin prickle in response. It was just so difficult to keep her hands off him.

“When I think back on it,” she said, “it feels like I’ve always been in love with you. I just never considered a possibility of acting on it.”

“Neither did I,” he said, “until that time, during our fight, when I simply couldn’t help it.”

She frowned. “I always thought I was the one who took all the steps.”

He grinned. “You are so innocent.” The mischief in his eyes melted as he held her gaze. He slowly ran his fingers down her body, making her shiver with pleasure.

How could he make her feel so good with a mere touch of a hand?

“Are you sure being with me is what you truly want?” he asked quietly.

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you having second thoughts?”

He leaned down and kissed her.

Time stopped again as they lay in each other’s arms, submerged in their new closeness that went so far beyond simple desire. Even if they spent every waking moment with each other for the rest of their lives, would she ever get enough of him?

She noticed how much time had passed only when she realized that the light coming from outside had acquired a reddish tint of early sunset. She had come here late morning. Had they really spent most of the day together? It felt like only an instant had passed since she had taken off her clothes and stepped into his arms.

He drew away from her again, watching her with a mix of tenderness and laughter.

“I still can’t believe this is happening,” he said.

She grinned. “You’d better start believing it because I am not going anywhere. And by the way, with the distractions we encountered, I failed to mention that if you do want me to stay with you in the Guild, I have some terms.”

“Terms?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Yes. I’d like to have the full privileges of an active Guild member, outside formal command. I did check that all this is permissible by the Code, if the Guildmaster approves it.”

He appeared to consider it seriously, but she saw the mischief in his gaze.

“I can meet those terms,” he said. “But I also have some terms of my own.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like to be the one to oversee your safety.”

“My safety?”

“Being this close to me will make you a target for all my enemies. If you did your research well, you probably realize why so few of the Majat Guildmasters have ever been married long enough for this fact even to find its way into the chronicles.”

Her eyes widened. “There were more?”

“Oh, yes – despite the fact that normally this post is expected to be filled by an older man. However, the sad ends of these marriages, the impact it had on Guild affairs, eventually led to instigating the current belief that the Guildmaster is off limits.”

She smiled. “Don’t you think, in my case, even if your enemies wanted to deal you this kind of a blow, they would find it hard to find anyone up to the job?”

He measured her with a quick, appraising glance. “True. But…”

“But what?”

“Keeping you at my side has already harmed you before. That time when you took a dagger aimed at me, you nearly died. So did I, when I thought that no matter how fast I ran I could never be fast enough to bring you to safety. And again, when I had to watch you take pain beyond any possible tolerance, which should have been mine. That healing took only half an hour, but it lasted an eternity. If you are ever harmed again because of me…”

She smiled.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that on my account. However, you must understand that you’re not alone. Once, you took a poisoned arrow for me with full knowledge that, healing or not, it meant certain death. I knew that too. Have you ever considered how it felt, before I realized you could be saved?”

His eyes widened.

“I survived.”

“So did I. And yes, sometimes that’s what it takes when two people fight side by side. I guess we’ll both just have to come to terms with it and leave the rest to our skill.”

He shook his head. “The Kaddim hate me. And they’re still out there.”

She looked into his eyes, an inadvertent smile sliding over her lips. “Are you going to dismiss me because of that?”

“Hell, no. But… I can’t even think of what will happen if I lose you.”

“You are not going to lose me,” she said. “Unless you want to, of course. If you ever do, you have but to say the word.”

He reached over and pulled her into his arms in a powerful move that bordered on roughness, his force echoing inside her with new arousal.

“You must be joking,” he said.

She inhaled his scent, briefly closing her eyes so that she could savor it.

“I must be dreaming,” she whispered.

This novel would never have been possible without the support and inspiration from many important people in my life.

First and foremost, I will always be grateful to my grandfather, Vladimir Keilis-Borok, who enjoyed the world of the Majat warriors even more than any of my other writing, and felt so personal about Kara and Mai that he found strength to discuss their lives and motives with me until his very last days. He was among the first people who saw their potential for being together during my early work on the
Blades of the Old Empire
, and our conversations about it yielded some of my favorite scenes. The majority of the first draft of this novel was written during my trips to his bedside in the last months of his life, and this book will forever bear the mark of his magic.

I thank my lifelong friend Olga Karengina, who has always been my number one beta reader, and whose encouragement and support drove me on during the work on this book. I am grateful to several friends and fellow authors for their helpful critique, especially W. B. J. Williams, who read the full draft of this novel in a very short time and gave me some critical encouragement and suggestions on the story, and J. M. Sidorova, whose comments and inspiration shaped a lot of my writing in this book. I also thank those multiple readers and fans who urged me, after reading
Blades of the Old Empire
, to explore the idea of physical closeness between Kara and Mai, which ended up getting out of hand and developing into a full-blown romance.

I am grateful to my husband for sharing my passion for fantasy and martial arts, and for his tips and suggestions that underlay some of the advanced Majat techniques. I also thank my parents for being supportive of my writing for all these years, ever since I turned six.

Last but not least, I am very grateful to my agent, Michael Harriot, and to the publishing team of Angry Robot Books, especially Lee Harris, Caroline Lambe and Michael Underwood, for their support and all the hard work that went into bringing my book to publication.

Anna Kashina grew up in Russia and moved to the United States in 1994 after receiving her Ph.D. in cell biology from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

She works as a professor in a major university and combines her successful career in science and her passion for writing.

Anna’s passion for ballroom dancing, world mythologies and folklore has fed her high-level interest in martial arts of the Majat warriors.

She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

annakashina.com

twitter.com/annakashina