Chapter Ten

Three years ago

I walked after the girl in a strange state of surrealism. I could feel all eyes on me while I descended the arena. Everyone was still trying to understand how the hell Cassia Ivanov had been able to kill Galos. The glorious Galos. The second best assassin of our generation killed by the weakest member of the Ivanov family. How that was even possible when I've never killed anyone before? That was probably what everyone was thinking and they were right. I had no idea how I'd been able to kill Galos. I looked down, to my bloodied hands and frowned. Did you know that a drop of blood takes approximately sixty minutes to dry? It depends on the temperature of the room, of course, but my point was that life- however miserable and pointless as Galos's life had been-took an entire hour to completely dry off. His hot blood was already starting to dry under my nails. I had the insane impulse to try to dry my hands on my clothes. Then I remembered that my clothes were already covered in Galos's blood and that thought made me laugh. It would have been so stupid to try to clean my hands when I was all covered in blood. I couldn't stop laughing. It was such a funny thought.

The girl in the front stopped and looked at me over her shoulder with an impassive expression. She studied me silently, as if I were a butterfly with my wings pinned to a wall. There was something about her eyes that made me stop laughing. I couldn't put my finger on it but I was sure that girl hated me for some reason. Which was a fact that puzzled me. I've never seen her before in my entire life. Was I getting better at pissing people off? Have I managed to make enemies of strangers. That thought made me crackle up. Oh boy. My mother would be so proud of me. I'd not only killed someone, but now people hated me for no reason. I keep laughing, my laughter growing maniac and wild on the hall where we were standing. I knew this was a nervous shock. My body was high on adrenaline after killing and my brain was trying to keep up with my physiological responses. I just couldn't stop laughing. I'd seen other assassins laughing after killing before. I thought they were insane. Now I knew different. They weren't insane, they were just...coping. The girl curled her lip at me in contempt and opened a side door. I would've never been able to find that hidden door if it wasn't for her. The door was perfectly concealed in the darkness. It had not handles and no locks. Just a push of her shoulder and a sliver of light brightened the dark hall where I'd been standing. I stopped laughing once again when another thought ran through my mind. Why exactly the King wanted to see me? We'd hardly talked when he lived at our school. And after becoming a King I'd only seen him once before, when I've cut his hair. Why he wanted to see me now? Why had he come here in the first place?

The door opened an inch wilder and I walked into the room. It was a dark room with sparse furniture. There were lanterns on the wall that barely lightened my steps when I moved deeper into the room. The walls and the floor had been covered in a dark velvety fabric. And seated in a dais by the end of the room was our beloved king. He was seated in a normal chair, but he made it look like a throne. Majestic. He was simply and purely majestic. It wasn't just that he looked like a God, with his incredible powerful body and elegant face, but the man was imposingly big. Larger than life, strong from within and composed. His black eyes were wise beyond his years to the point it was almost impossible to believe we were the same age. Crow was dressed in black. He wore a large coat and a matching sweater with a turtleneck, tailored pants and italian shoes. His face appeared as if it had been carved in white marble, with features that were as elegant as cold. And he had let his hair grow again. It reached his shoulders in tousled waves that gave him a vampiric air. I wondered for just a second if he hadn't cut his hair since the last time we'd seen each other. Then I remembered he had disappeared on me an entire year and hated myself for even thinking about him. His black eyes moved down and up my body, inspecting me as hungrily as I'd inspected him. It was weird for Crow to show so much attention to me openly, but I tried to imagine how I would look and admitted to myself that I probably looked deranged. You know, since I was covered in blood and all that. It was always a weird contrast between us. Crow always composed, me...always chaotic.

"Drop your weapon and bow to your King," said the Asian girl with a snarl. It was just then when I remembered Crow and I weren't alone. The King was never alone. I remembered that from some class or maybe I've paid attention to the verbal diarrhea that came out of my sibling's mouths for once. But I remembered someone had told me about the Watch. The group of assassins that were bonded by their honor to protect the King of Assassins. I looked around the room and found there were shadows lurking in the corners. I counted two large shadows by the end of the room and a smaller, petite shadow behind the door at my back. More surprisingly I looked down and frowned when I realized I was still carrying the weapon I'd used to kill Galos.

"Hey Crow, do you have any idea how this weapon is called?" I asked him, ignoring the fact that I was breaking around a thousand of rules by not curtsying and that I was probably really angering the girl sending daggers to me with her eyes.

"It's a Kurasigama," he said, pronouncing the name of the word in an impeccable Japanese. Of course, he probably knew a hundred of languages by now too. His voice had grown deeper, huskier. Like a breath of cold smoke. His black eyes were focused solely on me when he lifted an eyebrow at the weapon I was holding, "You had never used that weapon before."

A statement, not a question. Interesting. How the hell did Crow know I hadn't used that weapon through this year? There was only one way he knew.

"You've been keeping tabs on me. How sweet," I said with a smile, inspecting the iron weight connected to the handle of the Kurasigama. I narrowed my eyes while I studied the curved blade of the scythe in my hand. It was a nice weapon. I liked it.

"That weapon suits you," he said, resting his elbows over his knees while he looked piercingly at me, "You won fair and square."

"Fair?" I tensed, staring at him over the rim of the blade in my hand, "You call that fair? You think you can come here and make me do this and call it fair? You think you have the right, don't you? You think that if it wasn't for you I wouldn't have done it!"

"Cassia..." he started talking at the same time the girl standing by my side tried to neutralize me in a lock. She threw herself at me with her arms extended first. What a stupid move. Was she blind or just a cretin? I tried to point at the Kusarigama and make a statement about being the one with a weapon in here, but the girl couldn't take a hint. I just cursed under my breath and kicked her straight in the chest, throwing her against the wall. She screamed when her back hit the wall. A second passed and then she shook her head like a lioness ready to go back to battle. I rolled my eyes at her.

"Can you not? I'm trying to have a talk in here," I pointed out with my thumb at Crow and the girl literally hissed at me. I'm kidding you not. She hissed.

"Heresy! You should be whipped with a nine tail cat for your sins. No one talks about our King like that," I just blinked at her and then looked back at Crow, who was still staring at me without breaking eye contact.

"Where did you find this one? Let me guess," I made an act of pinching my chin as in deep thought and then I look back at the girl, "You like flagellation a lot so I'm guessing...The Vatican? By any chance do you know if my uncle Bartholomew keeps flogging girls with pink chains? I heard he was kind the sensation in the Basilica."

"Leave us," thundered Crow's voice in the small room and everyone went still. Then the Asian girl with the pretty face grew hysterical. Her face, which was so perfectly symmetric that made me want to vomit, contorted with worry. It struck me then. This girl, whoever she was, cared for Crow. Deeply. What I'd seen in her eyes when she'd looked at me hadn't been hate but jealousy. I was a threat to her. The thought made me want to laugh hysterically again. Crow didn't care for no one. Especially not me. She tried to reason with him, even if it was pointless. Crow was inflexible when he took a decision. Take for example becoming a King.

"My King, leaving you alone with Ivanov is not safe. The girl is clearly unbalanced..." I smirked at that.

"Unbalanced? Me? You haven't seen anything yet until you meet my mother's shrink," the girl just rolled her eyes,still trying to reach Crow. She walked just a couple of steps before the king made her halt. He just looked at her with an icy scowl, the kind of scowl he had never directed at me. For some reason I warmed at that realization. Yes, maybe he didn't care about me. I mean, people who cared didn't disappear for a whole year without any explanation. Right? But even I had to admit I meant something to him. I wasn't sure about what exactly I meant to him, I was clearly still working on that, but the girl's jealousy had confirmed I was different to him. I wondered how exactly? There was a long silence and then everyone seemed to understand they were a second away from getting killed by the King of Assassins if they didn't get out. Crow didn't need to repeat himself in order to make everyone leave at once. His cold stare spoke volumes. I saw the shadows move silently in the dark until everyone walked out of the room. Except for me. I waited until the asian girl had left to look back at him.

"Have I've met her before or she is just like that every day when the sun comes up?" I asked him genuinely interested. Crow clenched his jaw at me. Okay, so we were back to our original argument. I was pissed, he was trying to reason with me. Action, "You shouldn't have intervened, not even if Galos deserved it. I would have killed someone sooner or later."

"No, you wouldn't," he said, standing from his chair. Crow grew and grew until a small giant stood in front of me. My nostrils flared at the waves of his smell when they hit my face. Snow and night. His smell made me want to moan and do crazy shit like rub my face all over his strong chest. I didn't though, I tensed, following his every move with my eyes and paying attention to his little telltales. I hadn't seen him in a whole year and I was hungry for him. I drank him up, inspecting his steps, studying his skin for any new scars, detailing every single aspect of his anatomy. He took a step in my direction and my shoulders reached my ears. It was then when I remembered I'd been hit by Galos. The pain between my shoulder blades made me flinch and stumble to my right. Pain was good, it meant my body was starting to come down of its adrenaline rush. Crow moved faster to me, but I stopped him, raising a hand between us.

"Stop," he did stop, but I could tell through the black spots that were starting to appear in my visual field if he was ten steps aways or just right in front of me. I swallowed, feeling my mouth starting to dry up. Deshydratation. Pain. Fainting. Exactly how much blood I've been losing without knowing? I shook my head, focusing my eyes at him, "Why not?"

"You needed it to be personal. It needed it to be Galos," he said, taking another step closer. I tried to move back but my body was starting to go off. I was going to lose consciousness quickly. For the first time in my life I wasn't ready to welcome a pain induced coma. I wanted to stay there, for as long as I could, by Crow's side. I wavered to the left and started to fall. I was going down, down...then not. Warmth enveloped me suddenly, making me frown. I guess I'd never realized I was cold until then. A pair of strong arms caught me and Crow took me in his arms, holding me so hard to his chest that I gasped in pain. Still he didn't let go of me, he didn't even loosened his hold. Crow cared about me the same way twisted roots fought to reach minerals, ruthlessly. The man knew I could take the pain and I knew part of him liked me more because of our twisted relationship. He started walking with me in his arms, his eyes never striving away from my own eyes.

"I don't care if you are a King. Don't you ever disappear on me again," I told him in a small voice that I couldn't even recognize as my own. My pain was starting to turn my brain's circuits down.

"I was never far away."

"But I couldn't see you," I said in a whisper before my head rolled over his arm and fell against his chest.

"But I could see you," he said on my ear before I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, he was still there. He was sharpening a deadly looking dagger while he sat in an armchair in front of my bed. Crow's presence made my bedroom look so tiny, like a dollhouse or a matchbox. I guess it was true what people said. Kings were otherworldly creatures. His presence felt bigger than that of normal people. Maybe it was because he was a King, or maybe it was because he was Crow. The boy who'd always make me feel things that I shouldn't. Large shadows covered half of his face and his eyes were downcast. He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. It never ceased to surprise me the fact he always looked so peaceful by my side. It was only in those counted times in which we had been completely alone when I'd been able to see this other side of him. A peaceful side that made him look younger. Crow felt my eyes on him and looked up, zeroing his heavy stare on my face.

"You stayed," I whispered, unsure if I should be surprised or flattered by the king's attention. I was too tired for his games and worse of all, the sadness was coming. I'd killed Galos and just now I was starting to deal with that fact. I was an assassin now. I would start taking more and more lives. Killing was like getting a tattoo, once you had one you would like another one, and another one, you wouldn't stop until you'd run out of space in your skin. Just that in an assassin's case your never run out of place to add more crimes to your list of sins. I screwed my face and sighed, looking away from Crow, "I think is time for you to leave."

"Careful now, or I would think you are giving orders to your king," he said coldly, making me clench my jaw. I've always known I was playing a dangerous game with Crow. There was a limit to his patience. He enjoyed giving me free rein to do as I pleased, but at the end of the day I needed to remember he was a king. My king.

"I want to be alone," I said, barely containing the tears in my eyes. Shit, I was going to break down and I didn't want him to see me like that. Every time I closed my eyes I remembered Galos's ruined head and the sickening noises of bones crushing under the iron weight of the Kurasigama. Knowing I'd done that and that I was capable of doing it again broke me in two. I wasn't equipped with the right set of tools to survive in this world. At the end killing would kill me with the same efficacy of a mortal wound. I wasn't able to control it. I'd started crying right there and then. It wasn't pretty. I cried with gulps and whimpered like a hurt animal. I didn't care if Crow saw me like that. This was me, fighting to keep my humanity intact while trying to survive in the world where I'd been born. I cried like a little child, lost and confused. It was then when Crow hugged me, turning me around and spooning me from behind while he whispered soothing words in my ear. He caressed me, as if I was something precious that he couldn't bear to part with. Over and over he kissed my neck, my shoulders, the crown of my head. I fell asleep while he rocked me like a little girl, gently kissing my head.

When I woke up again I found him with his head up, resting it on his hand. His black hair was messy and wet were it had tangled with my tears. His dark eyes inspected every single inch of my face and softly he caressed my cheek. His touch made me close my eyes and rest my face on his palm submissively. We didn't say a word. Neither him, nor I, dared to ruin the fragile dynamic of the moment. Then I opened my eyes and found him staring hungrily at my lips. I felt myself blush and nervously pushed myself away, until I slipped out of the bed.

"You should rest," he said, his voice an octave deeper than before. It was huskier, hungrier. I nodded, totally ignoring him, before opening one of my drawers and pushing the contents in it to one side and the other until I found what I was looking for. I turned around with the scissors in my hand and gave him a timid smile.

"And you should get a haircut."

"Come back here," he ordered, his voice inflexible. I crossed my arms and gave him a knowing look. We both knew what would happen if I went back to that bed. We would probably kiss for the first time. It would be precious, tempting, unique. And then what? He would probably disappear on me again and leave me behind. Alone and broken. I couldn't do that. Not now, when I was barely holding to my humanity. I needed the reassurance of his friendship over everything else. Crow was the only person that made me feel...things. Good things and I needed to protect that. I needed to protect us and my heart in the process.

"Let me give you a haircut. Doing it helps me to think," I said instead and he cocked an eyebrow at me. Shit, lying on my bed, with his smell all over my sheets and his things all over my bedroom. I wanted to keep him like that forever. I wanted to come in the room and sniff his smell of snow and night every single day for the rest of my life. I wanted to step on his things and curse him. I wanted to fight him over the fact he had left his coat over the floor and that the dagger he had been sharpening was still resting under my pillow. Crow rose from the bed like a predator about to strike its prey. He walked slowly to me, all of his large body cordoned in tense muscles.

"You are negating your king what he wants," he said, his black eyes shining dangerously and tempting under the dim lights of the lamps in my room. I swallowed nervously, looking down at my feet.

"I'm not one to know what a king wants."

"And what about knowing what I want?" he asked me, stopping in front of me and resting his forehead against mine. I snorted at that, looking up, directly to his black eyes.

"I know even less about that." His eyes pierced my soul with so much intensity that for a moment I thought I knew exactly what he wanted. Then he smiled, a small smile that was gone in a fast shadow to never appear again. Crow turned around and took a seat on the chair I pointed. I moved fast, eager to do something with my hands in order to stop myself from doing something stupid. Like kissing him or asking him to stay with me. I started cutting his hair. Every movement hurt me, but whoever had cleaned my wounds had made a good tourniquet around my chest. The banadages felt soft and not so constricting around my breasts. I wondered if Crow had been the one to treat me? The idea made me blush down to my neck. Then I remembered he was a king. I remembered he would probably be gone in a couple of minutes. I remembered that we could never be together in this world that treated weakness as killing strikes. I sighed, pushing all those thoughts away and caressing the silky locks of his hair between my fingers. It might have been my imagination, but I was sure he purred like a feline at my touches.

"How have you been?" I asked him and Crow tensed. He didn't like my questions. As a matter of fact I was positive he was especially talented in avoiding and ignoring every single question I threw at him. As in effect he shrugged, looking at the rising sun through my window. Silence. Of course. I cleared my throat and cut more length, until his hair was as short as I liked it, "What is the name of that girl that was with you."

"Akira."

"Have you kissed her?" he looked up, his black eyes focusing on mine. I could read the answer in his eyes. It burned me a hole in the middle of my chest with his honesty and intensity. No. He hadn't kissed her. He couldn't, because of me. I smiled a stupid smile and Crow smirked at me, but neither of us said anything. I waited a second to ask the question that had been corroing me from inside, "What do you do when you are not with me?"

"I kill."

Such a simple answer. Just that it wasn't. Not really. I stopped cutting his hair and focused on how I would style it. Shorter, a lot shorter with more layers. Crow didn't trust anyone to cut his hair. Just me. And since he had a tendency to disappear on me I needed to cut it as short as I could so it took longer to grow. I sighed again, cutting more length.

"When can I see you again?" silence. I frowned, finishing some details of his cut, before walking to my night table and taking a brush out of a drawer. I brushed his hair in silence and then I asked him one last question, "What am I to you Crow? Why do you keep breaking me and putting me back together? And for fuck's sake answer me this time or this is over. Whatever the fuck this is."

Crow stood then and looked down at me. I was breathing hard, right in that sage between a nervous breakdown and an upcoming heavy, ugly crying. He pushed my hand away, and grabbed me by back side, silently stating his domain over my body with his hands. He was so tall that my head was completely pushed back when he rested his forehead over mine for the second time this night. His black eyes looked bottomless when he finally opened his mouth and answered me.

"You are my soul Cassia Ivanov. You always were and always will be my soul," and before I could stop him from doing something stupid he kissed me. He kissed me like he owned me. Like I'd been made exclusively for him. His kiss was dark and consuming, the kind of kiss that makes a woman follow and give, but never take back.

I lost myself in that first kiss.

And that was the beginning of our end.

Chapter Eleven

Present Day

"Ok, fine," I said, rolling my eyes, "You can have your present first. Whatever."

"Yay!"shout Olivia, jumping from the carpet and grabbing the box that I've mutilated and put back together, before gluing the stupid wrapping paper with the fat dude over it. That idiot muscle in my chest burst with happiness when she took one of my daggers to cut the paper. She looked genuinely scary with that dagger in her hand. I wondered if normal parents let kids open their Christmas gifts with daggers. On second thought I had a very handy Misericorde blade somewhere in this house. Those daggers were way better than your regular dagger. I was about to go and find my Misericorde daggers when Olivia opened her present and sighing I sat back, staring at her expectantly. I saw the moment she realized what I'd given her. Her circular, hazel eyes brightened with joy and then something weird happened.

I sure as hell wasn't expecting her to start crying and hug me. I froze, not knowing what to do with a crying kid that couldn't stop hugging me like an octopus. I look up to the roof, as it the roof had all the answers to the world's enigmas. I started counting to one hundred in my head. Once that I was done and the kid simply seemed not to be ready to leave me alone I sighed and palmed her head awkwardly.

"We can return it if you don't like it. I will have to send it through the mail though, I don't think Walmart wants me anymore," I shrugged and Olivia sniffed, drying her wet nose with the back of her sleeve. So, so gross. I needed to start giving her a class on manners and I really needed to make her wash her teeth. I'd seen her eat two full bags of candy this afternoon. Maybe I should have stopped her from doing it, but my morbid curiosity made a bet with my conscience to see if small humans could eat all that candy and my morbid curiosity had won.

"No...Katy, I love it. I've never before had such an amazing gift," it was my turn to open my eyes in surprise. The gift was mediocre. Just a plastic joke of a doctor's kit. It was so bad that I've contemplated gifting her my unused, limited edition Manolo Blahnik high heels. Not that the little human could use them anytime soon, but her first date twenty years from now would most likely thank me for my hindsight. I pat her head again, twice, for good measure and then pushed her away from me.

"It's my turn. What did you get me?" I asked her opening my palm and blinking expectantly at her. Olivia laughed even if I hadn't been joking. I really wanted to see what she bought for me. Even if I had been the one paying for it. Olivia jumped to her feet and walked to the tomato tree that I've covered with lights to make it resemble a Christmas tree. The tomato tree look half asphyxiated behind all the lights and cables I've put on it. Not to mention it was starting to curve to one side under all the weight, giving it the impression of an angry looking dwarf with grape tomatoes sticking between ball ornaments. She took my gift, a monstrosity of wrapping paper with penguins print and a red bow on top. Then she walked to me, still drying her tears with the back of her sleeves.

"I really hope you like it Katy," she said, passing me my gift with a hopeful look.

"Thanks," I said after a pregnant pause in which I looked at her, not sure on what to do, then I accepted her gift. It took me a crash course in aerodynamics to take off the layers and layers of wrapping paper protecting my gift. Then another fifteen minutes to disentangle the bow that Olivia had stick with scotch tape around a Walmart plastic bag. I looked at her with my brows furrowed. Maybe everything wasn't lost and the girl had a future wrapping up corpses and cleaning crime scenes. With those wrapping skills this tiny human had a chance for sure. Finally I ripped the plastic bag and took the gift in my hands. Then I looked back at Olivia trying to make some sense out of the enormous hand sanitizer bottle in my hands. Olivia smiled at me, clapping her hands in excitement.

"It's so you can clean your hands after work. I saw you the other night, trying to clean all that blood from your hands, and I thought this might make it easier," she hugged me then, even if she had just hugged me five seconds before. I was a little bit lost to be honest. And out of words. Nobody had ever been this thoughtful towards me in my entire life. Of course, it was fucked up. I mean, this little girl was giving me hand sanitizer so I could clean my hands after killing people, but in her own innocent way she was telling me that it was okay. That everything would be okay and that by the end of the day I would get to clean my hands with her hand sanitizer. I swear it felt as if she was telling me I could clean my sins away too. I hugged her into me, resting my cheek on top of her head and for a whole minute I breathed her in. Her hair smelled like a tiny human should smell. It was a mix of smells. Candy, dirty hair, chocolate and the smell of scotch tape glue. She tensed and then looked up, "You didn't like it?"

"I love it," my voice sounded strangely shaky, so I cleared my throat and got on my knees, putting the bottle of hand sanitizer by the side of the tomato tree. The entire house looked like a beacon in the middle of the night. We had decorated the living room and the kitchen with Christmas lights. Stickers of ice cones and snowflakes covered every single wall and surrounding our tomato/Christmas tree were cotton balls to make it look like snow. It look horrendous but it made the kid so happy that I'd rolled with it. I put my hands on her tiny shoulders and looked at her, "I need you to do something for me kid."

She nodded, staring at me curiously. There wasn't a shadow of untrust in her face, just plain, undiluted assurance.

"I'm never going to lie to you. I want you to know how things are so you can understand them. If you get scared you don't think clearly and I need you to think clearly tonight. People are going to come to try to kill me tonight. They are going to fail, but they are going to be burdensome," she swallowed, looking around us as if we were already surrounded by assassins. Okay, yes, we were, but they weren't there with us. At least not yet, "Kid, I'm not going to die and I'm not going to let them do anything to you. Here's what I need you to do. You are going to go into my closet and hide on the big trunk with the golden buckles. You will not get out, no matter what you hear. You will only open the trunk when you hear me knock twice on it. If I don't knock on it I let a message for a man called the Manager to come pick you up tomorrow in the morning. You can trust him."

"I don't like this," she said, looking pale. I nodded. I didn't like it either, but this was my world and now she was a part of it, whatever she liked it or not.

"I need you to be strong. You need to be strong and grow up and be a real doctor, so for once I trust someone with a needle around me," I said honestly, but for some reason the kid smiled, showing me her toothless mouth.

"I don't like needles either."

"Nobody does kid," I palmed her head and pointed with my chin to the leather trunk, "Go inside and be quiet. Nobody should know you are here."

She nodded once and complied. I made sure she was comfortable inside the trunk. It was big enough for me, so Olivia fit perfectly. I left her a water bottle by her side and a straw. It wasn't much what I could do for her but it had to be enough. At least for now. I closed the lid of the trunk and had just secured the buckle when three large knocks sounded at the door. I looked over my shoulder a little bit impressed. Had assassins grown well mannered and came knocking at doors now? Surprised and a little bit confused I walked to my door and opened it without checking. What was the logic behind it when I'd already knew bad guys were coming for me. Just that it wasn't a baddy behind the door. This visit was a little bit of a surprise though.

"Sheriff, what is a place like this doing in a boy like you?" I asked him, crossing my arms and resting my back to the door. I took the opportunity to look over his shoulder at the perimeter. Two shadows stationed by the exit of the driveway, two more behind the apple trees. I looked to our right and caught sight of another four shadows by the bushes. I was surrounded. We were surrounded. I frowned. Surely, Crow wasn't crazy enough to try to catch me with a civil standing right there. Right?

Mason was still dressed in his uniform and was holding his hat between his hands. His blonde hair looked sweaty and dirty after a long day of work. The man made that uniform work though, it looked good on him. His arms and chest looked especially strong and well defined. If this entire situation had been any different I might have enjoyed him once or twice. Three times maybe, just for the fact he looked nothing like Crow. Mason tensed, his brow forming a straight line.

"Katy, I was wondering if we could talk for a minute?" he said and he meant business, there was this serious expression in his face that hadn't been there before. Oh, so the Sheriff had seen the cameras and connected the dots? Good for him! The man was smarter than what I've given him credit for. Too bad this night I had better plans than discussing incinerated barbies and fucking Walmart.

"Tonight is not a good night for me Sheriff. I will ask you to leave now," I said with a smile, because that was what normal people did when the police came asking if you had burned barbies or not, right? Wait, did police actually cared for barbies these days or that had just been back in the eighties when they were a hit? The barbies, not the police of course.

"Katy I think we need to talk about..."

KABOOM.

Aww shit. Have they actually used a bazooka on me? Yes. They had. The entire front of my little cottage had been blown to pieces. The debris and dust were still falling from the roof when I stood, coughing and waving the dusty smoke away from my face. I looked around and saw Mason's body lying still under the frame of a loose window. He looked alive, judging by the way he kept blinking in a state of shock like a goldfish in a bowl. I opened my mouth to try to explain to him that I really didn't like barbies. I mean, they were tiny and thin and looked positively alienistic. What was there to love? I was totally going to give him a good excuse for burning those barbies back at Walmart when one assassin came charging at me with a medieval mace. I'm shitting you not. The operative word being medieval mace. How many tons weighted that thing? I was sure that mace could destabilize the rotation of planet Earth when it hit the ground. Not time to think about it though. I did two backflips, effectively dodging the assassin hits and then kneeling on my last flip to give him a lower kick. I tried punching him in the throat but the bastard moved faster and came on charging at me again. He was taller and stronger, but I was faster and I wasn't holding a weapon made out of lead. The next time he was closer to me I ran fast toward him. I saw the moment that dude registered I was crazy enough to go on running against a man holding a medieval mace. I stopped just a centimeter away from getting hit with the spiked ball hanging from the dude's weapon and stretched my upper body down, hitting him square in the face with the front of my feet in a half moon kick. The guy went down with blood exploding from his nose.

A shadow moved by my left flank. Another shadow appeared by my right. Wait, was I seeing double or this girls were twins? Dressed in black cloaks and matching black jumpsuits the girls came charging at me. They were exotically beautiful, creamy skin, rich mahogany hair and almond shaped eyes. They moved faster than my last attacker. These girls were good, I noticed while I turned to them with a smile.

"I have a genuine question for you guys," I said to them, dodging one of her hits and then jumping back to dodge a kick from the other sister. I swear it wasn't easy to fight them, I just made it look easier for you people. I jumped another step back, dodged a hit and threw a kick at the sister that was closer, hitting her straight to the chest. She gasped in surprise and looked at me with a frown. Upsies. I laughed a bit, shrugging and putting my palms up as if I was sorry...not, "When you guys go to a bar do you really hear pick up lines that start with: How you doin?"

The twins groaned apparently irritated at me but I sincerely couldn't understand all the negativity coming from them. They pushed themselves shoulder to shoulder and came running to me, charging their daggers with a battle scream. I took out my handy Glock 42 from my umbrella rack and shot them straight to their chest. Good luck surviving that.

"It- was- just- a- fucking-honest-question!" I said to no one in specific, getting a little bit angry at this entire night. Was Crow serious? Were these people really the kind of assassins that he thought could bring me down? I smirked and it was then when I realized Crow had been holding the big weapons for the end. I saw the gleaming curve of a katana coming out of the shadows. The Japanese sword shone cold and majestic at the light of the Christmas lights and then it came down on me at the speed of lightning. The sharp blade cut me in the chest, not a deep wound, but deep enough to make me bleed profusely. I cursed, jumping back and taking my handy Kurasigama from behind my sofa. The shadows moved by my right, coming from between the dark garden and entering the destroyed living room. The lights illuminated her face and the smile that had been in my lips evaporated.

"It's always a displeasure to see you, Nine," she said, getting in position and placing her katana high in front of her, maintaining an attacking pose.

"I can say the same to you Akira."

She smiled at me, one icy smile that reminded me that this girl was a member of the Watch. She looked like a million bucks. I would give her that. Tonight she was dressed in black, leather pants, a matching leather jacket and high boots. Her black hair was styled up and her face looked exactly the same as the last time I'd seen her. Sickening beautiful. Akira attacked me then and my first instinct was to take a step back. I was a woman enough to recognize the fact that Akira was formidable. Her control over the katana was unquestionable. She was one with her sword. Every form she adopted, every swing of her blade had been trained for years to be as effective as glorious. Two strikes, then a dab, a different form, three strikes and a kick to my knees. I dodged all of her hits but I was still studying her. I hadn't taken any offensive position yet. An assassin didn't just walk blindly into a fight with a member of the Watch. They got into the Watch for a damn good reason.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked me, moving her katana high in the sky, before raising it diagonally in a kata that was called Jodan No Kamae, or the Stance of Fire. I only had time to push my scythe up and block her, before taking the chain of the Kurasigama and twisting it around the blade of the katana in one fast maneuver. I pushed the chain back, trying to disarm her, but Akira stood her ground, twisting the handle of her katana to a side and pulling it back. I clenched my jaw in mortification. Not so fast. I threw the scythe at Akira while still holding to the chain. She could either lost control over her weapon or receive a straight cut from my Kurasigama. I didn't care either way. Akira groaned, jumping back and sidestepping my weapon by an inch. In her haste she had let go her katana. I'd made her lost her weapon. Akira screamed a little bit frustrated. I mean, I totally get it. We were first taught to never, ever, ever lose control over our weapons. I wondered what the King taught about a member of his Watch making such a rookie mistake. Akira threw me a poisonous look, before turning around and taking the first thing she found at hand to throw at me. I paled when I realized what she was holding.

"Yo bitch, I really recommend you to put that bottle of hand sanitizer down," I said to her and my own voice sounded threatening even to me. Akira stopped, looking at the bottle in confusion. I growled, pushing my Kurasigama back and making Akira's katana jump in the air before taking it in my hand. Then I pointed her own weapon at her and opened my eyes at her, " I said, walk away from that damn bottle of hand sanitizer. Now."

It was in that moment when the hairs at the back of my neck stood to their ends. The Christmas lights flickered once, then twice before dying like candles. The night turned still. Slowly, as if an angel of death was passing throughout the room I felt his presence in the marrow of my bones. First his smell of fresh night and cold snow. Then the rising darkness that came with his imposing shadow.

The King had arrived.

Chapter Twelve

Present Day

Crow emerged from the shadows dressed in a black, three piece suit. With every step he took in my direction he seemed to turn bigger and bigger. He looked like a damn model from GQ magazine. Tall, muscular and elegant. I hadn't seen him in two years but in that time he had grown more muscular, but strangely leaner. Yeah, that didn't make sense but he made it work. The man was broad on his shoulders but had a narrow waist, a body that was perfectly equilibrated to kill and fuck. Strong, herculean legs with powerful thighs that made any woman want to hug them. I controlled the impulse to fan my face and remembered the fact I was technically a fugitive, who had also ignored a direct order from my King to participate on the Venetian Games. I was as good as dead. Which was a good excuse as any to no bow to my king and inspect the state of my manicure.

Akira and the other assassin guy that I hadn't killed bow to the King. I stretched a bit, cracking some knots in my back and then I looked at him, knowing beforehand that Crow hadn't stopped looking at me. He was inside the living room, making it look unfathomably smaller than what it already was. Crow had the special power to make places bend at his will. He made places look smaller, barren, unimportant. In the space of a couple of seconds he had transformed my haven into a shack that was too tiny to finely absorb the enormity of his height and power. His black eyes studied me silently in one of his habitual inspections. I could only reciprocate and do the same to him. One thing I noticed was that he hadn't cut his hair in all this time. It hung long and dark all the way to the middle of his back. I felt a strange emotion cross through my chest. I couldn't quite name what I felt when I realized he hadn't let anyone touch his hair in the two years we have been apart. What I was feeling exactly?Pride? Understanding? Anger? Like always that Crow was in the same room with me I grew stupid. I shook my head and ignored all the funny feelings running wild inside my idiotic body. Then I smiled an easy smile at him and waved a finger between us.

"We should keep a straight dress code for these meetings," I said, inspecting my ruined clothes and then his pristine suit, " Like bloody Halloween costumes or some shit like that so we are both on the same page. It's not fair you always looked like a King and I look like the rebellious subject. I mean, I'm all about breaking the archetypes."

Silence. Crow didn't even blink at my verbal explosion of incoherent facts. I sighed, just then remembering how hard to crack he was. Knowing it would be a long, tedious and silent conversation I threw myself over my sofa and crossed my legs, breaking about a thousand more rules by taking a seat before our King could take a seat in a room. Crow didn't pay me any attention though, his black, soulless eyes were fixed in Mason. Right! The Sheriff. I'd completely forgotten about him. By then Mason looked a little bit more animated. His blonde hair and face were covered in dust, giving him the look of a dazzled clown. He sat on the floor, massaging his temples and looking around him in confusion.

"Take him," said Crow to no one in specific before two gigantic dudes appeared by the ruins of my front door and took Mason away. I felt a tiny pang of anxiety seeing the Sheriff trying to fight to escape the hands of the King's men. I kept a straight face but I just knew I had signed a death warrant for Mason the moment I had mixed him into my problems. How the hell was I going to help him now? And all of it because of those stupid barbies. The big dudes dressed in leather seemed to lose all of their patience with Mason and with a blunt hit of a gun's back they put him out of commission. Mason body fell unconscious in the middle of my living room with an anticlimactic girly whimper. The guys picked him easily before disappearing between the still standing frames of the front door.

Crow walked a couple of steps closer to me while he inspected the little trinkets and stupid furtniture I've bought over the years. There wasn't much to watch, I hadn't exactly lived there, but this place was my refuge. I felt a little bit exposed while he walked around the kitchen and then back to the living room. For some reason he hadn't opened the door of my bedroom, which made me equally worried and hopeful. Another minute that passed without them walking in that room was another minute I bought Olivia's freedom. But with every passing second I grew more and more desperate to get this over with. Why wasn't Crow bringing up the stupid Venetian Games? Was this his own way to torture me? Modeling around with that insanely good looking ass of his?

He finally stopped by the side of the sofa and looked down at me. Shit. Why he had to look so impossibly handsome? All those sharp lines of his perfect face didn't help my stupid, stupid heart. I could feel it making cartwheels inside of my chest and all I wanted to do was stab it and throw it away for being so useless. Crow took a seat in a chair by the side of the sofa. He opened the button of his tailored jacket and extracted a syringe full of a clear yellow liquid from an inside pocket. Crow put the syringe over the coffee table between us and looked at me from under his perfectly long eyebrows. I knew kings weren't supposed to look a certain way, but Crow had always looked like a king to me. He didn't need a crown to look like a king. He was the crown. He was the king. He was power. When he crossed his big hands I saw new scars on it. I'd always liked his hands. They looked...well, the only word to describe them was powerful. With long fingers and perfectly cut nails that looked always clean, regardless of how much blood he had spilled.

I looked from his powerful hands to his lips, natural red lips that always looked bloodthirsty against his pale face. He looked like an aristocratic vampire reborn in modern times. All shadows and sharp features. Crow straight jaw clenched while I studied his lips. I'd kissed those lips only a handful of times but I've committed them to my memory. I knew his upper lip fit perfectly in my open mouth. I knew he liked when I licked his lower one. I knew he liked it even more when he got to kiss me without stops, with our bodies pressed in the dark. All those memories from two years ago came crashing into my mind and I looked away, to the syringe that was pointing at me. I knew better than to think about things that were impossible. Those innocent kisses that we had exchanged were just the result of two lonely kids that had found a form of escape in this world. Nothing more. I cleared my throat, pointing at the syringe and refusing to let the memories of us mess with my focus.

"I guess someone tipped you with the theme of my night and you decided to bring me a gift for Christmas," I said, smirking at the syringe and then looking back at him, "too bad I really, really, don't like needles."

"It's a sleeping serum," he said as if that was all the explanation I needed. I nodded, trying to keep a straight face.

"And I need a sleeping serum because?"

"It will make our trip to Venetia more comfortable."

There. Progress. Now we were talking. I shrugged, happy to have this conversation and be over it.

"I'm not playing this year," I informed him, sitting on the sofa and crossing my legs in an indian style. Crow clenched his jaw harder, but apart from that nothing else could reveal the true state of his mind. He was immutable, cold and inexpressive. A true joy to speak to. I sighed and taking the syringe between two fingers I spinned it over the table like normal kids spinned bottles in a game of truth or dare. I waited until the tip of the needle pointed at Crow's direction and clapping my hands I looked at him with what was probably a maniac stare. I guess the Ivanov madness was thick in my blood and I couldn't fight it after all. I shrugged again and smiled at him, "Truth or dare."

"Truth," he said with a cold, cold tone of voice.

"Why do you want me to participate in the Venetian Games this year?"

"You know why," his voice sounded a little bit like a threat. Was I getting him mad? Maybe I just needed to provoke him a little bit more and find out. I licked my lips and interestingly Crow couldn't bare to look away from them.

"I want you to say it," I said, knowing too well that I was poking the beast. The King of Assassins leveled me a neutral, unimpressed look. We both knew I didn't need an actual confirmation that he wanted me to be his queen. After all, I hardly believed that he went around the world knocking at the doors of all the female assassins that would be competing for the title of Queen of the Assassins this year at the Venetian Games. Not that I was feeling like a special snowflake thanks to his unrequested attention, but I wanted him to grovel for me a bit. Yes, groveling was a nice verb to describe the specific state in which I wanted to see him. Groveling and maybe suffering a bit. Crow's face grew darker and quieter. I sincerely couldn't read him when he closed himself like that. Then he lifted a finger and Akira got up and marched to my bedroom. I felt myself grew anxious, nervous and insanely desperate with every single step that Akira took to that closed door at the end of the hall. I never looked away from Akira, the same way Crow didn't look away from me when I spoke again, "What are you doing?"

"Leverage," he said simply, with that deadly voice that made me want to rip his windpipe out of his throat. I saw Akira open my bedroom and I couldn't control myself anymore. I jumped over the sofa and tried to reach Akira and stop her. Nobody messed with my kid. She was my kid to mess with and no one else. I run through the hall ready to kill Akira with my bare hands when a heavy hand closed over my left shoulder. I didn't even look back before giving my attacker a reverse elbow strike and then I turned fast, striking him with a spinning kick. Two more assassins came running after me while the sound of my heartbeat grew desperate in my ears.

I heard the sound of Olivia's screams and for the first time in my entire life I grew...scared. The sound of my own heartbeat grew erratic and I lost control over the situation. Someone punched me in the stomach and I bend down at the impact, still trying to push my way through the assassins surrounding me. I kicked and punched blindly, but too many hands were holding me down and down, until I was secured to the floor under the force of three pair of hands holding me still. I screamed frantically, trying to get free and reach the kid. No, no, no...damn it! No the kid. She had suffered enough. This wasn't how this night was supposed to end.

"Crow stop this!" I hissed when someone slapped me. I wasn't entirely sure but I was king of positive that it had been Akira. I was so killing that bitch the next time I saw her. A strong hand took me by my hair and pushed my head back, until I was staring at Crow's black eyes. I was breathing hard and this new position made my neck hurt, but fuck if I looked weak in front of him. By the corner of my eye I saw Akira walking away from the house. Time started to pass in slow motion when I saw her disappear with Olivia crying at her shoulder. It was then when I realized exactly what Crow had meant when he said taking Olivia was his leverage. There was nothing I wouldn't do to protect that kid. She was my humanity, the last string of sanity that gave me a purpose. I would kill for her. I would win the Venetian Games for her. I would become a mother for her. I sighed, giving up with my stupid struggles and looked down, before saying the words I would never thought I would be saying to the monster standing in front of me, "Fuck it, I'm in. Just don't let anyone else but you inject me with that serum."

"I wasn't planning on letting anyone else do it," he said, loosening his hold on my hair and giving me a fast caress on my cheek. Maybe it had been a product of my imagination that small act of kindness from him, or maybe I'd been deprived of human contact for so long that I was having delusional thoughts. One thing was sure, Crow cared enough for me to have all of his minions step back and let me free. Well, at least as free as I could ever be. I looked up at him the moment Crow offered me his hand. I tensed, looking at that terrible, terrible hand that had done such terrible things for so many years. That was the real hand of a natural born killer. Said a little voice in my head that managed to ice my very soul. I accepted his hand, feeling the calloused insides of a warm hand. Strange, I was so used to feeling his cold hands that for a moment I stared stupidly at our interlaced fingers. Then Crow pulled me softly and I got up from the floor, following him to the chair he'd occupied during our talk. I took Olivia's bottle of hand sanitizer on my way and tucked it to the side of my body like my own personal treasure. Crow lifted an eyebrow at the bottle of hand sanitizer but I shook my head at him and looked away. The bottle was coming with me and that was non-negotiable. Silently Crow took a seat on the chair and sat me over his legs. I was so tense that I probably looked like a Violin string, but Crow only gave me a quick smile and shook his head at me.

"Relax Cassia, I'm just going to hurt you a little bit," he told me, making me lift an eyebrow at him.

"Normally you don't say that to people, you know?"

"I don't know what normal people do," he said with that old voice of his. His voice was only half wise, the other half was cold. Crow brushed my hair off my shoulder and gently pressed my head over his chest. His heartbeat betrayed the effect that I had on him. His cool exterior was replaced by the bombarding explosion of the African drums inside of his chest and surprised I looked into his eyes. Did I really made him feel like that? Was I crazy? Why did he looked so composed and cold when his heart sounded as if it was about to burst? All those questions turned very confusing when I felt the distinctive sting of a needle in my neck. There was a slow burn and my mouth tasted funny, as if I'd swallowed chemical products after a crazy night out. Honestly, it wouldn't be my first time doing that shit. Then he hugged me to his chest, like that night long ago when I'd killed for the very first time. I felt my legs dangle numbly while he took me in his arms. I only looked at his black eyes. Honestly I've missed those eyes. But of course, I wasn't letting him know that. I saw the shadow of trees mark his handsome face while we moved under the night sky. I think I might have done something stupid, like caress his face or some moronic thing like that, before losing my mind to sleep once and for all.