Poison's Kiss (Poison's Kiss #1)(11)

Gopal’s fingers close around mine. I try to focus on something else. A half dozen soldiers are gathered on the other side of the street. The deep tones of their conversation interspersed with occasional bursts of gruff laughter float over my head, though the actual words have faded away before they reach me.

They wear black uniforms with a bright orange sun representing Sundari on one shoulder and the Raksaka on the other. One of them glances toward us. I see his gaze travel from my face down the length of my arm, where my fingers are intertwined with Gopal’s. The soldier’s expression registers shock, and I realize how I must look to him, hand in hand with Gopal like we are lovers. I taste bile at the back of my throat.

The soldier whispers something to his comrade, and then they are both watching us—no, watching Gopal—with expressions I can’t quite place. Then understanding washes over me. They must know him, must know who he is to the Raja.

It’s fear on their faces.

Gopal sees them staring and yanks me around the corner, out of view. He continues walking. “The Raja is in need of your services,” he says after we’ve put some distance between us and the soldiers. I swallow hard and stare at my feet as we walk. Iyla said another job was coming, but usually it takes weeks before I am needed.

“Of course,” I say, because this is the correct answer and the only answer that will please him. “When?”

Gopal’s jaw tightens as if even this question crosses a line. He sets the pace of the conversation, not me. “Tomorrow.”

I gasp. “So soon?”

He stops walking and spins to face me. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” I say quickly. “Of course not. I am just impressed that Iyla was able to close it out so quickly.”

Gopal’s eyes narrow and I realize I’ve made a mistake. “Iyla should not be discussing her work with you,” he says softly.

I shake my head. “She wasn’t. She didn’t.”

“Then how do you know when she started this project?”

“I saw her dressed up last night. It was nothing. She said nothing.”

He presses his lips together and looks toward the sky. “Iyla will need to be dealt with.”

My stomach goes cold. “No, Gopal, please—”

He holds a hand up to stop me. “It is none of your concern, rajakumari. I will handle it.”

But I can’t let it go. “Iyla didn’t do anything wrong. She was just bringing me dinner. Please, Gopal, I really don’t think—”

He grabs my wrist and twists it painfully. “We are finished discussing Iyla. Is that clear?”

I bite my lip and nod. I’ll only make it worse for both of us if I say anything more. He lets go. “Good. Now on to the details. The meeting will take place tomorrow morning sometime before midday. The boy will approach you with a book titled The History of Sundari. You will dispatch him as quickly as possible and then report back to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I say, rubbing my injured wrist. “Where is the meeting place?”

Gopal smiles and there’s something unsettling about his expression, something predatory about it. “That little bookshop you love so much.”

All the breath leaves my lungs. He is punishing me. He knows I have grown fond of Japa, maybe he even knows about Deven, and now he’s going to force me to make a kill in front of them. I feel sick. The bookshop was the one place where I didn’t have to be this.

I try to keep my expression neutral, but I am shaking all over. “They know me there,” I say. “Couldn’t that compromise the mission?”

His laugh is humorless. “Nonsense. They will simply see you kiss a boy.” He leans in so close I can smell his sour breath. “They won’t know that the boy dies painfully later.” My cheeks heat with shame, and Gopal laughs again before he leaves me standing in the street all alone.



It was years before I knew that the men I kissed died. When I was small, Gopal told me we were helping people. “Spreading the love of the Raja,” he said, and he had all kinds of methods of getting me within kissing distance of his target. Once when I was about five years old, he took me to the marketplace for jalebi. At first it seemed to be one of our rare outings with no strings attached. He bought me my treat and we sat under a tree while I ate. Buttery sunlight filtered through the leaves, and the sky was the pale blue of springtime. It wasn’t until I popped the last bite of warm fried dough into my mouth with syrup-sticky fingers that Gopal said, “Someone needs our help today, Marinda.” My stomach tightened into a hard ball, and I had trouble forcing myself to keep chewing and then to swallow. I liked helping people, but it seemed that it always involved pretending, and I wasn’t very good at pretending.

“I know a man who needs a kiss from you, rajakumari.” I kept my eyes down, wiping my hands in the grass to try to clean them, but only managing to make a bigger mess—now my fingers were stained green and black and they were still tacky. “Look at me,” Gopal said. His voice had a sharp edge to it, the edge that demanded I pay attention.

I looked up at him and he smiled, but it wasn’t a very nice smile. “That’s better,” he said. “I’m going to buy you a balloon, and then you are going to go stand by a man—I will point him out to you—and let the balloon go. Then—and this is very important, Marinda—you must start crying, you must make the man help you. When he does, you can kiss him for being so kind.”