Night's Honor (Elder Races #7)(48)

Eathan had been a spoiled, ungrateful boy who had carried around a sense of entitlement wherever he went, but he hadn’t deserved to be killed for it. She had always hoped there was something finer in him that would emerge as he matured.

Now he wouldn’t have the chance. He was dead, and she knew in her bones that Malphas had killed him.

It had been an entirely unnecessary murder. While the senior Jackson was a politician of some repute and sat on several Senate committees, Eathan hadn’t known any state secrets or carried any kind of deadly, magical Power.

He wasn’t a player, in any sense of the word. He hadn’t even finished college.

Killing him had been an act of pure, deadly spite.

All the tentative hopes and dreams she had begun to nurture about building a new life vanished like so many illusions. Malphas hadn’t forgotten or let go of anything. He simply hadn’t gotten around to finding her. Yet.

But he would, and when he did, he would be so much more spiteful toward her than he had been toward Eathan. Eathan had just been a mark that got away. She had actually worked for Malphas, and she had owed him a certain amount of loyalty.

It wouldn’t matter that she had never promised to stand idly by and watch while he trapped people into making crippling gambling debts just so that he could enslave them. She had taken away something he wanted, and he was never going to let that go.

Wiping her eyes, she noticed the time. She was late for her session with Raoul. She tried to care, but after so many weeks of trying so hard, she felt as if something had broken inside.

Still, if she didn’t show up, he would come looking for her. Forcing herself to move, she pushed upright and cleaned the table, bound her overlong hair back with a rubber band and got to work.

When she entered the gym, Raoul was waiting for her. He said, “You’re late.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She tried to inject something that sounded like genuine emotion into her voice but knew she had failed from the look on his face.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t you get enough rest?”

She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

His gaze was too keen and made her uncomfortable. “Are you sure? Xavier pointed out we’ve been pushing you too hard, and he’s right. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop pushing you, but you can say if something gets to be too much.”

Her gaze fell to the training mat. It was the wrong time for him to show her kindness. She would not cry. She wouldn’t.

Forcing words to come steadily out of her tight throat, she admitted, “I’m having an off day, but it will help to focus on something.”

“Very well.” He started to stroll in a circle around her, not to engage, she could tell, but simply to move. “Yesterday, you said you wanted to change the conversation. Why?”

Other than following him with her gaze when he was in sight, she didn’t bother to move. After all, he hadn’t told her to be on guard, or said “if you please.”

Thinking of Eathan, she replied, “Because I don’t want to just run away my whole life. Sometimes you need to stand and fight.”

“Agreed.” He came to stand in front of her. “As long as you remember, in most cases you really should fight to run away. Even when you complete the blood offering—and your speed, healing and strength have become enhanced—the reality is, at your best, your abilities will always be at the level of a newly turned Vampyre or a younger Elf. Many Elder Races creatures will still be faster and stronger than you.”

She noticed Raoul said “when” and not “if” she completed the blood offering. He was beginning to believe in her. Seemed like rotten timing, all the way around. She clenched her fists and bit the inside of her lip until it bled.

“They won’t necessarily be smarter,” she said through her teeth. “Or as well trained.”

“That’s what I can give you,” he said, smiling. “I’ll teach you weak points for each race, along with kill spots. Eventually we’ll get members of each race in for practice bouts. Take trolls, for an example. If a troll manages to get ahold of you and he’s intent on killing you, you’re dead. But even as an unenhanced human, you move so much faster than trolls do, you should be able to get away—unless they set a trap. They can be cunning like that, so you have to watch out for it.”

As he talked, gradually she calmed enough to be able to focus. “What is a troll’s kill spot? Do they have one?”

“Unless you have high-density explosives, they have just one—their eyes. Everything else about them is as hard as granite. A high-density explosive can stun one and damage their joints enough so that you can hack one apart with an axe, but that’s a massively slow, cruel and inefficient way to kill one.” He pointed to one of his eyes. “But if you aim for the eye, you can hit their brain. That’s quick and gets the job done.”

She gave him a leery look. He spoke with crisp dispassion, and as matter-of-factly as if he had dispatched a troll before. With his intimidating array of fighting skills, Raoul would have been a terrific assassin.

Maybe he had been one, once.

Except . . . He had said he’d worked for Xavier for forty-eight years, and he was now seventy-five. That meant he had come to Xavier when he was a young man of twenty-seven. Back then, he wouldn’t have been nearly as proficient, which meant he had to have learned a lot of his skills while working for Xavier.