Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(9)

“Sorry we didn’t find any illegal warehouses full of opium,” Sora said.

“Guess we couldn’t be that lucky on our first mission.”

“Or maybe we can. A different kind of lucky.” She smiled broadly as she stopped in front of an enormous red lantern. It was the entrance to an iz, a tavern that specialized in skewers of all variety of meat, from chicken thighs to chicken livers to more acquired tastes, like gecko marinated in squid ink. Panels of blue cloth hung in the doorway, and raucous conversation wafted out of the iz along with the charcoal smoke of its tireless grills.

Sora’s stomach growled loud enough to be heard even over the street noise.

“Hungry?” Daemon asked.

“What else is new?”

They pushed through the cloth panels into the iz and found a seat at a table in the corner. A boy a few years younger than them appeared and asked for their order. He also appraised Daemon’s shirt and, after a second, nodded, a silent compliment.

Daemon really hadn’t needed garish pants to blend in.

Sora perused the menu. “We’ll have two orders each of bacon-wrapped shrimp, mushroom beef, and the ginger-honey chicken skewers, please.”

“And a carafe of cold sake and some tea,” Daemon said.

The serving boy had been gone hardly a minute when he returned with their drinks. Daemon poured. “Cheers to us finishing our first mission.”

She clinked her cup with his.

Soon, their meal arrived. The skewers were perfectly charred, each with a different sauce drizzled over the meat. Sora picked one and put it to her lips. Daemon watched, mesmerized by her mouth. Heat flushed through him.

Damn it! He jerked up his mental ramparts to block their bond, hoping Sora hadn’t felt his reaction through their connection. It’d been harder and harder recently to see her simply as his gemina. Everything he’d taken for granted about her in the past had started to captivate him—her sharp intelligence, her ferocious chokehold, even the way her pinkie stuck out a little when she held a skewer in her hand.

He flinched, though, at what those feelings meant. It would be disastrous if a romantic gemina relationship failed, because you’d still be bound to that taiga for life—sharing emotions, working with each other, together despite the desperate or angry desire to be apart. That’s why the Society forbade it.

Daemon poured himself another cup of sake and swallowed it in a single gulp to wash away the heat of his feelings for Sora.

At the bar behind her, shouts broke out. A glass shattered. Six men began to advance on each other, fists clenched.

Thank the gods, Daemon thought. A distraction.

He and Sora both stood.

“May I?” Daemon asked.

She flourished her arm in front of her. “Please, be my guest.”

He grinned, hopped over his chair, and pushed his way into the fight. He bounced on his toes. This was part of what had been missing today. Adrenaline. The feeling that he could do something.

“Gentlemen,” Daemon said, “would you kindly take it outside? You’re ruining the atmosphere in here.”

Two of the men who’d been in each other’s faces spun around and sneered at him. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d stay out of this, boy,” the bearded one said.

“Actually,” Daemon said, “if you knew what was good for you, you’d leave like I asked.”

“Smart mouth,” the other man said, “but not such a smart brain.” He wound up and took a swing.

Daemon dodged easily, grabbed the man’s arm, and hurled him through the air. The man sailed toward the exit, landing with an ungraceful flail as he hit the ground under the blue curtains at the door of the iz.

“Now, you can leave quietly,” Daemon said to the five others, “or I can throw you out like that fellow.”

The men’s faces turned bright red, and despite fighting each other only a minute ago, they now united against Daemon. They all pulled out knives.

“Right,” Daemon said. He could pull out a weapon too—gods knew he had enough little daggers, darts, and throwing stars hidden on his body—but he didn’t want to hurt them much. They were just drunkards getting a bit out of hand. Instead, Daemon cracked his knuckles and smirked while they approached. The rest of the iz had gone silent in tense anticipation.

The first man charged at him with a knife raised above his head. Amateur, Daemon thought as he sidestepped while simultaneously smashing the side of his hand like an ax into the man’s forearm.

The man immediately dropped the knife and fell to the ground cradling his arm. It wasn’t broken, but it would feel that way to him for a little while.

The next man advanced on Daemon with quick, continuous slashes.

Daemon stepped backward, straight into a bunch of huddled diners, too frightened to be caught up in the fight but too paralyzed to flee. Daemon had to adjust his path, arcing away from the table and back toward the bar.

Of course, that’s where the other three men were waiting. Their knives were out and pointed at Daemon as he backed toward them, like bayonets ready to impale him.

Daemon continued to edge closer and closer.

“He really is an idiot, isn’t he?” one of the men said.

At that moment, Daemon slid himself backward, taking out the man directly behind him. Daemon swept his leg right and then left, knocking out the feet of the other two. They landed with profanity-laden crashes at the base of the bar.