Chapter Thirty

Gabriel paced the length of the office and back again, glass crunching under his boots with every turn. He dragged his hands through his hair for what had to be the hundredth time, until it stood up in wild, ragged spikes and he looked every inch the madman he was very close to becoming."I can't believe I just sat there." His voice was raw. "I sat there on the floor and I let her walk out that door with him. I should have done something. I should have killed that son of a bitch where he stood." He spun on his heel and paced back. "I'm a trained assassin. Ten years. Ten years of doing this for a living, and I let some puffed-up greenhorn with a push-broom mustache walk off with my mate."Elena sat in the desk chair, absently rubbing at the gauze wrapped around her wrists. Duprey's silver cord had left all three of them with raw, angry burns where it had bitten into their skin, and they would take days to heal properly. But she counted herself lucky. A few burns were nothing. They coul

Chapter Thirty-One

Duprey grinned at her like the Cheshire cat, holding the coil of silver cord up between his gloved hands so she could see it.Honor gave him a small, syrupy-sweet smile and held her wrists out in front of her, side by side, like a child offering her hands to be washed.He grabbed them roughly and wound the cord around them, tight and tighter, cinching each loop until it bit. Then he stepped back and waited, watching her face with avid interest for the moment the silver started to burn.And waited.Nothing happened.His mouth slowly fell open beneath his mustache. The cord lay against her skin without so much as reddening it. No blistering, no smoke, no smell of scorched flesh. Not even a pink mark on her honey-gold wrists. He leaned in, frowning, and put his nose to the side of her neck and sniffed hard. Her scent was faint — fainter than any wolf's he'd ever smelled — but it was there. She was a were. She had to be a were. So why wasn't the silver touching her?Honor lifted her bound

Chapter Thirty-Two

Honor sprinted through the dream toward the clearing."Grandmother!" Her voice rang out across the empty wood. "Grandmother!"Something had changed. Winter had come to Vermont while she was away. The grass of the clearing was stiff and white with frost and crunched beneath her bare feet, and the birches stood stripped of every leaf, pale and bony against a grey sky like a ring of skeletons keeping watch. Her breath smoked in the air."Gabriel!" She spun in a circle, searching the tree line. Nothing. Nobody. "Gabriel!""I'm here, my child."Her grandmother came slowly out of the trees, bundled in heavy furs, her white hair tucked under a hood, her breath rising in soft white puffs. She looked smaller than she had before. Frailer. But she opened her arms, and Honor ran straight into them and held on tight.She smelled of clean, cold air and woodsmoke. Of every good winter morning Honor had ever spent alone in the forest. For a moment Honor just stood there with her face pressed into the

Chapter Thirty-Three

Honor lay perfectly still on the mattress and listened to the Blazer's engine fade away down the track. She waited until she couldn't hear it at all. Then she waited another full minute, just to be sure.Then she sat up and went to work.She looked down at her bound wrists and shook her head. What kind of idiot kidnapper tied his prisoner's hands in front? Even she knew you were supposed to tie them behind the back, and she'd never committed a crime in her life. She'd seen it in about a hundred movies. Apparently Carl Duprey had not.She raised her hands to her mouth and started on the knots with her teeth. But the silver cord was maddening — thin as kite string and somehow strong as steel, and the knots had been yanked so tight they'd fused into hard little lumps. She worried at them until her jaw ached. She could probably pick them loose eventually, if she had all day.She didn't have all day. She had however long it took Duprey to drive to whatever passed for a store out here and c

All Chapters of Assassin's Honor: Chapter 31 - Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three