Page 49 of Altered By Lead (Undercover Sinners 2)
"If it were easy, I'd be worried about you," Mace grumbles, glancing my way. "The way I am about Arsen, that is. As in, worried that he's going to try to murder me in my sleep."
"Fair worry, that," Arsen whispers, eyes shining. He's loving every moment of this: the stalking, the shooting, the bleeding, the death. There is really and truly something the matter with that man. "Now, pull the goddamn trigger, Natalia."
I swear, the deer is looking right at us now, its brown eyes delving into my soul.
He's looking this way because you're fucking talking, not because of some deep mystical forest spirit that's guilt-tripping you for murdering one of its children.
I swallow hard.
"Do it," Arsen purrs in my ear. "Prove you belong here." He pauses a moment, and I can hear the grin in his whispered words, even if I'm not looking at him. "Prove Hawke wrong."
Hawke. Hawke. Fucking Hawke. Ugh, I hate that bastard.
Hot, angry energy surges through me, and I exhale, lining up the shot, and pulling the trigger.
Birds scatter into the sky and the buck drops like a sack of flour, crumbling to the forest floor with clean shot right through his forehead. Rising to my feet, I push loose strands of chocolate hair from my face and push my way through the bushes, staring down at the deer's warm body.
"Nice shot," Arsen says, leaning down and slicking a finger through the deer's blood. He paints two stripes of red on his face and grins sharply at me. "Almost too good. For an animal, it's fine. Just make sure you miss a little when you're shooting that bastard father of yours. I want to see pain written into every line of his face."
"You're assuming I'll be the one doing the shooting?" I suggest, but neither man answers me. Instead, Mace just leans down and starts to truss up the body with rope. Arsen watches me carefully, smiling in that way of his.
"How did it feel?" he asks, studying me with eyes like chips of ice. "To kill something? To know that your hands are the reason breath no longer fills the lungs of a living being?"
I stare back at him, completely blank in the face, and I don't admit that shooting the deer made me feel sick. That the thought of shooting a human being makes me feel sicker still. He can see it, I bet, in the way I'm standing, in the tense set of my shoulders.
"It was a necessary evil," I say, lifting my chin as Arsen smirks and helps Mace haul the deer up off the ground. It's a huge buck with massive antlers. I just hope nobody asks me to have them mounted and hung on the wall. The last thing I need is a reminder of death. My fingers twitch as my mind strays—against my own will, mind you—back to Kisten.
He wasn't the greatest guy in the world, but he didn't deserve what happened to him.
"Question is," Mace asks, looking down at me, "can you do it again?"
I look him dead in the eye.
"I'll do it a hundred times over, if it means getting rid of my father and securing my freedom and my future."
"Aww, how noble," Arsen says, putting one of his inked hands over his chest. "But let's see how that strong disposition of yours holds up when you have to butcher this thing." He and Mace take off through the woods, leaving me to lag behind, following a trail of blood."You puked, huh?" Colt asks, leaning back in his chair, looking at least a little better than he did this morning. "I don't blame you. Butchering an animal takes an iron gut."
I glance Arsen's way, wearing an apron and cooking up a fresh stew that admittedly smells pretty amazing. I'm tense—I think we all are—just waiting for Hawke to come home. Or back. Back, I should say. This isn't home. In fact, now that I'm looking at the world without rose-colored glasses on, I'm pretty sure I've never had a place that truly felt like home.
"He did it while, I think, trying to hold back laughter," I whisper, and I can sense Arsen glancing back to look at me. But whatever he's about to say is cut short when the front door opens and Hawke's heavy footfalls precede his entrance into the kitchen.
He pauses in the entryway and looks around, frowning so deeply that I wouldn't be surprised to find the expression etched into his face.
"Where's my fucking dinner?" he asks, and I can see Arsen bristling. Hawke better be careful. I'm pretty sure there's some hidden limit to what Arsen will take before he snaps. He opens the oven, pulls out the freshly baked bread, and carries it over to the table, dropping the pan in just such a way that the sound makes me flinch.
