Page 47 of Villains Never Die

j-aust13

I don’t give a fuck about the consequences. How do I bring her here?

veilknight

You’re short-sighted.

j-aust13

I asked how I could bring her here. Don’t mistake this for me believing you. I don’t know if you’re trustworthy.

veilknight

There is a ritual.

j-aust13

I assume you have it. How do I know what you’re saying is real, and if it is, what do you want for it?

veilknight

I don’t have it, but find the grimoire with the spell to trap her, and I will tell you the rest.

The final word of his last message hung there like a hook, and I was the fish taking the bait.

Because there were seven hundred books weeks away from arriving in my warehouse, and I dared for one moment to believe fate might have sent it to me. This might be the breakthrough I was waiting for.

j-aust13

What grimoire?

If Death had never shown her face, if she hadn’t granted me thirteen lives, I might have blamed my mother’s killer for her death like a sane person. They never caught him. I could have traveled the world hunting him down instead of pointing my grudge at Death, but she gave me more than enough lives. She could have spared one for my mum. He killed her, but in the end, Death took her from me.

And I would make her pay for it.

***

“Don’t cry when I obliterate you,” Rook said, sitting across from me at my chessboard. The moment he sat down, he took off his shirt, and now sat across from me with his biceps straining at the motion of crossing his arms and his abs flexing as he leaned back to smirk at me.

If he thought distraction was the strategy that would ruin my composure in this game, he was wrong. My father believed chess was one of the finest displays of intelligence. I was a very good chess player, and I’d learned in a private school full of attractive young men. His body had no power over me, not regarding this.

I didn’t reply to his lazy taunting. Instead, I moved a cream-colored pawn two spaces forward.

He followed up with a reddish brown pawn.

“So are you going to tell me how you survived that bullet yet?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I did.” I didn’t look up at him, but kept my gaze on my pieces and calculated moves.

“Try me.” One blink after I made my move, he made his, as if he didn’t have to think about it at all. He was edging toward controlling the center of the board.

I scowled at my pieces, taking far too long to decide what to do next as my attention split between that and his question.

“I had thirteen lives,” I said, because he probably wouldn’t believe me.

“But you don’t now?”

“I spent a few, and thanks to you, I’m down to nine…like a bloody cat.”