Shadow Kin by M.J. Scott

seemed, despite the beating, to set my hated hunger prowling again. Simon’s scent cut a warm clean note through the musk.
    It seemed to promise safety and ease and, yes, pleasure.
    None of which was real. Anything I felt was due to Lucius’ blood still riding me. Nothing more. An illusion that I would fight, as always.
    Anger rose. It was safer than the desire and let me forget the pain. “Do you care?” I asked, not troubling to keep the edge from my voice.
    “Do you?”
    I hissed and ripped one of the stilettos from the sheath at my thigh. One quick move and its point lay against his throat, precisely at the place where his skin pulsed with the beat of his heart. “This is a stiletto,” I said. “Thin. Sharp.”
    I increased the pressure. Hard enough to make him see I was serious but not enough to cut him. Not yet anyway. I didn’t know if the blood of a sunmage would smell different from a normal human’s—different enough to stand out in the stink of human blood that filled the Assembly and call attention to us—but I didn’t want to risk it. “This has a point. My dagger has two edges. A knife typically has one.”
    “And you?” he said casually as though my blade wasn’t testing his skin. “How many edges do you have?”
    His eyes glinted at me. Humor and something else lurked in the blue. Something that called to me. The steady beat of his pulse vibrated up the blade. I wanted to feel that beat skin to skin.
    Not real. I shook my head, trying to free myself of the illusion. It didn’t exactly work. My hand trembled slightly against the stiletto. Though maybe that was just from the pain in my arm. “Believe me, Simon DuCaine, you do not want to find out.”
    “Oh, but I do,” Simon said. Then his eyes narrowed. “You know my name.”
    “Yes. Not that it makes any difference to me.” I tightened my grip, increased the pressure ever so slightly. If I were smart, I would do it. Plunge the blade into his neck. Spill his blood all over this room. Complete my mission and redeem myself.
    Become the weapon again, not the prey.
    My hand clenched tighter. Do it. Do it now !
    The words shrieked in my brain. I felt like a chasm had opened beneath my feet, miles deep. If I took this step, if I killed this man whose name came so easily to my tongue, this man who had done nothing to me but offer kindness, offer choice, then I couldn’t return. I would fall. I would be Lucius’ creature completely. Nothing but darkness.
    As soulless as the Fae termed me.
    But I would be alive.
    “If you’re going to do it, make it fast,” he said, voice still completely calm.
    I snarled, not liking that he knew what I was thinking. “Tell me why I shouldn’t?”
    “Because you’re not who you think you are. You’re not who they think you are,” he said. There was no lightness in his tone now. “You can be more.”
    I snarled again. But I knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be the one who killed him. I had always offered Lucius my obedience for his protection, for survival. But something had shifted between us tonight, perhaps shifted in me as well. And right now the thought of doing his will was unbearable.
    I stepped away and sheathed my stiletto, balling my fists. My hands still trembled and I knew I couldn’t hide my hurts much longer. My vision was growing blurred at the edges and my head pounded. I had to get him out of Halcyon. Out of my head. “Do not think you know me, sunmage.” I was careful not to use his name again.
    “Does anyone, Shadow?”
    I ignored the question. “If you want to survive another night, I suggest you give me my dagger and leave.”
    He shrugged, then bent and slid my dagger free of his boot. I wanted to reach for it but forced my hand to remain where it rested on my hip.
    “I’m surprised the guards at the door didn’t take it from me.”
    “They would sense no silver.”
    “And a knife with no silver can do no harm here?”
    “At night, here in a Blood Assembly, you