~MARLOWE~
I knew the second Torin had moved. He’d thought I was asleep, but I’d actually just kept my breathing even, lashes lowered just enough to watch him.
He’d dressed like a man stepping into a storm. He hadn’t rushed. He’d been precise in his actions: shirt, jacket, weapons tucked where only he knew. The way he pinned his hair back. The way he checked each blade, each piece of steel.
Nothing about it had looked like a SOG assignment, and I’d know whatever he was about, it wasn’t official, it was personal.
As I watched him, something shifted. Torin had faded. Not gone, just…folded back. The man who had stood there hadn’t been my lover. Hadn’t been the man who had sat beside me at the lake fighting himself.
The one he’d become? He’d had clean edges and empty eyes: an assassin.
A
