Shaedes of Gray: A Shaede Assassin Novel Read Online Free Page A

other generic town house on the street, except for the fact that the curtains were open wide and every light in the place was on. Maybe he’s afraid of the dark, I thought as I felt for my dagger.
    “Xander Peck,” I said, popping the “P” as I tried out his name again.
    As if he’d heard me, the man in question strolled in front of the largest window on the second story. He was a tall one—muscular, late twenties, maybe, with flowing blond hair that brushed his shoulders.
    From the looks of him, he wasn’t expecting company. Wearing nothing more than loose cotton pajama bottoms, he stretched for an inappropriately long time. Give me a break. I’m sure the show supplied more than a few suburban housewives with enough fantasy fodder to get them through a tedious night or two.
    Damn it . Discretion might be a bit of a problem if telescopes all over the neighborhood were dialed in to that window. I’d been paid a pretty chunk of change for this job, and I wanted it neat and tidy.
    Standing from my perch, I fluffed out the duster. Raindrops scattered from its black surface, sounding like wind chimes and steel drums. I wrung the water from my hair as well. Didn’t want to add insult to injury by dripping all over the poor guy’s floor.
    I reached to my right thigh. The sheathed dagger waited to be put to good use. Stretching my neck from one side to the other, I looked up at the balcony to the side of Xander Peck’s picture window, and with as much concentration as it took to bat an eyelash, my body became one with the dark night air.
    In the next second, I stood on the balcony. I didn’t need to break in; I simply glided through the glass. Shadows don’t worry about things like doors, windows, bars, gravity. I appeared in the next room—the bathroom, to be exact. I could hear Blondie moving around his bedroom, probably flexing and posing for his audience.
    A faint smell lingered in the air, and at first I thought I’d imagined it. The aroma of warm spring flowers, stream water, grass, and pitch. That fragrance hadn’t touched my nostrils in at least a century. It threw me off my game a little, but I brushed it away like a buzzing mosquito and focused on the job.
    His presence was harder to pinpoint than a human’s should be. Usually I can feel where they’re standing, as if I have a built-in thermal imager. But my senses felt askew and I couldn’t quite get a bead on him.
    Oh, well, I told myself. You’ll just have to be quick.
    I passed through the wall, feeling no hindrance from the solid structure, to where I thought he’d be standing. He’d moved beyond the large window, just as I’d predicted. Dagger poised and ready to strike, I took a steadying breath and prepared myself for the kill. Muscles rippled beneath flawless, creamy skin. His spine straightened. I couldn’t get my arm around him; he was too broad for my shorter reach. So I decided to sever his spine at the nape of his neck. It wasn’t my usual MO, but beggars can’t be choosers.
    The smell that I’d tried to ignore hit me hard, choking me with its sweetness. I stabbed and then cut with the sharp steel blade, but all I managed to slice was thin air.
    My target, vulnerable only a moment before, vanished just as effectively as I had. I spun around to guard my own back when a large, strong hand seized me by the throat.
    “Who sent you?” Xander Peck asked, a little too calm for someone who’d almost lost his head.
    I should have been more shaken, but his voice distracted me, draped over me like a red velvet blanket. I wanted to wrap myself up naked in that voice. The next thing—and it should have been the first thing—I noticed was the way his form quavered in the artificial light. He was almost . . . transparent.
    I hadn’t encountered anyone like me in close to a century. In fact, I’d been sure I was the only one left. But there he stood: tall, blond, and angry, and a natural-born Shaede.
    “Who sent you?” he asked again, his