Assassin's Heart

Assassin’s Heart A Savage Trilogy Prequel M. James PNK Publishing Contents Prologue 1. Lidiya 2. Levin 3. Lidiya 4. Levin 5. Lidiya 6. Lidiya 7. Levin 8. Lidiya 9. Levin 10. Lidiya 11. Levin 12. Lidiya 13. Levin 14. Lidiya 15. Lidiya 16. Lidiya 17. Levin 18. Levin 19. Lidiya 20. Lidiya 21. Levin 22. Levin 23. Lidiya 24. Lidiya 25. Levin 26. Levin 27. Lidiya 28. Lidiya 29. Levin 30. Lidiya 31. Levin 32. Lidiya 33. Lidiya 34. Lidiya 35. Levin Prologue Levin The window is open. Not open—shattered. The glass is scattered across the floor, blood drops refracting off of it in the sunlight, like some kind of macabre art installation. Glittering, shimmering blood. He’s seen blood before, plenty of times. More of it, even. But never like this. Never blood that matters. It feels like it’s his blood, scattered across the floor. Like every tiny shard of glass has embedded itself in his chest, cutting, slicing, opening him up until there should be a deluge of his blood on the gleaming wooden floor, joining hers. The gauzy white curtains are blowing in the breeze that the shattered window is letting in. They’re blood spattered, too. The crisp white sheets, the fluffy duvet, the piles of pillows that she always loved, covered in blood. A river of it, an ocean. One and a half gallons. That’s how much blood the average human body contains. In hers, maybe less, since she was so slender. So delicate, even, though she always hated that word. Petite. That was a word she hadn’t hated. He knows how much blood there is in a human body. He’s spilled enough of it, but it never fails to surprise him how voluminous it looks, when it’s outside of the body that’s meant to hold it. How sodden fabric can become with it, heavy and rich and red. He thinks all of this, standing in the doorway with his heart shattering in his chest, because he can’t believe that it’s real. It’s a dream—a nightmare—that she’s lying on the blood-drenched bed, her hands still clutching her split-open stomach as if to protect what was inside of it. Nothing, really. Cells. A few weeks’ worth of development. Not enough to even see. He’d dreamed of seeing how she’d grow round and luscious, like a warm ripe peach, the way he’d run his hands over her growing belly and imagine a future that up until very recently he hadn’t even dared to picture. Hadn’t even thought he wanted. And then, suddenly, he had. She’d been afraid to tell him. Afraid that he’d be angry with her. They hadn’t been careful. She’d told him it wasn’t the right time of the month, anyway. That it didn’t matter. But it had mattered. He would have thought he would have been angry. But he hadn’t been. He’d fallen to his knees and cried. Clutched her waist and pressed his cheek to her still-flat belly and cried. It was like the world had opened up, like the clouds had parted and the rain had stopped, like everything he had never known he needed was handed to him in that moment. But she’d always taken him by surprise. And now—the last surprise. The worst one. Her beautiful body, splayed out on the bed, her stomach laid open, her wrists and throat cut. Their bridal bed, the bed he’d brought her home to the night they’d gotten married, soaked in her blood. He’d thought the all-white bed was impractical, but she’d insisted. It reminded her of the hotel beds where they’d started their love affair, she’d said, where they’d snuck in so many nights and afternoons when they’d still believed this wasn’t forever, just a little while. Just a forbidden desire that neither of them had been strong enough to fight off for long. But it had turned into forever—or at least, he’d thought it would be, until right this second. All of it, all the things that he’s thinking, are only a way to ignore the truth. To pretend that what he’s seeing isn’t real, but he knows it is, because he’s created this sort of scene too many times himself. He has to admit, he’s done it to people who were loved, just as he loved her. Fathers, brothers, husbands, sons. But never to a woman. And never this grotesquely. This was meant to send a message. One he’s received, loud and clear. He crosses the room, slowly, and then faster. He doesn’t know how long she’s been there, if there’s any warmth left in her body, but if there is he wants to feel it. He wants to hold her to him, one last time, so he can remember how her warmth feels in his arms, smell the scent of her skin, let it sink into him so that even though she’s gone, he’ll never, never forget. But when he crawls onto the blood-soaked bed next to her, when he pulls her into his arms, she’s cold. The only smell is that of metal and death—there’s nothing of her skin left, nothing of her perfume or soap, only the copper-rich scent of blood and the sick smell of the dead. He feels nauseous, but he doesn’t allow himself to get sick. He’d have to let go of her, get up, and that he can’t do. This is the last time he’ll hold her. His wife, his beloved, his heart. Her hand falls to one side, the diamond on her finger glinting in the sunlight, and he sees that it, too, is flecked with blood. He clutches her to him, feeling the beating of his heart, and in that moment he knows that he’ll rip the world open to avenge her. When she fell in love with him and he with her, everything changed. Now, it’s all changed again. But he can’t let her go just yet. And so, with the sunlight coming in through the window and surrounded by blood, just