Chapter Text
It was the third time she heard that sickening sound that night. The drip of blood dripping from the dead man on the chair only made her feel angrier than she already was. She should have paid more attention when she threw her needles, hitting an aortic vein was great because the death was instantaneous, but the dripping that came with it left an unprecedented mess.
Well, at least she was used to it. These were the two things she did most in her entire life. And that she was really good at. Killing and cleaning. Not necessarily in that order, of course, sometimes things get a little… uncontrollable.
Yor sighed looking at the massacre around her. This time there were many bodies. The gang she had to face was more prepared than she imagined. Men started coming out from everywhere as soon as she arrived. It hadn't been easy, but at least she hadn't suffered irreparable damage.
Not on her body, at least. - She thought looking at the black dress torn in three different places. She would need to take it to the seamstress again, this time she wouldn't be able to fix it by herself. She didn't like having to go there because every time Mrs. Belfort asked more questions than necessary.
“Oh miss, that tear was huge, be more careful next time”
“I wonder how you got those features, I thought you worked at city hall”
“Oh, that dress is really dear to you, yes? Be more careful, I wonder where you got tears like these.”
She was a deadly nosy lady, but Yor always nodded and blushed with embarrassment every time she made some acidic comment to get some information out of her.
“I went for a walk with my dog and he got a little excited” – She doesn’t have a dog.
“I needed to help a friend in the kitchen, and I'm not very good with knives” - She is deadly with a knife in her hand.
“There was an accident with the door handle” – The man who cut her was still alive when she threw him to the ground, not paying attention to this detail. Result: A deep cut on her side, followed by a strong poison.
The least of the evils, she was practically immune to poison, as she had taken it since she began her life as an assassin, and was practically a doctor specializing in skin patches. She didn't know why she couldn't sew clothes so well, the fabric was very soft compared to human skin.
In any case, those answers were the best she could do without stuttering or blushing like a beet. She couldn't help the blush that crept up her neck when something like that happened. Or when someone spoke to her. But Yor couldn't arouse suspicion, so she avoided going to the seamstress at all costs. She always tried to mend things by herself, but most of the time she wasn't very successful, she wasn't good at sewing or cooking. But she was good at cleaning nonetheless.
She scratched her head with her bloody hand.
She was afraid of raising more suspicions from that gossipy old lady, she would need to go to another seamstress to make this patch. All she didn’t want now was a report to the secret police. This would ruin her entire life. Her cover job at city hall, and her real job, as an assassin.
Not to mention the stress she would have with the Shopkeeper.
No, she couldn't! She would sort it out tomorrow, go to another seamstress, even if she had to walk much more than usual! Maybe she should buy another dress, or have another one made like it. No, five more! That’s it! She would have another seamstress make five more identical pieces, so she wouldn't have to worry about it again. That was her assassin uniform, after all. Her favorite one.
With that in mind, the cleaning of the bodies began.
Most of the time with normal killings, she would solve everything by herself, but this time the body count had been higher than expected, so she would need the Garden’s members' help to get rid of them all a little faster.
She ran to the other room, the one he was in before, where she had seen a telephone. She quickly dialed the unique access number that the Shopkeeper had given her. It was never the same number, always different combinations, which led to different locations.
Garden didn't play around on the job, they were meticulous about everything, and they couldn't afford to be discovered. Therefore, every time she received a mission, she would need to memorize a different phone number in case she needed to contact her co-workers.
The assassin had only used the resource twice before, because even with complications, she always managed to solve on her own, but there were situations and situations, and she wouldn't deal with that amount of bodies alone when a team could be here in a short time. Not in hell.
She patiently waited for the call to work, receiving a signal on the first ring.
– The coffee and milk are on the table. – He spoke the instructed code, then hung up.
She knew that the cleaning staff would get here quickly, so she went back to the room and started to work. She needed a shower, her body was covered in blood, and she felt her entire face splattered with it. Her arms and body didn't let her lie about her condition, either.
Yor has been feeling tired.
She started in this job at the age of twelve, shortly after her mother died in the war. She was alone, hungry, and had a five-year-old brother to look after. She was still a child in body, but already an adult in mind. She needed to grow up quickly and dedicated her life to raising her little brother. Yuri was extremely intelligent and dedicated, he had always been highly capable, and Yor was sure that her brother was gifted. If they had been rich with money, she would certainly have put him in the best school in the country. At the Eden College. But life hadn't been very kind to her. When war broke out, most of her city was destroyed. Her friends and neighbors died. Her mother had barely survived, but only enough to give her some valuable lessons. A few months later, her mother died, leaving Yuri in Yor's care.
Well, a twelve-year-old couldn't work, right?
Wrong.
They were at war, the rules were not established at that time. So, she did a little bit of everything and tried any job that was available but couldn't get much to support her brother. Food was scarce, water cost a fortune, and everything was expensive. The little money she got, she bought food and gave it to Yuri. He was just a little kid, but he was so smart! Yor would do anything for him.
Well, on one of those trips trying to get a job anywhere that was hiring, she had found Garden. Or they found her, she couldn't say. Garden was basically an organized group, with government exemption, intending to end lives. A group of assassins, in short words. They acted in the shadows and were told around like stories to scare little children. More like legends, actually. People didn't believe in Garden's existence.
And those who believed, kept their mouths shut, because Garden wasn't a horror story, it was real. It was very real.
Yor learned this when she entered this world at the age of twelve. She can never complain, though. She managed to put food on Yuri's table every day. He went to a decent school and had new clothes every year. Garden created her, shaped her, and made her who she is today. She owed them her life. She had become the Thorn Princess, the Garden's most brutal assassin. A living legend, credited by few, as those who knew her would generally not live to tell the story to anyone. She was very meticulous in her work.
Because of it, she would be eternally grateful to the Shopkeeper. He had been like a father to her all these years. He was teaching her, molding her, and reprimanding her when necessary. Her life wouldn't have been the same without him. The probability of her not being in this world today would be very high if they hadn't found her.
He shuddered at the thought.
No, she wouldn't change anything. She had been in this world for fifteen years now and liked what she did. She had, of course, her day job at the city hall, she needed to pretend to be a normal citizen, or she would be reported by the population. But Yor loved what she did. It wasn't just a normal job. The feeling of excitement, the butterflies in her stomach, and the tensing of her muscles at the slightest sign of danger made her extremely eager for more.
She didn't enter this world because she wanted to, it was out of necessity, but she had learned to like it. Or maybe it was just custom. She was so used to this endless killing that she wouldn't know what to do if it stopped. Yuri no longer needed her, he was a civil servant, worked for the Government of Ostania, had a good job, and was already a trained man. They hadn't lived together for a long time. He traveled a lot for work and Yor had her own life.
But despite that, she didn't stop. She hadn't thought about stopping working as an assassin until recently. Maybe she should stop. Trying to have a normal life, trying to be like normal people were. Find a husband, have children, maybe even…
Her muscles froze when she heard a low, distinctive whistle. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice the silent footsteps approaching. She knew who they were, only one person announced his arrival like that.
Fearless, without a shred of love for life, without a shred of fear of her.
– Well, well, well, it could only be you to ruin all my work again, right, Princess?
Twilight.
Yor felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up when she heard that deep voice speaking hoarsely to her. Shit, what is he doing here? She thought they would never see each other again, he said he was being transferred. Damn, how could you be so stupid to believe that lying idiot, Yor? He was a spy, after all! He was used to lying and deceiving, that is his job! And she had fallen for him like an idiot.
So, so easily!
What the hell, right, Yor. Dumb enough to fall for his conversation.
Yor turned her face towards the voice at the moment his blonde locks left the darkness and soaked in the little lighting the room had. The pool-blue eyes looked at her with that unmistakable fun and malice that only he has.
Thorn thought through all her probabilities, calculating them in milliseconds. She didn't know why Twilight was here after so long, after lying to her so blatantly. And her mind just threw her into one possibility: he was here to kill her. In a quick movement, even for the spy's trained eyes, the brunette had done a backflip, where she saw one of her needles, pulling it from the dead man's bloody body, and in the same movement, threw it at him.
The entire act had lasted more than five seconds, if she dared count.
The sound of metal whizzing faster than air was the only thing to be heard in the room, the assassin's impeccable aim didn’t disappoint. However, Twilight hadn't moved from where she was. Hands in pockets, shoulder casually leaning against the wall, staring at her so intensely that the girl's lungs filled up with air faster than she would have considered effective.
Yor looked down at his meticulously arranged outfit, the dark green three-piece suit, the slightly raised lapel, the dagger-shaped brooch, the perfectly tied red tie, and the black shoes as shiny as a doe's eyes. Not only that, even with the dim lighting, she could make out the slight slope in the hem of his left leg, indicating a knife clutched there. The two guns holstered, inside his immaculate suit, the small swelling on his right hip, indicating yet another knife in that location. She counted one more strapped to his thigh, and there was probably another gun strapped to his back. The only thing out of place he had now was the trickle of blood running down his cheek where she had hit him.
From what she noticed, he came to do a job, but he was late, as usual. Or maybe the service was her.
Well, whatever it was, she'd find out soon enough.
– If I didn't know better, I'd say you tried to kill me. – He smiled dizzily, taking a hand out of his pocket to wipe the drop of blood on his face. – But as I know that you have the most perfect aim I have ever seen in my entire short life, I cannot say that. – His blue eyes shone in defiance for a millisecond.
She looked back at him, analyzing him cautiously.
That was Twilight, a spy who worked for WISE, a spy agency dedicated to Westalis, a country opposite Ostania. In a very crude way, they were enemies. But practically speaking, Yor worked for Garden, an organization exempt from government intervention, so they were, basically, nothing. Just two people who worked for different companies.
They had met many months ago when their services accidentally crossed paths. Twilight needed to extract information from a principal of the SSS, the so-called secret police, while Thorn Princess had been contacted to kill the man. Well, she had arrived first and had done her job masterfully, as always, and a few time later, very late , by the way, Twilight arrived at the scene.
He had been furious with the brunette for murdering his main source of information, and they got into a very brief fight.
Very brief because Twilight was quickly intercepted by her. The man was mortally weak without his revolvers, she had realized after she took them from him with ease.
Thorn had been perplexed when he had said in a few words that he was just looking for information, and then something clicked in her mind. This wasn't just any spy. The way he moved, how he fought, how he aimed perfectly with his gun in his hand... He could only be a highly skilled spy, and she had only heard of one who was operating in Ostania: Twilight. She had been even more perplexed when realized this.
Twilight, one of WISE's best and most well-known agents. Even for her, who wasn't very interested in the world of spying, or even in names. Thorn Princess just did the work she was told to do. No unnecessary questions. But that man, oh, he was very well known in the underworld.
So, she wondered how he could be such a magnificent and extraordinary WISE agent? The man barely lasted five minutes of fighting before she disarmed him and pinned him to the ground between her poisoned needles. How could he be the best spy in the agency? She couldn't help but feel a little disappointed by this, she thought she would have a little more excitement over such a talked-about spy.
Her questions didn't last long, however. After a brief moment, Thorn Princess discovered that even though he wasn't very good at hand-to-hand fighting, he was damn good at spying. And she knew how to dodge very well in life-or-death situations. Somehow, he, who was motionless beneath the woman, put her in a headlock, striking her in the ribs with his fingertips. That blow had been strong enough to distract her for a second and make him jump out from under the assassin, dodging into an alley.
Yes, he had run away from her.
At that moment, Thorn Princess learned two things: the first was that Twilight lived up to his fame. And second, but no less important, was that the man was damn deadly at gunpoint. The second he had dodged the assassin and ran to save himself, a shot had grazed her arm.
Well, a tooth for a tooth. She had understood that this was him thanking her for not killing him when she could.
After that, they had decreed a tacit agreement, wishing never to see each other again, only for a few days later, their missions to get intersect again. This time, Twilight had been faster than her, leaving her with a ridiculously easy job to finish. His smirk and sarcastic jokes started after that.
Since then, they met sporadically on their tasks, never knowing when they would see each other again, or if they would see each other again. As the missions went by, they ended up creating a somewhat crooked and strange bond. He teased her with his infamous jokes, and she retorted with acidic lines. That's when her face wasn't reddening like a ripe tomato about to explode.
And from what she had noticed, he loved it. He loved to tease her, teasing her with a short stick to get some interaction.
Well, until their last date, when things got really awkward between them. When she let herself get carried away at the moment and they ended… Shit, that night was hot as hell. In her fifteen years of work, few men were really interested in her. Whether in her personal life, because she is too shy, or in her life as a killer, because she is too scary. Men simply didn’t reach her.
She had only slept with one man in her entire life, the guy who had taken her virginity many years ago, since then, she had not been very interested in sex or its derivatives. She had never felt desire or lust for anyone in her monotonous and peaceful life as Yor Briar, nor as Thorn Princess, the lethal assassin.
Until she met that damned Twilight, with the most depraved mouth and the most malicious eyes she had ever seen.
Well, the man was crazy for not fearing her, and that might have been the height of her letting herself get carried away by the moment. She was Thorn Princess, the most lethal assassin in all of Ostania. And he just looked at her as if she were a woman. Damn, no one had ever looked at her like that, she just wanted to know what it was like to be a woman for a man who truly wanted her.
And damn, it had been the most intense, pleasurable, and crazy night of her life. The man really knew what to do. He had arrived with that small talk that he was going to be relocated and that they would never see each other again. Shit, those bright eyes, which always looked at her with veiled malice, just looked at her with a hint of distress and regret at that moment and she couldn't imagine not meeting him again. Even though it was crazy, she liked the way they were. She liked how they worked. The way he looked at her, that even though he was arrogant and malicious, he had never crossed the line or been more than a gentleman with her.
And that tongue, God… The man really knew how to use it.
But in any case, Yor let herself be carried away by the idea that she would never see him again in her life. She couldn't miss the opportunity to have what she always wanted, even though she wouldn't admit it.
She wanted him.
She had wanted him since the first time he had called her by her code name. Maybe he saw the satisfaction beneath the cold layer she tried to wear with him because, from that moment on, the man called her that whenever she had the opportunity.
Damn, even though it wasn't her real name, just the mention of the nickname on his lips made her hot.
And seeing him here again, after almost two months since the last time, made her heart race in a way that not even she knew it could happen.
Sure, they weren't supposed to meet again, but damn, she was glad to see him. He had been the only man, besides her brother and the Shopkeeper, who haunted her thoughts. Although she didn't like to admit it at all, she had thought about him more than she thought about Yuri or even thought about the Shopkeeper in her entire life. Especially after the last intense encounter.
Thorn looked up again, after finishing her assessment, she came out of her thoughts, quickly swallowing the saliva that gathered in her mouth, and faced the arrogant eyes that stared at her.
– I like you to know that you are only alive because I allowed you to be.
He let out a sarcastic laugh, pushing himself away from the wall.
– I've known that since the first time we met, Princess. I know you are merciful, even when you try not to be.
His eyes followed her every movement she made, like a magnet being attracted. Thorn turned her head to the side, trying to avoid the wave of heat that crept up her neck. She hated it when he made her blush.
- What are you doing here? I remember clearly when you informed me that we would not see each other again. – She changed the subject, not wanting to be the target of his comments. She still needed to know what Twilight came after. She couldn't rule out the possibility that he had come after her. Not even for a second.
– My services are no longer needed here, you just eliminated my source of information. – He looked at her dismayedly for a moment, before smiling ironically – Again. – He made a fake mouth sound – please, let's not make this a habit, I need my job.
Even though it sounded like a complaint, he was still smiling.
Damn handsome man.
– Well, it seems like you really can't get any work done, can you, Twilight? – She tried to sound mocking, picking up a body thrown next to her again, taking it towards the pile formed in the middle.
She couldn't let herself be consumed again.
Thorn Princess turned to face him again, sizing him up with slitted eyes. She knew he was watching her closely, carefully following her movements, sizing her up, as she always had. Making her feel hot under his examining gaze.
Damn, she really liked that mischievous look that only he could do.
Twilight laughed, a melodious sound, coming from the back of his throat, making the hairs on the back of the assassin's neck stand on end.
– That's not what I remember from our last meeting, Princess. – He took a calculated step towards her, closing the small distance between them. – And you know, – another step – I have what they call a photographic memory, – one more step – I never forget anything. – He stopped in front of her, opening a mocking smile, staring at her, attracting her like a cheetah teasing its prey.
– Well, you should see a doctor then, your memory is apparently having lapses. – She replied mockingly, attracting him in kind.
God, she realized that she missed that, she missed that malicious and innocent provocation, those cultured words with a hint of malice, she missed h…
Twilight laughed again, showing his white teeth, as his eyes curled into an inverted U. She could die right now from the impact this man had on her.
He took another step towards her, closing the small space that separated them completely, imposing his broad chest on the girl's eyes, forcing her to look up to look him in the eyes. He raised her right hand slowly, as if to show her that he wasn't going to hurt her or try to attack her. Giving her the chance to stop what they both knew he was about to do, giving her, as always, the option to choose.
But even so, she didn't do it, she saw, with an exaggerated slowness, the man's immaculate hand come close to her blood-stained face, and caress her left cheek. Looking into his eyes was like sinking into the deepest ocean, knowing there would be no escape, knowing the death that awaits you.
And she sank.
Feeling the warm, clean hand rest on her skin made her entire cup burst into flames like flames fanning through all her pores. Her eyes closed without her permission, with the affection received. She knew exactly the last time she had received affection like this.
She felt her hand being removed and opened her eyes again, just to see what he would do, but as always, contrary to her expectations, Twilight had done the last thing she imagined. He had taken a handkerchief from his suit pocket, as immaculately clean as he was, and posed again on her face, wiping away the blood that was all over her face.
The delicacy of the unexpected act made her miss a beat, her breath coming out in a low sigh as she felt the fabric brush against her hot skin. He cleaned her slowly, concentrating on his work, his brow furrowing a little when he had to wipe the same spot more than once. Thorn Princess was mesmerized, she couldn't deny it. Her eyes, so close to his, followed him like a flash, not missing a single movement. She didn't allow herself to close her eyes again, even if she wanted to. The unfolding in front of her was much better.
She felt a shiver run up her spine again, cradling her body, as the scarf was once again replaced by his warm, silky hand. Had he already finished cleaning it? How long had that lasted? Seconds? Minutes? One hour? She couldn't say, she was spellbound the entire moment.
She still couldn't believe that he had done it there, in the middle of that room full of bodies, or even after having lied so blatantly to her. The truth was, she didn't believe in herself for allowing him to do it.
- So beautiful. – He whispered, his voice just a hoarse sigh when he said it. His blue gaze, staring into the killer's scarlet eyes, was intense – Let me show you then, that I have the perfect memory, my princess.
This time, he didn't dare ask for permission, his lips found hers in a torrid kiss, sucking, drinking from her lips like a hungry baby.
Yor didn't know the moment she did it, but when she realized it, her hands were already tangled in his blond hair, pulling him closer to her, wanting him to merge with her, removing any particles of dust that separated them. Tearing his skin, his clothes, his hair. Him.
God, she had missed those lips on hers so much.
Fuck, she hated to admit it, but she missed him.