A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria 1)

“I needed them together and distracted,” he said as he rode beside me.

“Not good enough to kill them all on guard?” I smiled internally as I asked it. I caught his dirty look out of the corner of my eye.

“It would have been risky.”

“How was using me not? Is that why you decided to escort me to Undaley? So you could use me as bait while you satisfied your bloodlust?”

“No, but it sure is a plus, isn’t it?” he drawled.

Ugh, he was annoying. And I suddenly imagined practicing knife throwing with him as a target.

He glanced at me with amused eyes, and I only shook my head. No matter how long it took to get to Undaley, I didn’t think I’d ever get used to him reading my thoughts.

“Then why did you change your mind and decide to take me?” I knew he didn’t do it out of the kindness of his heart, and his small smile confirmed it. “Well? I’m getting real tired of you ignoring me,” I sighed.

“I have to listen to you every minute of the day. Do you think you could give me a short respite?”

“I don’t talk all day.”

That might have been a tiny lie.

“You are constantly talking. And when you aren’t, your thoughts are loud enough to be heard in Cameron.”

“I told you to stop listening.”

“It’s not that easy when you shout your trivial thoughts.”

A frown pulled at my lips. “I don’t think about trivial things.”

“So trying to shock your grandmother with your recent hair removal experience isn’t trivial?”

I couldn’t contain my laughter. It flowed out of me like an erupting volcano. When I was done, my stomach was aching from laughing, and Weston was looking at me . . . strangely.

I cleared my throat. “You did say I was a prostitute in Cameron. I might as well look the part.”

“We both know you aren’t a prostitute.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I could totally be a prostitute. I was sure my thoughts were automatically coming out the opposite of whatever Weston said at this point.

“There’s a reason two men have called you an angel.”

“Why?”

He looked at me as if it was a ridiculous question. “Because you look like an innocent.”

“I do not.”

He shook his head. “Why do you argue with me? It gets you nowhere, and all it does is piss me off.”

I said the first thing I thought. Which was what I did most of the time. Little did I know how much trouble it would get me into in the end. “Maybe I like to piss you off.”

The look he gave me was completely serious. The look I was sure he had perfected as an assassin. The one he would give right before he got rid of whatever facade he had on, and shove

d a blade through his victim’s heart. The one that got rid of any man who happened to get past the shield his presence put up. And the one that made me internally shake in my boots. Though, I’d never admit it.

“Don’t ever forget what happened yesterday. Don’t feel a false sense of security around me. I’m not a knight in shining armor. Don’t pretend I am.”