Daughters of Lyra: Heart of an Assassin by Felicity Heaton Page B

access to any of the palace
personnel files or information about the royal assassins. He had
thought that she would know where they all came from and how they
arrived at the position.

    “ I joined the
Lyran royal assassins at age fifteen and was the commander here by
twenty-five.” He didn’t hold back now. He wanted to see how she
would react to the knowledge that Perseia had always supplied Lyra
with its elite assassins and how they were raised so they were good
enough for her family. He wanted to see if she would finally be
frightened of him rather than fascinated. If she did change towards
him, it would put an end to his feelings once and for all. “I was
bred to kill.”

    “ You were so
young,” she said, leaning towards him, her expression full of
concern.

    “ All Lyran
royal assassins join at the same age when our training is
complete.”

    “ Are they all
Perseian?”

    He nodded.

    “ Does Lyra
dictate the age at which they are put into service?”

    He nodded again and she
paled. She looked down at her hands where they rested in her lap
and then up into his eyes.

    “ And you joined
at fifteen. Why?”

    “ Lyra takes all
of the sons from specific bloodlines and has done for generations.
My father served Lyra and my grandfather before him, going back
hundreds of years.” He paused for breath, thinking about his family
and how he had rarely seen his father. Assassins could only return
to Perseia once every two years. Most mated in that time in the
hope of gaining a son to carry on the bloodline and the honour of
being a royal assassin. His father had been a commander on Lyra
Prime. Ixion had only seen him four times in his entire lifetime.
“I was expected to continue the tradition. My bloodline will expect
me to… mate… and bear a son that will carry on the name and become
an assassin.”

    Natalia fell quiet, her
fingers twisting the fine blue material of her dress. Did she
finally see him for what he truly was? A killer, unfit for a
princess such as her, and someone that she should fear rather than
seek to know more about.

    “ Did they make
you take the trials?”

    He wondered if it would
make a difference if he said that they had even though they
hadn’t.

    “ No,” he said
and she looked at him. “All males take part in the trials. There is
no option to not take the trials because all would do it
regardless. The trials are to gain our honour. It is the first step
on our path to upholding our families’ names.”

    “ But so many
die.”

    “ They did not
die, my lady. I killed them.”

    “ Why?” There
were tears in her eyes.

    He cursed the sight of
them and the way they made his heart ache to comfort
her.

    “ Because it is
the way of my people and because I had to maintain the name of my
bloodline. Failure was not acceptable. None of my bloodline has
ever died in the trials.”

    “ Do you regret
what you did?”

    “ Not now. It
was them or me and I have done far worse things since.”

    “ In the name of
Lyra,” she muttered and sighed. A tear slipped down her cheek. He
longed to brush it away. “Have you killed many for us?”

    He nodded. Hundreds. If
asked, he wouldn’t confess though. He didn’t want her to know how
many lives he had taken, not when she struggled to come to terms
with the nineteen lives he had taken as a child. If he told her how
many he had killed in the name of Lyra, she would only
cry.

    The sound of distant
weapons fire filled the oppressive silence.

    “ I’m
frightened,” she whispered.

    “ Of me?” That
thought hurt. He had wanted her to be frightened but the idea that
she actually might be made a dull ache settle in his
chest.

    Natalia reached into the
crate and stroked the baby bird. “No.”

    That word was like a sweet
elixir to his heart.

    “ What frightens
my lady?”

    She looked at him and then
at the doors far behind him at the back of the dimly lit
club.

    “ This
fighting.”

    “ I will not let
anything happen to you.