My Assassin King Ch. 01

Hello all! I wrote "Dark Elf Assassination Gone... Right?" a couple months ago, intending to make a series out of it. It's a bit late, but I'm working on it again. This is going to be the official first chapter of the series (under a different title, as you can see.) The previous Davahn story serves more as a prequel.

I hope y'all like it. :)

...

I struggle to catch my breath as Davahn skims feather light kisses up my navel, the grain of the wood table I'm lying on just barely scratching my back as it arches to meet his mouth. His inky hair falls over his shoulders and tickles my skin in a way that's too tempting to resist. When I reach out to stroke the silky black strands between my fingers, I can practically hear him purr as his bottom lip delicately grazes across my collar bone.

"Hmm," He hums into the crook of my neck before dragging his tongue up my throat and across my jaw, whispering in my ear, "... 'Fuck me harder Daddy,' indeed." I click my tongue at him in feigned annoyance as I flick his pointed ear, which just seems to tickle him further.

"What? I like it." He lays another soft kiss against my temple before whispering against my skin, "You're a freaky little thing, aren't you?"

"You know, you're a lot sexier when your mouth is busy." The jab doesn't come out quite as confident and sexy sounding as I was going for, but considering how my night is going-- what else is new?

Davahn lets out a low chuckle as his mouth ghosts across my cheek, stopping just before it meets my mouth and whispering, "Yes ma'am." Then his mouth is on mine, and as he sucks my bottom lip between his teeth I can't stop the high pitched whine from escaping my throat. Just as he's running his tongue across it, he releases my trapped lip, his head snapping up seemingly out of nowhere, his face stone cold serious as his left ear twitches towards the door.

"Davahn, what's wro--" The dark elf smacks his palm over my mouth while making a shushing motion with his free hand.

Several tense minutes pass before he leans over and whispers in my ear almost inaudibly, "I'm going to move my hand. When I do, I need you to not say a single word and get dressed as quickly and quietly as possible. Understand?"

Well, shit.

I just barely nod and he's instantly off of me, throwing me pieces of my clothing in between getting his own clothes on. I don't let myself wonder too much about what's happening, and I definitely don't let myself question the intellectual merit of trusting this man I was just hired to murder. Instead I go into assassin mode, throwing my pack over my shoulders and straining my human ears, wishing I was the elf in this situation.

Once we're both dressed, Davahn presses his back against the wall directly next to the window, slowly moving to just barely peek out. He immediately mumbles something under his breath, and while I can't hear exactly what, I can tell it's far from pleasant. The dark elf efficiently gets his fingers beneath the window and lifts up quickly, somehow managing to make zero noise before waving me over and motioning for me to climb out. I send up a silent prayer of thanks to the gods for giving us a room on the first floor before I swing my legs over the sill, carefully dropping down and managing to land on my feet in the dirt near silently, staying in a low crouch behind the bushes while I wait for Davahn to join me.

Any day now, sassafras.

After several long moments I turn around and find the window closed, not a snarky dark elf to be seen.

"Oh, you prick." I curse under my breath, quickly trying to take in my surroundings to find whatever threat it is he's running from, trying to assess if it's something I need to be running from at all, when a copper coin lands next to me on the ground. I whirl around and find the dark elf crouching on the roof, somehow managing to look incredibly amused despite our circumstances. He points towards the tree line of the forest about thirty yards away. I mime running with my arms, which he also appears to find incredibly amusing, but he nods before holding up three fingers, then two, and then one.

And they're off.

I step as lightly as I can on my feet while still running, and Davahn is somehow already next to me, looking like a graceful shadow in comparison to my clunky movements. I mutter 'show off' under my breath, and I could swear I heard him laugh, but I'm too focused on keeping my breathing even to care all that much. Just as we're approaching the tree line, I hear a man's voice shouting from somewhere behind us.

"There he is!"

Before I can start turning my head Davahn hisses at me to not look back and keep running, reaching over to grab me by the arm and yank me into the woods.

Finally, a little more in my element.

I hiss back at him to climb as quietly as I can while I reach my arm up, catching my hand on the branch I'm running at and using my momentum to swing myself up. Landing on the balls of my feet before pushing off to grab onto the stronger branch a yard above me. Without thinking I go into monkey mode. (A nickname I thought of for getting in the zone during tree travel, but my mentor doesn't find it nearly as adorable as he should.) As I hop from branch to branch in near silence, I smile a bit smugly to myself when I notice that Davahn is ever so slightly lagging behind me.

"That slippery little fucker!" I hear another males voice shouting only slightly farther behind us than before. "Not very kingly of you to hide in the trees, is it Dahvy boy?"

Kingly?

Dahvy??

Run now, process later, Ali.

I push my limbs as hard as I can, trying not to think about what's behind me, and instead focusing always on the next branch. I'm not sure exactly how long we both spend like this, only that the burning in my lungs eventually gets so bad that it's starting to distract me. After what must have been at least an hour, I hear Davahn call out for me to wait.

I perch myself on the nearest solid branch, straddling it with my back against the trunk and gulping down as much air as possible. Davahn is only moderately less out of breath than me, which I take as a blessing. If I was the only one heaving right now, it might've been the last straw before I dropped dead in shame. He's listening intently with that same serious look on his face, and we both sit like that for a handful of minutes until our breathing evens out.

"I think we lost them." Davahn still speaks quietly as he hops down gracefully from his own perch, immediately holding his hands out as he looks up at me and asks, "Need any help?"

I scoff at the comment before dropping down a foot in front of him. "Believe it or not, I'm usually a more than capable and very good assassin."

"You should put that on your business card." He winks at me before sighing and taking in our surroundings, then the night sky. "Best guess is that it's midnight. I don't know about you but I'm bloody exhausted. We should probably keep walking and stop at the first place that looks good for camping out for the night."

"Oh, I don't think so." I grab him by the arm as he tries to start walking, and he has the absolute audacity to look at me like I'm the one being ridiculous. "I'm not going anywhere with you until you explain what just happened."

Davahn groans in irritation as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "'I want the entire town to hear you scream my name.'" He annoyedly mocks his past self to his present self. "Not your brightest moment, Davahn."

"Davahn, I swear--" When I start to raise my voice he clamps his hand over my mouth quickly.

"Dear gods, are you trying to get us killed?"

I rip his hand off of my mouth, but lower my voice while maintaining as much of a threatening tone as I can muster, "Why do they want to kill you? Better yet, why would they want to kill me? As far as they knew, I was on their side. I was, technically."

"Who sent you?" He keeps his voice even, clearly trying to de-escalate things, which makes me even angrier.

"Are you seriously going to ask for answers when you've yet to give me any?"

Davahn grinds his teeth before speaking, "I'm asking because it's relevant to my answer, and I have a sneaking suspicion that you might want to know about."

After a long pause I say, "Ryder. Zac Ryder."

The dark elf lets out a long sigh as he drags his hand over his face, "I was afraid you'd say that." When I'm clearly about to start demanding answers again, Davahn cuts me off. "He sent you on a death mission, Ali."

I blink several times, "Pardon?"

"He sent you here to die, one way or another. You were the distraction, they--" He gestures behind me, "-- were the assassins. But a better phrase might be the clean up crew."

I rub my temples as I try to make sense of what he's saying, "Ryder would never do that. I've been working for him since I was fifteen, he's basically my mentor. I'm his best assassin for god's sake."

"I don't doubt that, and I think that's exactly why he sent you." He speaks slowly and deliberately, clearly trying to filter out any condescension from his tone, "He knew you stood the biggest chance of putting up a good fight and getting me frazzled, and I'll admit..." He snorts a bit before continuing, "... that it definitely worked, just not in the exact way he planned."

I blush at the memories from barely an hour ago and immediately start storming off to hide my face.

"So what if I had killed you, hmm? Then it wouldn't have been a death mission. Maybe my employer just has a little more faith in me than you thought."

Davahn is quiet for a long moment while he walks beside me before he finally grabs me by the arms and makes me face him.

"Ali, this is possibly going to be the most egotistical sounding thing I've ever said, but do you have any idea who I am?"

"Let me guess, the biggest and baddest boy that I never stood a chance against? Spare me, elf." I try to throw his hand off of me but he holds on, looking me dead in the eye.

"I'm not saying that. I'm saying that even if you had succeeded in killing me, that he would have killed you regardless. He wouldn't risk leaving any loose ends that might lead back to him."

"Pardon?" I shake my head. "Wait, no. I kill people for him all the time. I'm literally his assassin. What makes this any different?"

There's a long beat of silence before Davahn lets out a long, exhausted sigh.

"Ali, have you heard of the King of Assassins?"

"Vaguely, why?" When he just stares at me for a long time and I figure out what he's implying, I slowly shake my head with a disbelieving smile spreading over my face. "You're joking."

"What makes more sense, love? That I'm making up this story on the spot that perfectly explains our circumstances, or that I'm telling you the truth?"

After several moments I feel like I'm about to faint, so I cradle my head in my hands and drop into a squat as I breathe out, "Oh dear gods, you are the biggest and baddest boy."

"I could do without the boy bit, but thank you." He kneels down next to me and grabs me by the arms, hoisting back to my feet. "Now, we need to start walking and find somewhere safe to sleep. In case you forgot, we are wanted assassins on the run. If you'd please." He gestures in front of us, and I take a deep steadying breath before I start walking.

"I'm still lost."

Davahn mumbles under his breath, "Why am I not surprised?" When I shoot him a death glare he gazes up to the heavens before sighing, "What can I clear up for you, love?"

"Why does Ryder want to kill you? You work in a totally different city, so you're not exactly in competition for business. Did you fuck his wife or something?"

"First of all, I've seen his wife," Davahn scrunches his nose slightly, "... and I take offense to that implication. Secondly, I'm not a real king, the title is more of an honorific. 'The world's best assassin' doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but whoever manages to assassinate the world's best assassin--"

"Becomes the world's best assassin." I whisper mostly to myself.

He pats me lightly on the back as he coos, "Clever girl."

"Don't patronize me." Shrugging off his hand, I start walking faster, trying not to notice how the world around me is swaying.

Davahn drags his hand over his face before responding, "I wasn't."

"So why wouldn't he want anyone to know he did it then? Why would he kill his own employee to hide such a huge flex? What would be the point?"

"He would have announced it eventually. Probably keep my head as a souvenir to show off to clients, and let word of mouth spread it that way. But he'd likely want to wait until my company disbanded, not wanting to put up with any unnecessary risk of my people getting revenge."

I consider what he's said with a long, steady sigh. Several minutes pass of absolute silence as my brain struggles to make sense of everything. When I finally get my bearings, I can't help but burst out in likely very insane sounding laughter.

Very insane indeed, because Davahn is looking at me like a leper as he slowly asks if I'm alright.

"I get sent to a regular job, just another day at the office. I end up getting there and realize my target's the most gorgeous man I've ever seen and bingo bango bongo-- all of a sudden I'm fucking the man I was supposed to murder. Then I find out the man who sent me to kill you actually wanted to kill me too, and that now I'm on the run and unemployed. And the kicker, you won't believe this one, the man I'm now alone in the woods with is the King of Assassins. I'm alone with the most dangerous man on the planet, and he's trying to find us a cozy little hovle for the night. I'm sorry--" I burst into laughter again at the end of my rambling, wiping away tears as I collect myself, "-- but I'm feeling a lot of things right now, and I'm gonna need you to define 'alright.'"

After a beat of silence I hear Davahns usual teasing tone as he says, "The most gorgeous man you've ever seen, you say?"

I stare at him for a long moment before turning around and storming down the path we were previously heading, "You're alright."

"No no no, that's not what you said. You said--"

"I'm about to say 'go fuck yourself' if you don't drop it."

"Oh, well where would the fun be in that? I'd much rather you do it."

"I'm sure." I grind out between my teeth, "Unfortunately our circumstances of the past hour have been a bit of a mood killer for me."

"Really? I've never wanted to fuck you more."

I groan and halt to a stop, smacking my head into a nearby tree repeatedly.

"Hey, stop that." He puts his hand between my forehead and the bark. "What? You find out I'm slightly more important than you originally thought, and now the idea of fucking me makes you want to give yourself a concussion?"

"Slightly?" I hiss at him before biting my knuckles to keep myself from screaming, taking in a deep breath through my nose. Giving myself a good half minute to calm down before speaking, "I didn't say that. I'm just saying that my entire life as I knew it just fell apart, and I'm gonna need some time to adjust to that. So give me a fucking minute, please."

The dark elf throws his hands up defensively, "Alright, my bad." He sighs awkwardly and cautiously starts patting my head as if he were afraid that I might bite the hand off, "Sorry."

Sighing, I rub my temples and scrunch my eyes shut, "Don't apologize to me. I was intending to kill you at the beginning of the night."

He shrugs. "A job's a job. Lucky for you I'm in the same line of business, so I get it. No hard feelings." I stare at the ground for a long moment, a million anxious thoughts swarming my brain. "I'm not going to abandon you on the street, if that's an anxiety attack about being unemployed that I see building up. You can either work for me or I'll find you something somewhere else if that makes you more comfortable."

I sigh, "You don't have to do that."

"I'm aware." Davahn kisses my temple before he starts walking. "Okay, that's enough lovers quarreling for the night. We don't stop again until we find a place to sleep."

...

We eventually find a shallow cave that's just a little out of the way of our path, quickly deciding it's likely as good as we're going to get. The nearby hot spring and both of our desires to bathe and change out of our sweaty clothes solidifies the deal.

I toss my bag down before grabbing a bar of soap and my spare clothes, "I'm going to assume that if I call first dibs, you're just going to make a snarky comment about how we should bathe at the same time?"

I hear the dark elf snort behind me, and I'll be damned, the snort is still cute, "Am I really that predictable?"

"Yes, incredibly so." Standing with a sigh, I gesture dramatically towards the direction of the spring, "After you, m'lady."

Davahn stares at me like he's trying to avoid an elaborate trap I've just laid out in front of him, "I can wait if you want me to."

"Don't be dumb." I start walking, and even though it takes him a few seconds, he does follow me.

"That will be an impossible request for me to fill, I'm afraid. There's more idiocracy running through my veins than there is blood."

I start to laugh, but I manage to keep it trapped in my throat, "You don't say?"

The spring is barely larger than a bed, resting at the roots of several trees and a small outcropping. I can already hear Davahn undressing behind me, and I take a deep breath as I grab the hem of my blouse and tug it over my head.

He was practically staring down your cervix not even a few hours ago. This isn't a big deal.

I still catch myself rushing to be out of my clothes, tossing them all into a messy heap under a tree before quickly sinking into the hot water, which ends up reaching my shoulders. Despite myself, I can't help but moan from the heat soothing my sore muscles. I lay my head back and close my eyes, hoping to avoid seeing any unnecessary bits of Davahn. After several moments I hear the elf slide into the natural pool in a spot directly across from mine, and when I squint my eyes open, I catch him coming up from having dunked his head underwater. Slicking back his wet hair before wiping the water from his eyes, rivulets of water traveling down his charcoal chest before...

I clear my throat and close my eyes again, sinking deeper into the water and tipping my head back to get my own hair wet before coming back up and finding him staring at me with a shit eating grin on his face.

"What?" I ask defensively, hoping that the flush on my cheeks will appear to be because of the heat.

"Oh, nothing." The way he's looking, it's definitely not nothing, "You're just very cute."

I snort and roll my eyes, "Sure, sure."

He tilts his head, looking slightly puzzled, "Do you not think you're cute?"

"No, I think I'm adorable. I'm rolling my eyes at your attempt to butter me up."

"I hadn't even considered buttering you up yet, but now that the image is there, it's getting promoted to next on my to-do list."

"Is this how you became royalty? Did you sweet talk a princess into marrying you or something?" I wink at him without realizing it, and immediately cast my gaze to the side.

"Well first off, as I previously said, I'm not royalty. So maybe put your listening ears on, if you'd please. Second," I hear movement in the water getting closer to me, and when I gaze back to him he's barely a foot in front of me, forcing me to look up slightly so that I'm looking at his face and not his chest, "... believe it or not, I don't hit on every woman I meet like this."

"Uh-huh." Squeezing as much sarcasm into my tone as I can, I gently shove the center of his chest, "And how many women have you said that to?"