The longer Hale stared into Talia’s blue eyes, the darker her eyes turned… until he only saw violet specked with streaks of gold. He closed his eyes to seal that image in his mind. He leaned down further on top of her and rested his face in the curve of her small shoulder. He kissed her golden skin and breathed her in slowly and silently. Her lavender hair felt soft against his face. The icy touch of her fingertips on his bare back was like a memory of their past that suddenly became a reality again. He fell still as her cold hands warmed from his body heat. He sank into her body helplessly. She drew her arms around him tightly and held him close like she once did. He held in the tears as he listened to peaceful whispers of her breathing and meditated on the tempo of her heart. He kept his eyes closed as he unbuttoned the back of her nightgown. He wanted Pandora to be completely his just for one night. To be close to her was all he had wanted since he left her.

She kissed his shoulder with her precious lips. In the way she touched him, he found no hesitation, no fear, and only a reminder that she wanted to be loved by him.

“What are you waiting for?” She asked him sweetly. The voice which spoke those words stunned him because the voice didn’t belong to the one he loved.

The girl who held him wasn’t the one he truly wanted. He no longer felt Pandora when he touched her skin. He felt a stranger now. The closeness to this girl that he had craved only moments ago now caused his skin to crawl. He lifted himself off her and opened his eyes.The lavender hair he saw in his mind was now blonde and long. Her skin was milky pale, instead of a golden tan, and her eyes were blue not violet.

Her name was Talia not Pandora.

Regardless of how he tried, he couldn’t see her as Pandora anymore. He saw Talia only, who was nothing to him but a reminder of how much he wanted someone else.

Talia met his eyes and stroked his face with her warm hands. “Please don’t make me wait longer. People are bound to wonder where I am.”

She meant no harm by her request, but he didn’t want her because he couldn’t use her to forget the one he truly desired. Her eyes carried the same innocence as Pandora’s. Butinstead of having sympathy for her because of her innocence, he realized he hated seeing it. He hated the way her gaze made him feel so guilty. He despised her because she would never be the one he wanted. Her kindness and gentleness was nothing but a poor replacement for Pandora’s. How could he ever think being with her would be anything close to being with Pandora. His thoughts and his actions had brought shame to his memory of her.

Talia was his target and nothing more. Zaya demanded that he get the necessary information from her by any means necessary and then… kill her.

Right now, Zaya was risking her life for this job. She had many more lives to take than he did, and she had to kill in front of an audience. And he was hesitating to take just a single life. Taking the life of Talia seemed to be an impossibility because he stopped seeing her as a target. She had become a reminder of Pandora. Why did he leave her? He should have stayed on Elamo. Then maybe he wouldn’t have had to come to K’aldi or commit this heinous act.

Talia was so very pretty. But he couldn’t let Zaya down this time. He must do what she asked.

Hale gripped her neck. First, she thought nothing of it, until slowly he tightened his hold. She started choking and gasping for air. He held her down under him with his body. She tried to fight back and push him off her, but he was much, much stronger.

He couldn’t look at her face. He didn’t want to know what she looked like struggling to stay alive.

So that she wouldn’t die too quickly, Hale loosened his hold on her neck for a moment, and she gasped in air.

“I will let go if you answer a few questions,” he said. “Don’t scream when I loosen my grip to let you answer. I will certainly kill you if you do. Nod if you understand.” He forced himself to look at her face, hoping he wouldn’t break down before her.

Talia nodded.

“Your father keeps a prisoner from the last dynasty, correct?”

She nodded again. He released some of the pressure on her neck so that she wouldn’t pass out from lack of oxygen.

“Where?” Haled demanded with rage. To appear furious in front of her, he thought of the most despicable things he remembered being inflicted upon him. Moments from his childhood or teen years. Like times when he was locked in a dark room for hours when he didn’t do what he was told. Times when his instructor would beat him as punishment. Or when he was touched when he didn’t want to be.

“I can’t.”

He placed more pressure on her neck reluctantly. “Don’t test me.”

She continually shook her head. So, she was more terrified of her father than she was of Hale. With everything he had left, he wished she would have easily given into his demands. Regardless of how hard he gripped her, she wouldn’t give in. She didn’t seem to believe he would actually kill her.

He could fix that. Hale pulled a black knife from a pocket on his pants. He held it over her face so that she could see it clearly. Then he brushed the blade against her cheek several times.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to slit your throat. I’m only going to carve out larger and larger pieces of your flesh. You’re going to wish I cut your throat. But nothing terrible has to happen if you answer my questions. That’s all I’m asking of you.”

She was terrified of him. Eyes that once gazed at him fondly, now stared at him with grave fear.

“Don’t try to protect your father. Your life is worth much more than that.”

She didn’t answer. How brave…. Hale was going to have to start cutting. He despised the idea of tearing into her flesh. She had done nothing to deserve this. But Zaya would kill him if he didn’t complete his task.

Hale held onto her neck with a single hand. With his other he held the knife and brought it to her arm. He couldn’t bring himself to touch her pretty face. He pushed the knife into her flesh slowly, allowing her every chance to give in. She refused though. The cut he made started bleeding warm, red human blood. He held in his own tears as he began to drag the knife along her once flawless skin.

Talia began to cry finally, seemingly accepting her fate. What was he going to have to do to break her? He dug deeper into her flesh with the knife, and she tried to scream, but there wasn’t enough air in her lungs. He would cut out just a small part of her flesh. Hopefully that would be enough. And he could end things.

He began to draw out a small circle in on her arm. The knife glided through her flesh, and once the knife was deep enough, he began to carve out the circle.

“Stop. Please,” she whimpered. “I’ll tell.”

“The truth. Lies will get you killed,” he warned.

“I will. I will.”

Hale pulled out the knife covered in her blood and hung it over her face to give her more incentive to continue. He completely let go of her neck for the first time since this ordeal began. Talia gasped harshly for air and held her bruised neck.

“Talk,” Hale demanded.

“My father has… a secret dungeon.”

“Is that where he keeps her?”

Talia nodded.

“Where?”

She started hesitating, as though she was comparing the value of her life to the value of her father’s secrets. He didn’t want to be more aggressive than he had been. His behavior was already too extreme towards her. But did he really have a choice?

“C’mon. I’m not screwing around.” He prodded her with the knife. “I’ll start cutting.”

“No, please!” Talia cried out.

“Then answer!” Hale shouted in her face.

She began to sob. Crystal tears flooded her eyes. “He’ll never forgive me.”

“You would rather die?” He expected her to say the unthinkable.

“No… I’ll tell.” She closed her eyes and swallowed painfully. “In his chambers, there’s an entrance under his—his bed. You’ll need his personal key though.” Talia paused to take a couple of long breaths. “He always….” She looked up at the ceiling. Her lips were purple, and her skin was ghostly pale as though she was about to faint. “He wears it around… his neck.”

Almost immediately after she finished her sentence, she passed out on the bed. Talia had given him all the information they needed. She was unconscious. Now was the perfect time to finish the job. He couldn’t let Zaya down.

He held the knife over Talia’s seemingly lifeless body. She would look no different if she were dead. He touched her skin with the blade. For a second, she became Pandora to his eyes. When he blinked, he saw Talia again.

And he just stared at her, frozen. He watched her chest rise and fall. She was alive. Why did he think that Talia’s life was his to take even for a moment?

She reminded him so much of Pandora, and for that sole reason, he would never be able to kill her. Never.

* * * *

To everyone at the ball, Zaya became Duchess Kaai again. She returned to the closet and put on her dress and jewelry with none the wiser about what just happened. If anyone asked about her temporary absence, she planned to say she was in the bathroom. With a smile, she walked past the people and stopped at her table. She sat down and took a sip of wine. The empty seat beside her was assigned to Hale. No one seemed to notice him missing, which was a good thing.

She sent him another signal. He should have been here by now. But it was possible that he hadn’t felt the first one. Zaya talked to the young woman sitting beside her mostly about the weather and the kingdom, nothing serious. Before she knew it, five minutes passed by. Hale wasn’t here. And he hadn’t returned her signal.

Something had gone very wrong on his end. She could be sure of that.

It was an uncomfortable situation she had been placed in because of Hale. Zaya only returned to the ball very recently. She had been sitting at the table for a little over five minutes. Somebody might ask her why she was leaving so soon. She could use the bathroom as her excuse. Zaya told the woman goodbye and got up from the table. She left the ballroom quickly. Hale gave her no choice. Luckily, no one asked her why she was leaving again.

Both she and Hale wore a tracker on their bodies so that they could locate each other at any given moment. She forced Hale to wear it because she had a feeling the job wouldn’t go as smoothly as he thought. Zaya knew, if anyone was going to screw up, Hale would be the one. He could be quite careless even with things he took seriously.

But killing the princess was an easy job compared to hers. Sure, he needed to get information from her, but that’s what torture was for. How could he mess that up? It was so—

Oh, God no. He wouldn’t….

The princess was delicate and pretty, blonde and blue-eyed. And watching Hale interact with the princess, even from afar, Zaya could tell that she wanted Hale. That was the plan, of course. For him to seduce her and get her to take him into the privacy of her bed chambers so that he could complete his part of the job without being seen. Yet, Zaya hadn’t even considered how tempting that would be for him. Women were what made him weak. Since she had known him, he wouldn’t think twice about losing a job or spending inordinate amounts of money just for women he wanted. If Hale was on top of the girl when Zaya walked in, Zaya would probably kill them both.

At the end of the hallway, she saw a large wooden door. Faint orange lights lingered under the door crack. Hale’s tracking signal seemed to indicate that’s where he was. Zaya held her ear to the door but heard nothing. A good sign.

She pushed the door open slightly. Hale hadn’t locked it. How irresponsible of him. Zaya charged in the room, unafraid at what she might see, ready to stab them both in the forehead. But Hale wasn’t compromising the job like she assumed he would be. He was lying on his side on the floor and staring distantly. He didn’t look up once when she entered. The princess was lying on the bed. Zaya stepped closer and saw the purple bruises around her neck. It seemed as though Hale had finished the job by suffocation. Zaya was about to turn away from the girl… until Zaya saw her chest rising. She wasn’t dead.

Zaya cursed and kicked Hale in the stomach. He barely flinched. He was deathly still.

“What the hell happened, Hale?”

He shook his head.

She leaned down and stared into his eyes. She gripped his hair. “Sit up. Now!”

He refused to move. Zaya grabbed both of his shoulders and pulled him up. He brought his knees close to his chest and held them there. His eyes stared at the wall in front of him while tears streamed from his eyes.

“Start talking!” Zaya demanded.

“I can’t do it. I can’t do it,” he muttered.

“Look at me, Hale.” He slowly obeyed and stared at her face. Zaya glared at him and, with a heavy hand, slapped him. “You could have cost me this entire operation. You might still have. I don’t care what your reasons were. Once she wakes up, I’m going to cut her fingers off one by one until she tells me what we need. Then I’m going to kill her. I never should have trusted you.”

Hale reached out and grabbed her arm. “Don’t hurt her. She already told me everything.”

“What did she say?”

“In the king’s bedroom, under his bed, there’s an entrance to the dungeon. The king wears the key around his neck. That’s all we need.”

Zaya stood up and stepped away from him. “You’re right. Thanks for doing the hard part for me. She’s useless now.”

Zaya looked over the bed at the princess. She wouldn’t feel anything at least. Opening her mouth, Zaya bent down and bit into her neck. Her teeth injected her deathly venom into her blood. For Hale’s sake, Zaya let the princess’s death be instantaneous.

“She didn’t have to die, Zaya,” Hale’s voice cracked when he spoke her name.

“She did. Our client says no royal family members.”

“Talia was harmless.”

Calling his target by her name revealed much to Zaya. He had let her become someone to him, probably someone who reminded him of Pandora. “I’m disappointed in you, Hale.”

His heart was so distraught that he couldn’t even defend himself against her comments. When Zaya looked into his eyes, she saw no anger, only pain.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t.”

Zaya refrained from saying anything more. His deteriorating mental state was already bad enough for her to deal with. She needed his help. After looking around the room, Zaya spotted a liquor bottle on the princess’s nightstand. She popped the bottle open and forced it into his hands.

“Drink until you don’t feel bad. I need you to find the king’s room. I’m going to get the key. This is your one chance to fix your failure. If you screw this up—”

“I won’t,” he whispered. Hale leaned back and gulped down the orange liquid.