Luna was beginning to realize that time at the château passed remarkably slowly, or perhaps it was because she was ready to get on with the mysterious training that she couldn't think of anything else.

Two weeks had finally passed, and in that time, she hadn't seen very much of Kit outside of their new daily routine of eating together. At first, she had thought it out of necessity, that he wanted to speak with her more about what she was going to be doing, and her time with Lawrence.

Though he hadn’t reacted well to their first conversation, he had kept himself in careful check through all the others.

And despite her original assumption, she did feel better talking about it—purging it, as Kit said.

But after a while, they no longer spoke of training, Uilleam, or Lawrence, rather he asked about her life before that, when she was just a girl with dreams of something more than the little town she grew up in.

“What did you want to be?” Kit had asked, voice gone soft as he asked.

She now wondered if he did it on purpose, changing his tone in a way that made her want to answer whatever he asked—she found she could listen to him talk for hours. There was never any doubt in her mind that he was actually listening.

“I don’t know,” Luna had answered, “I just know I wanted to be something more than I was.”

She couldn’t think of any one thing she had wanted to do for the rest of her life. Maybe an artist? But Luna had always dreamed of different lives that she could lead.

She wanted to be a dreamer, but now, she wasn’t quite sure what she would become.

But she never used her family’s names—those details she wanted to keep to herself for now.

Kit didn’t pry, accepting whatever she freely gave. Luna soon looked forward to their meals, enjoying their conversations, but very soon, she had grown bored outside of the time they spent together.

With nothing to do, Luna started venturing around the château on her own. The guards rarely spoke a word to her, and The Wild Bunch were always in and out, so she was left unbothered.

And it was in her search that she found Kit’s library.

A library.

Books as far as her eyes could see, the masculine tones of the space prominent in the mahogany wood fitted to the walls, shelves, and stuffed armchairs.

Venturing farther into the room, her fingers had danced over the spines of several books, reading them as she went.

There were all sorts, like the classics such as Dorian Grey and a few by Jane Austen, but there were also rows of encyclopedias and tome-like books with lettering she couldn't read.

And these were all just by the door—she had yet to make it around the entire room.

Grabbing one of the first she saw, she thumbed through the pages, gaze drifting over words she didn’t understand. But she was fascinated by the scrawling letters and symbols.

It wasn’t long before she was losing herself in that room and within the pages of books, escaping her own reality to sink into another.

It was here that Kit found her, but this time she wasn’t curled in a chair reading one of the many books that lined the walls, rather she was studying a shadowbox that hung on a wall and the two instruments inside it.

To her, they just looked like … sticks. Just plain ordinary sticks that didn’t seem special in any way. But they had to be, she thought, since he had gone through the trouble of hanging them there.

“They belonged to my father.”

Luna had gotten used to Kit moving silently and showing up when she least expected it, so for once, she didn’t jump at his sudden appearance behind her. She held up the instruments, familiarizing herself with the weight of them.

“They look like very fancy sticks.”

His smile was rueful. “They’re called escrima sticks.”

Plucking one from her hands, he did a rather cool maneuver where he moved the wood between his fingers, letting it spin around his hand before he caught it again.

“Useful if you know what you’re doing with them.”

“Will I learn how to use these?” she asked.

“If that’s what you want.”

Smiling at him, she was lost in his gray eyes a moment before she blinked and came back to herself. “Were you looking for me?”

“I was. There’s someone you need to meet.”

Frowning, she asked, “Who?”

“Your future handler.”

She didn’t think anything had ever sounded more ominous.

“And who’s that … exactly?”

“His name is Zachariah, most in the Den call him Z.”

“What does being a handler entail?”

“In most cases, he oversees training at the compound, and assigns jobs to the those that accept the contract. And he’s usually the one to find the mercenaries that are brought into the Den.” He glanced down at her with a curious look. “You were a special case.”

As Kit swept through the doors of his office, Luna at his heels, she came face to face with Z.

A trainer of mercenaries …

Luna was expecting a big guy, one that looked like he had been in the American Marines for thirty years with the haircut to prove it, but what she found was a rather average-sized man with a stern expression and hair as white as snow, though he couldn’t have been no older than his late forties.

He studied her in that way Kit always did, but his gaze felt more assessing, and whatever he saw in her, she thought he found it lacking.

“Zachariah, meet Luna—I’m sure Uilleam has told you all about her.”

She glanced at Kit, wondering just how much Uilleam had said, but the man’s expression didn’t change. Whether he was impressed or not, he didn’t let it reflect on his face.

“You’re what all the fuss is about?” he asked, though there was nothing mean behind his words. “Let’s hope you amount to something.”

Luna’s mouth gaped slightly, too surprised to say anything before he was looking back at Kit.

---

Sometimes, it amazed him that, of all the men in the Runehart lineage, Kit seemed to be the only one capable of manners.

Usually it was Uilleam he needed to keep in line, but his uncle seemed to be in a right state, and seemed ready to take it out on Luna.

For the second time in as many weeks, Kit was forcing a smile as he looked at the girl who continued to baffle him. “Luna, if you would excuse us a moment.”

A curious look had crossed her face before she was leaving the room. He was supposed to be introducing her after all, and only offering her name wasn’t much of anything.

“Uilleam finds humor in being rude,” Kit said, still looking toward the door Luna had left out of. “I didn’t know you were the same.”

“When I’m made to take a flight on forty-eight hours notice to meet a trainee that’s technically not a trainee, I’m rude.” Zachariah leveled a look on him that demanded answers. “I thought you decided against delving into your brother’s affairs?”

He had.

And it had been a decision he hadn’t made lightly.

Uilleam hadn’t always been The Kingmaker, the criminal mastermind behind some of the greatest scandals in the world. Once, he had been just a boy searching for love from a tyrant that was incapable of feeling such things. It took years of nurturing the darker urges inside of him that Uilleam had finally changed to the point that he was no longer the innocent child he had once been.

Most days, Kit wasn’t sure what he was.

But it hadn’t mattered, because Kit loved him dearly, and despite not agreeing with nearly every decision Uilleam made, he often found himself cleaning up his messes when the time called for it.

Watch after your brother, their mother had always instructed him with narrowed eyes, as though she thought he was too daft to understand what she was saying. But if there was nothing else he shared with the woman that gave birth to him, he shared her love for his younger brother.

For a while, Kit had blindly allowed his brother to do as he pleased, not caring as long as it didn’t affect his work back when he was with the Lotus Society.

But after one particular incident that left twelve people dead and buried in unmarked graves, Kit had finally decided that enough was enough and it was time for him to walk away. And to ensure he could do this with as little fallout as possible, he burned the only connection that connected their two businesses—literally.

It had also grown rather tiresome having the legion of enemies Uilleam possessed constantly trying to see not only the man dead, but anyone that did business with him.

Which usually included Kit.

“It’s complicated,” Kit finally answered as he blew out a breath.

And it was because, like so many times in the past when Uilleam came to him for a favor, he had a hard time saying no.

Now weeks later, he was partly glad he had agreed to Uilleam’s request.

Luna was, in her own way, fascinating to him.

“Is it?” Zachariah asked rubbing his bushy mustache. “Would that complication have anything to do with that girl that left out of here?”

“Not necessarily.”

Though she did make up a significant part.

Zachariah sighed. “Whatever Uilleam has planned, I don’t think you should be getting in the middle of it. It’s one thing going up against enemies we know, but it’s an entirely different matter when it’s ones you don’t. Your brother’s going to be the death of me.”

Uilleam would be the death of them all if they weren’t careful.

“I’ll keep an eye on what he’s doing and try to find out anything on what he has planned. If it’s something worth knowing, I’ll inform you.”

“And the girl?” Zachariah asked.

“I’ll train her, as I said. She may be weak in body, but her mind is another matter.” She wasn’t folding just yet, and that showed promise. “Once I think she’s ready for you, I’ll send her to the compound for your final approval.”

His uncle grunted his affirmation before getting to his feet. “I’ll see you in a month’s time.”

“She won’t be ready by then,” Kit said. “How you manage to cram years’ worth of study into such a short period of time, I’ll never know.”

Some of the mercenaries that came out of the Den were highly skilled, though green when it came to the savage parts of their jobs. Often, Kit didn’t think they were ready to see field time—it had taken him more than a year before he was even given his first assignment.

“When do you expect to be ready then?” Zachariah asked. “You can save me unnecessary trips.”

“Six months at the earliest.” There was a lot of ground to cover.

Laughing, Zachariah shook his head. “Uilleam is not going to like that.”

Kit shrugged. “You’ve often told me I shouldn’t concern myself with Uilleam’s feelings—why start now?”