When the door’s handle lowered and the panel opened, Jade immediately hobbled back to the middle of the room and forced herself to remain still.

The entire time her captor left her alone—unfortunately not long enough, a few minutes at best—she had tried to find anything she could use to free herself. There was nothing in that room that could help her, though, and her physical and mental strength dwindled fast.

Hunger, thirst, and exhaustion made her shake, but she wouldn’t show any weakness to her captors. Kneeling, she rested her tied hands against the small of her back and straightened her spine, waiting for her ordeal to start. If her torturers took their time wringing a confession out of her, she might still find a way to either kill her target or escape. Hopefully both.

From outside, the now-familiar voices of the High Lord and his lieutenant filtered through the wooden door, alongside a third voice she didn’t recognize.

Large shoulders filled the doorway, reminding her of how powerful the High Lord’s body felt against hers, and how easily his strong hands made fast work of disarming her. The elegant ease of his movements showed his extensive training. He also possessed night vision, but that didn’t excuse Jade’s mediocre performance. An assassin should be able to finish a mission no matter the circumstances, and she wasn’t just any assassin. She was a Master Assassin.

The High Lord stepped into the bedroom, followed by the lieutenant and a second brawny man, sporting the Solarian long hair and large build. The newcomer was a dragon-shifter too, strutting inside the room with his chest inflated and chin high. Three sets of mesmerizing eyes stared at her; whereas the High Lord’s were turquoise, his companions’ gazes were respectively black like a starless night, and warm amber like a swirling cup of rich honey-flower tea.

She could only detect annoyance radiating from the lieutenant, and the lack of nervousness in the men’s gazes frightened her. The three regarded her unhurriedly as if she weren’t one of the deadliest mercenaries this side of the Fifth Moon System, as if she posed no threat whatsoever. Tall and made of pure muscles, they owned the room with their mere presence.

“Who hired the Academy?” the High Lord asked. His voice was rich and low, penetrating the air like the warm breeze coming from the Green Hills during hatching season.

Jade forced her body to maintain her stance. She hated that she was kneeling, because submission wasn’t in her repertoire. Some mercenaries studied the arts of seduction, using desire as a tool to achieve the same results stealth and a dagger would. She could never use her body or her mind to kill a target through deception.

The lieutenant stepped forward, his dark eyes roaming from her head to the rest of her body. “Why did the Academy send you?”

“Because I am their best agent,” Jade answered.

Without her assassin’s cloak, she felt exposed. The white leather garment was her uniform and it gave her as much strength as her weapons did. She was lethal with her bare hands, but the odds against those three men weren’t in her favor. Even more than their considerable size, what gave her pause was the absence of guns or knives on them. The lieutenant’s scimitar was gone too. She briefly considered the possibility of concealed blades, but neither the High Lord nor his guards gave the impression of men who would hide weapons. Any man who would confront an assassin unarmed was a man she feared, because he firmly believed he could best her.

“Indeed.” The High Lord’s lips curved into a smile. “I deserve the best.”

The lieutenant’s black eyes lit with anger as if he weren’t amused by his master’s words.

“You will reveal what you know!” the third man demanded. The smaller of the three, he still was several centimeters taller than she was, and at least three times her weight.

“I will not,” she answered.

She knew nothing, but she was of no value to them if they suspected the truth.

The High Lord stepped closer and crouched before her. “You are dead to the Academy.” His voice was soft. “Your life is in my hands.” His eyes were not cruel. “I can keep you safe.” He kept a non-menacing distance from her, his arms folded and his stance relaxed. “Just tell me what I need to know.”

Jade recognized that technique of interrogation: Make the prisoner feel safe and extract as much information as possible before having to resort to torture which was messy, and when applied to highly-trained subjects, didn’t yield reliable results.

“I won’t tell you anything.” She looked at the two sentinels behind him. “You can start the beating.”

With her ankles and wrists tied, she didn’t have many options to strike unless they came closer. Perhaps she could bite whatever part of them she could reach. It was a long shot, but, once she had surprised them, the plan was to rock on her body to push her united hands under her butt, bend her knees, and let her hands slide under her feet so that they would rest on her front. Then she would hook her hands around the lieutenant’s neck and choke him, forcing him to walk out to his draglet. The bond between a dragon-shifter and his draglet was well-known, and she would use it to convince the draglet to fly her where she wanted or she would kill his master. The execution of such a fast-paced plan rested on every single detail playing exactly as she hoped it would.

“On the contrary,” the High Lord said, regarding her with an intense stare that made her feel naked, although the vest and pants he had allowed her to wear preserved her modesty. “You’ll get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll resume our chat tomorrow.”