Bound To Kill

XIII: Bound To Leave

Evangeline

My heart was right. Bash is irresistibly gorgeous with his eyes or without. His eyes are just to boost his handsomeness. I know it because I'm lying under the covers with him right now, both of us half-naked. My fingers couldn't stop caressing his brown hair as he lies on his stomach, breathing heavily as his back muscles clench beautifully.

I glance at my hidden blade on the night table with a poker face. Perhaps Alexander was wrong. Perhaps loving a bastard wouldn't be such a curse of a lifetime.

But I am bound to kill, married to the Brotherhood and to the service of the people. I can't argue nor do anything about it. The day the Assassin Order/Brotherhood welcomed me as their own, I promised to myself that I will always prioritize selflessness and not my heart's wantings. The nuns back at the Scottish nunnery always chatter about marriage and the banishment of purity. I always tell myself that I will never marry and settle down my hidden blade, in which I always seem to fight.

I'm better off assassinating tyrants than assassinating my own purity with meddling children.

But, but... Just one exception, and that is Bash himself.

The blade emerges at a sonic speed out from my sleeve as my palm opens wide. I always remember the last time I first unsheathe it. I was fourteen, still a trainee. It wasn't my time to use one yet so Alexander let me borrowed his. I almost cut my ring finger, which made Alexander himself teased me, 'careful, or you can never marry."

And I'd secretly reply back in my thoughts, 'it's alright. My heart is already married to you anyway'.

Thoughts began blurring my strength to plunge the blade in Bush's neck. I can't do this! Fuming with uncontrollable anger, I unhook the blade and throw it somewhere in the room, which made such a raucous cling on the marble floors and wake Sebastian up.

I curl up and dig my head between my legs. "Evie, what's wrong?" Bash asks.

I scooted out of bed and began returning into the blue silk gown from last night. "I-I'm- sorry, Bash." I say shakily, strapping both combat boots all at once.

"Where are you going?" He walks over towards me. I begin to avoid him as I put on my cloak and hood. "It's only the crack of dawn. We still have a few hours before the whole Court wakes up."

"That's the point." I say harshly, tying my hair into a clean ponytail. "I'm leaving, I'm sorry."
"No, you can't leave. Didn't what happened last night matter to you? Because it did, it matters to me."

I chose not to answer and continue on changing for an awaiting trip.

"Why must you leave, Evie? Leaving and getting infected out there is a bloody death wish."

"Because I don't want to kill you, Sebastian!" I almost yell, which I quickly regret for doing so. "Every time I'm with you, I feel lust, comfort and the need to avenge Alexander's death all at the same time. I've always wanted to kill you with my own blade, but I can't!... I won't."

He doesn't twitch, but I can see empathy in his icy blue eyes reflecting the orange flame from a nearby torchlight.

"Can't you see? I'm a killer, and a monster for vengeance. You killed one of my loved ones, I kill you. But I'm falling in love with you, yet my monstrosity for vengeance will always win. I can't fight it, hell, I can't. And I'm sorry, I am so, so sorry. I was bound to kill here in the Royal Court of France, not bound to fall in love."

His eyes avert to the ground in defeat, my hood shadowing me away, reminding me that my mission has been fulfilled and I've no more reasons to stay for a little while longer, or forever.

"I reckon the air outside is still contaminated with the Plague." He explains in a shy mutter. "You might wanna stay for a couple of days until it is safe to get out again..."

I didn't wait for him to reach the end of his sentence. I've already reached the hallway, and more hallway until I reached the maim stairs and the grand lobby.

I counted as I walk down the ghost-quiet halls guarded with mannequin-like soldiers on each sides. I waited for Bash to stop me, to give me a speech about why I should stay. But I guess he sees me as a woman who doesn't liked to be chased, even though I am, secretly.

"Leaving so soon, Evangeline?"

I turn to my left to see Lady Kenna, or should I say Sebastian's wife by the late crazy King Henry's law.

She's still in her sleepwear, as well does Queen Mary herself appearing seconds on Kenna's side.

"Yes," I say, paying no mind to ask about their whereabouts why they're up so early. "Like I said last night, my mission here is done despite that the mad king is now six feet buried."

"I thought you offered your service to Mary." Kenna says, barely worried.

"I did, but that doesn't mean I have no more errands than to pay allegiance to the Queen. I'm not willing to be just anyone's servant, or a soldier. I'm an Assassin who offers justified freedom to people, even if that includes forcible killing."

"You're a vigilante then?" Kenna asks with a dumb smile.

I look away, waiting for the conversation to end out of abrupt. "Yes, of course. Now I must leave, I still need to report my fulfilling mission to my Mentor back at England--"

"No. Haven't you heard?" Mary steps forward, blocking my path. "The Plague has returned. We can't let anyone go out there, alone or not. Even if it's a well-trained Assassin with stealth."

I smirk. "Well, I'm flattered, really. But as you need to know, I know my way through it, like I know my way out of complicated scenarios such as this." I proudly wave my mask in the air.

I was about to walk past Mary when she blocks my way again. "I can't risk losing my best friend again, Emery."

Emery was the name I gave her instead of my real one. Emery was the blonde-headed rag doll both my parents gifted me on my fifth day of birth. I left it back at Wales the day I run away from my burning massacred town. Emery is the fake name I told her, because I was planning to change my name into Emery Kenway despite that Evangeline gives me too much horrible memories. Yet I've learned how to cope with it, to accept the past and move on.

"My name is Evangeline, so please, if you may." I growl before tramping past her, my hands are gripping so hard when they burst my wrist blade unexpectedly almost decapitated my own ring finger.

Careful, or you can never marry.

-

"BLOODY ALEXANDER." I screamed with every burden I could muster as soon as I'm halfway away from the castle. The sun is starting to lift itself from its crib, the sky illuminating a soft glow of blue.

The beautiful horse with a silver fur and mane I'm riding grumbles, annoyed.

"I am annoying, aren't I, horsie?" I cynically ask the innocent livestock. "From now on, you're named Alex, because it can be both a girl and a boy's name. In which it also happens to be my cousin's name, my dead cousin's name."

I realized I was beginning to ramble so I take another chug down the hundred year old Scotch I stole from the castle's winery, or was it from Bash's bucket of liquor? Geez, I don't really know. I'm too busy being nostalgic about earlier when I was about to kill the irresistibly charming bastard.

Aimlessly, a train of laughter begins to come out of my mouth as I've reached the forest. Bash told me how he killed the Darkness himself, and how it told him about a weird prophecy which led to the return of the Black Death. With the hidden blade I gave him.

I halted the horse and unmounted from it the second a high-pitched scream booms from the left side of the forest.