Cameo the Assassin by Dawn McCullough-White Page A

loft, empty except for one bed filled with moldy straw. Opal glanced over at it, then back at her intensely.
    Cameo met his expression, irritated, then turned to Kyrian again and said, “We should probably get a couple hours of rest before we take you over to your temple.”
    “Of course,” Kyrian smiled, standing up. “Well, you’re the lady here, so you should have the bed. I’ll go downstairs and find something comfortable.” He turned to leave, then stopped as if he had forgotten something. “Oh, and goodnight to you, too, Opal.”
    Black Opal looked as if it pained him to do so, but he managed to mutter something like, “Sleep tight.”
    “Hmm, I get the bed.” She brightened and moved toward it.
    “You aren’t going to sleep so soon, are you, my dear?” Opal said, taking her hand in his.
    She turned and found his body in close proximity to her own. The ruffles of his shirt brushed against her chest as he took one more step toward her, which in turn forced her to step back against a wall. If he hadn’t been so very irritating lately she might’ve been vaguely interested.
    “Aren’t you tired?”
    He smiled, “Not at all.” He glanced over at the dirty white mattress. “How about it, love?”
    She raised an eyebrow. “How about ... what?”
    He smiled at her playfully, his hazel eye looked eagerly into her cold gray eyes then found the sad line of her mouth.
    “You don’t want me.”
    “Oh, I assure you that I do.”
    “No.” She pushed him back with a little more force than she had intended slamming him against the wall on the other side of the room. “You don’t.”
    “You’re... very... strong.” Opal picked himself up off of the floor, not quite offended. He brushed off his pants and straightened his jacket as if he had done this hundreds of times. “It’s that Kyrian, isn’t it?”
    Cameo moved away from Opal.
    “You want someone young and pretty.”
    “You are all younger than me!” She growled as she spun around to face him.
    Opal sobered. “What?”
    “You are all younger than me.”
    “Not I—”
    “Yes, you too, Opal.” Her eyes were dark, “And why are you so down on Kyrian? Is it so terrible that I chose to spare his feelings a bit? That I wanted an abandoned house on the outskirts of town for us to hide out in for a while, rather than butcher some family and take their things? Eat their food? That I spared him some of that horror? Is that what’s really bothering you, Opal? That I showed Kyrian an ounce of mercy, an ounce that I wish someone had shown me when I was his age? Instead I got—” she broke off.
    “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    He glanced at the floor for a moment, taking all of that in. “He is still very attractive....”
    Her irritation returned anew. “It’s funny. I always thought you had a thing for Bel.”
    “Uhh.... What a silly idea,” Opal blushed. “Anyhow you’re missing the point.”
    “Oh, I don’t think so.” She sat down on the end of the mattress, then shot him a look of warning, which made him stop in mid-step, as he had been following her lead to the bed.
    “Well, then....” he said.
    “Yes, I’m going to sleep.”
    He sat down on the dirty wood floor. “If you had butchered that family, then we might have some nice furniture to get some sleep in.”
    She laid down. “That’s not really the face you want me to show you, is it?”
    “That tomb was a bit more pleasant,” he grumbled, unbuckling his belt and laying it beside him.
    Cameo hissed something about being out of alcohol.
    * * * * *
    She fell into sleep almost instantly. The mattress may have been old and moldy, but it was better than the ground. About an hour into her peaceful rest, she felt something jab her in the side, through the mattress. Exhausted, she dismissed it and tried to ease herself back to sleep, but then she felt it again, then all across her back fingers were prodding her. She turned onto her right side, blaming it on an uncomfortable part of