Chapter 17 – Partners in Crime
When Gray scrambled downstairs to the kitchen he found the naked noble was pushing himself onto Lyla. She was pushed onto the kitchen counter, her blouse half ripped, and the old bastard was trying to push her skirt up while Lyla screamed and pushed back.
“You bitch!” Julius grunted as he pried her legs open. “I’ll show that bastard who I am! I’ll fuck you till you scream and show all of them who is the stronger one.”
He hadn’t seen Gray, which meant he still had a chance. He couldn’t take down Julius in a one-on-one fight. That would only result in him getting beaten up. But…
His eyes moved to the kitchen knife.
There is no coming back from what I’m about to do…
But fuck that. The sight of the old bastard slapping Lyla was enough to boil his blood.
He grabbed the knife, screamed as he charged, and before the old bastard could turn he sent the knife in. It felt hard, like taking the knife through a thick slab of butter, but he grunted and pushed. When the knife went deep he pulled back and stabbed again. Then again. And again.
Pull and push. Blood sprayed out, but Gray pulled and pushed. He did that until the screaming noble’s elbow slammed into his jaw. He got pushed back. The knife clattered to the ground and the noble turned back with a twisted face.
“You sick fuck!” he coughed a handful of blood, then staggered. “I’ll kill you-”
He fell on top of Gray, his hands clawing up to his throat. He felt his fingers tighten. Gray kicked and punched but all he saw was Julius’s ugly face and his eyes boring into him.
“You deserve to die! Just like your father-”
A shadow rose behind him, and with his dulling vision Gray caught Lyla, her knife raised and her eyes blazing.
“Step away from him!” Something flashed in her hand. It took a moment for Gray to realize it was the knife that had fallen. But that thought only lasted for a second. In the next passing moment the knife jabbed into Julius’s thick skull. The noble gave a scream, but no sound came out. But in his last moments, his face contorted to a grotesque frown that would scare Gray through all of his life.
“Fuckers!” he muttered. The fingers relaxed, and the fat old bastard fell to the ground.
*
For a long time, both Gray and Lyla were silent. Gray was on the ground, eying the corpse of the noble while recalling a line from some law book he read a few months back.
Section 5, Rule 3: The act of Killing the Nobility is a grievous transgression against the established societal order, punishable by death through the method of hanging, with the judicial proceedings and judgment conducted in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen…
Lyla was panting, one hand gripping the edge of the counter while the other was on her chest, trying to cover her torn piece of clothing.
The sound of footsteps near the door startled them both.
“Gray!” Lyla said. “I-”
But just then Andria scrambled into the room, panting hard. She looked at both Lyla and Gray and then at her husband’s corpse. There was a frown, then a swollen numb expression Gray couldn’t judge.
“Oh, he’s dead.”
She was still naked. And it was funny to see her fold her hands over her breasts while looking at her husband’s corpse.
Lyla looked at her and Gray with large eyes. “W-Why are the two of you naked? And m-my lady I beg forgiveness. I didn’t want-”
Gray stood up and waved a hand at her. “It’s fine. You don’t have to worry about her anymore.”
Lyla stared at him. “What?”
“Now ladies,” Gray calmed his breathing. What was done was done. Now he just needed to find a fucking way out of the mess. “We need a way to cover this up.”
Lyla was still trying to process what was going on, but Andria nodded. “It can be an accident.”
“Then it’s going be a darn funny accident for him to get stabbed at least ten times in the back and then in the head. We need something credible.”
“We can run away,” Andria’s eyes brightened. “I-”
“Enough with the running away!” Gray snapped, louder than he imagined. “No one is running away. I will stay in this damn town until half of the women are impregnated.”
“Gray?” Lyla gave him a strange look. “What are you talking about? Impregnation? And w-what is going on between you and Lady Andria?”
Gray turned to her, showing his penis. For some reason, it got a slow erection the moment he exposed himself to her. “Do you recognize this tattoo, Lyla?”
At first, she looked at him to see if he was playing a practical joke, but then her eyes caught the tattoo.
She gasped. “Oh god…oh no…” Then her eyes moved to Andria, and then the tattoo on her belly. “By the divine-”
“Now’s not the time,” Gray swatted her off. “I’ll explain everything later. We have a dead noble. We’ll need to clean this up and bury him.”
“And then?” Andria raised one eyebrow. “What am I supposed to say to other nobles? What about his business associates? What about his heritage? Do you even know what will happen to me?”
Gray looked at the corpse. How did the bastard even escape? He was bound by fairy magic.
He wished Kitra would miraculously appear and tell him it was a practical joke. But Gray was sure even fairies had a limit in their sense of humor.
“In this kingdom,” Gray knelt down beside the corpse and closed the old bastard’s eyes. But even then his face wasn’t a sight to see. “What are the natural ways for the nobility to die?”
“Secret assassinations,” Andria said. “Poisoning, the disease from the mists…but for him to be assassinated he should have strong political enemies. The ones he had wouldn’t dare to touch him. For the mists to affect him he should walk out of the kingdom, that never happened either. And stabs cannot be considered as poisoning.”
“There’s one,” Lyla looked at both of them. She suddenly had the eyes of Sia. The Sia who looked at Gray defiantly when he wanted to fuck her so bad. “But all three of us have to swear upon it.”
Gray sighed. “Say it, Lyla. All three of us are partners in this crime. There’s no way one of us will get out of here alive.”