The audacity of a man to avoid being stabbed by my blade when it was clear that he needed it. That audacity meant that at least I could play a little.

  "Why would you be out here if for no other reason than to vex me? You came during a challenge."

  The man sidestepped my thrust. "I'm here to work, just like you. I just have a different job."

  "Give me one reason why I shouldn’t skewer you right here and now. We were told about people trying to pretend to get out of this challenge."

  I had to admit it. He was fast. He dodged my blade and kept moving. I admired a man with a bit of speed. It just felt kind of lazy that he was here cleaning up his mess after all the other people had left.

  "Officially the ones that were named to the high rank were only here less than half a day ago. So anyone left would have had to make their way back to the mainland on their own."

  He stepped back ducking underneath my blade. Once again, I had to admit that he had a tenacious will to live.

  "Could you stop doing that?"

  He dodged another thrust. Clever male.

  I changed tactics, putting my knife into the other hand and raising my arm up. If he was going to dodge something from straight on then an overhand swing might be the ticket.

  I couldn't blame him. I could feel my eyes bulging. I didn't need this kind of grief. If word got out that we'd spared somebody or that someone had snuck in and done something shady then my company was going to be the one that was at risk. Not only the company, but my paycheck.

  "I don't like when people mess with my money. So how about you just die and stay dead like a good boy."

  In fact, if he hadn't been so pleasant looking, this would have been a much faster kill, but I had no problem admitting that I'd like to play with my food. He wasn't even food. He might just be enough to wet the cat a little bit. I could always use a little bit of thrill.

  Using a bit of it would move this battle along a little faster. I would need most of it for any of the heavier bodies.

  That would be like wasting energy. I did not want to waste energy on this man. I barely wanted to even see him. I just knew that I didn't want a bad review or something to come of this.

  The company did not need any more bad reviews or people writing up things about us that could lead to us not getting any more jobs. There were enough issues in the world, especially with the courts up in ours about this, that and the other fae.

  Fighting him was exhausting just like how I imagined high fae were with their four or five fated mate lovers that they always pretended to enjoy.

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  Really? Who would need more than one? It had to be a hassle just to keep up one male’s emotional needs.

  He was pretty good at dodging at the least. He was fresh, where I had been moving corpses. If there's one thing that the business didn't prepare me for was how much dead weight a dead body actually felt like.

  "Look! Please stop! I don't need this—we can just split up amicably."

  My knife got stuck in a tree. "That's exactly what my ex husband told me."

  I wrenched it free. He looked like he was grinning. I could sell that for him real fast. He held up both hands as I removed the knife.

  "Look, I'll do whatever you want. I'm a great guy. I just need to not die. I finally got back home when I took care of..."

  I gave him a once-over. He was handsome but not overly so. He looked strong but I doubted he would be able to survive out here on his own. This led to the idea that he must have had some sort of support to get here or he would have had to arrive in some special way. You couldn't just sneak onto the islands. You'd have to take a boat and that would be very visible unless...

  "How did you get here?"

  He visibly gulped. "A canoe. Look, whatever it is you need, I can do it. You want me to carry the bodies for you? I can do that. I can bring you water or heck do you want to escape here? You work for the night court, right?"

  For a brief moment, I considered withdrawing my knife. It would be nice to use someone else to do my dirty work. Even though I'd signed up for this and it was simple, it wasn't always the best use of my time. And what lady didn't want a male to take care of some things for her.

  I held a knife out at him. Perhaps, I loosened my grip a little bit. It was a tempting offer.

  "Suppose I work for the night court. Why the hell would I trust you in any way?"

  "Look I'm going to be honest with you here. This was a shit job and I'm going to quit. I need something else."

  I blinked several times. "Come again?"

  He grabbed his belt and began to take out his short sword. Then he unsheathed and tossed it.

  "You're probably going to need that."

  "I don't want to fight anymore. If you're going to f****** kill me then do it. If you're not going to kill me then I would just appreciate it if you help me"

  He was kind of cute in a way. I could accept that. I would have to think of a way to get him into my service.

  "Let's make a bargain." I cracked a smile, tapping into the thrill.

  Before long we'd worked something out.

  No, some of them might want to trick a human or try to get them into some eternal servitude but I didn't have the brain space for that. I didn't want to have to deal with the mental load.

  I had more important things to do and one of those was to get this man working for me.

  "You can start by loading up that corpse. We're going to take that one away."

  I pointed down the direction of where my cart was. There was no way he was not going to get bloody just doing this so I suggested to him to take off his shirt and I was pleasantly surprised.

  I heard tales of humans being in exquisite physical shape and this was one of the better ones that I had seen.

  "It's Martin by the way."

  "What is?"

  "My name. I never got yours."

  "I never offered it to you." If he wanted the right to call me by my name, he would have to earn it. Just avoiding my stabbings wasn't enough for me to say that he was going to get my name.