The words were not boastful. It was a reflection, the one that he had never gotten a chance to.
Vanessa remained silent for a few seconds, absorbing what he had said. The playful edge from earlier had faded, replaced by something strange. Her hands tightened on the railing and her breathing had suddenly gone faster.
Julian, still caught too deeply in his own reflections, did not immediately notice the shift in her.
Vanessa turned away from him.
"You are not Kraven, are you?"
The words jolted Julian back to reality.
Everything he had just spoken washed through his mind at once.
In trying to answer her honestly, he had subconsciously made himself look suspicious. Vanessa had always carried doubts about him after he returned from exile. Recently those doubts had softened, and she had begun to open up again. Now, in a single unguarded conversation, he had dragged all of that suspicion back to the surface.
Should I kill her?
A cold thought rose in his mind.
