Marked by an Assassin (20 page)

The bastard thought him lowly and disgusting, and that speaking with him or being in his presence was beneath him.

Harbin bared his fangs on a snarl, concealing the intake of breath that he pulled over his teeth to catch the male’s scent.

A witch.

No wonder the bastard had been able to sneak up on him. Harbin despised witches. He curled his lip at the wretch, feeling it was only fair he let the male see what he thought of him since he had been so kind as to make his feelings about Harbin clear as day.

The witch narrowed red eyes on him. Everything about this male was darkness incarnate, from his black trousers and the long black robe he wore over the top of them, to his black hair, to the scent and sense of magic that bled from him. “Well?”

It took Harbin a moment to recall that there had been a question, and when he did, he barely hid the shock that rippled through him.

Aya hadn’t hired the guild to kill her.

This male had.

He stared the male down, swiftly studying him and putting everything about him to memory. Why would a witch hire him to kill Aya?

He took another deep breath and stilled.

It was subtle, but hidden amongst the scent of death and magic, was one that was all too familiar to him.

A scent that was branded on him and one he could never forget.

The scent of the Archangel huntress who had betrayed him.

A growl rumbled up his throat but he caught it in time, holding it inside, and schooled his features to hide the emotions running riot inside him. The male was allied with the bitch he had been searching for since that night twenty years ago.

He was being played all over again.

“I’d love to kill her… but I’m under strict orders to wait for my boss and a fellow assassin to get their arses here.” Harbin folded his arms across his chest, positioning his fingers on his biceps in such a way that the male would see his claws were out and he was ready for a fight if he made a move.

The witch’s eyes narrowed into fiery slits. “You require three males to kill one little female? Perhaps we have hired the wrong guild.”

We. Either there was more than one witch involved, or he was talking about the Archangel huntress he was in league with.

Harbin snorted. “My part of the job is purely tracking. Fuery wants the kill, and I don’t tend to deny Fuery anything. He has a tendency to kill people for that sort of thing.”

The way the male’s skin blanched told Harbin that he was aware of Fuery and knew the legends that surrounded him.

Legends that were all true.

The witch stared at him for long seconds, a calculating edge to his red gaze, and then nodded stiffly. “Very well.”

He disappeared.

Harbin’s shoulders sagged and he looked back towards the place where Aya had been, but was now gone. He didn’t trust the witch. The bastard’s eyes had slid towards where Aya had been walking just before he had nodded. Was he going to go after her?

Was he on to him?

Harbin was sure that he hadn’t revealed his surprise to the male, or the anger that had washed through him on realising who the male was working for and that he was being set up again, but what he didn’t show on the surface could easily be detected by a spell.

He stared at the spot on the street where Aya had been, focusing on her scent and drawing deep breaths of air down into his lungs to catch it again. She would be heading home now, having passed the evening meandering around the late night shops and some cafes that stayed open into the small hours.

The Archangel huntress had hired him to kill her.

The thought of finally getting his hands on her and having his vengeance reawakened the colder, emotionless and lethal part of himself that had been in command for the past twenty years, filling his mind with pleasing images of luring her to her death.

The woman wanted him to kill Aya, because she knew Aya was connected to him.

He could use Aya to draw the woman and the witch out, and eliminate them both in one fell swoop.

His deeper primal instincts pushed back against that idea, focusing on what would happen to Aya if he walked down that dark path.

The huntress must have known Aya back when she had been a captive of Archangel and now she was using her to get to him. He couldn’t use Aya in the same way. His every instinct demanded that he protect her and keep her close to him, and did nothing that might endanger her.

She was his mate.

It was imprinted on him, unshakable and undeniable, even when he wanted to pretend otherwise. The instincts as her male ran deep in his blood and his bones and he couldn’t ignore them. They were stronger than the new instincts that had been born in the bloody aftermath of that night two decades ago, the ones he had honed until they were as sharp as the blades he favoured as an elite assassin.

More powerful than the ones that whispered this was a golden opportunity to put an end to the bitch who had haunted him for twenty years and finally lay his ghosts to rest.

He stood at the edge of the rooftop as a war raged inside him, the two sides of him battling as he struggled to see the right path to take. Could he really allow this opportunity to pass him by?

He had been waiting twenty years to face the Archangel huntress, had searched for her across all the continents, following even the smallest breadcrumb in his desperation to redeem himself and shed the weight of his sins from his shoulders.

He growled and tore his eyes away from the direction of Aya’s apartment, fury curling through his veins and mingling with the guilt there.

What kind of a sick son of a bitch was he?

He knew Aya was his fated female, yet there was a part of him that was willing to risk her life in order to finally have his vengeance, sating the need that had been burning inside him for twenty long years and had kept him marching forwards through a dark existence, treading a path that could only do him harm towards a future that grew blacker the longer he kept walking it.

He couldn’t turn back though.

It was too late for that.

He didn’t care about saving himself from whatever harm life as an assassin was doing to him. He didn’t care that it was killing him, stripping him of feeling and making him disconnect from the world he had once loved, leaving him feeling that he couldn’t trust anyone. Not even Hartt.

He only cared about avenging his family and his pride.

He only cared about righting his wrongs.

He only cared about protecting her.

Once Aya was safe and the huntress was dead, he would return to his life as an assassin and he would never see her again.

A scream rent the night air and Harbin’s head snapped up, his gaze instantly zeroing in on the direction it had come from.

A chill ran through him and he was moving before he had even thought about what he was doing, driven to reach the source of that terrified shriek.

Aya.

He knew it in his blood as it thundered through his veins, felt it in his blackened soul as he leaped the gap between two buildings and sprinted across the flat roof. She was in trouble. He had to reach her.

He palmed the pocket of his combat trousers as he dropped to the street close to her home, feeling the slender tube in it and the weight of what he had to do.

She wasn’t safe in London anymore.

He had to take her away to a place where she would be protected.

He hit the pavement and kicked off, launching himself forwards, towards two shadowy figures in the alley next to her apartment building. As they shifted to face him, he caught a glimpse of creamy skin and bright silver eyes beyond them, and snarled through his emerging fangs. He wouldn’t let them hurt Aya.

He hurled himself at the two males, tackling them both head on. The left one sidestepped, coming to stand under the single light in the alleyway. He looked like the male from the rooftop, but his eyes were eerily blue. Harbin didn’t break his stride. It wouldn’t be the first time he had dealt with copies. They were often mistaken for siblings, but Harbin’s nose and experience told him that these ones weren’t true twins. They were clones created by magic, and that meant the male he had met on the rooftop was pouring his power into the two sacks of flesh before him, weakening himself.

Making it easier for Harbin to kill him.

He snarled and lashed out with his claws, raking them across the chest of the male on the right. The male cried out and staggered backwards, a horrified look crossing his face before it darkened and he launched himself at Harbin.

Harbin ducked, coming beneath the fist the male swung at him and up behind him. He kicked the male in the back, sending him flying across the alleyway, colliding with the other copy. The two went down in a heap. Weak. The male was already withdrawing his power from them, strengthening himself. He was sacrificing the two.

A pale blur shot past him, hitting the wall a few metres above Harbin’s head, and then darted across the space between the buildings.

Aya.

She was nimble as she leaped from building to building in an effort to escape. She wouldn’t be quick enough though, not unless he did something to buy her time. The red-eyed male was already on the move, heading after her.

Harbin slammed his fist into the first copy, knocking him out with a single blow, and swept his leg around as he turned to face the other one, bringing it high into the air. He drove the heel of his boot into the side of his head, sending him crashing back down on the ground. The male grunted and started to get up again.

Harbin pulled the tube from his pocket, shoved a feathered dart into it, and blew hard. The male slapped a hand over his neck, his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped onto the tarmac.

Damn.

Harbin checked the pouch in his pocket and grimaced. Gods, he needed to be more careful. The dart he had grabbed in his panic was laced with the deadliest poison in Hell, drawn from the blood of the hydras that lived deep in the Devil’s domain. If he had mistakenly used that one on Aya… it didn’t bear thinking about.

“What the merry hell do you think you are doing?” The witch’s voice echoed around the dimly lit alley.

Harbin glared at him. “This is our fucking job, and I won’t tolerate interference. Our guild doesn’t take too kindly to people who hire us and then finish the job themselves. Unless you want to deal with one pissed off dark elf, I suggest you back the fuck off and let us do our work.”

The witch’s red eyes narrowed but Harbin refused to back down. Instead, he shifted to face him, bracing his feet shoulder-width apart, his fingers twitching against the tube in his hand and his thoughts on plucking another dart laced with hydra toxin and shooting the bastard with it. The male glanced down at it and then back up at his face, locking gazes with him.

“Very well… but we expect a result within the time limit, or it will be your head rolling.”

Black smoke swirled around the witch and when it dissipated, he was gone.

Wretch. Harbin didn’t trust him. It was a long shot, but hopefully he had done enough to cover his tracks and the witch had bought what he had said and had actually left the area and wasn’t watching from the shadows.

He raised his head, silver eyes searching for Aya.

He spotted her near the top of the building and nimbly used the same trick to reach it, leaping higher and faster than she had, his body more powerful than hers would ever be. He kicked off hard near the top and sailed over her head, coming to land in front of her.

She stopped dead, her enormous eyes catching the moonlight, glowing with fear and with something else he didn’t dare name. That something else grew stronger as she ran a glance over him and he gritted his teeth, willing his body not to respond to the heated look. She was his mate but she would never be his, and the quicker he got that through his thick skull, the better it would be for both of them.

It didn’t matter how much he wanted her.

Needed her.

They could never be together.

“I killed one… but they’ll be coming back for you,” he growled and advanced a step towards her. Her cream satin slip fluttered in the cool breeze, luring his gaze down to her shapely legs. He resisted and kept his gaze locked with hers and his focus on his business with her. “You’re not safe here anymore.”

Her eyes widened further and he felt the shock that rippled through her. It ran through him too, a warning sign that he couldn’t ignore. Their paths were already entwining, their souls pulling together into a union he couldn’t allow. He had to act fast, for her sake, because being so close to her was stirring something dangerous inside him.

Awakening a feral need for her.

One he wasn’t sure he would be able to resist as it was now, let alone when it grew stronger as he knew it would.

He had to get her to safety, figure out his plan and get it done soon or he was going to lose control, and end up doing something they would both regret.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered and she frowned at him.

He chose the tranquiliser dart from the container in his pocket, slid it into the tube and brought it to his lips. He fixed his eyes on her neck and blew, and she flinched as the dart struck.

Her legs buckled.

Harbin couldn’t stop himself from catching her, crossing the distance between them with a single leap to cushion her fall with his arms. He froze and stared down at her, breathing hard as the scent of her and her warmth curled around him, seeping into him.

Marking him.

He pulled her closer to his chest and eyed the dart that protruded from her neck. She didn’t even twitch as he gently pulled it from her flesh and discarded it. Blood blossomed where it had been and he was lowering his head and pressing his lips to that spot before he could get the better of himself.

Heat bloomed inside him as her blood coated his lips, flowing down into his chest and filling it with light. He shook as he breathed her in and tasted her, and gathered her even closer. It still wasn’t enough.

He needed more of her.

Harbin lifted his head and stared down at her. The moon turned her skin white and perfect, and her silvery eyebrows and lashes sparkled in its gentle light.