To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 (19 page)

“How old was she then? She can’t be more than nine or ten now, that’s too early for a Wereborn’s first shift.” Eight or nine, the years just before puberty were the appropriate time for a Wereborn to begin shifting. The shifts were usually spontaneous and the child needed to be taught rigorous control to gain the upper hand over their unruly animal spirit. It was not the human half alone that goes through bodily changes during that time of life. The animal can have mood swings as well.

“She is older than she looks.” Cimby rested her chin on Kerrick’s chest, gazing up at him with a worried frown. “She has not aged properly, which is something else we need to look into while she is residing here. I first thought it was malnutrition, but I’ve made sure the kid is fed properly since knowing her. I think it’s a magic thing, zapping her energy.”

That assessment of her improper aging felt right, but from the constant glances Cimby cast towards The Mansion, there was more to the story concerning the waifish redhead. “Did something happen to the adopted parents?”

“The mother died when she was around three, I think. The father became a religious zealot and…she did not have an easy childhood,” she said, pushing away from him. “Let’s leave it at that.” Kerrick didn’t know how to make this better. She clearly cared for the girl, was connected by deep emotional ties, and yet she spoke of this girl’s dark childhood like an automaton. There was no passion, no angry indignation of how the child had so obviously been abused. Was this the only way for Cimby to process emotion, by glossing over it? Kerrick reached to tangle his hands in her hair and pull her close, needing to feel what was really happening under her stoic façade.

She turned away from him to pull another bag out of the trunk and let it fall to the ground. Her voice was deep and empty, devoid of any feeling when she spoke again.

“She had the most beautiful golden-red hair.” Her hands curled into fists, betraying the first hint of true emotions. “It was so long and thick. He had her shave it as a punishment.”

When his mate turned back to him, there was more than enough fire in her eyes to prove that she wasn’t some empty weapon to be used at the Alphar’s disposal. In fact, Kerrick could see, despite her training to do otherwise, his Cimby felt all too much. How had she lived in seclusion for so long, coming out of hiding only to kill? And why her? Why was Cymbeline chosen at birth to be the Incendiary? What made her so different from all the other shifters that she had to be raised and trained in solitude?

“So you took her from her adopted father?”

“Excuse me?” she snapped, focusing her golden, anger filled eyes in his direction. Her rage was potent, simmering just beneath the cap and about to boil over if she didn’t giver herself an outlet. “You would have rather I put her in the human system? Because that is what would have happened if I had reported to the authorities that her father, her
father
, the man responsible for her, had been torturing her for most of her life.” She slammed the trunk closed, the force of it breaking the glass of the taillights, and through it all her face remained impassive while her feelings bled through her eyes. “I should have taken her away from that bastard years ago. Hell, when I first met her. I justified it in my mind though, saying it wasn’t my place as Incendiary to step in. I wasn’t supposed to involve myself with normal people. Had to keep my distance.”

“Cimby,” Kerrick said softly, seeing her limbs begin to shake and worried for the tenuous hold she had on her anger and frustration. “I’m not criticizing your choice in taking her away from the bastard. You did the right thing. She’ll be safe here.” He placed his hand under chin, forcing her to look at him. “I’ll keep her safe. I promise. Did her father do this to you?”

She nodded, her lips thinning.

“He’s dead.” She gave a quick nod in affirmation even though he hadn’t asked a question. He would never have expected his mate to leave that man alive after hurting the child and then scarring her face.

She stared at him for a long moment, her hard eyes flickering from side to side, taking in his face, searching for something. He didn’t know what. “I hate you,” she said with such vehemence he almost believed it. But there was something else there. A bewildering yet wonderful emotion he’d been feeling since he first laid eyes on her.

“What did I do now?” he asked, trying not to smile, knowing it would not be appreciated.

“You made me miss you—you asshole.” She punched him in the shoulder. He was again impressed by her strength since the punch actually hurt a little. “Even though you were keeping me here, chained like a dog.” She punched him again, this time in the chest and slightly more painful. “Like your own personal sex slave. You do not do that to people. You do not do that to the person you think is your mate.” He went to hold her but she pushed away, her anger riding high now.

“I thought I would just find her a new family here, but after this, I don’t think I could trust another family to take care of her.” The tension drained from her shoulders and she rested her hip against the car, her righteous anger deflating like air out of a balloon.

“Why can’t you be her new family?” He kept his distance but walked around to see her freshly burnt face. The twisted flesh enraged his Beast. Kerrick’s sadistic side wished the bastard was still alive so he could do that to every inch of his body. Over and over again.

She looked at him like he was daft. “Please, explain to me how you think an assassin is a good role model for a young girl.”

Kerrick shook his head with a frustrated laugh, unwilling to let that go on any longer. “Cymbeline.” She raised her eyebrows upon hearing her full name and the serious tone in his voice. “We can fight about this all you want later, but for this moment I am going to speak.” She growled. “And you are going to listen.” She crossed her arms and frowned but didn’t interrupt. Miracles did happen.

“Cimby, your absence these past few days has made it explicitly clear that you are my mate. Whether or not you choose to accept me, you will always be mine. I choose you. I know you’re mine because I feel it in my soul. I feel it in my skin, my bones, my blood. You are in my heart with every breath I take.” Her hands fell to her sides and the angry expression morphed into one of pain and confusion. Her hands tangled in her hair, tugging at the strands in frustration.

“I’m an assassin, Kerrick—”

“You’re my mate first, that’s what you are,” he said, cupping her face and kissing the burnt skin.

“No,” she growled, circling his wrists tightly. “I have been defined by this one thing my entire life. Incendiaries don’t have friends. Incendiaries don’t have dreams or fantasies. Incendiaries don’t have mates. Can’t mate. Then you come along and spin my whole life on its fucking axis and expect me to accept it and fall in line. I can’t be just your mate or just an Incendiary. If you want me, I need to be both. I have to be the Incendiary.”

“Someone else can do it. We can train a lone shifter who doesn’t want to involve themselves with a pack.”

“It doesn’t work that way. Incendiaries are not chosen at random. There is a reason we are kept away from other shifters.”

Kerrick leaned down and pushed their foreheads together, wanting her to open up and give him all of her. He was tired of her dodging the subject and giving him half answers.

“Then tell me what that reason is, damn it.”

“Don’t snarl at me.”

He let her go, doing exactly that. “Is this how it will always be between us? Me standing here with my arms open, begging you to give your trust to me? Do I need to give you a fucking order as your Alphar to get a straight answer? Perhaps I should just order you to quit being Incendiary. Maybe I need to do that to protect you from yourself,” he growled, pointing to the fresh mark on her face. “Is that what I need to do to get any reaction out of you?”

She stood there. No screaming. No growling. Nothing to show any sort of emotion in reaction to his outburst. A few minutes of standing and staring at one another passed before she walked towards him and rose on her tiptoes to kiss him. His lips instantly responded, acting on instinct, not caring that he felt her Wolf’s anger simmering beneath her skin.

Cimby pulled back, brushing his hair off his face. “You may be the Alphar, and there is a slight, minuscule chance that you are my mate, but you will never talk to me like that again. If you ever try to control me, like you did with the cuffs, I will geld you. If you cannot trust me to do what I was born to do, this will never work. Figure it out, Kerrick.” With that, she pushed away from him, climbed into one of the pack SUVs that had the keys inside, and drove off the property.

He watched her drive away, knowing she’d be back since Irisi was still in The Mansion and Cimby wouldn’t abandon her. After a few minutes Rhiannon and Aaron stepped to either side of him.

“Want us to follow her?” Rhiannon asked softly.

“Are the visiting soldiers settled in?”

“Yes, and the alphas that showed up,” Aaron said. “We have Leah and the Gators in the guest wing away from the Bobcats. You know they irk each other. What do you want us to do about Cymbeline?”

“Make sure she’s safe. But don’t be sneaky about it, just talk to her.”

The sound of Rhiannon’s laughter was like nails on a chalkboard in his agitated state. “This is fantastic. You are so bad at this relationship shit!”

Aaron clapped a hand on his shoulder before following Rhiannon into another car and said, “She’s the best thing that has ever happened to this place. Don’t fuck it up. I need more entertainment for my lonely, unfulfilled life.” Kerrick growled, but Aaron was out of range before he could swipe his claws at his Captain.

Kerrick was thinking about going for a run and ruminating on how he could get Cimby to not be pissed at him anymore, when his phone pinged a text from Aaron. He’d settled the girl in a room near Kerrick’s but not too near. Maybe he didn’t need to think too much about it, maybe there was someone in The Mansion who actually knew something about Cimby.

He grabbed the bags Cimby brought, then checked in with his and Leah’s soldiers’ progress on the scouting around Mara’s property before heading into the wing of The Mansion dedicated for his use. The door to Irisi’s new room was open but he knocked anyway, knowing how precious a young female’s privacy was. There was no answer so he poked his head around the doorframe to see her sitting in the open window, her legs dangling outside.

She had changed into some clothes The Mansion provided. A white T-shirt, sized for a child instead of the massive thing she’d been swimming in upon her arrival, and loose-fitted blue shorts. Raccoon shifters were nearly extinct. It was a gift to have her here at The Mansion so his people could protect her. Seeing her bony vertebrae sticking out of her skin through the shirt like little humps along her back made him want to kill the bastard who’d tortured this girl and hurt his mate all over again.

“You can come in,” she said with a slight Southern twang and turning to him, her shaved red hair glinting in the sunlight. “I don’t bite.”

He couldn’t help but return the mischievous grin she was sending over her shoulder, no matter how forced he could tell it was. She was still scared, and he had a very strong and sudden impulse to alleviate all of her fears. No wonder Cimby was so protective of the girl. “I appreciate that,” Kerrick said as he slowly put the bags on the floor. “I wouldn’t want rabies.”

“Rabies?”

“Well, you know what humans say, avoid raccoons out in the daylight. They must have rabies.”

She scoffed, the expression one he recognized from Cimby’s more sarcastic moments. “Please. I think my species had to adjust to diurnal living a long time ago. Especially with the whole half-human thing.” Then she smirked, turning her body around in the window to face him and added, “A flaw in my opinion. My ancestors should have stuck strictly to Raccoon. Human lives are too messy.”

Kerrick chuckled, sitting on the bed across from her spot in the window. “Tell me about yourself, Irisi.”

She shrugged, the smile fading. “I’m not that interesting.”

“Will you answer some questions for me?”

“You just want to know about Cimby,” she said intuitively, looking down at the floor and wringing her hands. “You can just ask me about her, ya know. I could smell your mating on her a mile away. I was waiting for her to mention it because she definitely wasn’t mated when she left. But she never tells me anything about what she does when she’s gone anyway. She’s trying to protect me, probably.”

The kid was babbling. She continued to chatter about Cimby, and as much as he wanted to listen, he couldn’t help but notice her shoulders shaking or the sweat forming on her brow. She was terrified of him and trying to keep it together. The only male role model she’d ever known had tortured her. This wouldn’t do.

“Irisi,” he said holding up a hand to gently halt her babble. “If Cimby wants to tell me those things, she will in her own time. You know how stubborn she is.”

“More than you could ever know,” the girl mumbled, relaxing slightly.

“I want to know about you, Irisi. But first, there is something we need to do.” He stood and inched towards the door. “It’s a time-honored tradition to induct you into residency at The Mansion.”

“Like a test?” she asked, hopping down from the window to follow him.

“No. Much better, I promise.” Kerrick exited the room and waited for Irisi to follow. The moment lasted a bit too long so he poked his head back into the room to find her rooting through one of the bags Cimby had brought with them to The Mansion.

“What are you looking for?”

“Cimby bought me a handkerchief for my head. I need it before we go roamin’ around.” She looked panicked, as though the thought of leaving the room and having people stare at her fuzzy head was a fate worse than death. Kerrick walked over and crouched next to her. She didn’t notice him until he gently took her hand and gave it a squeeze. Her hands were cold skin and bones.

“You don’t need it. You are one of the lucky few with a magnificently shaped head who can get away with a look like that.”