To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 (24 page)

“I drive,” she said, rubbing the little droplets of blood on her black jeans and snatching the car keys from Kerrick’s hand.

He stopped her from entering the car with a small kiss to her cheek, stolen as she walked past. He raised her hands to inspect the damage, wiping away the lines of blood to see the small punctures already healing.

“The scars you have…”

“Magic infused,” she confirmed, the only way they wouldn’t heal.

He dropped one of her hands to run his up the side of her torso, slipping beneath her shirt to rest heavy and warm along her back. “The one on your spine?”

“The blade was magic. The wound stayed open for a week.”

“Who—”

Unable to keep from luxuriating in his scent, she leaned into him and nuzzled his neck with her lips, her teeth nipping his skin lightly. His hand tugged her closer. “That’s a story for another time.”

“I want to know you.”

“You will,” she said, pushing away and opening the driver side door. “But I need to make you work for it at least a little.”

“I don’t think you understand how this goes,” he said, corning her against the door and the entrance to the car, his scent wafted over her and with it she smelled the delicious additives of arousal and excitement. “I man. You woman. I always drive.”

“Oh shut up.” She tried not to laugh at his antics, wanting to wrap a cold anger around her heart to fortify her for the coming mission. But it seemed it didn’t matter how tight or hard she’d pulled her shields in around her, he would always get through. Her
mate
. For the first time since they’d locked eyes on the big lawn of The Mansion, the thought of having a mate wasn’t as terrifying as it seemed. Instead, it was comforting. It was right.

“All right, all right. I suppose I could let you play servant and drive me around. Although if you’re gonna commit to this, you need to serve all my needs, and you left me hanging a little on that plane, love.”

“See?” she said after they were settled in the car. “This mating will never work. I already want to kill you.”

“Drive, lowly servant.” He nearly missed her hand as it slapped him upside the head. Nearly.

They first stopped at the post office where she kept her P.O. Box. It was a few counties over from the general area of her cabin, but she liked it better that way. If someone ever followed her from the post office, she would have ample time to detect them before leading the bastards to her home, and then indirectly to Irisi. The thought always made her smile. When had the protection and safety of that small girl become more important than the secrecy of her identity?

The package was the usual size, a nondescript manila envelope with around ten pages of information on the target. Name, background, physical description and what the alleged crimes were. It was up to her to find the person and dispose of them in a timely and inconspicuous manner. She exchanged glances with Kerrick after retrieving it, an unspoken anger bouncing between them towards the person who’d been sending these assignments. Who was it? How could that person have known who she was? The more she thought about it the angrier she became. She’d always thought of the role she played within Were society as an honor. Quietly protecting the innocents of their territory and this person was using her for their own means. It defiled the position and disrespected all the years she’d trained and sacrificed a normal life to become the best.

They reached the dirt road that turned onto the cabin a couple hours later. It seemed her worry of discovery after the fight with Irisi’s father was unnecessary. Everything was as it should be after an initial inspection upon exiting the car.

“So,” Kerrick said, walking into the cabin and taking a nosy look around. He was too large for the space, his presence alone filling what used to be a hollow spot made singularly for the purpose of shelter. Having him there made it something more personal. “How long have you lived here?”

“Ten years. I am technically only supposed to remain in one area for six to eight years. With Iri here and needing me…” She trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence when she saw his warm smile. His appreciation of her love for Irisi tickled her heart and amped up her pulse.

She set the package on the kitchen table and walked into the walk-in pantry. There was a floorboard in the far right corner that to an outsider’s eye would only appear slightly warped. She pressed it with her foot, a whooshing sound disturbing the air as the panel mechanically lowered itself to reveal a storage area. She grabbed the sides of the container and lifted the square metal bin out of its hiding spot. There were many other places in the cabin that were similar to this spot but this one was her most precious.

“What’s that?” Kerrick pointed to the metal bin she placed on the kitchen table.

“One of the few rules I ever broke in my years as Incendiary, my relationship with Iri not included,” she said with a heavy sigh, using her thumbprint on a touchpad to electronically unlock the bin.

Kerrick smoothed his hand down her back, his middle finger trailing the scar on her spine and coming to rest on her hip to pull her close. “Tell me.”

She opened it. Stacks of papers and manila folders identical to the one lying on the table stared up at them. Every Were, every assignment she’d ever had. Marcus’s folder was the latest one, lying on top. It had a red X across the picture of his ID. Underneath she’d written one large word in blue sharpie.
INNOCENT.
She usually didn’t defile the files, but she’d been pissed after that particular discovery.

“I’m supposed to destroy them. Memorize the information and then burn the folder so nothing can be traced back to me or the sender.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She shrugged, feeling oddly disjointed, staring at this stack of names and faces she’d wiped from the planet as her mate stood next to her. She didn’t like him seeing this side of her, even though she’d been lecturing him on how this was who and what she was since the moment he met her. Well, here was the proof. The many people she had assassinated in her years as Incendiary.

“There must have been a reason,” he pressed.

“I didn’t— I don’t know.”

“You do. Tell me. Let me know you,” he whispered, the world falling away to leave them at the center of the universe.

“I was trained to forget them. That’s the point of separating the Incendiary from society during their training. We are taught to treat the targets as objects. It makes the constant hunting easier, helps us keep emotional responses to a minimum. The Incendiary is never a Wereborn. Purposeful hunting is not natural to us. The control is something essential we must learn, more for us than Turned Weres. I guess…even with all the training I could never fully separate myself from the reality that the rogues, the assignment, used to be a good person. They had a mother, a family, maybe siblings or children…a mate. They meant something to someone. I hunted criminals as well, but in those early years it was mostly rogues. Rogues do not start out as rogues, and as you kill them you can see the madness recede and their souls return before dying.”

He brought his hand from her waist to her shoulder, pulling her into his chest and kissing her forehead.

“I do not need comfort, Kerrick. I have been doing this for years.”

He braced her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. His expression was severe and she couldn’t help but fall a little more in love with him then, no matter how infuriating his need to protect her could be. It also felt nice. More than nice, it was like something necessary she had been missing. Like only one of her lungs had worked up until now.

“I don’t care how long you’ve trained for this, or how many Weres you’ve hunted. It doesn’t make you less human, Cimby.”

“I am not just human anymore.”

“No. We aren’t just human. But even the Wereborn share their souls with a human side. It gives us a conscious. Lets us see the gray between the black and white. They tried to hammer that out of you but they couldn’t.” He framed her face, his expression lightening. A look of pride and love making his lips curl. “You were too strong for them to ever give that part of yourself away. It was a battle you would have died fighting.” He kissed her, hard and fast, and whispered against her lips, “Gods, it makes me love you even more, if that’s possible.”

It was the first time he ever said it to her. Those words. Words she never thought she’d be allowed to hear. It drove her crazy. This man drove her crazy with lust and need and yes, with love. He saw all she’d done. This stack of death that she’d wrought with her own hands and he still wanted her. He was too good. Too good for her. She should push him away. Let him continue being a good man without the taint of her deeds marring his perfection.

Cimby learned something about herself at that moment. She was far more selfish than she ever gave herself credit for—selfish because she would never let him go. Seriously this time, she thought,
Fuck it
.

“Kerrick.” She kissed him, trailing her tongue along his lips and dipping inside. Needing him with a ferocity and almost psychotic edge she’d never felt before. She bit his lips and he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet so he could attack her mouth with his. Plunder the goods within and claim her with his passion.

“Mine,” he growled again. But this time she had an answer.

“Yes.” She groaned, feeling his cock grinding into her core. “Yes. Yours. You’re mine.
Mine
.” She pulled his mouth away and narrowed her eyes on his neck. She took aim and felt her teeth lengthen in her mouth. “You’re my mate, and I’m not letting you go.” She bit him.

He roared. The sound a mix of all the fiercest creatures ever known to walk the planet. He held them all within his spirit and he used that power to dig hooks into her own soul and hold tight as she left her mark. She used what little magic her Were spirit gave her and claimed him, his blood dripping down around her chin and mouth from the wound she tore into his neck.

He turned them around, shoving the bin full of files off the table with a simple flick of his hand. His strength made her insides melt, prompting her to dig her teeth in deeper. She wasn’t gentle. She needed him to feel how desperate she was to keep him. He laid her flat on the table and tore her jeans off, the fabric nearly disintegrating with all the power he was discharging. The zipper on his jeans followed, he shoved them out of the way enough to get his beautifully hard cock free.

He didn’t wait. He didn’t prep her. She didn’t need it. The moment she’d felt her teeth enter his skin she’d lost herself to lust and her pussy became so wet it wept for a hard cock to fill it. His hard cock.

“Take me,” she growled around his bloody skin, continuing to infuse her magic into his skin and blood. His beautifully hard shaft pushed into her, stretching her wet passage like no one before him. The shaft pulsed, lengthened, widened. She came the instant he thrust inside, the magic bouncing between them acting as an aphrodisiac in addition to his masculine body.

“Yesss,” he hissed as her pussy walls clenched around his cock, holding still until her orgasm began to ebb. He pulled out quickly and thrust back in with the force of a battering ram. It was hard and delicious and completely animalistic. “Mine.” He enforced that edict with another forceful thrust. Just from those few thrusts alone she was beginning to climb towards orgasm once more.

“You only come for me.” The pace of his thrusts picked up. “You only want me. You only love me.” He stilled inside her after a particularly intense claiming. “Tell me.” His voice was soft but no less dominant. The cadence of his rumbling voice seemed to vibrate from her heart to her pussy.

He licked her neck, teasing the spot he would claim for his own, to leave his mark so no one would attempt to touch her.

“Tell me, love.” He began a slow, grinding rhythm, made to drive her mad. She needed to come, but he wouldn’t let her. Not until she gave him what he wanted.

“Tell me, Cimby. My Cymbeline.” His thrusts picked up again, his growls and grunts getting louder. She could feel his cock stiffening farther inside her. She wanted to speak. Wanted to tell him what he needed to hear, but he was fucking her so good she could barely think let alone open her mouth to form words.

Her hands tore his shirt away, scratching his back and leaving a different kind of mark. Gods, it was all so good. It was too much, but she still wanted more. She lifted her legs to wrap around his waist and encourage his claiming.

“I love you,” he said. “Love me.” And she did. Gods, did she love him.

She pulled her teeth away from his skin, eliciting a snarl from him. “I love you. I love you,” she cried as his cock ground into her clit, shooting her orgasm right to that precipice. Her gut tightened, the feeling coiling within her, waiting to fall and shoot her over the cliff into bliss. “I love you, Kerrick. You’re mine.”

He roared once more and dug his teeth into her skin. The pain and magic from his bite forcing her climax over the edge. It was such blissful pain. A mix of ecstasy and torture. Joy and sorrow. She would never again be just herself, but at the same time she would never be alone.

His thrusts were pounding now as he reached his own climax, joining their souls together as a mated pair. As he came inside her, the hot, delicious jets of his seed coating her walls, he pulled his teeth away and kissed her, mixing their life blood and magic.

Kerrick felt undone. He’d just had the most powerful climax of his life, the woman he loved said she loved him back, and he was still hard and aching for her. Still needed to have more. He pulled out of her quickly and flipped her onto her stomach. She was bent over the table, her ass and pussy staring at him, daring him to take. And take he did.

“More.” He heard her moan as she dug her fingers into the table. He used his mouth on her sweet and wet sex to drive her wild. She tasted like honeysuckle, with that hint of lavender to keep him coming back for more. But mostly she tasted like his. She tasted like how his mate should taste. His Cimby howled and cried his name, her claws coming out and raking the wood of the table. It was beyond sexy.