To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 (29 page)

This sort of battle was a mind game. They taunted each other, shoving image after image into one another’s mind, ripping the worst of nightmares from the depths of their subconscious, forcing them to watch. If hell was waiting for Kerrick upon his removal from this world, that would be what it felt like. Seeing his loved ones die, the people he had vowed to protect perish as he watched. Doing nothing. Useless. The terrified and tortured images of his friends, screaming for him to do something, to help them, all the while he just stood there, beleaguered with indifference.

It hurt so much to see his people falter. So much so he nearly succumbed to the visions and could have sworn it was his reality. If Kerrick had capitulated to that line of thinking, Mara would have won. She would have forced him to become trapped in his own nightmares, incapable of escape, his mind becoming his prison.

But then he had felt it. Something wrong with his bond, his link to Cymbeline. It no longer felt like the fierce radiance of her spirit. It was tainted with insanity, a craving for blood so pure he thought for sure she had been possessed.

It brought him back. Reminded him to fight for his friends, for his people, for the young woman who would be his daughter. For his mate. He attacked with renewed fervor, ripping through Mara’s mental shields, tearing the worst of her memories from her mind and forcing her to watch. A thousand years was a long time to collect and bury bad memories.

The scream that tore from Mara’s lips was gut wrenching, but he wouldn’t pull back, forcing her to see the atrocious things she had done. How she had turned from an innocent woman into a soulless creature bent on controlling those around her like pawns on a chessboard. Her stone-black eyes had seen through him at the start of the night, finding his weaknesses and using them against him. The tables turned, and all her eyes saw were the endless hallucinations he forced upon her.

A memory flashed before Kerrick’s mind. It wasn’t his, but Mara’s. There was a large man. A shifter. Kerrick gripped the memory with his power and pulled it to the edge of her mind. Mara screamed in pain but grinned at the same time. She wanted him to see this. In the memory there was a stack of envelopes on a table between Mara and the shifter. The shifter was twitchy, and the nervous ticks almost looked familiar to Kerrick.

“See,” Mara hissed through the pain and mental obliteration she endured through the onslaught of his power.

Knowing she was all but done for, he looked closer. The shifter was Riddan and a thin line of magic pulsed between him and Mara. The envelopes, they looked like the envelopes Cymbeline received her orders in.

“No,” he growled, pushing a hotter power into her, making her burn.

“Yes,” she screamed, then choked, crimson blood running down her chin. She was dying, but Kerrick needed to hear what she had to say. “Riddan was my puppet and nobody but I knew about your little Incendiary. I was going to send that dog, that bitch, to kill all the Weres standing in my way. Some were tests. But once you settled in the Alphar seat I was going to have your own assassin hunt you.” Her laugh was choked out, the slop of blood in her lungs making her sound as though she were speaking underwater. Enough. Mara had caused enough terror and pain to last another millennia. Her time was over.

“You’ll never touch her.”

Heat struck his face and the sphere of isolation burst. Kerrick turned to see Zach, bloody but still fighting, directing the blaze from the facility toward Mara, and consuming her. Zach fell to his knees, exhausted but determined, his face screwed up into one of intense concentration. Kerrick borrowed what power he had left within and lent what he could to the man’s endeavors, allowing himself to smile angrily as Mara released her last breath on this earth with a scream.

Kerrick offered his hand to help Zach up, clapping him on the back. His bones ached and the Beasts within him were all but asleep from the energy they’d drawn upon to fuel his strength. He observed the battlefield, shocked to see it empty of any bodies but those that lay dead on the ground, all save one. A lone figure stood, blood dripping from head to toe, hands curled into claws and fangs descended through her open-mouthed heavy panting. She was a glorious beast, he thought with a smile until he saw a shimmering purple substance leak from a gaping wound on her leg.

“Cimby?” he asked, taking a step toward her as her knees gave out. “Cimby!” he yelled, catching her before she hit the ground, whimpering in pain and falling into a deep unconscious sleep. Kerrick pulled the last of his strength from within his soul and roared like a Lion into the morning sky.

Kill. Attack. Bite. Claw. Kill.

Her Wolf chanted in tune with their berserker nature, having also been taken over by the red haze. It was their pulse of life, their natural state of being. White noise in her mind. Cimby screamed again, the power and strength racing through her veins like a drug. Something like a whistle sounded and she could make out the forms of animals moving in one direction. She didn’t care. She only felt the sweet rush of adrenaline as the warrior within her took hold.

The world was red. The monster looked out from the depths of her soul and observed the remaining Vryks, the ones who refused to surrender, with an organic interest. The berserker form was forged from strength and insanity, but it was not a complicated being. It needed one thing to be satisfied. Death.

She spotted a Vryk searching for someone to attack. Alone in the field. The poison in Cimby’s leg was a thing of the past, a distant memory. Now there was only carnage and the Vryks she could see walking around, looking somewhat bewildered at the sudden retreat of the shifters.

When the Vryk spotted her he smiled, heading in her direction, fangs descended. Cimby took that as her cue to let it all just fucking go. She advanced on the Vryk with her own smile, so genuine, so full of joy, only angels would have known the difference. The corners of the Vryk’s mouth had just begun to peak up when she dug her fingers into his throat and tore his esophagus out. The smell of the blood on her hands was dark chocolate dipped in sin.

“Delicious,” she heard herself growl through the haze as she turned to the rest of the Vryks and charged. Her Wolf merged with the berserker and took over her body with partial shifting. She slashed and tore, using claws and teeth, knives and bullets. Any weapon she could find she used on the scattering bloodsuckers. At one point she ran out of weapons. She saw a dead body on the ground and tore a leg bone from the exposed meat, breaking the bone in half, and using the jagged edge as a dagger. Eventually the remaining Vryks recognized the madness inside her and ran, their leader nowhere to be found. But the chasing was part of the fun.

Some of them didn’t run, they thought they could take her. None of these Vryks were over one hundred years old. They were babies, and the thing that controlled her as she raged across the battlefield, cutting Vryks down one by one, had no comprehension of age or power. It only cared for blood.

She knew her body was tiring when she felt the pain return to her thigh and the flickering of control return to her mind. But it was no longer just her thigh that hurt, the pain had made its way to her ankle now. If she didn’t regain control soon she could lose her foot. But she didn’t want to stop, she wanted to keep killing, keep hearing those last screams that pierced the fiery night sky.

Eventually the creature controlling her body stopped and so did she because there was no one left to kill. The field was empty except for her and the corpses of Vryks and fallen Weres. As her awareness slowly returned, riding the rising pain thrumming in her leg, she knew she hadn’t taken any Were lives. They had fled the field at what she now recognized as Jeremiah’s signal. How he had known to warn the shifters away from her, she didn’t know, but she would be eternally grateful.

But some part of her knew she wouldn’t have taken the Weres even if they had remained. She had been killing Weres for years—the Beast had known it was the Vryks’ turn.

A scream of rage and pain sounded across the field from the direction of the facility. She ran towards it, her berserker nature hoping there would be another Vryk to put out of their misery or prolong it depending on how the fury felt when she got there.

There was no one left for her berserker to kill, only a sight she needed to see in order to take back control of her mind. Zach had consumed the flames of the building and turned them on Mara, using his magic. Kerrick battled and attacked the woman nonstop, even as she burst into flames. Dying with one final scream of fury.

They stood there, gasping and panting through the effort of the battle. Zach fell to his knees, his magic spent, exhausted. Cimby waited for Kerrick to see her. Once he turned after helping Zach up, and he smiled that beatific smile, she felt the fury leave her body, and the human bits take control once more.

His smile didn’t last long though, as he also took in the poison coursing through her leg, disintegrating her skin as it went.

“Cimby?” Kerrick asked quietly, advancing on her from the charred carcass that used to be an ancient Vrykolakas. “Cimby!” he yelled, running when her knees gave out from under her.

Her eyelids felt heavy and the harsh sting of poison slithered its way from her thigh and into her hip making her convulse.

“Ow,” she muttered and fell into a pair of warm, waiting arms.

Chapter Twenty-One

Kerrick sat on the edge of the bed, holding his mate’s small and scarred hand in his own. He dwarfed her, making the usually intense and dominant woman look fragile. The smile that image brought him couldn’t be helped, thinking what she would say or the look of disdain she would give him for even thinking those thoughts of her. But seeing her lying unconscious in a bed brought his protective instincts to the fore. Every inch of her petite body seemed fragile. Her skin was rough from years of fighting with swords and firing guns, and her usually pale complexion was mottled green and purple, aftereffects of the poison coursing through her veins. He was wrecked, mind, body and soul.

It had been two days since the battle with Mara and the dousing of the fire that destroyed over two hundred human lives. Pointless death was the worst. It made fighting that much harder and yet necessary. In the end the battle hadn’t been about territory, it had been about Mara needing to die. The evil Kerrick had seen in her cold eyes when they fought had nearly been enough to bring him to his knees.

He hadn’t been able to sleep since that battle, even though he felt the exhaustion like drugs in his bones. He was torn between worrying for Cimby and praying for her to wake up, or too hesitant to close his eyes and see what sort of mark Mara had left on his nightmares. It was all that occupied his mind since the days of the battle. His people needed him, but he couldn’t think, couldn’t tear himself away from the woman he loved.

After the battle Kerrick had learned that Carter, the only Vryk left standing, had saved his people from Cymbeline’s rage-consumed possession. The Vryk had recognized the berserker form, somehow knowing what made human children Incendiaries, and explained to Jeremiah why he needed to call a retreat. Jeremiah later told Kerrick he only listened to Carter because Rhiannon had originally vouched for him, and the Vryk seemed genuinely scared of what Cymbeline had turned into. He owed the survival of his people to that damn Vryk, thinking if any of his soldiers had approached Cymbeline in her trance-like fury, she would have decimated them.

Seeing Cimby become this mythological creature was surreal. The only physical aspect of her personage that had been transformed by this mind-erasing rage was the color of her eyes. They had turned pitch-black, but not like his. They were as dark and empty as a black hole, her sense of self completely obliterated, making way for the coldly beautiful and monstrous warrior who broke bones and ripped throats out without a second thought. According to Jeremiah, she hadn’t even smelled like a shifter anymore. She cut down thirty-seven Vryks in five minutes. His people may not have known her before that dawn, but his mate was most assuredly a legend now.

The legend had almost lost her leg from magic and Vryk blood-laced poison. As it was, Lottie had to operate extensively on Cimby’s leg, saving what she could of the muscles and bones. Lottie assured Kerrick over and over she was healing, but he found it hard to believe as he stared at the angry black mark trailing from her thigh to her ankle, a new tattoo left by the poison. Cimby would see it as a battle scar, much like the burn mark on her face, shrug and move on. Kerrick would see it every day and remember how he’d nearly lost her. Again.

He stood, beginning to pace the length of the room, never farther than thirty feet away from her at any given time. He kept remembering her limp body as he’d carried it back to The Mansion, flying through the air as a half-shifted avian creature. He’d sprung wings and talons but kept his arms so he could hold her tight. By the time he’d returned, Lottie had been prepped and ready to operate on the putrid flesh turning her beautifully pale skin black and corroded.

She’d been dead. He’d held his mate’s dead body in his arms, or at least that was what he’d thought, her pulse and heartbeat so feint even his supernatural hearing couldn’t pick it up. At first Lottie didn’t know what had kept her on the edge of the living, keeping her from pitching over into the never-ending darkness, where he no doubt would have followed. But after an hour of tests and scraping the warped flesh away, she placed her hand over his mate’s heart and closed her eyes.

“What?” he’d asked, seeing a sad smile gracing Lottie’s features.

She’d turned to him with tears in her eyes, reaching out to her Alphar to hold him in a tight hug. “It’s you,” she’d said. “Your spirit is holding her here, keeping her alive. You’re saving her, Kerrick.”

So he’d kept on, refusing to give in to sleep or the nightmares Mara had sunk deep into his mind. He’d even accepted a call from his mother, appreciating her concern and indulging in a rare conversation where they hadn’t fought. His people were healing, The Mansion returning to a normal state of operations, but his mate was still unconscious. He did everything to get her to awaken, called through their mate bond and whispered threats and promises in her ear. Nothing. Not a peep from her side of the connection.

He raked his hands through his hair and growled. He was going damn crazy and would tear The Mansion apart if she didn’t fucking wake up soon.

“Stop pacing, I can feel the wheels in your mind grinding.” Kerrick spun to see his mate’s eyes half open, a sarcastic, if tired, smirk on her face.

He buried the cry of relief he wanted to let out in his chest, not wanting to burden her with the pain he’d suffered worrying for her. She’d been through enough as it was.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice barely a whisper as she took his harried state in. He should have known better, trying to keep his emotions from his mate. It didn’t matter the amount of time they’d spent in one another’s lives they were soul mates. She could read him to the depths of his spirit and he would still be searching for a way to become closer to her. There were no secrets. Not between him and his fierce Incendiary. Not anymore. “C’mere,” she mumbled, reaching her fingers off the bed toward him, as if she couldn’t muster the strength to gesture with her whole arm.

“You should be sorry,” Kerrick said gruffly as he gently asserted himself in the bed beside her and slid beneath the covers. He needed to feel her skin against his. She gingerly shifted position and laid her hand along his chest, above his heart, using his shoulder as a pillow. Kerrick kissed her forehead and held her for a while, enjoying just being with his mate. He took a few moments of peace to simply listen to her breathe and that was all he needed for those few moments. Her hand sluggishly rubbed along his chest, tapping his skin to the beat of his heart.

“You can’t do that to me again, love,” Kerrick whispered, holding her closer.

His hand trailed up and down her arm, letting her body settle into the different position after having slept on her back for two days. He had bathed her when they first brought her back to The Mansion after operating on her leg. Kerrick had instructed Jeremiah call and have Lottie flown in on a copter from the safe base in Canada to help Zach with the procedure. It had taken five hours, but an exhausted Zach and a nearly mentally unhinged Lottie successfully removed the poison from her system, and magically restored what they could of her leg. Afterwards the two shifters had collapsed on hospital beds and had only just awoken five hours earlier.

She pressed against his chest for balance and struggled to lift her head for a look down at her comforter-covered body, a frown on her face. “I feel…incomplete, physically. What is wrong with me?”

“Baby, you’re not rested enough for me to complete you.”

“Ass.” She snorted, relaxing against him once more. Kerrick felt her breathe him in as she dug her fingers into his chest, holding on to him with a nervous desperation. “Iri?” she asked quietly.

“She’s good. Zach and Lottie were waiting for you to wake up to remove the tattoo. They’ve rested and feel they can proceed with the procedure without error now.”

“They didn’t need to wait for me,” Cimby grumbled, looking at him with an annoyed look. “She’s the priority, Kerrick. They should have done it the second Iri got back from Canada if they knew how.”

“They needed to focus on healing you, Cimby.”

“I’m not—”

“
Do not
,” Kerrick said on a furious growl, his need for her so consuming that the mere thought of her no longer on the earth with him a terror so incomprehensible it forced him to resort to caveman tactics. With a gentle speed he turned her on her back, cradling her scarred face. “Do not say you are unimportant. When you collapsed on that field I thought—I thought I’d lost you.”

“You saw what I am, what I can do.” Her hands came up to rest over his. “I’m more than just a Wolf, Incendiaries are monsters.”

“It makes me proud to have a mate who can kick the ass of any Vryk she faces. I need someone who can be strong, who can lead or fight with me, whichever is required.”

“I just need to be insane to do it.”

He smiled, nuzzling her scarred cheek. “Let’s not make that a repeat performance.”

“Creeped you out, didn’t it?”

”You were fucking scary,” he said as he pulled back. She laughed, her eyes crinkling with warmth, not the cold insanity that consumed her on the battlefield. “I love you, mate of mine,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss her chapped lips, reveling in the feel of her alive and breathing beneath him. She would be all right. She would live and they would be together.

“There’s no going back, Ker,” Cimby whispered, a fearfully serious look in her eyes. “I thought I could give you up before, for your own good. But you’re mine now. I’m keeping you.” She leaned up to kiss his lips once. Soft but with a small bite at the end. “I love you.” And with that whispered declaration stealing the last of her strength, she laid her head back on the pillow and fell asleep.

She slept for another day. Lottie checked in on her multiple times, having awoken from her own much needed rest. Much to the physician’s annoyance, Jeremiah was never far away when she made her visits, watching the frazzled redhead like a hawk. After Cimby’s operation she’d had to delegate the work of all visiting physicians from local packs. Coordinating who would need scientific surgery and who would benefit more from magical healing. Zach had collapsed immediately after Cimby’s surgery, barely having enough energy to complete it. But he was awake now and back in peak condition, ready to remove Irisi’s tattoo as promised.

Irisi popped her head in to visit Cimby before the surgery, her skinny hand gripping a cane to help her walk. Lottie had wanted the girl to use a wheelchair, but Irisi had been too proud and stubborn to give in to that edict.

“She still asleep? Zach says he wants to do the thing now,” Irisi asked, leaning against the bed and playing with the edge of the comforter.

“Yes. She woke up for a bit earlier but she didn’t have enough energy to stay awake for long. She did stay awake long enough to harp on us for not having that tattoo removed the second you got back to The Mansion. So let’s get it done now.” He held out his hand for her to take.

“What? But, doesn’t Cimby need to be there? Shouldn’t you be staying with her?”

“I’m going to sit with her for a while,” Rhiannon said with her perfect timing as she walked in. The pristine woman was not as kept together as her usual fashion sense dictated. Her hair had been singed on the battlefield so she needed to cut it, allowing it to flow around her face instead of pulled back. There was also a new scar along her collarbone.

“Cimby would want to be there,” Irisi said to Kerrick, keeping her gaze on Cimby’s sleeping form and worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. Kerrick had felt an instant need to protect and care for this young girl the moment he’d seen her lashed body before they ran as Raccoons together. But now that he knew she was his, his daughter, the anger and need he felt to make her feel safe was a harsh tide to ride. He could already tell he was going to be an overprotective parent.

“She’ll regret not being there for you, but I will be there. I hope I am an okay substitute?”

Her eyes snapped up to him in shock. “You? I didn’t—I know you’re probably busy. Have a country to run and all that. I’ll be okay on my own. Really.” She had begun to edge away from the bed, twisting her hands together to cover her nervousness.

He knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his before she could get too far away. “Iri, can I call you Iri?” She nodded. “I know having me come into your life so suddenly, intrude on what you and Cimby have established, is going to be weird. I’m an overbearing, overprotective brute and I’m not going to hide any of that nature. But you and Cimby are mine to protect now.” He lowered his voice with a side-glance to his mate. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

She grinned. “I promise.”

“And I promise to always be there for you, whether the country is in crisis or Cimby is off doing whatever highly skilled assassins do. I will be there for you.” He kissed her knuckles in an old-fashioned, gentlemanly like way. “We’re a family now. So come on, let’s get that thing removed.” Kerrick turned around and motioned for her to get on his back. She sighed but complied.

“I’m not actually ten years old, Kerrick,” she said, wrapping her arms around his thick neck. She weighed no more than a toothpick.

“I know, and you’ll probably grow pretty quickly after the tat is removed. So I want to get in as much cuddling as possible before you get teenagey on me.”

“I’m already
teenagey
. But I won’t object to a hug or two once I look my age.” Kerrick’s heart all but broke when he felt her nuzzle into the back of his neck, a familiar and loving gesture. Something reserved for families.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Kerrick carried her to the Med Center, helping Lottie with whatever preparations she needed before the removal. Irisi sat stoically, taking all the poking and prodding with a stubborn jaw and steadfast demeanor. But he saw the nerves beneath it all.

When it came time for the procedure, Lottie turned her over onto her side and injected the local anesthetic. It was laced with magical properties so Irisi’s metabolism, and whatever curse the tat was weaving, wouldn’t force it to burn out faster. A hanging sheet partition shielded Kerrick’s view of Iri from the waist down, as she had needed to disrobe. It was also necessary for her to be cognizant throughout the procedure so Lottie could monitor her.