Marked by an Assassin (15 page)

This was not going to end well.

Bleu launched himself at Hartt and the two clashed, Hartt swiftly blocking Bleu’s arm as he brought it down, his sword a black blur slicing through the colourful lights that filled the room near the bar where the elf prince and the mortal female worked on Loke.

The elf commander leaped back and attacked again, quicker this time, and Hartt didn’t have time to block Bleu’s arm with his own. The blade struck Hartt’s forearm instead and he growled as it sliced through the armour, cutting into his flesh.

Harbin snarled and stepped forwards, and Cavanaugh’s hand came down hard on his shoulder. He wanted to shirk his brother’s grip, but he planted his bare feet to the floor instead, heeding his warning not to intervene.

Not yet anyway.

But if it looked as if Bleu would seriously injure Hartt, he was going to take the elf down and he wouldn’t be alone. Fuery paced in the darkness, prowling there like a wraith, a terrible shadow ready to bring bloodshed and death to any who dared to stray into his path.

Bleu shoved Hartt in the chest and Hartt flew across the room. His back slammed into the bar near the mortal female, shaking the black wood and jostling Loke.

The female turned and pinned him with a furious look before sweeping her gaze around the room, her anger flowing from her in warning waves. “Will you all go in the other damned room or something. I’m trying to fucking concentrate!”

Hartt’s violet eyes gained a guilty edge and he wasn’t alone in his feelings. Everyone had stopped to look at her and all of them were now looking elsewhere.

All of them except Bleu.

“Take the fight elsewhere, Bleu,” the elf prince snapped.

The male didn’t listen to him. He glared at Hartt, his violet eyes darkening to a dangerous degree.

“Stay away from my sister, you assassin scum. I hear even a rumour that you merely looked at her in the wrong way and I will kill you. Tainted bastards like you deserve to be put down.”

Shock washed across the female elf’s face. “Tainted?”

“It’s nothing.” Hartt shoved away from the bar, avoiding her steady gaze.

His words had no effect on her. She continued to watch him with worry in her eyes and Hartt continued to pretend she didn’t exist. Harbin had never seen his cool and collected leader so flustered. It didn’t show on the surface, but he could see beneath that practiced façade. Bleu’s words had rattled him, hitting too close to the mark.

Hartt shot him a glare. “Get a move on, Harbin, or we’re leaving you behind.”

Harbin could understand his sudden desire to leave. It wasn’t only for his own sake, it was for Fuery’s. Elves viewed the tainted as something that needed to be exterminated, a stain on their race. Hartt wasn’t even close to being tainted, but someone else in the room was and his boss had just realised the danger that male was in.

Hartt teleported and reappeared next to Fuery in the shadowy side of the room, drawing Bleu’s gaze there.

Harbin’s muscles tensed, coiling in readiness as he waited for the elf to mention how tainted Fuery was and attempt to kill him. Not on his watch. He would take the elf out of action if he tried anything.

Bleu’s violet eyes widened and the words that left his lips weren’t ones filled with anger or hatred, but ones holding a wealth of shock that seemed to deal a blow to the elf who uttered them. “Commander Fuery? I thought you were dead.”

Fuery’s expression shifted on hearing his name, turning darker than usual, and the sensation of danger he radiated increased, warning that he was on the verge of attacking.

It didn’t stop Bleu from taking a step towards him, the surprise that had been in his voice slowly painting itself across his face as he stared at Fuery.

Fuery snarled, hunger sparking in his black eyes, a dark need to spill blood. Bleu recognised him, but Fuery didn’t seem to have a clue who he was. How did the elf commander know Fuery? Harbin looked to Hartt for an answer but his boss averted his violet gaze, fixing it on Fuery, a flicker of concern in it.

“How did you survive Vail’s attack?” Bleu whispered and the elf prince turned to face the room, his hand falling away from the mortal female’s neck as he stared across the room at Fuery, his stunned expression matching Bleu’s.

Fuery remained silent, glaring at the two elves now, his fingers twitching at his sides. He wanted to attack, but he wasn’t, and that stunned Harbin. Normally Fuery attacked first and asked questions later, a policy that Harbin had difficulty with since it usually meant they were trying to question a corpse. Why wasn’t he attacking now, when Harbin could see he was desperate to lash out?

Did he know Bleu?

“What happened to you?” Bleu ventured another step towards him.

This time, Fuery reacted, but not as Harbin had expected. Rather than attacking, he backed away a step and threw a panicked look at Hartt, his black eyes gaining a wild edge as he shook his head, causing the longer strands of his blue-black hair to brush his neck. Hartt closed the small gap between them and placed his hand on Fuery’s shoulder, and Harbin could only stare as the touch calmed him and he drew down a deep shuddering breath.

“The elf is tainted,” the prince said and Bleu looked back at him. “The male you knew no longer exists, Bleu.”

Bleu looked as if he didn’t want to believe that, and it only left Harbin with more questions. Had they been close once, before whatever attack Bleu had mentioned? Vail. The name was familiar. Harbin racked his brain, trying to place it, and frowned when it came to him. Vail was the mad elf prince who had turned on his people. Hartt had told him about the male once, but he had made Vail sound more like a legend told to scare young elves than a real person.

The elf commander took another step towards Fuery.

Fuery responded by pulling his black blade from the air and snarling at him. Hartt shifted in front of Fuery, partially shielding him with his body and placing his hand over the one Fuery held his blade in, stopping him from attacking.

“Do you not recognise whose company you are in?” Bleu snapped and Fuery’s dark gaze danced to the elf leader and back again. “Do you not recognise your prince?”

Fuery narrowed his black eyes on Bleu and growled words in the elf tongue. Harbin didn’t know the language, but he caught a name.

Vail.

Bleu’s expression twisted into darkness, long white daggers flashing between his lips as he snarled, “Your prince is standing in this very room, not roaming Hell bent on bloodshed and destruction. That wretched male is not your prince.”

“Watch your tongue, Bleu!” the prince snapped, and it seemed Fuery wasn’t the only one who still felt affection for a male that was apparently mad and evil, driven to kill all who stood in his path.

Bleu lowered his head, his unruly hair falling down to brush his forehead, and pressed his right hand to the black scales covering his chest. “My apologies, my prince.”

Loke groaned and shifted, and Harbin’s gaze leaped to him. The big dragon shifter stole all of the attention away from Fuery, but only held Harbin’s for a few seconds, as long as it took for him to sense that he was stronger now. Safe.

He looked back at Fuery, focusing on him as Hartt worked to calm him. He had never realised before today just how much affection Hartt held for the tainted elf, but he could see it now as the male stroked his shoulder and hand and spoke to him in a low voice, slowly coaxing him back from the brink.

Was Hartt the only reason Fuery wasn’t roaming Hell like the prince he admired, wreaking havoc and leaving a trail of blood in his wake?

Fuery lowered his hand and his shoulders sagged, his lips parting as his breath left him and the tension seemed to wash from his limbs. His black blade disappeared and Hartt glanced down to where it had been and then back at his face, saying something in the elf tongue that Harbin wished he could understand. He had always wondered about Fuery, but now he had more questions and now he needed to hear the answers to them. He wanted to know what had happened to push Fuery so close to the brink and propel him into life as an assassin.

“Harbin?” Hartt caught hold of Fuery’s wrist. The elf lowered his eyes to it, the black slashes of his eyebrows rising as he stared at Hartt’s hand, a distant look on his face. He blinked slowly and Harbin had the impression that he wasn’t quite with them.

Hartt had told him once that sometimes Fuery lost the fight against the darkness, but that he always came back. Harbin could see now that his boss had been putting things too simply, skimming over some of the facts.

The darkness had swallowed Fuery, but it had been Hartt that had drawn him back to the light, and now Fuery looked lost and confused, as if he couldn’t recall what had happened during the time he had been consumed by the darkness that lived inside him.

The worry shining in Hartt’s violet eyes warned the calm wouldn’t last, that Fuery would remember everything that had happened, and that was the reason his boss was suddenly so desperate to leave.

“I might be a while. Go on without me. I need to finish my mission and then I’ll meet you,” Harbin said, and nodded when Hartt looked relieved.

Hartt tossed one last look towards Bleu where he now stood beside his sister with Kyter at his side. Silvery light chased over him and Fuery and then he was gone. Bleu muttered something in the elf tongue, his gaze sliding towards Harbin, filled with a dark desire that Harbin recognised because he had felt that same hunger running in his blood countless times.

Bleu wanted to force him to leave too.

He wanted to attack him.

The prince responded, his tone equally black and threatening.

Harbin stepped forwards but Cavanaugh suddenly blocked his path. He looked up at his brother, expecting to find him protecting his friends.

He wasn’t.

He stood with his bare back to Harbin and growled at the two elves, baring huge canines.

He was protecting him.

A wave of tingles raced over his skin, shooting down his spine, and he wasn’t sure how to process everything that had happened in the last thirty minutes. He had come to this place expecting to find a bitter, angry male who wanted nothing to do with him. He hadn’t expected to find a male who was unchanged by their years apart, still quick to defend him despite his failings.

Still protecting him.

Still loving him after everything he had done.

“Enough. No more fighting.” Kyter scrubbed a hand down his face and then over his wild sandy hair, his expression filled with weariness.

The elf female sidled closer to him and caressed his arm. He turned a frown on her but it melted away, softening as he lifted his hand and stroked her cheek. Her smile caused his eyes to darken, hunger surfacing in them, desire that had the female snow leopard dancing back into Harbin’s mind.

His gaze strayed back to the exit as need flooded him again, a deep ache to find her.

He stared at the doors as the night called to him, his primal instincts urging him to seek her and see that she was safe. He needed to protect her. He needed her. She was vital to him, a piece of him that he had been missing his entire life, and with her he knew that he would be complete. A ridiculous notion, one he wanted to dismiss but found he couldn’t. She was more than just another female. She was beautiful. No. She was breathtaking. She was power and vulnerability, grace and deadliness, and a whole range of entrancing impossibilities rolled into one incredible female.

He took a step towards the doors, driven to hunt her.

He would find her.

She would be his.

Cavanaugh snagged Harbin’s arm and he heard his brother talking, but couldn’t make out the words as he was dragged across the low-lit main room of the nightclub, his eyes constantly fixed on the doors and his heart pounding with a need to find the female.

It was only when they passed through a door and it slammed shut, stealing the exit from view, that the urge shattered. Harbin looked around the bright white expansive back room of the club, slowly coming back to the world as the need to hunt faded.

Cavanaugh stared at him, a keen edge to his silver eyes, one that unsettled Harbin.

He would rather his brother exploded with anger and raged about the things he had done, and how he had disappeared for two decades, than face what he felt with a certain sense of impending doom was about to happen.

Conflict he could handle. Discussing the obvious reason behind why his focus kept slipping and drifting towards a specific location, he couldn’t. He preferred to hold his personal business close to his chest, and his feelings even closer, beyond view of anyone, especially now they were coming back to life, roused by the female snow leopard.

He had expected meeting his brother again to cause the rising tide of his emotions to overwhelm him, bursting the barrier he had built around them. What he hadn’t anticipated was the calm he felt in Cavanaugh’s presence, a soothing sensation that eased him and seemed to ground him, instead of pushing him over the brink.

Rather than being swallowed in a dark flood of emotions, he floated on calm waters, drifting in the light.

Harbin glanced back towards the door, his thoughts returning to the female snow leopard.

She had the same effect on him, and he wasn’t sure how to process that.

Even when he had been in the grip of the darkness that lived inside of him back in the Archangel facility, one look into her eyes, even the briefest of glances, had poured light into his soul and soothed him, giving him back control.

Cavanaugh took a step towards him, stealing his focus away from the female, and he caught the look in his brother’s silver eyes, one that warned he was on the verge of bringing up something that Harbin couldn’t bring himself to speak about, because that would mean acknowledging it.

That would make it real, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for that, because it would cause a war to erupt inside him, a battle between the darkness born of his past and his vendetta, and the part of him that secretly strived towards the light.

A familiar smell sent relief coursing through him but it lasted only as long as it took the pretty snow leopard female to descend the staircase against the far wall of the white room.