To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 (16 page)

“I wasn’t born a Wolf.”

“I bet you were a hellion as a child. You come off calm and sophisticated. You have the dead-eyed assassin stare down pat. But you swore at me today! You twisted my balls!” He winced, remembering how unpleasant that felt.

“Your stupid cuffs burned the clothes off my body!” She huffed. “Who would create such disturbed items?”

“Zach. I can’t wait to tell him they worked.” The deviously minded Magic Tech would be delighted.

“Wait. Wait. I’m the first person to ever try these damned things? Who is this Zach? Where can I find him?”

“You’re not killing him, Cymbeline.”

“Just because I’m a trained and highly skilled assassin does not mean the only reason I want to meet him is to kill him.” Kerrick felt the unfamiliar need to burst out laughing at that ridiculous statement. She was an awful liar.

“The only reason?” Kerrick asked.

“I’m merely curious as to how the magic in these cuffs work.”

“So he’ll teach you how to free yourself and then you’ll kill him.”

She hesitated for half a second before muttering in a put-upon voice. “You don’t know me.”

He let himself laugh, chucking the twig down the length of the tree. “But I do, Ms. Kendall. I do. Zach is our IT-slash-Magic genius. Most people just think he works the tech here, but damn, I’ve never met a more magically gifted shifter. The way he can manipulate the magic surpasses the skill of the highest of coven priests. I couldn’t get him to start work here fast enough.”

She was quiet for a moment before saying, “So, since you’re telling me about him, does this mean I’m allowed to kill him?” Kerrick laughed again, enjoying her odd sense of humor. “So why is he not an Alphar if he has such a gift with magic?”

“It’s not that sort of magic. The magic of the Alphar passes only through Weres born to unmated Weres. Zach’s parents were both Mages before they were Turned in an attack on their coven.”

“Shifters attacked their coven?”

“No, a psychotic Mage spelled a local Coyote pack and forced them to target the coven and their family members. His mother, Daniella, was pregnant with him during the attack, just about a week or two along. She survived the attack, and after a brief stay at The Mansion to adjust to her Coyote soul became alpha of the pack she was adopted into. Daniella is ferocious in guarding her pack and truly an inspiration. You would like her. Although if I ever arranged for a visit so you may meet, Zach might have a conniption.” He smiled thinking of Zach’s embarrassment whenever his mother called the main mansion line to check on him. “That woman loves to torture her son.”

“What happened to his father?” Cymbeline asked quietly.

“Didn’t make it,” Kerrick grunted, snapping off another twig that was hanging by a mere thread, the life already gone from the limb.

“How did she survive if her mate died?”

“She wasn’t mated, and she was impregnated when she was a Mage, essentially human. We’ll never know if they were true mates in a shifter way.”

Kerrick fell silent, remembering the dangers Daniella had traversed during her pregnancy. Neither Kerrick nor Aaron had heard of any case when the woman was Turned while pregnant. They hadn’t known if the child would live and if he would be Mage or shifter. “She was so brave during her pregnancy,” he said quietly. “I had been floundering under the pressure of becoming Captain, knowing my time as Alphar was coming. She gave me strength and taught me what real bravery was.”

“She seems to have done well for herself if she is now an alpha.”

Kerrick nodded but she couldn’t see it, being on the other side of the tree so he elaborated. “It was a strategic placement. We saw she was extremely dominant, she’d been the leader of her coven before the attack. The local Coyote pack’s alpha was getting tired of leading, but had no offspring nor anyone strong enough to challenge him for the spot. We sent her to them and not a month later she took over. That pack is stronger than ever now because of her. The local human communities even look to them for protection. She’s an asset to our society and proof that rising from the ashes is possible. Zach didn’t turn out half bad either.”

“So his gift for magic isn’t related to shifter magic, it is Mage magic. That shouldn’t be possible. He became a different species once his mother was Turned. That magic should have dissipated with the rest of his Mage DNA.”

“One would think but our theories on magic aren’t complete, no matter how long we’ve had to hone the craft. In Zach, the Were magic and the Mage magic seems to have combined when he was in the womb and formed a hybrid magic, something we’ve never seen before.” Kerrick grinned, amazed by the way magic can change and evolve much like the humans they evolved from. “I’d like you to meet him, his workshop is a sight to behold. He’ll talk your ear off for hours if you let him but some of it is actually fascinating.”

“Sounds like you’ve let him talk your ear off a time or two.”

“I’ve had some sleepless nights here and there since taking the Alphar seat. I can usually count on Zach to be up late, tinkering with an unknown form of magic.” He gathered his legs up on the branch, bracing his arms against his knees. “Tell me something about you, something not having to do with Incendiaries.”

“You know everything about me.”

“I have an outline but I would like to fill in the blanks a bit.” He could sense her mind running at a rapid pace, turning over the pros and cons of telling him anything personal about herself. “I’m your Alphar, you’re supposed to give me what I want,” he said jokingly.

She huffed, sticking her arm out to the side so he could see the obscene gesture she used to display exactly how she felt about that statement.

“I’m assuming you want something poignant?”

“Cymbeline, I would take what your favorite color is at this point. Although based on what you were wearing when we met, I would feel pretty secure in guessing black.”

After a moment he heard her mumble. “Cimby.”

“What was that?”

“You can call me Cimby, it’s a nickname.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“Nobody. I did.” She sighed before continuing, giving him a precious part of herself.

“When I was a child, I would have down time before and after training sessions or school lessons. They would let me go off on my own and I would be observed from afar. According to some files I was able to get my hands on, I apparently had an active imagination. But the only thing I really remember from those moments alone was imagining the trainers coming closer and chatting with me. I imagined we would talk about the weather, the forest we’d camped in that month, the local towns. Anything. They’d grow fond of me and I’d grow to look up to them. Then when we were finally friends, they would call me Cimby. I’d often heard the trainers using nicknames with each other but never with me.

“I understood why, they didn’t want to form attachments. I only had the trainers for a certain amount of time and then they were given a forgetting serum, told they’d been working on a secret project for the Alphar and shown a contract they signed relinquishing their memory rights for that period of time. It was hard to foster relationships in those conditions. But if ever I had a friend, I thought I would give them the nickname Cimby to call me by. So, you can call me Cimby, if you like.”

He squeezed his hands tight at the image she painted. A small girl, isolated from the world with only trainers or teachers for company, adults who would forget her the moment their contract ended. Such a lonely life for a child. He’d been sent away to train as well, but at least he’d had Aaron and Rhiannon by his side. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That you had to grow up that way.”

He heard her shift on the branch. There was a whooshing sound and a thump. He turned to look down, saw her standing there in the nude, bathed in the light from the setting sun peeking through the treetops. He knew he should have just let that story go, accepted it for the gift it was and moved on. But that wasn’t in his nature.

The mating, and socializing with the people living in The Mansion could only be making it all too clear how different her life was, how different her childhood had been. It would be confusing and painful and he wouldn’t let her suffer alone, even if he had to drag her into a hug kicking and screaming.

He jumped from the tree, landing behind her. Her body appeared relaxed but he could see the tension coiling beneath her muscles. He reached out, placing his hands on her shoulders and squeezed, massaging her.

“I like your little friend Evan,” she said before he could give her words of comfort. “He’s a bit of a chatterbox for me but I liked him. He reminds me of someone back where I live…”

Kerrick realized it wasn’t tension he felt in her muscles, but exhaustion. Who knew how long it had been since she’d slept a true sleep, not one induced by Vryk poisoning. He’d wanted to take their privacy to a sexual place, pet her lithe body and coax her into relaxing, but seeing her so tired kindled a tender feeling for her. He wanted to take care of her, his fierce and stubborn mate.

“We can talk about Evan if, and only if, you let me give you a piggy-back ride back to The Mansion.”

“A piggy-what?” That knocked her out of her somber thoughts.

“If you let me carry you on my back, all the way back to the compound, you can talk about whatever you want.”

“What if I don’t want to talk?”

“Then we won’t talk.”

“And what about clothes, Kerrick?” She turned to him, dislodging his hand from her shoulder. “You couldn’t bear to look at me before for fear of jumping me but you want to feel my naked chest against your back?”

“I can look at you all night, but lookin’ isn’t all I want to do. I want to—”

“Oh, just shut your damn mouth and carry me back, you infuriating ass. Or do you want me to be
wet
and naked, writhing on your back?”

He lifted her up, securing her legs around his waist and her head came to rest on his back, confirming his thoughts on her exhaustion.

“So I make you wet, do I?”

“Arrogant ass.”

Chapter Ten

Cimby woke to a warm breeze drifting through an open window. The air felt crisp and smelled like freshly mowed grass. She could hear the tree leaves in the surrounding forest rustling pleasantly. A heatless fire crackled, adding to the pleasant morning symphony. There were even birds chirping to a jaunty tune right by the window.

Wait. What?

“Zach, shut it off!” A grumbling voice rumbled from the chest she was lying on. What?

She slowly pushed up, supporting herself on said chest, and carefully let her gaze rise to see Kerrick, smiling a sleepy smile at her.

“Morning.” He yawned, and damn if he didn’t look sexy as hell in the morning, with his rumpled black hair and stubble peeking through on his chin. It was all quite unfair, the odds were just stacked in his favor. But what really got her was his leaning down to kiss her. It wasn’t a hungry, voracious kiss as their other intimate contact had been. It was sweet and soothing. Comforting. A truly foreign sensation for her.

He pulled back from the kiss with a gentle nuzzle, using the arm he had wrapped around her shoulders to play with the short curls on her head. “You’re beautiful in the morning.”

She was decidedly uncomfortable with that statement. “I’m dressed.” Her hands spread over his cloth-covered chest. “So are you.”

He rolled his eyes, looking a tad offended. “I dressed you before we went to bed. I didn’t think you’d appreciate waking up naked next to me, even if I had felt your passed-out, naked body along my back all the way back to The Mansion.”

“Passed out?” She sat up, the covers dropping from her shoulders to rest at her hips. “I don’t pass out. What did you do? And I would have woken if someone was dressing me.” The singing birds outside the window were reaching the crescendo of whatever aria it was chirping, becoming unbearably high pitched and loud.

“Madame Incendiary, you were dead to the world.” He kissed her lightly before turning to grab the cordless digital clock off the bedside table and chuck it out the window. A thump and a muffled “Ow” drifted over the sill. “I told you to shut that shit off, Zach. Get away from the window!” The bird chirping cut off.

“No. That is impossible,” Cimby said with a shake of her head, refusing to believe she’d simply passed out without outside influence.

“Cimby.” That nickname on his lips made her want to melt. Damn it, why had she told him about that stupid childhood fancy? “You were limp in my arms five minutes after we started walking back.” Kerrick pushed the covers off his body and rolled out of bed. He had on a pair of loose shorts and a thin Henley. Before walking into the bathroom he stretched and all his damn muscles stood out in stark definition, on display for her to see. Her heart thumped in her chest and she wanted to go after him, tug him back into bed and spend an eternity licking his tempting body from head to toe.

No. No.
She needed to leave. It was time. Irisi. Think of Irisi.

“Kerrick, we need to talk.”

Kerrick walked through the door to the bathroom and closed it. She waited for the shower to turn on before jumping out of bed and dashing to the window. As she thought, the infamous Zach was still there, sitting on a short ledge and tinkering with what must have been the chirping bird device. She reached down and grabbed him by his throat, quickly stifling his cry of shock with her other hand.

“You made the cuffs that are on me?” she growled, not forgetting how annoyed she’d felt by her clothes burning up the night before. It really pissed her off. He nodded in response since he couldn’t talk.

“Get them off me. Now. And I won’t kill you.” His eyes widened but he shook his head no.

“I’m sorry, but was there something about the
I’m going to kill you if you don’t take these damn cuffs off me
threat that you didn’t comprehend?” He mumbled a response behind her hand. She rolled her eyes and let his mouth free.

“I can’t take them off you intact,” he said, sounding more calm than she would have given him credit for, especially with her claws digging into his skin. “They’re programmed to Kerrick’s use only.”

“So destroy them. I don’t care if you break your little toy, just get them off me.”

“I. Can’t. If the device detects sabotage, it will react in a not so pleasant way.”

She tightened her grip. “Like burning the clothes off a person’s body?”

“No like lengthening, thickening and covering the entire torso and arms of the captive to immobilize them.”

“Captive.” She nodded, releasing him. Cymbeline leaned against the windowsill, staring off into the forest. That was right, she was Kerrick’s captive. He didn’t trust her enough to let her walk amongst his people without some form of restraint.

“If it’s any consolation, when I was making them, I accidentally got caught in them myself. Took me two days to figure out how to get out of them.”

Cymbeline ignored him, pushing herself away from the window. She stripped out of the clothes Kerrick had dressed her in and walked out the room, shifting into her Wolf form the second she cleared the door. The cuffs shifted with her as they had the night before, becoming thin rings above her paws that didn’t hinder movement.

“Wait! Where are you going?” she heard Zach calling after her when she began to run towards the French doors that led to the balcony she and Kerrick had had their rendezvous on the other night.

A feeling of pain and fury was rising within her. She needed to hurt somebody and she was going to if she didn’t get away from that damn, stupid, cursed mansion fast enough. Kerrick claimed she was his mate. Hell, she knew she was his mate. Last night, running next to him with her Wolf ascendant, she couldn’t deny the overwhelming feelings of need and want any longer. She craved him. Waking up with him had been jarring at first but it also felt
right
.

But now, all she could feel towards Kerrick was anger. She could accept him locking her up because he didn’t know her, despite feeling a mating connection, not knowing if she would be a threat to his people. But why was she still cuffed? Like an animal? Like a slave? Was that what he wanted from his mate? A slave? She refused to be bound by anyone even if it meant forgetting everything she’d ever been taught by her trainers. Especially the number-one rule. Obey the Alphar.

She crashed through the French doors and jumped from the balcony, taking off at a steady run towards the gates once she hit the ground. She didn’t know what would happen once she jumped them since she wasn’t wearing clothes. Maybe the fire would singe her fur off. She didn’t care. She just needed out of that fucking house before she destroyed every last marble hallway.

Even her Wolf, who at that moment was whimpering for running from their mate, didn’t fight her. Her Wolf knew that a mating had to be based on equality. Kerrick had to respect her. He had to trust her. Both of which were impossible the longer he kept her cuffed.

She knew the cuffs were most likely chipped. They’d be able to track her. But she was fast enough that she could get to her car and begin the drive back to her cabin without stopping. Cimby hadn’t been exaggerating to Kerrick when she’d said passing out should have been impossible. She was trained to perform at peak levels for a week without sleep. It had only been six days since she’d had a full night’s rest, poisoning not counted. She blamed the emotional stress as a factor on cutting her a day short. Her trainers would be laughing if they could see her now.

As she jumped the gate she braced for another magical embarrassment but nothing happened. Instead, as she landed on the other side, the cuffs fell off her front legs. She batted at them with a paw but nothing happened. They were inert. She was free.

She looked back at The Mansion, fury still a roiling pain in her gut. She saw a single silhouette on the balcony. A man. She huffed in frustration. Enough of this captive, passive-aggressive bullshit. Enough of these human emotions. If he wanted her as his mate, he needed to prove himself. She didn’t give a shit that he was the most dominant and powerful shifter on the continent. This was about Cymbeline and Kerrick. Not the assassin and the Alphar.

She sat back on her haunches and howled. A clear, singular note echoing through the trees and over the grounds. A message for the man who could be her mate.

She turned her back on The Mansion and began the mad dash toward her car, leaving the cuffs on the ground.

As she ran she heard his answering howl. Challenge accepted.

It took everything within Kerrick to let her go. Every speck of magic and will power combined to keep his limbs from tearing that forest apart just to keep her at his side. But Zach had been right.

After Kerrick heard the glass crashing he’d raced out of the shower to see what had happened. Kerrick found Zach sitting on the windowsill of his room watching Cimby run like hell away from him. The sight of the increasing distance between them made him so mad. And what was worse, it made him confused. They had had a great evening together and an even better morning. Waking up with her lying on top of him, sheltered by his arms, had been pure heaven. She’d seemed hesitant yet content. Not desperate to get away from him.

He put one foot on the sill, preparing to leap after her when Zach placed a hand on his arm, stilling him.

“What are you gonna do when you catch her, Ker?” he asked, calling him by the nickname he’d used as a child whenever he visited The Mansion. “You’re gonna drag her back here. Maybe she’ll calm down, maybe she won’t. Maybe a miracle will happen and she won’t remember that you are basically keeping her prisoner.”

Kerrick grabbed Zach by his neck, pulling him through the window and shoving him against the wall with a deafening crack. “Watch it, pup,” he growled, the reality that his mate may never want him crashing around his mind like a violent storm.

“You’ve been keeping your mate—
your mate
—prisoner here.”

“She was an unknown entity when she first arrived—”

“Do you usually sleep with unknown entities in your bed? Let them train your soldiers? Make out with them? Or, my favorite, let them spend time with impressionable eight-year-old Bobcat kits? She is your
mate
, Kerrick. Could you honestly respect a woman who sat on her haunches waiting for you to unchain her?”

Kerrick let him go with a growl, sounding more dragon than any other plausible shifter at that moment. He looked back out the window and watched his mate ready herself for the jump over the gate. Zach was right, he’d been treating her like some spy from a neighboring land. Kerrick gave Zach a solemn nod. The IT genius presented him with a touchscreen device that Kerrick placed his hand on. A short fingerprint scan later and she was free of the cuffs.

He moved out into the hallway, wanting to be alone, not able to handle his people watching him, even Zach, as his mate ran as far and fast away from him as she possibly could. He’d made a mess of the situation, fucked up, not knowing how to deal with all the unexpected emotions. He was the most dominant shifter in the territory, what had she expected?

Not to be kept on a leash and chained for one thing, probably. Kerrick was about to head back inside when he heard it. The most beautiful sound in the world. An eloquent yet fierce note, challenging, no, demanding he fight for her. That he prove himself to her. She still wanted him. Kerrick gripped the stone railing so hard the expertly crafted rock cracked and he lifted his eyes to the sky, shifting his vocal chords to match those of a Wolf’s, and howled back.

Challenge accepted. He leapt off the balcony and chose a bird form to follow her, watching out for her as she ran from The Mansion, making sure no lurking Vryks attacked. Twenty-five miles from The Mansion she reached a car covered with leaves and branches. She shifted, pulling a key from beneath the hood and dressing in some spare clothes she kept in the trunk. When she opened the door to drive off, he shifted and landed in front of her.

She held on to the car door, staring at him. “There are things I need to do, stuff I am responsible for that have nothing to do with me being the Incendiary. You need to let me go.”

He stalked her, backed her up against the car door and placed his hands on either side of her body, caging her. “You’re my mate.”

“I’m not denying that.” Her hands came to rest on his chest. “But you need to trust that I’ll be back.” She lifted herself onto her toes, bringing their lips together for a hard and fast kiss. “I will come back. Trust me.”

Kerrick wrapped his arms around her waist, tugging her in close and nuzzling her neck, memorizing her scent. His lips trailed up the thin scar, nipping and biting along the jagged path, until finding and settling on her sumptuous mouth. Her arms rose to wrap around his neck as he kissed her at a languorous pace, and she was kissing him back, holding him tight, proving that she wanted him. He wasn’t surprised to feel the relief that knowledge gave him, easing the tension wrought from days of facing the possibility that his mate may not want him the way he wanted her.

“I trust you,” Kerrick whispered, taking a small nip on her neck and leaving a mark next to the scar. It wasn’t the mating mark, but it would hold its place until she came back. He forced himself to step away, taking the small smile she was giving him and committing it to memory.

“Later, Alphar,” she said with a wave, stepping into the car and starting it.

“Cimby,” he chided, crossing his arms expectantly.

She sighed, but he could see it was good natured. “Later, Kerrick.”

“I’ll be waiting for you, mate.”

Kerrick stood and watched as she drove away from him, hoping against hope that Cimby would have the same faith for him that he had in her, and returned to him.