Frozen Desires (Asylums for Magical Threats) (13 page)

When you kneed me in the balls? Or how about when you nearly slit my throat? I understand pain. Hell, I

understand the need for secrets. But you’ve done nothing but cut me down since we met, and I don’t know

if you’re aware of it, sweetheart, but trust runs both ways.”

Chapter Fourteen

Cam sucked in a breath. Marco’s words were true, but this situation wasn’t entirely her fault.

She raised her chin to get a better look at his eyes. “Trust? What do you think just happened in that bar?

If I didn’t trust you at all, then no matter if it would’ve blown your cover ID or not, I never would’ve let you put your tongue in my mouth.” She poked him in the chest. “You may let anything with tits kiss you,

but it’s not that way for the rest of us.”

Before she could blink, Marco had grabbed her hands and pinned them to the wall beside her head. She

tugged, but his grip didn’t budge. “Let’s get one thing straight right now, Camilla. Despite whatever the

rumors may say, I don’t kiss just anyone.” He leaned closer and she was surrounded by his intoxicating

maleness. “And as I remember it, you were kissing me back.”

Cam’s heartbeat pounded in her ears. “What does it matter? Two seconds later, you were making sex-

eyes at the waitress.”

His breath tickled her cheek. “What if she hadn’t interrupted? Then what would you have done?”

Her anger had faded to something much hotter. Suddenly, Marco’s proximity, and the way he’d kissed

her, was all that she could think about.
No
. She wouldn’t let anyone hurt her again. “Nothing, because I’m not about to be anyone’s whim.”

Anger flashed across his face. “Anyone who thinks of you like that isn’t worth having. Was it that blond

man? What is he to you?”

She jumped at the distraction, anything to put distance between herself and Marco. It wasn’t just that his nearness was unsettling, but his fierceness was doing something to her that she didn’t want to think about.

“First, let me go.”

His nearly black eyes pierced hers, but she didn’t avert her gaze. She could take any macho bullshit he

threw her way.

After a few more heartbeats, Marco loosened his grip and she yanked her hands down to her sides. But

Marco kept his hands on either side of her head, not stepping back as she had expected him to do.

“Well, Camilla, who is he?”

She debated telling him the whole truth. He’d said he’d help her locate the Talent or Talents who’d left

the message inside the ruins, but after this, he might change his mind.

But he was right—trust ran both ways. If she didn’t tell him, he might walk away. And while she could

handle the mission aspect herself, the thought of never seeing the fierce man in front of her ever again

didn’t sit well. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t keep the information from him any longer, she didn’t want to.

She was curious to see how he would react.

Ever since they’d left that bar, the charming, flirtatious Marco Alvarez of rumor had disappeared,

replaced with an oddly demanding, straightforward man. The same man she’d glimpsed briefly back in the

jungle. And while Cam would never admit it to anyone, she was far more intrigued by him than the playboy

persona he usually donned.

He kept asking her not to judge him, so maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t judge her like everyone else.

“The man from earlier is named Richard Ekstrom.” She took a deep breath, risking it all with her next

words. “And not only is he my ex-boyfriend, he’s a former major with the Federation League.”

Marco’s face went blank and she waited to see if he’d show the same disgust as the others. Marco was

clever, and she didn’t doubt for a second he’d make the connection.

Having Cam all but pinned up against a wall, and trying hard not to notice the rise and fall of her breasts

so close to his chest, it took Marco a second to process Cam’s words concerning Richard Ekstrom. To be honest, her confession was one of the last things he’d ever expected to hear. Not so much the part about

him being her ex-boyfriend, but rather the part dealing with the Federation League—the same group he

suspected was setting off the arson fires.

Jaxton’s briefing had included a reference to Ekstrom. The man had once been a strong recruiter for the

Fed League, slated to take over command, but then he’d all but disappeared into thin air about two years

ago. No one had heard from or seen him since.

If Ekstrom had been that high up in the Fed League, then it only stood to reason that Cam had also been

a part of the fringe group at one point in her life. Probably in much the same way as DEFEND functioned,

the higher ups rarely had free time outside of their duties, and when they did, they couldn’t share anything about their work without Neena or Aislinn’s approval. Relationships with non-members were, predictably,

rare.

Studying Cam’s face, he saw her struggling to hide her vulnerability about how he’d respond. While

Marco had researched Camilla Melini before coming to Mexico, he hadn’t found anything about her

involvement with the Fed League, meaning it wasn’t public knowledge. But no doubt others had learned the

truth and given her hell for it.

He’d see what she had to say before issuing judgment. He wasn’t a hypocrite. “You were involved with

the Fed League too, weren’t you? How?” She hesitated, and Marco decided he didn’t like seeing such a

strong woman so unsure of herself. “You can tell me, Camilla. Neena let you into DEFEND, and continues

to give you important assignments. We both know she wouldn’t stand for a double-agent in her ranks.”

Cam remained silent, so Marco said, “Please?”

Her mouth parted a little in surprise, and he resisted a smile. Catching Cam off guard was fast becoming

one of his favorite pastimes.

Good soldier that she was, Cam recovered quickly and said, “Only if you promise this information

won’t go any further. I can’t do my job if everyone suspects me of being a spy.” He nodded, understanding

a thing or two about keeping secrets and avoiding unwanted attention.

She continued. “You know from my conversations with Kiarra that our parents were murdered when I

was young, by our uncle, James Sinclair.” Marco nodded. “After that, I went to live with my Uncle Alex

and his two children. They were the best surrogate family I could’ve hoped for, but my anger at the loss of my sister to the AMT, the loss of my parents, and the loss of my brother Gio to another uncle, grew and

festered. By the time I was eighteen, I wanted to make someone pay for all of the pain the AMT had caused

in my life.”

“And so someone convinced you to join the Fed League.”

“Yes.” Cam looked away from his gaze to stare out one of the windows. “Richard knew exactly what to

say to recruit me. He’d been close to his older sister too, and being as young as we were, we both thought that taking out AMT-related targets would scare the AMT Oversight Committee into making changes.

Maybe even convince them to shut down the AMT system for good.

“I trained hard, trying my damnedest to become the best. During the final phase of training, the Fed

League conducts tests to pinpoint each person’s strengths.” She looked back to Marco. “The results told

them I was an excellent sharpshooter.”

He’d never seen Cam fire a gun, but it wasn’t that hard to imagine her doing so with ease. “What did

you do after you finished your training?”

“They mostly assigned me to cover members from a distance, watching their backs as they retreated

from a target. Unsure of who was working with the AMT or not, I was to incapacitate but never to kill. But as time went on, I became too good at my job, and they decided to make me an assassin.”

Cam watched Marco closely, waiting for the moment when his look would turn to one of revulsion. She rarely revealed her past to anyone—not even her sister Kiarra knew the truth yet—and the few who had

heard her case often stopped listening at the word “assassin.”

Yet for some reason, she hoped Marco would want to hear all of it, and try to understand her.

When he’d told her about his cousin with such anger and passion, Cam had instinctively known he was

telling the truth, and it had made her feel guilty. Her games and outbursts had taken away from Marco’s

efforts to catch his cousin’s murderer. Here she’d thought that he didn’t take anything seriously, while all the while he’d been hiding his pain behind fake smiles and flirtatious remarks, balancing the multiple

responsibilities DEFEND had thrust upon his shoulders.

Even without considering Marco’s elemental water abilities, the man had phenomenal control.

Cam wanted to see more of the real man beneath the facade.

But Marco remained silent, and if Cam didn’t do something, she would lose the chance.

Not wanting him to see how much she needed him to listen to the rest of the story, Cam fell back on her

usual brusque manner. “I need to know if you want to hear the rest or not because I need to go back to

Santa Lucia Park to try to solve the clue I found inside the observatory.”

The corner of Marco’s mouth ticked up and she felt a small glimmer of hope. “Seeing as it takes

intimidating the shit out of you to get you talking, I’m not about to throw away this chance.” He cocked his head to the side. “Did you do as they asked and become an assassin?”

Cam blinked. No one had bothered to ask her that question before. “The Fed League didn’t allow

choice. You either did what they wanted, or they found a way to make you do it.”

“And what did they have to do with you, Camilla?”

She forced her voice not to waiver at the memory. “I told them I wasn’t interested, but once they took

Adella, my cousin-slash-adopted-sister, and started cutting her in front of me, I had no choice but to do

what they asked.”

Chapter Fifteen

When Cam’s voice cracked, something tugged at Marco’s heart, prodding him to reach out and comfort

her. While he was hurting from the death of his cousin, he could only imagine how much worse it would be

if something had happened to one of his sisters.

He stood up straight and removed his hands from the wall, but just as he was about to cup her cheek, he

remembered Cam’s words from inside the bar.

Your touch disgusts me
.

Marco forced his hands down and took a step back. Touching Cam would probably break the spell of

honesty they were having, and he wanted to know more. “Did you kill for them, Camilla?”

She cleared her throat. “Based on my reputation, I’m surprised you’d even bother to ask that.”

It seemed that he wasn’t the only one who hid behind a reputation. “I don’t give a fuck what everyone

else says. I want to hear the story from you.”

Cam searched his eyes for what seemed like forever before she said, “On one condition.”

Of course, the woman would bargain. “Shoot.”

Cam put one hand on her waist and pointed a finger at him. “From here on out, I’ll only work with the

real you. If you use that damn man-whore routine with me again, apart from when you need it for a cover

ID, I won’t hesitate to use my claws instead of my knee next time. Understood?”

His lips raised in a smile even as warning bells went off in his head.
Never let people close enough to
discover the truth.
His grandfather had drilled those words into his head, over and over again. But he knew someone like Cam could keep his secret when she found out.

When? No, it should be “if.”

Trying not to focus on the slip, Marco said, “And I expect the same from you. No more overkill-mode

Cam.”

Judging by the look on her face, she hadn’t expected that.

She nodded. “Fine.” She lowered her finger and said, “To answer your question, no, I didn’t kill for the

Fed League. I chickened out on my first assignment.”

Even now, Cam remembered that day. She’d had her rifle out and in position, but as soon as her targets

—a pregnant
Feiru
woman and her two children—had come into view, Cam had questioned the sincerity of the Fed League’s goals. The children had been targeted because of their father. Yet killing them would’ve

done nothing to change the AMT system.

In the end, Cam had put away her gun and run.

Her only mistake had been running to Richard.

“Camilla.”

She looked up, unaware that she’d been staring at the floor. Once her eyes met Marco’s, he continued.

“Since you’re standing in front of me, I know you eventually got out. So what does Ekstrom want with you

now?”

Good question. “All I know is that he’s not hunting me down because of lingering feelings. If he wants

me, there’s a reason behind it.”

Her best guess was that Richard needed her sharpshooting skills. She didn’t want to think of the

alternative—that he’d learned of her latent abilities.

She needed to finish her assignment in Merida and give Richard the slip. Once she was back at

DEFEND’s headquarters, there were resources she could use to research the man who’d played such a big

part in her past. She knew he’d disappeared a few years ago, and that worried her. Cam knew from working for DEFEND that when people went to such extreme lengths to not be found, it was usually

because of some serious skeletons in that person’s closet.

Regardless of what they were, she just finally wanted to put that aspect of her past behind her.

She took one step and then another, until she was standing next to Marco. “We can worry about Richard

later. Right now, I need to head back to Santa Lucia Park.” She raised an eyebrow in question. “Are you

going to help me?”

Despite her outer nonchalance, she held her breath and waited. Would he help her despite her past