Crimson Highlander: An Onyx Assassins Novel Read online

  That wasn't a request.

  I followed Alek into the hallway, and we headed for the stairs and away from human ears.

  "Elias wants us to wake the Hunters," I said under my breath, knowing he'd be able to hear me.

  Alek's footsteps hesitated on the steps, but he quickly caught up. "Was he joking?"

  "No. Alek, we're strong, but if the Sons are forging alliances with witches and demons..." I shook my head.

  We walked in silence down the southern wing of the residence as he thought about the suggestion.

  I knew the answer wouldn't come today. Alek was never impetuous, nor did he act before he'd thought about every possible consequence. It was one of the things that made him a good king.

  "They've been in stasis for hundreds of years," he said as we reached the door to my room, which was at the end of the wing.

  "Yes." I put my hand to the biometric lock, and the door opened.

  "They're vicious. Merciless. And fuck, are they powerful. Zachariah alone..." He shook his head.

  "I know. And there's no telling if they'd even come out of stasis sane. Could you imagine having to...pursue one?"

  "No."

  The thought of having to hunt down one of the legendary Hunters was, well, unthinkable. They were the monsters of our time. The threats parents gave rebellious children who struggled to learn moderation in their feeding during adolescence when true thirst awoke.

  "We might need them." I pushed my door open fully.

  "That's what scares me," Alek admitted. "Now go take a shower, so you don't make a liar out of me. We're in for the evening."

  "Aye." I walked into my room.

  "Oh, and I really don't want to broach this subject—"

  "So don't," I groaned, knowing where this was headed.

  "But my mate is worried that you and Valor are trying to deny your mating bond." He stuck his hands in his back pockets and looked just as uncomfortable as I felt. "And we both know it's possible, but it has to be making you miserable as fuck, and eventually it's going to be impossible for you to feed, especially with her living next door." He motioned to the room behind him, where I'd put Valor that first night.

  Close enough to protect, but far enough to think twice about touching her.

  "I fed tonight," I said in answer.

  "And that's why you look like you should be named Kermit? Because my man, you are green." He winced.

  At his reminder, nausea rolled through me, my stomach threatening to expel everything I'd managed to take in earlier.

  "I'm fine."

  "Shit. Is that what you're doing? Denying your bond?"

  My jaw locked. "Are you asking as my best friend or my king?"

  "Your friend." His brow furrowed.

  "Then as my friend, stay the fuck out of it." I gave him a two-fingered salute and promptly shut the door in his royal face.

  The shower was long, hot, and exactly what I needed. It didn’t solve the tightness in my chest or the dull, pulsing ache in my fangs, but at least my muscles loosened up under the streams of scalding water.

  Hair washed and rinsed, I stood under the showerhead for another long moment before shutting it off and wrapping a towel around my waist. I walked out of the bathroom, rubbing another piece of terry cloth over my hair—and stopped dead in my tracks.

  Valor sat on my bed, her legs folded under her like she’d gotten comfy while waiting.

  The bergamot and lime scent of her filled my head, and my cock jolted, hardening in a heartbeat. Mine. Mine. Mine.

  “You can’t do that to me again!” she snapped, bracing her weight on her palms behind her.

  You’re denying the bond, remember? My brain did, but my body sure-as-fuck did not. My fangs descended fully, my muscles coiled, prepared to leap, to take, to claim. “Get. Off. The. Bed.” I ground out each word, carefully concentrating on keeping my feet exactly where they were. Not that it fucking mattered where my feet were. I could wend right onto the bed.

  “You take off for four days, and that’s all you have to say to me?” She sat up, narrowing her eyes. They sparkled with anger.

  Sparkled? You’ve officially gone mad, Highlander.

  “Get. Off. The. Bed.” I slowly lowered my hand and let the towel I was drying my hair with fall to the floor.

  She scooted forward and gripped the edge of the linens. Even with being as tall as she was, her feet dangled off the end of the bed’s massive structure. “You left me.”

  “Valor. If you don’t move that incredible ass off my bed, I’m going to strip every piece of your clothes off, starting with that wee scrap of fabric you call shorts and bury myself inside you.” My chest heaved with the effort it took to hold back.

  “You…what?” Her lips parted, and her eyes flared wide, as if just now noticing that I was only wearing a towel. The hungry look she sent skimming down my chest wasn’t helping matters, either. She swallowed when her gaze reached the towel, which wasn’t doing much to hide exactly how badly I wanted her. “Bury yourself…” Her mutter trailed off.

  “Tongue or cock, Valor. You’re choice. And you’re still not moving.” I dragged my tongue over my lower lip.

  She yanked her eyes back to mine and then scurried off the bed and backed away from me slowly like the prey she was.

  I stalked forward, comfortable as the predator. “You were saying, lass?”

  Her chin rose, and that sparkle was back in her eyes. “You left me for four days. No phone call. No text. Not even a warning. I woke up, and you were gone!” She jabbed me in the chest with her finger, then snatched her hand back. “Holy mother of tattoos,” she whispered.

  Her touch felt like a branding iron. “That’s it? You broke into my bedroom and put yourself at risk just to yell at me that I didn’t say goodbye?”

  “I didn’t break in. I put my hand on the lock, and it opened.” Her gaze swept over my chest and abs, following the lines of tattoos that covered every inch of my skin to the wrist and neck.

  The lock opened for her…because she was my mate. Shit. It was like the bond didn’t care that we didn’t want it. It was growing stronger, anyway.

  “And you didn’t say goodbye! I had to hear from Ransom where you went!” She bumped into the dresser and skipped sideways to continue her retreat.

  Guess she hadn’t realized yet that there wasn’t anywhere in this room I couldn’t reach her. Or on this Earth for that matter.

  “You were sleeping when I left.” Another step.

  “So?” Her back hit the wall.

  “So get up earlier next time.” I shrugged.

  Her features tightened, and she murdered me with a glare as her neck craned to keep eye contact. “Ransom said you’d say that, too.”

  A flash of something hot and ugly stabbed deep into my stomach, curdling with a vicious twist. “Exactly how much time have you spent with Ransom, my little Valor?”

  Ransom was arguably known as the most handsome of the Order. He was the charmer, the easy flirt, the one the debutantes chased after with silly little sighs and giggles because one look my direction put them back behind their mother’s skirts. It was a distinction I’d always been thankful for, since young, experienced females were never my thing.

  “Ransom?” She balked. “I don’t know. He’s around—” Her eyes popped wide. “You’re jealous.”

  “Did you spend your nights with Ransom while I was away, seeing to the safety of my species?” I slapped my palm to the wall beside her head and leaned in. Fuck, she smelled divine.

  We were alone.

  The bed was less than fifteen feet away.

  My body ached for her.

  She was mine.

  You don’t want this! Even the mental reminder wasn’t enough.

  Her breath caught, but she held my stare. Nothing shy or demure about this one. She wasn’t some simpering aristocrat, seeking a mate, or some lust-driven feeder looking for a quick fuck. This woman was all fire and steel—she’d been made for me.

&nbs
p; “He’s not my type,” she said with a shrug, but her voice had gone breathless. “I’ve never been attracted to the pretty boys.”

  “Hmmm.” I took in every line of her face, memorizing even the smallest details in the delicate arch of her brows, her high cheekbones, the darker rim of green at the outer edge of her iris, and the pert, lush mouth.

  “But at least he was nice to me while you were gone,” she whispered. “And you were gone a long time.”

  “I was gone four nights, lass.” Four endless nights, and I’d felt her absence every second of them.

  “They were a long four nights!” She sucked in a breath and then shook her head and muttered, “Fuck it,” under her breath. “I don’t like this, Lachlan. I don’t like the way I feel tethered to you. And I don’t like the way my body gets all wonky when you walk into the room. And I definitely don’t like that I was such a wench to that girl the night of the ball—”

  “Female,” I corrected her softly.

  “Whatever! I hate that I get jealous when I think of your mouth on someone else’s neck because how fucking irrational is that? You’re a vampire! Of course, you’re going to bite people!”

  Her body heated, and my vision flickered to thermals, registering the change.

  “Valor…” God, just the thought of sinking my fangs into the creamy, silken skin of her neck had my cock ready to punch through the towel. I bet she tasted exactly how she smelled—light and citrusy with a heady sweetness.

  “And I hate how good you look without a shirt on, because that’s just…” She motioned toward my body, and I leaned in just enough that her fingers grazed over my skin. “Oh, God,” she whimpered. “So good.” Her eyes jumped back up to mine.

  Her scent flared, changing subtly, and I growled. She wanted me.

  “And I loathe the way other women look at you when I know I don’t have the right. But I keep wearing my hair up when we eat dinner just so they all see the mark.” She shook her head. “And I hate. Hate. Hate. The way my chest fucking hurt while you were gone. It was like I was being drawn and quartered…like—”

  “A piece of you had been ripped away,” I finished for her, leaning even closer. My cock brushed her stomach.

  She gasped, then nodded.

  “You missed me.” I lowered my face but still left one of my arms down so she could escape if she wanted.

  “You missed me,” she accused, wetting her lips and staring at my mouth.

  “Valor, we’re not supposed to be this close, remember?” I couldn’t have moved even if the house was on fire.

  “Right.” She didn’t budge.

  “You should go.”

  “I hate you.” She lifted her hands like she was going to push me away, but instead, she splayed her fingers over my chest.

  “I know.” I bit back a groan. “That’s why you should go. The bond will only get stronger.”

  “Okay.” Her fingers trailed up my chest, and little licks of flame sang through my veins.

  “Lass.” It was as close to begging as I’d ever come in my life.

  “One kiss won’t hurt,” she whispered as she cradled the back of my neck.

  Her lips were so close, and her body so fucking warm and—fuck it. “One won’t hurt,” I agreed. Just one. Just to extinguish the curiosity and quell whatever temptation there was.

  I speared my fingers into the warm silk of her hair, cradling her head, and kissed her.

  We both groaned.

  She opened for me, and I was lost. I took her mouth how I’d fantasized since the first moment I’d laid eyes on her, with deep, thorough strokes and teasing licks. Honey and citrus and…peppermint exploded on my tongue as I explored every line of her, committing everything about this one kiss to memory.

  This would be the only one.

  She whimpered, then sucked on my tongue.

  I almost came. Holy shit.

  She laced her fingers behind my neck and lifted her knee. I took the cue and palmed her ass with one hand, lifting her up against me and bracing her against the wall.

  Her thighs were soft and warm as she locked her ankles around my waist, just above the towel. Skin to skin. I was going to lose my fucking mind. My cock beat in time with my heart as I pressed her harder against the wall, grinding up between her thighs.

  “Lachlan,” she moaned against my mouth.

  There were three pieces of flimsy fabric separating us.

  Take her. Touch her. Taste her. Claim her. The mating instinct drove my hips forward, and I kissed her deeper, keeping one hand tangled in her hair and the other at the delicious curve of her hip.

  No feeling my life had ever compared to this. No fire had burned hotter. No female had tasted sweeter—woman. She wasn’t a female, she was a woman, and I was crushing her.

  Shit, she was so much more delicate than we were, so…breakable.

  I eased up, and her thighs tightened. “I’m fine,” she promised, delving back into the kiss.

  Her tongue danced across mine, and I sucked it into my mouth with a groan as she took my hair in her fists and rolled her hips over mine.

  So. Fucking. Good.

  The knot of the towel loosened.

  “Please,” she whimpered, pressing the soft mounds of her breasts against my chest. Her nipples were hard, pressing through the fabric of her bra and blouse. I wanted them between my lips and teeth. I needed to see her swollen and aching.

  “Valor.” I kissed her even deeper and slid my hand up her ribcage until I palmed one perfect breast.

  She gasped and pressed into my hand.

  I stroked my thumb over her nipple, and the towel slipped.

  Bam. Bam. Bam. Someone pounded on the door.

  “Go the fuck away,” I growled, moving from her mouth to the line of her jaw, then letting my tongue trace the beating line of her pulse in her neck.

  Her fingers tightened in my hair and she urged me on.

  Bam. Bam. Bam. “Lachlan!” Ransom shouted.

  “No!” I answered, letting my fang graze the buttery-soft skin of her throat.

  Her thighs clenched and the scent of her arousal nearly took me to my knees. She liked that. Good. She’d like it even more when I—

  “Lachlan, get the fuck out here! You know I wouldn’t be at your door four hours before sun-up if it wasn’t important!”

  I froze.

  Valor whimpered.

  “Fuck.” And not the good kind of fuck, either.

  She showed zero sign of letting go, so I carried her to the door, losing my towel along the way. Her mouth was on my cheek, my jaw, my ear, and her tongue was going to be the goddamned death of me.

  “Hold on, lass.” I leaned her against the wall and then opened the door next to us the barest of inches, blocking her from Ransom’s sight. “Are you trying to get me to fucking kill you?”

  Ransom’s gaze swept down the crack in the door and saw that the only thing I was wearing was Valor. Then he gave me his back. “Sorry.”

  “What do you want?” Fuck me, her lips were on my neck, and those—Oh, God—those were her teeth.

  “That email that Valor gave me to monitor,” he said with a deep breath. “We just got an encoded message from Daphne.”

  Valor froze in my arms.

  “Lachlan, we know where she is.”

  I nodded once and shut the door.

  A pair of wide green eyes met mine, and the lust was clearing. “Did he just say…”

  “Aye.” I nodded. “I’m going to get your cousin for you as soon as I get some clothes on.”

  She untangled herself as I lowered her to the floor. “I’ll just get my—”

  Oh, hell no. “You’re not coming.”

  “The hell I’m not!” Ah, and there it was. The hatred was back in her eyes.

  6

  Valor

  “Lachlan, we know where she is,” Ransom said, his tone the most exasperated I’ve ever heard the playful and sarcastic vampire.

  Lachlan shut the door, and I gap
ed at him. “Did he just say…” My mind reeled. The heat that had been steaming in my blood seconds ago totally evaporated and transformed to ice. The breath in my lungs seized.

  “Aye,” Lachlan said, not noticing the terror in my eyes. “I’m going to get your cousin for you as soon as I get some clothes on.”

  I shimmied slightly, only now realizing I still had my legs wrapped around his very naked hips. “I’ll just get my—”

  “You’re not coming.”

  “The hell I’m not!” I snapped, both feet firmly planted on the floor and my eyes solely on his. Sure, a few minutes ago? I’d been admiring the damn perfect specimen he was. Fuck, it had felt so damn good to see him alive. Seeing him naked? A shiver raced down my spine, but I refused to acknowledge it.

  Lachlan totally ignored my anger, shifting out of my eyesight without so much as a blink. I hadn’t even worked the words around my tongue before he popped back into sight, fully clad in his leathers, his Glocks holstered beneath.

  “I don’t have time—”

  “You sure as fuck do,” I cut him off, stepping between him and the door. I blinked a few times when he flashed his fangs. Terror should be racing through my veins, but for some illogical reason, I wasn’t peeing my panties right this second. Not with the true fear clinging to my skin. “You don’t know our code. I have to read the message.”

  Lachlan arched an eyebrow at me but didn’t remove me from his path, so I considered that a plus. “Ransom is the best hacker I’ve ever seen—”

  “He may be,” I cut him off. “But this isn’t some security program written and sold all over the world. Daphne and I have created codes and innuendos and inside jokes since she could speak. You may think you know where you’re going, but you really don’t have a clue.”

  He studied me for a moment, those eyes of his scanning every inch of my face, and who knew what else he was sniffing out with his heightened senses. The mating bond was a bitch in more ways than making me an irrational, territorial woman with a need so fierce between her thighs she wanted to devour the male in front of her—no, it fucking let him sense my emotions too, or so Lyric had told me. And right now?

  Hope and terror were the only things stronger than the lust and hate slamming through my veins Hope that he’d listen, that he wouldn’t play primal alpha hero and go off half-cocked to the wrong location. I knew Daphne better than anyone. I didn’t care how intelligent Ransom was. He wasn’t talented enough to crack into my sixteen-year-old cousin’s head.