by A. K. Koonce
An Assassin’s Destiny
The Huntress Series Book 3
A.K. Koonce
Harper Wylde
An Assassin’s Destiny
Copyright 2019 A.K. Koonce & Harper Wylde
All Rights Reserved
Cover design by DarkImaginarium Art & Design
Editing by Elemental Editing
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without express written permission from the author. Any unauthorized use of this material is prohibited.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Fantasyland
2. The Lies I Tell Myself
3. Lessons Learned
4. One Lie and the Truth
5. First Day of School
6. Teacher’s Pet
7. A Stalking Huntress
8. Unmade
9. Post PMS
10. Daddy Issues
11. Encore and a Standing Ovation
12. The Hormone House
13. Intensify
14. Cars, Vaginas, and Love
15. Birth of the Anti-League
16. Electrocute the World
17. Brace for Impact
18. Just You
19. Cat and Mouse
20. A Love More Powerful
21. Destiny
A Special Note From the Authors
Mason’s Chapter
A Note to The Reader
Shadow Touched
Also by A.K. Koonce
Also By Harper Wylde
About Harper Wylde
About A.K. Koonce
One
Fantasyland
There's been a bit of a change in our relationship. I'm no longer creeping on Tylin in the shower like an innocent school girl. No, I've grown up, and now I watch him handle a different kind of wood.
Literally. Unfortunately.
A sheen of sweat clings to his biceps as he swings the sledge hammer into the wall in one fluid move. Splinters of wood fly, and crumbling brick clatters to the old tile floor, sending debris jetting across the room. Rory nods to him before swinging his own hammer, turning his solid build into rigid, strained muscles. His powers are uncontainable and I see them come out to play, even if he doesn’t intend for them to. With every rigid blow he gives the structure, waves of energy collide into the walls with much more force than any human should be capable of. Concrete tumbles down around him, spraying through the old mansion like a shower of destruction.
This sort of work is exhausting for me and fun for him.
At least Rory has the common courtesy to do the job shirtless.
Shirtless but in a hard hat. I don't understand the safety protocols during the reconstruction of our Anti-League project, but I'm not going to let something as ridiculous as logic get in the way of my fantasies.
“You're imagining them both stroking it, aren't you?” Jameson's breath tickles along my neck as his chest, hips, and legs press against me, molding perfectly along my body while holding me to him like I'm not covered in sweat and dust right now.
“I'm actually really busy. I don’t have time for smutty thoughts.” I lift my hand and pull the trigger of my drill hard, letting it make that fantastically terrible noise right next to Jameson's ear.
He jars away from me in an instant, but his cocky smirk is right in place when he leans against the crumbling wall I'm working on. His casual smile pulls at the jagged scar lining his face from brow to jaw, but he’s so attractive it’s hard to notice anything other than his intense gaze.
“Oh, you're too busy, huh?” His back meets the wall but his hand lowers, splaying below his hips slowly before gripping himself in the most suggestive way.
The drill lowers, forgotten in my hand, and it's like he wants me to admit that my mind is a constant smut mill that never stops turning.
“Super busy, sorry.”
The empty, partially remodeled foyer carries our voices, taking my whispers and sending them crawling over the high, arching ceilings. Everything is white with a heavy layer of dust lingering in the morning sunlight. Rory told me it’d feel good to rip this place apart and put it back together again, and he was right. It feels incredible.
Tiring, but incredible.
Jameson uses those steeply built walls to keep himself hidden from Rory and Tylin, who are just yards away. He leans right in front of me and I can't help but let my attention stray to the yellow hard hat shadowing his pale eyes.
How. Am. I. Supposed. To. Work. In. A. Fantasyland?
I feel like any minute now, Mason's going to stride through the door in a sexy fireman's uniform, with rave music pounding through the building from out of nowhere, and then every sexy thing I've ever wanted in life will come true.
Porn. It’s basically porn come to life.
“Maybe you're on break, but I'm not.” My chin tips up and I force myself not to look down at what his hand is doing.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
You’re better than this, Lex. You’re better than this.
Am I though?
Shit, I think he said something during my mantras.
“By all means, don't let me stop you,” he replies, and his smile widens even more as his palm slips beneath the waist of his low-slung jeans.
My body fires to life as my heartbeat pounds wildly.
I sneak one peek. Just one. Because I'm on the clock and stuff and can’t be distracted.
His forearm flexes and the hard bulge creating an outline against his jeans makes me forget logic, this renovation, my fucking name.
That's what men must never know—we can never give them the ultimate power of knowing that dicks have the magical ability of mind control.
It’s the way he does it, the way he moves, in this laid back, arm flexing, slow pull of his muscles as he works himself the way I want to work him. It sends a blaze of desire right through me and it’s so hard to ignore.
And he knows it.
I take a single step and then his hand snatches my wrist, pulling me until I'm nearly flush against him, my breasts pressing against the smooth panes of his chest, as his long fingers slip beneath my shirt, grazing higher and higher until he skims the underside of my lace bra. Suddenly, I hate fabric like my life depends on it. His mouth is the most dangerous of all, however. The press of his lips is a feather light brush that has me aching for more. Lower, he presses his lips to the column of my throat, barely kissing, barely breathing the faintest breath along my skin, until I'm gasping for the feel of his mouth on my flesh.
His arm brushes my stomach with every stroke he gives himself, while touching the soft curves of my body. I'm weak, leaning into him and living for the gentle teasing touches he's giving me while I think about what his hand is doing below his waistline.
“Still too busy, Boss?” he whispers to me, his hand stroking himself between us, grinding his cock into my lower stomach, making sure I know just what's waiting for me the moment I say I want it.
I want it. I want it right now.
“I-I could make time.” My voice is a breathless thing, which makes his lips tilt into a smug smile along my neck where his mouth finally fully presses against my flesh, sucking and nipping and making me moan.
Then h
e slips away. My body falters, falling into the wall without his strength supporting me. The drill bangs to the ground, smashing fucking perfectly into my toes on its way down.
“Actually, Scar sent me in to get you. She said it was urgent or something.” He shrugs. I glare. He smirks, and adjusts his very hard, very insulting cock.
And then, he walks away.
Insulted outrage roars through my clouded, confused, lustful state.
“I hate you.”
“Didn't feel like you hated me.” He doesn't look back at me as he saunters up the curving marble staircase, and I can’t help but ogle his ass as he leaves.
An insulting ass is what it is.
“That moan didn't sound hateful either,” Mason adds, his low casual tone humming through the room.
When I turn, I'm met with smoldering dark eyes in the shadows of the second floor balcony. His arms rest comfortably on the white railing and his gaze never leaves mine. His depthless eyes hold mystery and affection, as Mason looks at me like I'm the only thing he needs in life.
Sometimes, I wonder if he really realizes he already has me.
“Were you just going to watch?” I fold my arms over my chest, and even I can hear how breathless my voice sounds.
Mind control, I tell you.
“I wasn't planning on interrupting. That's just rude,” Mason replies with the most serious, kissable expression.
I take the stairs slowly, giving myself plenty of time to glare at his offensively handsome face. He keeps his place there at the banisters, not moving a muscle, but watching me intently with every stalking step I take.
It's a game really. Who can be the better watcher? Sure, maybe he’s a professional stalker, but he and I both know I'm a better Peeping Tom than he is. He can’t out peep me. But I'm not going to object to him trying either.
My arm brushes his when I reach the top landing, my boots meeting smooth carpet. Flecks of white plaster and weeks of dust and mud stain the pretty burgundy material.
It’ll have to be replaced. Just like everything else in this beautiful, deteriorating mansion
I pause at his side, my lips brushing his ear in the slowest, most tormenting way.
“Has anyone ever told you it's also rude to stare?” The smallest smile cracks at the corner of his lips.
A thrill of happiness blooms through me from the small, sensual smile that tips his lips just for me.
He turns until a nonexistent amount of space separates his lips from mine.
“I always thought you liked me impolite. Rude. Bad.” The warmth of his breath kisses my tongue, and those heated dark eyes of his eat up every little emotion flashing in my gaze.
And then he pushes off his spot on the balcony, before slipping past me.
“Don’t forget Scar needs you,” he reminds me with a teasing smirk, never once looking back at the breathless, thoughtless wreck of a mess he left me in.
Both of them. They do it on purpose. Trying to see who can make me crack first. It’s all fun and games until Alexa becomes illogically hysterical from too much foreplay and not enough real attention.
Maybe I’m being overdramatic. Maybe they’re just rude.
Probably the second one.
“How could you assign me to their room?” she whisper-shouts. Every long inch of her crimson hair shifts with the manic way she’s shaking her head at me. I take a step back from the angry assassin who I thought was my closest and dearest friend.
Scarlett isn’t looking at me like a friend right now.
“I didn't. It's not their room. There are only two rooms remodeled right now that are actually livable. It's not a bedroom, it's a shared common room right now. It's a big space, just… ignore them or something.” I shrug like a total passive assassin. Staring into Scar’s big blue, fuming angry eyes make me feel every bit like she’s thirty seconds away from asking for my manager.
And I would go running right to Tylin, to be completely honest. I’d cower behind him and nod along while she rips him a new asshole for making her share a room with two men she’s apparently—I pause to really study the purse of her lips and the tight pull of her folded arms—yeah, she’s fucked them.
And now she’s sharing a bedroom with them. Excuse me, a common room.
“I’m sharing a room too. We all have to share rooms right now. It’s not a big deal. We’re all adults.”
The more assassins we bring in to prepare for our Anti-League, the more crowded the two rooms are becoming. Tossing Vale and Mars into this room is apparently overcrowding to the max for Scar.
“You’re sharing a room with three sexy men—not counting my brother because, ew—who all want to bang you. I’m sharing a room with two brooding fucks who just want to make my day-to-day life miserable.”
“Well, to be fair, my guys are making me pretty miserable too. Like… they are the worst.” I nod, trying to be sympathetic, but she doesn’t buy my fake pity party complaints. Jeez, tough crowd. “Annnnd I haven’t even had sex with Rory.”
This important issue causes her brow to scrunch. “What? Why?”
“He might be cockless for all I know.” He’s not, I’ve felt it, I’ve just never seen it. Definitely not cockless. “So, no banging there.” I shrug. “My life is completely miserable.”
Someone pity me and my abundance of attractive boyfriends, please.
“From my experience, a guy that big is anything but cockless,” she muses.
Wow, we’ve really improved our girl talk. Unless I slip up and mention Jameson’s monster cock, Scar and I are impressively good at girl talk now.
“Well, that’s not really accurate because Jameson is pretty lean, and talk about blessed. Someone up above must have been making up for that man’s inability to shut up or something. Am I right?”
Oh. Shit. Right…
Her upper lip curls and she’s right back to glaring at me. The happy smile on my mouth fades slowly as I realize I celebrated a bit too early with the girl talk improvement we were making.
We were so close too.
“Well, make room in your common room, because I’m not sharing with Mars and Vale. It’s… awkward.”
I can’t imagine Scarlett awkward for a single second in her entire, beautiful life.
She’s just like her brother, all confident posture and too much strength to ever back down from anyone.
And yet, she’s asking me over and over again to do this one thing for her.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Take the south wing common room with us. Not a problem,” I offer, and all that defensive tension in her shoulders falls to an almost vulnerable low.
“Thanks, Lex.”
“Morning.” A deep voice slides across my skin like velvet and bad decisions as it hums through the large common room. A broad shadow blocks out the sunlight from the hall windows behind me.
And suddenly, Scarlett is awkward.
How the fuck does Vale do that? Is it his ability to read people and see their motives?
Would it work on Jameson? Would it be weird if I asked him to try?
Scarlett’s deep red lips tense with the barest hint of a smile, and I can’t help but wonder what happened between the two assassins in the last couple of weeks. He seems like such a good guy. They were flirty and affectionate before.
Now it’s awful. I can feel the tense distance between them, even as he takes a single step into the doorway and nearly covers her slender frame with his, uncaring of her personal space.
“You okay?” His tight button-down hugs his biceps, and Scars attention flits across his body, which is so close to hers, before nodding slowly.
Just. Tell. Him. For the love of all that is angsty, just tell him, Scar.
“Alexa wants me to bunk with her for a while.” Her voice dips just slightly, so slightly I wonder if she even notices, but Vale does. He seems to notice every single thing about her.
He doesn’t step back. He doesn’t allow much space between them at all.
I fe
el like I have front row seats to a soap opera. It’s enthralling and invasive all at the same time. Where is a giant bucket of popcorn when you need one the most?
Their awkwardness is starting to creep into me, and I have to force myself to speak up.
“I should go.” I make it a single step before Scar’s hand slips past Vale and snatches my wrist. It’s like a snake attack. She strikes so fast I barely see it. “I-I could stay for a while. I’m sure the house will just… remodel itself.”
And she’s back to glaring at me.
Perfect.
“I’ll meet you outside,” I state very bluntly. She has got to talk to him. I don’t know what happened between the three of them, but ignoring and making excuses to a man who can tell when someone is lying can’t be healthy for any kind of relationship. Platonic or not.
She finally releases my hand and nods slowly.
My heartbeat increases, fluttering erratically for her and the sadness that’s in her eyes.
If Jameson finds out one of these men hurt his little sister, it would be a power show. We would have to remodel everything we’ve already renovated, because he’d fucking destroy this place.
I quietly trail down the hall, and I can’t help but hear their hushed whispers as I walk away. When I reach the large white door to my room, I glance back for a single second to see Vale slip his fingers through hers as her temple rests against his chest, and for a moment, they just stand like that, looking exhausted and hurt.
I want to help her. I want to help them both, which is something I’ve never experienced in my life before meeting the men who took me in. The ones who began to treat me like a teammate and then… so much more.