by A. K. Koonce
A strange, blue glow crosses Derek's face that I have feeling is radiating from me. But I still draw upon the faint energy Derek has left.
He’s dangerous. Even when he’s weak.
I won’t let him come back.
Not this time.
The scorch becomes searing pain as my feet lift off the ground. My hold on Derek tightens, and then he leaves his chair. The way I grip at his throat cuts off his airway, and the choking sound that mewls past his lips gives me pleasure.
The darkness inside of me rages like a tornado. A twist of a storm and danger that grows to unbearable levels.
Lightning drops from above me in hot, white slashes as more power escapes from my overfilled body. The ceiling gives an ominous crack and rains down around me in a crescendo of broken wood.
The groaning grind of bending metal becomes the soundtrack of the room, as debris swirls around us. Tendrils of my hair fly out to the sides as we float in midair, surrounded by the destruction I'm causing. My fingers flex even tighter around Derek's throat, and with one last yank, I consume the remaining energy attached to his soul.
Wide, stunned eyes stare back at me, the light gradually leaving them as I steal the remains of his life force the way Armond always tried to do to me. I watch until that gaze grow glassy and unseeing. I stare until he becomes nothing more than a limp body.
Only then do I release him.
Derek falls to the floor in a thud of twisted limbs, while my veins burn away inside me. Every single nerve is searing, blazing with the greatest pain I've ever felt.
Pure, uncontrolled energy wraps around me, and I feel my skin breaking, cracking with the effort to hold it all inside.
“Alexa!” Mason's cry finally breaks through my haze of agony, and I turn my head to see him below. Rory, Jameson, Scarlett, and Allison are battling more assassins than I knew were in the building.
Flashes of Jameson's powers bolt around the room as he takes out man after man, holding his own in the war we seem to have started. Rory's power shakes the room when he releases waves of controlled strength and flings a group of attackers away from him with very little effort. Then there's Scar, tormenting men in her favorite assassin way—from the inside out. The sight that breaks my heart the most, is the way Allison empties the man she's immobilized on the ground. For all I know, it could be her first kill.
Love pierces my chest, the only other feeling inside of me other than pain, and I latch on to the little sparking feeling with every fiber of my being.
I need to end this.
The room, the destruction, the power, the pain… my dead father. It all filters away until the only thing I can feel is how much love I have for the people defending me. The people who showed up. My true family.
They are my destiny.
With so much certainty about the choice I'm making, I let a single tear track down my cheek and raise my hands. Glowing, blue cracks have broken my skin, but I don't let the shock of seeing myself deteriorating lessen my resolve. If anything, I let it build my determination.
I see the exact moment Mason realizes what I'm about to do, and his shout draws the attention of my other men. Rory's eyes go wide and he starts to barrel toward me. Jameson screams for me, and Mason seems frozen to the spot, his eyes begging me not to do this.
For one moment, I take them all in. My men. The ones I love.
My Mason. Calm, sweet, and always so sure of himself. He never falters. Never gives up. He wears his heart on his sleeve for me, and always reassures me of where I stand with not only him, but within our group. He’s my voice of reason and the anchor that keeps me grounded.
My Jameson. The reckless, self-assured assassin turned boyfriend. The one who always makes me smile, who teases and turns me on with minimal effort. He doesn't know it, but he's the glue that keeps my dangerous assassins together and smiling, rather than killing each other.
My Rory. My silent, sweet, and deadly giant. The closet romantic. The brooding protector. I love the way he loves me so hard and so fully.
My Tylin. My boss, my lover, my friend. His approval gave me something I've never had before. A family. A life. I love his control and passion, and the way he challenges me to be better. Stronger.
Each one of them completes me. And I feel nothing but lucky to be been theirs.
Even for a short while.
Time halts as I let my power slip past all the others and I memorize their faces in the time I have left. Sending out a ribbon of shielding energy, I aim it and mold it around each of my men, then around Scar and Allison, my sisters.
The shield pulses and thrums, and once I'm satisfied, I look to each man in turn and whisper one final, “I love you.”
Time restarts and the battle wages, causing my men to defend themselves. All except for Rory who tries to rush toward me. The shield stretches to cover his movements and when I'm sure they're all protected, I throw my head back and let go.
The energy and power of all the assassins Derek siphoned from bursts forth in a stream so intense, I lose all control.
Soul crushing amounts of power leave every crack that's formed in my body, destroying me as it rushes out and lays waste to the world around me. The building shakes and groans. The remaining walls cave in. The assassins are decimated.
The energy eradicates everything in its path. The screams of fallen assassins echo into the annihilation as the wrath of power lays ruin to the world around me.
The rush of energy is like a tsunami of pain I can't escape, and I don't fight it as the waves wash over me. One after another, until I'm drowning, unable to draw breath as my body breaks apart.
My last memory is one of Tylin, Rory, Jameson, Mason, and I in our mansion. Smiling. Happy.
And I let myself fall into darkness, wrapped in a love more powerful than the world itself.
Twenty-One
Destiny
Jameson
The crash of her body is a loud echo in the eerily silent room. The world stops, and debris and dust falls through the air like rain. Mason’s dark eyes assess the room, keeping his arms locked firmly around Mars, who is now our prisoner. His quick thinking barely registers, but the fact that we have a healer—even a traitorous one like Mars—is the only spark of hope that I cling to. Rory’s loud roar fills the room as he uses his powers to lift large pieces of drywall and beams of steel out of his way, as he forges a path that leads to our fallen angel. But I’m already halfway there, scrambling over shit and falling on my knees beside her, uncaring of the sharp, twisted metal that slashes into my skin, making me bleed. I’d empty every last drop of my blood to save her.
I’d fucking die to take her place.
“Lex!” Her name is a cry on my lips, but I can’t move as I stare down at her battered and broken body. Tylin kneels and he scoops her up in an instant, like he can’t stand not touching her. He’s barely alive himself.
Fresh marks line his wrists in black slashing lines that seemed to revitalize him the moment Archer etched them into his skin. They’re deeply carved like it took a lot of power to get the marks to take.
But they did.
He’s alive. And now Alexa is the one who needs him.
She needs us.
Tylin he puts all of his strength into holding her. Her arms hang limply at her sides and her head tips back. Her empty blue eyes are glazed as she stares into the black hole above us. Moonlight slashes down over her features, and my heart dies in my chest.
“No!” Rory drops down on her other side, his hands tracing softly over the curve of her cheek and then down her body as he watches for any sign of life. Any small drag of air that fills her lungs.
But there is none.
I’ve already done this shit with this reckless woman and I won’t do it again.
“Heal her.” I’ve never heard Mason’s voice so deadly before, and the blaze in his eyes is about to ignite the whole damn world on fire just to watch it burn. We’ll rip apart the world brick by fucking brick, until eve
ry assassin still attached to the League is dead, just to avenger her death.
Her death.
The slicing pain in my chest twists and I block those dark words out of my mind.
Mars groans from the injuries he sustained as Mason shoves him to his knees in front of Alexa. Scarlett and Allison cling to each other in the background, their silent breaths turn to gasping cries within the room, a mirror of the storm raging inside me.
“Come back to us, Huntress.” Tylin leans over her body and presses his forehead to hers. The weakest sound shakes from him as he lets out some of the agony that seems to be stealing his breath. “I love you, and I never said it,” he whispers, his composure cracking away with every fading second. “I fucking love you, Alexa.” A stray tear leaks down one side of his face, dropping onto her cheek. It blazes a trail that leaves her skin clean in its wake, taking away all the grime coating her features.
His body trembles with so much violence he nearly drops her, and I’m at his side at once, pulling her to me while he clings to her with the last amount of strength he was holding on to.
I want to hold her and never let her go.
I’ll never let her go.
Never.
The glowing red signature of Mars’ healing power seeps into the corner of my vision. Without the use of one of my eyes, it’s taken time and practice to get used to the difference in perception, but I don’t lift my head to get a better look. I simply stay, whispering calming nothings into Alexa’s ear as waves of power pour into her from Mars.
Seconds turn to minutes, which feel like hours, as we all wait.
“Come on, baby. Breathe for me.” The plea falls from my lips over and over again, becoming a mantra—the most important words I’ve ever spoken. “Live, baby. Live for us. We need you more than you know. You complete us. I fucking love you.”
When Scarlett and I left home, I never thought I’d let anyone close to me again. It was my sister and I against the world, and when she grew old enough not to need me so much, I met Tylin, Rory, and Mason. The guys had made me part of a team, but falling in love with Alexa had made us a family.
It was a word I never thought I’d be able to attach to myself again in this life. I’d planned to live alone. But Alexa entered the picture and shook it up. She made me wish for the kind of family I always longed for but never had. She was hope and everything good in the world.
And now, all my visions of the future are crashing and burning, while the sharpest sting of pain slashes through my shattered heart.
Until her lips part on a gasping breath of life and she whispers my name…
“Jameson.” Alexa’s feminine voice pulls me from the memory, as I stare blankly into the kitchen toward my family, where they are sitting at the custom built wooden table. Her palm lands on my chest and I know she can feel my racing pulse beneath her fingers. “It’s okay, babe,” she murmurs, and the press of her body has a breath shaking out of me.
It’s like she knows exactly where my dark thoughts have strayed.
“Sorry.” I give her a small smile and push the memory of the worst night of my life away. The warmth of her curves press into me as she moves closer, and the sweet scent of her shampoo teases my nose. My arms come around her and I pull her more fully into my body, just breathing her in.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. That night… it was hard on all of us.” She shivers involuntarily as the memory assaults us both.
I grab her chin gently between my thumb and forefinger, and lift her face to mine. Starry blue eyes gaze back at me with so much love that it settles my raging heart, replacing the nightmares with a deep, lasting peace. I never want to lose this feeling.
It’s the only thing I ever need.
Alexa Hart.
With a measured move, I dip my head and seal my lips against hers. The delicious taste of her teases my tongue, and I lick a line across the seam of her lips. I groan when she opens for me and deepens the kiss. The passion between us grows, until the house and all the people in it just drop away. It’s me and Alexa. And that’s all that matters.
“I think you should save some for the rest of us,” Tylin jokes, as his hand lands on my shoulder, squeezing and bringing me back to reality.
With one last, lingering press of my lips against Alexa’s, I pull back and smirk down at her. “I don’t know. This one has the most voracious sexual appetite I’ve ever seen. I doubt she’ll ever run out of energy to please us all.”
“A damn miracle I thank the stars for every fucking night.” Tylin’s grin puts color into Alexa’s cheeks at the reminder of our time together as a group just the night before. Since she and Tylin were healed, returned to the land of the living, we’ve been hard pressed to be separated from each other.
That’s what close calls in life will do for you. Bond you closer and tighter than ever before. I’ll never take what I have for granted again.
With a blush on her face, Alexa pulls away from me and reaches for a large bowl of salad. “Come on boys, dinner’s on.” I can’t help but watch the way she walks away from me. The swing of her hips, the curve of her ass, the way her clothing molds to the sexiest body I’ve ever seen. Don’t even get me started on her tits. Pure, poetic perfection.
Yeah, I’m a goner and I know it.
Hell, I like it.
Fuck. I love it.
I love her.
Trailing after her, I pull her seat out for her and my heart lights up at the way she smiles over her shoulder at me when I scoot her chair in like a proper gentleman.
Yeah, I said it. I’m one classy motherfucker.
When it comes to her.
Taking the seat at her side, I dive into the various bowls and platters set around the table that Mason, Scarlett, and Allison prepared.
“Agenda item number one,” Tylin begins, cutting off the happy chatter at the table with his list of business items. “We need a name.”
“It’s about time!” Scarlett snarks. “I seriously resent using anything that has the name ‘League’ in it.” Rounds of agreement sound around the table.
“But what about the Justice League?” I frame my hands in the air, already picturing a sign with flashing lights installed across the driveway out front. Alright, maybe nothing quite that ostentatious, but the branding would be badass.
“Uh, babe. I think that one’s already been trademarked. Try again.” Alexa forks a bite of food into her mouth, and a smile curves her lips as she lets her gaze fly from man to man while we eat in relative silence. A lopsided grin tilts my mouth as I see the others trying to come up with something better.
“We’re like the X-Men.” Mason shrugs.
“Except we’re real. And incredibly badass,” I add with my usual, smug confidence.
“We’ll Tylin’s our leader. We could be the ‘T-Men,’” Rory suggests, and my signature grin immediately grows wider, flashing my white teeth at the table around me as I start to chuckle and then all out laugh.
Catching on, Alexa’s eyes light up with amusement and she giggles. “That sounds like semen.” A laugh bubbles out of her as she tries to be the ever helpful girlfriend.
Girlfriend. How fucking weird is that?
And amazing. Fucking, weirdly amazing.
Rory scoffs, but a puzzled expression crosses his face and I can tell he’s rolling that phrase around in his brain. Then he booms out a laugh so loud it startles everyone at the table. The sheer mirth that escapes him is contagious, and soon the entire table is laughing with him. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him laugh like that, but it’s a good feeling to see my friends—practically my brothers—so at ease and stress free now that our enemies have been defeated.
“Yeah, fuck that. Not happening.” He shakes his head and turns back to his meal, leaving the debate to the others.
“What about The Alliance?” Mason points his fork to Tylin, and then looks down the table at each ex-assassin in turn.
It’s quiet for a full minute as we all diges
t the name.
“I like it.” Sincerity replaces my usual jovial attitude and I nod in agreement.
“Me too.” Alexa sits up straighter, looking around.
“I’m in.” Scarlett shrugs and Allison adds her agreement as well.
“Better than anything I could have come up with,” Rory grumbles.
And then all eyes are on Tylin.
“To the Alliance.” Tylin raises a glass, and we all follow suit.
“To the Alliance!” The cheer goes up and solidifies the name.
The Alliance Academy. It has a nice ring to it.
Everything is perfect. Finally.
This is what we all worked so hard for.
“Will you be my assistant in my class tomorrow?” Lex turns to me, her big blue eyes making my heart stop as a ton of dirty thoughts slam through my mind at once.
“You want me to help my favorite teacher? Is that what you’re asking, Ms. Meet Me After Class For Extra Extra Hard Credit?” My eyebrows wag suggestively as image after image of her in tight pencil skirts thrust into me so fast my dick gets hard.
“You are such a dork,” she whispers with a roll of her eyes.
I totally fucking am.
But, I also pride myself on being one of the five founding members of the greatest assassin academy in the world.
And I’ve got it hot for teacher.
The Assassin’s End.
A Special Note From the Authors
...You didn’t think we’d close up shop with that fade to black Mason scene still lingering, did you? Assassins don’t let other assassins fade to black. Plus, we have to give our favorite nerdy assassin his POV scene;)
Flip the page for a special chapter from Mason!
Mason’s Chapter
Tears are streaming down her pretty face and her whole world is falling apart.