Alpha Assassins Guild: (Complete Series: Books 1-5)

by Juniper Leigh

  Viola’s eyes grew wide with fright, but it took only one more roar from the beast for her to turn on her heel and dart at top speed out of the bedroom. She flew down the stairs, paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that she remained naked and unarmed. Perhaps she spared a single second’s thought to leaving her gown and Louboutins behind, but she was out the front door as fast as her legs could carry her.

  CHAPTER 4

  On bare feet she sprinted down the drive toward the limo, where Rowan was waiting in an easy lean against the passenger’s side door. He straightened when he saw her running.

  “Turn the car on, Rowan!” she shouted as she ran down the drive. He didn’t ask questions, simply slid over the hood of the vehicle and opened the driver’s side door. By the time Viola reached it, the engine was on, the gear was set to drive, and she was ready to go.

  She dove into the backseat and yelled, “Drive!” Before she had even had a chance to close the door. Once inside, she got up on her knees on the seat and peered out the back, squinting to see if the bear was following them. When she didn’t see it, she relaxed somewhat, wondering somewhat absently if a bear could run as fast as a car.

  Spying her purse, she crawled over to it and fished out her cell phone. Pressing down the home button, she heard a beep and spoke into the microphone. “How fast can a bear run?” she asked it.

  “Checking on that,” came the phone’s reply. “Okay, here’s what I found for: How Fast Can a Bear Run?”

  Viola clicked on one of the links, scanning it quickly: A bear can run up to 60 kilometers per hour, which is approximately 37 miles per hour. She visibly relaxed, tossing the phone onto the seat beside her. She hoped very much that Rowan was going at least seventy as they peeled out onto the main road.

  She curled into herself as they drove, lacking anything whatsoever to cover her body. And when Rowan finally pulled to a stop outside of her apartment building, she stayed put in the back of the limo until he came around to open the door. When he did, his eyes were averted, and he was offering her his jacket, which she quickly took and put on. Grabbing her phone and purse, she climbed out of the limo, clad only in a men’s jacket that she was swimming in, and darted into the building with Rowan close on her heels.

  He knew better than to open his mouth until they were safe within the confines of her personal space. But as soon as they were, he turned a pair of wild cat eyes on her. “What in the holy mother of fuck happened back there, Viola?” he demanded, throwing his arms out to the side.

  She shrugged out of his jacket and pulled on a tee shirt and an abandoned pair of sweatpants, her hair staying put in the messy side bun.

  “Honest to God, Rowan, I have no fucking idea,” she said, and immediately set to work doing a thorough search of her apartment. She had taken up smoking when she was a teenager in the convent school, finding any way that she could to act out, even if only a little. She’d given it up on her twenty-first birthday, but kept a pack around in case of emergencies. This, she thought, was a legitimate emergency, and she needed something to calm her down.

  She trailed a hand along the top of the refrigerator and found the pack, pulling it down and clutching it to her chest as though it were a life raft. She plucked one from the pack and put it between her lips, lit it with the lighter she kept in the empty space in the pack, and inhaled a breath of toxic calm. Exhaling, she then set about to find item two: vodka. That was easy enough, as she kept it in the freezer. She poured two fingers into her mug for herself, tossed it back and offered the bottle to Rowan. He gave a shake of his head, refusing, confused. “Viola, what did you see back there?”

  And she looked him square in the face and said, “A bear.” She thought he might berate her, or laugh at her, or tell her she’d been seeing things, but the fact that he did none of this deeply concerned her. Instead, he gave a sharp nod of his head, and snatched the bottle of vodka from her fist, taking a deep drink straight from it.

  “Rowan, what is going on?” she demanded.

  “Hang on a sec, Vi,” he began. “Why don’t you just have a seat?” Viola took a drag of her cigarette and sent the smoke swirling in a halo above her head. Her eyes belied the panic her body felt but was not showing.

  “I don’t want to fucking sit,” she shouted. “I want to know what’s going on. Why aren’t you freaking out? Graham McCallum turned into a goddamned bear, and you’re not even… you’re totally calm! Why are you calm? This is the most insane thing I’ve ever… Is it even…? How…? And you’re just standing there.”

  “Viola,” he said again, this time more forcefully, “sit.” She deposited herself into a chair at the kitchen table and locked her eyes on him as he rounded the table to sit across from her. This is where they’d been, not too long ago, when he first revealed the mission to her, where she’d begrudgingly accepted. How she wished she’d never agreed to it in the first place. Even if it had meant she never killed again, she could never unsee what she saw.

  “Graham McCallum is a shifter,” he said calmly, though the tone of his voice did nothing for the spinning of her mind. “He is the Alpha of Clan Ursus, a very powerful sect of shifters in this region. Theirs is a smaller clan than most, but they’ve worked together in such a way that they’ve amassed inconceivable wealth. McCallum’s rise to power has been a fairly recent one, when the death of his father, Beau, meant he had the opportunity to step forward as Alpha. Now that he’s taken over, he’s pointed the Clan’s wealth at purchasing and expanding environmentally friendly corporations, and it’s proven very successful for him, and the rest of his kind.”

  “A shifter…?” she repeated lamely, stuck on the fact that she now lived in a world where shapeshifters existed. She blinked in rapid succession, trying to get herself to wake up from this nightmare.

  “Yes, Viola,” Rowan said calmly. “The faster you accept this as truth, the better off you’ll be.”

  “How could you send me in there to kill him when you knew what he was?” she demanded. “How could you send me literally into the lion’s den?”

  “He isn’t a lion,” Rowan hissed, “He’s a goddamned grizzly bear, and I didn’t think you’d believe me. How am I supposed to do that, Vi? Here’s your mark, oh, and by the way, he sometimes turns into a bear?”

  She ashed her cigarette in an empty cereal bowl on the table and pried the bottle of vodka from Rowan’s hands. She took a swig. “So, you want me to take out the, er… Alpha of this clan? That was the idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” she wanted to know. “To what end?”

  Rowan heaved a sigh and stood up, loosening his tie so that he could eventually tug it off over his head. He undid his cufflinks then as well, setting them carefully on the table. “There is more than one clan of shifters in this area, and there are hundreds of clans throughout North America alone. Many of these clans are known to one another, and many would do business together, trying to ensure the continued growth, health and well-being of shifter kind. However, business dealings go sour, or a particularly nasty Alpha may rise to power, and things are thrown off balance.” Rowan unbuttoned his dress shirt, tugging it out of his pants as he went, and shrugged out of it. “In this case,” he continued, stepping out of his dress shoes, “Clan Ursus used to be in business with Clan Felidae. But the previous Alpha, Beau McCallum, was interested only in advancing the interests of his own clan, and that meant many members of Clan Felidae lost their investments, their savings, and their lives.” He looked at her levelly as he unbuckled his belt; she watched him, the smoke giving the air a familiar, tangy scent.

  “Beau died of old age — the man was a fossil, and we couldn’t get to him because he very rarely left the den at the end of his life. But once his son took over, we knew we could get to him, take him out, and ensure that someone else rose to the position of Alpha, someone who might be interested in making reparations to Clan Felidae, or if not, at least resuming a prosperous business partnership.”

  “So this is
all about business?” she asked. “Money?”

  “It is largely about money,” he confirmed, “but there is also a matter of pride and principal. A while back, there were members of both clans that defected, a male from Clan Felidae, a female from Clan Ursus. Mating outside of the clans is unheard of, strictly against the rules.”

  “But they mated.”

  “They did.”

  “And what happened to them?”

  Rowan looked her levelly, his expression softening somewhat. “They were executed.”

  A shudder ran down Viola’s spine, but she put the thought out of her head. “So, Clan Felidae hired Somnus Sacrae to take out the Alpha of Clan Ursus?” Viola asked, wanting to make sure she was keeping up. She hooked her feet up onto the edge of the chair and hugged her knees close, feeling better if she made herself as small as possible.

  “Not exactly, Viola,” Rowan said, and slid his pants down his legs.

  “What am I missing?”

  “Somnus Sacrae wasn’t hired by Clan Felidae; Somnus Sacrae is a part of Clan Felidae. You are a part of Clan Felidae.” He removed his boxer briefs last and kicked them out of the way. “I am a part of Clan Felidae.”

  Viola parted her lips to ask another series of questions, but before she could, she watched Rowan start to change, just as Graham McCallum had changed. But for him there was no agony, no fight against the change, no pain from an attack. For him, it was easy, like diving into a pool of warm water. In one moment, he was tall, lithe, lean Rowan, and in the next moment, in a blur of movement as though someone had come in and muddled his image, he was on all fours and covered in a thick coat of black fur. Rowan Weaver was a panther, beautiful and terrifying. He stretched his paws out in front of him, hoisting his tail high into the air, and stretched, giving a mighty cat yawn as he moved. Righting himself, he shook his head from side to side, and moved forward toward Viola. Stunned, she peered down into the big cat’s face and saw Rowan’s eyes, a sort of yellow-green, eyes she had always known belonged to a cat.

  FINDING HER BEASTS

  (ALPHA ASSASSINS GUILD: PART 2)

  When I was little, I had night terrors. No one was sure why, exactly, or what brought them on, but they were paralyzing nightmares that left me screaming in the night. My sister, Verity, eventually got used to it, and would crawl into bed beside me and rub my arms with her small, deft hands until I calmed, until I could be roused from my sleep and assured that everything was actually all right. I could rarely remember the dreams — or, perhaps more accurately, I repressed them — but one of them was a recurring dream that I would have over and over, with slight variations each time.

  I was always the same age — seven years old — and I was wearing my school uniform, a blue-and-red plaid skirt, a white collared shirt and a blue sweater, with white knee socks and black Mary Jane shoes. It was so vivid that I could feel the itchy wool against my wrists where the sweater came past the sleeves of a hand-me-down collared shirt that was too small on someone as lanky as me. And Verity was with me, chubby and short and sweet-faced and happy, and she had her hand in mine. We were in an open-air mall, and we had wandered into a jewelry shop. We spent our time peering intently into the glass, where diamonds and gemstones sparkled beneath the shop light, dazzling us anew with every move we made. And there was a woman in the shop, tall and beautiful with curly hair the color of expensive whiskey and rich brown eyes with golden specks, like a dragonfly in amber. She was pointing to something in the case, and I was watching her move with grace and ease, like a heroine in a movie in soft focus. She would always turn to look at me, and her smile would alight on us both like she knew us and loved us, her curls bouncing with the gentle turn of her head. But in that instant a wild beast would leap over the counter and clamp its powerful jaws around the beautiful woman’s neck. I would part my lips to scream but no sound ever came out, and when I looked down at my hands, they were covered in a spatter of blood.

  The woman, with her throat torn out, would drop to the floor and her eyes would turn glassy and dim, and I would realize that I was no longer holding my sister’s hand. Verity had vanished, and I tried to call out for her, but I was muted by fear. The beast — sometimes a wolf, sometimes a lion — would turn its eyes on me then, intelligent, deliberate eyes, and run its tongue over the gore on its teeth. Then it would leap at me and I would run.

  I ran and ran until my lungs burned and my limbs ached but the beast was gaining on me, always nipping at my heels. I tried to call out to my sister, but somehow I knew, instinctively, that the beast had already gotten her, that I was truly alone in this world. And the most frightening part of the dream was always when I stopped running, when I turned around and looked the beast in the eye, ready for it to take me.

  No, sitting at my kitchen table, hugging my knees to my chest, I was staring down into the eyes of a giant, wildcat, just like I did at the end of the night terror. But this was no dream — there would be no Verity beside me, stroking my arms to bring me out of it. This was real. He was here, now, and he had made himself into a panther.

  ***

  CHAPTER 1

  Viola was rooted in place, frozen in her fear and confusion. She gave her head a violent shake, hoping to clear away the vision or hallucination, but no matter how often she blinked, the cat remained. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to hyperventilate.

  “This isn’t real,” she murmured, like a mantra, “this isn’t real, this isn’t real.”

  To answer, the panther moved closer still, and lifted itself up onto its hind legs, bringing its big, clammy paws down on her knees. It nudged her face with its damp nose, and she let out a whimper of dismay, unsure of how to behave in the presence of a vicious predator.

  But no, it wasn’t a wild beast, was it? It was Rowan. He was Rowan. She’d watched him undergo a transformation, as though his entire body were vibrating at a heightened frequency. She forced herself to breathe. “Down, kitty,” she said, trying for blasé, and failing utterly.

  Rowan, for his part, exhaled sharply out of his nose by way of protest, and retreated from her, padding lightly over the linoleum kitchen flooring until he was what he thought might be a more comfortable distance from the shaken Viola.

  “Can you… speak…? I mean, can you still talk, like… like, normally talk? When you’re all… cat-ified?” She was beginning to shed some of her fear in favor of an overwhelming curiosity, and after a time, she let go of the grip she had on her knees, uncoiling slightly to let her feet rest on the floor.

  The large, black cat gave a shake of its head, a distinctly anthropomorphic gesture.

  “But you can clearly understand me still,” she continued. The cat — Rowan — nodded. Viola turned her hand palm up and slowly lowered it down. Rowan canted his head slightly to the side before he sprang up and trotted over to her like a domesticated kitten and rubbed his head against her hand. Viola, despite her anxiety, couldn’t help but smile as she stroked his ears.

  “I don’t know what you are,” she said at length, “but you are beautiful.” Rowan sat back on his haunches and sort of puffed out his chest, and perhaps she thought she saw a hint of a smile in those yellow-green eyes. The panther began to vibrate again, like paint smudged on the canvas of her vision, until the familiar figure of Rowan appeared in its stead. He was crouching down low, his hands on the floor, his head bent, breathing heavily as though the change had been quite the exertion of energy. After a moment, he uncoiled to his full height, and Viola stared up at him. He proffered a sheepish grin and raked his fingers through his hair, comfortably naked in front of her.

  He turned away from her then and retreated to where his clothes lay neatly folded, and she admired the muscle and sinew beneath his pale white flesh. She could see it, now. She could see how this man was also a jungle cat.

  He tugged on his boxer briefs, and barely had time to turn around before Viola was at his side, smacking him upside the head.

  “Hey — ow!” he protested, ducking awa
y from her next attack. She glared at him, the fear and confusion, the curiosity and the rapt attention, all fading into a frenzied sort of anger.

  “You motherfucker,” she spat, all pain and vitriol. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wanted—”

  “We’re supposed to be friends.” She dealt another smack to his shoulder, and he rolled out of her reach.

  “We are friends, Viola, but you have to understand—”

  “All this time — all this time — I’ve been working for a goddamn shifter sect? For, for, for a bunch of goddamned panthers? And you don’t think I had a right to know that, to really know what I was getting into?” Her eyes were storm-sky blue, and she raged on.

  “Yes, I do think that, but—”

  “And the others? All the other people I killed for you, for your clan: were they shifters, too? What other sorts of animals could I have come up against?”

  A silence lapsed between them, and she arched her eyebrows high, urging him to respond. “Yes,” he replied at last, perhaps somewhat begrudgingly. “Yes, all right? Yes. With one or two possible exceptions, almost all of your marks have been shifters from other clans.”

  “What other clans are there?” Viola crossed her arms under her breasts and fixed her gaze on him with an expression that clearly proclaimed she would brook no argument. Rowan heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger.

  “Can I at least put my clothes back on?” he asked. She hesitated for a moment, but eventually conceded with one sharp nod of her head. He relaxed somewhat and tugged on his dress pants. “Thank you.” Threading the black leather belt through the belt loops, he continued. “Well, for one, there is Clan Canis.”

  “Dogs?”

  “Wolves.”

  She rolled her eyes and reluctantly resumed her seat. “Of course,” she remarked. “Werewolves.”