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

by Juniper Leigh

  ***

  The guards deposited her into a plain room, maybe ten square feet of space all told, and she took a seat on the cot that would be her bed. On the same wall as the bed was a chair, and opposite the chair was a toilet and sink. There was a light overhead, and a grey door that had a window in it, but otherwise, that’s all the room had going on. After a few minutes, she stood on tiptoes to peer out the window and was met with a view only of fluorescent lights and linoleum flooring. Then she sat in the chair and counted the seconds until she lost track. And she bounced that way, from bed, to window, to chair, for a countless number of minutes. She was trying to keep herself from screaming in frustration.

  Stupid Viola, she thought to herself, sitting on the cot with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands, should have listened to Rowan. Rowan did warn you about this, after all. It’s like he saw the bloody future. She just needed to get a message to Graham; maybe he could help. But unless a carrier pigeon flew in through the ventilation system, she had no way of getting any type of message to him at all.

  No, she was well and truly stuck, in a cell of her own making. If she had only killed Graham when she’d had the chance. But… no. No, when she thought of him, she felt a warmth rising in her. She didn’t want him to die; she found she might actually go to great lengths to keep that from happening. But that was ridiculous. She barely knew him. Not like Rowan, for whom she had a long-standing affection. Rowan, who had most recently betrayed the trust she’d placed in him. She wished she’d had the good sense to ask him to look out for Verity before they’d taken her away, but she had been rather caught up in the drama of it all.

  Verity. Poor, fragile Verity. Viola sat upright, eyes wide with realization: what if Verity’s health problems, this mysterious blood-borne illness she’d been managing since she was a young teen, what if it had something to do with the mixing of clan blood? What if she could cure her sister, now that she knew who and what had made them?

  She had to get out of that cell. She just had to get out. She had to have her questions answered, she had to find Graham, she had to make him save her sister.

  MARKED BY THE CLAN

  (ALPHA ASSASSINS GUILD: PART 3)

  When we were little girls, my sister and I used to make believe that we were great warrior queens. We ruled over separate but neighboring kingdoms, and each of us refused to take a husband for fear our power would be usurped. Then, one day, an evil sorceress threatened our lands, and she and I, two warrior queens, were compelled to join forces with our armies to defeat her.

  Verity and I would sit together in the empty library at the St. James Academy during the recess hour, when all the other children were outdoors and we could have the rather regal space to ourselves. We would play pretend that it was the great hall of a palace, and we were convening with our dignitaries to discuss how best to defeat the evil Sorceress.

  “A direct attack would be most prudent,” I would say, in the voice of my most trusted advisor. And I would nod my head solemnly. I struck a casual posture, with my legs crossed and one elbow on the large, oak table. I could see the ghost faces of all our imaginary friends in the chairs around us, and Verity, real and wide-eyed, at the other end of the table. She sat straight, poised, with her hands folded gently in her lap, and shook her head.

  “No,” she would say, “it’s too risky. We must sneak into her camp at night and destroy her silently.”

  “Your men will never make it,” I would say, affecting an accent to indicate that I was now speaking as myself, the warrior queen from the east. “She’s much too powerful. We need considerable force.”

  “We have to take her unawares,” Verity would insist, her cunning blue eyes darting over the faces she imagined in her mind. “A direct attack is much too dangerous.”

  “You’re just afraid,” I spat back, falling too deeply into my role, “you’re scared of a direct attack because you’re too weak to fight.”

  Verity blanched and fell out of the game, her eyes like twin daggers pointed at me. “I am not afraid,” she insisted. “I am not.”

  “Yes, you are. You don’t want to die.”

  “Nobody wants to die, Viola,” she hissed.

  “I am a Queen, and you will address me as such—”

  “And I’m not weak, either. I’m not. I’m just as strong as you. And I’m smarter, too. You just want to have all the glory, but you won’t. You’ll lead your troops against a force too powerful and you’ll all be broken like waves on the rocks of her magic, and then I will be left to fight this war on my own.”

  “Verity—”

  “No,” she said, rising to her feet and stomping toward the library door, “I don’t want to play anymore.”

  I would heave my sighs and stand up and go after her, having had a variation of this argument over and over for as long as I could remember. And perhaps it was cruel of me, her older sister, to prey on her insecurities. But I think part of me wanted to somehow make her stronger, make her face her own insufficiencies. Maybe, I thought, if she understood her shortcomings, she could use that sharp mind to work around them. I knew she could, if only she tried.

  But then she started suffering more and more attacks. It started in her limbs: her wrists and ankles would swell up and she would lie on her back with all four extremities in the air, and I would tell her stories of the Sister Warrior Queens from the Next-Door Kingdoms who rose to power to defeat the Evil Sorceress, all while I massaged the blood back down into her torso. But eventually, other parts of her began to ache and swell, including her sharp and talented brain. And they would have to put her in a medically induced coma until the swelling could go down. Her blood was actively working against her, her cells failing her, and all I was trying to do was make us enough money to give her the best possible chance she had for survival.

  But now… if she and I are the progeny of two different shifter clans, maybe that has something to do with her illness. Maybe it’s the magic in her blood that’s making her ill. Maybe her body wants her to shift, and she has been unconsciously fighting it. Maybe there’s hope.

  Or maybe I’m crazy. I never had the same problems that she had, and we have the same blood. Maybe I’m crazy, and maybe she is just a very sick girl. Maybe there’s no hope at all.

  But I have to know for sure.

  ***

  CHAPTER 1

  Viola had lost track of time. There were no windows to the outside world in her compact little cell, no clocks, and no one had come to deliver food, so there had been no one to ask what time it was. The little window that granted her a glimpse of the hallway showed nothing but the same unflinching fluorescent lights, and she didn’t know how long she’d been lying on that cot, thinking about her sister. Because, she thought, her sister was the only safe subject to contemplate. If she thought for too long about either Graham or Rowan, she would grow agitated, confused, frustrated, angry, frightened, this cornucopia of emotions that she was not in the position to contend with, not locked in a ten-by-ten room with white concrete walls, a cot, a chair, a sink, and a toilet. If ever she were convicted for her crimes as an assassin, she thought, she hoped they would execute her. She couldn’t live her life between those cold white walls forever; she’d go mad.

  Or maybe she already had gone mad. Was it possible that she’d made up this entire bizarre scenario in her mind? Maybe she had, and this was a psychiatric holding cell? But, no, wouldn’t there be padded walls if that were the case? What time is it now? Surely another hour has gone by. Maybe they will come let me out soon, she thought. Or kill me. Either way, it would be an improvement.

  She rose to her feet and moved over to the sink, letting the water run for a long stretch of time over her fingers and palms. She cupped her hands and bent over the sink, splashing the water onto her face, and then drinking from the curve of her palms. She took in deep breaths, trying to stay calm, and when she turned off the faucet, her ears perked up.

  Footsteps.

  She darte
d over to the door and rose up on her tiptoes to try to see who was coming. But the tiny window provided only the most narrow of views. So she pressed herself flat against the wall by the door, determined to incapacitate whoever entered her cell so that she could attempt to make her escape. Or die trying.

  As the footsteps grew louder, so did her heartbeat. She could hear the blood rushing through her ears as her system wrenched itself out of the stasis it had been in for hours, a day perhaps, and boiled with the onset of adrenaline. Her hands trembled with the force of it, and she couldn’t help but grin: she was ready for a fight.

  She heard the beep of numbers being entered onto a keypad, and the jolting vibration of the deadbolt retracting. Then the door finally opened.

  She was poised, ready to pounce as soon as anyone entered. But no one did.

  “Viola.”

  It was Rowan’s voice. She kept herself tightly coiled as a spring, not certain whether or not she could trust him, and not willing to risk her one chance to get away because of some misplaced affection.

  “Viola, it’s me, and I’m alone. I’m here to help you.” He paused, and peered curiously around the corner into the room. His peridot eyes alighted on her, and he jerked his head back, lest she strike. She’d thought about it.

  “You can come out. It’s just us down here.”

  Viola hesitated before dropping her hands to her side and sidling along the wall until she could step out into the hall.

  “You’re looking very contrite,” she said, and he was. Crossing her arms below her breasts, she fell into a lean against the doorframe of her cell, her limpid blue eyes darting furtively around the corridor: a wall to her left, a long hallway with an exit to her right.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you,” he said.

  “Yes,” she mused, canting her head to the side. “What time — and what day — is it?”

  “It’s just before six in the morning, on the twenty-second.”

  Viola wracked her brain: time and dates had all become something of a blur since this whole adventure had started. But if the first day was the day of the gala, and then it had been another whole day of sleeping, and then… “You’ve been in the cell for about thirty-six hours,” he clarified.

  “Ah.” She lingered there, waiting for him to say more, to apologize, something. But when nothing came, she proffered a forced smile and said, “OK, then,” and brushed past him.

  But he caught her by the arm, and she swung around, still full of fight chemicals that would make her turn on him if he gave her half a chance. “Viola,” he said. “Don’t leave like this.”

  “It doesn’t matter how I leave,” she said, jerking her arm from his grip, “just that I do, in fact, leave. Isn’t that right?”

  “It matters to me,” he insisted.

  “Why are you helping me now,” she asked, tucking a few unruly black curls behind her ear, “when before you had nothing to say on my behalf?”

  “I was never going to just let you… rot down here, Viola.”

  “Why?” she pressed, her gaze insistent, her mouth a stern line. “You have made your choice, obviously. You’re on their side, so then why—”

  “I meant what I said, before.”

  “When?” she asked, combating a flare of rage. “Oh, when you told me that you’ve always loved me?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “Yeah, that was really reinforced when you were silent in front of your father and his council. When you hadn’t a single word to say in my defense. I could really feel the love.”

  He leveled her with his eyes, his jaw pushed forward as though he were trying not to growl at her. “Do not make me choose between you and my own fucking clan, Viola,” he said, a threat, a warning.

  “I thought I was a part of your precious clan. Somnus Sacrae, right?” But his silence was her answer. “No,” she continued, taking a step toward him so that they were a mere breath away. “No, I’m not one of you, am I? Because I have bear blood in me. It doesn’t matter that my father was the would-be Alpha of this clan. I’m not a pretty little housecat, so I don’t get to stay.”

  “No,” he said, and she could feel him drawing away, even if not physically. “No, you’re not one of us. But I dared to love you anyway. I dared to imagine what it might be like to change the clan rules, to make you my mate when I rose to power here. I loved you anyway — I… love you anyway.”

  “Love,” she echoed. “I don’t think you know what that means. Love isn’t something you feel, Rowan. It’s something you do. What you call ‘love’ was probably just an overpowering desire to fuck me, which has since been sated, so you’re off the hook.”

  “Don’t give me that shit,” Rowan tossed back. “You saw me there with you, you know what I feel is true.”

  “I don’t know a goddamned thing about it. All I know is that you and I have been friends for like… eight years. You were my handler. You treated me fairly, you helped keep me safe. Yeah, we joked around, had a few drinks, a few laughs, and then last night you fucked me, and then you let me be imprisoned, so… yeah, from my vantage point, it seems a lot like you’re full of shit.”

  “Well, I’m here now. I’m helping you now.”

  “Yeah, because you realized what a cock you were being by letting me stay down here.”

  “That’s not—” He drew in a sharp breath through his nostrils and exhaled slowly. “I had to wait until I knew what they intended to do with you. I wanted to make the move that would cause the least amount of damage.”

  “So then why did you come release me?”

  “Because,” he said slowly, “they were going to kill you this morning, and I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “I see,” she said. “And why not?”

  “Are you even listening to me? Because I love you, Viola.”

  “Well,” she scoffed, “much good may it do me.” She could feel the heat coming off of his body, and she was pulled toward it. But she was in complete control of herself now, and it wasn’t so very hard to turn away. She took long strides down the hall, toward the door, pausing only when he called out to her.

  “Where will you go?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. It was true, but she wouldn’t have told him even if she knew.

  “Don’t go back to your apartment,” he said. “There will be agents there. They’ll just bring you back. Or kill you.”

  “Fine.”

  “And don’t go to the hospital,” he warned, but she was silent. “Viola. Don’t go to the hospital. Wait until things cool down.”

  “When will that be?” She turned to look at him then, full on. He was reaching out to her even though they were a solid twelve feet apart.

  “After Graham McCallum is dead, I imagine.”

  “So that’s it,” she said. “I lose you both.”

  He dropped his arm to his side. He was still wearing his tuxedo — for how many days had he been wearing that blasted tuxedo? But he looked handsome, despite the dark circles under his eyes, despite the five-o’clock shadow, despite the desperation in his expression. “I didn’t know he meant so much to you.”

  “More, now,” she said, trying to cut him. She was successful. Turning on her heel, she continued to make her exit.

  “You can never come back here, you know that,” he said. She paused and inclined her head toward her left shoulder, spying him in her periphery.

  “Fine,” she said.

  “And I can never see you again.” She was frozen, rooted in place, fighting the desire to turn around fully and drink in the sight of him, his long, lithe limbs, black hair like hers, the yellow-green eyes of a predator. But she didn’t turn. “Did you hear me?” he asked, he pleaded. “I said, I can never see you again.”

  She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the pulse between her legs that reminded her of how close they had recently been, how near she’d come to letting herself love him back. “Well,” she said, nearly reaching the door, “take a good long look, th
en.” And she pulled open the hallway door and left him standing alone in front of her empty cell.

  CHAPTER 2

  The sun was only just barely starting to rise as Viola made her way through one of the Felidae Headquarters’ lower levels. She found an exit into a stairwell and tried to get her bearings: was she above or below ground? How many floors had they traveled on that elevator when the security guards had brought her to the cell? She wracked her brain, then finally gripped the metal bar that was the handrail and hauled herself up.

  With a stroke of luck, she’d made the right call and found herself exiting into a parking garage that was one floor below ground level. She stuck to the shadows, sliding in between the wall and the cars that had been parked there overnight. She wondered if the limo was in this lot, wondered if her driver was okay. But she didn’t have the time to check.

  Finally, she saw the road that would lead her out onto the streets and grant her the freedom she had been seeking. It passed a guard gate that, from a distance, appeared to be empty. Viola crept hesitantly forward, her eyes wide and alert as she made her way toward the exit. The guard booth was indeed empty, but just as she was nearing it, a guard swung in from the outside, around the corner, and headed toward his station.

  He froze when he saw her, a fresh cup of coffee held aloft, as he tried to figure out who and what she was. She must have looked rather like a doe in headlights at first, startled into silence, but it only took a moment for her to force her body to relax and adopt an air of forced levity.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” she said, walking right up to the guard. “I’m so turned around.” He didn’t say anything to her, just latched a pair of dubious eyes to her expression. He set down his coffee cup on the cement block that held up the guard rail and placed his hand on his hip, near his weapon.

  “Is that right?” he said at length. “What is it you’re trying to find?”

  “Is this… I’m looking for building 228, is this it?” She flashed her most brilliant, toothy smile and hoped that her hair wasn’t too disheveled from thirty-six hours of tossing and turning on a prison cot. But she wasn’t wearing a jacket, she didn’t have a purse, and he was looking at her like he had an idea of who and what she might be.