Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
About the Author
Kai
A Dark Assassins Novel
Book One
Valerie Ullmer
Kai (A Dark Assassins Novel Book One)
Copyright © 2016 Valerie Ullmer
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in either print or electronic form without written permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the one exception. No alteration of content is allowed.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, places and locales, or events, is purely coincidental. All characters and events portrayed in this book are completely fictitious and dreamed up by the author.
Cover Design by Melody Simmons
Copy Edit by Faith Williams from The Atwater Group
For the writers who inspired me to become an author. Thank you.
Chapter One
Kai
The solid sound of his gloved fists slamming into the heavy bag in an uneven rhythm should have been enough to calm his restlessness, but as he hunched his shoulders and sent a flurry of punches against the bag, his eyes wandered over to the clock on the far wall of his basement workout room. A curse slid past his clenched teeth.
It was almost time to see her again. The woman who’d come to haunt his thoughts, although they hadn’t even spoken. The night he first laid eyes on her, six months ago to the day, would be seared into his infallible memory for the rest of his existence.
For several weeks, Kai had been researching the name Li Xiu Na for ties to the Chinese government, and possible covert assignments for other countries, after she had been assigned to him by Ghost. But the beautiful woman hadn’t shown up in any database, domestic or foreign. He couldn’t find her birth certificate, any relatives, friends, or connections to anyone. Even her parents didn’t seem to exist.
The research had shown nothing, so he had given up on a paper trail and had taken to following her. While he had been watching her, she surveilled several shadow companies, those who had government contracts in both tech and biotech research, but he grew unsure as to what exactly she’d been after. And until he found out, his target would stay alive.
That night, he had been trailing Ms. Na soon after the sky darkened, and he watched as she slipped past security of a biotech company. For long minutes, he had thought he lost her. When she emerged with a box under her arm, she glanced around to see whether she had been spotted, and happened to glance in his direction and froze. He knew that she couldn’t have spotted him, and yet she acted as though she did.
Within seconds, she had darted toward what he assumed was another exit, and his eyes widened when she jumped up to the corner of the building, and pushed off. He soon realized what she was doing. Ricocheting back and forth between the wall and the corner of the building, it took her three leaps before she launched herself successfully up and over the wall.
Without hesitation, he launched himself over the barrier with ease. When he landed, he felt the unmistakable press of a knife against his neck. His eyes glanced down at the tactical curved weapon, and almost started when she pressed her lithe body against his back instead of pressing the knife harder against his skin.
“Hello, gorgeous,” she purred.
He didn’t respond in kind, but considering all he could feel was her body, he knew that she ditched the package somewhere close, or had given it to someone. He doubted that she worked with anyone, so it had to be close. He didn’t really care about what it contained because the box wasn’t his assignment—she was—but he needed confirmation that what she had stolen was dangerous.
Her hand opened on his chest and caressed his pecs before it moved lower. Her hand grazed over his cock, taking her time to explore, before she slid her hands underneath his tight black shirt. Her touch caused no reaction.
“You don’t talk much, but you don’t need to in order to fuck.”
He heard the knife stick into the ground, and before he could react, she opened her fingers and pressed harder against his taut skin. He used her inattention to kick the knife away and scanned the area for the package. He spotted it easily.
Without answering, he turned around and pressed her against the wall, using his body to keep her off the ground, and buried his face against her neck. As he pressed his hard body against hers, she spoke in Chinese, a language he didn’t understand. He didn’t bother asking her what she said.
“What did you steal?” He distracted her by using his tongue, sliding against her collarbone, up her neck, until he had the lobe between his teeth. Biting down, he could smell her desire for him intensify. Although he hadn’t fucked a human in a long while, he found his lack of interest in the beautiful spy to be slightly irritating, yet expected.
“Biological agent,” she gasped.
His hand slid to her ass and pressed her harder against him, using her pleasure to keep her distracted from his next move. He almost regretted that he wouldn’t be able to sink his cock into her tightness, somehow knowing that she would have kept up with his sexual demands. But instead of feeling desire, he felt nothing.
He scraped his teeth against her skin, a warning as to what was to come, a split second before his fangs pierced her throat.
His targets always fought, a survival instinct that the humans had, yet rarely used. She was no different. Her fists pounded against his chest, and he barely felt it. Her blood, although he expected a sweetness to it, had a horrid metallic taste that he hated. Her heartbeat fluttered in her chest, and her arms gave out before her body sagged against his. With one final beat of her heart, any sounds from her ceased, and he released her.
Although her blood gave him strength, the taste of those he killed had worsened over the years, and he could barely stand to drain them dry. In this case, he used her desire to his advantage. The taste would dissipate soon, he hoped.
He leaned the dead spy against the wall, pulled out his cell, and dialed.
“Yeah,” came the answer.
“Target eliminated.” His disgust must have traveled through the line.
“What happened?” Amusement in the voice.
“She tried to seduce me, and stole a bio agent. Need a cleaner and hazard.”
“They are on their way.” And with that Ghost, his boss, hung up.
It had taken the hazard team less time to arrive, so when they picked up the package, he asked them to stay with the target until the other team arrived. When the team had started blocking off the area, he disappeared into the shadows.
When he cleared the outskirts of town, he blurred into motion as he sprinted toward his mountain home.
There was a restlessness about him that couldn’t be explained. It had nothing to do with the target who tried to seduce him, but he felt as though something would soon change in his life. The panoramic view of the Rocky Mountains and the picturesque lights of the small enclave of Snowfall, Colorado never failed
to relax him, but yet he continued his anxious movements.
That was the moment he spotted her from the corner of his eye.
Her mass of cascading dark, curly hair bounced against the burgundy mid-length trench coat wrapped tightly around her to ward off the chill of the late September night. But with her head tilted down, he was unable to see her face. Even from the distance of over two hundred yards, he could hear her mumbling to herself. As hard as he listened, he couldn’t quite make out the words. The coat did nothing to cover her curves hidden underneath, and he found himself enthralled by the sway of her hips. His gaze traveled down her curvy body, and his groin tightened with every step she took.
Before he could contemplate his actions, he leapt from the deck and flew down the mountain, stopping when he stood, hidden in the darkness, a few feet from her. He forced himself to widen the distance between them, and started trailing her.
Experience and his enhanced senses kept him out of sight from her and the others who ventured out on the cold night. He soon found that she was so absorbed in whatever happened to be on her mind that he could have stood right in front of her, and she would’ve ignored him and kept walking.
He trailed her as she closed in on the diner on the corner, learning that the small eatery was her destination on most nights. She chose that moment to brush her long hair out of her face. With that tiny movement, her fragrance of lemongrass and green apple drifted back toward him. A low snarl erupted from his throat as his body stiffened in shock; the unexpected reaction to her scent was so fierce, he was torn between his instant desire for her and self-preservation. The sound he hadn’t managed to smother must’ve reached her, because her head turned toward him and her brows drew down in confusion. A split second before her eyes landed on where he stood, he stepped back, pissed at his infinitesimal loss of control. A silent sigh of relief passed his lips as she shook her head, not able to spot in him the dark, and continued on her way.
In his over two hundred year existence, he’d never been attracted to a human. Blood was the one reason that he interacted with humans, and even that could be taken from a donor without him having him drink from the source. But as he tried to pass off a reason he reacted to her in such an elemental way, he continued to follow her, finding himself outside the door that read Blue Plate Diner. Obscured by the door, his eyes tracked movement as the waitress greeted her as if they were old friends. For a reason he couldn’t fathom, he felt a surge of jealousy. He was still a stranger to this captivating human, and she intrigued him.
Without quite knowing why he had followed her, he opened the door and walked into the chrome and tiled cafe, taking the time to pull up the hood of his sweatshirt. He scanned the place and settled for a booth at the back of the restaurant, where he could watch her without being detected.
By the time he’d sat down and scanned for any possible dangers, she had pulled out a laptop along with a sheaf of papers filled with formulas he couldn’t decipher. Between typing and writing in the margins of the already filled pages, the concentration on her work was total.
He found himself mesmerized by the play of emotions on her face as she worked. A smile for when she figured out a problem, or a frown when something didn’t quite fit, and everything in between. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. When she bit her lip in concentration, it took all of his control to keep his distance from her. He found that he had to grip the table to keep himself still, when all he wanted to do was devour her.
The spell was broken when the waitress had placed a club sandwich with a side of fries on the free space next to her elbow. He forced himself to relax, but kept his eyes on her when she reached for the sandwich absently and ate without really paying attention to anything else but the work in front of her.
After several hours, her hand covered a small yawn. She glanced at her watch, and he felt the side of his mouth tilt as she rolled her eyes. Thanking the waitress, she reached for two tens in her pocket and dropped them on the table before she packed up and left.
From that night on, he made a point to arrive at the diner minutes after she was seated, and spent hours scanning her face as he watched her work. And every night, he slid into the shadows as she walked home to her small cottage, with its bright white siding with cornflower blue shutters that matched her perfectly. Each night, he waited until she was safely inside with the door locked, before he made his way back to his home on the mountain.
His attraction also came with a somewhat unwanted reaction. Protectiveness. He estimated her height at under five and a half feet tall, and although she walked everywhere in their relatively safe little town—to her job at Standard Biotech and her home, several blocks from the diner—he had to tamp down his need to protect her. From what, he couldn’t explain, even to himself.
She was oblivious of him, so eventually he stopped covering his face as he entered the diner. He kept telling himself that it was enough, being with her as she sat a short distance away. But she continued to be blissfully unaware of his presence, and something deep inside him wanted answers to his questions. And those questions had nothing to do with her blood.
The obsession had grown steadily, and although he couldn’t explain it, he knew he couldn’t give her up.
With one last glance at the clock as he pulled himself from his thoughts, a snarl ripped from his throat. Time seemed to have slowed. Winter allowed him to rise earlier in the afternoon, and with several hours to kill before he could see her again, he worked on his fighting technique while trying to drain the tension that gripped him whenever he knew he would see her.
And if an assignment came in, he would put it off for a couple hours just to make sure that she arrived home safely, before he’d delve into the background of his target or carry out the assassination. No one knew of his obsession, and he planned to keep it that way.
After two hours of punishing himself, the tension unfurled in his chest and he knew that the time had come. Ripping off his grappling gloves and tossing them aside, he rushed upstairs to shower and change. Within five minutes, he was out the door, his entire being primed and ready to see her. He’d stopped cursing himself for his weakness over time, and with his feet barely touching the ground, he rushed down the mountain.
When he spotted her several blocks away, he felt the corner of his mouth lift and the tension that had lessened due to his punishing workout completely drain away.
As he started forward to follow her, his cell beeped once, indicating a new assignment. A curse flew from his mouth before he could corral it. When he lifted his cell to glance at the message, a sense of dread washed over him as he tried to swallow, his throat tight and dry. After a quick glance around to see whether anyone had spotted him, he slipped into the alley near the diner, and forced himself to reveal his next target.
Chapter Two
Olivia
Olivia Sabin’s eyes scanned the numbers from the day’s antibodies test, and when she reached the final set of figures, she blew out a frustrated breath. She reminded herself that throughout her career she had countless setbacks in her research, especially when it came to cell regeneration as a cure for cancer, and she never let herself become discouraged. But she had to admit in the privacy of her own lab that she’d had more than her share of failures as of late. Nothing seemed to be going her way, and no matter how hard she worked, she found herself no closer to finding a cure for a disease that killed close to eight million people a year worldwide than she had when she started.
When she graduated from college, her main focus was immunology, specializing in finding a way to eliminate cancer cells by increasing the number of healthy cells to fight off the cancer, treating the disease as an infection. Her early research had been promising, but there were several problems with increasing healthy blood cells in the human body, including kidney and heart failure. She had started to develop a work-around for that, but she hadn’t refined a way to cure anything as of yet. That meant that her work was in limbo. She had been workin
g fourteen-hour days, six days a week for five years, and she’d come no closer to a solution or even a viable test since she’d started, but she was determined to figure it out. Even if it took her the rest of her career.
Blowing out a breath, she stood and stretched out her back after being hunched over the microscope. Dropping down on to her chair, she rolled over to her computer and typed several passwords that allowed her to log on to a secure server that would back up all of her work from the day. But when she glanced up, she found herself on a strange system with two icons on the darkened screen. There was no name attached to the computer she was logged in to, but as she moved the mouse hastily to exit, a video file labeled with her last name drew her attention. Without a thought to what it might be, she clicked on it.
The video focused on a massive man handcuffed and chained to a metal table in the middle of the room, surrounded by five scientists she didn’t recognize. Standard Biotech housed at least a dozen various research buildings, all of them concentrating on different secret research projects, so she wasn’t surprised that she didn’t recognize anyone. Her eyes darted back to the detained man, his movements frenzied as he searched for a way out of his bindings, growling at anyone who came close to him. As the scientists stepped out of camera focus, the man struggled harder to find a way out of his chains.
“Sabin bio-weapon project seventeen. Enhanced patient zero. Begin test.”
Olivia had no idea what was meant by enhanced or why her name was associated with the test, but tension tightened in her belly as she slid her chair closer to the screen.
A woman in a typical white lab coat strode forward. She inserted the needle into the chained man’s bicep and pushed down on the plunger. Once the syringe was empty, the woman scrambled away, as if she were afraid that the injection would add to the man’s volatility.
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