To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1

by Ceri Grenelle

  “Why didn’t you?”

  She shrugged, feeling oddly disjointed, staring at this stack of names and faces she’d wiped from the planet as her mate stood next to her. She didn’t like him seeing this side of her, even though she’d been lecturing him on how this was who and what she was since the moment he met her. Well, here was the proof. The many people she had assassinated in her years as Incendiary.

  “There must have been a reason,” he pressed.

  “I didn’t— I don’t know.”

  “You do. Tell me. Let me know you,” he whispered, the world falling away to leave them at the center of the universe.

  “I was trained to forget them. That’s the point of separating the Incendiary from society during their training. We are taught to treat the targets as objects. It makes the constant hunting easier, helps us keep emotional responses to a minimum. The Incendiary is never a Wereborn. Purposeful hunting is not natural to us. The control is something essential we must learn, more for us than Turned Weres. I guess…even with all the training I could never fully separate myself from the reality that the rogues, the assignment, used to be a good person. They had a mother, a family, maybe siblings or children…a mate. They meant something to someone. I hunted criminals as well, but in those early years it was mostly rogues. Rogues do not start out as rogues, and as you kill them you can see the madness recede and their souls return before dying.”

  He brought his hand from her waist to her shoulder, pulling her into his chest and kissing her forehead.

  “I do not need comfort, Kerrick. I have been doing this for years.”

  He braced her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. His expression was severe and she couldn’t help but fall a little more in love with him then, no matter how infuriating his need to protect her could be. It also felt nice. More than nice, it was like something necessary she had been missing. Like only one of her lungs had worked up until now.

  “I don’t care how long you’ve trained for this, or how many Weres you’ve hunted. It doesn’t make you less human, Cimby.”

  “I am not just human anymore.”

  “No. We aren’t just human. But even the Wereborn share their souls with a human side. It gives us a conscious. Lets us see the gray between the black and white. They tried to hammer that out of you but they couldn’t.” He framed her face, his expression lightening. A look of pride and love making his lips curl. “You were too strong for them to ever give that part of yourself away. It was a battle you would have died fighting.” He kissed her, hard and fast, and whispered against her lips, “Gods, it makes me love you even more, if that’s possible.”

  It was the first time he ever said it to her. Those words. Words she never thought she’d be allowed to hear. It drove her crazy. This man drove her crazy with lust and need and yes, with love. He saw all she’d done. This stack of death that she’d wrought with her own hands and he still wanted her. He was too good. Too good for her. She should push him away. Let him continue being a good man without the taint of her deeds marring his perfection.

  Cimby learned something about herself at that moment. She was far more selfish than she ever gave herself credit for—selfish because she would never let him go. Seriously this time, she thought, Fuck it.

  “Kerrick.” She kissed him, trailing her tongue along his lips and dipping inside. Needing him with a ferocity and almost psychotic edge she’d never felt before. She bit his lips and he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off her feet so he could attack her mouth with his. Plunder the goods within and claim her with his passion.

  “Mine,” he growled again. But this time she had an answer.

  “Yes.” She groaned, feeling his cock grinding into her core. “Yes. Yours. You’re mine. Mine.” She pulled his mouth away and narrowed her eyes on his neck. She took aim and felt her teeth lengthen in her mouth. “You’re my mate, and I’m not letting you go.” She bit him.

  He roared. The sound a mix of all the fiercest creatures ever known to walk the planet. He held them all within his spirit and he used that power to dig hooks into her own soul and hold tight as she left her mark. She used what little magic her Were spirit gave her and claimed him, his blood dripping down around her chin and mouth from the wound she tore into his neck.

  He turned them around, shoving the bin full of files off the table with a simple flick of his hand. His strength made her insides melt, prompting her to dig her teeth in deeper. She wasn’t gentle. She needed him to feel how desperate she was to keep him. He laid her flat on the table and tore her jeans off, the fabric nearly disintegrating with all the power he was discharging. The zipper on his jeans followed, he shoved them out of the way enough to get his beautifully hard cock free.

  He didn’t wait. He didn’t prep her. She didn’t need it. The moment she’d felt her teeth enter his skin she’d lost herself to lust and her pussy became so wet it wept for a hard cock to fill it. His hard cock.

  “Take me,” she growled around his bloody skin, continuing to infuse her magic into his skin and blood. His beautifully hard shaft pushed into her, stretching her wet passage like no one before him. The shaft pulsed, lengthened, widened. She came the instant he thrust inside, the magic bouncing between them acting as an aphrodisiac in addition to his masculine body.

  “Yesss,” he hissed as her pussy walls clenched around his cock, holding still until her orgasm began to ebb. He pulled out quickly and thrust back in with the force of a battering ram. It was hard and delicious and completely animalistic. “Mine.” He enforced that edict with another forceful thrust. Just from those few thrusts alone she was beginning to climb towards orgasm once more.

  “You only come for me.” The pace of his thrusts picked up. “You only want me. You only love me.” He stilled inside her after a particularly intense claiming. “Tell me.” His voice was soft but no less dominant. The cadence of his rumbling voice seemed to vibrate from her heart to her pussy.

  He licked her neck, teasing the spot he would claim for his own, to leave his mark so no one would attempt to touch her.

  “Tell me, love.” He began a slow, grinding rhythm, made to drive her mad. She needed to come, but he wouldn’t let her. Not until she gave him what he wanted.

  “Tell me, Cimby. My Cymbeline.” His thrusts picked up again, his growls and grunts getting louder. She could feel his cock stiffening farther inside her. She wanted to speak. Wanted to tell him what he needed to hear, but he was fucking her so good she could barely think let alone open her mouth to form words.

  Her hands tore his shirt away, scratching his back and leaving a different kind of mark. Gods, it was all so good. It was too much, but she still wanted more. She lifted her legs to wrap around his waist and encourage his claiming.

  “I love you,” he said. “Love me.” And she did. Gods, did she love him.

  She pulled her teeth away from his skin, eliciting a snarl from him. “I love you. I love you,” she cried as his cock ground into her clit, shooting her orgasm right to that precipice. Her gut tightened, the feeling coiling within her, waiting to fall and shoot her over the cliff into bliss. “I love you, Kerrick. You’re mine.”

  He roared once more and dug his teeth into her skin. The pain and magic from his bite forcing her climax over the edge. It was such blissful pain. A mix of ecstasy and torture. Joy and sorrow. She would never again be just herself, but at the same time she would never be alone.

  His thrusts were pounding now as he reached his own climax, joining their souls together as a mated pair. As he came inside her, the hot, delicious jets of his seed coating her walls, he pulled his teeth away and kissed her, mixing their life blood and magic.

  Kerrick felt undone. He’d just had the most powerful climax of his life, the woman he loved said she loved him back, and he was still hard and aching for her. Still needed to have more. He pulled out of her quickly and flipped her onto her stomach. She was
bent over the table, her ass and pussy staring at him, daring him to take. And take he did.

  “More.” He heard her moan as she dug her fingers into the table. He used his mouth on her sweet and wet sex to drive her wild. She tasted like honeysuckle, with that hint of lavender to keep him coming back for more. But mostly she tasted like his. She tasted like how his mate should taste. His Cimby howled and cried his name, her claws coming out and raking the wood of the table. It was beyond sexy.

  She was pounding on the table with her fists so hard it cracked and he just barely wrapped his arms around her waist to save her from falling with it. He spun her around so they were on the floor. She knelt on all fours like a Wolf. He came over her, taking her pussy from behind, claiming her. He bit her again. This time on a muscled spot above her shoulder blade he knew would hurt, just as her scratches had hurt. Different marks, but ones that were no less possessive.

  She cried out at the feel of his teeth, he knew it would push her further, make her want him more. The woman was insatiable. He’d never get enough of her. He loved her. And he proved his love for her in the way he took her, like the animals they held within them.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes,” she panted. “Fuck me, love me.”

  He couldn’t take it anymore. He wrapped his arm around her waist and used his fingers to play with her clit. She came instantly, his cock lubing more with the force of her juices leaking from her body. It was sinful. He hammered her so hard he knew she’d have bruises afterward. But that was what they both wanted. Their marks in all shapes and forms painting one another’s bodies.

  A Were claiming wasn’t sweet and it wasn’t gentle, but it was love. Their love in its base and natural form. He thrust once more, feeling his balls tighten and roared to his people, the call traveling for miles as he came. He’d claimed his mate. The Alphar’s mate. His people would feel it settle within their bones, that intangible, magical connection he had with all of them that came with his position.

  As his climax ended, he collapsed on top of her. She groaned, his cock still pulsing hard within her. He would take her again and again as the night rolled on but he knew she needed a break. He moved off her, lying on his back and tugging her close to lay her head on his chest.

  He could feel the blood on his back staining the wood floor. The blood on his neck and mouth drying. He loved how she’d marked him, brutally and without fear or doubt. He loved that she knew he was unequivocally hers.

  “You’re mine,” she mumbled, speaking his mind and nuzzling into his chest, licking up the sweat and dried blood.

  “Mine,” he echoed, holding her close.

  “Kerrick we have to get going,” she moaned. Hours, it had been hours since they had started fucking.

  “I’m more concerned with coming rather than going,” he mumbled from between her legs.

  He was bent over her pussy, his cock waving in her face. She couldn’t help but lick the tip and delight in his shudder. She took his length in her mouth and sucked with all her might.

  “Ah!” he groaned and picked up the pace of his tongue lashing along her pussy.

  “There, right there! Right there!” she howled around his shaft, his fingers doing something wicked near his tongue as she swallowed his cock down to the base. The taste of him on her tongue only made her want him more, the cycle of their lust never ending.

  “Again,” he grunted from behind her, his cock plunging deep into her once more. She was exhausted, but she didn’t want him to let her go. She needed him to take her over and over again, sealing his scent and his magic into her skin. Not that she would make it easy for him.

  “You bastard.” She kicked his shin, dislodging him from within her. She pushed him onto his back and mounted his cock, writhing and moaning on top of him, taking control and showing just how dominant she could be. He gripped her hips, grinning up at her. She loved it. She loved him.

  “Yes, love.” He thrust up into her, meeting her ferocity with equal fervor. They came together, his claws digging into her hips and marking her once more.

  “No more,” she moaned, flicking his hands away from her sore pussy.

  “Yes. More, always more.” They lay on their sides together, having finally made it to the bed, his chest rubbing against her back. He lifted her leg and pushed his cock inside her. She was perpetually wet for him.

  “Ah, fuck,” she cried, gripping the metal headboard. His hand wrapped around her breast, tugging and twisting her nipple. His tongue lapped at the wound on her neck, his mating mark. It would turn into something different, something beautiful. But for now it was just a brutal, animalistic marking. She wished it would stay that way. She loved the savagery of his need for her.

  “Like that,” he growled against her skin. “Your pussy is so eager for my cock, my beautiful Incendiary.”

  “Yes,” she hissed, not enough energy to meet his thrusts. She let him take her, do what he wanted with her body, which was exactly what she wanted.

  He wasn’t rough that time, something she appreciated as her exhaustion was beginning to claim her. But she still needed his body, needed to know he was hers. The loving was tender, with just a small hint of their wild nature peeking through. It was beautiful. At the end, after their slow orgasms subsided, he finally fell asleep, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist, his cock astoundingly still hard within her.

  “I love you,” he murmured in his exhaustion. With that she fell asleep in his arms. Safe and warm. Claimed. Loved.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A barrage of incoming text messages woke Kerrick. He slipped naked out of bed, careful not to wake Cimby who was passed out on her side facing the wall. He paused as he reached for his jeans to pull the phone out, enjoying how the sheet rested just below his mate’s butt, the sun shining in through the window highlighting the curves and muscles of her warrior body. Her curls were strewn about the pillow haphazardly and he could see a knot forming where he’d gripped the strands repeatedly. He’d help her brush that out when she woke.

  The phone buzzed insistently once more. He tore his gaze away from his mate and opened the messages. According to Aaron his people had completed the reconnaissance on Mara. The presiding alphas and their soldiers had the information they needed to mount an attack that would wipe Mara’s clan off the face of the earth. He’d been trying to compromise and negotiate with Mara’s inane terms for too long. The land was his and yet she continuously refused to acknowledge the inevitable and move. The attack on his people was the final straw. Kerrick would try his best to save the Vryks and humans under her rule that weren’t completely brainwashed, but the others would follow her into death. He abhorred war.

  “Ker?” Cimby mumbled, reaching back for him, her face still buried in the pillow.

  Even with the threat of a hated war with the Vrykolakas weighing on his shoulders, his joy could not be repressed. His mate—his mate—lay naked in a bed they’d truly sullied the day before. He’d kept her up nearly the entire night, taking her in every way, and when he thought to give her a break, she did the same to him. They belonged to one another and it was their right to enjoy their mate’s body.

  Kerrick climbed back into bed and collapsed on top of her. She grunted, the air rushing out of her lungs. “Hey!”

  “Oh sorry, didn’t see you there.” He squirmed on top of her, she growled in annoyance.

  “Menace.” Cimby elbowed him in the gut and flipped him on his back, straddling his waist. She was gloriously naked. Her small breasts on full display, the power and strength in her muscles defined by her body’s tensing, and the way she bit her bottom lip as her eyes forged their own path over his body made him hard. All of it was just added ingredients to whatever love potion he’d taken to fall so completely head over heels in love with this violent woman.

  Kerrick grinned and wiggled his eyebrows, enjoying the attention she was giving his bare chest. “Mmm, baby, don
’t tempt me.”

  “Why not?” She ground her hips into his hardening cock, using her position to her advantage, much to Kerrick’s delight. “Seems like you’re good for another go-round.”

  “We have to go home.” He sighed, lifting the cell phone and hating himself for popping the fantasy bubble they’d been living in the past few hours.

  “It is Iri?” Cimby asked, the playful morning disintegrating with her worry.

  “No. No, she’s fine.” He held her on his waist, stroking her bare thighs, wanting to keep her to himself just a little longer. “The text is from Aaron. We have all the information we need to attack Mara’s facility. We move out tomorrow morning. I need to have another teleconference finalizing details with the alphas of the surrounding packs before attacking.”

  “All right,” she said with a nod, all business. “Let’s head back.”

  He continued to stroke her hips, guilt at leaving South Carolina so soon constricting his chest. “I’m sorry we can’t spend more time investigating who’s sending the assignments. I promise once Mara is finished we’ll come back and I will spare no expense to make sure the bastard doing this is stopped.”

  She tilted her head and smiled indulgently at him, the knot in her hair flopping to the right side of her forehead. “We can take care of it later, right now we need to kick some Vryk ass.” She went to move but he gripped her tighter.

  “No morning kiss?” He pouted playfully, marveling at her selflessness.

  “No.” Her face was blank.

  “Wait…really?”

  “Nope. No morning kisses. I only give morning blowjobs.” With that she ducked her head and proceeded to give him the best morning blowjob he ever received. Mated life seemed to suit him just fine. Once she was done and he had recovered from his crazy-powerful orgasm, he made sure to give Cimby his version of a morning kiss in return. It gave him an endless amount of pleasure to see her sweating and gasping for breath when he was through.