Assassin

by Lexxie Couper

  Numb, unable to breath or think, Jaienna watched as her sister—her sister—knelt before the smugly leering Crortek. Deep violet eyes filled with infinite misery, stared at her before Bhelais dropped her head and took his large, repulsive cock in her hands and covered it with her mouth.

  Jaienna screamed, straining against the straps binding her to the cross. “Oh, gods, Bhel! No!”

  * * *

  Her scent filled his nose. His lungs.

  She was here. In the club. Somewhere.

  Zeric’s pulse leapt into furious life and his muscles, already tense and ready for action, coiled.

  “What’s up?” Jak shot him a worried look as they walked deeper into The Pit.

  Zeric narrowed his eyes. “She’s here.”

  Jak’s eyebrows shot up. “Jaienna? How do you know?”

  Without replying, Zeric sped up, heading toward the club’s main area. Jaienna’s scent led him. The closer they got, the stronger it was.

  Heart hammering, he quickened his pace more. He didn’t know why she was here, but if she was in the same location as Hrung Crortek it wasn’t good.

  Jak kept pace with him. “So, do we save her or arrest her?”

  Zeric didn’t know that either. All he knew, right at that very moment, no matter what happened, was that he going to see her. His heart pounded harder at the thought. See her. Hold her. Kiss her. Most definitely kiss her. Take her away from this sickening hellhole and fold his arms around her until their bodies became one and she knew without doubt she was safe and would never have to run or lie again.

  The wrenching thought made him pull in another deep breath.

  Fear. This time he smelt more than just Jaienna’s sweet sensuality on the air. This time he sensed fear. And anger. And something so much worse. Pain. Her pain.

  He burst into a sprint, chest tight. Following Jaienna’s scent. Deeper into the dark club.

  “Hey?” Jak shouted. “Zeric? What—?”

  But he didn’t stop. Jaienna was in pain. He had to save her.

  Blood roared in his ears. The closer he ran toward Jaienna, the stronger her scent became, the less control he held of the beast. He could feel it licking through his veins like liquid heat. With every breath, it grew closer to release. Freedom. Fury stripped through him. Cold, ugly and deadly.

  And he welcomed it.

  Whoever was hurting Jaienna was about to meet their own death. In the form of a beast unheard of in the Outer Boundaries. A savage Terran wolf.

  Rounding a sweeping corridor, only vaguely aware of Jak keeping pace beside him, he entered a massive, high-ceilinged arena. There was a crowd gathered before a slightly raised dais, on which a female Aglaian was licking out the sex of...

  “Oh, Jezu,” Zeric said, gut turning cold. “Jaienna.” He turned to Jak. “Whatever happens, you get her out of here.”

  “Okay, partner,” Jak muttered. “It’s your call.”

  But it wasn’t. Not just yet.

  Charging at them, sub-neuron blasters drawn, were two Boaronians.

  Jak’s eyes flashed. “Party time.”

  In two seconds flat, he’d taken out the Boaronians, one crashing to the floor in a squealing heap, blood pissing from his nose, the other dropping like a rock when Jak shattered his kneecaps with a low turning kick.

  “Holy fuck!” Someone screeched and, just as Zeric’s eyes locked on Jaienna’s, just as he not only smelt her fear and pain but tasted it on the air, alarms started wailing in the club and screaming naked guests started running in every direction.

  Oh, gods. It’s Zeric.

  Jaienna clenched her fists, flicking her frenzied eyes from the man she’d left chained to a wall that seemed like a lifetime ago, to the sister she’d thought dead for over two moon cycles.

  Oh, tears of Druentia!

  The Aglaian, oblivious to all the commotion, still flicked her slimy and wet and thoroughly repulsive tongue over Jaienna’s sex.

  She dropped her head, giving the slurping female a look of pure disgust. “Get away from me, you fucking bitch.” A quick thrust of her hips and she knocked her backwards. The Aglaian stumbled and fell off the dais.

  “Boundary Guardians!” Someone in the crowd screeched.

  For a split second, Jaienna’s traumatized attention was snatched away from Zeric and Bhel by the sight of Lyso running into the crowd, broken tail flip-flopping behind him, a Xolotlan blaster in his hand and a manic look in his eyes.

  “Zeric!” Jaienna yelled, struggling against her bonds. “Lyso! He’s got a blaster!”

  There was a sharp ear-shattering crack, a burning white light and Lyso’s fat limp body went flying through the air, crashing to the floor with a thud.

  “Gotcha, fucker,” Jak growled.

  A high-pitched squeal rent the chaos. A squeal Jaienna knew well. Her sister.

  “Bhel!”

  Crortek was on his feet, gripping a handful of Bhel’s long hair as his white eyes jumped from the motionless pile of Lyso to Zeric to herself. A soulless smile spread across his face as he withdrew of small lecto gun from beneath his armpit.

  “Don’t do it, Crortek!” Jak shouted, leveling the two Boaronians’ weapons on the Ornithion, the barrel of one glowing as it recharged.

  “Why not, Yrathian?” Crortek leered. “If you care to look around, you’ll see my security guards have you surrounded. All I need to do is give the word.”

  Jak threw the Boaronian weapons down. “Would you care to lay a bet on that?” He slung the Sheilite-created Boaronian “Pacifier” from his shoulder and pointed it at the closest guard. His grin turned malicious. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

  He squeezed the trigger.

  There was no sound, but every Boaronian in the club suddenly squealed and fell to the floor.

  Crortek’s face twisted in fury. “You piece of scarred, shikz-fuck—”

  “That’s enough!” Zeric’s growl was low but it cut Crortek’s curse dead. The sound was more savage than any Jaienna had ever heard. Everyone still breathing in the room froze, staring at him. “Game’s over, Crortek.”

  The leer on Crortek’s mouth stretched. Wide. “Oh no, Terran. The game’s not over at all.” He aimed the lecto gun at Zeric’s chest. “I’ve got a buyer for your blood, Boundary Guardian. But first, I want to see this beast for myself.”

  Zeric’s golden eyes narrowed. “Go fuck yourself.”

  Crortek chuckled, low, cold and devoid of humor. “No? What if I shoot the Raavelian?” And he turned the gun on Jaienna and fired.

  For a horrible moment, everything was slow.

  A curdling scream tore from Bhelais. She leapt upward, directly into the line of Crortek’s lecto-pulse, and Jaienna watched, helpless, as a splatter of blood burst from her sister’s shoulder.

  Jaienna’s heart ripped apart and she thrashed about, trying like hell to get free. “BHEL!

  Crortek began to laugh.

  And then a massive grey beast, unlike any Jaienna had seen before, leapt on him.

  The room was filled with screaming, fleeing beings. Everyone trying to escape. Jaienna pressed against the X-tower, her eyes fixed on Bhel.

  “Come on, Jaienna.”

  A deep voice to her left barely registered. She stared at her sister lying on the floor, blood seeping from the hideous wound high on her chest.

  “Jaienna?”

  She tore her eyes from Bhel’s body. Jak was beside her and she realized, for the first time that she was no longer bound to the tower. “Jak?”

  “We’ve got to go.”

  “But my sister?” Her heart ached. She felt dead inside. “Zeric?” She swung her stare to the vicious, great grey beast fighting with Crortek. “Gods, what is Zeric?”

  Jak’s warm hands smoothed up her arms and his clear grey eyes held hers. “Zeric is Zeric, and he can take care of himself. Trust me. I’ll take care of you. And your sister.”

  Jaienna turned to him, her heart pounding. “I can’t leave him.”

&n
bsp; “Too bad,” Jak said, reaching for his translocation device. “Zeric’s orders.”

  She grabbed his hands and stared hard into his face. There was no orgasm to control him, just the sheer strength of her will. “Jak, take my sister somewhere safe. Please. I’m trusting you.” And before he could say anything else, she leapt from the dais.

  “Shit!” she heard Jak curse. But he didn’t come after her. She sprinted across the Pit’s floor, scooping up a discarded blaster as she went. She shot a look toward Bhel, watching as Jak reached her inert body and the pair of them fractured into a million pinpricks of light and vanished. Translocated away. Guilt and relief welled through her. Thank you, Jak.

  A wild growl shattered the room, followed by an ear-piercing screech. Jaienna spun around. Crortek and Zeric were locked in a deadly struggle. Jaienna’s breath caught. The Ornithion was atop the snarling grey beast, spines flaring, white eyes ablaze with victory as he shoved the muzzle of his lecto-pulse gun hard against Zeric’s forehead. “Goodbye, Terran,” she heard Crortek say.

  She raised her blaster, leveled it at the Ornithion’s ugly, angular skull. And squeezed the trigger.

  Crortek went flying, the force of the blaster pulse flinging him across the arena.

  “Zeric!” Jaienna screamed, running to the wild beast. Savage golden eyes turned on her. She froze. Zeric threw back his head, lifted his muzzle to the five heavens and howled. The tortured sound sent a shiver through Jaienna, but she didn’t move. “Zeric?”

  The beast stared at her. A violent shudder wracked his massive frame. Another, and another... then... Zeric stood before her, naked, gasping and covered in bleeding wounds. ”Jaienna?”

  She leapt forward, just in time to catch him as he collapsed. “I’ve got you, Zeric,” she whispered.

  He looked up at her, face wretched with pain. A very small smile played with his mouth. “I know.”

  Hefting his gasping, sweaty frame harder and higher against her body, Jaienna turned and, activating a tiny switch embedded beneath the flesh just under her ear, translocated them both from the room.

  ***

  Slowly, his body wracked in agony, Crortek rose to his knees. Through a veil of black pain he stared around his club, at the dead and inert bodies, at the groaning Boaronians just beginning to regain consciousness. His white eyes narrowed. “This isn’t over, Terran,” he whispered, ignoring the drilling pain trying to consume him as he got to his feet. “Not by a long shot.”

  Epilogue

  Raq Tornada walked into the sex club like he owned the place. He pulled a long, slow breath and the musky scent of people fucking filled his nostrils. He tasted at least twenty different species in the sleazy place, all of them burning up with the intoxicatingly insidious aphrodisiac Bliss in their veins.

  A silent snarl curled his lip and he tightened his grip on his pulse pistol. Twenty different species and not one of them Raavelian. Shit. Jaienna wasn't here either, curse it. He was so looking forward to tracking her down.

  He had a score to settle with her. One their boss knew nothing about.

  A dark chuckle rumbled up through Tornada’s chest. He doubted Kron would have sent him after Jaienna if he knew. In fact, if the Picillian knew what his two best agents had been up to—right under his large, hooked nose—they’d both be dead before either could say a word.

  Black gaze skimming the room, Tornada strode deeper into the den. Whether his boss knew it or not, Kron had helped him out. Assigning him this recon mission gave him a reason to go after the redheaded Raavelian agent.

  They had unfinished business, he and Jaienna Ti. Very unfinished.

  Grip curling tighter on his weapon, Tornada surveyed the copulating bodies surrounding him. Jaienna may not be here, but it was possible someone in this pathetic excuse for a brothel knew of her. His last informant—a miserable Sheilite shit who squealed like a stuck grunt with just the tiniest provocation—had insisted she’d been sold as a sex-slave to Beltair. More than half Beltair’s slaves ended up here, which meant there was a slim chance at least one of them could tell him something about Jaienna.

  Fingering his trigger, Tornada’s snarl turned into a grin. He’d finished more than one mission thanks to a “slim chance.” This one was going to be no different. He’d be damned if he was going to let Jia mess with his perfect record.

  “Interested in a fuck?”

  The question, practically purred in a sultry voice to his left, made Tornada turn. A half-naked Terran female, lips the color of dried blood, hair the color of old straw, tottered beside him on spiked heels. Giving her lush, over-ripe body the once-over, he turned away. The woman stank of Bliss. It oozed from her pores like a cloying death shroud, fouling up the air with its over-sweet odor. He’d get nothing from her except feverish sex. He wasn’t after sex… Well, not from her, at least.

  “Hey!” The sensual purr was gone, replaced by a ravenous desperation so contemptible he almost raised his pistol. “Do you want a fuck or not?”

  “Yes,” Tornada replied over his shoulder without slowing his stride. “Just not from you.”

  He heard her spit behind his back. “Fucking Jjors. All the fucking same. Think you’re too good for us here in the Outer Boundaries.”

  Tornada’s finger pressed harder to his trigger, but he kept walking. He wasn’t opposed to a little racial cleansing, and of all the species found in the Outer Boundaries, the Terrans needed to be “cleaned” the most, but—like fucking—it wasn’t what he was here for.

  “Hey!”

  The shout behind Tornada reverberated around the dank room, making more than one copulating group raise their heads. It wasn’t the Bliss-stoned Terran. A male voice called after him this time. An angry male voice.

  “Who the fuck you think you are, Jjor, just walking in here armed? You think you’re better than us?”

  Tornada turned, aimed his pulse pistol at the blustering Keltarian storming toward him and squeezed the trigger. A short, sharp crack shattered the clammy air and the top half of the Keltarian’s head disintegrated. “I’m Intel-Patrol Corp Elite Agent Tornada,” Tornada growled, watching the Keltarian’s body drop to the grimy floor as he re-holstered his weapon. “And I am better than you.” He turned back toward the inner sanctum of the sex club, ignoring the fleeing, gibbering, naked patrons rushing past him. “All of you.”

  Cold blood lust tore through him—familiar and very seductive—but he shoved it to the back of his mind. He had a purpose to focus on. One purpose.

  I am going to find you, Jia. Make no mistake. A rush of searing hunger pumped into his cock and his grin turned black. We have a lot of catching up to do.

  To Be Continued in Agent ~ The Boundaries Book Two

  Coming Soon.

  About the Author

  Lexxie’s not a deviant. She just has a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get wickedly fun erotic romances.

  When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family; a husband who thinks she’s insane, a cat who thinks she rules the world, and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever.

  Living in Australia makes it a bit tricky for Lexxie to pop by for coffee, but she still loves to chat! Contact her at lexxie@lexxiecouper.com or find her at www.lexxiecouper.com

  Agent

  The Boundaries Book Two

  Chapter One

  Jaienna held her soft sigh in check, touching her fingertips to the scar on Zeric’s side. The moment they’d arrived back on his ship four days ago it had begun to heal. That hadn’t messed with her head. What had messed with her head was the silence. Silence that hadn’t changed in the entire time since she’d half-carried, half-led him to his quarters.

  Four days of trying to make him talk to her, look at her. But he’d constantly refused and now here she was, almost begging him with her eyes to acknowledge she was there and he did little but stare at th
e far wall.

  He was healing well. Too well. When she’d dragged him to his quarters four days ago he’d looked like shit. Every inch of him had been marred by bloody gashes or ragged bite marks. None of those gashes seemed to exist any more. With the exception of the faded wound in his side and the brooding silent treatment, Terran Boundary Guardian was healed.

  He’s not just Terran, Jaienna. You have to remember that.

  No, he wasn’t. Zeric was something else altogether.

  Werewolf.

  She lifted her gaze to his face, noting the studied control there. His jaw was clenched, his nostrils flaring slightly with each breath he took. Breaths, she couldn’t help but notice, long and somewhat shaky.

  “Were there many other werewolves on Old Earth?”

  His jaw bunched more at her question, his eyes glinting gold fire. “Not that I knew of.”

  Her heart slammed into her throat. He’d answered her? Gods, he’d actually answered her?

  He shifted slightly on the edge of his bunk, his muscles coiling and flexing under his skin. “None.”

  Jaienna caught her bottom lip with her teeth, willing him to look at her. She needed him to make some kind of connection with her. Fuck, four days ago she’d saved his life and given him her heart.

  Is that really what you’re worried about? His lack of manners?

  No. She was worried that he wouldn’t talk. Or look at her. Or relax.

  He should be able to relax now. They’d defeated Crotek and were safe on his ship. Surely what they should be doing was relaxing in each other’s arms? And then maybe something not quite relaxing but just as—

  “I shall deposit you on Spaceport Ry’l as soon as possible,” Zeric suddenly spoke, his voice low. “Until then, it is safer for you to keep away from me. In Jak’s quarters.”

  Jaienna’s eyebrows shot up. She stared at him, her mouth falling open. “Jak’s what?” Her fingers hovered over the scar beneath his ribcage. “And where?”

  He turned his head a fraction more away from her. “Jak’s quarters. It will be safer there.”