Aya slumped to her knees and stared at the golden gravel, reeling as everything clicked into place.
The huntress was the one who had seduced Harbin.
Aya could easily see the bastard falling for her beauty, with her glossy blonde waves, shapely figure and stunning green eyes, and it hadn’t exactly taken much convincing for him to fall into bed with anyone back then. A pretty smile and a little flattery, and any female could have had their way with him.
Except her.
Gods, she hadn’t realised just how bitter he had made her, and it only churned the guilt already brewing in her stomach, making her sick. She had believed Archangel because she had been upset with him, filled with jealousy and anger that she had held on to for twenty years after they had kissed. Jealousy and anger that had only grown with each female she had seen him cavorting with in the village, and each trip he had taken down the mountain to slake his lust with the mortals.
Maybe she was doomed to place her faith in the wrong people.
Forty years ago, she had believed Harbin had felt something for her, and he had crushed that belief.
Yet no kiss had ever stirred heat in her veins as his had.
She wished with all of her heart that when he had kissed her in the room that she had felt nothing but cold fury, but that kiss had melted the ice in her veins and the thick glacier that encased that heart, making her burn for him all over again.
Damn him.
She knew why he affected her so deeply too.
It had hit her the second she had stepped into the room and he had looked at her, his eyes bright silver with hunger, need that she felt sure he was probably blaming on his impending maturity, but she knew stemmed from something else.
She was his mate.
The feeling had drummed through her, an awareness that she had found hard to shake during her time locked in that room with him, and that was impossible to escape even now that she was free and he was probably back in his cell.
How long would it be before he realised it too?
Would he come after her when his instincts finally told him that she was his fated female?
Her heart beat harder, and the walls around her closed in, the darkness choking the air from her lungs as her instincts roared at her to run. She needed space and time, needed to escape and taste the fresh air of freedom in her lungs. She couldn’t do this.
She shoved to her feet and eyed the archway cut into the side of the building at the opposite end of the courtyard.
Freedom beckoned but she couldn’t convince her feet to move.
She had already tried running from him, had fled to this courtyard, but she hadn’t been able to outrun her desire for him. It still drummed in her blood, quickening and setting fire to it. Nothing she did could douse those flames now, not with the memory of his kiss branded on her mind and her lips.
Gods, she needed to speak to Rocky. She needed to talk to someone. She was going to drown in her thoughts if she didn’t.
The things Harbin had said kept her pinned in place, and the need to know whether he was telling the truth warred with a desire to pretend those words had never left his lips.
She couldn’t face the thought that Archangel had lied to her.
She had trusted them for too long.
After her release, she had begun to work with them as a sort of informant, feeding them information about dangerous immortals. She had believed that by working with them that she had been protecting the fae, shifters and other immortals who wanted to live in peace. She had spent fifteen years assisting them.
The thought that they might have lied to her to gain her trust, just as they had apparently spun lies of a more wicked nature to Harbin in order to gain his twenty years ago, hollowed out her insides and left her cold.
Archangel had put her through three years of Hell, but the tests they had run on her had been nothing compared with the experiments they had done on the males they had captured with her. While the scientists had put the males through a more physically painful course of experiments, they had labelled her as a more valuable asset because of her gender, and had instead inflicted a round of studying on her that had been invasive and had left her emotionally scarred.
She closed her eyes and shut out the images that wanted to bombard her, the memories she did her best to keep contained to her nightmares. That time was in her past now, but some days it still felt as if it had been just yesterday that they had laid her on inspection tables and invaded her body, studying how she differed from a mortal female.
The need to run overwhelmed her again, this time born of a deeper fear, one she couldn’t brush aside.
She couldn’t face the pain of rejection all over again. No snow leopard male would ever want her as a mate, could ever feel anything for her, because she had overheard the scientists that had studied her and the one thing mature males of her species desired was the one thing she couldn’t give them.
She couldn’t bear offspring to help the survival of their species.
Aya looked back over her shoulder again, unable to ignore the urge that beat within her, drawing her back to the cellblock.
Back to him.
The need to run from him clashed with another need, one that began to grow, becoming strong enough to subdue the urge to flee.
She needed to know the truth about everything.
She needed to speak with Harbin again, but she wasn’t sure he would be rational. He was too different to the male she had known for most of her life. The coldness in him, the darkness that seeped from him and warned her to keep her distance, set her on edge and made her want to obey her instincts and do just that.
Was this what life as an assassin did to people?
The male she had known back in the village had been filled with life and light, with easy smiles and quick wit. He had been a little wild, but he hadn’t seemed capable of cold-blooded murder, and she knew from her research that he had done some terrible things during their time apart.
What had driven him to step into such a dark and dangerous life?
Her heart whispered the answer to that question. It had shone in his eyes when he had told her that Archangel had murdered his mother and sister, and now she knew of that event, she could see that the times he had been escorted past her cell, his eyes filled with icy darkness, that he hadn’t been plotting her demise. He had been fighting his need to attack the Archangel hunters who guarded him, and possibly every other mortal in the building.
Archangel had set him on the dark path to becoming the cold, emotionless assassin she had met in the nightclub.
A male who was nothing like the one she had fallen in love with forty years ago.
She needed to speak with him.
She turned back towards the doors and the high shrill of an alarm sounded. The lights from the windows on all three floors of the building surrounding her flickered as hunters rushed through the corridors and her heart kicked off at a pace. What was happening?
She listened hard, tuning out the wailing alarm in an attempt to detect what had triggered them.
Someone screamed. Another joined in, a shriek of agony that was cut short and made her cold inside.
It was an attack.
Her stomach dropped.
She pushed off hard, sprinting towards the glass doors.
Harbin.
CHAPTER 9
Harbin paced his cell, his bare feet silent on the cold white tiles. Only the sound of his breathing and soft swish of his newly reinstated black jeans filled the tense silence. The return of more of his clothes wasn’t a good enough exchange this time, not as payment for what Archangel had put him through.
Hell, if he was honest with himself, he didn’t deserve the damn clothing. They should have stripped him bare again and put him in solitary for what he had done to the female.
The darker part of himself rebelled at that thought, pushing back against it, pointing out that she was the reason he was trapped in his own personal Hell. She
had betrayed him. She had lured him to her, had tricked him into falling into Archangel’s hands, and had orchestrated a meeting that had rattled him.
All for the sake of revenge.
He wouldn’t have been as pissed if she had been in the right and events had followed the path that she believed they had taken.
But they hadn’t, and he was furious.
He would never have knowingly betrayed his kin, and the fact that she believed he had sat in his gut like acid-coated lead. What sort of male did she think he was?
He huffed and strode back across the small cell as his mind flashed images from his past at him, reminders that he hadn’t been the most stellar member of his pride. He had never embraced his duties as the son of their alpha, or taken on any form of responsibility, or done anything that benefitted his people. He had been lapse in his studies, lazy in his work, and had spent most of his days in the lead up to being exiled in the arms of whatever female would satisfy his latest itch to fuck.
Gods, he hoped she hadn’t been one of the many he had bedded at the pride, but it would certainly help him understand the weird rush of sensation he’d had when he had been kissing her and would go some way to explaining why she hated his guts and had been happy to swallow the bullshit Archangel had fed to her.
He doubted she would have believed them if they had said his brother, Cavanaugh, had sold her out or anyone else at the pride.
The devious bastards had probably overheard something she had said about him during her captivity and had used him all over again, painting a big target on his chest for her knowing full well that she harboured some sort of resentment towards him and would take the bait.
Now she was taking her best shots at him, trying to bring him down and make him pay.
He wanted to be angry with her, wanted to hate her for what she had done to him all for the sake of revenge, but part of him felt he deserved it. He hadn’t sold her out, but he had betrayed her and the rest of his kin in a way, and he knew that everyone from the village probably wanted him dead too and some would probably be happy to do the deal themselves if they ever crossed his path.
Fuck, he would probably hand them his blades and let them do it.
It was part of the reason he had kept his head down and had spent most of his time in Hell. His death wouldn’t bring back the dead. It wasn’t a big enough price to pay for the things he had done. Living was that price. He had to stay alive, live with his sins, and keep walking the path towards whatever scrap of redemption he could find.
He had to finish the job he had started twenty years ago.
He needed to end the female who had betrayed him and set in motion the events that had turned his life upside down and destroyed the ones of many of his kin.
Harbin growled and clenched his fists.
First, he had to escape Archangel’s hands and find the snow leopard female. He needed to make her believe that she had placed her trust in the wrong people, even when he knew it would only hurt her. Her striking silver-gold eyes had shown a wealth of pain and guilt when he had tried to make her listen to him, telling her the short version of the real course of events that had taken place that day at the village. He couldn’t imagine the pain she would feel when he told her everything that had happened and convinced her that Archangel had lied to her.
He was certainly going to feel more like a bastard than ever, that was for sure.
He paused mid-stride and stared at the blank white wall opposite him. How the fuck had she softened the hardest parts of him so quickly, pulling down all of his barriers and setting his emotions free? A week ago, he wouldn’t have been concerned about hurting her. Fuck, he wouldn’t have been concerned about telling her the truth.
He would have been focused on killing her as payment for her betraying him.
What was it about her that had him going against his darker nature and his training as an assassin?
She was a mark, by her own choice since she had clearly taken out the contract on herself to entrap him, but she was a mark nonetheless. A target. A mission. Nothing more than a job.
But she had done nothing wrong.
She hadn’t killed anyone, or stolen anything, or done anything worthy of him taking her life. The only sin she had committed was the sin of betraying him, born of a need for vengeance that probably burned as fiercely in her heart as the one that blazed in his.
And hadn’t he really betrayed her in the first place?
Hadn’t he betrayed all of his kin with his constant straying from the village to sleep with mortal females that must have drawn the eyes of Archangel to that town and his pride in the first place?
Hadn’t he betrayed them when he had used his position within the pride, albeit in a coded manner, to impress the huntress Archangel had sent to squeeze information out of him?
He had told her that he was in charge, a male in position of power, because his father was out of town. He had basically given her the green light to attack his pride by revealing they were vulnerable, without their alpha to protect them.
Gods. He screwed his eyes shut and dug the heels of his hands into them, his head hurting with the collision happening in it, a twisting and churning relentless stream of thoughts that tore at him.
He deserved whatever the female snow leopard had in store for him, and if it would take away some of the pain she held locked inside her, born of her years of captivity in this terrible place, he would willingly subject himself to it. Whatever pain she wanted to deal to him, he would take it. He would do all he could to atone for his sins.
But first he needed to get her away from Archangel.
He needed to tell her everything and convince her to allow him to track and put an end to the huntress who had brought them both so much pain and changed their lives for the worse forever.
He touched the three jagged marks on his right cheek.
He had to save her.
He couldn’t deny that need. It pounded in his blood, a deep visceral ache that owned him. He couldn’t leave her here, where she was in danger.
He needed to protect her.
He wouldn’t fail her again.
He turned back towards the glass front of his cell.
The lights dropped, plunging the entire floor into darkness, and a siren wailed. A moment later, red lights began to flash, giving him glimpses of his surroundings. He covered his ears and grimaced, struggling to focus as the assault continued. Guards rushed past his cell and the other prisoners grew loud enough for him to hear over the shrieking pulse of the alarm. Something was happening.
Harbin cursed.
Had the dragon escaped his captors? If he had, the bastard had better be on his way to him to take him up on his offer. His cursing turned into a long growl. There was no way he would be able to convince the dragon to take a detour to search for the snow leopard female. He doubted she would return to the cell where she had been held if she was working with Archangel, and he wasn’t sure how big the building was or where to begin looking for her.
The need to protect her warred with a need to escape.
He had her scent now. He could track her and find her.
But the building was swarming with Archangel hunters, and all of them had probably armed themselves the moment the alarm had sounded.
He slammed his fist into the glass front of his cell as a sense of futility swept through him. As much as he wanted to save her, he couldn’t. The number of hunters he had seen during his captivity was only a small percentage of the total number that occupied this building. Any attempt to find the female would end in him being captured again.
It was no use.
He had to take the opportunity to escape when it came.
He would return for her. He swore that under his breath. He wouldn’t allow Archangel to poison her mind any longer. He would set her free.
Noise in the corridor drew his attention there. He caught a glimpse of a mortal male dressed in black fatigues and a flash of blue-leather-clad legs.
The dragon. They were dragging him back to his cell. Dammit.
If he had been the cause of the alarm, they would have shut it off the moment he had been rendered unconscious and placed back in containment, which meant someone else was responsible.
He tried to focus through the noise, honing his senses, seeking out anything fae or immortal in origin. The sense of power emitted by the dragon interfered with his search, making it hard for him to tell whether someone equally or more powerful had launched an attack on Archangel. He focused harder, determined to understand what was happening.
He had a brief sensation of power, strength the magnitude of which he had only felt in Hell when fallen angels were near him, and then it was gone.
What the hell was going on?
He strode to the wall that separated him from the dragon and banged on it.
“What’s happening?” he hollered and waited, willing Loke to respond. He wasn’t sure whether the male was merely drugged or actually unconscious, but he hoped it was the former because between the irritating siren and the growing hunger to escape, he wasn’t sure how long he had before he completely lost his shit.
His animal form prowled beneath the surface of his skin, making him itch with a need for freedom and cool night air, a desperate hunger that made the cell seem to shrink around him, until it felt too confined, closing in on him and stealing the air from his lungs.
He had to get the fuck out of this Hell. He couldn’t wait for Hartt to come. He couldn’t. He had to get away, whether it was with the female in tow or left behind for him to rescue later. Right now, he just needed air and space.
Freedom.
He pressed his palms to the wall, focusing on the male in the cell beyond, and whispered, “Come on, Loke.”
The dragon was his shot at escaping during the insanity happening around him. Even dazed by drugs, the shifter male would be strong enough to beat his way out of the cell if he put his mind to it. He had to be.
He felt Loke move at last and sensed him coming closer.
“I do not know.” Loke’s deep voice rumbled through the wall and the alarms fell silent. Sweet fucking mercy, Harbin could hear himself think again. The dragon huffed. “I sensed a strong presence near me and then the infernal lights began flashing and that noise began.”
Marked by an Assassin Page 9