She was his mate.
It was imprinted on him, unshakable and undeniable, even when he wanted to pretend otherwise. The instincts as her male ran deep in his blood and his bones and he couldn’t ignore them. They were stronger than the new instincts that had been born in the bloody aftermath of that night two decades ago, the ones he had honed until they were as sharp as the blades he favoured as an elite assassin.
More powerful than the ones that whispered this was a golden opportunity to put an end to the bitch who had haunted him for twenty years and finally lay his ghosts to rest.
He stood at the edge of the rooftop as a war raged inside him, the two sides of him battling as he struggled to see the right path to take. Could he really allow this opportunity to pass him by?
He had been waiting twenty years to face the Archangel huntress, had searched for her across all the continents, following even the smallest breadcrumb in his desperation to redeem himself and shed the weight of his sins from his shoulders.
He growled and tore his eyes away from the direction of Aya’s apartment, fury curling through his veins and mingling with the guilt there.
What kind of a sick son of a bitch was he?
He knew Aya was his fated female, yet there was a part of him that was willing to risk her life in order to finally have his vengeance, sating the need that had been burning inside him for twenty long years and had kept him marching forwards through a dark existence, treading a path that could only do him harm towards a future that grew blacker the longer he kept walking it.
He couldn’t turn back though.
It was too late for that.
He didn’t care about saving himself from whatever harm life as an assassin was doing to him. He didn’t care that it was killing him, stripping him of feeling and making him disconnect from the world he had once loved, leaving him feeling that he couldn’t trust anyone. Not even Hartt.
He only cared about avenging his family and his pride.
He only cared about righting his wrongs.
He only cared about protecting her.
Once Aya was safe and the huntress was dead, he would return to his life as an assassin and he would never see her again.
A scream rent the night air and Harbin’s head snapped up, his gaze instantly zeroing in on the direction it had come from.
A chill ran through him and he was moving before he had even thought about what he was doing, driven to reach the source of that terrified shriek.
Aya.
He knew it in his blood as it thundered through his veins, felt it in his blackened soul as he leaped the gap between two buildings and sprinted across the flat roof. She was in trouble. He had to reach her.
He palmed the pocket of his combat trousers as he dropped to the street close to her home, feeling the slender tube in it and the weight of what he had to do.
She wasn’t safe in London anymore.
He had to take her away to a place where she would be protected.
He hit the pavement and kicked off, launching himself forwards, towards two shadowy figures in the alley next to her apartment building. As they shifted to face him, he caught a glimpse of creamy skin and bright silver eyes beyond them, and snarled through his emerging fangs. He wouldn’t let them hurt Aya.
He hurled himself at the two males, tackling them both head on. The left one sidestepped, coming to stand under the single light in the alleyway. He looked like the male from the rooftop, but his eyes were eerily blue. Harbin didn’t break his stride. It wouldn’t be the first time he had dealt with copies. They were often mistaken for siblings, but Harbin’s nose and experience told him that these ones weren’t true twins. They were clones created by magic, and that meant the male he had met on the rooftop was pouring his power into the two sacks of flesh before him, weakening himself.
Making it easier for Harbin to kill him.
He snarled and lashed out with his claws, raking them across the chest of the male on the right. The male cried out and staggered backwards, a horrified look crossing his face before it darkened and he launched himself at Harbin.
Harbin ducked, coming beneath the fist the male swung at him and up behind him. He kicked the male in the back, sending him flying across the alleyway, colliding with the other copy. The two went down in a heap. Weak. The male was already withdrawing his power from them, strengthening himself. He was sacrificing the two.
A pale blur shot past him, hitting the wall a few metres above Harbin’s head, and then darted across the space between the buildings.
Aya.
She was nimble as she leaped from building to building in an effort to escape. She wouldn’t be quick enough though, not unless he did something to buy her time. The red-eyed male was already on the move, heading after her.
Harbin slammed his fist into the first copy, knocking him out with a single blow, and swept his leg around as he turned to face the other one, bringing it high into the air. He drove the heel of his boot into the side of his head, sending him crashing back down on the ground. The male grunted and started to get up again.
Harbin pulled the tube from his pocket, shoved a feathered dart into it, and blew hard. The male slapped a hand over his neck, his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped onto the tarmac.
Damn.
Harbin checked the pouch in his pocket and grimaced. Gods, he needed to be more careful. The dart he had grabbed in his panic was laced with the deadliest poison in Hell, drawn from the blood of the hydras that lived deep in the Devil’s domain. If he had mistakenly used that one on Aya… it didn’t bear thinking about.
“What the merry hell do you think you are doing?” The witch’s voice echoed around the dimly lit alley.
Harbin glared at him. “This is our fucking job, and I won’t tolerate interference. Our guild doesn’t take too kindly to people who hire us and then finish the job themselves. Unless you want to deal with one pissed off dark elf, I suggest you back the fuck off and let us do our work.”
The witch’s red eyes narrowed but Harbin refused to back down. Instead, he shifted to face him, bracing his feet shoulder-width apart, his fingers twitching against the tube in his hand and his thoughts on plucking another dart laced with hydra toxin and shooting the bastard with it. The male glanced down at it and then back up at his face, locking gazes with him.
“Very well… but we expect a result within the time limit, or it will be your head rolling.”
Black smoke swirled around the witch and when it dissipated, he was gone.
Wretch. Harbin didn’t trust him. It was a long shot, but hopefully he had done enough to cover his tracks and the witch had bought what he had said and had actually left the area and wasn’t watching from the shadows.
He raised his head, silver eyes searching for Aya.
He spotted her near the top of the building and nimbly used the same trick to reach it, leaping higher and faster than she had, his body more powerful than hers would ever be. He kicked off hard near the top and sailed over her head, coming to land in front of her.
She stopped dead, her enormous eyes catching the moonlight, glowing with fear and with something else he didn’t dare name. That something else grew stronger as she ran a glance over him and he gritted his teeth, willing his body not to respond to the heated look. She was his mate but she would never be his, and the quicker he got that through his thick skull, the better it would be for both of them.
It didn’t matter how much he wanted her.
Needed her.
They could never be together.
“I killed one… but they’ll be coming back for you,” he growled and advanced a step towards her. Her cream satin slip fluttered in the cool breeze, luring his gaze down to her shapely legs. He resisted and kept his gaze locked with hers and his focus on his business with her. “You’re not safe here anymore.”
Her eyes widened further and he felt the shock that rippled through her. It ran through him too, a warning sign that he couldn’t ignore. Thei
r paths were already entwining, their souls pulling together into a union he couldn’t allow. He had to act fast, for her sake, because being so close to her was stirring something dangerous inside him.
Awakening a feral need for her.
One he wasn’t sure he would be able to resist as it was now, let alone when it grew stronger as he knew it would.
He had to get her to safety, figure out his plan and get it done soon or he was going to lose control, and end up doing something they would both regret.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and she frowned at him.
He chose the tranquiliser dart from the container in his pocket, slid it into the tube and brought it to his lips. He fixed his eyes on her neck and blew, and she flinched as the dart struck.
Her legs buckled.
Harbin couldn’t stop himself from catching her, crossing the distance between them with a single leap to cushion her fall with his arms. He froze and stared down at her, breathing hard as the scent of her and her warmth curled around him, seeping into him.
Marking him.
He pulled her closer to his chest and eyed the dart that protruded from her neck. She didn’t even twitch as he gently pulled it from her flesh and discarded it. Blood blossomed where it had been and he was lowering his head and pressing his lips to that spot before he could get the better of himself.
Heat bloomed inside him as her blood coated his lips, flowing down into his chest and filling it with light. He shook as he breathed her in and tasted her, and gathered her even closer. It still wasn’t enough.
He needed more of her.
Harbin lifted his head and stared down at her. The moon turned her skin white and perfect, and her silvery eyebrows and lashes sparkled in its gentle light.
Gods, she was beautiful.
But she could never be his.
He would only taint her with the darkness living within him.
As his mate, she deserved the best life that he could give to her and that was the life he would give to her.
A life without him in it.
CHAPTER 14
His leather boots were loud on the polished black stone floor that reflected warm torchlight up at him, each step a heavy thud that echoed along the broad arched corridor of the main entrance of the guild. Harbin adjusted his grip on the female in his arms, cradling her closer to his body as he carried her into the heart of the place he now called home.
Her head lolled, falling against his biceps, and he couldn’t resist the urge to look down at her that stole through him. Her soft shell-pink lips parted, her warm breath fanning his skin as he held her nestled against him. In his arms. Where she belonged.
He erased that last thought as two assassins approached him, neither of them from the guild. Sometimes the guilds teamed up when a particularly dangerous target with a high enough price on their head came along. What business had these two assassins been doing here?
The blonde females were quick to notice his cargo and even quicker to speak with each other in their native language, one he had never bothered to learn. Succubi made good assassins, but he preferred to keep away from their kind. They had a tendency to kill any male who sampled their wares.
One giggled as he passed them, a snigger that made him want to turn and growl at her in warning. The rules of his guild were known by all in it and even some from other guilds. They knew he was breaking them and he was sure they were just itching to watch the calamity that was about to unfold when he reached the main reception room. He locked his senses on the pair, monitoring them, feeling them swaying between continuing out of the door and turning back to see Hartt rip him a new one.
The bitches turned back.
Harbin huffed and kept trudging onwards, into the impressive black-walled reception room at the end of the corridor.
Four of the guild’s longest serving demon members lounged in the horseshoe of black velvet couches that surrounded the monstrosity of a marble fireplace to his left, the satisfied smiles on their faces telling Harbin that the succubi had been here for pleasure, not business. The demons all looked at him the second he entered the room.
One of the male’s black horns curled through his thick dark hair, so the points protruded past his cheeks. A sign of aggression.
Harbin had considered he would have trouble with Hartt when he brought Aya to the guild, but he hadn’t considered that other members of the guild with have a problem with her presence.
The male pushed onto his feet, coming to stand at least three inches taller than Harbin and twice as broad.
If he fought, the three other demons with him would fight too.
Harbin wasn’t sure he would be able to protect Aya from them.
The black door in the far right corner of the room shot open and Hartt strode in, his violet eyes dark with the anger rolling off him in waves so intense that Harbin was sure everyone in the vicinity would sense the elf’s fury.
Hartt’s black clothing disappeared, replaced in an instant by his armour as it swept outwards from the black and silver bands around his wrist, the scales coming to cover him from toe to neck. They coursed over his hands too, forming deadly jagged talons.
Harbin tucked Aya closer to him and bared his fangs in warning.
He didn’t want to fight Hartt, but the male was throwing vibes at him that had his primal instincts firing and demanding he protect his mate.
“What the hell do you think you are doing bringing her here?” Hartt snapped, ignoring his warning, and stormed towards him. His pointed ears flared, poking through the unruly strands of his blue-black hair, and his fangs showed between his lips as he talked. “You were meant to kill her.”
Harbin roared at him.
Hartt’s eyes widened and he stopped dead.
The entire room dropped into stunned silence.
Fuck, the reaction had shocked even him. It had been feral and powerful, overwhelming him and seizing control, hijacking his body and forcing the response from him when he had felt his mate was threatened.
He breathed hard, fighting for control over his instincts, aware that he had just crossed a line and that if he wasn’t careful, Hartt would do more than shout at him.
Hartt would do more than fight him.
This place was his home, his pride, and he couldn’t allow anything to jeopardise his place in it. He had already lost one family. He couldn’t lose this one too. He needed the guild. It was his life now, and nothing would ever change that.
“You good now?” Hartt whispered softly and Harbin nodded. “Care to explain to me why you brought her here?”
That riled his snow leopard side, making it push for freedom. He needed to shift and show this male that he had no right to question him when it came to his mate. He had no right to look at her in that way, as if she was something to be eliminated or cast out into the dangerous world outside of the guild.
He deepened his breathing, seeking some sliver of calm that he could hold on to while he mastered his animal side and regained control of it. He could feel everyone staring at him, their gazes piercing him. Judging him.
He knew the rules. He knew he wasn’t allowed to bring anyone from outside the guild into it with the intention they would stay longer than a few minutes, as long as it took to satisfy whatever urge had struck the assassin in question or take a potential business partner away from the guild to a local bar to talk about a job.
He knew no one had ever dared to break that rule since Hartt had created it centuries ago.
He just had nowhere else he could go.
He looked down at Aya where she slumbered in his arms, unaware of the danger that he had placed her in by bringing her to this dark place. It was danger that he could control though. He hadn’t had a choice. This was the safest place he knew. The witch could enter Hell, but he wouldn’t dare attack an entire guild of assassins.
“The contract is a trap,” Harbin said, his tone flat and controlled despite the emotions that raged out of control inside him, whipped i
nto a frenzy by the memories of what had happened and the thought of Aya being in danger. He lifted his head and locked eyes with Hartt, catching the male’s surprise in their violet depths. “It’s her… the huntress.”
Hartt’s eyes widened. “You’re sure?”
Harbin nodded. “A male witch made himself known to me when I was tracking Aya. I recognised the huntress’s scent on him. They’re in league with each other, which means Aya was bait for me.”
“Because she’s part of your pride?” Hartt’s steady gaze challenged him to admit that she was more than that to him but he refused, unwilling to surrender that information when so many of the guild were present.
What Aya was to him was personal and he wasn’t in the habit of sharing personal shit with other guild members.
Personal information was another weapon they could use against him if they ever turned on him.
“I couldn’t take her to Cavanaugh. I won’t place him and the others there in danger.” Harbin looked back down at Aya and bit back the sigh that tried to leave his lips as he studied her soft face, losing himself in her beauty all over again.
“You’d put us in danger though,” the dark-haired demon muttered.
Hartt whipped around to face the four males. “If you’re afraid of a little witch and his lackeys, perhaps you’re in the wrong fucking profession? Take your whores and get out of my sight.”
The demon snapped his mouth closed and shuffled away, heading for the exit with his friends and the succubi.
“I should set Fuery on them for being whelps,” Hartt snarled as he watched them go and then sucked down a deep breath and switched his focus back to Harbin. The darkness in his boss’s eyes remained, lingering like dangerous storm clouds. “Cut the crap… she’s more than just a former member of your pride. The huntress has been in hiding for two decades. There’s no damned way she would risk a showdown with you unless she had an ace up her sleeve and I’m guessing the female here is that ace.”
Marked by an Assassin Page 16