Finding the Blood Assassin [Lords of the Expanse 3] (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Honor James

  Jamison snorted and shook her head. “Yeah, not so much, but if you think that’s the way of it then we will go with it. The blind will lead the blind and all that happy stuff. How does that sound, my love?”

  “As long as you’re there when she’s telling the therapist that we’re at fault for everything in her life, I’m good with it.” He smiled slightly. “But if I get all the dirt shoveled my way, I’m dishing on you, darling,” Raven teased, his smile growing.

  Jamison tipped her head back to laugh, ending by shaking her head and a finger at him. “Yeah, well, you are going to be right there with me.” But she knew that their daughter was going to have a wonderful life. She was going to have a father who loved her more than anything in the world and a mother who would die for her. Yes, their little girl was going to have a great life.

  “Where else would I be, love?” he asked her softly, humor coating each of the words. “Come on, let’s go and find our daughter and figure out what we can do to wear her down so she’ll sleep the night away and we can have some more time together.”

  “Let’s just not wear ourselves out so that we can have some time to ourselves before we go to sleep. How does that sound, my love?” Jamison asked, trailing a finger slowly down his arm. “Because I need time with you, my husband. I need time with you to remind me just how fantastic that we are together.”

  “And I with you, my love,” he murmured, hugging her to his side as they walked away from the gazebo. “She’d better not be sleeping. She doesn’t need to reenergize now. She needs to be tearing around until she’s done for the night,” he muttered as they came through the gardens on the path back toward the pond.

  Jamison tipped her head and then smiled, wrinkling her nose slightly. “Nope, she’s not sleeping.” She looked up at Raven and said, “Just remember that you wanted her to know how to do about anything, darling.” She patted Raven’s arm, hoping her words had given him enough of a warning. “She’s likely right now practicing her marksmanship with her bow.”

  Growling at her, he picked her up in his arms and carried her across the lawns at a quick pace. “I just hope she remembers what I said about shooting the boys that leer at her. Or the ones who suggest things to her that I put on the disapproval list and then just any that are too cocky for their own good.”

  Jami laughed and shook her head. “For our daughter’s sake, and yours, I hope our next child is a boy, Raven. One that you can teach all your wonderful tricks to without worry.” She nuzzled his neck and pressed kisses up toward his ear where she paused, her breath warm against the shell. “So I think we should practice often on creating a boy for you to make over in your image, my love. The next generation needs men like you in it.”

  “Self-absorbed assassins?” he asked, not really caring to know the answer to that one. “I must admit I’m more than willing to work on the next generation with you. And, even if we are blessed with another daughter, I will be just as happy as I was when we had Emily. I may just lock myself away in a padded room through her entire childhood, but I’ll be happy.”

  Jamison laughed and hugged his neck tight as she shook her head. “Gods, Raven, you are too funny. You and I both know that no matter how much another daughter would drive you to distraction, you would never leave me long enough to have me raising her alone. You will be every bit as much a part of her life as you are with Emily’s, and you know it, silly goose.”

  Chapter 16

  Just because she had a very good and strong point was no reason to cave in and let her know she was right. “Well, I would miss you, that is for sure,” Raven told her, setting her down on her feet so they could walk together again. “Not being able to touch you, slide my fingers into your pussy, or toy with your nipples until you scream for more is a definite negative to the whole plan.”

  “Oh dear gods,” she panted out, clutching at his arm as she stumbled a little. “And if you were to lock yourself in that room, then I wouldn’t be able to bite at your neck, my darling. I wouldn’t be able to wrap my hands around your cock and tease you with my tongue as you like so very much.”

  Growling softly at her, he let the smile slowly curve his lips. “There is that,” he agreed, his voice huskier than normal, making it sound even rougher. “Which would leave us both wanting and needy,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her cheek. “There would be no satisfaction for either of us, not like it is when we come together. You could touch your slick pussy and bring about climax, and I could stroke my cock until I came, but it would be empty.”

  “You’re right. So the best thing would be for you to remain in our lives and simply live with the fact that you have a daughter. A beautiful little girl and, if we have more daughters, they will be as lovely, so you will have to remember every detail of raising Emily so that you can use it raising any others we have, Raven.”

  “Are you kidding?” he asked with a snort. “I have one of the guards taking rigorous notes on a daily basis for either my memoires or for the raising of our next child. I’m thinking of it more along the lines of a what-not-to-do list of items, depending on how messed up Emily is by the end of our child-rearing days.”

  Jami laughed, the sound light and filled with joy. At his expense no doubt, but in this case he didn’t mind much. “Hopefully it’s not one of the ones that she has wrapped around her little pinky finger.” Looking up, her face nearly an expressionless mask, she said, “There is at least one, right?” When he shot her a glare she lost it, dissolving into laughter. Everyone knew that Emily had the guards, the staff, her parents, and neighbors—everyone—wrapped around her little finger.

  “Not on this planet,” Raven said in disgust as he watched Jamison heave in laughter. Waiting a time he lifted a brow. “Love of my life, are you quite done yet in your amusement at my expense and the poor males of this household?”

  “I think so, yes, possibly.” Righting herself once more, she wiped at her eyes and shook her head. “Who would have ever believed ten years ago that you would have a daughter, one who is so beloved by those around her that they would do anything for her?” Touching his cheek, she added, “I know for a certainty that you would never have believed it, my love.”

  Shaking his head solemnly, he sighed. “No, I’d have thought whoever had told me a madman and either killed him or kicked him in the pants to encourage him on his way. Ten years ago, had they told me I’d have my soul tie and she’d be a marvelous female, I’d likely have laughed hard enough to drop from a coronary at the mere concept.”

  Jami grinned. “You hated me when I brought you out of the hell you were in. You wanted me dead and I just wanted to take care of you. Does the silver still hurt you from time to time, Ra?” She was of course referring to the piece in his back, too close to his spine. The one piece that she hadn’t been able to get out of his body so very long ago.

  “You wanted to jump my bones, and I was trying to keep you safe from me,” he clarified, speaking slowly so she just might, maybe, perhaps, finally get it straight. Shrugging at the rest, he played it down as he normally did. “From time to time it aches.” Burns like the fires of hell more like, he thought wryly.

  “Can you blame me for wanting to jump your bones? You are glorious, Raven, and it had been a very, very long time since I had been sexual with anyone.” She shrugged, clearly unrepentant in her need now or then. Jami slowed her steps, squeezing his arm tighter. “I’m sorry you hurt, Ra. I love you, darling, and I hate that you hurt so badly.”

  “I’ve learned to live with it, love, it’s nothing I can change,” he said softly. Besides, he’d learned a long time ago to push the pain aside and ignore it completely. He could actually go months without even remembering the pain until it finally decided to give him a kick in the ass.

  “Well maybe one day we will be able to figure out a way to get it out, love. Medicine changes often, so I’m sure one day we will be able to find a time to bring it out, right?” Looking out over the lawn, she pointed ahead of them. “Alyssa
is here. Looks like she found her way over again.” She worried for that child. She and Emily and Andria were all three tight as thieves, but she worried for the beautiful little silver-haired girl.

  “Let’s go and see what is up with the little elf,” he suggested, using his pet name for the girl, which, surprising, looked just like an elf with her too-large eyes and pale hair. “Maybe a sleepover for the girls is in order. Get them all wired up and then let them just crash and burn for the night.”

  “Now, see, that’s why those girls adore you isn’t it?” she asked with a grin. “All right, love, let’s go and do what we can to ensure that these girls are properly worn out, shall we?”

  Walking at his side, Jami watched everything happening around her daughter and the daughter of her heart. She watched the way they played together and how Alyssa constantly was watchful as well, eyes that cast around as if looking for hidden threats.

  “Don’t you think that it’s odd that Alyssa is always looking for danger, for trouble?” She projected the thoughts to her husband, shooting him a small look. “She looks around as if she were you.” She had many of the same mannerisms that Raven had, mannerisms that were learned with the training he received as an assassin.

  “With the father and older brother she has, I’m not at all surprised,” Raven said casually. He did not like her father or brother, never had. Jamison knew but not the whys of it. The little girl, though, was a ray of pure sunlight and a blessing. “She’s had a hard life, one that I wish I knew how to help her with. She deserves happiness and just to be a child, instead.” Sighing, Raven shook his head.

  Instead the little girl was acting too much like those military men that trained to survive on their own through anything and everything. “Instead she is being raised to be something she isn’t.” Jami had seen the way that the child moved, knew the training her husband had, and felt her heart lurch for the child.

  Alyssa and Emily came up finally and, standing before Raven, Alyssa cocked her head to the side. “It sings, you know.” She spoke with a small lisp of sound. “The silver inside of you, it sings to me.” She shrugged and rested a hand on his leg. “I can make it come out if you want it to stop singing for you, hurting you.”

  Crouching down, Raven shook his head to the little girl. “Thank you for the offer, honey, but it’s fine. I’m used to it,” he told her, gently taking her hand in his. So like his Emily and yet so much older, she deserved to just be a child. “Why don’t we go and get some snacks?” he asked, reaching out to gently stroke her hair.

  “It doesn’t hurt me, you know. I’m not like everyone else. The silver doesn’t hurt, but if you wanna keep it I don’t blame you. It makes a pretty song.” She looked to Emily and then Jamison. “Can we have honey in tea for snacks?”

  Jami choked back a soft sob he heard but didn’t look to her, knowing she’d hate the girls to notice. “Of course we can, dear one.” To Raven she asked, “Do you really think that she has control over silver like that? That she would be able to pull it out of you or that she hears it singing?”

  Watching Alyssa’s eyes, Raven nodded before standing. Keeping the little girls’ hands in his, he let her and Emily pull him along. “I think she can,” he told her honestly. “When she touches me the silver in my body feels—different,” he said as he searched for words to make her understand. “It feels warm, almost like it senses her and doesn’t ache quite as much.”

  “Then let her pull it out if she can, Ra. At least let her try, darling,” Jami said simply to him even as she laughed at something that one of the girls said. “If what she says is true then why not let her try, love?”

  Because I will not use her in that way now or ever, he said, looking to his wife. She is a little girl, not a tool to be used as the world sees fit. She deserves to have a childhood free of the constraints we put upon ourselves as adults. I refuse to contribute to anything that might take her from that opportunity of freedom of childhood like her father and brothers obviously have done. Would you really have me do something that could possibly harm her?

  No, darling, I know that you wouldn’t. While she is here, while she is with us we need to protect her as best we can, my love. Jami didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know what to feel and wished that they had more answers.

  Looking to her, Raven sighed. I know, love. I wish we could figure this out for her sake. She is such a sweet child. She has just had the rotten luck of having the wrong family. Guiding the girls up onto the deck, he lifted them each into a chair so they sat side by side and looked over to the guards. She saw them both nod, and Raven leaned in to tell the girls that they would be right back. Taking Jamison’s hand in his larger, warmer one, he led her into the house.

  * * * *

  Alyssa sat beside Emily, kicking her legs until she stilled fully. “I have to go, Emily,” she said with a voice full of regret. “It’s my brother, he’s here looking for me.” And because of her leaving she would likely be beaten again, not much for it she supposed. “Thank you for playing with me for a while.” Standing, she gave her friend a hug and then jumped from the deck and started to run toward the edge of the property where she knew her brother was waiting.

  * * * *

  “She needs to be taken care of, Jamison,” Raven said once they were inside and away from the sharp hearing of the little girls. “I hate to see the fear in her eyes, the pain that I know she’s trying so hard to hide. But most of all, I detest seeing how watchful and wary she is.”

  “I know, Raven, I hate it, too. We can appeal to the council to take over the raising of the child. We will bring her into our home and give her a good and loving home.” She couldn’t have agreed more with Raven had she tried. “I honestly believe they are hurting her somehow, Ra, and that makes me want to skin them both alive.”

  Snorting, Raven pulled her closer to his large body. “That is because you are too tenderhearted, my dear. You need to let your imagination run rampant with all the things you could do to make them pay for the pain they cause her.”

  “Yeah well, I will let you decide how best to make them suffer. For now we should contact the council and see about getting her into our custody. The sooner the better, husband.”

  “Right.” He wrinkled his nose at her suggestion. “Perhaps I will make a call upon Daegan Asis instead of dealing with the lot of them. He at least has a conscience and a brain,” he murmured.

  “That sounds like a good idea, and from what I understand his son is now moving up in the ranks so perhaps he’s looking to make alliances?” Because whatever they had to do, she wanted them to do it. She needed them to be able to make Alyssa safe, as well as their daughter.

  “I’ll pay him a visit and see if he’s willing to look toward a union of our houses,” Raven said softly. Such things had not been done since the early days when the Vampires had fought among themselves. Although, with the way things were beginning to shape up with the Alliance divided, such unions would not be amiss for much longer. “Let us feed them now and worry about the future tomorrow. After we both are well rested and thinking a little more clearly.”

  “Sounds good.” Jami stepped from his arms and walked back toward the door. “We will ask Alyssa to stay the night with us.” She stopped dead, her hand fluttering up to her lips as she turned to him with a soft cry. “She’s gone, Raven. Emily is still sitting there kicking her feet, but Alyssa is gone.”

  Moving to her side, his eyes moved beyond their daughter to the land and saw nothing. “Damn it, she must have taken off as soon as we came indoors.” It had likely been her bastard of a brother that had come for her. Somehow Raven knew it in his bones. “Sit with Emily. I’m going to call Daegan now and see if we can expedite matters,” he said to his wife before kissing her.

  Jami nodded and took a seat beside Emily. “Time to sit and chat with your mother for a time, Em. Are you going to be all right with that, darling?” she asked as she stroked her daughter’s hair gently.

  Watching h
is wife and child for a moment, Raven pulled away and headed to his study.

  Chapter 17

  Long, frustrating hours later, he rejoined Jamison, who was just tucking Emily into her bed. Moving close, he shielded his emotions and gave his daughter a warm smile. Leaning down, he kissed her soft cheek gently. “Sleep well, Em, my sweet,” he whispered softly before inhaling her sweet scent and letting it soothe him.

  Emily touched his cheek and stroked it lightly. “I love you, Daddy,” she said in her little singsong voice. “Good night,” she whispered before immediately turning to her side and falling sound asleep.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, Ra?” Jami asked from the door, turning to the side to allow him out into the hall. “I’m your wife, my love. I know when something’s bothering you, darling.”

  Nodding, he closed their daughter’s door and then led her down the hall to their room, ensuring the door was shut so the soundproofing would be effective. Prowling across the room, he turned sharply on his heel and shook his head. “The fucking Alliance has Alyssa slotted as an acquisition. She is a weapon, her fucking brother and father sold her out to the councilors. The Vampires are appalled and refuse to use her. She’s a child and even when she grows they won’t. But the bloody non-Vampires are already testing her skills. She’s got the art of death already learned. Barely from the cradle, Jamison, and they are already using her to murder those that oppose them and their reign of terror.”

  Jami sat down hard on the bed, tears leaking from her eyes as she did so. “How can they do that, Raven? How can we stop them?” she asked as she looked up at him with true horror in her eyes. “She’s a baby, Raven. It would be as if they had done that to our Emily. Wait, what do you mean that she has the art of death? She hasn’t even gone through puberty yet, Raven. Are you saying that she has an ability already?”