Assassin's Kiss

by Paris Brandon

“So, you’re going to wait for a halfling male or will whoever shows up be good enough?” she asked, because it seemed a reasonable question for the part she played now. She should have been happier to find they were waiting for a male.

  “The prophecy isn’t specific. I just assumed.” He shrugged again. “You just have to believe, Kira. The halfling you produce will herald a rebirth of the Jaguar People.”

  If they don’t kill me, first. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She used to think if she could just find others like her, someplace where she was accepted, that life would be perfect. She needed to redefine perfect.

  * * * * *

  “Can’t you put him out or get him a bowl of milk or something?” Alonzo Alvarez grimaced when Fontaine’s tracker, Diego, flicked his tail against his leg. He was sure it was an insult. He only had to glance at Fontaine’s placating smirk to realize some form of communication was going on between him and the jaguar settling in the corner, waiting and watching.

  “Diego does as he pleases. I thought you understood that.”

  “I don’t trust him.” And I can barely stomach you, you piece of filth.

  “I assure you, he doesn’t think much of you either. Especially since you trapped him in a box as reward for helping you run down the alpha. I suggest that you try to win him over.”

  “You swore you’d control your beasts. We have a bargain. My concern is profit, not placating an idiot child who delights in tormenting me.”

  “If Diego wished to torment you, you’d be bleeding.” Fontaine said dryly. “If you are to live among the Jaguar one day, you really need to study more than their DNA.”

  “I’ve studied enough. Will your alpha be ready?”

  “She won’t leave Sebastian to twist in the wind. She’ll be willing to have sex with you if she thinks she can save him.”

  “I have a little insurance policy in the works, just in case.”

  “You promised me that the tea would be enough. I won’t have her harmed.”

  “I want her to know what’s happening. I want her to remember every day of her life that she wanted me.” He didn’t have to wait for the flash of disgust that Fontaine didn’t bother to disguise. Mentioning the aphrodisiac was only a measure to make Fontaine focus on what he thought was happening. He smiled, knowing he had the upper hand.

  Fontaine needed his money and his connections if he was ever to pull off his little coup. He had no idea just how useless his plans were.

  Chapter Seven

  For the first time since she’d arrived at the compound Kira didn’t sleep well. She tossed and turned, throwing off the satin bedding that covered her like a slippery lover she couldn’t hold onto. She sat up and pushed away the heated tangle of bedcovers. Stripping off her thin cotton nightgown she padded to the shower.

  Slipping beneath the stinging cold spray, she closed her eyes. The memory of having sex with Bastian beneath the Jaguar fountain hit her squarely. She could almost feel his arms around her, her legs around his hips while he pounded into her. Her pelvis curled to receive the phantom penis. She was on fire, seized with a desire she’d never felt without the pull of the moon or the red haze. It was too soon.

  Panicked, she opened her eyes. No red haze but an aching need still enveloped her. She squeezed mango-scented shower gel into her hands and leaned back against the shower wall. Kneading her hands over her swollen, tender breasts, she brushed her nipples, imagining his lips gently tugging, scraping over them. She loved his mouth, could almost imagine its taste and texture. She relived their kiss and the knowledge that he’d wanted her. Heat flared, bright and all-consuming and she smoothed her hand over her abdomen, remembering his calloused touch.

  If she kept her eyes tightly closed, he was holding her against the rough rock wall and it was his cock sliding against her slit, tapping her clit and plunging inside her pussy, over and over, until she came with a strangled cry, his name on her lips.

  She slid down the wall, shaking in the aftermath, not caring who watched. Because someone always did. She couldn’t make herself care that this would be reported just as surely as her blood tests. Nothing mattered but the swirl of desire that pulsed through her, making her feel alive for the first time in days. Her fevered flesh cried out for Bastian, his mouth, his arms…his cock. The word still seemed foreign but this morning it called to her.

  She could barely breathe, she wanted him so much, the edge of her hunger only blunted by her orgasm. She needed to see him, touch him, feel his cock grow under her hand. Guide that hard column of flesh inside her mouth, lick into the delicate slit and feel his essence on her tongue, swallow him and slide back up while she gently tugged his sac. She wanted all of him. On her terms. She wanted him against the wall, unable to do anything but writhe with pleasure and come screaming her name.

  She opened her eyes and stark reality settled around her. She was in the hideous pink pearl bathroom, not the mystical Jaguar temple. She grabbed a towel from the shelf outside the shower door and toweled off, her flesh responding as the soft terrycloth caressed her breasts. Her nipples stiffened as if Bastian’s thumbs had brushed against them. He was only moments away. All she had to do was slide back the painting to view the screen. It wasn’t as good as touching him but she wanted—needed—to see him. With shaking hands, she wrapped the pristine white bath towel around her, tucking the ends under her arms.

  He was asleep in the cave enclosure, curled on the ground, barely visible in the early morning light. Wake up, I need you!

  He stirred and she watched him uncurl. Heat flared through her, burning a path from her heart to the ache between her legs. She touched the screen, her fingertips grazing his image. She wished it were clearer, wished she could see his eyes, touch him, know whether or not she mattered to him.

  * * * * *

  Kira was an illusion, flickering to life on the flat, slick surface he watched. His breath caught in his throat between a chuff and a growl. Blood pounded in his ears, his belly and his cock as her fingers splayed against the screen and her lips parted. He could almost hear her sigh. She is remembering our kiss. He might be able to feel her lips against his if he closed his eyes but he didn’t want to lose the one sense of her he had now.

  She moved away from the screen and he rose and took a step forward before he could stop himself. How was he going to do what needed to be done? She was hardly a secret now. Too many dangerous people had seen her.

  People who would accept a renegade, would give her a place to belong that was more than the hand-to-mouth existence she’d suffered these past ten years. The gown she’d worn last night hadn’t come from a thrift store. Her menu had probably contained more elegant fare than the wriggling tapir he’d had to kill so he wouldn’t starve. It was a better deal than he’d handed her.

  He backed away from the video feed, unsheathed his claws and growled low in his throat. Unless she was hooked up to hear him, all she would see were his lips pulled back from his teeth, his grimace self-explanatory—fear me.

  Facing the screen, she unhooked the towel and let it drop into a puddle at her feet. His growl deepened to a contained roar that rumbled through him. Her hands caressed the small globes of her breasts, pinching her nipples, drawing them down while she arched. There was a fine line between pleasure and pain.

  He remembered well her mewling cries as he’d suckled her, the delicate nubs stiffening under his tongue until he couldn’t resist nipping them, scraping them between his teeth. He rubbed his clenched fists against his thighs, fighting the urge to take his hardening cock in hand as it stretched from its sheath.

  Her hands smoothed over the silky, copper-colored skin of her belly and he stopped breathing until one hand returned to her breasts as if she couldn’t bear to leave it alone while her other drifted toward the crisp curls that covered her pussy. She separated her sex with the V of her index and ring finger, drew the lips back and flicked her clitoris hard with her middle finger. She rolled her hips at him, circling her clit slowly
, drawing out her pleasure for him to see while he writhed in pain.

  He wanted his hands on her. His fingers twitched and he uncurled his hands enough to pinch his fingertips together, slide them against one another. He could hear himself panting. His cock rose, lengthened, pulsed against his belly. And still he couldn’t look away.

  But he refused to touch himself, even when she sucked one long finger into her mouth before slipping it inside her pussy. He swallowed hard as she rolled her hips, fucking herself with a slow, sweet rhythm. She licked her lips and the fingers she’d been pinching her nipples with slid downward and opened her pussy wider, letting him watch. She was pink and glistening, her juices coating her fingers, her hand. He wanted his cock buried in all her wet heat.

  He lifted his head and roared, his balls tightened and his hips jerked once, twice. He came without touching himself. And when he could look at her again, she was panting, open to him, cream coating her fingers, her hand. Her mouth parted and he would swear he heard her moan. Her knees buckled and she dropped to the floor. When she raised her head she looked as if she were in pain and he had to stop himself from reaching for her.

  He turned his back so he didn’t have to watch her mouth move, wouldn’t have to read the plea on her lips, the same one that was screaming in his mind. He wanted her more now than he had before and he hadn’t thought that was possible. When would he lose his judgment? When would he be incapable of making the right decision for the Jaguar People?

  Maybe she’d use the controls to close the screen. There were none on this end, only the screen flickering with her image or an empty room. The lack of control pissed him off.

  * * * * *

  Kira had no control over Bastian’s actions. She couldn’t make him turn around, couldn’t make him understand how badly she needed him. How badly they needed each other. The door rattled, startling her. Jumping to her feet, she grabbed the damp towel and wrapped it around her body. One last glimpse of Bastian’s back and she slid the painting across the screen.

  Dax wheeled her breakfast cart inside. The spicy scent of the tea overpowered even the bloody steak beneath its silver cover. This morning she actually craved the taste of the flowery brew.

  “You’re awake earlier than usual,” Dax mumbled. He wasn’t smiling. There was no falsely pleasant banter as he set her tray on the small table in front of the sofa. “I need to draw blood before you eat. If you’d like to dress first, I can wait in the hall.”

  She glanced at the vial caddy on the bottom shelf of the cart. The damp towel was cold and clammy now. Her skin crawled. “Why change the routine?” Unless someone has finally figured out that I am the halfling of prophecy. Her stomach turned over.

  He shrugged his massive shoulders. “They added something to the tea a few days ago. They need a clean sample and,” he lifted a glass jar from her tray, “I’ll need a urine sample also.”

  “Too late,” she lied breezily, managing to smile through her fear.

  “No. I’m not,” he said, softly.

  She surprised herself with the angry blush she felt rise from her toes. Had he watched her or simply been informed? “I guess I could squat right here and it wouldn’t matter since I don’t even have the illusion of privacy. Why bother leaving?”

  “Illusions will serve you well. Especially if they’re all you have.” He held up the specimen cup and she grabbed it out of his hand on her way to the bathroom, mumbling curses along the way. One of the advantages of living on the streets for the past ten years was that she could manage them in several languages.

  She was still cursing as she washed her hands, shaking while the cold water flowed over her wrists. It might cool her off enough to think straight. Her every move was monitored. So how was she going to convince Bastian that an alliance would be in their best interest? Because if she couldn’t get him out of here he was going to end up dead. Or worse.

  Dax turned around when she walked out of the bathroom and she nodded behind her. “You want it, it’s on the sink.” She ignored his head shake and stood in front of the open closet, barely registering the selection of clothes available to her now.

  Six days ago her choices had included someone else’s cast-off cargo pants, shorts and sandals with either an olive drab tank top or a man’s denim shirt. Everything had fit into a garbage bag.

  The bag she’d left behind with the rest of her hopes and dreams.

  She dropped her towel as Dax came strolling out of the bathroom and reached for a set of white gauzy pants and shirt. At least they were cool and comfortable. The effort of crossing the room naked, to rummage through the built-in dresser for underwear might have quelled her haughty demeanor. It wouldn’t take much. Her hands were shaking when she tied the drawstring pants.

  He barely glanced at her but there was a ghost of a smile tipping his full lips. “I’m immune. It’s why I’m trusted with you.”

  “Eunuch?” she asked, fear making her bitchy.

  “I have a higher calling,” he said calmly and didn’t respond when she arched a disbelieving brow.

  She let him have the last word and padded barefoot to the table where her breakfast waited. And that damn tea. Now that she’d thought about it, the last two days it had tasted different. She took a sip and there it was again, a false sweetness that lingered on her tongue.

  “There’s more in the tea than herbs, isn’t there?”

  Dax looked uncomfortable and a ripple of unease skittered down her spine. “Alvarez doesn’t trust that you’ll want to mate with him more than you want to rip out his throat. The formula is to ensure that all your emotions and physical reactions are geared to wanting him to fuck you.”

  Oh crap. “Just him, or will it matter?”

  “There wasn’t time to individualize the formula. He’s in a hurry.”

  Well now, isn’t that just the most interesting bit of information? Sex with an audience had never been something she’d considered before, yet this morning she’d known she was being observed when she had gotten off while watching Bastian. If she were honest, she’d have to say that it had excited her. Still excited her. She stared down into her cup and shuddered.

  Think about something else. Focus. “Why does Fontaine really want Sebastian? And don’t give me ‘so he’ll be my protector’. I can’t go to the bathroom without someone taking notes. No one, who isn’t supposed to, is getting near me.”

  “Did Sebastian tell you that his father is a member of the Jaguar Council?”

  Oh crap. He was in a double bind. And they knew it. She managed to keep her shock to herself, went for disdain instead. “You people fight dirty.”

  “When it comes to survival, everybody fights dirty. Those with the most to lose fight the dirtiest.” He swabbed her arm with an alcohol pad and stuck her, only drawing one vial of blood. She wondered if this would be the test that gave her away. She’d wondered every time.

  She calmly cut into her steak because she really wanted nothing more than to tear into it, devour it. That alone scared her. “You know, if I’m going to convince him to betray everything he believes in and take up your cause, I need to be able to see him face-to-face, talk to him.”

  “No one has said that you couldn’t,” he said softly. As if he didn’t want anyone else to hear.

  She swallowed a hunk of steak and it almost didn’t go down. If they were letting her see him, it was so they could gauge the feelings between them, probe for a weakness. Not that they hadn’t been able to witness some of that with this morning’s little masturbation performance. But they’d want all the ammunition they could get.

  She’d just have to be smarter. She wanted to laugh. She hadn’t done anything smart since blundering into Fontaine’s camp nine days ago.

  The steak went down with a gulp of cold tea. “We’ll go after breakfast.”

  * * * * *

  He smelled her before he saw her. If he concentrated, he could hear her footfalls, the slight shift of sand beneath her bare feet, the breeze ruffl
ing her clothes as her scent, so thick he could taste it, drifted through the air.

  She stopped on the path and bent her head, listening to something that her very large, blond attendant was saying. Her scent grew stronger the closer she came. He could feel his cock shifting as it lengthened along the inside his thigh and slowly climbed upward. Somewhere, Fontaine was watching all this to see how his loyalty could be manipulated.

  They’d let her watch him overdose. Worse, watch him kill and eat the tapir. There wasn’t much pride in killing a caged animal but hunger would weaken him. He needed all his strength to stop what was happening.

  Kira had finally found acceptance, a place to belong. It should make killing her easier but he knew it wouldn’t. Not with the drugs he’d been given. And not with her flowery, musky scent surrounding him, reminding him of the clawing desperation he’d felt since first picking up her trail. He released the bars he gripped and stepped back as she approached.

  “Good morning, Sebastian,” she greeted, as if they hadn’t had the equivalent of phone sex, or something like that, in full view of their keepers, including the hulk standing with her now.

  He growled and her attendant placed a solid hand on her shoulder. Possessive anger burned through his gut. He rushed the bars without thinking, grabbing for her. The huge attendant, one arm around her waist, swept her out of his reach. She blinked and he caught a flash of fear she tried to disguise.

  She pushed the attendant’s arm away and the giant stepped back, wary. She edged closer, just out of Sebastian’s reach. “Who are you to judge me? I’ve never known what it was like to belong, to be part of something besides day-to-day existence.

  “If I conceive the halfling child with Alvarez, Fontaine has offered me a place in Jaguar society. I barely remember the last time anyone was this concerned about my welfare.”

  Something desperate and pleading had flashed in her eyes when she’d mentioned anyone. Her hands were fisted at her sides, anger radiating like a halo all around her.

  “Of course, I’m not stupid,” she continued. “I know that I’ll still have enemies and so will the halfling child. He’ll need protection and so will I. Who better than an Assassin to protect the child Fontaine swears is the key to the Jaguar People’s survival?