Rogue Huntress: a new adult urban fantasy novel (Rogue Huntress Chronicles Book 1)

by Thea Atkinson

  "You can't be serious," I said, breathing through the pain. "How can I take a bath like this?"

  Jeb shrugged. "Nice try."

  He reached his hand out for me, obviously thinking I needed the assistance and would take it gratefully. When I merely lay there looking up at him instead, he grasped for the dangling cuff and used it to pull me from the bed and to my feet. He applied sufficient force that it was a was firm tug but not a rough one. Even so, it was awkward, and I nearly fell against him. The movement jarred my shoulder and I bit back a cry. It hurt so damn much I wanted to go at it like a vixen might at her leg in a trap. He dragged me, stumbling over to the bars and clamped me there. I caught his eye for one solid moment and felt a sort of pain at the base of my throat. I swallowed at the strange sensation that crept up my spine.

  "I already have a bullet embedded in my shoulder. What the hell do you think I can accomplish?" I said.

  His eye flicked to my shoulder and his face went carefully impassive.

  "The cuffs aren't for control," he said. "They're for containment. The bullet is for control."

  "Bastard," I said. "I'll dig the fucking thing out myself."

  His sandy brow quirked. "Be my guest," he said, crossing his arms over his chest in looking pointedly at the uninjured arm that was currently attached to the cell bars. "Go at it." There was something in his expression that I couldn't read.

  "What does he have on you?" I demanded, but instead of answering, he disappeared into the en suite bath, and I heard the sound of the taps running water into the tub.

  I squirmed as I stood there, trying to avoid contact with the bars where any part of my body was bare. I was stronger, yes, but I was still weak from the infection and despite my best sense of determination, my body wanted to sag against the bars for support. Everywhere the silver touched set fire to my skin and I had to pant through the pain, focus so I wouldn't pass out.

  "It won't work you know," I shouted toward the door. "I might not be able to transform, but neither am I going to soap up into some revolting froth for a sick wolf's fantasy or for yours either."

  He poked his head around the door jam.

  "You're not very smart for a bad ass assassin."

  I leaned against the bars, trying my damnedest to find a place where the tank top covered me enough that my skin didn't touch and hissed at him. "Come closer and see how smart I am."

  He slouched against the door jamb of the bathroom, crossing one ankle over the other as he crossed his arms over his chest. "About as smart as a bag of hammers."

  "Human bastard," I said. "What do you know?"

  "I know you're about ready to sink to your knees from the pain and dizziness," he said. "I know you won't be able to stand that agony for much more than a few more moments. I know I'm going to have to wrestle you into the tub, and then I'm going to have to hold you up out of the water to keep you from drowning as you struggle."

  "Struggle," I said, panting as the burning in my wrists found its way beneath the top layer of skin. "An assassin doesn't struggle. An assassin fights."

  "Oh, you're going to struggle."

  "And what makes you say that?"

  "Because I'm going to wash what he calls that voluptuous body of yours and you're not going to like it."

  With a swiftness I didn't expect from him, he leapt for me and grabbed the handcuffs. I stumbled as I lurched against him, and pain of the silver on my wrists bit into my skin, echoing the searing pain of the silver in my shoulder. Before I could consider even kneeing him in the groin, he had turned heel and was yanking me toward the bathtub. He came to a stop inside the en suite and pushed me backwards to either stop our forward momentum or to prevent me from sweeping his legs out from underneath him as I got close enough to kick out.

  He let go of the cuffs and abandoned me to the middle of the room several feet away from him. I started counting the seconds it would take me to leap and wrap the chain around his throat and came up with exactly how long it would take for Caleb to find him dead and me still cuffed because the damned human didn't have a key. I decided to save my energy for Caleb. For now.

  I noticed him watching me as I ran through the possibilities. He crossed his arms silently. I noticed a pink razor poking up through two of his fingers like a weed.

  "Look what I found," he said.

  I shrugged, trying not to focus on the fact the razor might have been useful had I found it first.

  "So?" I mumbled. "What could a gal do with a safety razor?"

  A quick grin pinned itself to his mouth but he said nothing, just let it waggle in the air. I watched it like a cobra might a snake charmer. I had to blink to clear my head and when he noticed it, he barked at me.

  "Get undressed before you faint."

  I watched him pocket the razor. "Turn around," I said.

  "It's not going to matter. I'm going to see the whole shebang anyway."

  I scowled at him, trying my damnedest to stay on my feet without staggering from the sweat-soaked pain that shuddered through me. "That's not the point."

  He tapped the lip of the lip of the tub with two fingers. "I'll give you ten seconds. Then I'll do it for you."

  "You might try, human." My spine stiffened of its own accord. He'd see how far he got if he tried.

  I could almost see him trying to keep his temper. His full lips twitched and I knew he was chowing down on a few select curses. I liked that. A man struggling to maintain control was an unpredictable man. I could use that. Get him close, immobilize him, get the fuck out of there.

  "He will kill them," Jeb said.

  The words landed in my psyche the way a blow to the stomach would. I clutched unconsciously at my ribcage. If Jeb believed my brothers were alive, then it was very likely they still were. The fleeting sense of hope flared, making me rethink my intentions to neutralize the human. Until I knew for sure, I best not risk it.

  "I wasn't planning anything." I lied. From beneath shuttered lids, I watched him as he adjusted his suit jacket and grunted his disbelief.

  "The hell you weren't." With a fluid movement, he reached beneath his jacket and pulled out a pocket knife. "You were planning to attack me. And I'd admire that, normally."

  He took a step closer. "But that wouldn't be smart. You're a smart girl. If you attack me, and he comes back to see you gone, he will kill those brothers of yours."

  "And he'll kill your lover," I guessed.

  I half expected him to answer to that taunt, but he ignored it, instead maneuvering himself just out of arm's reach of my legs. An intelligent fighter didn't forget the legs. Bully for him.

  He held the knife aloft and stared into my face. Those ice-colored eyes captured mine for one second and I actually thought he might say something compassionate or empathetic. Humans. They were so predictable. Swaying on my feet, I kept his gaze with a most satisfying stubbornness. I watched those eyes blink twice and I thought I had won the war when he sighed and spoke.

  "Take off your pants."

  Panic Mode

  I felt something twitch inside with a short thrill as the words registered through the pain and dizziness. Desire. A ridiculous thing for my wolf to be feeling under the circumstances, and for a human no less. The silver was getting to me more than I thought. I managed a scowl instead and felt proud of myself for the control I had over my inner beast and her wants.

  "You already agreed to this," he said. "Now be a good girl and let's get this done."

  "What does it matter to you?"

  "It doesn't. Take off your pants."

  I leaned over with my gaze stubbornly fastened to his as I unbuttoned my jeans and ran the zipper down to its bottom. I noted his eyes never left mine, but there was a twitch in the corner of his mouth as the zipper sounded in the silence of the room.

  "Enjoying this?" I said.

  "Another time, maybe."

  I pushed my jeans down to my ankles, leaving my panties snug around my hips. For a moment, I felt an awkward panic I had worn my killi
ng drawers, the ones with sturdy elastic and boy cut legs, but as I peeled off my jeans, I remembered I'd pulled on lacy ones the morning I'd killed that youth and met Jeb, not expecting to have to perform an impromptu execution. The relief I felt annoyed me until I realized how long I had been wearing the same clothes without so much as a wet face cloth to sop up the sweat and dirt. I longed for that bath, I knew I did. I could already feel the soap caress my skin, clearing it of blood, dirt sweat. I wanted to sink beneath the water and let the warmth envelop me.

  In my mind's eye, I even saw Jeb smoothing a wash cloth over my face, his eyes searching mine under cover of early dawn, those fingers of his hushing across my shoulder, but it wasn't a leisurely bath my mind fed me images of. It was a night of sweat and hallucinations. A night when he had come to me to deliver some terrible torture. I froze as I stood there, paralyzed by the memory, recalling how I had cursed at him as I writhed beneath his tender hand.

  Something was wrong with the memory. It didn't feel right.

  For some reason, I was sweating again, writhing beneath his ministrations in my fever, letting those fingers work some magic over me. I let my mind see it differently, from a clear head not one swamped with fever. Torture? No. It hadn't been. I had improved after that night, not worsened. He hadn't asked anything of me except to be still. Those hands had worked with the tenderness of a nurse over my wound even if the pain that they brought me was as heinous as a torture master. Something inside rolled over, exposing a vulnerable underbelly as it recognized a sort of compassion in the human.

  The moment stretched out as I struggled to process those images and juxtapose them against the sight of his rigid frame in front of me now. I straightened up, fully expecting his eyes to follow the movement, taking in every inch of my bared skin. Some part of me wanted him to relish the sight of my thighs and I wanted to see the expected desire in his expression, held fast in his gaze as I looked at him. With a sort of perverse hope, I stole a glance his way, all the while believing that compassion might be something else. Something more interesting.

  His gaze hadn't left my face at all.

  This wasn't going well. He obviously wasn't the kind of man who let a little bit of pleasure get in the way of his duty. Maybe he didn't find me attractive. Maybe he liked lovers with a soft pink pillow of skin devoid of scars and bruises.

  Well, to hell with him. I was a warrior, dammit. I didn't have to prove anything to him. I was feeling a bit better, less dizzy from pain and fever. I could do anything in fine form; as barely-fevered assassin, surely I could hold my own for a bath.

  Instead of pulling my underwear down, I worked at my tank top, getting it up as far as my neck, but realizing that even if I managed to get it down as far as my wrists, I'd never be able to get it off over the handcuffs that still burned into my skin like a bastard.

  I stepped out of the puddle of my jeans and kicked them to the side. My heart began a horrible rhythm against my rib cage, making it hard to catch my breath. It sounded in my ears. I forced myself to look past him rather than at him. He didn't deserve my attention. He was nothing to me. A cardboard cutout standing at attention while I leisurely undressed for my bath. Despite the conditions, it would feel good to get rid of the blood in my hair and the stickiness of sweat and sickness from my skin. I wouldn't let him or Caleb take that pleasure from this moment. I'd cling to that if I could find nothing else to cling to.

  The tub had already begun to steam, making smoking swirls rise above the bowl behind him. For one second, I imagined a different scenario: bubbles in the bath, a bottle of champagne next to it. Under different circumstances, I knew my beast would succumb to this man and enjoy every moment, but these were the farthest from those types of circumstances. I struggled with my shirt, pulling it as far down my arms as I knew I could. The material fetched up on the cuffs as I expected.

  "Damn," I said, with an almost contrite tone. Just a little closer, now, mouse, I thought.

  Even as I looked up at him I noticed he had stepped forward. With a fluid swipe, he cut through the material so it fell neatly to the floor.

  I had missed my opportunity, one I had mentally prepared for, because I'd been too slow. Damned fever.

  "Thanks," I said, not feeling the least bit grateful.

  He jerked the tip of the knife toward my chest. "The rest."

  In the face of that ruthless stare, I was a child playing dress-up in clothes that didn't fit. For one moment, I considered pulling my underwear down right there, showing him just what kind of woman he was dealing with. I didn't care about a little nudity. As a shifter, I certainly wasn't shy about my body.

  Before I had a chance to show him the kind of confidence I was made of, he swept in, his hand scooting around my back and finding the straps and closures behind my bra. With two swift jerks, he had it cut free and for one moment it fell slack against my chest before it fell to the floor on top of the remaining material of my tank.

  I heard my own gasp of surprise, and then I caught his gaze. He had stepped backwards again, one hand planted over the other's wrist, holding onto the closed pocket knife. One might think he had never opened it. The crystalline eyes were unreadable. His gaze was pinned to my face as though I was wearing a full parka and ski pants. I wasn't naked in the face of that gaze and somehow that made me feel even more resentful.

  I took a deep breath, and with determination, bent over to peel my underwear from my bottom. I made a great show of dangling the purple froth of lace over one finger, no matter how badly the silver burned my skin.

  I was rewarded with a noisy plunge of his Adam's apple down his throat and back again.

  I knew I was shapely. I'd worked my body ruthlessly over the years, tying to turn soft curves into hard muscle and never quite finding that athletic form that could make me look and move like a shadow. The end result was a lithe but full form I knew men desired. I certainly had enough lovers and enough men tell me so. I brought their faces to mind as I strode to the tub. I replayed every lust-filled groan and ravenous glance as I sauntered passed him. I felt their hands on my skin, whispering of desire and possession. Even with all of that, I couldn't smother down the awkward sense I was a gangly teenager, again all arms and legs and flat chest.

  "Keep that bandage out of the water," he said.

  I propped myself against the tub by placing my palms on the lip, wincing as the silver bit into my wrists and my shoulder ached. I lifted my right leg and eased it into the water. I'd submerge myself and at least get my nudity out of his unappreciative view.

  If he wanted all business, then he would get it in spades.

  I lowered down into the bath and let him believe I had become an obedient and compliant prisoner who hoped that in the face of my cooperative nature my brothers might be spared.

  I mustered my most plaintive look before I lifted my eyes to his inscrutable face.

  "There." I said. "I'm in."

  "Good."

  His gaze flicked to my mouth and for a second I imagined his lips against mine. The beast in me was a stubborn one and wanted what it wanted despite the way my head swam with pain and the way the man in front of me treated my skin like it was sand paper instead of smooth cream. I couldn't help lifting my face upwards, offering full view of side boob above the bubbles.

  He reached over me to the shelf above my head and gripped a fragrant bar of soap.

  He brandished it, giving me a squint-eyed look of warning.

  "Now we get about this thing."

  "I can do it myself," I said, stung that he didn't even drop his gaze past my nose.

  "And drown trying to get your feet and back. Not under my watch. "

  Errant lather found its way up my ankle as his touch moved to the sole of my feet. He scratched lightly with his nails and I almost moaned in pleasure until I remembered the purpose of the entire thing.

  "He will kill you too," I said.

  "He will try."

  "There is no try, Jeb," I said, trying to yank my foot
away as his touch started to tickle. The damned grip he had allowed for very little wiggle room. It was very hard to be ruthless and vengeful when your feet were being mercilessly ravaged. And it was even harder staying upright with the cuffs keeping me from doing any kind of balancing except clinging to the side.

  He jerked the foot still, tightening his grip.

  "It tickles," I said, protesting and trying not to laugh. "I wasn't trying to kick you."

  His ice blue gaze swung to mine all business and seriousness. "You might try."

  He propped my heel against the rim of the tub and ran a line of foam over my shin before pulling the razor from his pocket.

  "What are you going to do?" I demanded.

  "I know you're wolves and all, but a man likes clean legs."

  "It is clean," I huffed.

  He slid the razor through the foam and when it glided along without friction, he peered sideways at me, his lids shuttered down as though he wanted me to say something.

  "Don't seem to need the razor now," he said. His gaze flicked to my throat and then to my mouth before he swung back to push my foot back into the water, leaving my leg unshaven. The razor disappeared into his pocket again. "Maybe later."

  I sighed. "Why are you doing this?"

  In answer, he lifted my other foot high into the air, putting me off balance. I had to grip the edge of the tub to keep from spilling backward beneath the water. The burn of the silver cuffs melded against my skin brought tears to my eyes. Every movement made my shoulder feel like a thread of hot metal was moving through the tissues. I had to suck in my bottom lip to keep from crying out.