Return of the Assassin (All the King's Men)

by Lynne, Donya

  As soon as he bit into her wrist, her body shuddered, stiffened, and then relaxed as euphoria took her.

  How was it that he kept having to interfere to help his brothers claim their mates? First, Arion, who had nearly lost Severin because he'd been such a bonehead, and then he had helped bail Io's ass out of the fire with Miriam, and now he was about to surrender the cause with Malek. The guy simply would not take what was right in front of him. If only he would, Carmen's memory would slip away and fade into the past, where she belonged, which was what had happened with Katarina and Jackson after he had mated Sam. The natural progression of life would see fit to bring Malek full circle with Carmen's death and reopen him so he could fully commit to Gina. But the dumbass just wouldn't give in. Stubborn SOB.

  He released Gina's wrist and placed her arm over her stomach as she squirmed through the lingering euphoria. "I'll be right back," he said.

  She grabbed his hand. "Please, don't go."

  "I'm not leaving. I'm just going to the kitchen to get you a glass of water. Then I'll get you a change of clothes and find you a toothbrush."

  She closed her eyes and nodded, still a bit shaky.

  He patted her hand then pushed off the bed and left the room.

  Malek should be the one here taking care of her, not him. Malek needed to reassure her everything was all right. He was the one who should have taken her vein and calmed her. But he was MIA, screwing some random whore for only God knew what reason. He had seen inside Gina's mind as he bled her and knew what had happened during the past couple of hours. He saw her argument with Malek in the parking garage…the way Malek's demeanor had changed and how he fought not to take her…how he left her alone, and how she suffered only to realize she loved him…and how he had returned with another female named Lorena…how he had fucked her right under Gina's nose.

  What was Malek thinking? Clearly, he had accepted the fact that Gina was his mate, but he still refused to close the deal with her. Until he claimed her sexually, the mating between them wouldn't complete and he would remain in hell.

  Was Malek so thick that he didn't realize that?

  He pulled a bottle of water from the fridge and poured it into a glass.

  That female had endured enough. Until tonight, he hadn't known just how fucked up her past was. What she had done to Sev and Lakota were the least of her worries compared to what she had suffered at the hands of her first mate. How the hell had she pulled the short straw to get stuck with a half-Dacian? One who had beaten her so ferociously to render her womb barren?

  The thought nearly made him retch, and unbidden tears stung his eyes. No female deserved what Armand had done to Gina, and if he hadn't already been dead, Micah would have hunted him down to do the honors for her. And he would have enjoyed the task.

  It was times like this that he wished he couldn't see inside others' minds so easily, because seeing what had happened to Gina hurt his heart and made him ache in places reserved for Sam.

  He took out his phone and dialed Sam's number.

  "Hi, baby. You on your way home?" she said.

  "No, not yet. Soon, though, okay."

  Something in his voice must have revealed his pain, because Sam said, "What's wrong? Are you okay? I can tell something's wrong. Are you—?"

  "I'm okay. I'm all right. I'll be home soon. I just wanted to…" He took a steadying breath. "I just wanted to call to tell you how much I love you. That's all. I love you so damn much."

  Sam remained silent for a couple of seconds. "I love you, too, baby."

  "I'll be home as soon as I can get away."

  "I'll wait up."

  "I'd like that." Because when he got home, he was going to show her just how much he loved her. Over and over and over again.

  "See you soon."

  "Soon." He hung up and returned to the bedroom with the glass of water and a toothbrush he dug out of the spare bathroom, wishing like hell he could show Malek what he was missing out on by rejecting Gina.

  Malek could have with Gina what he had with Sam. He would never forget Carmen, just as Micah had never forgotten Katarina, but the pain of the loss would be gone, leaving behind only the good memories. The mystical tether would disconnect and free his heart, but Malek had held on so tightly to that string for so long, it was beginning to look like he would never be able to release it.

  "Here, Gina." He helped her sit up.

  She drank half the water, and then set the glass on the bedside table. "Thank you."

  "Why don't you go brush your teeth and freshen up in the bathroom?" He gestured toward the master bath as he rummaged in one of the drawers in the bureau and pulled out a pair of Sam's Capri yoga pants and a tank top. "You can sleep in these. They should fit." Sam was tall and slender, while Gina was petite and had athletic curves, but the Capris would work better than a pair of Sam's flannel pajama pants, which would drape past Gina's feet.

  She got up and took the clothes before heading into the bathroom. A few minutes later, she reappeared, smelling of mint Colgate. Water dripped from the ends of her hair from where she had splashed water on her face.

  "Thank you again for helping me." She sat down on the bed and looked exhausted.

  Then again, she had just had the mother of all anxiety attacks.

  "Are you hungry?" He sat down next to her.

  "No."

  He nodded and took her hand. The two sat in silence for a long time.

  Finally, Gina spoke again. "I know you saw in my mind what he did." She wouldn't look at him.

  "Yes." No sense lying to her. "I saw everything. I'm sorry."

  She sighed. The last of her strength drained out of her and she slumped forward. "I have to go away. I can't do this, Micah."

  He put his arm around her and pulled her to him. "But you love him."

  She lifted her gaze to his and shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

  "Yes it does, Gina. It does matter. I saw that, too." He tapped her forehead and offered her a weak smile. "I saw firsthand what happens when you're not with him."

  With a huff, she pushed away, stood, paced across the room, and then turned toward him. "I'll deal with it."

  He stood with her. "Now you're beginning to sound like Malek."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" She crossed her arms, but the gesture seemed more like self-protection than irritation.

  He shook his head and stood akimbo. They were in such a mess. These two couldn't find their way to each other with a map and two flashlights. "Have a seat, Gina."

  "No, I want to get out of here."

  "Gina, don't push me. You need to hear about your mate."

  She bobbed backward as if he'd pushed her. "He's not my mate. Not after—"

  "Yes he is, and you know it, no matter what dumbass stunt he pulled tonight, he is your mate, and you are his. Now sit down and listen."

  She huffed and rolled her eyes, but sat on the bed. "How does a mate do what he did to me tonight, Micah? Clearly, you can see inside my thoughts, which means you can see what happened. How do you explain that?"

  The images of what he had seen in her mind of Malek and the random bitch named Lorena fucking on his bathroom counter pounded inside his mind. He felt Gina's pain, saw her attack, heard her tell them both to burn in hell, and saw her run out the door.

  He sighed and pulled up the easy chair that usually took up shop in the corner of the room, and then sat down, arms on his thighs. "Gina, let me tell you about Carmen."

  "Who?" Her smooth brow creased in confusion.

  "Malek's first mate, Carmen."

  "Carmen?" Gina's frown twisted into an expression of realization. "He was mated before, too?"

  "Yes, and I don't believe in coincidences. The fact that you were both mated before and have struggled to let go of the past is a sign."

  She sighed. "A sign of what?"

  "That you were meant to find each other and heal each other's hearts."

  She scoffed. "He doesn't act like he wants his heart
to be healed."

  He held up his hand. "Hear me out. He wants you. He wants you so badly he can barely stand it. Trust me."

  "He has a funny way of showing it." She looked down and pretended to pick at a fleck of lint on the bed.

  "That's because he's never dealt with Carmen's death, Gina. He's confused. He thinks he's disrespecting Carmen by wanting you. He's afraid he'll forget her, and that scares him."

  "Why would he think that?"

  "It's a guy thing." Micah leaned forward. "We mate deeply, as I'm sure you know."

  She nodded.

  "When we lose a mate, it can kill us."

  Gina's throat worked as she swallowed, and she bit the inside of her bottom lip as her brow knitted into a pained expression.

  "What we go through when we lose a mate is hard for females to fathom. When a female loses a mate, she only gets a taste of the loss we feel when we do—except you seem to have formed a much stronger mating bond than most females, hence your panic attacks. You share that little character trait with Princess Miriam, by the way. She formed a similar bond to Io, and it's a bitch to resist, isn't it?" His gazed pierced hers.

  She glanced at her hands as if she had already figured that out.

  "At any rate, something breaks inside us when we lose a mate, Gina. Almost as if part of our soul dies. We're no longer whole. We've lost a vital part of our existence, and for some of us, it's too much to bear. Many males die from that loss. I almost did."

  Her expression tensed with awareness. "You were—?"

  "Yes," he said. "I was mated before, too. And I lost her. I partially mated again last year, but…well…that didn't work out." He didn't need to talk about Jackson, who had been more of a blip of deception than an actual mating. Jackson had seemed only to want him for bragging rights than love and had never formed a bond to him. But the partial mating to Jack had reawakened his love for Katarina and nearly destroyed him. Thank God for Sam. She had saved his life. "My point is, when I met Sam, my mate now, I opened to her because I had already dealt with Katarina's death. I was ready to take a new mate, and Sam healed the part of me that needed to be whole again. I still remember Kat, and I still love her, but she is my past. Sam is my now and my future. She's the best part of me." He smiled fondly.

  The awareness deepened in Gina's expression. "And since Malek has never accepted Carmen's death, he's not…open. Is that right?"

  "Exactly." Micah sat back, hands on his thighs. "You see, he's fought the truth ever since she died. I don't know how he did it, but every male reacts in his own way when a mate dies. And for Malek, his way was to internalize his feelings, box them up, and lock them away. Until you came along, he was a hollowed-out version of the male he used to be. He got the job done, but he lacked emotion."

  "Because he buried all that with his memories of Carmen?"

  He nodded. "Something like that, yes. Think about it. How could he feel anything else when all his feelings were tied up with his dead mate, who he refused to believe was actually dead. In his mind, she was merely sleeping."

  "My God." She bowed her head.

  Micah sighed. "He used to be my best friend, but we lost each other after our mates died." His gaze briefly wandered out of focus as he remembered the past, and then he blinked and brought himself back to the present. "I think he's finally begun to accept that she's dead, but he doesn't seem to understand that he can mate you and remember Carmen without dishonoring either one of you. He thinks that if he accepts you as his mate, he'll forget Carmen, or that he'll somehow be cheating on her. That's why he's doing what he is with the women he's been with, Gina. It's been a living hell being around him for the past couple of weeks, seeing what he's been putting himself through in an effort to deny what he feels for you. The hold you have on him scares the living hell out of him. If you could see what I see…" He tapped his head. "He fights himself over you. He wants you so badly that he's become two people."

  Gina bit her lip and looked at her hands in her lap. "That explains his behavior tonight."

  He nodded. "Yes. He's literally been Jekyll and Hyde. Two minds inhabiting one body."

  She paled and looked almost sick. "And he's been like this for weeks?"

  "Since just a few days after you left. He's gotten steadily worse."

  "That's why you wanted me to come back." The lightbulb turned on over her head.

  He nodded. "That's right."

  "Why didn't you just say so in your e-mails?"

  "Maybe I should have, but I thought it might have scared you away, not brought you back."

  She considered that for a moment and nodded. "It might have. I don't know. I was pretty messed up myself."

  "And now you know why." Micah had seen everything in her mind. How Malek had awakened her past, as well as how being away from him had sent her into agonizing anxiety attacks nearly every day.

  "Yes, now I know why." She looked away again, stared out the window, then turned back with a sigh.

  But there was more. Micah had also seen how Gina was more like Malek than she realized, and he needed her to see the truth. He got up and sat down next to her on the bed. "Gina, I know what Armand did to you, and I don't think you fully realize how badly it impacted you."

  She turned and frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

  He took her hand and closed his eyes against the pain that rolled through her mind. She was reliving the hell Armand had been. "Gina, you're so strong. Stronger than most females. To survive what Armand did to you…" He bowed his head. "I don't know how you did it, but…" He took a deep breath. This would be hard for her to hear. "Most females who endure what you went through would have become a sexual invalid. But you didn't, did you?"

  Their gazes met, and he could see the guilt and fear in her eyes.

  "You're like Malek, Gina."

  She shook her head and began to protest.

  Micah shushed her. "Yes, you are. You tucked away your pain and shoved it into the shadows of your mind. You never addressed it. Even now, you think on some level that you brought Armand's wrath on yourself…that somehow you're to blame…that you weren't good enough and deserved to be abused."

  Tears welled in her eyes, but he felt her fight them back. For too long she had been a wall of strength, but she needed to let those tears fall. She needed to rid herself of the sorrow and hurt Armand had caused.

  Micah squeezed her hand. "You began to see sex as a tool instead of a way to become emotionally close to someone. Sex became a means to an end. A way to get close to a target." His gaze drilled hers. "Like with Lakota. You charmed him with your body to get close to Severin, and you fulfilled your need for pleasure in doing so."

  Her face strained in her effort not to cry, and her chin quivered.

  "You haven't had a real relationship since Armand, have you?" Micah didn't need her to agree. He had already seen the truth in her mind. She had been alone since Armand. "One-night stands. Maybe a two-week fling here or there. Or a month. But as soon as a male began to get too close, you bolted. But now…" He shrugged. "You can't run anymore, Gina. Malek's your mate. If you run from him, both of you will suffer. He needs you. But more importantly, you need him. The two of you can heal each other."

  For a long moment, Gina only stared at him as emotion rose and pulled at her soul, and then she flung herself at him as she burst into tears. Her arms flew around him as she buried her face against his chest and sobbed as years of guilt and fear poured out of her.

  Micah held and rocked her as he brushed his hand over her hair "Ssshh. It's okay. I know what you're going through, Gina. I went through it, too." He tried to soothe her. "You're strong enough to get through this, and Malek will help you. The two of you will help each other through this." He sighed and added under his breath, "Once he gets his head out of his ass." And gets his ass over here.

  They sat like that for a while, Micah rocking her as she cried, until he said quietly, "You and Malek are so goddamn similar. You each internalized your painful pasts a
nd hid from them. But while you turned sex into a tool, Malek became celibate. Well, until recently."

  Gina pushed back and stared at him through bloodshot eyes. "Celibate?"

  Micah grinned and nodded. "Yeah, well, he's making up for that now, isn't he?"

  "Don't remind me." She sniffed and wiped her face with her hands.

  "Do you want to know what Malek's idea of a good time has been since Carmen died?" Micah said.

  She rolled her eyes. "Do I want to hear this?"

  "Good point, but yes, I think you need to."

  She grabbed a tissue from the bedside table and continued to dab her eyes. "Fine. Let's hear it."

  He shifted back to the easy chair. "Until Malek met you, he hadn't touched another female since Carmen. Not a single one. That's how devoted he is as a mate. He refused to be with anyone else." He paused and slowly shook his head at what Malek had put himself through. "There's a strip club here in town called the Black Garter, and once a month he went there, paid for a private dance, watched, got himself sexed up, and went home alone to tend to his own needs. That's all the pleasure he allowed himself. And then he met you, and decades of sexual dysfunction boiled over as he struggled to accept what Mother Nature had done to him."

  Gina sniffed and took a heavy breath. "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying that despite what he did tonight, and as messed up as his mind is right now, Malek's heart is in a good place. He's a good male and a noble mate. Once he accepts he can join with you and not damage Carmen's memory, you will be the center of his world. He's thoughtful, considerate, and any female would be lucky to have him. He treated Carmen like a queen. He'll treat you the same way. I know he will."

  Her expression still held an ounce of doubt, but she looked like she believed him. And was that hope he saw in her eyes?

  "Okay, so let's say I believe you. What now? I mean, what can I do? He doesn't seem willing to accept me as his mate. Completely the opposite, in fact."

  "He just needs a little push, Gina."

  "A little push? Like what?"

  Micah tilted his head to one side. Sometimes he couldn't believe he had to spell out what was so obvious. "Believe me, Gina. It won't take much for you to convince him. He's a mated male for God's sake. He wants you. Invite him in."