by G. K. DeRosa
His eyes widened, and a devious smirk lit up his inky black irises. “That’s why you’re angry?”
“No!” I cried. For gods’ stakes why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut?
He wagged his finger at me, his stupid grin growing wider. “If you wanted to make out with me, you should’ve just said so. Oh, Red, the things I would do to you…” He moved closer, and my pulse skyrocketed.
“I don’t want to make out with you!” I tucked my knees to my chest and curled into a ball at the edge of the bed.
Ransom stood in front of me now, his dark gaze trained on my eyes, brows knitted in curiosity as he regarded me. “Then why are you angry?”
“Because you left me,” I shouted. “We were supposed to go together. I woke up and you were gone. If something had happened--” I cut myself off, snapping my jaw shut.
“Oh, Red, were you worried about me?”
“Of course not. I was worried you’d screw up the mission.”
“Umhmm… It’s a good thing you’re such an excellent tracker then,” he quipped.
I curled my hand into a fist to keep from punching the dickhead. “Yeah, good thing.” Grinding my teeth to quell the fury, I forced in a deep breath. His musky scent filled the air, and I gagged, expelling it from my lungs. “Just tell me what happened in there.”
“And then we can make out?”
I chucked a pillow at his head, but the damned fanger easily dodged the feathery projectile, smirking.
“You’re no fun,” he groused before sinking onto the mattress beside me. “Get your pen out, little sicari, because you’re going to want to take notes on this one.”
When he finished recounting the grisly details of his visit to Ronin’s magical headquarters, I let out a frustrated sigh. “No wonder we can never track him.” I couldn’t dwell on the horrors he’d described, on the countless lives kept as livestock for the effing fangers to snack on. It was too much, so I filed it away in the dark recesses of my mind along with all the other nightmares I kept down there.
“You have to find the warlock he’s working with. It’s the only way to find Ronin. Besides me, of course.”
“Right. And what’s this test he has for you?”
He waved a nonchalant hand. “He wants me to take out some tiger camp along the border.”
Ice ran through my blood, tiny shards prickling my flesh. “What?”
“Ronin wants me to kill and turn the tiger high alpha. He thinks it’ll send a message to Carmen Rosa. They’re close apparently.”
“Deacon?” His name spilled from my lips.
“Yeah, you know him?”
Invisible bands clamped around my heart, tightening with each inhale. No. Not Deacon. He’d been like a father to me all these years. “You can’t,” I rasped out.
His brows furrowed. “You understand that if I don’t pass Ronin’s test, I won’t get into his secret circle, right?”
There had to be another way. My mind raced. I couldn’t sit by and watch another camp get slaughtered, and Deacon… I couldn’t lose him.
“Tell me what the problem is.”
I spun at him, fury singeing my veins. “You mean besides the fact that that soulless fanger wants you to murder dozens of innocent people?” Gods, I hated Ransom. He was just like the other immortals, a single life meant nothing to him.
“That’s not what I meant.” He huffed out a breath. “What is your deal with Deacon?”
“He practically raised me after Ronin murdered my parents,” I spat. “He protected me and has kept my secret all these years.”
“Oh, shit…” Ransom scrubbed his hands over his face.
“Yeah, so you can just forget it. It’s not happening.” I snatched the stake from under my sweatshirt and jabbed it at his chest. “If you lay a single fang on him, I’ll drive this stake so far into your heart—”
His hand wrapped around the weapon, and he pried the gleaming silver from my fingers. “Let’s just put this down for now. You’re looking a little too murdery for my liking.” He tossed the stake onto the nightstand, the clanking sound oddly comforting.
I loosed a breath and sat back on the bed. “I’ll send a message to Deacon and have him move the pack to another location tonight.”
Ransom clucked his tongue. “Ronin will know I snitched.”
“Not necessarily. Tigers move all the time. It’s their way.”
“I don’t know, Red. I don’t like it.” He sucked his lower lip between his teeth. “Even if he does buy it, what’s to stop him from finding Deacon’s new location and sending me after him again?”
“I’ll tell him to lay low for a while.”
He arched a dark brow. “I don’t know the man personally, but my guess is he didn’t become the high alpha of all tigers in Marlwoods for hiding.”
“Touché, vampire douche canoe. Then what’s your idea?”
“I do what Ronin asked, minus the part about your friend. You give him some excuse to get him out of there. Then when I return to him empty-handed at least the task wouldn’t be completely botched.”
“By killing dozens of innocent shifters!”
“A necessary sacrifice of war, Red.”
My lips curled in disgust. I couldn’t even look at him, let alone be in the same room. I shot up from the bed and raced toward the door.
Damned vampire was already braced in the doorway by the time I reached it. “Where do you think you’re going?” he hissed.
“To warn them.”
“Even if it costs you the mission? And me my head? And hell, probably yours too.”
“I don’t care about any of those things if it means slaughtering another defenseless pack.” Smoke curtained my vision, and I was back at the camp. My mom’s vacant eyes stared up to the endless sky. Dad’s last breath. The stench of death. The grisly images were permanently ingrained in my head. I’d never be free of them.
Ransom’s eyes narrowed as he searched my own. “You were living with the tigers when it happened—when your parents were killed.” His brow lifted. “Why?”
Tears stung my eyes, but I quickly blinked them back. “We were banished from Moon Valley by the supreme alpha,” I hissed.
His head snapped back. “Why?” he repeated.
“I don’t know. What does it matter anyway? My father never got the chance to tell me before his life was brutally taken by the monsters you’ve been hanging out with.” That reminded me I hadn’t asked him about yesterday’s conversation with Ronin. When had he banned Ransom from his brothels? I saved the question for later, needing to deal with the matter at hand first. “Now, get out of my way.”
“I can’t, Red.” He blocked the doorway, his arms stretching across the span, highlighting the sculpted biceps beneath his tight tee. “Even if I don’t do it, Ronin will just send someone else.”
“Which is exactly why I have to stop him.” I freed the second hidden stake and thrust upward, aiming for his gut.
He smacked it out of my hand, the sharp clang reverberating across the tense silence as it skated across the floor. “Stop that.”
I swung, and my fist cracked into his jaw. I clenched my teeth to keep the scream from bursting out of my mouth as my knuckles smashed against his unrelenting skull.
He didn’t even flinch.
Mother fanger!
I kicked my leg out and swept his feet out from under him. Take that, sucker. He teetered, staggering away from the door, but somehow managed to stay upright. I barreled through the exit but didn’t make it far before an iron grip closed around my shoulders.
Ransom spun me toward him, his eyes two bottomless pools of darkness as he held me captive in his arms. “Don’t push me, Red. I’m reaching the end of my patience with you.”
“I don’t care.” I got a hand free and reached for the cross on my necklace. Ripping it free, I jabbed it into his arm.
He hissed out a curse and released me. “I never should’ve given you back that damned trinket.”
&nb
sp; I bounded down the barren corridor and raced down the staircase. When I reached the ground floor, I whipped the back door open and let out a string of curses that made the freakishly fast vampire blocking my way blush.
“Gods, from that mouth, it sounds more like you were raised by pirates than tigers.”
With a primal shriek, I lunged at him. My fists pummeled his chest as the screams turned into sobs. “I can’t lose Deacon,” I shouted. Punch. Punch. “I have to save him.” Another punch. My chest heaved, my shoulders shuddering. “I won’t lose him, I won’t.”
Ransom just stood there and let me wail on him. For five minutes, ten, maybe longer. My knuckles ached, my biceps burned, but I kept going. And he let me.
A tremor raced up my spine and my legs wobbled, knees trembling. Ransom’s arms snaked around my waist before they gave out. He held me tight against his chest, and the dam burst. “I can’t lose him,” I muttered into his t-shirt. My arms came around his torso, and I held onto him for dear life. All my walls were crumbling, I was adrift in a storm of emotions I’d buried for too long, and Ransom was my anchor.
He gently ran his hand through my hair, whispering soothingly, his chin resting on my head. “Shh, it’s okay. We’ll figure something out, I promise.”
Chapter
Thirty
Phoenix
* * *
I couldn’t look at Ransom the following morning. Not when he’d held me in his arms all night while I cried like a baby. So I darted past the bathroom where he stood brushing his teeth and instead, I got to work on the coffee after I’d finally managed to drag myself out of bed. I watched the slow drip, drip as the ancient machine spilled coffee into the carafe. The faint sound was oddly soothing, the brown droplets mesmerizing as they fell.
I’d gone somewhere dark last night, somewhere I hadn’t dared venture for far too long. It had been ten years, and the memories flooded my mind like it had been yesterday. Everything was still so raw, my emotions frayed. Bottling everything up for all that time had only made it worse. I still felt like a ticking time bomb.
Which was the last thing I needed right now.
Ronin was moving against Deacon tonight and Ransom was right, if he didn’t do it, the rogue vampire would send one of his other generals. There was no way I’d let another innocent shifter camp get slaughtered.
“Morning, sunshine.” Ransom sauntered into the kitchen, and I kept my gaze fixed on the percolating coffee.
“Morning,” I mumbled.
He’d crept out of my bed only about an hour ago. I’d woken up, my body immediately sensing the lack of his. Once I’d shed every last tear, it had been the best night of sleep I’d had in forever. But I didn’t want to think about that, or the way his warmth still ghosted over my skin as he held me.
He moved closer and despite his silent footsteps, I could feel him behind me. My wolf stirred, waking from her slumber. His warmth radiated from his body, through the tight tee I’d cried and probably drooled all over and seeped into my back. I tried to inch further away but I hit the counter, trapped.
Ransom rested his chin on my shoulder, and his warm breath skated across the shell of my ear. I tensed as every nerve ending lit up. He reached his arm around me, and my breath froze in my lungs.
He grabbed the coffee pot and spun away. My heart smacked against my ribcage, and I released the breath I’d been holding. Insufferable fanger.
I could’ve sworn he’d smirked as he sauntered to the cabinet and rifled through the mugs.
“Want a cup?” he asked.
“Well, yeah, that’s why I made it.”
He grinned wider as he poured the muddy liquid caffeine into a pair of mugs. My fingers drummed on the countertop as I watched. Was he moving slower than normal or was I just losing my mind?
There was this thing between us now. He’d seen me at my most vulnerable. No one had witnessed that, not my friends, not my team, not even Kenna. I never broke down. I always had it together.
I needed to say something, to excuse the complete meltdown, but I had nothing. There was no explanation. I just prayed to all the gods he’d never bring it up. “I’m going to Marlwoods,” I blurted.
His eyes chased to mine, the darkness creeping through his irises. “No, you’re not.”
“Do we really need to rehash this?” I snarled. “I’ll go directly to the queen if that’s what it takes.”
“Then you can say goodbye to your friend Deacon.” He took a slow sip of coffee.
“What do you mean?”
“Carmen Rosa is the queen, Red. You think she’d let a little thing like a friendship come between her people and taking Ronin down? She’d sacrifice him in a heartbeat to ensure I passed Ronin’s test.”
“No.” I shook my head. Carmen Rosa wasn’t a soulless creature like the others. Deacon had always spoken highly of her. Otherwise, he never would’ve suggested I joined the sicari. “You’re wrong.”
He leaned against the counter and took another measured sip. “You have no idea what it’s like to rule over an entire realm. Hell, neither do I. But I was an alpha heir. I knew what it meant to have your people counting on you. Carmen Rosa has kept her throne for over a century. It did not come without a steep price. Tell her, and mark my words, your friend will be dead by tomorrow. And she’ll force me to do it too.”
She wouldn’t. I squeezed my eyes shut as turmoil ravaged my gut. Who did I trust more—Ransom or the queen? Neither. The only person I really trusted in this world was Deacon, so I was the only one I could count on to ensure his safety.
And my team.
An idea began to form. I gulped down the rest of my coffee and dropped the mug in the sink. “Just do what you have to do, and I’ll do the same.” I marched toward the bedroom, but Ransom’s hand curled around my bicep before I cleared the living room.
“You can’t go in with a big sicari force. It’ll be a dead giveaway, and everything we’ve worked for will have been for nothing.”
The nights at the blood brothel, at the bar, letting him bite me all flashed across my mind.
“And you won’t be Carmen Rosa’s special sicari anymore. She’ll know you put your personal feelings above the mission.”
My wolf growled, and I speared Ransom with a narrowed glare. “I’ll go by myself then. I’ll keep it quiet, and no one will know what happened.”
“You don’t think Ronin will find it suspicious when I’m the only one that returns alive, and I’m one tiger alpha short?”
“You’ll just have to find a way to talk yourself out of it. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”
He shook his head, scowling. “It won’t work, Red. You might as well show up at Ronin’s door and offer yourself up to him. Me too, while you’re at it.”
“Then what do you suggest?” I bit out.
He huffed out a breath and dragged his hand through his hair. “A little finesse.” He paced the length of the living room, a tendon twitching in his jaw. “First, Deacon has to be publicly called away. The more obvious and less connected to us, the better. I can actually handle that.” He paused and sucked in his lower lip. “No team, only you. And you’ll have to be cloaked. Maybe your little witch friend can assist?”
I nodded. Vera was a pro with cloaks.
“You’ll tell Deacon to swap out a few of the pack with his best fighters, but it can’t be so many that it’s obvious. And lastly, Dinah will have to survive the attack too, so she can tell Ronin the tale. You can take out the serviles, no one will care about them. If all that goes according to plan, hopefully it’ll convince Ronin it was only a fluke, and he’ll just think I’m incompetent.”
“And no one dies?”
“I will attempt everything in my power to keep bloodshed to a minimum.”
“No one dies,” I repeated.
“You really want Ronin to think I’m completely useless, don’t you?”
“Works for me.” I shot him a satisfied smirk.
Vera scanned the dingy apa
rtment as she marched in, backpack slung over her shoulder. “Dang girl, you have been slumming it.”
My feet propelled me forward and before I could stop, I launched myself at my friend. I hadn’t even realized how much I’d missed her the past week. After three years on the Isle of Mordis and since our arrival in Nocturnis, we’d been practically inseparable.
“Thanks for coming,” I whispered into her shoulder.
Her arms tightened around me, and the surprise at my uncharacteristic reaction glittered in her expressive eyes as I pulled away. I wasn’t exactly a big hugger. If I was being honest, I’d always kept most people at arm’s length. For obvious reasons.
Vera eyed Ransom from over my shoulder, and her brows knitted. “What did you do to my friend?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He folded onto the couch, crossing his legs, a smile playing on his lips.
Vera didn’t know about my wolf. No one did. How would my team react when I told them the big news? I didn’t like thinking about her sudden appearance, especially not why it coincided with Ransom dropping into my world. A tiny part of me had a feeling, but I shoved that voice back to the farthest corners of my mind. Now was not the time.
She held up her backpack and cocked a brow. “I brought everything you asked for. Can you tell me what’s going on now? And why I had to keep it a secret from the rest of the team?”
“The fewer people that know, the better,” Ransom offered.
“So this is part of your covert spy stuff?”
I nodded. “I need to do something tonight without anyone recognizing me.”
She set the bag on the table and began pulling out an array of witchy supplies. “Okay, so we’re talking more than a simple cloaking spell. You need to look completely different, right?”
“Yup.” I settled down beside her as she got to work.
“And see if you can do something about her smell.” Ransom’s lips twitched as he plugged his nose.
“Very funny.” I shot him the finger.
Vera’s eyes darted back and forth between us. “I see things have progressed.”