by A. K. Koonce
It’s odd how much we’ve changed. It’s the strangest thing for me to want to mend what I can clearly see is broken.
But Scarlett and Vale are not mine to fix.
Two
The Lies I Tell Myself
With squared shoulders and icy eyes, Scarlett meets me on the smooth concrete porch. Instead of prying right into her life, I take a moment to scuff my boot over the fresh steps the guys poured just last week. The curved concrete leads up to an old, worn, chipped front door that doesn’t match the vision Tylin created for this project at all.
But we’re here. We’re building something that’s the opposite of what we’re all trained in. We’re going to make a difference. We’re going to do good.
I hope.
“Ready?” Her beaming smile is hiding whatever her and her ex discussed.
Whatever it was, she doesn’t want to talk about it. And I’m not going to ruin her day by dragging out the details.
“Let me feel it.” I extend my hand to her and she arches a deep red brow at me.
“God, if I had a quarter for every guy who’s tried that line on me,” she snarks, her red lips giving a charming smile despite her ridiculously crude words.
I love her.
I almost hold back my laughter but fail, letting it sneak out in quiet waves before touching my palm lightly to hers. And all that mysterious power of hers claws into me hard enough to steal my breath away.
“Wow,” I whisper.
“That’s what they all say.” Her wink is right on point and I have to roll my eyes at her just to keep focused on the task at hand. She straightens, her slender height appearing more regal as she becomes more serious. “So, envision what you want our peers to see. With my powers, we have the ability to alter someone’s reality. Normally, I do this directly. Take Patrick Thompson in Senior year, for example, when he told everyone I fucked him in the parking lot during practice. I harmlessly gave him the vision of his cock falling off when he bit into his ham and cheese sandwich at lunch.”
“Holy fuck, Scar.” I peer slowly over at the deadly assassin at my side.
She gives a half shrug, too bothered to really give poor Patrick a full shrug of her delicate shoulders.
“Someone lies and that’s the reaction you have? Cock cutting?” I can’t bring my curled lips back together from the disgustingly vivid image scurrying through my mind.
“Well...he didn’t lie. He just didn’t have to tell everyone about it either.” Another half shrug, and I’ll have to remember not to tell my friend’s secrets. For the sake of my guys’ dicks.
Her hands lift and she gets to work. I mirror her and she starts to drift along the perimeter of the dark, brick home. It’ll take at least an hour for her and me to fully secure what any watchful eyes might see from the outside.
“Just focus on what is directly behind where you’re at. Try to create the vision of deep green trees and rolling hills,” she instructs.
I nod and it’s a slow pace, but I start to drift away from her, walking south while she trails north. It gives me too much time to consider what we’re really trying to do here—with all of our abilities, with the assassins Mason brings in daily for us to house, and the potential that’s right here in front of us.
We could retrain the deadly weapons Armond created and we could help this city. In so many ways.
Scarlett’s power shakes from my palms in heavy waves and I make sure every aspect of the building is secured.
We have to be protected here. I can’t allow for these people we’re taking in to get into any kind of danger like we’ve seen in the past.
The warm sun shifts in the sky as I work on creating a barrier that will keep us all safe.
When my boot bumps the side of hers, our deadly powers join together as one, sealing up the very last of the house I’m now calling home.
And when I look up into her pale eyes, I know it’s impossible to keep us all safe, no matter how hard we try.
Because people like me, people like Scarlett, we’re a danger all by ourselves.
We just have to figure out how to coexist now.
It’s late when we finally clean up our stuff. ‘The Anti-League’—new name pending—Tylin envisioned is slow going. We’ve barely gotten things rolling with the front of the estate, let alone the dining area and the classrooms Tylin wants. Everything about this place is a work in progress.
The classrooms are hard for me to picture. That’s why I linger in the largest one every single night. And he finds me here every time.
“This one’s going to be yours,” Tylin says, loud enough to let his voice echo into the emptiness of the dark room. The moonlight falls through the large floor to ceiling windows. A meadow that rolls for miles and miles is the only view past the glass panes, and I get lost in the plush greenery every time I see it.
But aside from the windows and the crumbling walls, the space is empty. A blank canvas for us to fill.
“What do you mean, mine?” I whisper, folding my arms to fight the slight chill sneaking into the room. I glance over my shoulder as Tylin approaches me from behind.
Strong hands land on my shoulders, push my arms down, trail across my stomach, and then grab on to my hips, before pulling me until he’s holding my back to his chest. My body curves into his so perfectly that for a moment, all I can do is enjoy the feel of him. Looking down at where he holds me, I see the tattooed swooping letters of his mother’s name on his forearm, and they are all I focus on while I listen to his steady breaths for so long I forget what I even asked him.
“They’re classrooms. And this one is yours, Ms. Hart.”
My brows lower, my fingers trailing back and forth along those inky lines, teasing his skin.
“Are you asking to play teacher?”
Laughter shakes through his chest, before his lips press to the side of my temple. “As if I’d be anyone’s sub.” That confident voice of his hums through me. “I mean, this will be your classroom. You were once so adamant that you were the best fighter Armond had ever seen. I can’t even remember how many times that arrogant woman, who tried to kill me in my own bedroom, told me she was the best.” He all but air quotes the end of his sentence, but it doesn’t feel mocking.
It feels… encouraging in a way.
His temple leans against mine, his lips pressing over and over again along my jaw.
“You’re good, Huntress. Powerful. Train others the way you were trained. They’ll need it. They’ll need the discipline for what’s out there in this world.”
I turn in his arms until he’s towering over me, his head tilted down to mine, as moonlight shines into his steely eyes.
“What’s out there, Ty?”
He holds me close, but it’s no longer an intimate embrace. It’s a stance of protectiveness. Seconds pass with just the uneasy look in his gaze to keep me company.
“We’ve been searching out the League’s members, the assassins who disbursed after Armond and Derek’s deaths.”
I nod. There were so many. Too many for us to find in just a few weeks.
“Many of them saw it as an opportunity to get out. They ran. They’re starting over. Starting a real life.”
A real life. I wonder what that’s like. Sounds… boring.
“Some of them who we’ve spoken to are preparing to join us, as soon as we have room for them.”
“Good.” I smile. It’s exactly what we wanted. An Anti-League. A group of people assembling for the common good.
But the darkness of Tylin’s stare tells me it’s not as good as it should be.
“The others… are carrying out Armond’s legacy. They’re killing for the sake of killing. Some of them are trying to band together. There are power struggles.”
“What?” I try to pull away from him, but he holds me close, embracing me like he wants to keep me tucked away from all the bad in the world.
No one’s seen that glimpse of bad like we have. Hell, we were ‘the bad’ at one time.<
br />
“My mother taught a small children’s dance class when she wasn’t performing.” His gaze trails over my features, and I want to lean into him even more. I both hate and love when he talks about her. There’s a sadness in his deep tone when he thinks of her. “She was a single mom and she taught me so much more than she ever knew. She taught me to be strong, unrealistically independent, and to always push someone into their strengths.” The way he’s looking at me, looking into me, makes me realize that that’s exactly what Tylin Valderban did to me. He seemed like a total asshole when we first met. But he pushed me into my strength. And I never understood until now. “You’re like her, Alexa. You could teach them. It’s important for us to retrain these assassins. The laws that they lived by before are not what we will be living by now, and I need to know you’re willing to help them the way they should have been helped to begin with.”
My head is nodding before he even finishes speaking. I want to help my fellow Hunters. Before, we were divided in a way. Do not interfere with one another’s work because it’s dangerous.
That was what I was always told.
And now, I’m going to be one of their fucking teachers.
Three
Lessons Learned
That was a sloppy punch,” I taunt on a shuddering breath, with sweat sliding down my temple as I dip and weave under Rory’s solid blow.
He comes out of the missed assault in one fluid move, his flawless stance never wavering. It was a perfect punch really, but I can’t help but metaphorically kick him in the balls just to see if he’ll react.
“Is this how you’re going to encourage your students, Ms. Hart?” He cocks his head to the side and swiftly pulls off his white shirt, revealing so much hard, tan muscle that I stumble and nearly face-plant onto the new blue mat the guys installed in the classroom this morning. The whole room smells like rubber and vinyl.
It’s kind of nice, if I’m being honest.
I shrug my shoulders and pretend not to notice the masterpiece of lickable lines that carve Rory’s chest.
It’s just skin. And a bit too much muscle tone. He’s a solid foundation. He’s like a house. Nothing sexual about a house. Nope, not at all.
Except, they have windows that flex when he fists his hands. And a front door that has more detailed abdominal lines than any woodcarving I’ve ever seen. Don’t even get me started on the welcome mat of smattered dark hair that leads to the basement where all my smutty thoughts reside.
Not sexy at all.
“You’re not going to eye fuck your students like that, are you, Ms. Hart?”
I abruptly avert my gaze from the veering lines of his hips and find him smirking at me, doing his own eye fucking I’m too classy to comment on.
“You’re supposed to be helping me prepare for my actual class tomorrow not antagonizing me. I'll get enough back talk from my other students. I don’t need it from you.” I tip my chin up in a way that I imagine a snarky school administrator would do… not that I have any experience in that department.
Rory’s right. I’m going to fail.
I’m going to flunk out of being a teacher. Is that even possible?
His sweat envelops me as he pulls me against his front door I was just admiring so damn much. But now the sexy door is ruined by my spreading self-doubt.
I have no fucking idea how to have a real job, people. I don’t know how to be a fucking kindergarten teacher for these grown ass assassins who have never had to listen to anyone other than their leader, which I am not.
“You’re going to be the best fucking assassin administrator I’ve ever met.”
“I’ll be the only assassin administrator you’ve ever met,” I mumble, but it gets lost the moment his lips press to mine.
His tongue slides over my own, and just as I kiss him back, his leg catches the back of my knee and he brings me down with a sweep of his legs under mine.
The way my nails dig into his shoulders as he lowers me flat on my back, makes me wonder if this was his intention all along when he volunteered to do a mock class with me.
He sucks the tip of my tongue so hard, I feel the tingling sensation right between my thighs, where his hips grind into mine as his fingers thread through my hair, making me forget every single thing that isn’t the two of us.
The thick outline beneath his shorts thrusts against my clit just right. I gasp and my hands work between us without any assistance from my logical mind.
When my fingertips slip beneath the elastic waistband and start to push down, he pulls back just slightly with a soft smile on his lips, his mouth still hovering over mine. “I want to wait a little longer.” His tone is more of a groan, like it’s a painful thing for him to say out loud.
It’s just as painful for me to hear.
“It’s been a few weeks.” I slam my lips to his all over again but he lifts himself, his arm extending from the mat to let the chilled air cool the heat between our bodies.
“No, I mean, I want it to be special for you. Us. I want… I don’t know… I want it to be perfect.”
My heart’s strange fluttering still isn’t something I’m used to, and I’m just about to ask him to call a medic when I realize the warmth slipping through my chest is because of his sweet words, not heart failure.
“You don’t think right now is perfect? Special?” I lift, letting my lips brush wantonly over his with the lightest touch.
His attention isn't on me and my seductive kiss though. His gaze slides to the corner of the room, to the assassin who’s been so quiet for the last hour that I’d forgotten he was there.
“Don’t mind me,” Mason comments, his gaze scanning the papers in his hand, scribbling little notes as he goes, literally ignoring us but still sitting in on our… make out session. It’s a cockless make out session.
The mystery Rory is building with the idea of what our first time looks like is going to be impossible for him to live up to now. I’ve never waited for sex. Not simply for the sake of waiting.
I guess it’s just hard for me to understand, but I can see in his sweet, green eyes that this is important to him. He seems to want to make me feel good and… if he thinks not doing it will somehow make doing it feel all the better then… No. Nope. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Nothing good can come of this.
“Are you—are you on birth control?” he whispers quietly, privately, just to me.
My gaze slides slowly back to the man staring down at me with hard, focused attention.
Wow. Rory is like adult responsible. I bet he even knows his assassin credit score. I bet he takes time out of his day to vote, and I bet he also understands the ballot when he fills it out.
He’s so perfect.
And he cares about me. About us.
Mason cocks a brow at Rory, but the silence is heavy around us.
“Yes.” I wait for Rory's reply to my simple statement, but he only nods. A humming sound reverberates through him as he smiles very slowly, animalistically.
Another small bout of silence drifts between us as his hips settle firmly against my core. He really does want me. He just wants something I’ve never really thought about.
A fairy tale.
Is that what I want? Sweet romance instead of dirty sex?
Hmmm… decisions, decisions.
I’ll take Impossible Questions for five hundred, Alex.
“We're all clean, too, in case that's of interest to anyone,” Mason interjects, interrupting my thoughts as he flips a page of his notes, his eyes never lifting as he scans the text.
“How the hell would you know if I'm clean?” Rory asks, narrowing his eyes into steely slits on the assassin seated on the floor, and Mason still doesn't pry his attention away from his report for a single second.
“Because I checked everyone’s records when Tylin arranged the sex club date.”
“You checked my fucking medical records?” Rory's voice practically booms through the emptiness of the room and his jaw
clenches hard, but his raised tone isn’t enough to draw Mason's focus.
“Yeah, there was nothing to worry about. Jameson had a weird scare in twenty-fifteen but it turned out just be too much lactose.”
“Stop telling people about the great constipation crisis of twenty-fifteen,” Jameson yells from the next room, finally pulling at Mason's attention enough to make him smirk at me.
I bite my lip when the corner tips up, and there’s a moment where Mason and I are just studying one another, his dark gaze tracing my mouth.
The asshole is probably wishing he hadn't spent so much time teasing me lately and had actually done the deed.
Too late.
His tongue slides across his lower lip so slowly I find myself mimicking the gesture like a complete mindless, sex depraved idiot.
Okay, maybe it’s not too late.
There’s still time. I’m still open for business. My sex drive clicks the light on her open sign, and it flashes with bright bulbs and happy lettering to alert the man staring at me that I accept all forms of payment.
Then Jameson hollers Mason’s name, his tone storming down the hall and crashing right through my fucking neon sign until it’s a sad, little broken mess that Mason completely disregards as he stands and walks down the hall to his friend.
“I’m going to go shower.” Rory presses his lips to mine, making me arch up into him even as he stands and pulls away.
I watch his broad shoulders until he walks right out the door.
Then I’m alone.
My head bangs against the soft mat, and my gaze focuses on the cracked molding of the once beautiful structure above.
I should not have to work this hard to get laid with four boyfriends.
Maybe I should take up a hobby.
Like teaching arrogant assassins a skill I’m sure they think they already know. Yeah, that sounds better than sex.
The lies I’m telling myself can’t get any worse than this.
