An Assassin's Destiny: A Reverse Harem Series (The Huntress Series Book 3)

by A. K. Koonce

  “We need to talk. It’s important.”

  She arches a fiery brow at me, and spits her morning toothpaste in the sink before continuing. The bathroom door is left wide open to our bedroom. It’s empty, but it’s clear Scarlett has zero cares about who sees her in Captain America panties.

  “About?” she asks from around her pink toothbrush.

  “What the hell is the deal with Mars and Vale. Really? Like really, really.” My shoulder leans into the door jam, and she rolls her bright eyes before finishing up with the toothbrush and starting on what seems to be a pretty elaborate skincare routine.

  Do I need that stuff? What the fuck is that lotion? She has three bottles. All of them different… Why?

  I pull my attention back to her reflection in the mirror as she starts to apply the first bottle of face stuff.

  “Vale and I were a thing late last year. Then I left the League.”

  Right. Right. “Then what?”

  “Then… I… slept with Mars a few weeks ago.”

  Uh-huh, uh-huh… “And then?”

  “And then my best friend and brother asked me to move right in with my one night stands.” She shrugs, and keeps on adding layer after layer of creams until her skin, admittedly, looks really nice and soft.

  Maybe I do need face shit.

  “Vale’s a one night stand?” My arms cross over my chest.

  Her shoulders shrug so minimally I know she’s lying to herself.

  And that’s how I know she’ll lie to me.

  “Mars was a mistake. Just… I make a lot of mistakes, okay?” Big blue eyes look at me with a hint of defensiveness, but more sadness than anything. “You know how some girls make shitty mistakes with terrible men and get tagged as having ‘daddy issues?’ It’s a real thing. And I’ve got them.” She slips past me then and back into our room.

  “Mars is ‘terrible men’?”

  Her spine stiffens as she starts to pull out a pair of black jeans from the closet.

  “He… he hurt me. I-I don’t think he meant to. It’s just... his anger is so checked, it seems to lash out sometimes.”

  My eyes widen at that.

  “Like physically hurt you? He fucking hurt you?” My voice carries through the big, open room and she shushes me immediately.

  “Stop. Don’t.” Her palms come up fast, and I can tell she’s too strong and too smart for any advice I could give her. “Things just got out of hand. I politely told him to fuck off.”

  My lips part, but Scarlett’s fierceness is on full display, with her head tilted high and her shoulders pushed back, and I just know she’s completely fine.

  “I’m getting your room changed to one of the new ones. Today. One with a fucking lock.” The finality that grinds into my words isn’t needed.

  “Thank you,” Scar whispers.

  I want to wrap her up in a hug but… what’s the girl protocol for bra and panties attire? Is there a no touching policy? Do I offer a handshake? A high five? A dramatic fist bump with an explosion gesture following?

  Her long arms wrap around me without hesitation.

  She really is the best girl friend I’ve never had.

  And I didn’t even know it until recently.

  “Um… the bathroom down the hall doesn’t have a toilet attached to the plumbing.” His rumbling tone is laced with amusement, and when I look up, Archer is lingering in the middle of the room with an animalist smile sliced across his features as he watches me and my friend hug.

  What is with the creepy men in his house? And when the fuck did Mr. Ink show the hell up?

  “Archer,” I greet in a hard tone.

  “Alexa.” He barely nods his head at me in acknowledgment. “I can go piss in the pipe in the floor if you’d prefer, but Vale said there was a bathroom in here…” He points a tattooed finger toward the bathroom behind us.

  “No, it’s fine,” Scarlett replies, stepping back from me. Her stance is careless, and even I’m impressed with her confidence right now.

  Does she know her nipples are showing through the white lace of her bra?

  Archer never looks down when he passes her, and their gazes are locked so hard I can feel the heat rising in the room.

  Yeah, she definitely knows about the nipple display. And so does he.

  His cutting smirk turns to a softer look I’ve never seen before, and she has the shamelessness to watch his ass, even as he shuts the door behind him.

  Daddy. Issues.

  I see.

  “Scarlett, stop trying laser eye the bathroom door and put your pants on. Try not to crush your lady boner in the process, though, since the thing is seriously engorged by how much eye fucking you just did with the one guy in this place no one should trust.”

  I still don’t know how I feel about him. He has no sides in all of this. Which means he doesn’t do loyalty. And, having loyalty to a cause drilled into me for so long, I don’t know how to process someone like that.

  “I was not eye fucking him,” she sasses with a slant of her pretty head. “I have the power to alter someone’s reality. I don’t have to eye fuck anyone with the fantasies playing out in my head.” Her tongue flicks across her smirking lips, and I have to roll my eyes at her as I stride out of the room.

  “Do not fuck him,” I call, before trailing down the hall.

  “I won’t.” Her insulted voice echoes after me.

  It’s another lie, and we both know it.

  Eleven

  Encore and a Standing Ovation

  I find Mason in the kitchen, and the moment I enter my eyes grow wide, trying to capture every part of the perfect work that’s been done here in the last few days. The countertops shine with a glossiness over the black and white granite, the knobs of the cabinets are dark and complimenting, and the entire room smells of freshly painted walls.

  Mason hangs deep blue curtains over the small square window above the sink, and my lips part as I look at him in the morning sunlight. His hair is as dark as his eyes from this angle, his muscles tensing when his hands meet his hips and he studies the minuscule details of the curtain, and how it seems to fit in with the rest of the room.

  “It looks perfect,” I say softly.

  “The curtain’s the exact shade of your eyes, so of course it’s perfect. If it doesn’t fit with the rest of the room, Rory will just have to start over.” He slides his amused attention to me and I hate that I’m going to have to break up his sweetness with terrible seriousness.

  Maybe I’ll bask in his compliment for just a second longer. “My eyes, huh?” He nods, his gaze raking slowly down my body, before his palm sneaks around my waist and pulls me close.

  His lips linger along mine, toying with them until they part just for him.

  Shit. I basked too long.

  “Do you trust Mars?” I ask, the second logic stumbles back into my mind. My eyes are still closed, and hoping he’ll continue and just let me keep talking while he does whatever he wants to me right here in the Susie Homemaker kitchen.

  His body tenses and he pulls back from me, forcing me to open my eyes and face reality.

  Reality sucks.

  “Yeah. He’s loyal. He was loyal to Armond and now he’s loyal to us. Why?” Golden light reflects in his eyes as they slowly search mine, reading me and my apprehension.

  “He was loyal to Armond. Doesn’t it kind of bother you that that’s the first thing you think of when you think of Mars?”

  Mason shakes his head slowly. “Everyone here was loyal to Armond at one point. It’s literally what unifies us. Mars… he’s a good guy. He’s saved my life. He fixed Jameson when we needed him. His skills are irreplaceable.”

  People need him.

  We need him here.

  Maybe I’m just overreacting lately.

  I glance up at the slicing holes in the molding from my little outburst with Tylin.

  I could possibly be overreacting. Again.

  “Did he do something?” Mason inquires, his obvious prot
ectiveness flaring up in his eyes.

  “No… He’s just a little different, I guess. Scarlett said something about him and it just made me wonder.”

  An angry voice cuts through my quiet words. “What’d my sister say about him?” Jameson asks in a voice so low with gravel, that it makes me stiffen.

  It’s a tone I so rarely hear from him that I instantly regret outing my friend in front of her brother.

  “Nothing. It’s none of my business.” And definitely not something she’d want her big brother knowing…

  Girl code is in shambles right now.

  “Where’s Scar?” Jameson questions, his pale hair shifting from how hard he nods to me, with a demand shining in his bright eyes.

  Shit.

  “She’s in our common room,” I answer awkwardly.

  He turns on his heels in an instant, and I’m trailing after him up the stairs, shit, shit, shitting with every step I take.

  “Jameson, she’s changing. She’ll be out in a minute. I’ll tell her to come find you.” The words tumble out one after another, but he never stops his quick, stalking steps up the stairs and down the fucking hall to our room.

  Mason quietly walks along behind us, probably to get more details on Mars just like Jameson.

  “Just calm down, babe.” My fingers slip into his, but he keeps on going and I have to jog to keep up with his long strides.

  “Everything okay?” Tylin’s question goes unanswered when we pass in the hall, and I look back to find him and Rory both following the three of us down the hall like a damn ‘Alexa Fucked Up Parade.’

  Why am I so bad at girling? There are only two requirements. All you have to do to be a girl is gossip and keep secrets. Girls are great at keeping secrets.

  I think…

  Jameson’s long fingers grip the doorknob hard, and before I can throw myself in front of him, he shoves the door open.

  And all five of us stop and stare at the most enthralling thing I’ve ever been lucky enough to see in my entire life.

  The first thing I notice is his black pants around his ankles, followed by a tattoo of a cross made of blades inking down his calf, the lines of which lead up to strong thighs that have legs wrapped tightly around him, preventing me from reading the script inked on his hip.

  Tattooed fingers dig into the soft skin of a round ass, his palms gripping hard while his hips thrust deeper and deeper.

  “Call me a selfish fuck again, baby,” he purrs to her, a seductive sound with a sinister smile.

  “You’re a selfish fucking prick,” she gasps, kissing him roughly with harsh affection, her nails digging into his shoulders before her head throws back, until it hits the bedroom wall Archer’s fucking her against.

  Bright electricity sparks into my vision, drawing me away from the best live on stage porn I’ve ever gawked at, and forcing me to pull the door shut just as he lunges.

  “What the fuck!” Jameson’s growl is seething with shaking rage.

  Rory’s arms lock around his friend, and both of them tremble from how much power is coursing through the assassin all four of us are currently staring at.

  Jameson inhales slowly. Exhales even slower.

  Does that once more.

  His sister’s an adult.

  Who makes… decently poor decisions. Or amazingly great decisions, depending on how you look at it. She looked like she was enjoying herself.

  I glance back up at my boyfriend, who’s still sparking bolts of lightning in his fists.

  Poor. I’ll have to go with very poor decisions on Scarlett’s part. Yep.

  The image of their bodies working together flashes through my mind like I suddenly have a photographic—pornographic—memory, and this is the only thing I never want to forget.

  A calm settles in. I look up in time to find Rory glancing at me with the same flushed reaction as I’m sure I have.

  When we all become quiet… I can only find one thing to say.

  “Holy hotness, Aquaman.” I can’t fight the smile that curves my lips.

  Mason smirks at me.

  Tylin shakes his head with disappointment at my childish reaction.

  “It’s Batman.” Jameson glares at me, finally calming down a bit. “They say Holy hotness, Batman.”

  The four of them settle disappointed gazes on me and my apparently incorrect vernacular. My gaze trails across each man in turn until I sigh, realizing I’m going to have to set them straight.

  “Have you seen Aquaman? Aquaman and hotness should clearly go together,” I explain very logically.

  More pitying stares.

  “His hair alone is probably blessed by King Triton.” I blink at them.

  They blink back, less enthusiastically.

  “King Triton?” Rory whispers in confusion.

  I nod.

  I wait for their unanimous agreements, but I’m still met with worried, blank expressions like their girlfriend needs serious mental help, all because I’m team Mamoa instead of Affleck.

  And they think I’m the one who needs help.

  Rory slowly releases his hold on Jameson, and the man uses his free hands to slowly rake them down his tired face. “What did my sister,” he grinds that last word out slowly, “say about Mars?”

  A moan trembles through the door, and I force myself not to wonder what he must be doing to her and what my guys should be doing to me right now.

  Jameson flinches, his jaw ticking the entire time the climaxing moans carry.

  And damn, do they carry.

  “I’m fucking going out side.” Jameson storms off.

  I stay put, listening intently and wondering if I’m the newest creep that lives in this house.

  “Alexa,” Jameson growls, and I scurry after him down the stairs.

  Shit. I’m going to miss the finale. And possibly an encore. And what I hope is a recurring act that works out to be a long term commitment with a five year plan, and good health benefits for my best friend and their future three kids Alexa, Alex, and Al.

  “Alexa?” Jameson calls, a bit more exasperated, turning to me with a lost look that I hate to see in his eyes.

  My arms wrap around him as I just now realize how much this is messing with his head.

  “She said she’s fine,” I tell him, my fingers digging into the back of his shirt and letting him meld into me at the bottom of the stairs.

  “If someone hurts her, tell me. I know you’re friends and you don’t want to fuck that up, but I can’t let someone hurt the people I care about. Not ever again,” he promises, his breath coming out a bit heavier as he rests his temple against mine.

  The harsh relationship he had with his father and the abuse his sister suffered stings through my memory, and I hate that I didn’t think about that right from the start.

  All he wants is to keep her safe. To keep everyone safe.

  Jameson’s protective. He has a reason to be.

  It’s one of the reasons I love him.

  I just don’t know how to tell him something that isn’t my business.

  It isn’t just girl code. It’s… putting my nose where it doesn’t fucking belong. I wouldn’t want my friend bringing up my shitty ex’s.

  If I had any…

  “They had a relationship. Scarlett didn’t like how he was acting. She ended it.” I say it all in a robotic way. A flat out, honest way, without telling him the dirty details of his sister’s sex life.

  Which he just had to witness and didn’t take well.

  A hard gaze meets mine, searching slowly. I feel like he can see right through me, and he knows me inside and out.

  “She’s okay?” It’s a serious question I answer with complete honesty.

  “She’s fine, Jameson. She’s strong. She’s smart. She doesn’t put up with people’s shit. Just like her brother.”

  “Okay,” he concedes, pulling me close and just wanting me to remind him that everything’s okay. He needs me right now. It isn’t him hugging me. It’s me holding one of
the strongest men I know and trying to make him feel safe for just a little while.

  Sometimes, I forget these fearless men need protecting too.

  Twelve

  The Hormone House

  The next morning, it’s hard for me to look at her when she bounces into the room. Scarlett’s eyes are bright and she’s blatantly happy. I don’t want to say it’s because of what I saw here in this room yesterday, but… that happiness is totally orgasm induced and she and I both know it.

  I’m just pretending not to.

  “I have a surprise for you,” she tells me.

  I blink, and the image of Archer’s cock sliding hard into her pussy flashes from out of nowhere in the recesses of my dirty mind. My face flushes.

  I keep pretending.

  “A surprise?” I croak out.

  Her eyes narrow. “What’s wrong with you? Why’s your skin all patchy with redness and your voice all gaspy like you’re auditioning for a bad porno movie?”

  “Excuse me?” Insulting. I do not sound like that. I clear my throat. “I’m fine.”

  She stares at me.

  I stare at her.

  My hearts hammering so loud it’s the only thing I hear. More dirty images flood my memory, making heat scald me in a way that can only be described as hot flash hell.

  “What?” she shrieks.

  “I saw you fucking Archer. And the guys saw it too. Your brother included. Jameson saw Archer’s cock… and your… stuff… and heard you orgasm. That’s it. I saw it. For longer than I probably should have. It was… really hot.”

  It feels good to be honest.

  We should do this more often.

  The way the color drains from Scarlett’s beautiful sun-kissed skin tenses every muscle in my body.

  Shit. I said the wrong thing.

  “Surprise,” a voice yells, just as my sister runs into the room and wraps her arms around me, and makes me wish she’d just squeeze the fucking life out of me and let me die in her arms, rather than keep looking at the shocked expression on Scarlett’s face right now.

  “Sorry,” I mouth over Allison’s shoulder, hugging her awkwardly while still thinking way too much about a sex life that isn’t mine.