“Good,” she said, nodding before she glanced at Lyric. “Want to test what you’ve learned against me?”
My eyebrows shot up. Sparring with Lyric was one thing—my best friend would never truly harm me. But the unassuming, sweet and very deadly Olivia? Bodyguard to the freaking princess of the vampires? She might take a bite out of me just to push me to be better, stronger—probably why I liked her so damn much.
“Let’s do it,” I said, shaking out my limbs as Lyric flashed me a wink and hustled off the mat to join Avi on the other side.
Olivia flashed her fangs, and I’d be lying if I said my stomach didn’t crystalize with ice. Sure, we may have formed a different kind of bond—just like I had with Avi—but it didn’t mean I could shut off all my human instincts.
“Would you rather I pretend to be a different species?” Olivia asked as we circled each other. “I can mimic the tactics of the lycans, witches, dem—”
“Vampire,” I cut her off, curling my hands into fists.
Her lips turned up at the corners. She bared her fangs again, and this time I shifted into an attack position. She had speed and strength, but I had one advantage—she underestimated me. Not to any fault of her own—all supernatural creatures underestimated humans, and with sound reasoning. But even if my previous training hadn’t compared to this, I had been trained.
Olivia stood with all the grace and cunning of a vampire with a hundred years’ worth of experience over me. She didn’t need to shift positions or make fists. All she had to do was wait. And that confidence was my only opening. She expected me to attack head-on from the way I stood to face her—intentionally—but instead—
I used all my weight to drop like an anvil to the mat, swinging out my right leg and swiping out her ankles before she could blink. Olivia’s back hit the mat with a satisfying smack, and I hustled to leap over her and wrap my arm around her neck from behind. I hauled her up against me and used my free hand to reach for her bared fangs, stopping a centimeter away from touching one of them. “Pretend these are iron plyers,” I said, breathless, my cheek against her face as I held her back to my chest with all my strength.
Lyric gasped from the other side of the room.
Olivia laughed and tapped my forearm under her chin.
I instantly released her.
She whirled around, respect coloring her eyes before she arched a delicate brow at me. “Iron plyers? Really? That’s a little malicious, don’t you think?”
I shrugged. “No more than fangs at my neck.”
She pursed her lips, nodding.
“Dinner and drinks would’ve been so much more fun,” Avi said, heaving a sigh from where she stood next to Lyric. “Fangs and iron plyers. God, you two. We’re supposed to be working together—”
“We are,” I hurried to stop her.
“Knowing strengths and weaknesses on both sides only helps,” Olivia added, nodding her agreement. She tilted her head at me. “Though, you do seem particularly angry with our kind today. Could a certain highlander be behind that?”
I narrowed my gaze. Just the mention of Lachlan had my hackles up—and other things going loose and tight at the same time.
“This fucking bond,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s the reason Daphne isn’t here, safe with me.” I squeezed my fists so hard my nails bit into my palms
Lachlan’s kiss—it had been world-shattering. Life-altering. Knee-trembling. His lips against mine had felt like the hottest flame and coldest ice. Felt like the answer to a question I didn’t know to ask. And his hands on me? A warm shiver danced in my blood. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him—even though I was furious with us both.
It had cost me Daphne.
“Yikes,” Olivia said, her eyes going wide as she surveyed my face. “There isn’t any iron in here, right, Avi?” She asked the question to her princess without taking her eyes off me.
Lyric and Avi hurried over to Olivia’s side, and I tilted my head at all three panicked stares.
“No,” Avi said. “Alek has a special stash of iron chains locked up in a secret location just in case one of ours denies feeding and loses their self-control.”
“Good.” Olivia blew out a breath, eyes on me. “Because it looks like if you got your hands on some iron right now, you’d likely drive it right through Lachlan’s heart.”
I flinched at her words, the mental image she painted may have satisfied my anger, but it wrecked my soul.
Lyric pursed her lips. “Or not,” she said, her voice a tease.
“How can I want to smack him across his perfect face but at the same time recoil from the idea of him being harmed?” I dropped to the mat, situating my arms on my knees. The girls followed suit.
“Mating bonds,” Lyric said, shrugging. “When I first was brought here, all I wanted to do was escape. Get back to you and school and the sun. But even when I wanted to escape, my soul begged me to stay. Demanded it. And after I stopped fighting it…”
She let the sentence hang there because each of us knew what had happened—she’d gotten her happily ever after. Well, after nearly dying twice and almost losing her mate in the process. But still, she’d stopped fighting the bond and now she practically glowed with strength and love and this insane kind of balance I wouldn’t even know what to do with.
My life had always been a chaotic web of secrets, sins, and the fight to survive.
“Not that I’m arguing,” Olivia said, one hand raised in defense, “but why are we blaming Lachlan for not getting Daphne? Ransom told me what happened. There was iron in the limo. He couldn’t have wended in.”
I rolled my eyes at myself. “It wasn’t his fault, not really. It was mine. I saw a member who would recognize me, and I needed to hide my face…fast.”
The three stared at me with wide, curious eyes.
“So I kissed him—”
Lyric squealed.
Olivia smirked.
“Ew,” Avi said, shuddering. Lyric and Olivia gaped at her. “What?” Avi asked. “He’s like my brother. All the Order are.”
I arched a brow at her, but it was Olivia who said, “Oh, really? You think of every single one of the assassins as…brotherly?”
Avi’s cheeks flushed pink, then glared at her bodyguard. “You were saying, Valor?”
I huffed a laugh. “Once I started kissing him…I couldn’t stop.” And I hadn’t even thought to protest when he’d taken me into the private room. Hadn’t been able to form a thought outside of the sensation of his touch, his kiss, the taste of him in my mouth.
“That’s the mating bond for you,” Lyric said.
“I hate it,” I admitted, and Lyric frowned. “I’m sorry, but I do. It’s not fair. These feelings I’m having are taking precedence over everything else important in my life. And I didn’t ask for it! I didn’t want it. And now my cousin’s life is at stake because I couldn’t deny it for two seconds and save her.”
“Lachlan is a good—”
“I said I hated the bond,” I cut Lyric off. “Not Lachlan.” That much was true. I’d come to actually respect the highlander assassin more than I ever thought possible. But it didn’t matter if I was starting to tolerate him, maybe even like him. Not when the bond made me question every feeling I had when it came to him. “Isn’t there like some ancient journal in your library? One written by a mate who denied the bond with ease and grace and made the decision for herself if she loved the other or not?”
“I can look,” Lyric said, her eyes lighting up the way they did at any hint of a new research project. The look was so familiar and so Lyric that I laughed. She may have been made vampire, but she was still my nerdy best friend who I loved dearly.
“Denying a bond is painful but possible,” Avi said, and I flashed the princess a small grin. She’d been supportive since day one. No one agreed more than her that a mating bond needed to be a personal choice, not a supernatural one, when it came to accepting it or not.
“That first six month
s wasn’t as bad as it is now,” I admitted. Running from him had been hard, but I’d managed. “The pull between us wasn’t as…intense.”
“That’s because you both hadn’t acknowledged that a bond had occurred,” Avi explained, and we all raised our brows at her. She shrugged. “I’ve read a lot about them,” she said. “Anyway, both partners have to see the mark and acknowledge it before the pull starts. I think that is fate’s way of giving one a chance to think over the match. The attraction would be there naturally, but the actual can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t think without feeling the other person wouldn’t occur until both knew about it.”
“So if I would’ve never shown Lachlan his mark on the back of my neck…”
“He would’ve hauled you back here anyway,” Lyric finished for me. “And he eventually would’ve seen the mark.”
“And he may have sensed something about you, but without seeing it…” Avi considered for a moment. “It’s like trying to flip on a light switch in a pitch-black room. They may feel that the light switch is there, but they wouldn’t be able to find it to turn it on without the other person showing them. Does that make sense?” Avi asked.
“No,” I said, laughing angrily. “None of this makes sense. But yes, at the same time, I understand what you’re saying.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t shown him?” Lyric asked softly.
I raked my fingers through my hair. “I don’t know,” I said. “I thought he was there to kill me. I thought the mark was the only thing that would spare my life and let me live long enough to save Daphne.”
Lyric sucked in a sharp breath.
“I know that isn’t true now,” I hurried to add. “But I’d been on the run for six months from a lot of people who wanted me dead. Technically, I’m still on the run. But the accommodations are much nicer,” I tried to joke, but I was too tangled up inside. “I can’t let what happened on the fourth happen again.” There might not be too many more chances to get Daphne out safely. They’ll either make her disappear or worse… “Is there any way to take the edge off the bond? A tonic? Pill?”
Lyric bit her lip. “Accepting it would tie you up for a few days, but after that, you’d be better able to manage it.”
I gave her a seriously look.
“What?” she asked innocently. “You asked.”
“Meditation?” Avi suggested, and I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“This is hopeless.”
“You could fuck him.”
All of our heads snapped to Olivia—the sweet but deadly and usually poised royal bodyguard who’d just dropped the F-bomb.
“Olivia!” Avi chided.
“What? You honestly haven’t thought of that as an option?” she asked me.
“Of course, I’ve thought about it. The damn bond makes me think about it all day long.”
“Okay, sure,” Olivia said. “But pretend the bond doesn’t exist.”
I arched a brow at her to say that was impossible.
“Just hear me out,” she said. “If the bond didn’t exist…on a purely physical level, would you want Lachlan?”
I opened and closed my mouth a few times. Who wouldn’t want him? He radiated strength, carried himself with respect, and had a dark sense of humor that called to my own. Not to mention his body was like beautifully carved stone, and just the brush of his skin against mine had lit my body up like a Christmas tree.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” Olivia said.
“Yes,” I echoed her. “If I’d seen him at a bar, I would’ve approached him.”
“Excellent,” Olivia said. “See? You can separate your own feelings from the bond if you try hard enough. And one way to give yourself some balance would be to get the need for him out of your system. Once that craving is satisfied, you should have a clearer head.” She glanced to Lyric. “Am I wrong?”
Lyric glanced at each of us before a laugh burst from her lips. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Once you’re satisfied, you’ll think much, much clearer.”
I tilted my head at Avi. “I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not.”
Avi laughed. “I think it’s both?”
Olivia pushed off the mat. “Rematch?”
The rest of us stood, but I shook my head. My thoughts were a tangled mess at the possibilities. Olivia was right—separate from the bond, I wanted Lachlan. Due to the bond, I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone in my life, so it was like a double-whammy. Of course, I hadn’t been able to think clearly. With the stress of Daphne’s situation coupled with the incessant demands of the mating bond, I couldn’t see straight if my life depended on it.
But…if we had sex—just sex—it could take the edge off. Maybe long enough for us to get Daphne out of the Sons’ hold. And after that?
We’d just have to figure it out.
“My turn,” Avi said, meeting Olivia in the middle of the mat.
Lyric and I moved to the other side of the training room, watching quietly as the princess and bodyguard faced off. They’d clearly done it a thousand times because it looked more like a lethal dance than an intent to best the other.
“I’m going to do it,” I whispered to Lyric, my heart racing at the verbal acknowledgment. “As long as Lachlan wants to. Maybe it will help us both—”
“He’ll want to,” she cut me off, laughing again.
“What is so funny?” I demanded.
She glanced at me then, pity and love in her eyes. “I want your plan to work, I do,” she said, reaching out to gently squeeze my shoulder.
“But…” I arched a brow at her.
She pursed her lips. “But, I speak from experience with this. You may think one time will be enough. Just once, and then you can breathe.”
“Yeah, exactly. Satisfy the bond’s needs and move on.”
She shook her head. “That’s the thing,” she said. “Satisfying the bond? That’s something that never goes away. Once is never enough. There’s always a part of me that wants Alek, needs him on a level I can’t even put into words—”
“Not all mating bonds are as perfectly matched as yours and Alek’s,” I argued.
She looked at me, but nodded. “Sure,” she said. “That’s fair. I mean, it’s not like you and Lachlan have anything in common, right? You’re not both stubborn, strong-willed, and snarky people who will stop at nothing until they get what they want.”
I gaped at her, but she merely shrugged and headed toward the door. “Good luck,” she called over her shoulder. “All this talk about bonds…well, I have to go see about a king.”
“Ew!” Avi called from the training mat, and we all laughed. “He is my brother!”
Lyric waved to her as she left the training room.
Avi and Olivia started sparring again, leaving me to my thoughts.
Lyric had been right about one thing—possibly many things that I would so not acknowledge right now—but Lachlan and I were the same in one regard.
We didn’t stop until we got what we wanted.
And what I wanted right now more than anything was to be clear, balanced, sharp.
Sharp enough to stop the Sons and save my cousin.
And if that meant letting Lachlan claim my body for a night, then so be it.
“Okay, you have to go!” Avi said, stopping to glare at me from across the room.
“What did I do?” I asked.
“We can smell you!” She laughed, and Olivia joined in. “And it has Lachlan’s scent wrapped all around it. Go! Before you make us both vomit.”
I chuckled, heading toward the door. “Aren’t you going to wish me luck?”
“You don’t need it,” Olivia said as I closed the door behind me.
I lingered in the hallway, chewing on my bottom lip. Nervous shivers danced along my skin, my breath tight in my lungs.
What if I did need it?
Sure, he’d kissed me like I was his dying wish, but this? Sex? That was a whole different kind of game.
I wasn’
t sure he wanted to play with those kind of stakes.
But I sure as hell was about to find out.
9
Lachlan
“Whoa,” Ransom whispered under his breath, grabbing my shoulder as he looked across the dining hall.
I glanced at his grip, then lifted my eyebrows.
He winced and lifted his hand from my black dress shirt, giving me an apologetic look before motioning his head back toward whatever had stunned him.
My attention skipped over Avianna and Olivia, who hovered at her side, and I barely even noticed Lyric was a part of the group. How could I when Valor stood there in a dress that highlighted every curve and clung to her body like a second skin?
I hissed.
“Exactly,” Ransom said, thrusting a cold drink in my hand. “You two still doing the whole fight-the-bond-idiocy?”
“Aye.” Fuck, that dress must have been made for her. The dark green silk contrasted her auburn hair and pale, creamy skin. It was short and strapless. A tug either way, and I’d have her in my mouth.
No. You know what happened last time.
Last time we’d let ourselves be swept away by the physical power of the bond and lost her cousin in the process.
I’d never been unmanned by my baser needs before in my life, and yet this female—this woman—was slowly unraveling me without even trying.
“That’s ridiculous,” Ransom said, waving to one of the nobles as he walked by. I didn’t bother even looking to see who it was. There were more nobles in residence than ever. Combine that with the fact that I had to put on a fucking dress shirt to eat on the evenings Alek decided to socialize, and it only fueled my need to bring the Sons down faster so I could get back to the normal peace and quiet of carrying out justice in clothes that didn’t fucking wrinkle.
“You’ve never had a mate. You have no idea what’s ridiculous,” I snapped.
“I know your temper is about as sharp as a fucking razor blade,” he muttered. “Would it be that bad to be mated to her? The woman is gorgeous, smart, and appears comfortable holding her own in a room full of predators. You could do far worse.”
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