Xander (A Dark Assassins Novel Book Three)

by Valerie Ullmer

In the early morning, he finally calmed down enough that she knew he would need to see Xander to truly feel safe. She made her way downstairs and grabbed the other rocking chair in the house. When Xander spotted them and ran his hand over Silas’s back as she had done, Silas heaved a big sigh and blinked open his eyes to stare at his daddy.

  “Hey, little man. We have a plan that I think will work to keep the bad man away from Mommy. Do you want to hear it?”

  I don’t want Anzû to know about Silas. Even though he knew I was pregnant, I don’t want him to know anything about him, even his name.

  With this plan, sweetheart, he’ll never know.

  Silas rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his two little fists, blinking and becoming aware of everyone in the room. Instead of sending out waves of happiness, he was oddly subdued.

  “I’m going to feed him, and then you can talk to him.”

  Frost decided that he would be hungry, just as she was, and took him to the kitchen. Silas had chosen carrots this time, along with apples for dessert, and as she fed him, she kept making silly faces after he swallowed and before long, he smiled back at her.

  You know I love you and Daddy more than anything else in the entire world. Right, baby?

  Yes, Mommy, I know. But…

  He won’t have a chance to do anything like that again. Daddy has come up with a plan to make both of us safe and once the bad man’s gone, we won’t have to worry about him or anyone else again.

  Okay, Mommy. I trust you and Daddy.

  Good, let’s eat and then go talk to Daddy.

  Silas ate the rest of his dinner and when she cleaned his mouth and then picked him up again, she smiled when he cuddled close. She walked back in the living room and let Xander know that Silas was ready to hear what he had to say.

  “Okay, little man. We know you’re special and could mind link and hear anyone’s thoughts, but I want you to push all of your family’s thoughts into Anzû. That way, he’ll have so many voices in his head, like you did before you learned to control it, that it would drive him crazy and we could get rid of him. He won’t know where the thoughts are coming from, and he might think that Mommy has become more powerful than he ever imagined, which will make him pause for a moment.”

  “Since he won’t know where it’s coming from, he won’t suspect Silas. But are you sure that this will work? He seems to know things that we don’t. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea—”

  Mommy, I want to help.

  They discussed it for a long while and decided that any offense would give them the advantage in the long run, and this way, Silas would be safe in the house under his impenetrable barrier. Silas agreed that he would work to center all thoughts into one mind. He was happy that he would be included in the plan that would “make the bad man go away”, and so when it was settled, he sent a wave of happiness and contentment throughout the room. All they had to do now was wait and see.

  Chapter Twenty

  Xander

  Xander had demanded that Frost train with him after they’d come up with their plan. She had insisted that she would accompany him and the rest of the assassins when they confronted Anzû and his merry band of men, as Frost had taken to calling them. At first, he had restrained himself because the last thing he wanted was to hurt her, and then have to explain to Silas what happened to his mommy so soon after the incident, as they referred to it.

  Silas kept close to both of them since then, and although they loved getting more cuddles from their son before he grew out of showing his affection for his parents, they had been afraid that he wouldn’t get over the trauma of what he’d seen. But days had passed and he was back to his normal self.

  Of course, Frost took to training like a natural. When he taught her hand-to-hand combat, she had kicked his ass more times than he could count. She understood and repeated the moves so quickly, he started to wonder whether she had faked her inexperience. When he mentioned this, she scoffed and charged him. He started to realize that as determined as she was to protect their son and him, his mate had proved, again, that she was capable of anything.

  But now she seemed as though she reveled in kicking his ass. A lot.

  During the moments that they didn’t spend with Silas, or training, or helped Silas relax his mind enough to push thoughts that weren’t his own into one brain, Xander would find a way to get Frost alone. They had made love in every room in the house—well, the ones that had locking doors—and couldn’t get enough of each other. It seemed as though they made love as if it were the last chance they would have to become so intimate, but to Frost and Xander, it was the norm.

  Kissing would lead to touching, touching would lead to ripping their clothing off, and soon they would make love until they both screamed their release and clung to each other. They hadn’t left each other’s sight for very long, and he loved that his mate craved his touches as much as he craved hers.

  During the moments where they were getting their breathing back to normal, they had talked about the possibility of other children. Silas would like to have a sibling and the thought of another baby who had Frost’s gorgeous features and maybe his shocking hair made Xander want to try again. But Frost was right. Not until the threat had been eliminated.

  Mommy! Daddy!

  “Yes, little man, we’re right here.”

  No, he’s here. Outside. Right now.

  “It’s on!” Xander shouted and the others knew what he meant.

  For the past few days, other immortals from Dark Company, the one’s who preferred lives to themselves, had joined the already established group after they had learned from Ghost about Silas, the immortal born into their group. They had been just as taken with Silas as anyone who met him, and their son was happy to have so many more aunts and uncles than he previously thought. And having badass assassins, who preferred to be brooding loners, melt at the sight of his son made Xander smile for days. And because of Silas, they had stuck around and added numbers to fight against the threat.

  Frost cuddled Silas and kissed him on the forehead, before Xander did the same. It’ll be okay, baby. We promise.

  So they gathered. Kai, Reaper, Ara, Seth, Aubrey, Jade, Hunter, Gunnar, Ghost, Axel, Kane, Thomas, Isaac, and thirty others, along with Frost and himself, marched out the door on that cool September night. He locked the house down before he spoke to his son, who had gone straight into his Aunt Liv’s arms as soon as he heard Anzû’s voice.

  Barrier up, little man. Round the entire house. Protect yourself and your Aunt Liv, okay, baby?

  Okay, Daddy.

  They could feel the impenetrable barrier surround the entire property, shimmering against the surface of the house, before Xander pulled Frost close to him. They could feel that a large group advanced toward them. With one look back at the house to make sure his son was protected, he and the other’s faced toward the sound and braced himself for the fight that was to come.

  Anzû came into view, looking rougher than the picture of him depicted. His brown hair stood straight up on end, as if he’d been in the habit of pulling at it. His eyes, wide and crazy, glanced around at the immortals, including several vampires, all gathered against him. He paused, not speaking, only looking for a long minute, before his eyes landed on Frost who leaned against Xander’s side.

  “Give me Frost. She’s a defective shifter mutt anyway. She’ll never be able to make a good mate—she can’t even shift. I’m willing to accept that she is damaged and accept her anyway.”

  Xander growled and it was joined by snarls and hisses from the rest of his immortal family. The shifters who flanked Anzû took a step back, letting the assassins know that they weren’t as dedicated to Anzû as they were to their own survival. Maybe that would work to their advantage.

  Anzû lifted his brow when the protest ended. He truly believed that Frost would join him or they would be willing to sacrifice her without a second thought.

  Well, fuck that.

  Son, now!

  Sil
as’s hard work had paid off when they watched as Anzû grabbed his head and dropped to his knees, keening loudly at what must have been a painful rush of thoughts inside his own head. But as they had practiced, the thoughts increased tenfold as all of the Dark Company assassins started to mind link with each other.

  The others in Anzû’s group had no clue how to continue without instructions from their leader, who was now writhing on the ground, screaming in pain. They kept glancing at Frost, thinking that she had the power to do this. To add to their beliefs, her eyes moved over the group that followed Anzû and she lifted the side of her lip in a part snarl, part nasty smile he knew that would scare the shit out of them.

  One of them stepped toward Frost, and Xander’s arm banded tighter around her waist as the chorus of growls and snarls stopped his progress cold.

  Anzû screamed in pain as he surged to his feet and staggered toward Frost. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  Frost’s smile widened, but she continued to stand there next to Xander, silent.

  Anzû pushed past the pain and swung his fist toward them as he stepped forward, and he struck her in the face with his closed fist. Frost was stronger than he gave her credit for, because she didn’t move an inch when his hit landed on her cheek. Xander’s hand moved as Anzû’s did; he wrapped his hand around the immortal’s forearm and crushed it when he closed his fist and twisted. Xander yanked Anzû closer, dislocating his shoulder in the process. His hold on Anzû gave Frost ample time to return the punch to his jawbone and they all listened to the satisfying crack of his jaw breaking. The smile never left her lips.

  Xander landed a blow on Anzû’s nose a moment before Frost’s foot landed square in his chest, launching him back as the blood splattered against his face and down his shirt. He landed in a heap several yards from them.

  “This man you believe to be your leader has no chance of taking over Dark Company, despite what he might have told you. He lied to you, probably about everything since you’ve been hired, which is why you aren’t loyal to him. If you still want to fight, you could stick around and get a firsthand demonstration of how a real team of immortals, both vampire and shifter, work together. But I wouldn’t recommend it.” Ghost’s voice rang out in the darkness.

  Several had done the smart thing and turned around, heading out the way they came in, but fifteen stood with Anzû. Xander, not giving them a chance to talk or back out of the fight, made a split-second decision and attacked. He kept one eye on Frost as he incapacitated those in his path, and soon, the fighting behind him started in earnest.

  What became apparently clear in the next few minutes was that these men had no real training of any kind. They had tried for a few minutes to fight without weapons, but punch after punch was landed on their core and their face. They had tried to retreat enough to regroup, which none of the assassins would allow them to do. They had kept the group separated from one another, taking away their advantage of fighting as one, but one of them pulled a gun and shot Hunter in the shoulder. The panther howled in anger and lunged for the one stupid enough to shoot him, and effectively ripped his head off.

  Xander easily disarmed the shifter he’d been fighting against, but the man pulled out his knife sheathed against his ankle and managed to stab him through the thigh. The pain only managed to piss Xander off. With one punch to the immortal’s face, he crushed the bones in his face. The impact managed to separate the immortal’s brain stem and he dropped to the ground, forgotten.

  The vampires had taken to biting the shifters they had fought, effectively swamping their system with vampire venom, which was deadly to the shifter. They dropped as soon as their bodies were infected and they moved on to the next shifters. Kane, Thomas, and Isaac had stuck together and were taking out the majority of the shifters, while Kai preferred a hands-on approach. That vampire was scary as hell when he fought.

  Ax, Gunnar, and Jade stuck together. Jade took the other shifters’ feet out from under them as they preferred to stay in their human forms rather than shift. When they lost their balance, Gunnar and Ax would go for their jugular and either break their necks or rip out their brain stems.

  Frost stuck close to Xander, and she preferred to fight with her tactical knife that she had taken a liking to during training, and watched as not one of her opponents got a strike before she severed an artery or ripped their hearts out.

  Xander became distracted when he had two shifters rush him. He took one out with a quick step forward, striking him in the nose with the palm of his hand and driving the bone straight into his brain and stepped over him when he fell to the ground, dead. As he glanced around, he noticed that he had moved too far away from Frost. When he saw movement to his right, he glanced up and watched in horror as Anzû spun Frost around and wrapped his hand around her neck and pressed her back against his chest, the knife pressed close to an artery in her throat.

  “Let…her…go. I won’t ask you again.” Xander’s voice had never taken such a deep tone before. He was both frightened and determined to kill this motherfucker once and for all.

  Anzû flinched and Xander realized that he could sense Frost’s distress, and of course, amped up the thoughts pressing into Anzû’s head. He continued to bombard him with thoughts until Anzû spoke.

  “I will saw her head off her body and kill your abomination of a child if you don’t get that brat to stop with the assault.” Anzû closed his eyes as he spoke.

  Everything in that moment slowed to a standstill. Anzû knew about Silas, knew about his powers, while he had his mate under knifepoint and threatened to kill her. What the fuck have I done in this life that was so bad to deserve this shit?

  His eyes flashed to his mate, hoping to convey to her that he would get her out of this situation, but instead, he watched her face morph into something that, frankly, scared the living shit out of him.

  At the same moment her eyes sparked with pure rage, she knocked the knife away from her neck with a simple brush of her hand. When it was free of her neck, Frost leapt into the air and before Xander had a chance to blink, her shift had already begun. By the time she flipped around and her head snapped down toward Anzû’s exposed neck, she had shifted fully. Her bright-white fur along her body was contrasted by the black pattern that ran over her head and down to her muzzle of her snow leopard form. The brightness of her fur lightened the darkness that surrounded them and they could see her movements clearly.

  A loud growl escaped her throat as her mouth opened and her large white teeth flashed, a second before they clamped down around Anzû’s neck. Her teeth sank into his throat as she bit down and he could clearly hear a gurgling sound as her mouth tightened. Anzû had been taken completely by surprise and didn’t even have time to shift, before he dropped to the ground. The look of utter astonishment broke over his face, before her teeth cut through the soft tissue of his neck and severed his spine. The look of surprise was permanently etched on his features as his head rolled off his body.

  Silence surrounded them at the sight before them. Then, all at once, there was a mad scramble for those who had survived their encounter with the assassins, once they heard their leader’s neck snap. They let the others go without thoughts of pursuit. Hopefully they would remember how easily they were defeated and if they were smart, wouldn’t be stupid enough to challenge them again. Right now, though, Xander couldn’t care less about them.

  Xander approached Frost, and when he met her gaze, he sucked in a breath because her green eyes looked back at him. He remembered how green they were when they first met. The mix of blue was absent in this form. But what surprised him was the tears that formed in her eyes as she glanced down at Anzû and then back up to him.

  “Sweetheart, you did what you had to do to protect Silas. There is nothing to be ashamed about or to feel bad about. We knew that he would never stop coming after us if you hadn’t taken care of him. And he would have done much more than threaten our son if we gave him the chance.”

  As Xa
nder mentioned their son, Frost looked at the house.

  “Silas would want to see you as a snow leopard. By the way, you look ferocious with the black markings around your eyes and forehead. It’s absolutely beautiful. But let’s clean your muzzle before heading back to the house. Silas is fine. I hear him humming contentedly. Liv must be reading to him.”

  Frost chuffed at him and he smiled.

  He proceeded to wash the blood off her muzzle, making sure there wasn’t any trace of it, before they walked up to the house. The others trailed behind, glad to give them time together. As soon as Xander opened the door, they rushed up the stairs and peeked in the door. Liv had Silas cradled against her neck as he stared intently at the book in front of him. But when Liv paused to turn the page, Silas glanced up and his smile widened as he got his first good look at Frost as a snow leopard.

  “Mommy pretty.”

  At five and a half months, their baby had just spoken, aloud, his first words. Both of them were completely stunned when they turned to look at each other. Of course, their son was remarkable; they shouldn’t have been surprised.

  Frost sauntered closer.

  Silas reached a hand out and patted the top of her head. You did good, Mommy. He wanted to hurt Daddy and all of my aunts and uncles. You couldn’t let that happen.

  Frost chuffed.

  I love you, Mommy.

  I love you, too, baby. And Daddy, too.

  Xander smiled when Frost finally relaxed.

  I love you, too, sweetheart. With all that I am.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Frost

  Frost was rolling on the floor with Silas in the living room, both of them in their snow leopard forms, as Silas gave her a ferocious growl before he pounced on her. She absolutely loved being able to play with her son as Xander had all those months. This time, Xander stood nearby, leaning against the doorjamb of the kitchen and watching over them with a smile on his face. She had noticed that since Anzû had been taken care of, Xander was a lot happier, and not due to Silas’s influence.