Kai (A Dark Assassins Novel Book One)

by Valerie Ullmer

Sinking to her knees, she thought over the last few minutes and concluded that she had been wrong in how she asked him to help her. She thought that he would be thrilled with the news that he and his fellow assassins would be protected from harm, but she had told him in a way that must’ve been offensive. As she sat on the cold floor and thought about what she could have said to cause his reaction, her mind couldn’t settle on any one reason. Maybe because she had worked out the formula in a week he now believed she had something to do with creating the weapon in the first place, and he couldn’t trust her any longer. Or he was angry because she created the bio-weapon without talking to him about it. But his reaction had been before she told him about that particular piece of news. Or he was relieved that she could claim that she was done, because he could get rid of her sooner than later. Although that caused a rupture of pain in her chest, she couldn’t think of another possible reason.

  “Liv?”

  Hearing her name in the distance, she couldn’t pull herself from her thoughts, not until strong arms pulled her up from the floor and held her to a hard chest. Instead of the smell of cedar and citrus, she smelled moss and pine. When she blinked, her gaze focused on Hunter’s face. His frown marred his handsome face, and she reached out her hand and smoothed out the creases on his forehead. His eyebrows rose at her actions, but he allowed her to continue, hugging her tighter to his chest. He held her as if she were fragile, and although she felt nothing other than friendly affection for him, she was grateful to be held.

  “Hi, Hunter. Did you say something?” she asked.

  “Did he hurt you?” he growled.

  Unable to explain why she sat, weak and lethargic on the floor, she choked at his question and shook her head. “He would never do that,” she whispered.

  But as the words left her mouth, she flinched. The funny thing was, although he promised to protect her, he never promised to love her the way she wanted him to, and that was entirely her mistake. It was ridiculous the amount of hurt she felt when he’d left her without explanation, but again, she had hoped for more than he could give. Soon, she would be out of his hair, and he could go back to his own life, and she would figure out how to live hers.

  “I think that I offended him when I asked him for his blood. Or something else is going on. Maybe he’s relieved that he will finally be rid of me,” she said.

  Hunter looked at her for a long moment, and then shook his head. “He’s an idiot.”

  For a reason she couldn’t fathom, a sharp laugh burst out of her throat, and she snuggled her head into his chest as she laughed at his blatant statement. When she felt him shake, she glanced up and watched as Hunter laughed with her. She wiped her eyes, and with one last pat on his cheek, she pulled herself away from her friend.

  “Do you think that I could draw a vial of your blood, since I’ve finished?” she asked.

  He had blanched at her question, and she couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. He smiled at her, but rubbed the back of his neck, looking for an excuse to get out of being her guinea pig. But she decided to admit her weakness in hopes that he would follow.

  “Are you afraid of needles, too?” she asked.

  “Hell no, not afraid, just…”

  “Wary?”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you, little one, but I hate fucking needles. We have regenerative healing and we can’t get sick, so I’ve never had my blood tested before. But I’ve seen it on TV and it looks brutal.”

  She reached out and squeezed Hunter’s hand. “I understand. I don’t like needles either, and I work with blood.”

  “We don’t mind.” Jade skipped into her lab. Reaper followed close behind her, but he seemed distracted and edgy.

  “You okay, Reaper? Did you find the woman?”

  “No, I lost her scent. I’ve never lost a scent before,” he grumbled.

  Without a thought, she wrapped her arms around Reaper’s waist and hugged him for a quick moment. She wanted to offer him comfort, but as he returned her hug, Hunter brought up the subject she had been trying so hard to avoid.

  “Something happened between Liv and Kai,” Hunter said.

  Reaper’s arms tightened around her, and she heard him growl, the sound loud to her ears. “What the fuck did he do now?”

  Flinching, she pulled out of his arms and reluctantly looked at Reaper. “He must’ve reacted badly to my news since he was so hurt…”

  Reaper looked at Hunter, as if he had the information that she neglected to share, but when the man shook his head, Reaper turned back to her, waiting for an explanation.

  “Are you doing the mind link thing?” she asked.

  “Yes. Now stop changing the subject,” Reaper said.

  “I’ve completed the formula, and I’ve created both a minuscule amount of the bio-weapon along with several vials of the antidote. I asked to test his blood to make sure that it worked, and he became really angry and left. I know that I should have spoken to all of you before I created something that is such a threat to you, but…I couldn’t sit around and wait. I understand his anger at me, but I wish he would talk to me,” she finished.

  Jade hugged her, and this time, it was for comfort.

  “I’ve seen how he looks at you, Livvy, and I know that he feels something for you. But vampires are loners and they don’t express their feelings very well. We’ve been friends with him for close to a hundred years, and he would rather walk into the sun than come to us for advice or even to talk. He trusts you, and he cares for you—he’s just horrible at showing it,” Jade said.

  “It’s because he promised to protect me, and that doesn’t mean he actually has feelings for me,” she said.

  Jade squeezed her tighter, and although she had never enjoyed people touching her, hugging her, she did enjoy how her friends pulled her in whenever they thought she was sad. Although she knew that her friends would defend her, and they were happy to be around her, she had no idea how Kai felt about her, and it seemed, neither did his closest friends.

  Their silence indicated that they couldn’t be sure what Kai had felt for her, and it cemented her thoughts. And now that she completed her work to keep them safe, there would be no need for Kai and the others to protect her. She would be going home soon. She knew that she couldn’t go back to Standard, and that meant she would have to leave Snowfall.

  She glanced at the friends she had come to know and love, and although relieved that she could save them from a horrible fate, she would go back to being alone. But with the knowledge of what it was like to love Kai for an echo in time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kai

  Several emotions swirled as he paced the length of the living room floor, unable to pinpoint the exact reason for the rage and sadness. But his most prominent emotion was fear. He would lose her, not by death or because of her work, but because he wasn’t strong enough to tell her that he wanted her in his life.

  What kind of life could he truly give her?

  They never talked about a future, or even their feelings for each another, thinking that they had plenty of time to figure it out once her life wasn’t threatened. But as he thought back, she never gave him an indication about how she felt for him.

  And he’d never asked, though he was dying to know.

  He’d known how brilliant she was, but at just over a week, she had solved a major problem and had come to care for him and his friends.

  As he stopped his movement, he realized that he wanted her to love him. Him, a fucking vampire, who never gave a shit about anyone, not even when he was a human. But now, a human woman—an amazing and beautiful human—had come into his life and he couldn’t let her go.

  He’d never liked the thought of a mate, and although he’d heard of shifters finding mates, and falling in love, none of them had ever fallen for a human. A mate meant that the other would be the main focus of your life and the one who held your happiness in their hands. He shirked at the idea of loving so deeply that everything else fell by the
wayside. But after he’d made love to her the first time, he could believe that there was nothing else in the world other than Liv. He would give up his existence to be with her.

  Without wanting to spend one more minute away from her, he raced downstairs, but he was unprepared for what he saw.

  Reaper held a cotton swab to his arm, as Liv set the vial of blood that she had just drawn on the counter. She reached for a black pen and wrote something on the label before she slid it into a mesh holder.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Liv turned toward him, almost dropping the pen she held in her hand, and shook from the ferocious look on his face. He must’ve snarled, loudly, because he watched as she set the pen down and gulped.

  He wanted to take a deep breath, to calm himself, but something about the scene in front of him outraged him. Before he could find the words to apologize to her, Reaper and Hunter were in front of him and dragging him up the stairs. As they almost cleared the last step, he spotted the tears that flooded her eyes, and he sagged against his friends. They continued to drag him away until they reached his office and slammed the door, dumping him onto the chair without care.

  Reaper reached out and punched him in the face, and without bracing himself for the hit, his head snapped back.

  “You’re a fucking idiot. She’s a strong and radiant human who just figured out a way to save our sorry asses, and yet you treat her like a whore you can fuck and feed on, without an ounce of respect. If you don’t want her, then you tell her the truth and let her go. If you continue to string her along, then I will take her somewhere and you will never see her again,” Reaper growled.

  “No. Don’t fucking talk about her like that,” he snarled and pounced on the man.

  Reaper pushed him off and Kai slammed into the wall, the loud boom vibrating throughout the house. By the time he’d stood, Reaper had shifted, his form twice as large as a typical timber wolf, his lips pulled back over his sharp teeth. They snarled at each another, while Hunter, still in human form, guarded the door to prevent Liv from stumbling on the scene.

  “She’s my mate. I won’t let you take her from me.” His snarl was so low, the words stuttered out of his mouth.

  “You’re not acting like it,” Hunter said. “Have you even talked to her about mating and how it works?”

  “No. I’ve kept a lot from her, but I don’t want to take away her choice.”

  She doesn’t have a choice if she’s your mate. Reaper’s voice boomed in his head.

  “I don’t want her to love me because I’m her mate. I just want her to love me,” he admitted.

  The adrenaline that had been in ready supply the moment before drained at his confession, and he sagged against the wall, defeated. He lifted his head when Reaper whined, and watched the wolf as he transformed back into his human form. As he looked at his friend, he had no idea why he had been so angry just minutes before. He apologized, but the wolf waved it off, strode forward and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “What’s really going on?” Reaper asked.

  “She’s finished with her work,” Kai mumbled.

  Reaper glanced over at Hunter and both men shrugged, as if this news meant nothing.

  “Yeah, but she’s still here. She’s not demanding to go back to work, or asking Ghost to negotiate with the government to find out who made the bio-weapon in the first place. No, Liv is downstairs, testing my blood because she thinks that the antidote will work, because she’s worried for us. When most humans would be freaked out by our existence, she accepted us from the moment she learned of us. Not only has she accepted us, she thinks of us as her family, and she would defend any one of us, you most of all. Hell, she allowed you to feed from her, trusted you not to kill her. She’s remarkable, and you’re being a fuck,” Reaper growled.

  The silence stretched as Kai thought back on all of his friend’s words. Reaper was right. She wasn’t demanding to go back to work. She made no move to leave him, and yet he assumed that she would now that she had finished.

  He had never felt fear, true fear, in his centuries as a vampire, but everything about Liv scared the shit out of him. Human and fragile went hand in hand in his mind, but that fact was nothing compared to her deciding that he wasn’t worth her time, her love. He didn’t want to put himself in a place where she could possibly tell him that she would never love him. Not because he was a vampire, but because she was too good for him.

  “I see, every day, how perfect she is. Brilliant, funny, brave, and happy. I’m jealous of my own brothers—hell, even at Jade’s close relationship with Liv—but you guys make her happy, and for some reason, she cares for me. It hurt me that I had to come to her, broken and bloody, and watch the horror in her eyes because she thought she was going to lose me. I knew then, just as I’ve known the moment I spotted her, she’s my everything. I don’t know how to deal with that. I don’t even know how to tell her,” Kai said.

  Hunter and Reaper were silent, building up to something that would probably fill him with shame, but he should have been used to it by now.

  “We’ve been worried about you for a long time. Until Liv, you cut yourself off from us, and you wouldn’t talk about it. We didn’t know about Liv when you first saw her, but we knew something had changed, and we’re glad that you found your mate,” Reaper said.

  “I didn’t know,” Kai mumbled. “That wasn’t my intention.”

  “We know, but we won’t allow you to push us away any longer. We’re family, and we’re not going anywhere,” Hunter said.

  Kai nodded at both men, relieved and grateful for their earlier intervention.

  “You know she feels the same way about you,” Reaper said.

  He shook his head and looked up. “What do you mean?”

  “When Jade had arrived and you said her name, I spotted the flare of jealousy in Liv’s eyes. She made herself busy trying to hide her feelings from you, before she tried to escape as soon as she could. That is why Xander kept her in the kitchen and brought up shifting. We wanted to know if she was truly jealous, or if it was something else.”

  Feeling like an ass, the warmth in his chest grew as he thought about his Liv being jealous. He couldn’t help but think that she truly did care for him.

  “We know you’re unsure about where this might be heading, but you need to stop hiding from her and tell her the truth,” Hunter said.

  Kai froze at that advice.

  “There are no guarantees, but Liv is a one-of-a-kind woman, and she wears her emotions on her sleeves. We see that she cares for you, but she won’t put herself out there, especially if you don’t give her an indication that you feel the same way. Figure out how to either tell her or show her,” Reaper said.

  Kai dropped into the nearest chair. His mind rushed with a million thoughts, but for the first time since he’d brought her home, he thought about a future, with her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Olivia

  Liv peered into the microscope for the tenth time in as many minutes, but couldn’t concentrate on anything through the little viewfinder. She would have to start over with another slide.

  Instead of getting back to work, she sank down on her office chair and slid a hand through her unruly hair. Jade had disappeared somewhere upstairs and she had been left alone with her thoughts. She continued to see Kai’s face full of rage, over and over again. She had managed to make him angrier than he had been earlier; she seemed to have a knack for it, even though it hadn’t been her intention.

  It had been a long day. She had worked since early morning on the formula because she knew how close she was to finishing it, and if she were honest with herself, she needed a distraction from the voices that worked on the plan for the incursion at her old job.

  It had become worse when they had left, but nothing panicked her more than the look of Kai’s wounds as he was brought in. Her body shook as she watched him move, his strength; she never thought that she would ever see him in pain. But when she
had thought about his blood flowing out of his body, her heart jerked in her chest at the thought of losing him. Her mind roiled at the thought of never telling him how she felt. Several times as they made love, she came close to telling him, but something held her back. In the recesses of her mind, she feared his rejection. Feared that she didn’t mean as much to him as he did to her.

  She’d had several hours to think about his anger, and although she knew it could been have been aimed at her work and the constant danger they were under, she had to admit that his anger was directed at her, and her alone. When they had to pull him away from her, his eyes flashed at her, and when he snarled, it was because of her. Although it should have intimidated her, his fury had created a sadness inside her, and she had to come to the realization that he didn’t want her. He’d shown her passion, laughter, a sense of safety, but never a sense of being unwanted. Until now.

  Blinking the tears from her eyes, she put another slide under the microscope and added a drop of blood from Reaper, a drop of the antidote, and held her breath before she reached for the weapon. She steadied her hand, and then uncapped and added a micro drop onto the slide, capping the needle but keeping it in her hand. The reaction should have been immediate, but instead of the bio-weapon attacking and mutating the cells, nothing happened. She stood and blinked, feeling a split second of joy in her chest before reality sank in. She had really done it. And that meant that her time with Kai would be over. To make sure that she wasn’t imagining things, she bent down and glanced at the slide one more time. Again, nothing changed.

  To keep her mind off the pain that pulsated in her chest, she calculated the number of vials she had, and knew that she would have to create more in order for everyone to be vaccinated. But they would be, within the next couple of days. Again, she absently reached for the vials and counted out thirty-six for the shifters and fourteen for the vampires, before she grabbed the supplies she would need to complete the batch. Satisfied that everything was within reach, her hand reached for the first beaker, and paused when she spotted movement to her right.