Assassin's Touch, Iron Portal #1

by London, Laurie

  Two worlds. Two enemies.

  Haunted by loss, Cascadian assassin Rickert D’Angelus is on a mission of vengeance. Determined to stop the Pacifican army from finding a portal to his world, he leads a group of warriors into New Seattle with one goal—to kill Pacifican soldiers.

  Neyla Trihorn had the perfect life until a deadly accident revealed her latent para-abilities. Now, the former fashion designer is the Pacifican army’s hottest commodity in their fight against the invaders.

  When Rickert discovers a beautiful, unconscious soldier on a cold mountain ledge near the portal, he realizes she’s a Protection-Talent and cannot be killed. To prevent the army from using her skills again, he takes her as his prisoner instead.

  One fated touch…

  But when he pulls her into his arms, a sexy and compelling vision appears, awakening something inside him. Something he can’t ignore.

  Torn between duty and passion, Rickert must decide if the vision is a Talent trick designed to foil the enemy or the answer to his deepest desires...

  ASSASSIN’S TOUCH

  By Laurie London

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2012 Laurie London

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Edited by Kim Nadelson

  Copyedited by Moonshell Books and Editorial

  Cover art/design: Patricia Schmitt (Pickyme)

  Cover photography: Jenn LeBlanc

  Formatted by LK E-Book Formatting

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  The uploading, scanning and distribution of this book in any form or by any means—including but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions of this work, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9882734-0-5

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my dear friend, Alexis Morgan. If it hadn’t been for your advice, this story wouldn’t have existed. I’m so glad I did as I was told.

  Thank you to Erin Kellison for her thoughtful and careful critique. This book is much better because of your input.

  To Janna and Mandy, beta readers extraordinaire, thank you for dropping everything and reading my stories in all their ugly glory. I love and appreciate you so much.

  To early readers Becky, Kathy, Kelly and Shelley, thank you!

  To my team of editors and cover designers (Kim, Shelley, Megan,Katz, Pickyme and Jenn), thank you for taking my creation and making it shine. You rock!

  To my family for putting up with my crazy writing schedule that doesn’t always coincide with our plans, thank you. I love you very much!

  And to you, my readers, thank you for coming along with me into a new story world. I count you as some of my greatest treasures.

  Dear Reader,

  I’m thrilled to share with you the first installment of the Iron Portal series, Assassin’s Touch. I’ve always been intrigued by stories about secrets—secrets that hide just beneath the surface of our world…and ourselves. And if we only knew where to look, we’d find them. The two worlds in Assassin’s Touch are hidden from each other and are very different. One modern. One medieval. But both are dangerous…and very sexy.

  The seeds of this story began several years ago as I was trying to find an agent and publisher for my vampire romance series. A wise author friend told me to work on something completely different while I was waiting, in case those books didn’t sell. The Sweetblood series did sell—to HQN Books and there are six stories published so far. So it wasn’t until now that I was able to carve out the time to finish Rickert and Neyla’s story. And I’m sure glad I did, because I fell in love with them all over again.

  As an avid horse-owner, I’ve been looking for ways to work horses into my stories, but, alas, I haven’t been able to figure out how to do it with my sexy Sweetblood vampires (although Jackson does wear Lucchese boots). Thus, the medieval world of Cascadia, Rickert’s home, was born. I may have gone a bit overboard in a scene on horseback, though…but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

  Happy Reading!

  Laurie

  Chapter One

  “Agent Trihorn!”

  Neyla jumped to her feet, stashing the book on the seat behind her. With her heart pounding in her chest, she steeled her shoulders and saluted.

  Where had Captain Gravich come from? Last she knew, he was two railcars away lecturing the recruits fresh from boot camp about the origins of the current conflict. Having endured that talk before, she assumed he’d be busy until they arrived at the station. She was such a fool for sneaking out her paperback.

  He stormed down the aisle, his irritation souring the already stale air like pungent body odor. The other soldiers in the car subtly moved away from her. She couldn’t blame them. No doubt they were thinking it was better that she took the brunt of their captain’s ire, not them.

  Sweat formed on her upper lip as he stopped just to her left, but she didn’t dare wipe it off. With eyes forward, she stood at attention, preparing for the onslaught.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He leaned in much too close—he’d had onions for breakfast. “We’re pulling into the Crystal Peak station in three minutes, but you’re obviously distracted and not ready. Where’s your damn head, Trihorn?”

  They were that close? God, the book had totally sucked her in, whisking her to a fictional world very different from her own. Although it did a good job of keeping her mind off things she didn’t want to think about, she was mad at herself for not being able to multitask a little better. She should’ve been paying attention to what was going on around her.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I won’t let it happen again.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him tap a meaty finger to his temple. “If I didn’t know you better, Trihorn, I’d think your heart wasn’t in this mission.”

  “It is, sir.”

  “I’m not so sure. You’re obviously unfocused and easily distracted. To be successful, you’ve got to feel it here.” He pounded a fist against his barrel chest, reminding her of a plump, preening bird. “You need to be passionate about what you do. Live it, breathe it. Focus on it at all times rather than on this—” He picked up her book and scowled. “—drivel. Otherwise, defeat and failure will follow you everywhere.”

  “Amen.”

  “Bravo.”

  She tried to ignore the bootlickers. “It’s just that...”

  But she couldn’t tell him why—especially not in front of everyone. Her fellow soldiers zeroed in on any sign of weakness like a pack of feral dogs, even one of their own. Plus, the fact that she’d received a direct commission as an officer and skipped the rigorous basic training hadn’t sat well with a few of them. She didn’t need to give them more fodder.

  “I am ready, sir.” Just then, the rail car jerked and she almost choked. Through some miracle, she managed to keep her balance without clutching at the overhead handle like a terrified idiot.

  Rather than tossing the book aside, Captain Gravich began to thumb through the pages. She kicked herself for daring to read a physical book. If she’d been reading an electronic version on her handheld, he’d have assumed she was working.

  “Well, look at this. An I-love-you-truly book.”
<
br />   Someone laughed.

  Oh great. This wasn’t going to be pleasant. If only she could melt into the seat behind her. She hated confrontation and had never been good at thinking on her feet anyway. The perfect thing to say always came five minutes or an hour after the fact, when she’d had plenty of time to mull things over.

  “Yes, sir,” she said simply. She didn’t need to justify her reading choices to him. If she did say something, it’d probably sound stupid and defensive.

  “Does it help you concentrate, Agent Trihorn?” The derision in his tone was obvious.

  She heard another snicker. What really made her cringe, though, was seeing Captain Gravich creasing the cover. She wanted to grab it out of his hands as if he were a child touching something he shouldn’t. She never bent her books that way. When she finished reading them, they still looked brand new.

  “Does it get you into the right frame of mind for this mission?”

  Guess reading a book filled with serial killers, heads on spikes, or unhappy people searching for inner peace would be more acceptable.

  Hoping this public humiliation would be over soon, she sucked up her pride. “I…I enjoy reading on the train, sir. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  His onion breath flitted across her cheek once. Twice.

  She stood her ground, looking straight ahead. How could she tell him that ever since the wreck last year—the one that had changed everything—she was terrified of anything that remotely reminded her of the inside of a train? When forced to ride in one, she did whatever she could to keep her mind elsewhere. Reading, doing crossword puzzles, using her favorite sketching app on her handheld. She used to listen to music, but given what had happened the last time she’d had earbuds in, she’d vowed not to make that mistake again.

  “Well, then, step lively,” he said finally, tossing the book down. “Our latest intel shows the portal might be closer than we thought. No doubt their men are guarding it carefully and will be waiting for us. We need your abilities as a Talent more than ever to have any hope of finding it and defeating the barbarians. They bombed another nightclub in New Seattle last night. Did you know that?”

  She tried not to appear too relieved that his interrogation was over. “Yes, sir. That’s terrible, sir.”

  It was all over the army news blogs. She’d seen the photos and videos of the destruction when she logged in this morning. Heaps of dusty red bricks littered the sidewalks, and blown-out windows gaped as dark as a devil’s mouth.

  One image, that of a young woman in tattered clothes and clutching a high-heeled shoe, stuck with her. Except for the brown hair, it could easily have been herself last year. Confused. Scared. Not sure why she was alive when so many others hadn’t been so lucky. She’d spent hours in the small hospital bathroom, trying to get the scent of burning flesh off her skin and out of her hair. As the days turned into months, she kept expecting the nightmares would fade, but so far, they hadn’t. Her memories were as vivid as ever.

  Neyla shivered and gave in to her need to fidget. Trying not to be too obvious, she bit the inside of her cheek and tapped her toes inside her boot. At least the Captain valued her as a Talent. That should count for something.

  “We’re going to find the bastards and bring them to justice.” With a grunt of dismissal, he finally stomped down the aisle.

  Thank God. He could make her life unbearable if he wanted to. From now on, she needed to do a better job of keeping her head in the game so crap like this wouldn’t happen. She tucked the book into her duffel, and when the doors of the train slid open, she shuffled onto the platform along with the other members of her unit.

  “If you slow us down on this mission like you did before, Trihorn, I’ll make sure it’s your last.” Although the voice hissed from behind, she knew it was Corporal Smythe. His buddies called him The Snake. Very fitting, if you asked her. She hated reptiles.

  “Promise?” She tried to disguise the word with a cough. In the time she’d been with the Special Tactics and Response Team, she’d grown tired of violence junkies like Smythe. Even if they did fight against vicious warriors from the Barrowlands, it didn’t make the situation any easier. Before her special abilities were discovered, the closest she’d come to warfare was sitting in front of her flat screen playing online video games with her brother.

  The Captain’s lecture about passion still echoed in her head, serving as a painful reminder of everything she’d lost.

  When the army ordered her to join the ranks as a Talent—though they preferred to call it an invitation—she was forced to sell her costume design boutique. She had nothing to return to now. Her customers had moved on. Her cute little shop, with its shabby chic décor, was now a coffee house. It was as if her former self had never existed.

  For the thousandth time, she cursed those warmongering barbarians for putting her in this situation in the first place. If they hadn’t slipped through their secret portals from the Barrowlands to bring death and destruction to her world, she wouldn’t be here, enduring life rather than living it. Without the train wreck, her Talent may have remained latent. And if not, it would simply have been a parlor trick, a silly game to pull on friends during happy hour at the Dungeness & Dragons Pub.

  At least her father had been proud of her before he’d passed away, and for that she was grateful. He’d said he always knew she had a Talent in her. That she was finally doing something worthwhile instead of wasting time making silly clothes for rich people to play dress-up.

  Shifting the duffel strap to the other shoulder as the platform filled up around her, she refocused her thoughts away from her own discomfort. She couldn’t forget that her special ability had prevented a lot of suffering—and deaths. She needed to see the bigger picture, to be woman enough to do what was right, not just what was easy or comfortable.

  “We don’t need you.” Smythe jammed an elbow in her back, causing her to stumble into another soldier.

  “What an ass,” she murmured.

  “Excuse me?” The guy in front of her turned around.

  Her cheeks heated with embarrassment. “Sorry. Not you.”

  “No worries,” he said, smiling. “The place is packed.”

  Though she didn’t recognize him, she did notice the thin, pale line of skin along his hairline. New military haircut equaled new recruit. And here she was starting off on the wrong foot with him.

  His glance darted to the Talent insignia affixed to her uniform. Though it was subtle, his upper lip puckered slightly, as if he’d bit into a lemon, and his eyes narrowed. Without waiting for her to say anything more, he turned around, leaving her to stare at his backpack.

  Even the START newbies welcomed her presence like a leper in a nursery. It was like they taught this stuff at boot camp.

  Wishing she wasn’t the only Talent on this mission, she stood on her tiptoes to scan the crowd for the twins, Jaden and Justina. Their bright red hair would be hard to miss. But since most of the soldiers were a good head taller, she wasn’t able to see much.

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and waited for Captain Gravich to address them. Soon they would be loaded into the transport vehicles and taken into the forest surrounding Crystal Peak. Unless he’d changed the latest plans, she’d be stationed behind her individual unit, the Fighting Red Wolves. This time, they were fairly removed from the front lines, which was good. Being in the field with the rest of the R-Dubs hadn’t exactly worked out well on their last mission.

  “We’ve never needed your Talent,” Smythe whispered, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the din.

  Not again. “Why don’t you just crawl away, Corporal, and stop bugging me?” And even though she shouldn’t, she added, “Somewhere, there’s a rock missing you.”

  He sucked in a breath through his teeth. Good. She’d pissed him off.

  From day one, she’d endured his nasty comments and his grade-school-bully pranks. Given what had just happened with Gravich, she really
wasn’t in the mood to deal with him now.

  “You’re dead weight, Trihorn. We’re better and faster without you.”

  She wanted to tell him to take it up with their superiors—they were the ones who insisted she be a part of the unit—but she kept her mouth shut. She’d baited Corporal Smythe enough already.

  * * *

  The rock formation felt cold and slightly damp as Rickert D’Angelus flattened himself against the side of Crystal Peak. He stood on a wide ledge just beneath the top of the cliff with a rain-swollen river raging hundreds of feet below. Low voices murmured in the darkness—at least three or four Pacifica soldiers. With the Iron Portal no more than a furlong away, the enemy was too close. He’d have to take them out here.

  Silently, he drew his blade and held it between his teeth. He found a toehold, but as he began to pull himself up, a warm sensation flitted across the skin of his forearms and he stepped back onto the ledge.

  Damn. A Talent.

  How could he have been so foolish as to not check for one of their army’s rare para-ability soldiers before he got this close? Even though it had been months since he’d encountered a Talent on this side of the portal, it was inexcusable for a Warrior of the Iron Guild to make a mistake of this magnitude. A mistake that could cost not only his life, but the lives of his men scattered throughout the area.

  Not daring to breathe, he hoped the bloke wasn’t a Telepathy-Talent or a Psychic-Talent. He’d sense Rickert for sure. When he realized the idiocy of that thought, he allowed himself a grim smile. If their Talent could read minds or see the future, Rickert would already be dead.

  With his body pressed against the rock wall, he wondered what tricks they were up to. Usually they kept those with para-abilities back with the commanding officer while the regular men did the fighting. They were too valuable to risk out in the field.