By the Horns

by Rachael Slate

  Enter a secret guild of assassins…

  As a member of the Lotus League, Natalie Quan is as lethal as she is invisible. Her newest mission brings her to Malaysia, and straight into the arms of the man she relinquished to her past. The only man who has ever seen through her outward façade to her soul. And the one who stands between her and her goal of hosting one of the twelve spirit animals of the Chinese Zodiac—the Snake. To keep the Snake and finally defeat the demon of her past, she’ll have to slip into one more disguise.

  Some masks never hide the truth…

  The last person Kassian Weld, Chosen of the Ox, expects to be named their newest member is Natalie. Years ago, she disappeared without a word. Now, she’s back with a sexy air of confidence, tempting him to end his pledge of celibacy. Despite her claims of being a capable assassin, no way in hell will Kassian allow Natalie to host the Snake—a volatile spirit. Yet, Natalie is as driven to succeed as Kassian is determined to ensure she fails.

  The vows that brought them together threaten to tear them apart…

  Natalie is bound to the Lotus League, Kassian is devoted to his oaths, and they are both sworn to their fates as Chosen. The forbidden spark of desire reigniting between them threatens to consume their destinies. But when Kassian unmasks Natalie’s darkest secret, they’ll risk every vow they’ve taken for one chance to seize passion together…by the horns.

  BY THE HORNS

  A CHINESE ZODIAC ROMANCE

  RACHAEL SLATE

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Rachael Slate

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  First Edition July 2015

  Edited by AJ Nuest and Kelley Heckart

  Cover design by NovelArt Designs

  Tribal Artwork by Jeanette Palafox

  Formatting by NovelArt Designs

  ISBN 978-0-9947648-3-6

  For Heather. Thank you for sharing your spark.

  Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

  645 days since the first outbreak of the Red Death

  The nose never failed to seal the disguise.

  Natalie Quan flashed the customs officer a smile as he stamped and handed back her passport. The name on the document read, “Jason Wong,” but the latex prosthetic nose she sported precluded any questioning of her gender. That and the tube socks she’d stuffed into the front of her slacks.

  She proceeded from the customs agent booth to the inside of the main terminal. Kuala Lumpur’s airport might as well have been made for ants. Tiny, indistinctive creatures. Exactly what she imitated.

  The lethal threat no opponent ever saw coming—a shadow.

  No, a Lotus.

  She hefted her large black duffle over her shoulder and headed outside. While it might have been easier to hire a private jet for this trip, doing so wouldn’t have gifted her with the same advantage of anonymity as a commercial flight. Staff gossiped. If one person asked who the hell she or “he” was, her carefully constructed invisibility would be shot.

  A single moment of letting down one’s guard was all it ever took. Her hand drifted to her collarbone and the healed bullet wound, fingertips grazing the small ring of raised, smooth flesh.

  Call her overly cautious, but she’d never make the same mistake twice.

  A blast of suffocating, humid air engulfed her as she passed through the doors. She hailed a taxi with one hand while adjusting those damned tube socks with her other.

  One benefit of being a man? She touched herself and no one paid attention.

  The sweet caress of AC greeted her inside the cab. As she rattled off the address in a gruff voice, her stomach twisted into knots.

  The good kind.

  Six long years, she’d awaited this moment. At last, her chance to shed her past. To be reborn, as much as any soul could be renewed without dying. No more shadow-life for her.

  Tonight, she would become a Chosen.

  After about twenty minutes, the taxi pulled around to the alley of a four-storied, red-roofed, dilapidated building. Through the rearview mirror, the driver sent her a “you sure about this?” look, eyebrows raised above his dubious eyes. She’d bet if the man had any clue she was actually a girl, he’d never let her out of the cab. Not in this ghetto.

  Ignoring his questioning stare, she handed him the fare and shuffled out, slugging her duffle along with her. The taxi peeled off. She resisted the urge to pace in the alleyway, counting to ensure no one had followed her. She’d covered her tracks. Anyone searching for her would have scanned the flight manifests for a woman, not a man.

  Nat forced her fingers not to brush across her scar and knocked on the steel door instead. The lesson had been hard-earned, but she’d never screw up again. Rap-rap, tap tap tap. Less than a heartbeat later, the door opened.

  An elegantly manicured hand with crimson nails beckoned. “Come in, come in, sayang.” The Matchmaker always addressed Nat using the Malay term for “love.”

  Steeling her resolve with a deep breath, Nat did as told and stepped inside. The heavy door banged shut behind her. The Matchmaker was the sole person on Earth she trusted. With her life, her soul, her heart. This woman had held Nat’s fate in her hands for the past six years.

  The Matchmaker was as mysterious as she was powerful. How powerful, no one knew for sure, but rumors abounded. She held a seat on the Council of Elders. The group of bureaucrats ruled beneath the Jade Emperor—the monarch of all the deities in Heaven. She was also the head of the Lotus League, the female leader of the Hai San Kongsi, and a professional matchmaker. Yep, her boss wore a lot of hats.

  “Well, let me get a good look at you.” The Matchmaker tilted her head, long, straight black locks brushing her waist. The corner of the woman’s mouth curved as she examined Nat’s manly appearance. “Hmm. Nice detailing, especially the nose.”

  “Thanks.” Nat smiled as she peeled off the broad, flat prosthetic, perhaps for the last time. Just in case, she placed the nose in the small box inside her duffle. Digging her nails under the wig, she stripped off the shorthaired black weave and bald cap. She shook out her long, curly, dark auburn locks and sighed.

  The Matchmaker handed her a traditional Chinese dress like the one she wore and ushered Nat into a closet. The red silk design would be the first feminine item she’d worn in a week. The dress fit like a glove. She had this tailored for me. Her boss had always looked out for her. After dressing, Nat applied adhesive remover to the strip of fake stubble on her chin and peeled it off.

  “Ready?” Through the door, a hint of eagerness coated her boss’s normally smooth tone. Not for a minute did Nat forget how important this decision was to the other Chosen.

  Or worry she wouldn’t be the one they wanted.

  The Chosen were just that. Chosen by the Jade Emperor to host the twelve warrior spirit animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Together, the host and the spirit animal defended the Earth against imbalance, like the Red Death—a plague that had decimated almost a third of the world’s population over the last couple of years. The spread of the lethal disease had tipped the world’s yin and yang—complementary concepts of light and dark, fire and water, male and female—off-balance. Until the Chosen defeated the Plague God and restored this balance, humankind spiraled toward extinction.

  Tonight, Natalie wouldn’t be chosen, not by the Jade Emperor, at least. The spirit of the Snake had been stolen from its host by one of the Matchmaker’s Kongsi members
. A Shèhúnzéi—Spirit Thief—Lucy, had snatched the Snake from its previous—and evil—host, a man named Zhao. Natalie had memorized every detail of the assignment over the past week. Ever since the Matchmaker handed her this new task.

  “Coming, Matchmaker.” What if the woman was wrong? What if the Snake didn’t accept her? Just because she’d been born in the Year of the Snake didn’t ensure compatibility, but she was a descendant of one of the Eight Immortals—Zhongli Quan. Only those with immortal heritage could become Chosen.

  Enough. She smoothed her skirt, straightened her shoulders, and assumed the air of confidence she’d spent the last six years perfecting. No matter what turmoil churned inside her soul, no one would detect her anxiety.

  She twisted the knob and stepped out of the closet. “Thank you again, Matchmaker, for this great and honorable responsibility. I am ready to meet the Chosen.” She inclined her head in deference.

  The Matchmaker’s obsidian eyes glinted. The knots inside Nat’s stomach twined again, weaving from excitement and anticipation to uncertainty over the unknown.

  What was her scheming boss up to? Her mind flashed over every aspect of this mission, but none stood out. She stomped down on her nerves and followed the Matchmaker up a set of creaky stairs and into a narrow corridor. Down the flowery wallpapered hallway, the Matchmaker paused at a set of wooden doors and her hand gracefully swept outward to indicate Nat should proceed first.

  She glanced at the woman, but whatever mischief had flashed in her expression disappeared. Focused back on the room, she combined every ounce of her control to stop her hand from trembling as she hauled open the solid hardwood door.

  Candlelight from dozens of lanterns illuminated the figures in the room.

  Four men and a woman. Both unfamiliar to her, one man and the woman stood entwined. Another man she didn’t recognize flanked the side.

  Then there was him.

  The air cut off in her throat. It can’t be him. Despite her denial, there was no mistaking the man standing before her. He wasn’t the tallest person in the room, but he was the largest for sure. Her gaze tripped on his feet, encased in shiny black loafers. Dark charcoal slacks hugged his thick, powerful thighs. A casual navy blue dress shirt stretched across his massive chest, the sleeves rolled at the elbows to reveal sculpted forearms and brawny biceps flexing as he raked a hand through his short hair.

  What the hell was he doing here? Swallowing hard, she forced her focus upward to his face and the disdain she knew would greet her.

  She skimmed past his strong, rugged jaw and searched for the slight bump in his nose from when he’d broken it at age fifteen. Check. His father was Chinese, his mother Australian, and his mixed heritage lent his features an exotic, striking decadence. Dark olive eyes—the shade between deep green and rich brown. An unmistakable hue. And lower, firm, seductive lips that would reveal a dimple on the right side when he smiled. Which he definitely wasn’t doing right now. Those lips pressed tight as a tic worked his jaw.

  Kassian. Dammit, Matchmaker. You should have warned me.

  He dropped his hand from his spiked dark locks. The shock of seeing her must have worn off because those eyes that had widened narrowed, reflecting the hard, cold depths she imagined they did every time he thought of her.

  ***

  “Fuck, no.” The words slipped from Kassian’s mouth as the hallucination in front of him cast a glare of pure betrayal toward the Matchmaker, who stood at her right. Sheng placed a hand on Kassian’s arm, likely Tiger trying to calm Ox.

  He’d never cursed in front of the Matchmaker before. To be honest, in this moment, he didn’t fucking care. No way in hell was Nat standing in front of him.

  And no bloody way would she be the new Snake.

  Skewer him and roast him over a pit, because he’d never allow that shit to happen unless he was good and dead. “Fuck.” He shoved off Sheng’s hand. Ox wasn’t agitated. His warrior spirit animal and the others in the room awaited this new Chosen with calm anticipation. Not the blend of puke-your-guts-out turbulence and raging fury storming through Kassian’s body.

  “Ox?”

  “Kassian?”

  Both Sheng and Nat addressed him at the same time. He scraped his hands down his face, trying to scrub away the image of Natalie Quan, the girl he’d known since she’d been in diapers.

  No such luck. She continued to gawk at him like he gaped at her.

  “Natalie is a member of my Lotus League.” At the Matchmaker’s declaration, he whipped his disbelief back to her. Lotus League? Oh, hell no. Nat would never have joined the Matchmaker’s secret gang of assassins.

  Right? He studied her. She clasped her left wrist just below the flowering tattoo of a Lotus. Hot damn. He recognized the tat as one all Lotus members bore, but he couldn’t reconcile Nat sporting the symbol. Hell, but she’d changed. In place of the waif-like girl of seventeen he’d last seen six years ago, stood a woman, with every charm the Matchmaker had apparently bred into her. Her long auburn hair curled to the middle of her back and dark lashes framed her large cocoa eyes. Like his dad, her father was Chinese. Her mother, Caucasian. The combination made her a bewitching beauty.

  “You know each other?” Sheng, their leader, questioned again. Fuck him.

  Kassian directed his statement straight at the Matchmaker. “This isn’t happening.”

  Before the shrew had a chance to counter, he cloaked Ox’s spirit. The spirit formed a haze around him as he charged forward, snatched Nat by the legs, and hauled her over his shoulder.

  He burst through the door, thudded down the stairs, and yanked open the alleyway door. In the back of his mind, he registered the rhythmic pounding of Nat’s fists on his back. Screw her protests. He’d send her back to wherever she came from on the next flight out. Fate of the world be damned, he’d be dead before Nat accepted the Snake.

  Let the Matchmaker scheme her way around that.

  On auto-pilot, Ox stormed through the streets. He braced for Sheng’s Tiger to rein him in but, for once, his friend didn’t butt in. Together, the other Chosen might be able to take Ox down, yet, with the mood he was in, they knew better than to try.

  The streets blurred; Kassian surrendered control to Ox. He shouldn’t—he ought to be the one wielding the leash, but his mind was fucked. He required a moment, just a damn minute, to figure out what had happened back there.

  He rolled his shoulders, jerking back from the recess his mind had taken, and uncloaked the beast. What the hell? Ox had brought him to his flat, not the airport.

  The instant he resumed control, a sharp jab struck his side, followed by a searing pain in his right collarbone. He howled and hunched. Nat toppled over his shoulder and onto the floor, and he followed, catching her head before it cracked on the tiles of his foyer.

  “What the hell, Kassian!” She shoved at his chest.

  “Where the fuck have you been, Nat?” Because she sure as hell couldn’t have been where the Matchmaker claimed. Six years ago, Nat had sent that cruel text. He’d searched for her, camped out at her family’s house, and nothing. Tonight, she appeared out of the blue?

  “Get off me and let me go!” Her long, reddish brown locks fanned around her head, and the scent of coconut suntan lotion teased his nostrils, provoking long-suppressed desires. Her soft, curvy body cushioned his—the first woman he’d handled in years. His cock responded, blood rushing from his head to that damned organ.

  Fuck. He shot to his feet, backing away from the temptation. The past three years, his life had been a clean slate of celibacy and abstinence. No more drunken player/frat boy. He’d dumped that shmuck’s ass in his past.

  No way in hell would he revisit that chapter of his shitty life.

  Kassian raked his fingers through his spiked hair, attempting to regain control of the shaky, labored inhalations of his lungs. Function, dammit.

  On the floor, Nat propped on her elbows, her lithe body displayed in an enticement he was certain she didn’t intend to offer.
Didn’t help that her low-cut, red silk Chinese dress fit like a glove. The slits on either side were cut to an indecent height, leaving almost nothing to his imagination about what kind of panties she wore.

  Thong…or nothing at all?

  Subtle, Matchmaker. Waving a red flag in front of a bull? He snorted.

  Nat’s long lashes fanned across her cheeks as she lowered them. He opened his mouth to apologize for acting the brute, but her head shifted to the left and right. The muscles in her forearms tensed an instant before she sprang to her feet and sprinted toward the open door.

  She was fast, but he was faster. He lunged for the door, slamming into the frame a second before she did. Snaring her waist with his arm, he hauled her against his body while kicking the door shut and locking it with his free hand.

  She rammed her elbow into his side, stomped her left foot on top of his, and swung back to slug his nose. He blocked her and clinched her arms, restricting her movements and any chance of further resistance.

  “Dammit, Natalie. Stop.”

  “Let me go!” She squirmed, creating the worst kind of friction as her ass ground against his front. Her bloody pheromone-ridden hair teased his nostrils while she bucked, seeking any weakness in his grip. He locked his arms around her, the constriction plumping her breasts and giving him more than an eyeful of her plush flesh.

  Bloody hell, he needed to get laid. Three years of abstinence had been a blessing to him until this very moment, when it fucked him over.

  ***

  Was there an inch of Kassian that wasn’t pure, rigid muscle? Doubtful. As Natalie butted against him again, the solid steel enveloping her constricted harder.

  “Promise to stay put, and I’ll release you.” The rumble of his Australian accent purred into her ear, echoing deep into her core.

  Damn. After six years of meticulous training, why was she breaking rule number one?

  Never get distracted by a target.