Marked by an Assassin (2 page)

The second recognition dawned in his gaze, he huffed and the blade disappeared, leaving his hand free so he could plough his fingers through his blue-black hair, pulling the longer lengths back from his face.

“It isn’t wise to barge in uninvited where elves are concerned.” Hartt slumped into his tall-backed black leather chair and blew out his breath as he dragged his hand over his face.

Harbin knew that, but he also didn’t care. His blood was burning too hot, running too fast. He wanted answers and he was going to get them.

“A snow leopard?” He grabbed the door and slammed it shut behind him.

Hartt slowly lifted his violet gaze to him and raised an eyebrow.

He also didn’t care that his chief didn’t approve of his aggressive behaviour. If they came to blows, it wouldn’t be the first time. Hell, it wouldn’t be the hundredth time. He had lost count of how many times he and Hartt had fought over something. Hartt was as hot-headed and hot-blooded as Harbin. Sometimes they just needed to blow off steam and the most trivial thing became something to fight over.

Nothing like a good brawl to release some tension.

“I’m not giving you the job.” Hartt held his gaze and then slowly raked his eyes down the length of him. “Have you looked in the mirror? You’re in no state to take on another mission right now.”

Harbin knew that, and he also didn’t give a damn.

A hot twinge rocketed up his left leg from his fractured tibia, as if his body was trying to emphasise Hartt’s point. Son of a bitch. He gritted his teeth and schooled his features, trying to hide the pain from Hartt. The elf merely sighed again.

“You need to rest and recuperate. Sit this one out.” Hartt straightened in his chair and began shifting papers around on his desk, a clear ‘you can leave now’ that Harbin chose to ignore.

This conversation wasn’t done.

It didn’t matter that he had just rolled back into the guild after tracking and eliminating multiple targets in a mission that had been demanding to say the least. There wasn’t another assassin in the guild who had the patience or balls to tackle such a job, one where they had to take out an entire party of demon mercenaries without alerting the others to the deaths of their comrades.

He had spent three weeks orchestrating it, slowly intervening to adjust the movements of each member of the group to his favour so he could separate them and deal with them individually but swiftly.

None in the guild had the strength to take down five demons of the Fourth Realm in one battle. Attempting to take them down one by one had been dangerous enough and difficult to say the very least. If they had grouped together, they would have easily overpowered him and sent him back to the guild in a box with their regards.

“You know you need your best tracker on this.” Harbin dropped his pack on the floor and eased down into the chair opposite Hartt, making it clear he wasn’t going to just leave quietly and forget this mission as his boss wanted.

Hartt’s violet eyes remained locked on what had to be a particularly interesting paper based on how much attention he was giving it.

“You don’t have an assassin here who can track like I can… and I know snow leopards. I’ll get the scent of the mark long before one of the others could find them without using their nose.”

“I don’t want you on this job. You have your orders, Harbin. Rest and recuperate.” Hartt deigned him with a quick glance, his sharp gaze pinning Harbin with a look that warned him to let it go.

It wasn’t going to happen.

“I’m taking this job.” Harbin settled both hands behind his head, masking his grimace as his left shoulder blazed in protest, and cupped his neck as he stared at Hartt. “And if you try to give it to someone else, I’ll hear about it and I’ll track them down and kill them.”

Hartt’s black eyebrows pinched in a frown. Harbin knew he was pushing his luck by threatening other members of the guild, but he needed to be back out there. He
needed
it.

Why?

He hadn’t crossed paths with a snow leopard in a long time. He had avoided them as best he could, spending most of his time in Hell and sticking to cities when he had to visit the mortal realm. He even avoided fae towns because they often had a small population of shifters residing in them.

Why was he so eager to place himself on a collision course with one now?

Hartt’s questioning look asked him the same thing, and he didn’t have an answer for the elf. It was just a need that burned inside him, a quiet voice that urged him to take the mission and discover why a snow leopard, one from a normally peaceful species, was the target.

That same quiet voice supplied that it was because he feared.

Harbin snorted at that.

He feared nothing.

No one.

Not anymore.

It was curiosity driving him. Plain and simple. He was curious to see what a snow leopard had done to make themselves the target of an assassination.

“Fine,” Hartt said, jolting Harbin back to the room. Before he could open his mouth to speak or move a muscle to leave the chair, Hartt’s expression turned flat and cold, silencing him and freezing him to the spot. “You get the job on the basis that it will be done as a team.”

Harbin growled. “I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”

Hartt flashed fangs at him. “You have one or you don’t get the job. Fuery is due to return. You’ll track the mark and we’ll meet you in five days, tracking you via your implant.”

Harbin stared across the black desk at the elf male. He had been on the verge of refusing to work with Fuery, a psychotic son of a bitch on the best of days, when Hartt had mentioned the royal ‘we’. Hartt was taking the job with him.

The bastard was coddling him.

He wanted to growl again at that but held it locked inside where his animal form shifted violently in response to his aggravation, wanting to tear into the male opposite him for daring to doubt him.

He drew in a deep breath to settle himself and blew it out slowly, finding a sliver of calm that he could cling to and that allowed him to see the reason for Hartt’s coddling in his purple eyes.

He was concerned and reluctant, and Harbin could understand that.

It had nothing to do with his current condition. Hartt knew his history. The elf had crossed paths with him at the darkest point in his life and Harbin owed him more than he had ever been able to put into words to tell him. Hartt had been the one to pick him up, give him a new place to call home, and a new purpose.

He had given him a new life when his old one had crumbled around him.

Harbin had spent two decades as an assassin, but he had also spent two decades devoted to tracking down and killing the people who had attacked his pride.

Archangel.

During those twenty years, he had slowly shifted from spending most of his time hunting Archangel members to spending most of his time carrying out assassination contracts on other targets. Hartt had been the one to guide him on that path, helping him track Archangel at first and then helping him let go of his past as best he could and move forward with his life.

Now, Harbin no longer lived to make Archangel pay. He lived to kill and he didn’t care who was a victim of his blades. He only cared about feeding his hunger. He craved the emotionless state that came before a kill. He had embraced the cold and methodical part of himself that allowed him to do his job without feeling a damned thing.

Without remembering the horrors of his past and that it was all his fault.

Harbin closed his eyes and ground his teeth, shunning the memories that tried to surface by focusing on his next mission. Forever looking forwards and never looking back at the ghosts that chased on his heels, the spectres of a time he didn’t want to remember. All that mattered was chasing the high of feeling nothing. Feeding the beast inside him. There was always a next mission. Another mark to put to the blade.

He slowly opened his silver eyes and fixed them on Hartt, the cold filling him as he shut down all of his feelings in preparation for the mission ahead.

The snow leopard was a mark and nothing more.

He would track them as Hartt requested, using his knowledge of his kind to his advantage.

And then he would kill them.

Aya’s back hit the wall with enough force to shake snow from the roof. It fell in a waterfall behind the male in front of her, a brief shield that gave them a flash of privacy as his mouth descended on hers. She shuddered from the fumbling clash of their lips and his taste as it flooded her senses, drawing all of her focus to him and bringing every nerve to life within her. She moaned into his mouth as he found his stride and his kiss turned passionate and demanding.

Possessive.

Her body heated, fire sweeping through her as she desperately tangled her fingers in his hair and clung to him, riding the storm of the new feelings and sensations as they bombarded her.

He groaned, the sound a sweet hit of pleasure that her body responded to against her will, arching into his. A solid wall of muscle and power greeted her, pressed against her and made her only quake for more.

His hands clamped down on her, one grasping her right hip and the other burrowing beneath her fall of silvery hair to grip the nape of her neck, holding her in place against him. She shuddered again, a fierce hot shiver that he responded to by angling his head and deepening the kiss, leaving no part of her untouched.

The voice of reason surfaced at the back of her mind, telling her that she shouldn’t be doing this, but she shoved it aside, ignoring it as she began to kiss him back, attempting to match his fervent passion.

She bravely met his tongue with hers and fought back, earning a husky growl as her reward. His grip on her tightened and she flinched as his fingertips pressed in with bruising force.

Desire instantly turned to panic. The heat of passion became a cold prickling down her spine. Her chest tightened, lungs seizing as she fought his hold but he refused to let her go.

No.

Screams rose around her, the terrified shrieks of young and old alike, and she shoved at the male’s chest, battering him and trying to break free of his hold. The man said something and only gripped her harder, his voice no longer matching the deep one that had teased her ears just moments before. She opened her eyes and stared into his cold dark eyes, seeing a different male before her. A mortal male. Fear crashed over her as the scent of blood assaulted her and the white world she loved so dearly was painted red beyond him.

No.

Aya twisted her hands free and shoved hard at his chest, sending him stumbling backwards and slipping on the icy ground. She broke right, skidding herself as her boots fought for purchase. Ahead of her, two more men in black fatigues dragged an unconscious male member of her pride across the snowy square in the centre of her village. A woman with blonde hair spilling from underneath her black skullcap followed them.

Her green eyes swung towards Aya and narrowed.

She said something and pointed towards her.

Aya’s heart leaped into her throat as she heard the man behind her getting to his feet and dodged right again, heading between the two small wooden framed buildings, clutching the pale grey stone bases that supported the black beams and plaster walls, keeping the delicate structure off the permanent snow, for support as she did her best to run. The scent of blood grew stronger and hot tears spilled down her cheeks as she ran towards the source of the smell. She had to help them.

A male twisted into her path when she reached the wider street at the end of the alley, his agonised wail cutting short as he fell to the snow. He landed face down in the white powder and she skidded to a halt beside him.

“We have to move.” She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up, determined to help him flee the battle that had erupted in their peaceful home.

Her eyes darted around, heart pounding as she scoured her mountain village for more mortals, fearing they would catch her and the male if they didn’t move quickly. They had to escape. Her gaze shot right, towards the edge of the village and a path that would take them up the dangerous rocky peaks in the distance there. If she could gather as many of her kin as she could and guide them there, they could shift and escape the mortals.

“Come on.” She tugged at the male.

He didn’t respond so she manoeuvred him onto his back so she could grasp him by his arms and drag him to safety.

Her blood chilled and she snatched her hands back.

Dull lifeless eyes stared up at her, his pale skin splashed with crimson that soaked the ground where he had been laying.

Aya stared back at him, her skin prickling and her mind going blank.

She slowly shook her head, refusing to believe what she was seeing. It wasn’t possible.

She lifted her chin and looked in the opposite direction to the mountain path, her gaze sweeping over the madness unfolding there, struggling to make sense of what was happening. Black shadows moved everywhere, attacking her kin.

Killing her kin.

Aya’s lips flattened and then peeled back off her short fangs, all thoughts of running leaving her as she took in the pandemonium that had erupted in her peaceful home. She growled and shoved off, leaping over the dead male and heading for the second square ahead of her, where several females were attempting to fend off another group of shadowy figures. She tore at her clothes, stripping off the layers as she sprinted hard. One of the females went down as she attempted to protect a young boy. Aya snarled and her claws grew at the same time as her fangs.

She roared as she reached the end of the alley between the small houses and leaped high into the air. Pain shot through her bones as they transformed and silvery thick fur swept over her body. She came free of her clothes at the apex of her jump and growled through her teeth as she began to descend, heading straight for two males.

The click and slide of metal on metal stole her focus and she snapped her head up, her eyes settling on the third man in the clearing.