Crimson Highlander (Onyx Assassins 2)

I opened my mouth and shut it. She had me, and she fucking knew it. There was no way I’d let her waltz into unknown danger.

“That’s what I thought. Let’s go. The guy forgot to set the alarm on his way out. The keypad didn’t flash. I watched the kitchen window.”

I looked over my shoulder at the house, my vision switching to thermal. No one was home.

“The sooner I can get a message to Daphne, the faster we can get her out, which means I’ll be out of your hair.”

The relief I was supposed to feel with that statement didn’t hit, which meant I was already…what? Adapting? Shit,was I in serious danger of actually acting on this bond between us? You can’t. Did I want to fuck her? Obviously. But spending an eternity in arguments like this? Hard pass.

“Fine,” I growled. I led armies of men, and yet somehow this slip of a woman was putting me through the fucking wringer, and that had to stop.

It took less than two minutes for us to slip inside the house and into the first-floor bedroom, where Valor wiggled her ass under the bed.

I dropped beside her, bracing myself on my palms, and watched her remove a small, wooden panel in the floor. She pulled out two romance novels, a pen, and a spiral notebook opened to a page where the handwriting altered every few lines.

“We had a system,” she whispered, even though there was no one here, and scribbled a single line beneath the last entry. It was an email address.

She put everything back in place with an efficiency I appreciated almost as much as I was appreciating the spectacular view of her ass in those jeans.

“They won’t keep any intel here, so don’t bother searching.” She shimmied out from under the bed and climbed to her feet.

I beat her to the door, scanning our surroundings just in case. Everything about the house was impersonal, like one of those vacation rentals you could book on the internet. There wasn’t even a dish in the sink. No wonder these people were hard to track. They didn’t leave anything trackable.

A minute later, Valor and I climbed back into the Rover.

“Thank you,” she whispered, looking toward the house with so much longing that I felt the physical ache of it through our bond. How the hell was it that strong already? I hadn’t even kissed her, let alone fucked her or fed from her.

“Now what?” I asked, my voice rough as I started the engine. We needed to keep busy, to move to the next actionable item that would help get her out of my life before biology kicked into gear and made us both miserable—made it impossible for me to let her go.

She sighed, settling into the seat and laying her head back against the leather headrest. “Now we wait.”

Yeah, that was exactly what I was afraid of.

4

Valor

I clenched my jaw shut, refusing to let it drop open.

Lyric paused on my right, her arm hooked in mine as she led me into one of several grand ballrooms used by vampire royalty in the residence.

Crystal chandeliers, matt black linens, a string quartet, and enough delicacies served on silver platters to make my mouth water.

The scene before me was a far cry from the macabre pictures my family had painted my entire life. Those special bedtimes stories depicting the supernatural beings in every manner of malice.

Vampires who pinned humans to the wall with railroad spikes, delighting in their blood whenever they felt hungry. Lycans who used their serrated teeth to shred little girls to ribbons. Witches who would cast spells without so much as uttering a word—one blink, and your body and mind would be under their control for as long as they wished. And the demons—a shiver raced down my spine recalling the stories revolving around them—malicious entities with unchecked power who could slip between spaces in time like shadows in the night.

Were any of them true? Or had my family simply come from a long line of jealous and fearful ignorant people? Terrified of what they couldn’t understand and angry because they didn’t possess the powers these creatures were born with.

I’d seen firsthand what hate and fear combined could do. Add to it a centuries-old grudge?

I shook my head, my heart aching in my chest. Daphne was in the middle of it all. I should’ve gotten her out before I sought out Alek to help Lyric…but I’d been frantic. They were going to kill my best friend, and I’d foolishly thought Daphne would be safe until I came back.

I had to get her out.

Had to find her before the Sons ground her into a shell of the firecracker she was.

I’d already given up intel on them in order to uphold my end of the bargain, and if the Order was impressed, they hadn’t led on. Not surprising, with centuries-old training. But Lachlan? He’d been surprising—the coffee, the stakeout, the small moments in the silence where I thought I’d burst from wanting him.