Crimson Highlander (Onyx Assassins 2)

“Because we were too late!” She pushed back out of my arms, fury etched in every line of her face. “We were too late because I got distracted!”

Hawke slowed to a walk after looking us both over to make sure we weren’t injured.

“We both got distracted.” Nothing I could say would soothe her, and it was killing me. Daphne had been right there in our grasp, and we’d let her slip right through.

“Never again!” She jabbed her finger at me. “I don’t want this! I want my head back! My body back!”

“I know.” I felt exactly the same but wasn’t about to throw fuel on that fire.

“Stupid fucking bond!” She shook with rage, pivoting on her heels and walking toward the residence, where Lyric waited at the door.

“I’m guessing that didn’t go well?” Hawke asked, his face grim.

“I lost her.” The confession grated against my soul like broken glass.

“Daphne?”

“Yeah.” But I had a feeling it wasn’t just Daphne who had slipped away tonight. I’d lost Valor, too, and it hurt more than I was prepared to admit.

“We have some judgments to carry out if you feel like killing something,” he offered.

“Let’s go.”

8

Valor

“You’re dropping your shoulder,” Olivia said from across the mat. The training room in the residence had every kind of equipment to put one’s body to the test—including the thick blue mat where we stood. It was perfect for breaking my fall every time I was laid on my ass, which had happened several times today.

Lyric flashed me an apologetic look as she faced me, hands poised in an attack position.

“I’m. Human,” I breathed the words, the air tight in my lungs. We’d been training for the last hour at my insistence.

Sometimes I was an idiot.

“Yes, you are human, and I don’t care,” Olivia quipped. “You’re dropping your shoulder.”

I glared at her, but before I could complete the look, she appeared before me. Her delicate fingers dug into the soft flesh where my neck met my shoulder. “Pretend these are fangs,” she said, adding a bit more pressure to emphasize her point.

Adrenaline burst in my blood, hot and angry and desperate. I thought I’d trained my whole life to fight vampires and other supes, but in reality? The Sons’ regimens were nothing compared to Olivia’s. The difference, though? Olivia wasn’t holding back, wasn’t keeping her kind’s vulnerabilities to herself. She trusted me. Wanted me to be able to hold my own if some hellish scenario happened where the Sons aligned with rogue vamps to destroy us all.

I shifted my feet and dipped down as quickly as my human body would allow, then rolled out from under her grasp.

“Good,” she said, nodding before she glanced at Lyric. “Want to test what you’ve learned against me?”

My eyebrows shot up. Sparring with Lyric was one thing—my best friend would never truly harm me. But the unassuming, sweet and very deadly Olivia? Bodyguard to the freaking princess of the vampires? She might take a bite out of me just to push me to be better, stronger—probably why I liked her so damn much.

“Let’s do it,” I said, shaking out my limbs as Lyric flashed me a wink and hustled off the mat to join Avi on the other side.

Olivia flashed her fangs, and I’d be lying if I said my stomach didn’t crystalize with ice. Sure, we may have formed a different kind of bond—just like I had with Avi—but it didn’t mean I could shut off all my human instincts.

“Would you rather I pretend to be a different species?” Olivia asked as we circled each other. “I can mimic the tactics of the lycans, witches, dem—”

“Vampire,” I cut her off, curling my hands into fists.

Her lips turned up at the corners. She bared her fangs again, and this time I shifted into an attack position. She had speed and strength, but I had one advantage—she underestimated me. Not to any fault of her own—all supernatural creatures underestimated humans, and with sound reasoning. But even if my previous training hadn’t compared to this, I had been trained.

Olivia stood with all the grace and cunning of a vampire with a hundred years’ worth of experience over me. She didn’t need to shift positions or make fists. All she had to do was wait. And that confidence was my only opening. She expected me to attack head-on from the way I stood to face her—intentionally—but instead—

I used all my weight to drop like an anvil to the mat, swinging out my right leg and swiping out her ankles before she could blink. Olivia’s back hit the mat with a satisfying smack, and I hustled to leap over her and wrap my arm around her neck from behind. I hauled her up against me and used my free hand to reach for her bared fangs, stopping a centimeter away from touching one of them. “Pretend these are iron plyers,” I said, breathless, my cheek against her face as I held her back to my chest with all my strength.