Crimson Highlander (Onyx Assassins 2)

That familiar guilt ate and stung my insides. I should’ve gotten her out months ago. Years ago. I should’ve damned all my efforts to save money enough to make us disappear—even from the Sons—and just fucking done it. I shouldn’t have been afraid of my own father—

“You’re. Not. Going.” Lachlan’s words were enough to rip me from my shame fest.

I glared at him, then took off running down the hall as if I could find my way out of this place and run to The Clementine on my own.

I skidded to a halt when two very warm, very strong hands gently gripped my shoulders and pinned me against the nearest wall. I heaved a breath, my senses swarmed with all things Lachlan. His eyes were churning with want and anger and hate and lust, and fucking hell I wanted to kiss that damn look off his face.

“She means everything to me!” I snapped.

“I understand,” he said with lethal quiet. “But if you go, I’ll be…distracted.” He had to force the word out as if some invisible force had been choking him and he’d had to speak around it. “I won’t be able to focus knowing that you will be at risk of capture by those hate-filled, fear-mongering sons-of-bitches you used to call family.”

I snapped my jaw shut at his reference to the past-tense of my family. That acknowledgement alone cooled some of the flames inside me.

“What do you care if I got hurt? Or captured?” I swallowed hard, knowing I’d pay that price a million times over if it meant they’d get Daphne out.

He tilted his head, such a subtle, powerful move. “You know why.”

And I did.

It’s the same reason I’d felt like my skin was too tight the entire time he was in Ottawa. Felt like everything I ate was nothing but rusty nails and acid. I couldn’t sleep from not knowing if he was okay, and it was the most infuriating thing in the world. Why did people want this? A mating bond complete with nothing but a cosmic torture chamber of worry and fear and the absolute certain knowledge that if the other person died? You’d fucking jump right into that unknown with them. Because the alternative?

I blew out a breath.

The alternative of living a life knowing your mate wasn’t? It felt like a thousand hot pokers being stabbing in my chest over and over again. And that was just a thought. I could see the bastard right in front of me, smell him, feel him. He was fine. Safe.

For now.

What if my brother was there with Daphne? What if he had Night Thistle? What if he got Lachlan to get to me—

The breath in my lungs froze.

“It’s a two-way street,” I begrudgingly admitted, glaring up at the hulking highlander. I arched a brow at him. “If you get hurt? I’ll fucking kill you.”

Lachlan grunted, shaking his head. “I have no doubt, lass.” He released my shoulders, taking a few steps back. “Look at us,” he said. “Cooperating.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, almost to the other side of the hallway now. The distance felt like an ocean.

“Especially if you don’t bring her back completely unharmed. I want her laughing, Lachlan,” I demanded, despite knowing it would be unlikely. She’d been raised against all things that go bump in the night just like me.

“Laughing is Ransom’s department.”

“And yours is...?”

“Getting what I want,” he answered without a blink.

I jolted a little, heat rocketing through my core.

You are not what he wants, remember?!

Right. “You’re wasting moonlight.”

“You should go to bed,” he said, a slight smirk to his lips. “Dream of all the ways you’ll repay me when I get you what you want most.” He tilted his head. “I’m partial to red lipstick smeared on my cock.”

A warm shiver burst along my skin, but before I could fire something back, he blinked out of sight.

I walked on shaky knees back to my bedroom—right next door to his—and sank onto my bed.

I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t.

Not with how worried I was about Daphne.

And, if I was being honest, how every cell in my body agonized over Lachlan’s safety too. If something happened to him…

Nope.

Not going there.

I’d be free of the bond if he died.

The thought alone had me rushing to the bathroom. I puked into the toilet once, twice, before nothing else remained. I brushed my teeth and splashed cold water on my face before returning to the bed.

I didn’t love him.

Didn’t want his damn mating bond.

But I sure as hell wouldn’t survive anything happening to the bastard.

That terrified me enough to have me pacing my room for the remaining hours of moonlight. And when I knew dawn was just about to break the horizon, a cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck.

He should be back by now.