Crimson Highlander (Onyx Assassins 2)

Her shoulders slipped slightly. “It’s not any easier for me to send you out there night after night.”

“As if you’d care if I come back.” I lifted my lips in a wry smile. “At least you’d be free of our little arrangement sooner, right?”

Hurt flashed across her eyes. “Of course, I care. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Just like that, all the fight drained out of me. She cared. I knew that. But I loved her, and that was the difference. “It’s not a want with me, Valor. I need you to stay safe. I need my head clear while I’m in the field, and if you’re there, I’ll only focus on getting you out alive.”

She swallowed, and the air between us grew tense, not just with the words we’d hurled at each other, but the ones we hadn’t.

In twenty-four hours, we’d have Daphne back and hopefully one less Sons of Honor facility to worry about. In twenty-four hours, the hunt would be over, but so would the bargain that Valor and I had struck. She’d take her cousin and walk away without even bothering to look back.

It shouldn’t have hurt—I’d known the terms when I’d agreed to them—but my chest felt like someone had sliced me open just to shred my heart. There was nothing I could offer Valor to keep her here. She was slipping through my grasp like sand.

“Please, Valor.” Please what? Stay? Love me? Accept the bond the way I knew I already had?

“Fine. Call them back in. I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

I made my way around the table and took her face in my hands. “Thank you. I wouldn’t be able to breathe if anything happened to you.” My lips brushed a kiss over hers.

“I’m still pissed at you.”

I kissed her again. “I know.”

16

Valor

Ice raced through my veins, drenching every last inch of me in undiluted terror.

I’d spent the last hour of the night explaining all I could to the assassins about the facility I’d designed—and had no idea had actually been built. Because they couldn’t possibly stage a rescue mission during the day, they’d have to wait out the sun, and I was doing whatever I could to help…because that’s what Lachlan needed to hear. To see.

An agreeable—if not angry—mate.

But now, back in Lachlan’s room, waiting, my heart and mind aching from the plan I’d formulated…fuck, I could barely breathe around the pain clogging my lungs.

The facility they held her in wasn’t about protecting Daphne.

This was about hurting me.

Torturing me.

This was a trap for Lachlan. For the Order. My new family.

My mate.

I held my hand over my chest, acid crawling up my throat. I couldn’t lose Lachlan. I would not survive the blow his loss would deliver. And somehow, it seemed, my brother knew that. Knew about my mate. Whatever leak the Order’s royalty and aristocrats had—some weak link my brother had exploited, no doubt—had informed him of this.

And now he knew I had an even bigger weakness than Daphne, as close as my love for both of them was, Lachlan…he was…

Everything.

He’d become everything.

From enemies, to partners, to friends.

To mates.

I couldn’t live in a world where he didn’t exist. And he and the Order thought themselves invincible. Sure, they had good reason. They’d been the power of the supernatural world for centuries. But they were vulnerable. My hand in rediscovering Night Thistle had seen to that, and the fortress I’d designed? It didn’t matter that I’d told them everything I knew. Kyle had no doubt improved on the deadly design.

And even though the assassins had seen firsthand what the poison could do, I had no doubt my brother had every team under his control working endlessly on perfecting and weaponizing it. Upping the potency of the poison, synthesizing it to make the effects last longer even with just a graze.

I knew this, because I’d suggested it all those years ago.

Fuck my life.

Fuck me.

I was going to be the reason everyone I’d ever truly loved would die.

Another stone settled in my stomach, a bolder joining it on my chest. I couldn’t, wouldn’t let that happen.

Not when I could stop it.

When I could finally put an end to this.

A loved one needs to die, but it won’t be Lachlan.

I’d take his place, Daphne’s place...Kyle wanted me more anyway.

Tears stung the backs of my eyes as I waited in Lachlan’s room. Waited for him to come to me like I knew he would.

How could he not? When after our argument, I’d done nothing but send my deepest longings and desires shooting straight down our bond.

Our bond—that delightfully, beautiful thing that had the capability of burning us both. Searing our souls until one could not exist without the other.

I’d reached that point, I knew it in the very depths of my soul because of what I was about to do. The absolute betrayal I would deliver.