Crimson Warrior (Onyx Assassins 3)

Alek’s gaze shifted to my right.

“Because I know where they sleep,” she said quietly.

My head snapped her direction. “You what?” No one knew where the six had entombed themselves for this exact reason. They’d made it pretty clear that they didn’t want to be awakened for fun.

“I assume you still know how to go home?” Alek asked her.

“Sure do. Turn left at Russia. If you hit the North Pole, you’ve gone too far,” she quipped, dropping her head to her hands. “You have to send someone else.”

“They’re your parents,” Lachlan argued, “Lady Sorokin.”

“And they have no clue what I actually do!” She jerked her face up, and her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen. “Have you met my mother?”

Alek cleared his throat. “She’s a very…intense woman.”

Olivia snorted. “Sure. That’s a word for it. Didn’t you ever wonder why a woman so determined to see her daughters married and mated would let her youngest enter the service of the crown as a bodyguard? She thinks it’s unseemly for a woman to arm herself, let alone—” She dropped her head into her hands again. “Ugh! Send. Someone. Else.”

“That explains the email,” Alek grumbled.

“What email?” I asked.

“The Duchess Sorokin responded to my request saying she’d only discuss it in person with her daughter since I liked to hide my sister’s ladies in waiting away and sever their communications with the outside world.”

“Omigod,” Olivia mumbled into her hands.

I laughed out loud. “The fact that she thinks your sister even has ladies in waiting is amazing.”

Olivia looked over at me slowly, narrowing her eyes.

“Oh, come on, how bad can it be?” I shrugged. “We’ll go show our faces for the thirty seconds we’ll be allowed to live before awakening the most bloodthirsty vampires the world has ever seen!”

“That’s. Not. It.” Red crept up her neck until she was full-on blushing.

“Well, whatever you haven’t said has to be good,” I teased, hoping to earn a smile.

“About forty years ago, my mother demanded I leave service,” she said quietly, her eyes focused on the table. “She said she was sending her guard to Avianna’s school and that I’d be returning with them.”

“But you obviously didn’t,” Lachlan noted.

“Right. Um.” She flinched, slamming her eyes shut. “I kind of sort of told her I couldn’t possibly leave service because my mate was also in service, and it was unethical to separate us while he was devoting his life to the crown.”

You could have heard a motherfucking pin drop.

Something ugly shot through my veins, twisting up my insides. “You’re mated?” It was more of a growl than I was willing to admit.

She flinched.

“All this time? All these years, we’ve been friends, and you’ve never once told me that you’re fucking mated?” My temper rose swift and harsh. “Who the fuck is he? Why isn’t he here at the estate?” I blanched. “Wait, is he at the estate?”

“No!” she shouted at me. “He doesn’t exist! I’m not mated!”

Relief slammed into me so hard that I sagged in my chair.

“But you told your mother you were,” Alek said, putting it together. “So she’d leave you alone about your feminine duties so you could serve as Avianna’s bodyguard.”

What the fuck had I flown off the handle for? Olivia wasn’t mine. She didn’t even see me that way. Her scent had never once leaned that direction in my presence.

So why the hell had I been enraged at the thought of her being mated to someone else?

“Exactly. And I know I dishonor you by lying to my mother—” Olivia responded.

“I actually think it’s pretty brilliant.” Alek grinned. “There are too many of our kind stuck in the old ways because well…they’re old. And honestly, the solution seems pretty damned simple to me.”

“It does?” Olivia asked.

Dread filled the hollow pit where my stomach had been, and I steeled myself as I looked over at my king.

“Ransom will act as your mate while you’re home.” He nodded like it was the simplest thing in the world.

It wasn’t.

I already kept my attraction to Olivia on a thin leash. Traveling with her for that long would strain it enough, but acting as her mate? My blood thickened, and my cock swelled against the fabric of my pants. Bad idea.

“Oh, no.” Olivia’s gaze flickered between Alek and me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. “That’s just…” She shook her head.

I sucked in a breath and held it while I counted back from ten.

Ten. We needed the Hunters, whether or not I wanted to admit it.

Nine. I was the best fighter in the vampire ranks.

Eight. Olivia could hold her own, and if she couldn’t, she’d outrun them.

Seven. I wasn’t a kid. I could control my dick.

Six. Friends could help each other out, right?

Five. Who didn’t like a good, fake mating to fool the parents? Classic.

Four. We didn’t really have a choice.