Crimson Truth (Onyx Assassins 4)

In that way, seeking out a match was almost cruel on my part. She’d have to be strong enough to hold her own against the gossipmongers.

Zorin had died for his treason—Alek saw to that, but Cassandra had been innocent in his activities. I’d questioned her myself…before she’d made a move on me.

She just wanted the protection of being with an Assassin.

“I already have a few names in mind,” Gloria said, her eyes shifting back and forth as she thought.

“That quick?” My stomach sank. This is what you wanted, right?

“Absolutely.” Her smile broadened. “You’re an Onyx Assassin and an aristocrat in your own right. To put it simply, you’re a catch. I’ve got a good read on you, and I’ll meet with some prospective partners this week to see if their energy is a good match for yours.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

I got out of there as quickly as possible, throwing my jacket in the back seat of my McLaren and sliding behind the wheel with more frustration than satisfaction. This was what I was supposed to do, what members of the aristocracy did when the time came. I was hundreds of years old, and no mating mark had appeared on any female I’d ever touched. If I wanted to honor my mother’s wishes and continue our family name, I’d have to settle for a marriage instead of a mate. This was the logical course of action.

The purr of the engine settled my nerves as I drove out of the posh downtown neighborhood and turned onto Maritime Drive, the street that divided witch territory from vampire. The street was lined with colorful restaurants, bars, and even a nightclub or—

The hair on the back of my neck stood at attention, and my foot slipped off the gas.

Something wasn’t right.

Something was very, very wrong.

The car slowed as I hit the phone button on my steering wheel.

“Lachlan,” our king’s second-in-command answered.

“Everything okay back there?” I couldn’t kick the foreboding that sat perched on my shoulder. My stomach heaved like I’d eaten something rotten.

“Aye,” he confirmed.

“You’re sure? Everyone accounted for?” Jerking the wheel, I pulled into the nearest parking spot and lurched out of the car, taking my cell phone with me.

“We’re all here. Alek, Hawke, and I are in the war room, and the Hunters are crashed out on the couch in the living room watching their thirteen-billionth hour of local news. They ran out of NASA documentaries earlier tonight. What’s wrong?” He asked, then I heard him touch the phone, putting me on speaker.

“I’m not sure.” My stomach seized again, cramping and twisting as my feet hit the sidewalk in front of a popular nightclub. “Avianna?”

“In her room with Jocelyn,” Hawke answered. “Why Alek continues to let a witch on the premises, I’ll never know.”

“They’re friends,” Alek retorted. “And I’m pretty sure Jocelyn left about an hour ago.”

“Check,” I ordered, ignoring the staring humans as I sucked in a breath. Nausea gripped me with iron fists. The last time I’d felt like this, my parents had been found murdered alongside Alek’s.

“He’s going,” Lachlan said through the phone.

“Everything going okay with Saint tonight?” I managed to ask through gritted teeth, doing my best to not stick my head between my knees.

Saint was a fucking match in the middle of a gas station, waiting to incinerate us all. He’d already been driven toward bloodmadness before the Hunters had entered stasis, and now that they were awake, we all took turns monitoring the vampire for signs that he’d slide into darkness.

God help us if that happened, because I wasn’t sure any of us could destroy Saint with his twin brother, Samuel, defending him. They were classic Cain and Abel, and there was nothing Samuel wouldn’t do—including put himself and the rest of their brotherhood into stasis for hundreds of years—to protect Saint.

“He fed normally and seemed okay when we saw him last, but that was around seven,” Lachlan said. “We’ve been mapping out the pattern of the latest attacks while you’ve been at your appointment.”

It was close to midnight now.

A couple swiftly moved out of my way as I strode toward the velvet rope of the club, led by a compulsion I couldn’t identify. My stomach clenched, and my mouth watered like I was about to vomit, but I hadn’t been sick in at least a hundred years. What the fuck was going on?

“Benedict, what—” Alek started.

A figure stumbled out of the club, crying hysterically, her hands thrown out in front of her as she hurtled toward the ground in a tangle of lavender hair.

Fuck. I was immediately at her side, catching her in my arms before she could meet the pavement. The cool kiss of frozen air on my neck told me I’d wended to her without even knowing it. It’s dark. No one saw. At least, that’s what I told myself.