To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 (14 page)

“Are you a Wolf, like him?”

“Puh-lease.” He held up his left hand to her face, a gesture she was all too familiar with from Irisi’s attitude. “I’m a Bobcat. Wolves are stupid.”

She raised an eyebrow and smiled. “I’m a Wolf.”

“What? Really?” He leaned forward and sniffed her. “Look at that. You are!” He climbed over her and grabbed some more comics off the shelf, laying them in her lap. Apparently her being a Wolf had no real effect on his opinion of her.

“Those are my absolute, one hundred percent, ultimate favorites. You should read those.”

“
Bleach
?” She held the top one up.

“Yeah it’s about grim reapers and this whole other world where they live. It’s awesome. The fights and the monsters? So. Good.”

She really could not help but laugh at the kid’s enthusiasm. “What is your name, child who speaks without breath?”

“Ha. I like that, I’m gonna call myself that from now on. I’m Evan. Kerrick calls me Superman cause he’s my favorite superhero. Are you one of Kerrick’s cousins? He’s got so many, they just keep poppin’ up all over the place.”

“No, I am not one of his cousins.” She placed the comics to the side and turned to face him. “Do you live here in The Mansion?”

“Yeah.”

“Are there a lot of other families who live here besides yours?”

“Oh, there are tons.” He nodded. “We call ourselves the Alphar’s pack, even though I know we’re not. We’re just lost.” He picked up the comic closest to him, leafing through the pages.

“Lost?”

“That’s what I heard one of the grownups say about us. We’re lost and can’t find a pack because someone died or no one wants us.”

“Did someone in your family pass on?” She placed her hand over his little one and squeezed gently, feeling for the little boy.

“My dad. He went rogue.” Her heart stopped. “It’s over now but Mom didn’t want us to stay with the pack anymore. She said the Alphar needed us here.”

“I am sorry for your loss.” She made a note to look through her files on past targets for a Bobcat rogue. This was why she didn’t want to get close to the other shifters—she didn’t need to know that the men and women she killed had families and children.

“I’m okay.” Evan stood, seemingly not able to stay seated for more than five minutes. “I just gotta be strong for my mom and my brothers. I’m the man of the family now. That’s what David said. He’s the kitchen’s top chef.”

“The man of the house? How old are you, Evan?”

“Eight. Old enough to be the man of the house, for sure. So about
Bleach
—”

He had just begun to pile the new comics back on her lap when the door opened.

“Ms. Kendall—” The soldier she’d met the day before, Jeremiah, stopped short when he spotted her companion and a miraculous thing happened. When Cymbeline had met Jeremiah, even for such a brief moment, she would not have thought the man capable of facial expressions beyond solemnity. But now, his hands were on his hips and he looked like an exasperated parent. It was somewhat…cute.

“Evan, what did I tell you about visiting Kerrick today?”

“You said he was busy but you didn’t say I couldn’t come to his room for my stuff! It’s my stuff, Miah!”

Cymbeline raised her eyebrows at the nickname but Jeremiah didn’t even flinch.

“Evan, you may stay but only for a little while longer. I must take Ms. Kendall for some training.”

She laughed; the idea was so ridiculous. “You think I need training?”

“No,” he said, addressing her and returning to his previously professional manner. “I think our new recruits need training.”

“You want me to train them?” Was Jeremiah really offering her the chance to kick some ass without fear of angering Kerrick? Angering the Alphar, she meant. Not Kerrick.

“You took them out the other day like it was nothing. I want to make that an impossibility for the future. The only way to do so is to have you train them.”

“Oh my Gods you’re gonna
train
?” Evan jumped up once more, bouncing on the tips of his toes. “Can I come? Watching fights is way better than reading about fights. Please?”

“No,” said Jeremiah, his expression forbidding, not that it cowed Evan. “Your mother will castrate me. She says you already have enough bad ideas in your head from the few training sessions you’ve been allowed to watch.”

Evan stopped bouncing and tilted his head to the side with a quizzical expression. “What’s castrate?”

“Okay, well…I will come with you,” Cymbeline said, standing to go with Jeremiah and avoiding that awkward conversation. “You’ll have to tell me about
Bleach
another time, Evan. Promise?”

“Promise,” he said, resigned not being allowed to watch the training. “You never said why you were here anyway?”

Knowing it would cheer him up again, she broke the rules and said, “I am the Incendiary.”

“What?” He jumped up once more with a shout. “No way, they’re not real, that’s so cool. Jeremiah, why didn’t you tell me the Incendiary was real?”

Jeremiah turned back to Evan, but Cymbeline saw the evil glint in his eye, even if his outward expression was all austerity. “It’s a very big secret that you have to keep, Evan. And more importantly, she’s not just the Incendiary, she’s the Alphar’s new mate.”

“What?” he said mid-jump, landing with a thud and crumpling into a cross-legged position on the floor. “Oh no, now he’s gonna be all mushy like all the other mated people. Gross.”

“I’m sending someone to fetch you back to your family quarters in one hour, Evan. You better be here and not roaming The Mansion. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” Evan crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall with a pout.

“Good. One hour, Superman.” He nodded towards the door and Cymbeline followed him out, closing the door behind her. “I apologize for that. Evan is exuberant.”

“You seem to know him well,” Cymbeline said, walking alongside Jeremiah, intrigued by the silent soldier.

“I was assigned to his family as an Escort after his father died. Evan latched on to me during the journey and I’ve taken it upon myself to make sure his family is settled.” Cymbeline was familiar with the term. Escorts were men and women highly skilled in defense combat, essentially bodyguards. But Cymbeline had never heard of an Escort being assigned to a family before. They were usually reserved for human diplomats.

“How long have they lived here?”

“Three years.”

“And they’re still not settled?”

Jeremiah glanced her way with a pensive look before seemingly coming to some decision about her and continuing. “Lottie, you met her, our head physician, is Evan’s mother and has had a difficult time adjusting to her mate’s death. She was eight months pregnant with twin boys when he died.” Jeremiah turned towards an area she had not yet visited. It was a long corridor with wide-open, glassless arches in place of windows. They were on the ground floor now and heading towards the large gym she had observed on her four-day stakeout. It was a blessing to feel the wind on her skin after holing herself up in Kerrick’s room for so long. “Luckily, she is such a well-trained physician, the Alphar made her head physician of The Mansion. That has been able to keep her mind occupied for a while, along with raising her exuberant children.” Something in his voice told her that the distraction of playing doctor wasn’t going to last a whole lot longer for Lottie.

“I did meet Lottie, when I woke from the Vryk poisoning,” she said, trying to detach her emotions from the regret she felt for the small boy who kept his comics in Kerrick’s room and away from his brothers’ sticky fingers.

He stopped at the entrance to the gym, looking back at her. “Evan liked you. Contrary to how he acted earlier, Evan is an extreme introvert. If it’s not a topic he wishes to speak about, such as his comics, he is all but silent to those outside his family circle. I would ask a favor of you.”

“Aren’t you already asking me a favor by having me instruct your recruits?”

His shoulders squared but he was not swayed. “I will owe twice, then.”

She breathed in deeply, letting the crisp, fresh air cleanse her mind. Cymbeline had to admit she liked this silent soldier. “You do not owe me anything. Of course I am glad to help train the abysmal men I fought the other day. They were hopeless.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, taking her cuffed wrists and programming them so she would be able to fight the recruits without repercussions.

“Positively horrific form.”

“I saw that.”

“They were more focused on insulting me than actually watching for any threats. I could have pulled a gun and shot them all in each testicle before they even realized I was a danger. Truly pathetic.”

Jeremiah’s expression was slightly out of character as he looked off behind her shoulder. She could have been mistaken, but the corners of his lips seemed to be quirking into a slight smile. Cymbeline turned to see the door to the gym wide open. The entire squadron of front gate guards, plus an extra twenty or so new recruits, stood glaring at her.

Something within her clicked back into place. Two days of sexual frustration and helplessness flew out the window at the present Jeremiah had given her by asking her to instruct these soldiers. Her own personal gaggle of punching bags. It would be good to let off some steam. Cymbeline curled her lips in what Irisi sometimes called her “psycho serial killer smile”.

“Ladies? Gentleman?” They quickly lost all traces of affronted bravery and took a nervous step back. “Who thinks they shall be laughing when I say I am the Incendiary once we are through?”

Behind her she could hear Jeremiah muttering, “Perhaps I should have thought this through…”

“My pack’ll follow you, whatever you decide,” Mac, the alpha of the Cougar pack in southern Oregon said after a long debate, weighing the pros and cons of how to attack the Vryks.

“We go to war. It has been made painfully clear to me over the past few years that our territory cannot be shared. From what I gather, Riddan rolled over onto his back and showed Mara and her Vrykolakas his belly every chance he got.” There were multiple growls and one annoyed squawk from the various projected frames of his alphas’ faces. “The seat of power for Were society needs its own territory, and while we have made it clear we are friendly to all other species, Vryks included, Mara has become hostile and left us with little choice. If we do not attack—”

“Then we are weak,” Leah, the Gator alpha from the only Gator pack remaining in the states said with a definitive nod. Even though the meeting was mandatory only for the West Coast alphas, he’d extended a special invite to her as two of the shifters who’d been murdered were Gators. It made the act that much harder to bear since Gators were so rare and their numbers had been on a steady decline the past century.

“The Gator pack supports our Alphar. I will be sending my best warriors to you within the day to avenge our fallen. Myself included.” She gave a quick nod and signed off, leaving no room for argument from the other alphas.

A few more questions on logistics and the alphas began to sign off. Daniella had a parting request for her son to call her before her screen went blank. One face was left. Kerrick withheld his groan, knowing what this was going to be about. Was it impossible for his mating, a mating that was nowhere near set in stone, to be kept secret for any amount of time? He straightened and pressed a button on his own console to bring the image of his mother to the center of his screen.

“Hello, Kerrick,” she said quietly, no smile lighting her face at the sight of her estranged son.

“Did I invite you to this meeting?”

“No. Your nosy cousins did. And yes, I see you sneaking away back there, Aaron. Way to be a snitch, even if it was for my benefit!”

Kerrick turned to see Aaron with the door half open and a guilty look on his face. “Go check on the security at the gate,” Kerrick growled before turning back to his mother. She waited until Rhiannon, Aaron and Zach had left the room before continuing.

His mother was lovely and Kerrick was clearly made in her likeness. She had the same black wavy hair and dark eyes. She finally smiled at him, a smile that he rarely returned no matter how much he wanted to.

“Darling, is there something you wish to tell me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The most important information I had today was what I discussed with my alphas during the meeting. A meeting you were not required to attend, as you are not an alpha.” He withheld any emotion from his voice, wanting to keep the conversation as professional as he had with his alphas.

“I kept my screen hidden from the others.”

“It doesn’t matter to me whether you were seen or not. I know why you hitchhiked the meeting and I don’t have anything to say about it.”

She huffed, clearly annoyed. “Kerrick, did you really think I would just sit idly by while rumors of my son’s mating are flying around like mad?”

“It is my business.”

“I am your mother.”

“That doesn’t make it any more your business. Leave it be, Isabelle.”

He saw the hurt in her eyes before that false smile brightened farther. “Stubborn boy. Like your father.”

“I’m not a boy anymore, Isabelle,” he said, tired of this constant back and forth he had with his mother. No matter how old Kerrick was, he couldn’t seem to help but devolve into his teenage self, bringing him back to the moment he heard his mother had mated with another man, a betrayal he’d felt deep in his bones. “My father has been dead a long time…” He didn’t have time to argue with her today. “I’m sorry, Isabelle, but today is not the day to discuss this.”

Her voice sharpened. “You’re my child, Kerrick, no matter how hard it is for you to hear that. You’re not Grace’s child.” His mother was as confounding as she was beautiful. After mating with Liam she’d had three more children, Kerrick’s half siblings. He’d requested over and over again to get to know them, but his mother had never allowed it, wanting to keep him separate from her new life. And yet continued to claim that she was his mother, that she was supposed to hold some sway over his life when she’d given him up upon learning he was a potential and cut him off from her new family.