Assassin's Kiss Read online

  “Point me in the right direction and you don’t have to worry about me anymore. I absolve you of any responsibility,” she said, tightly.

  “That’s not up to you.” He retracted his claws and sniffed the air. “Voices carry in the jungle,” he managed to say around his elongated canines. “If anyone is following Diego, they’re Warriors. Keep up.” He jerked his head back toward Fontaine’s territory. Her stomach flipped over twice.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Always hide in plain sight. And pick a place that scares the shit out of your enemies.”

  * * * * *

  As far as Kira could tell, they’d hiked about seven miles south and west another two. It all just looked like overgrown jungle to her. He seemed to be following some invisible trail, on a single-minded quest that left her alone with her thoughts. He hadn’t asked her name and she wouldn’t have known his if not for the tracker, Diego. And there was the mixed blood thing. So why insist she stay with him?

  Her questions at least helped take her mind off the grueling pace. When he finally stopped at the bottom of a wide stone stairway cut into a natural rock-faced incline, she almost ran into his back. Sangre de Luna, for all its exotic name, looked more like a dilapidated mud-daubed hut with a moldy thatched roof porch that was supported by carved stone pillars, evenly spaced in four-foot increments.

  There had to be fifty steps leading up to it and her leg muscles burned by the time they reached the top. She followed him onto the porch and through the arched entry. Inside, it was dark and damp. Only the sunlight filtering through the rotted roof illuminated the inside—empty save for the thick ropey cobwebs stretching from beam to beam.

  She stood in a dim patch of light, her breath clogging in her throat, her chest constricting. Too close. Too dark. It wasn’t as bad as being tied to a bed while some asshole chanted over you and sliced you with a knife. But it was damn close.

  Bastian lit a torch and she winced when she heard the pop and grind of muscle and bone. She didn’t turn around until he’d finished shifting. She followed a very human, very naked Bastian as he wound down and around a narrow hallway that suddenly dropped off. He reached for her hand, steadying her as they descended a crumbling spiral stairway, picking their way down fifty-two steps. She counted every one.

  They had to be well below the ground now, squeezing through a shaft that had been dug out of the rubble. It emptied into a walkway large enough to navigate single file. Large stone tablets wedged against one another, creating the ceiling and walls. Now she knew why he’d shifted. His larger, more muscular form would never have fit.

  Pictographs decorated the tablets. Jaguar men like the creature Bastian had become were battling stick-figure men with overlarge heads and spindly bodies. Tooth and claw against what looked like lightning bolts shooting from the men’s fingers. The battle raged the length of the walkway on both sides until they reached a room that looked as if it had been gouged from a single rock formation.

  More pictographs decorated the walls but what drew her attention was the rectangular stone slab, about the size of a double bed, sitting on a pile of rubble. An unzipped green sleeping bag was haphazardly thrown over it. A large, serious-looking backpack was the only other modern convenience she could see except for the battery-operated lamp he switched on before depositing the torch in a holder attached to the wall.

  As long as she concentrated on the wall etchings she could almost ignore his nakedness, but the light bouncing off his erection was like a beacon in the cell-like room. She nearly groaned when he pulled a pair of faded jungle fatigues over it.

  Heat and blood pooled at the core of her sex and she welcomed the awakening desire. At least it distracted her from her panic. She was safe for a time. This wasn’t a cell, it was a sanctuary. He wasn’t her keeper. He was her hero. Sort of.

  The sweat cooled on her skin and the dampness chilled her. “Tell me you haven’t been sleeping on a sacrificial altar.” She nodded toward the stone slab.

  He scowled, cocking his head to one side. “Try not to think about it.” He sat down on the cushiony green sleeping bag and ran a rough hand through his short dark hair while he watched her. A predatory gleam lit his dark gaze.

  He still wanted her. That could explain why he was dragging her along but she didn’t think so. Still, it was heady to think that he didn’t see her as something ugly or evil. She relished a delicious shiver and returned his gaze a second before he became, once again, a single-minded man on a quest. She pretended to look around the room, pretended his withdrawal didn’t matter.

  “It doesn’t bother you to think of all that death, all that violence?”

  “It’s part of who we were once and if we don’t face the past we don’t have a future. We’ll just keep making the same mistakes until one of them kills us all.”

  She didn’t want to think about mistakes now or the ancient bloodstains possibly lurking beneath his sleeping bag. Neither could compare with the heat rising inside her. This terrible burning need had never happened before without the pull of the moon, the red haze or the painful shifting of muscle and bone. She’d welcome any or all three, right now, right this minute, if he’d just put his hands on her again.

  She ran her palms down the sides of her fatigues and they came away filthy. Her arms were streaked with sweat and dust. She didn’t even want to think about her face. She wanted to scream and claw, get as close as she possibly could, touch him, taste him.

  Sebastian watched her sweep a shaky hand across her dusty cheek and draw a shallow breath. As if her own mindless desire was strangling her. He knew the feeling. This was not part of the plan. He’d been fucking up since he’d found her pitiful sack of belongings and picked up her scent. He’d lost the element of surprise with Fontaine, and for what? Halflings weren’t innocents. They were a human connection that posed just as much of a threat as Fontaine and his rogue mercenaries.

  So why hadn’t he dealt with her?

  “I can offer you cold and colder running water and all in the convenience of your own bathing chamber,” he bit off, and she flinched. The flinch had been almost imperceptible. The stoic resignation he saw was not. He didn’t want to dwell on the instant change or the reason behind it. He didn’t want to know her.

  He pushed off the bed, grabbed the lantern, then her hand. Her extremely hot hand. Her temperature must have risen ten degrees since descending into the damp recesses of the temple. She didn’t fight when he pulled her along the dim passageway and that made him angry. What the hell was he doing? Anger had no place here.

  But cool detachment wasn’t an option at this point and that was his fault. He led her into the small room and slammed the lantern down. She jumped but she didn’t let go of his hand. She gripped it tighter, glancing around as the light illuminated a small section of the chamber. Water flowed from a wall spout shaped like a jaguar’s head and into a shallow, open-ended square trough that emptied into a small, deep pool.

  “This is the purification room.” He nodded toward the spout. “Cold water from an underground stream is our only choice.”

  “Is the lack of choice ever a choice?” she mumbled.

  Sebastian felt her quiver as if she were frightened prey, too mindless to escape. Her fear called to him and a heated vibration zinged through his blood. His canines began to lengthen, his bones started shifting. Her neck was so delicate, it would snap instantly. She wouldn’t feel anything. It would be kinder.

  The Council would only send someone else after her if he didn’t kill her now.

  Her sigh shook with need but when she reached for him he deftly turned her to face the wall. He didn’t want to see her eyes or think about how lonely and desperate she had to have been to brave the Guatemalan jungle to look for her own kind. She had no business here.

  He caught the bottom edge of her shirt and drew it over her head. She shivered, crying out when he slid his hands down her arms. Her cry turned once more to a mewling whimper that sent the blood rushing
to his cock. Damn. He bit his lip and concentrated on the pain, cupped her small breasts and brushed her nipples with his fingertips. Closing his eyes, he bent his head to her fragile, exposed neck and opened his jaws.

  “Do you want me?”

  Her shallow whisper ripped through him like a claw and he bit off an exasperated roar because he knew, in that instant, that all she wanted was to matter. If only for this moment. He turned her, pinning her wrists roughly against the wall and edging them both closer to the steady stream of water from the Jaguar spout.

  He let her watch his jaw return to human. She didn’t scream or struggle but a soft, guttural sound escaped her lips. It didn’t sound like fear but it was damn close.

  She was naked from the waist up, her small breasts heaving with every shaky breath. “How do you do that?”

  “It’s part of who I am.” And who you are not.

  She shook her head, gazing up at him as if she were trying to see past his very human face. “I feel as if I’m going to die if you don’t come inside me, right now,” she moaned, as if the admission had cost her a piece of herself she wasn’t sure she wanted to share.

  “With enough experience, it wouldn’t be that way. You could control it,” he bit off, angrily, and watched a flicker of disappointment dull her gaze. He slackened his hold and slid his fingers between hers. His own control was hanging by a thread that unraveled with every breath he took.

  “Teach me,” she whispered with the urgency of a last request.

  Any Jaguar law that he broke now couldn’t damn him any more than he already was. He pressed her hands against the rough stone wall and whispered, “Keep your hands here.” He trailed his down her arms, and cupped her breasts, grazing her nipples with his palms.

  “Why can’t I touch you?”

  “Because that’s what a teacher would demand.” Or a firstmate, which she would never have.

  She curled her fingers but kept the back of her hands flat against the wall while he licked the side of her neck, worrying the flesh with the edges of his teeth. She stretched like an upright offering and quivered against the rough surface. Her small breasts lifted and he latched onto one pouty nipple, drawing it between his teeth while she writhed and moaned. He kissed, nibbled and licked his way down until he was kneeling between her knees. He unbuttoned her pants and slid them down her legs. She stepped out of them and kicked them away when they fell.

  The taut flesh of her belly, hot beneath his lips, quivered when he flicked his tongue over her tight navel, thrusting into it until she spread her legs. He feasted while she watched, scented her excitement and deliberately slowed.

  “I want to touch you,” she whispered, her voice trembling as much as her body.

  “Not yet.”

  “Do you know what it’s like, never to be touched—to be afraid of touching anyone else?” She hissed. “I finally feel alive. There’s just so much. My blood is pounding, racing through me. Everywhere you touch me, I burn. Everywhere else, it’s as if I’m on fire and everything is being pulled from somewhere deep inside me.”

  He wanted to tell her not to trust him, to be afraid, but he knew she wouldn’t listen. He stood quickly, tore out of his clothes and dropped to his haunches.

  She followed his quick descent, desolate for the brief time it took him to get naked and kneel between her legs. She wanted so much and didn’t know how to ask. His refusal to kiss her still made her burn with humiliation but not enough to stop. She never wanted this moment to end, that first bite of pleasure sweet and bitter all at once. The urge to touch him crawled through her with a life of its own but if she didn’t ask, she couldn’t be refused.

  She scraped the rough wall with the back of her hands, the pain distracting her. She could see herself reflected in his hot gaze, naked and alive, writhing under his touch. His tongue probed between her slick folds, separating them, spearing her tenderly. He closed his lips around her throbbing clit and started to suckle, drawing deeply. She spread her legs and rolled her hips toward his mouth and imagined he was kissing her.

  “Bastian, please,” she hissed. “I want my hands and mouth on you. I want to taste you.” Her lips parted on the ragged sigh she couldn’t contain, every defense she’d ever built crumbling around her.

  “I wouldn’t last two minutes if you wrapped your lips around my cock,” he whispered, and she shivered at the rough words, excited instead of offended.

  He nipped his way back up over her belly, her breasts, the soft skin of her neck, the whorl of one ear. He licked the soft center of her palms and she closed her fingers around his. She wanted to hold on forever. He lowered her hands to his shoulders.

  “This is the only place you can touch me.”

  She would have closed her eyes but watching him was addictive.

  He stroked his shaft, pulling the foreskin back, and a bead of moisture glistened from its slit. “Hold on to me,” he rasped, and something inside her blossomed at the underlying tremor in his voice.

  He bent to accommodate her. Using the wall as leverage, he put his hands under her hips and lifted her. She watched as he slid in slowly. Caught between relief and agonizing desire, she hung there, balanced between the two. His first stroke pinned her, unleashing an unbearable swirl of need that settled low in her belly and grew with each measured thrust. He set the pace and dared her to follow.

  She rocked her hips and dug her nails into his shoulders, claiming him in that instant. He gripped her ass, holding her in place for several precious, quick, hard thrusts then lifted her hips, opening her and changing the angle.

  His upstroke slid over the bundle of nerve endings just inside her and a lick of fire twisted through her so sharply that she screamed. She gripped him harder, wishing she could stay there forever, poised on the brink of something she wanted badly enough to admit it. Just out of her reach. She would have to ask. She pressed her lips together, chasing after her release, knowing it was close and he had the power to give her what she wanted most.

  “Harder,” she screamed, afraid he would deny her.

  His balls were drawn so tight that the sting of her nails digging into him was the only reason he hadn’t come. He welcomed the pain. He didn’t deserve any of the pleasure but it was so close he couldn’t deny it. When he tried to pull away she tightened her legs around his hips, rode him harder. She bore down, her muscles clenching around his cock, her dark eyes flashing as her orgasm ripped through her. She lost all control and he held on, trying not to drown in the sensation as her soft inner flesh rippled around his cock. Her strong aftershocks drew him deeper and he had to concentrate on not giving in.

  “You’re still hard. And I still want you,” she panted. She gripped his shoulders and curled her hips, rocking against him, fucking him. She was fearless, as demanding and primal as any Jaguar Warrior. It was his last thought before he stole her rhythm and made it his own, hard and fast against the wall, while she dug her nails into his back, screaming her pleasure as his own orgasm ripped through him.

  It nearly sent him to his knees. The glittering wonder in her gaze stopped him and sanity returned like a blast of cold water from the Jaguar spout. He should never have touched her. He’d told himself that this was for her. He’d never lied to himself before and it pissed him off that he’d done it now.

  He wanted to push her away. He never wanted to let her go. It made him angry and she could see it all—the instant of self-loathing and the regret. She unlocked her legs from around his hips. Sliding away from him, she stumbled to the stream of cold water and ducked under it.

  “I don’t want to want you either,” she rasped, shivering and closing her eyes before turning away. She scrubbed her skin as if she could wash away what had just happened.

  He stepped behind her and the curved, puckered scar beneath her shoulder blade drew him like a beacon. He traced it with one calloused fingertip and she shivered beneath his touch. He cursed the Brotherhood for marking her, the Council for viewing halflings as a threat to be d
isposed of and himself for being too weak not to inevitably add to her pain.

  But he couldn’t make himself stop touching her. He placed his hands over hers as she scrubbed, memorizing her slim arms and small, rounded breasts with their tight dark nipples, the curve of her belly, her hips. She sighed and leaned back while he traced the inside of her leg where his essence mingled with cold water.

  She stiffened. “I didn’t think about using protection. You strike me as the careful type.” Her harsh remark turned into a sad sigh and he bit off a curse.

  He slid his hand up over her ribs and cupped one soft, plump breast. “There was no need. Halflings don’t—can’t—not with humans or us.” Too late, he remembered the small straw doll tucked away in her belongings. “There was probably a better way to start Jaguar 101.”

  She turned slowly, her gaze deliberate and hard. “I’m the one who came looking for the truth. There’s nothing to be gained by blaming the messenger because I don’t like it.”

  The defiant tilt of her chin and the shuttering of her water-spiked lashes told him otherwise. He picked up the lantern, bent and swept an arm under her knees, holding her tight against his chest. When she made a feeble attempt to free herself, he gripped her tighter and snugged her head under his chin.

  She kept it there while he carried her back to the sleeping chamber, until he opened his sleeping bag and tucked her inside. He turned down the lamp, slid in behind her and zipped them in, spooning around her, cradling her head in the crook of his arm.

  “Are you afraid I’m going to escape?” she mumbled, squirming against him.

  “There is no escape.”

  Chapter Three

  An hour before dawn, Sebastian left her and called upon his Jaguar Warrior. Thought was deed and he was the power in his world, shifting bone, muscle and sinew until his third nature, his Jaguar Warrior, emerged. Each hair, silken, coarse, light and dark, merged into the individual pattern that had marked him since adolescence.

  Perched on a hill, he cursed under his breath and watched the flurry of activity below him. Fontaine’s camp resembled a fortress complete with airstrip, two camouflaged metal outbuildings and three transport trucks parked outside the metal hangar that housed a vintage two-seater airplane. The Council’s intelligence had been wrong.