Assassin's Kiss Page 6

  He actually laughed. “If you want to leave the room, use the intercom system.” He motioned to the grille-covered console in the wall beside the bed. “Press the red button and Dax will come for you, otherwise the guards have been instructed to dart you.”

  Like an animal. “I can leave the room?”

  The little rat bastard raised an eyebrow. “Fresh air will be good for you. There’s a pool outside if you like the sunshine, which I personally prescribe. There’s an inside pool but that’s available to the staff also. We’ve suppressed your pheromones for the time being, until you’re stronger, but there’s no reason to tempt fate.”

  They didn’t want her dead. They wanted her healthy. And they didn’t want her touched. Why?

  “There’s also an exercise room, a baby grand in the second floor salon below and more books in the first floor library,” he continued. “You can walk the grounds with Dax, which I recommend, twice a day, weather permitting.”

  “I like the rain,” she said, more to see his reaction than any real love of nature.

  “You will not be allowed to endanger your health for any reason. That said, is there anything you wish at this time? Besides the coffee, of course.”

  Well, I’d like to get the hell out of here. She needed to get her bearings. “I’d like to take a walk wearing something besides this nightgown,” she said, plucking at the silky white straps of her gown.

  “After sleeping for three days, I imagine you would. The clothes in the closet won’t fit any better than that gown but your things should be arriving any day now.”

  “My things?” This was surreal.

  He shrugged. “Rina was bigger than you through the shoulders, longer legs too. I still can’t believe you killed the bitch.”

  Neither could she. Unfortunately, she wasn’t up to killing anyone right now or the little rat bastard would be in serious trouble. His lips pulled back from his sharp little teeth. ”Think of me as the man who’s going to help immortalize you. This place is your home now. Forever. Remember, plenty of fresh air and exercise,” he said, rising.

  The minute he left she ran to the adjoining bathroom and threw up into the pink porcelain toilet, sliding to her knees as she heaved, emptying her stomach until there was nothing left but fear and bile. Shaking, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and leaned against the bathtub, crying silent tears. Three days. He’d been dead three days while she’d slept.

  She wanted to sink into darkness, close her eyes and remember his face, his touch, their fierce mating. She had to stop this. If she was going to escape, she needed a plan. Her brain still felt like there were bees buzzing and stinging, keeping her focus shifted away from what was really going on. If she didn’t stop thinking about Bastian, she’d never stop crying.

  She hadn’t been this scared in a long time. Not since she’d been a child locked inside a solitary room with caretakers who brought her meals, drew her blood and walked her outside as if she were a pet. A pet they’d been afraid of, she’d since realized.

  But whoever had her now wasn’t afraid. They wanted to use her and they needed her caged. It was a pink pearl nightmare of a cage but it was still a cage. She just wished she knew who they really were. And how far she was from Belize.

  Outside there was fresh air and sunshine and maybe a place to clear her head. She splashed water over her face, brushed her teeth and went in search of clothes. Rina, the alpha female she’d killed had possessed the classic jaguar shape in human form—wide shoulders and narrow hips. The loose white shirt she found hung from her shoulders so she rolled up the sleeves. She only had to cuff the jeans a couple of times before she could walk without tripping but there wasn’t a pair of shoes to be found.

  She looked around the room twice, even checking the bookshelves until it struck her how irrational that was. Taking a couple of deep breaths, she opened the double door that led out onto a balcony overlooking the courtyard from three floors up. Fragrant pink and white flowers and lush green plants overflowed their beds and lined the walkways around a fountain.

  The warm breeze ruffled her hair and she could feel everything just a little bit more than when she’d been heaving her guts up. The air on her skin was humid, warm and damp from the ocean that pounded the surf beyond the courtyard wall.

  She tensed, scenting musk with the sharp tang of alcohol—artificial and acrid.

  “We’re not high enough for the fall to kill you. You’d be in pain for a short time and then your bones would knit.” Excitement tinged the smoky voice and when she turned she almost blinked.

  His voice was too gruff to belong to the slim, elegant and very young man dressed in a tailored white shirt and khaki slacks. He was also very blond and very pale, with eyes as gray and cold as dirty snow. She forced a smile—pleasant enough to surprise him. She leaned her elbows on the railing behind her.

  “I’m not suicidal.” She narrowed her gaze, giving him her best streetwise once over. “Are you the reason I’m here or just another flunky?”

  His laugh was calculated. Smooth enough to put her at ease, sharp enough to make her aware. “Alonso Alvarez,” he said, “and everyone here answers to me.”

  The drug lord. “Why am I here?”

  He stepped closer and there was nowhere to go but against the rail. She relaxed her arms and he slipped a hand beneath her palm. He turned it over, brushing his fingertips against her calluses. “You disrupted my plans when you killed my alpha. Rina was as close to perfect as I thought I could have. I realize now that it was because I hadn’t met you yet.”

  His touch made her skin crawl. His deliberate tone scared the hell out of her. “What makes you so sure that I won’t change and rip your throat out before you can call for help?”

  His eyes flashed with excitement. “Reynaldo’s tea. You’ve been getting a form of it intravenously for three days. It will help keep you…pleasantly relaxed.”

  “Not very high tech.” For a drug lord.

  “I prefer keeping as close to nature as possible. Rina hated the tea but she liked the money. I should be furious with you for killing her when in fact, that’s what I find so intriguing.”

  She wanted to throw up again but she forced herself to remain still. “Is that the payoff for you? Being intrigued?”

  He tickled her palm lightly and smiled. “I was wondering when you’d get to that. As much as you fascinate me, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. And you are the key to that power.”

  Which meant she was a pawn. “And why would I turn over the key—whatever it is?”

  He shrugged. “You could name your price.”

  She could feel his fingers beneath her palms, sliding along her wrists. The bastard was taking her pulse. Gauging her reaction. “Well hooray, you have limitless funds. What good would money do me in a cage?” She motioned around the room with her free hand.

  “I was so hoping you were more like Rina. It would be easier but perhaps not quite as entertaining. If a life of luxury doesn’t appeal to you, what could I possibly offer you that would make you agree?”

  “You’ve already forced me here. Why is my consent so important now?”

  He laughed—a sharp, harsh bark. “I’ve promised to let Fontaine explain that particular detail. Surely there must be something I could coerce you with.” His smile was too wide, too calculating. He and Fontaine were competing. Over her?

  He pretended to be considering something but she’d bet he hadn’t come up here without a plan. “Let me see,” he said, “you spent a couple of days while at the peak of your heat cycle with a very virile, handsome Jaguar Warrior who sent you away so you didn’t have to watch him die. I can only imagine the bond that formed.”

  Kira’s insides squirmed but she forced herself to shrug. That wasn’t why he’d sent her away but whatever drug they were giving her didn’t make her stupid enough to volunteer that information. It might actually be helping her not react. Alvarez was watching her, tallying up his advantages.

  �
�He saved you from Fontaine’s men after you killed Rina. Would you return the favor? What if I make you responsible for how healthy he stays?”

  Bastard. He was no better than a street thug, scamming her, probing for a weakness. Making her hope. “I didn’t know him long but I heard the explosions. He went down fighting, so don’t bother with that one.” Her voice sounded tight, even to her, and she took a deep breath. Tried to steady herself.

  Alvarez walked to the wall opposite the bed and slid a large seascape, wedged into tracks that resembled molding, away from a flat black screen. He opened a box beside it and took out a remote, pushed a button and the screen flickered to life.

  A Jaguar Warrior lay strapped to an examining table, his fur-covered legs stretched, knees angled up off the surface because the ligaments were naturally drawn to a half-crouched position. An IV tube was inserted into his neck and the picture was so clear that Kira could see the steady, fluid drip from the bottle suspended above, and the bright, topaz eyes that still retained part of Bastian, the man.

  She was doubly glad now that Alvarez had let go of her hand. Her pulse kicked up and her heartbeat thundered. It took every ounce of strength she could call up not to collapse into a heap and wail.

  * * * * *

  Sebastian felt the tiny pinpricks in his calves, a sign his body was recovering from the tranquilizer darts but he still couldn’t move. Leather straps, buckled down tightly, secured his wrists and upper arms, chest and ankles. He couldn’t have gotten any leverage even if his body didn’t feel like it was weighted with lead. It was whatever drug they were feeding him through the IV drip.

  “I was hoping you’d wake soon.” Fontaine’s deep bass voice reverberated through the room.

  Sebastian opened his mouth but his tongue felt twice its size against his canines. “This doesn’t look like an altar, Priest,” he rasped.

  Fontaine laughed and walked into Sebastian’s line of sight. He looked like a vacationing businessman. Loose linen pants and a white shirt covered his very human, muscular body instead of the ceremonial robes he’d last seen him wear. Eagerness thrummed through the priest. Even drugged, Sebastian could feel it—a current on the air around him. Fontaine had always projected a powerful presence, but now that dominating presence was backed up by the leather straps that secured Sebastian.

  “That’s how you’ve always seen yourself, isn’t it Sebastian? A sacrifice for the good of all.” He cocked his head and a lock of silvery hair swept over his forehead, as if choreographed. “What if I gave you the choice of living for the good of all? Could you see past your father’s and the Council’s shortsighted vision for the Jaguar People?”

  Sebastian fought to form words but his swollen tongue still made the process slow. “How do you propose I do that? Become the drug lord’s assassin?”

  “Is that the extent of your imagination?” he scoffed. “Imagine a world where you didn’t have to be afraid of discovery. Where your enemies were afraid of you and the power you held over them.”

  Sebastian couldn’t quite manage a laugh. He took a deep breath and concentrated on his words. “Are you taking some of what you’re giving me? Or has Alvarez’s chemist cooked up something special for you?”

  “I don’t need a drug,” he said tightly. “All I need is a halfling child from the alpha female to fulfill the prophecy of the Second Age of Jaguar. Rina liked the idea of being the mother of the future prophet. A prophet who will be guided by my hand and rule over these humans.”

  Fontaine wanted Kira to produce a halfling? Fontaine didn’t know he already had a halfling and Kira hadn’t told him yet. He blinked, willing his head to clear.

  “Halflings are too weak to rule. They are forbidden.”

  “Do you honestly believe that they’re forbidden because they’re weak? The reason they were forbidden was lost in the myth of our history. One only forbids what frightens one, what one can’t control. The prophecy is the reason they were forbidden.”

  “So religious doctrine will replace the rule of law?” Sebastian felt his gorge rise and rolled his head to one side. He tried to lift, twist his head, but only managed to heave bile in a miserable dribble onto his chest.

  Fontaine adjusted the flow of his IV. “Can’t have you choking to death. We have plans for you, Sebastian.”

  There was something else wrong here but he couldn’t focus. All he could think of was the fierce little cat somewhere near, who’d probably found a place to belong. Something he could never have offered her.

  Sebastian growled and the room started spinning. His eyes drifted shut, so heavy, as heavy as his body. The first spasm of pain rolled through him and he didn’t have enough control to roll over as he choked.

  * * * * *

  Bastian was overdosing. She’d seen it often enough on the streets, people choking to death on their own vomit. He started to shake, straining against the leather restraints as violent spasms twisted his body. She watched in horror as the man standing over Bastian began yelling and two burly technicians in white coats burst into the room. They yanked the IV out of Bastian’s neck and rolled him over.

  The next few minutes seemed like hours as the technicians, heads and elbows bobbing, blocked her view. Kira was almost positive that the man whose silver hair swept back from his high forehead was the same Jaguar who’d watched her kill the alpha female, Rina.

  Fontaine. So he was here too. The tea they were giving her wasn’t working nearly as well as she’d thought because she could still feel her nails digging slices out of her palms. It didn’t keep her from screaming.

  “Hurry up! You’re moving too slow! Don’t hit him! Stop hitting him!”

  She didn’t start breathing normally again until they heaved Bastian’s torso back onto the exam table. There was a tube down his throat, taped to the top of his elongated jaw. His eyes were closed but his chest was moving up and down with a steady beat. Imagining his death had been the stuff of nightmares. It hadn’t touched this. He would hate that she’d seen this. Hate that she’d seen him helpless.

  She glanced up and knew she’d given herself away. She wanted nothing more than to claw the smirk from Alvarez’s face, watch him bleed. And all without the aid of a full moon.

  “He can’t hear you. But something inside him must still want to stay alive,” Alvarez said, cocking his head to one side and smiling. “How long he stays that way is up to you.”

  Chapter Six

  The next three days Kira spent with the same routine—breakfast, lunch and dinner in her room, her blood drawn once a day and a walk or swim whenever she felt like it. She’d been overwhelmed the first day but on the second she’d started her walking routine, scoping out possible exit strategies. Although how she’d get Bastian out eluded her.

  There was a courtyard just outside the French doors of the first-floor salon, bordered by three pearlescent pink stucco walls. Dead center, Poseidon rising from a large fountain, complete with trident and flowing hair, mirrored the image of the front courtyard she could see from her balcony.

  The grounds encompassed a lush tropical paradise, complete with sand and stone walking paths, all leading to a gated wrought iron fence that faced the white sand beach and ocean beyond its bars.

  The shrubbery shaded small lights embedded in the earth. Motion detectors. She’d counted three cameras, almost identical to the ones she’d noticed in the convenience stores she’d frequented. Mounted in tree branches in various locations, they seemed capable of ranging about 180 degrees, as far as she could tell.

  The main path she followed now led to a small patio area, complete with a shaded, stripe-upholstered swing and a couple of sturdy matching chairs placed beside a small man-made pool with a waterfall. She’d just been able to make out the copper pipe tucked into the stacked rock. Alvarez had spared no expense but it was still nothing more than a beautiful prison.

  Besides the cameras and sensors, there were uniformed armed guards patrolling the grounds at all times. A more immediate problem
was the realization that someone was bound to tumble to the fact that she was a halfling. Or one of them already had and was keeping it secret. She still couldn’t believe that they hadn’t discovered something odd about her blood after the first test.

  Maybe that’s what the summons for tonight’s dinner was all about. Her clothes had arrived and she was to dress accordingly. Whatever that meant. She soon found out when Dax arrived in the early afternoon, after her swim, and started pulling garments out of boxes and categorizing them in her closet. He had to be the most organized creature she’d ever met.

  Her clothes were sorted by function—casual, sport, dressy and then by color. All of them vibrant blues and greens, oranges and reds. She’d stand out like a beacon wherever she went, which she supposed was the point.

  For tonight Dax had chosen a silky sea-glass blue gown, caught at one shoulder and flowing to her ankles in a swirl of layers, light as air. She expected him to comment on her obvious scar while he’d fastened the ivory, shoulder clasp but he hadn’t. So either he wasn’t a Jaguar Warrior or he didn’t know that much about them. She couldn’t wear any of the bras that had arrived with the dress but she’d already figured out a better use for one. The thin, stretchy material would make a handy garrote. It was going under her pillow tonight.

  Dax flicked and twisted her hair until it stood out in little wisps all over her head then turned his attention to her eyes and lips with his little pots of color and his deft, gentle touch. There seemed to be no end to his talents until it came to finding shoes.

  She walked barefoot into the ivory and black dining room. Alvarez, resplendent in a “dress-up” uniform, sat at the head of a long, delicately carved table. His gaze reflected the malicious mischief of a bullied child turned bully himself. Fontaine sat on his left, regal in a casual, loose-fitting, gauzy white shirt and linen pants. With his silver hair swept artfully over his high brow, he was the picture of deceptive calm. Neither of the men stood to acknowledge her. Dax seated her and retreated to a corner of the room.