Page 5

CHAPTER 5

ROSE

It's a strange thing, taking on so many artificial identities. Hera, the stern handler. Clarissa Dumont, the French Harvard graduate with a penchant for fashion. You become them, steal bits from them, all while hiding the real you from the world and yourself. It's the only way to train your mind and avoid mistakes in the field.

Rose Watson is a name I haven't heard or even thought about in years. It unearths childhood memories that I'd tactically forgotten. I always thought I was hiding them away, securing them until someday I could revisit it all once I retired and had nothing to do but figure out what the fuck this was all for. But if I had worked myself into old age with Olympia, would I have forgotten myself altogether?

Right now, none of that matters. The real question is, how does Cupid know my true name?

"What is this? A set up?" My eyes dart frantically around the cozy cabin as if I'm suddenly aware of cameras and bugs that have been hiding in the blankets, snowshoes, and fireplace the entire time. "Did Olympia plant you to test me? How do you know that name? HOW DO YOU KNOW?"

The last thing I expect Cupid to do is kiss me. His lips naturally sedate me. It's no spy trick or secret assassin’s weapon. It's the chemicals in my mind and body. It's my heart that beats for him.

He pulls back, staring into my eyes.

I search his handsome face desperately, tracing every sharp line for some hint as to what’s going on.

"Fuck Olympia. Fuck protocol, right?" He holds my face with both hands, keeping me from shaking. "Rose, I've had you in my sights long before Olympia assigned you to me. Apollo… remember him? You punched him in the mouth on an assignment in West Africa."

The memory makes me laugh. It puts me at ease. Apollo was such a shit-bag assassin. "He was hitting on me. Bastard wouldn't cut the shit. I busted his lip."

"Straightened him out, didn't you?" Cupid laughs.

I can see in his eyes how badly he wants me to understand. I take a few deep breaths and nod.

"Apollo told me about you. Assassins... We're like a cohort. We find each other. We talk. One drunken night in Spain, Apollo told me all about his stone-cold handler and that busted lip. We went for tapas, actually. Have you had tapas in Spain? I’ll take you. I know the best—”

“Cupid…”

“Right. Unimportant.” He shrugs. “He told me about Hera. I pressed him for details. I don't know... I became obsessed. Obsessed with the woman who punched assassins trying to get in her pants. Just hearing about you made me feel more alive than I ever have."

“What are you saying?” I’m still quivering. “You’ve been stalking me?”

“I’m saying it’s no coincidence that we were assigned together…”

It doesn’t make any sense. Olympia operates so far above us all. How could he influence their decisions?

“I found you, Rose,” he whispers my name like it’s his most guarded possession. “No identity is so well protected that it can’t be found. Twenty-nine years old. Born in Idaho. West Point graduate and Army veteran. Worked for the CIA before being recruited to Olympia. Currently residing in Charleston, North Carolina. You have a beautiful home, by the way.”

The thought of Olympia’s deadliest assassin prowling outside my home sends a chill down my spine. It frightens me in a way that transcends fear. How long has he been watching me? How many nights passed with him so close that he could have decided at any moment to reveal himself?

Would I have wanted him to?

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s why I didn’t just knock on your front door. That’s why I watched from a distance until my time came: that look on your face. How could I have explained myself? You would have flipped. You would have shot me, even. I would have taken the bullet gladly, but I knew there was another way.”

Cupid risks sliding onto the couch with me.

Even with my body radiating panic, I don’t inch away. Somehow, impossibly, hearing all this makes me want him more. And how could it not? Paris wasn’t a fluke; it was the night that set me free.

I’ve never been in more danger in all my life, never been so close to death. That home in Charleston is a memory I’ll never return to.

And it feels so good.

Every word he says to me breaks another link in Olympia’s chain around my neck. I was suffocating in the lifestyle, drowning without knowing it. Cupid showing up at that café in Paris was my first gasp for air…

“My behavior that Olympia has been so concerned with,” Cupid says with a smile, “ started when I found you. I don’t know how many handlers they have, but I was ready to run through them all until they sent you to me. And your last assignment, Hephaestus, how do you think he got hurt?”

“Olympia told me he was injured rock climbing…”

“He was,” Cupid says. “I cut his line.”

I hold his fierce gaze. “You could have killed him.”

He laughs, “I’ve killed for money for years, Rose. You think I won’t kill for you ?”

My heart races for him.

Cupid has been pursuing me, hunting me, stalking me… and I had no idea. All this time, Olympia’s finest killer—maybe the finest in the world—has had his sights set on one thing: me.

I feel like I’m sitting on heaven’s highest pedestal. I’ve been raised to a level of desire reserved for deities.

He’d die for me.

He’ll kill for me.

And either thing would plunge me further into my need for him.

Slowly, I rise from the couch.

Cupid jerks like he’ll have to chase me, like I’m going to run. I shake my head and stare down at him, biting my lower lip.

One by one, I undo the buttons on my flannel and let the shirt slip away.

He gazes upon me like I’m Helen of Troy. Aphrodite. His goddess. His everything.

War. Death. Blood. For Cupid, one taste of me would make it all worthwhile.

He reaches for me like a starving man begging for bread.

I grab his face and squeeze.

“Tell me your name,” I demand. “Say it.”

“There’s no going back once you hear it. You can still walk away, Rose. If you leave now and tell Olympia I took you, they’ll let you back in. They’ll come for me, but you’ll live. You can be a handler again.”

Nothing has ever sounded so horrifying. There’s no going back. There’s no receding from the fullness in my heart.

I lean in, growling in his perfect face. “You’d kill for me? I’d go to war for you, too. You’re all I’ve thought about since Paris. I thought I’d never see you again, and I would have slowly rotted if that were true. Before you, before your touch, I was dead. You pulled me from the Underworld….”

“Maybe we should go by Bonnie and Clyde,” he jests. “We might meet a similar end.”

“I’ll happily die with you,” I whisper. “As Rose, and…”

A moment passes before he reveals himself.

“Alexei.” Just like me, I think it pains him to speak the name. “Alexei Malis.”

The shadows have been lifted. There’s nothing to protect us now.

“Alexei…” I test the name on my lips. It fits just right. “Alexei.”

“Rose.”

We tease a kiss. Our first kiss as ourselves.

Our first step into a world where we will always be hunted, together.

Alexei opens his mouth, tongue waiting for me. I lick him slowly, I take his taste and claim it.

“Fuck me, Alexei,” I breathe onto his lips. “And don’t stop saying my name…”

I’m lifted off the floor before I get the words out.

Alexei holds me in his arms, searing my body red with his clawing fingertips. He tastes like the lake, fresh, clear water.

“You’re mine,” he pants, eyes wide and wild. “And I’m yours. If they come for us, I’ll kill them all.”

My warrior. My assassin. My God.

He’s only got one weapon that I’m interested in right now.

I slide my hand down his pants and let his cock know that I’ve missed it. Alexei—Cupid, until now—has been hiding in my dreams every night since Paris.

Finally, he’s mine again.

Only this time, I’m not afraid.

I get my toes back on the floor and shove Alexei onto the couch. Behind me, the fire crackles delightfully, warming my back so that beads of sweat roll over his fingers as I mount him.

He works his pants off, tears off his shirt, and takes my breasts in his mouth. He’s rabid, filled with wild lust that’s finally unleashed.

I want him every way I can get him. Wild. Hard. Soft and slow. I want to fuck so desperately all night that we wake up lazily in the morning and make gentle, passionate love.

“We could be dead by morning.” I lean back in his lap as he kisses my belly. “They could find us.”

“Doubtful,” he huffs. “But just in case, we better screw like it’s our last night on Earth.”

He feels even more perfect than before. Paris was a dream. Tonight is an awakening. Before, there was the fear of being caught.

Nothing is holding me back this time.

Alexei pulses inside of me as I ride him slowly, as I open myself up to his perfect body.

“I haven’t cum since the last time I saw you,” he admits. “It’s been torture, thinking about you every night but resisting the urge…”

Pain drives him.

Pleasure will be his reward.

I press him back against the couch, rolling my hips and dragging my fingers down his scarred chest. “You have one mission tonight…”

Alexei gazes up at me, working his hips in time with mine.

His eyes are so full of want, of need, that it makes me feel like the most powerful being in the universe.

“Anything for you,” he moans, burying his cock deeper. “Rose, anything. Tell me who to fight. Tell me who to kill…”

I shake my head, brushing my nose across his lips. “Tonight, I want you to fill me.” Never in my life have I even thought like this… wanted this so badly. “I want you to fuck me like tomorrow isn’t promised.”

“Oh, God.” His head drops back. His fingers claw at my thighs. “Rose, you’re insane. You don’t know what you’re doing to me. You’re gonna make me… Oh, fuck…”

“Do it,” I pant, bouncing harder and faster. “Cum inside of me.”

“Rose. Rose…”

“That’s right. Don’t stop saying my name, Alexei.”

“Rose…”

“Don’t fucking stop…”

“Rose. Rose! ”

“You stabbed yourself for me. You’d die for me. You’d kill for me,” I moan so loudly that I’m sure Hades could hear me in the Underworld. “I’m fucking yours. Cum for me!”

Alexei’s body spasms as he pours himself into me. He shakes like it’s the first time, moans my name like he’ll never let go of me.

I lose my fingers in the trails of his curls.

I lick the sweat from his neck and suck his skin so hard I nearly draw blood.

Here, in our hideaway cabin, only the mountain is witness to our desire.

Not even the gods are watching.

"Do you think all of the people you killed were bad?"

Alexei hums into the crook of my neck. "It's not that simple. I think they were all living at a level of society that requires bad acts to reach. Do you think Olympia is good?"

"I used to. But I don't know why. I just believed in the mission. I believed in them."

" To rid the world of evil, " he mimics their words. "You had faith, like gods. All I knew was that I was good at what they asked me to do, and they paid me insane amounts of money to do it. When you're born in the dirt, morality doesn't get in the way of a paycheck."

I turn on my side, examining his muscular silhouette before the fire. After countless bouts, we’ve opted to remain on the floor in a pile of blankets. Sweat glistens over every inch of him, casting a heavenly glow.

"But love does?"

Alexei flashes me an obnoxious smile. "Are you saying that you love me?"

"I'm saying that those big paychecks are about to stop." I playfully smack his chest and let my fingers linger over the curved scar near his collarbone.

"I have plenty of money."

"Stashed? They'll vanish our bank accounts, all of our identities. I have some money hidden..."

Alexei mischievously arches his eyebrow.

"Shut up. It's common practice," I say. "But I wasn't planning on running. I don't have much."

He sighs as if he doesn't have a care in the world and lies flat on his back. "I've been planning on running for quite some time."

"How much do you have stashed?"

"Millions in the states." He glances at me. "Tens of millions abroad."

"Shit," I laugh and lay my head on his chest. "Not bad. But it won't matter if they kill us. It's only a matter of time before they realize both of us are off the radar, or until Ares resurfaces and tells them everything. They'll dispatch Hades and Cerberus, Alexei. You know what they are..."

"Bogeymen. Assassin hunters.” He wiggles his hands in the air. “I'm not afraid of them."

"It's not just them," I say softly, thinking of the unlimited resources at Olympia's disposal. "They'll never stop sending assets after us. They'll find us. I know it sounds romantic to die together in a shootout, but I don't want to. Not now that we're together, that you found me. I want to live... with you. I want to see what life together could be like."

He sits me up and faces me, running his fingers through my hair like he's reading a story in braille in each strand.

Every time he looks into my eyes, I'm calmed. For a brief moment, I feel like I was never a part of any shadowy organization, never an aide to killers, and never on the run. I feel as normal as a woman head over heels in love can feel, which isn't very normal at all. It certainly isn't safe, but a different sort of danger.

Alexei smiles and stretches his words like he's a ghost haunting our cabin. "Then maybe we should become the bogeymen."

He tickles me. It's crazy how innocent an act has such an effect on me. I can't remember the last time I let someone get close enough to try to tickle me.

"What? The two of us can scare Olympia?" Giggles bubble out of me as his touch becomes more tender. "How? We don't even know who they are."

"Rose," he says gravely. "I've been planning on running for a very long time."

His hazel eyes are full of light, beaming with all the secrets of this man—Cupid and Alexei both—that I've yet to uncover.

"What if we didn't have to run? What if I had a plan?"

"A plan like stabbing yourself in the gut and knocking on their bedroom window?"

Alexei bobs his head from side to side. "Sort of. A little bit crazier," he says in an accent that ironically leans Greek. "This would involve letting their hunters find me, and going with them without a fight."

"I think you've overlooked the fact that they'll kill you on site. They’re quite good at that, I’ve been told."

"They won't. Olympia needs to know how I got to you. How I knew that Ares was your next assignment. Information is leaking from the cracks, and they'll see an opportunity to plug those leaks by bringing me in alive. Say what you will about Olympia, but they are efficient. I still have value to them."

"Fine, I'm intrigued." I stare into the flames in his eyes like I'm looking into the depths of Hades’s lair. "So, what stops them from killing you after you told them how you found me?"

Alexei guides my face to his, wearing that same cocky, knowing smile that was plastered on his face outside that café in Paris.

"I'm going to tell them everything I know.”