Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Isla

I was pissed. How dare this jerk come in me? I was supposed to be here to kill him. Not fuck him. Not potentially get knocked up by him. I messed up. Big time. This was what happened when you didn't follow the damn rules.

He had me cuddled against his muscular chest as he carried me over to the bed.

I should fight him, but damn, I was exhausted. Between the alcohol and the nearly painful series of orgasms he'd given me, I was worn out. Of course, they hadn't started out as painful, only mind blowing. That last one though, I wasn't sure if it hurt or felt good. It was a weird mix of both. Very few of the men I'd slept with over the years had been able to keep up with me. They usually ended up being a disappointment.

Butcher certainly wasn't.

My mission was still there in the back of my mind, but when he set me on the bed, I laid back and yawned .

I watched as he jerked his shirt off over his head. His back was covered in a massive tattoo. He had a lot of them. My eyes roamed over him as he bent to untie his boots—the man had a world class ass—and then as he toed them off and shucked the jeans. He wasn't wearing underwear. And I wasn't wrong about that ass. There on his left cheek a red heart had been tattooed. I couldn't read the writing and was too surprised to ask about it.

He pulled a pair of gray sweats out of the dresser on the wall and tugged them on. Then he reached in, grabbed a t-shirt and walked back to me with it balled in his hand. "Sit up."

My brows shot up, but I was too damn tired to argue with him. I was done fighting. For now. I sat up and lifted my arms when he motioned for me to. He jerked my shirt and bra off and dropped his t-shirt over my head. I waited to see what he'd do. My knife was still lying on the floor near the bathroom. He had to know what I was going to do with that.

He just shoved me over on the bed, forced me to lay on my side, facing the wall, and curled his massive body up behind mine. I stiffened, keeping my muscles tense as I waited. But he just huffed out a breath and put a muscular arm around my waist.

This was what we were doing after I'd tried to kill him—granted it wasn't my best attempt—and then we'd fucked? My internal question was answered as his breathing evened out. At least he wasn't a snorer. Slowly, I relaxed, letting my body rest back against his.

I wanted to fight sleep. To sneak out of this bed and either finish what I started, or escape into the night. But he'd tamed me, for the moment, because my eyes dropped shut of their own accord. When in Rome…

Jerking awake, I blinked groggily around the room, trying to figure out what had woken me up. My head throbbed in time to my heartbeats and my mouth was as dry as the desert outside. I remembered waking sometime in the early hours and sliding off the bed. My feet had barely touched the floor before huge hands had snatched me off them and pulled me back into muscular arms again. The plan had been to pee, then go for my knife once more. Instead, I'd fallen back to sleep.

I frowned, realizing I wasn't in the bed anymore. I was on a chair. Tied up. I sighed. "Well, he definitely figured out what I am," I muttered to myself. My scowl deepened when I remembered that I still had to pee.

Giggles had my head snapping over toward the doorway. My brows shot up when I saw four little heads peeking around the door frame, stacked on top of each other like a cartoon. I was glad Butcher had covered me in his massive t-shirt or I'd be sitting here naked, tied up. I couldn't believe he'd managed to get me onto this chair without waking me. It was the alcohol's fault. That was going on the damn list. Number one hundred and twenty-two, no drinking while on a hit.

"Think she needs help?" The oldest looking girl asked.

"What if she's like some kind of assassin sent here to kill us all?" One of the others countered, frowning at me.

My brows shot up. How in the hell did a little girl key in on that? There was just no way. She was still young enough to be playing with dolls. Not that I ever played with dolls, other than the occasional execution.

They moved into the room. The two youngest looked to be about the same age. One of them added, "Like a cyborg."

"You've been watching that movie again, haven't you, Cassie?" the oldest accused.

Cassie shrugged. "It's really good."

"It's scary," the other young girl admitted.

"She's not an assassin," the oldest said with a roll of her eyes.

"Maybe we should ask her, Taylor," the one scared of the movie whispered, tugging on the second oldest's shirt hem.

They all looked down at her and considered it. My lips twitched as they tried to decide what to do. These girls, besides the one, didn't seem to have much fear in them at all. They could be trained easily to be like me .

"Hey," Taylor called out, catching my attention again. "Are you an assassin?"

"No?" I replied. Even I could hear the lie in my voice.

"Hmmm," Taylor and the oldest eyed each other then looked at the younger girls.

"What do you think, Taylor?" the oldest asked with a frown.

"Whenever I answer that fast, Dad tells me that's how he knows I'm lying," Taylor answered.

What the hell kind of little monsters are standing in front of me? I considered asking them to untie me, but I knew that would send up too many red flags for them.

"You here to kill us?" Cassie asked.

"No?" I paused, wondering if I should make that sound more convincing. After all, I wasn't here for them. "No." That was much better, though it didn't seem to convince the girls.

"Do you need help?" the oldest asked.

"Yes." I was keeping it short. Otherwise they might run away and leave me here. I had no idea what Butcher was going to do with me. It was probably my good luck that'd kept him from killing me while we slept. That was really stupid of me to fall asleep in his arms. Stupid to have had sex with him. None of this was like me at all.

Taylor scrunched her nose. "I don't know, Gabby," she said to the oldest. "That's exactly what an assassin would say."

Dammit. I knew it.

There was something about kids. They could see through the lies adults believed.

The youngest came up and side eyed me, then she reached out and poked my cheek. "She feels human."

Oh my god, she left something sticky on my cheek. And I can't do anything about it. Why, why, why! They're always so sticky.

I tried to rub my cheek against my shoulder to transfer whatever it was onto the t-shirt, but with my arms tied behind me I couldn't reach. Ugh.

Gabby shrugged. "Why else would she be here? "

"But why would she be tied up if she's a good guy?" the younger girl, whose name I didn't know, pointed out in a soft voice.

"Good point," Gabby mused. "Besides, this isn't Uncle Toxic's room. There are never strange women just lying around in here."

My brows shot up at that. And for some reason a smug feeling rolled through me at hearing it. I really needed to go see that doctor. After last night I definitely knew there was something wrong with me.

"We should go," Cassie added. "Uncle Butcher is going to be done with church any time."

"Or we could stay and find out who she is on our own," Taylor suggested with a wicked smile.

Oh yeah. I could train her into an assassin alright.

"I like her." This came from the quiet one.

I blinked in surprise. Kids didn't usually trust me. For good reason. My lips twitched before I shut the smile that was about to appear down and scowled at her. The girl just gave me a sweet smile and my scowl disappeared, all on its own. What the hell was happening here?

Gabby took this insight under serious consideration. "Okay, we'll discuss this more, but not here. We'd better go," Gabby said in a decisive tone.

Taylor grumbled, but she let the other girls pull her out of the room. She turned and gave me a wicked smile that I couldn't interpret before they finally left.

I heaved a sigh of relief. I wasn't used to kids. And those seemed different than most. Looking down, I tested my bonds to see if there was any give in the rope. There wasn't. I glanced around the room and groaned in frustration when I saw my knife was gone. Butcher wasn't dumb, I'd give him that.

A low growl made me freeze. I stared at the ground by the bathroom, afraid to even lift my head. Another growl had me slowly turning my eyes, then my head until two huge dogs came into view. "What the hell? They have werewolves here?"

Both dogs were tan with black faces and dark ears. It was the pearly white fangs being bared at me that made me think of werewolves. All they were missing was the frothing drool. Oh, no, there it is. A long string of drool dripped down to the floor as one of the dogs held his spot and the second advanced on me barking and snapping his teeth.

"Jesus Christ!" I hissed, trying to jerk away from the dog. The chair screeched as I managed to move it the barest inch across the floor. "Good dog," I said, flinching as he growled low in his throat again. "I'm not gonna hurt you." Nope. But he was going to eat me. Fucking Butcher left me up here at the mercy of kids and dogs. What kind of sick bastard did that?

If there was anything that was a better lie detector than a kid, it was a damn dog. And these two clearly did not like me.

It wasn't that I was necessarily scared of death. Wasn't scared of dogs either, but these two looked like they wanted to chew holes in me and roll around on my guts. It didn't sound like a pleasant way to die. I at least tried to be humane while killing my marks. I did it as quickly and painlessly as possible. Teeth shredding me to bits didn't sound quick, or painless.

"Auron," came a deep voice and I sighed in relief. "Leave her be." A man poked his head into the room and his brows shot up when he saw me. "Never seen Auron or Jecht have a problem with anyone or anythin'," he said in a heavy drawl. The guy was gorgeous, older, and now he was grinning at me. "You must be Butcher's...guest. Saw you last night in the bar."

My mouth was hanging open, and I wasn't about to answer because those damn killer dogs might attack. I wasn't sure what he meant by that anyway.

Guest?

He must have taken my silence as some kind of answer because without another word he shook his head and continued on down the hall, calling the dogs to him as he went.

Silence descended after that as I was left alone again. I scissored my wrists, trying to loosen the rope. It would be better for everyone if I was gone by the time Butcher got back. And those little girls seemed to think that was going to be soon.