7. Evangeline

When I woke up, I was feeling all sorts of warm and fuzzy from the dream I had the night before. The details were a little blurry, but I knew it centered around the hellhounds in hellhound form, which was a new experience. It seemed so real in my dream that I swear I could still smell the brimstone enveloping me. I breathed deeply, imagining the scent, and sat up straight in bed and sniffed the air again.

Son of a fucking biscuit! I wasn’t imagining the smell. My room was permeated with the scent of those fucking mutts. I flipped the blanket off me and gasped when I saw that my sheet had been shredded to ribbons. It hadn’t been a fucking dream! Rage bubbled inside of me at the liberties they decided to take with my body while I was sleeping. Mate or not, that crossed a fucking line. The fact that I enjoyed it and even now felt desire swirling inside of me was utterly irrelevant. I hadn’t agreed to be their mate, and I sure as fuck hadn’t agreed to... that... happening while I slept.

I took another cold shower and pretended that the steam rising off my skin was from how irate I was and not because I couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like if they had gone all the way. When I got out of the shower, I toweled off and let my wings free as I went into the kitchen to grab breakfast naked. I poured myself a bowl of cocoa puffs and took it to the table. As I took my first bite, a black business card appeared on the table beside my bowl, and I almost choked.

I looked at the card and instantly knew what it was and what I needed to do with it. I plucked the card off the table and read the name of my first assignment. Darcene Wolfe. Twenty Thousand Dollars. My eyes bugged out of my head when I read how much money I would get paid to kill her. I was seriously undercharging before. I went into the kitchen for a knife and pricked my finger. I squeezed a drop of blood onto the card and watched as it was absorbed. I grunted as information and pictures about my target were zapped into my brain. As I stumbled into the counter, I made a mental note to make sure that I was sitting the next time I accepted a contract. I yelped as the card I was clutching burned me. I opened my hand in time to see it finish burning to ash.

Blowing on my hand, I returned to the kitchen table and continued eating my breakfast as I mentally flipped through Darcene’s file. She was a cougar shifter married to a slightly younger bobcat shifter. I took a moment to chuckle at that before continuing to sift through the information I was given. They weren’t fated mates or even chosen mates. It was a marriage of convenience for her and one of love for him. I studied the couple’s picture on their wedding day in my head. Nolan Wolfe radiated happiness as he stood smiling beside his bride. Her small, forced smile didn’t reach her dead eyes.

His family had put a hit on her because shortly after their wedding, she started abusing him. He was rarely without a bruise or cut from her assaults, but even when they confronted him, Nolan continued to defend and make excuses for her. The final straw on the camel’s back was when he had gone weeks without contacting his family. When they went to his house, they found him healing from poorly set broken bones and various bruises that showed evidence of continued beatings while Nolan had been healing from the worst of his injuries. Even after being brought to the hospital so that his bones could be rebroken and set correctly, he denied that there was a problem. Worrying for his life, his family took matters into their own hands.

Nolan was still in the hospital, and the doctors feared releasing him before he properly healed would undo all of their hard work. Darcene hadn’t been to the hospital to see him once. This was a rush contract, which explained the large payment. Nolan’s family wanted Darcene out of the picture before he was released from the hospital. They didn’t care if it looked like an accident and preferred Darcene to suffer. I could do that.

When people thought about spousal abuse, they often pictured the husband as the abuser. Everyone forgets that men can be victims, too. Gender stereotypes expected the man to be the dominant partner, creating an environment that made it difficult for a man to step forward to admit to being abused without feeling embarrassed or emasculated.

I rinsed my bowl and spoon before placing them in the dishwasher and went to get dressed. While dressing, I went over the maps FFF sent of the Wolfe’s neighborhood. They lived in Glen Oaks Canyon, their property backed up against the wilderness of the canyon, giving them the freedom to run in their shifted forms undetected. I still hadn’t gotten a car, so I would have to take an Uber and walk the rest of the way. I’d approach from the back to avoid being spotted by any nosey neighbors. Confident with my plan, I finished dressing in simple black jeans and a black tank top. There would probably be a good amount of blood, and the black clothes would help hide any that got on me on the ride back home.

I hid in the shrubbery as I watched the back of the Wolfe’s house. I had seen Darcene through the kitchen window several times as she moved about the house, so I knew she was home. I waited until I hadn’t seen her for thirty minutes before leaving my hiding place and approaching the house. With her shifter hearing, I knew I had to move fast if I wanted to catch her off guard, so I flew to the back door and tested the knob. It turned, so I burst into the house just as Darcene came rushing into the kitchen to see who was breaking into her home. Her eyes widened with surprise and confusion when she saw me coming toward her. Those few seconds were all I needed to get my sword plunged into her right shoulder. If I weakened her enough, she wouldn’t have enough strength to shift.

Leaving my blade planted in her shoulder for the moment, I pulled the piano wire I had brought with me out of my back pocket and wrapped it around her neck. I pumped my wings to lift her into the air so she was dangling off the floor by her neck. She struggled to escape me, managing a partial shift that left me dodging her sharp claws as she aimlessly swung her hands around to try and hit me.

After a minute of valiant effort, her body went limp. I waited another thirty seconds to make sure she was really out before lowering her into a kitchen chair. I worked quickly, grabbing dish towels and ripping them into strips to secure her to the chair before she regained consciousness. Once I was satisfied that she wouldn’t be able to break out of them, I poked around in her fridge and found a yoohoo. I hadn’t had a yoohoo in years and did a little happy dance as I shook it and sat across the table from Darcene. I enjoyed my chocolatey drink while I waited for her to wake up. I was contemplating a second one when she started to stir.

Darcene groaned in pain from the sword still embedded in her shoulder as she struggled against her restraints. I waited patiently for her to turn her attention to me finally. “Hello!” I chirped when her eyes met mine.

“Who the fuck are you, and what do you want?” the cougar growled.

“My name is Evangeline Faithe. I’m an assassin, and unfortunately, your husband’s family wants you dead, and they’d like it to hurt,” I replied.

“Oh, please,” Darcene scoffed, “Nolan would never let them hurt me. He loves me too much,” she said mockingly.

“You’re right,” I replied. “He does. That’s why he doesn’t know about this. Is that why you hurt him? Because you can?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your fucking business,” Darcene bit out.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Fair enough. Makes no difference to me either way.”

I stood and walked around the table to her to pull my sword out. I had to pull extra hard as she had begun to heal around it, eliciting a scream of pain from her. The scream continued as I slid the blade across the tops of her thighs, leaving deep gashes nearly to the bone.

“Wait,” she begged. “You can’t kill me, I’m pregnant!”

I paused to go through her file again before shaking my head. “Darcene, I think we both know that you are well past the age of pups. Besides, you had a hysterectomy three years ago. That was a good try, though. I’m probably the only assassin who would have paused at that information.”

“Who are you?” she asked again. “Not even Nolan knew that I had a hysterectomy; nobody did.”

I smiled at her as my chest puffed out with pride. “I’m Evangeline Faithe, fallen angel, mate to three obnoxious hellhounds, and member of the Femme Fatale Freakshow, an elite assassin’s guild. The guild knows everything; now, let’s get this show on the road; I’ve got dinner plans.”

I seriously underestimated how long it would take me to get home with the L.A. traffic. My Uber finally dropped me off outside my building at seven-fifteen. As I stepped off the elevator, I heard Rylan down the hall in front of my door saying, “I swear to God, if she doesn’t open this fucking door in thirty seconds, I’m going in.”

“Can hellhounds swear to God?” I asked as I nudged them out of the way to unlock my door.

“Where the hell have you been?” Rylan demanded.

“And why do you smell like a cat? And blood?” Kase asked, his nose wrinkling.

“I’ll explain at dinner,” I replied as I stepped inside. “Just give me ten minutes to clean up.” I turned as they tried to follow me inside, placed my hands on their chests, and pushed them back on the other side of the door. “Oh, no. I didn’t invite you inside, and you need to practice respecting boundaries, don’t you think?”

They had the good sense to look sheepish as I closed the door on them. “Damn hounds,” I muttered almost affectionately.

After a three-minute shower to wash the dead cat smell off me, I twisted my wet hair into a bun. That would have to do since I didn’t have time to blow dry it. I found a deep purple dress with a flirty skirt and pulled it over my head. I swiped a tinted lip balm across my lips, brushed my eyelids with a gray eyeshadow, and then grabbed my shoes and phone. On my way back to the door, I hopped on one foot and then the other to put my glittery purple shoes on. I opened the door with a flourish to find them where I had left them.

“Done!” I announced. “By my internal clock, I came in at about eight and a half minutes. That might be a new record for me. Now let’s go, I’m starved.” I grabbed the keys I had left in the door out and locked up, then turned to look at them expectantly. “I was promised dinner,” I prompted. I may as well have been speaking to the air for all that they reacted. They were too busy trailing their eyes over my body.

“You look fucking stunning,” Kase finally stuttered.

“Stunning isn’t the word,” Rylan disagreed. His eyes finally lifted to mine, and I saw the flames dancing within, sparking a pang of desire in me. “We could always go inside and order in,” he suggested as he licked his lips.

“Oh, no,” I laughed. “I was promised a dinner, and until we lay down some boundaries, you two aren’t coming inside my apartment.” The reminder of their escapades the night before spurs them into action.

“Right. That seems fair. Let’s go. We have a car waiting,” Kase said, placing his hand on my lower back and guiding me to the elevator.

“A car?” I asked in surprise.

“We use cars,” Rylan replied. “We aren’t uncivilized beasts.”

“Hmmm,” I hummed, “The jury is still out on that,” I teased.

The drive to the restaurant was short, which was a good thing. Being in such close quarters with them was doing things to me, and if the drive had been any longer, I knew I would have ended up climbing into one of their laps. I waited until we were seated in a secluded corner of the restaurant and had placed our orders before I brought up last night.

“I know that you say I’m your mate, and I’m finding it harder and harder to deny the truth to that,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean that you can come into my home uninvited and have your way with me whenever the mood strikes. That was such an incredible breach of my trust and privacy. We are so not at that stage in our relationship, and I don’t appreciate you taking liberties with me that I didn’t consent to.”

“We agree,” Rylan replied. “But it wasn’t us. It was Jett. He escaped and tracked you down himself. As soon as we realized he was gone, we went to your apartment and stopped him.”

“I promise we won’t let something like that happen again unless you’re into it,” Kase assured me. “We would never assume we have any right to your body, mate bond or not.”

“Well, where the hell is Jett so that I can yell at him?” I asked. His lack of presence hadn’t gone unnoticed by me. I would have thought that he would have shown up for dinner.

“Jett is... indisposed,” Rylan replied.

“What the hell does indisposed mean exactly?” I asked.

“He hasn’t been able to take human form since the night we met,” Kase explained. “His hound went crazy after you disappeared and took over.”

“He’s been stuck in hound form this entire time?” I clarified, wanting to make sure that I understood.

“Correct,” Kase confirmed.

My heart tugged in sympathy toward the man trapped within his body. “That must be difficult for him.”

“It has been,” Rylan admitted. “If he doesn’t come out of it soon, he might go feral forever. If that happens, let’s just say that will be the end for Jett.”

“I want to see him after dinner,” I demanded. An urgency was growing inside of me. I didn’t know him, but I knew I didn’t want to lose him before I had the chance to.

“Ok,” Kase agreed. “Maybe you can help convince his hound to retreat.”

“So, you want to tell us why you came home smelling of blood?” Rylan asked.

I explained about the guild and my first contract. The longer I spoke, the more sullen Rylan looked. “Spill it,” I ordered after telling them everything.

“Well, I can’t say I’m thrilled,” Rylan admitted, grasping my hand on the table to soften his words. “Especially the part where you’re in it for life. I wish you had talked to us about it before accepting.”

“It was my decision, not yours,” I replied. “I had to make this decision for me, not you.”

“That’s fair,” Kase said, reaching out to take my other hand. “We have no right to demand you arrange your life for us, and we would never tell you what to do. I think Rylan is trying to convey that we just wish we could have been part of the decision-making process, that’s all.”

I nodded in understanding. I might have felt the same way if I were in their shoes. “How about I include you in future decisions?” I asked.

Both of their faces brightened. “Does this mean you’re considering us as your mates?” Rylan asked.

I sighed, removed my hands from theirs, and twisted them in my lap as I considered my words: “I’ve never been one to ignore my instincts. And to deny that I feel connected to you would be doing just that. I’m just struggling to understand it. If I’m your fated mate, then that means I was always meant to fall, and I can’t wrap my mind around the injustice of that. How does that make sense? What’s the point?”

“I wish we had the answers for you,” Rylan replied. “Because you’re right, it isn’t a match that makes sense on paper. The only thing I do know is that I do not doubt that you were made for us. We probably won’t ever know why.”

“This is still a lot for me to wrap my head around, but I’m trying,” I replied. I looked at them and saw understanding in their eyes. “Is it ok if we take things slow? I know it contradicts how we started, but I’d like it if we could take our time getting to know each other better before you mark me.”

Kase smiled and stood to lean over the table to kiss me softly. “Angel, we can go at whatever pace you’re comfortable with. I’m just glad you aren’t running away from us anymore.”

I laughed softly as our waiter brought out our dinners. “Who said that? I didn’t.”

Rylan’s hand slid to the back of my neck as he leaned forward and kissed me, his tongue darting into my mouth teasingly before retreating. “We’ve got your scent now, little mate,” he growled softly. “There isn’t a place on this planet you could go that we wouldn’t find you.”

A thrilling tingle went up my spine that had me aching to put that theory to the test. Something in my eyes must have given me away because Rylan gave me a knowing look as he tapped my nose with his finger playfully. “Behave, brat,” he chuckled.

The rest of the dinner was relatively uneventful. Conversation flowed effortlessly as we ate, sharing our likes and dislikes and discussing past jobs we’d had. Throughout the evening, we discovered that we were often in the same area at the same time. The universe seemed to have been working on bringing us together for some time.

After dinner, they teleported me back to their apartment from the alley behind the restaurant.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” I coughed as I waved away the smoke.

I heard a growling echo around the room, and through the smoke, I saw the large hellhound chained to the wall. He stood just as tall as I did but was about three times as wide. His eyeball was the size of my closed fist, and I took a steadying breath before approaching him. Jett’s hound lunged toward me, straining against the chain as he tried to get to me.

“Careful,” Rylan warned.

I looked into his yellow eyes, and I could see Jett’s sorrow within them. “He won’t hurt me,” I assured them as I stepped into his space.