Chapter 11

Lexi

I woke up warm, comfortable, and slightly squashed beneath a heavy arm and part of Rurick's chest. Turns out, he liked to sleep on his belly, and he'd tucked me half under him, throwing one leg over my thighs and pinning me in place. It wasn't a bad place to be in as normally restlessness in my legs would wake me long before I wanted. With him pinning me in place that hadn't happened and I'd slept deeper than I had expected.

It was the soft bleeping noise coming from somewhere near the front of the ship that had drawn me to wakefulness. It sounded like a com signal trying to connect but Rurick was still breathing deeply next to me, sound asleep and not responding. I turned to study his features, softer in repose but still slightly alien and foreign. Golden dusky skin that glimmered faintly in the artificial lighting, his cheekbones sharply defined as they tapered toward his elfin ears. He was kinda cute like this.

I didn't get to contemplate him for long, the insisted beeping continued for a short while and then it clicked through into a recording. Rurick liked to screen his calls and now I was privy to a gruff male voice barking his name through the one-sided connection. "Rurick, I'm expecting your proof of death on that thieving little girl. Yeah, that's right, I did my own research. I know it's that girl you made off with last night. You want your fucking payment, you better get me my damn proof and my files."

A wave of dread washed over me. That was some stranger demanding proof I was dead just because I'd seen, and taken, those damn files. I glanced at Rurick's handsome face, the sharp glint of a fang at the corner of his mouth, then down along his muscular arm. Had I let myself get completely played for a fool? Had I gone along for the ride just because I'd wanted to have a taste of danger, flirt with darkness?

What if Rurick had seen an easy lay in me? Had he said whatever he needed to just to get me in bed, while fully planning on killing me for that money after? I didn't really want to believe that, what we'd shared earlier had been so raw and perfect, it felt wrong to consider it meaningless. Still, I had been putting my life, and my body, in the hands of an assassin, a man who readily admitted to a very flawed moral compass.

Before I could convince myself that I was worried for nothing, I shuffled out from beneath his body and started dressing. I felt better when I was covered up, less exposed, and even more certain that I was being a total idiot for trusting him.

I was at the door to his ship, my purse and those files in my hands when I paused. I was overreacting, leading with my heart instead of my mind, or was I? I couldn't decide which part of me was in the lead when I tried to open the door and leave. Was it my heart trying to tell me to stay there, to take the plunge and fall head over heels for a kinda bad but extremely sexy man? Or was I letting panic over letting someone get so close so quickly lead me to run?

I was a complete basket case and just the fact that lust and passion had so closely gotten tangled with my feelings already, made me think that this ‘mate' thing was real. Or was that wishful thinking? I yanked on the door handle to the airlock and it hissed when it opened for me. I didn't know anymore what I should be doing so I went with what a rational, normal person probably would. And nobody in their right mind would trust an assassin.

"Where do you think you're going?" Rurick demanded darkly, his fist slamming down on the door above my head, shutting the portal with a heavy thud. Startled, I dropped my purse and the file, the papers fluttering away around our feet. When I glanced up, he looked furious, his eyes hard as steel in his slightly alien face. His mouth was drawn in a grim line, and his chest felt huge as he got right into my face, crowding me against the cold metal.

"Out," I said stubbornly, "I just need to catch some air, it's a little stifling in here." I tried hard not to glance down his body, shivering when I realized that he'd pulled on pants but left them unbuttoned. He had no right to look this sexy when I was trying to get my thoughts sorted, he was far too tempting when he was awake.

"Are you crazy? There's a mobster out there who wants you dead. Without protection, he'll get to you in a heartbeat!" He crowded even closer, pressing his body against mine, pinning me in place. I should have been scared but instead, a shiver of arousal ran up my spine, I was definitely going mental if I thought it was hot to get trapped like this. He leaned on his elbows on either side of my head, his lower body pinning me to the door, and it was definitely turning me on.

I pressed my palms to his chest but he didn't budge an inch, all hard, defined muscle and coiled power. "I heard that call!" I said, unable to keep my emotions from spilling over. Fine, if revealing this was when he said "Yeah got ya, I figured I'd fuck you first." Then so be it, better that I knew.

His eyebrows lowered, his expression growing darker, and he opened his mouth and bared his fangs at me. "And you thought I betrayed you? You are my mate! Don't you feel the bond between us? I would never hurt you."

I shook, my heart aching when he said those words. I did, I knew I did, but it felt too good to be true, and also a little scary. Was I ready to just throw myself in his arms, to ride off to wherever and be the wife of an assassin? Was I ready to abandon some of my own morals for love? It was scary to think that yes, I was, because it was so damn tempting to just be his. To not be alone any longer, struggling to survive in this awful, bleak, dystopian world.

His expression softened just a tad and my heart lurched some more. "I do feel it… I just… It's all moving so fast. None of it makes any sense." My hands stopped pushing, sliding along the hard, bare muscle, my fingers tingling from his warmth. I really did want to just rest my head against him, let him shelter me in those strong arms. Let him kill for me and take me away from the bleakness in my life, on an adventure I couldn't even imagine yet.

"Then trust me," he said, his arms finally dropping from around my head, the cage opening up. He curled them around my waist instead, cradling me gently to him. A gentleness that hid his lethalness, a gentleness I was pretty sure he only showed to me. I was a goner for that touch and the hint of vulnerability in his eyes.

"Okay," I whispered, and rising on tiptoe, I pressed my mouth to his. "Okay. Now what?" There was a mobster out there who wanted me dead, my apartment was blown to smithereens anyway. Did we just leave? Fly his ship away from Earth and out of reach of this bad guy? When I thought about visiting other worlds at Rurick's side, my belly fluttered with excitement.

"You wanted to give those papers to the police, I said you could. But I'd rather solve the problem myself," Rurick said darkly. I eyed said papers on the floor around us, and my mouth curled in distaste. Why even bother? That was just me grasping onto the last bits of what remained of my moral compass, wanting to do the right thing. But why do that if all it could cause us was trouble?

I was about to say that when Rurick stepped back, he wore a set of pants but he hadn't even bothered to button them. "You stay here, safe inside Striker, and I'll go take care of Agosta. I'll make sure he'll never bother you again. I should have done that from the start."

Closing my mouth with a snap, I contemplated what he was saying. He was talking murder, I was certain, and I was surprised to discover that I was pretty okay with that. Nobody would be upset if that mobster was gone, though another would certainly just take his place, they were like cockroaches in that way.

"Fine," I said, "But you have to promise to be careful. You can't get yourself hurt or killed over this when we could just as easily… leave." As the last word left my mouth, he started to grin, his fangs showing and his azure eyes turning a little wild and feral.

"That's no fun," he drawled.