Chapter 6

Lexi

I had to be crazy. That was the only answer I could come up with for what had gone down in my doorway. I'd let that assassin bring me home, so now he knew where I lived, bad idea. And on top of that, I'd let him kiss me and play my body like it was a violin until I came. What kind of person was I to let a man like that, just… do that to me?

Curled up on my couch in comfy leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, I'd showered but I still tingled. I had liked it all so much, every thrilling second of being in his arms. He was derailing every single thought in my head, which was probably a good thing, even if it confused me. If not for him, I might be dwelling on the bad parts of the day, like discovering my boss' embezzling, and what he'd started to do to me to punish me.

There was probably something wrong with my moral compass for thinking of Rurick as my knight in shining armor. How could an assassin be the good guy? But it did kind of feel like he was, at least to me. I yanked a blanket from the back of my couch to curl around my shoulders when a deep sense of loss washed over me.

It was inexplicable, that feeling. But it felt like I'd just lost someone really important to me when I thought of how Rurick had just left. Why hadn't he come in? Why had he pleasured me and then left without taking his own? No, he'd just put me on my feet as soon as I was steady after that mind-blowing orgasm, and then he'd told me to lock the door. That was it, no goodbye. No, ‘here's my com, call me maybe?'

Glancing around my still very empty little apartment it felt even emptier and lonelier than normal. I'd sold everything I owned to pay the medical bills for my father when he fell ill. I had a few boxes of knickknacks from the past, a few mementos, and the barest of a wardrobe. The furniture in here came from charity, my mattress a lumpy thing that made my back ache in the morning.

What was I doing? It was like the death of my father last year had put my entire life on hold, and now I was stuck in some kind of awful limbo. Rurick's abrupt entrance into and departure from my life seemed to have shined a light on all of it. I just felt empty now.

Sitting here, after he left, it was suddenly hard to think of anything other than how shitty life was. I wanted to laugh with irony at how much I'd loved to read banned books as a teenager. Orwell, Huxley, Vance… I'd gobbled up that dystopian stuff, but I was really living it. The UAR was a monster of a government and most lives out here were just like mine, a struggle to survive against the dire financial distress.

And now that my boss was dead, I'd probably have to go out there and find a new job. How long would it take? To what desperate measures would I be forced to sink just to eat if it took more than a few weeks? I was one of many looking for a job while only having been able to afford the minimum education.

My eyes fell on my bright pink purse and my stomach dropped when I spotted the corner of a folder sticking out of it. I'd made a hard copy, actually printed that file because it was a lot harder to destroy that kind of evidence. Someone had to come here and physically destroy it. Now that my boss was dead, that stuff was worthless. Had I really risked my own skin for it?

I toed the purse with my foot and it toppled over, the folder spilling out of it onto the couch next to me. I should just toss that into the fire or at least out with the trash. That entire file was an omen of bad luck; if you believed in that kind of thing. Then my eye fell on a name on one of the pages sticking out and my skin crawled.

Oh, shit. If that was who I thought it was, I'd really stepped in it. Why had I decided to print this out again? Why had I considered going to the freaking police with my boss' embezzling? Nothing good was coming from this. In this particular block of the city, everyone knew that name and whispered it like it was the bogeyman.

Agosta was a big-time mobster who had been skating on the edge of the law for as long as anyone could remember. And Alberade had been his finance man? And he'd had the fucking guts to embezzle from him? Now I understood why Rurick had been there to assassinate him. He'd been sent by Agosta…

A loud banging on the door shook me from my horrified thoughts, and I leaped from the couch as if it had burned me. Tossing the papers back in my purse, I threw my blanket over the top and hoped that looked like a normal, casual pile before I rushed for the door. Then I had another shock, the three different chains and deadbolts on my door were moving on their own. Like they were being pulled from their locks by a powerful magnet.

"Lexi! Are you alright? Are you hurt, darling?" The voice shouting through the door over the banging was unmistakable. That was Rurick, but now that I knew he worked for Agosta, I wasn't feeling quite so safe, not with the information burning a hole in my couch.

Wetting my dry lips, I backed away from the door and cast my gaze around for a weapon. I'd left my baseball bat in my bedroom next to the bed and I spun around and raced for that. My fingers had just gripped the handle when I heard the door open to my tiny apartment. When I spun around, weapon raised, I discovered Rurick in the middle of my living room, dressed in black leather and with dozens of weapons strapped to his athletic body.

"Hurry Lexi, we don't have long. If you want to live, you must come with me," he said, holding out his hand toward me. His golden features were surprisingly dark and serious. I'd only known him for one evening but I already knew that wasn't his normal kind of expression. My stomach dropped all over again, like I wasn't scared enough already.

"Stay away, I won't let you kill me!" I warned, swinging my bat threateningly for good measure. Rurick's eyebrows went up, but he glanced from me to my front door and then back again. He seemed to be listening for something before he returned his full attention to me. If there had been another way out of my home, like a fire escape or something, I would have tried to make a run for it then. But there wasn't, I was stuck between him and the door.

His golden eyes were much softer and kinder now, "We've been over this, sweetheart. I'm not here to kill you. I'm here to save you. I'd always save you, don't you know that?" My silly heart went all gooey and soft in my chest, though rationally I tried to tell myself that I couldn't trust a single thing he said. That was an absurd declaration coming from a freaking assassin that I'd met only a few hours ago. We'd kissed, but I was under no delusion that my kisses were so phenomenal that I'd bewitched him.

"I mean that Lexi. I'm Terafin remember? My kind mates for life, and you are my mate. You can trust me. And now you need to get your sexy ass in gear. We don't have long before they locate us." I was still reeling over this ‘mate' thing he'd just dropped on us when he threw the next puzzle at me, what us? Who was going to locate us?

Rurick turned his back on me, flipped the blanket casually from the couch, and picked up my purse like he'd known it was there. "Agosta wants his papers back, and he'll have you killed for what you know. Pack only what you can't replace, we need to move fast." He waved those damn papers around like that was all the evidence he needed to prove his point.

Actually, it kind of did. If Rurick knew I had those, and he didn't mean to kill me, Agosta definitely did. That the assassin wasn't here to kill me was something that I just kept on wanting to believe no matter what. Each of our interactions had been one bizarre experience after the next, and it left me hot and bothered, and completely confused. Maybe there was actually something to it, this declaration that we might be mates.

Lowering my bat, I gave him a suspicious glare and he flashed me a fanged grin that made my belly flutter with butterflies. Dang it, he was sexy when he did that. Why did I have to find him so damn attractive? And here he was, standing in the middle of my living space, appraising my tiny pile of belongings. I felt a twinge of embarrassment over how abysmal this place was but then shoved that thought away.

Honestly, what did I have to lose if I went with him? I had no job and terrible prospects of getting another. If I remained here, I had no doubt that Agosta would find me sooner rather than later and punish me for taking those papers. If I raced over to the nearest police station right now with them, I still might be in major trouble, it wouldn't be hard to run into a crooked cop, most of them were on the take in this neighborhood.

Springing into action, I grabbed my gym bag and did as Rurick had advised. I packed things that were irreplaceable to me. My stuffed rabbit from when I was a little girl, a photo album, my datapad with all my important files, and with it some more knickknacks from my life before my father's death. Rurick stood next to me at some point, silently handing me my purse with the damn file. "Don't bother with clothes, I can procure anything you need," he glared at my wardrobe as if it had personally offended him. "Better things than that."

I glanced at him, did he mean that? When did a girl find herself with an assassin who wanted to buy her new clothes? What kind of strange rabbit hole had I fallen down in? I found I didn't even care, if Rurick wasn't here to kill me, and I actually believed that, then I really wanted his words to be true.

He took my bag and slung it over his shoulder, then his warm hand folded around mine and he started urging me from my apartment. I went willingly and I didn't even glance back when we stepped outside. I had a feeling I'd never see that place again, and I was pretty good with that. Excitement thrummed through me, what kind of adventure had I embarked on?