Chapter 6

Romy pov

1:30 AM.

My subdued, sullen bridesmaid persona was dead and buried. In its place was Viper and Romy, the girl whose sister was killed by a beast.

I stood on the ledge of the adjacent skyscraper, the freezing Buston wind whipping around my dark, skin-tight tactical gear. My face was concealed behind a sleek, black half-mask molded into the sharp beak and feathers of a raven.

I smeared a Scent-masking serum, an acrid, chemical gel, generously over my pulse points to hide my human scent from whatever werewolf noses might be sniffing the night air.

I strapped the twin silver blades to my thighs. I had deliberately shifted the timeline to half-past one. It was a calculated, tactical delay.

Xry and the agency were undoubtedly monitoring my encrypted feed after frantically issuing their "Abort" command, and I needed them to assume I was following orders and sleeping it off.

Furthermore, the Alpha’s personal guard dogs, his Beta Aaron Mercer, and the younger brother of four siblings, Zaric—would have been running on pure adrenaline to protect the Alpha by now.

I knew their faces, their ranks, and their patrol habits from the heavily researched files in my blue room. I mean, I used to be very close to Rowan... Thirteen years ago.

By 1:30 AM, they were either rotated out or experiencing the inevitable, sluggish lull that comes with working in the dead of the night, especially when it was the full moon.

The micro-tracker I had slipped into Rowan’s jacket had blinked a steady, stationary red dot on my encrypted device since the afternoon.

It showed he had been in his room all day, and it also me  led straight to the penthouse suite of the city's most heavily guarded luxury hotel.

Breaking in wasn’t simple, but for someone of my caliber, it wasn't impossible either. I'd rate the security a solid seventy-five percent difficulty.

I fired my grapple gun, the silent line catching the lip of the penthouse balcony.

I swung across the dizzying urban drop, scaling the sheer glass wall of the hotel like a ghost.

I bypassed the state-of-the-art biometric lock on the balcony door with a rigged scrambler in less than forty seconds, careful not to make a sound.

Aaron and Zaric were likely stationed out in the main hallway, utterly clueless that the most lethal threat on the eastern seaboard had just dropped onto their Alpha's terrace.

I slipped through the sliding glass doors into the pitch-black master bedroom, careful so my boots remain completely soundless against the  carpet.

My eyes quickly adjusted to the gloom.

The massive king-sized bed was empty. Not a single crease in the sheets.

Where the hell did he go?

Maybe he was in the sprawling master bathroom?

But the screen strapped to my wrist showed the tracker was right here, in this exact room.

I traced the darkness, my eyes catching a faint, blinking red-gray light coming from a glass cup on a side table. I crept forward to retrieve it.

A soft, metallic clink echoed through the suffocating silence. The bedside lamp flicked on and the room suddenly turned bright.

Rowan was sitting in a velvet armchair, completely relaxed. He was half-dressed, his black dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down his torso to expose a violently scarred, heavily muscled chest.

The sleeves were rolled casually up to his thick forearms. He swirled a crystal glass of whiskey, the ice clinking against the sides, before casually tossing my micro-tracker into the amber liquid.

A cold, arrogant smirk stretched across his lips.

"Welcome, Viper," he drawled, his voice a rich, teasing baritone dripping with dark sarcasm. "I thought you wouldn't be patient enough. Honestly, I expected you'd come climbing through my window sooner."

Fuck! He had anticipated my arrival. This fucker knew I was coming.

Knowing I was completely cornered, I didn't hesitate. Instead, I launched myself at him with pure, lethal intent.

My hand gripped the hilt of my silver knife—the exact kind of blade he had buried into my sister's heart.

I never forgot what it looked like, so when I had the resources, I found the exact kind.

Rowan seemed to be expecting my attack. With infuriating, supernatural speed and absolute calm, he simply leaned to the side, catching my wrist before the blade could sink into his neck while he was still very much seated!

The second his bare skin met mine, the cursed mark burned with a sudden intensity . It didn't just burn—it pulsed with a jagged, treacherous heat, perfectly mirroring the electric shock of his grip.

Disorienting spikes of scalding heat and pleasure ripped through my severed mate bond, scrambling my assassin-level focus.

I twisted, throwing a brutal kick toward his ribs. He caught my ankle with his free hand, his grip like a steel vise, and yanked me forward right onto his lap.

Heavens!

"Is that all you've got, little Raven?" he whispered, his gray eyes flashing with dark amusement as I straddled his thighs, struggling fiercely against his hold.

"Shut the fuck up!" I snarled, slashing my free hand toward his face.

He blocked it effortlessly, shifting his grip to pin both my wrists against his solid chest. His body was a raging furnace beneath me.

"Fuck, Mate. Weren't you taught not to fight a man who is actively seated? It puts you in a rather compromising position."

My eyes widened.

Mate. He called me mate.

Rowan knew it was me. The sheer weight of that realization slammed into my chest, stealing my breath.

Hot, blinding anger surged through my veins.

Had he known I was Viper from the very beginning?

Had he been playing me, hunting me while I blindly believed I was tracking him?

A sudden, terrifying thought made my blood run cold.

Wait....Did he know who I truly was beneath the mask? That I was Romy, the little sister of Alina Hawthorne?

Either ways, I wasn’t leaving his room until I drove the knife right into his heart.

"Go to hell!" I spat, thrashing wildly to break his hold, but every violent movement only ground my hips against his, sending electric, traitorous shocks of arousal straight down my spine.

The mate bond was a terrible, sickening thing.

Rowan’s chest rumbled with a dark chuckle, his gaze flickering to my lips.

"Gosh, I can smell your arousal, Raven. It’s intoxicating. Feels like you're fighting that far more than you're fighting me,” he smirked. “are you sure you came here to kill me, or fuck me?”

My frame shook with a rage so thick it threatened to choke a humiliating tear out of me. The fucker was toying me.

He was effortlessly mocking my incompetence, treating the deadliest assassin in the agency like a helpless horny woman.

And what made me more enraged was that he wasn't wrong.

"I'll carve your heart out!" I snarled.

"I'm going to bed you," he stated, as casually as if discussing the weather, his eyes darkening with a raw, primal hunger that made my breath hitch. "I'm going to make you scream so hard, while you beg me for more.”

“Let me go!” I snapped, pushing harder, trying to break free until Rowan’s demeanor suddenly shifted from amused to lethal.

With a sudden surge of terrifying Alpha strength, he stood up, taking my entire body weight with him while I was still trapped on his lap.

Before I could even gasp, he spun me around and slammed my back flush against the wall. The impact knocked the silver knife from my grip, sending it clattering uselessly to the floor.

He pinned both my hands high above my head with one massive fist, his other arm caging my waist to keep me pressed against him.

His heavy, hot breath brushed against the tattooed skin of my neck. The forced physical contact left me completely breathless, my mark scorching so fiercely I thought the flesh was melting.

"How did you know?" I spat, venom dripping from every word. My raven mask was still firmly in place, yet he had seen right through it. "How did you know it was me?"

Rowan used his free hand to trace the edge of my jaw, his thumb slipping beneath the strap of my mask to stroke the burning skin of my neck.

I shuddered violently at the contact, my body betraying me.

"You kill so wonderfully well, little Raven," he murmured, his voice incredibly smooth, "but you did a terrible job hiding yourself. That beautiful scent of yours... wood, jasmine, and roseship. It's unmistakable."

I bit my lower lip, trying to suppress the humiliating whimper threatening to escape my throat. "Then why haven't you killed me yet? If you know who I am, finish it!"

That was the assassin law. Kill or be killed.

He leaned in so close, his dominant, terrifying scent completely enveloped me, entirely erasing the acrid masking serum I had on me.

His voice was a low, mocking rumble that vibrated through his chest. "Killing my mate before I mark her?" A dark, wicked smile touched his lips. "Hell no."

"I'm not your fucken mate, you beast," I hissed, glaring up into his endless, infuriating gray eyes. "I would rather die than watch you mark me."

"I'm in no haste, baby," he whispered, his thumb pressing possessively against my racing pulse. "You will beg for me. You will demand I fuck you breathlessly long before I sink my teeth into you little mate."

"I rejected you already!" I snapped angrily, my chest heaving.

His smirk only widened, his eyes dropping to the rapid rise and fall of my breasts. "Oh, you did? Why then are you breathing so fast, little Raven? Why are you shuddering every time I touch you?" He leaned his weight fully against me, trapping me completely. "I told you already. Until I acknowledge it, there is no rejecting me."

My heart hammered violently against my ribs, caught somewhere between blind rage and a terrifying, unwanted desperation to have him slam me against the wall and fuck me senseless.

Rowan leaned down, his lips softly brushing the sensitive shell of my ear, sending a fresh wave of fire straight to my core.

"But right now," he whispered, his hot breath sending dark shivers down my spine, "I'm only interested in how long you can deny how my touch makes you burn for me.”