Lahat ng Kabanata ng Assassin's Honor: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

Honor was peeling potatoes when she heard the bedroom door slam.She kept her eyes on the cutting board and her hands moving and her breathing even. The sounds coming from the back of the trailer had a particular quality — not the dull, stumbling sounds of a man too drunk to navigate his own space, but something sharper. More deliberate. She felt the anxiety settle into her muscles the way it always did when the vibe was wrong, that specific full-body alertness that had kept her alive this long.She heard the front door.Tanner came through it and stopped.She didn’t look up. She kept the peeler moving over the potato in her hand and waited.“What is that smell?”She sniffed reflexively. “Onion?”“Don’t.” He moved fast — faster than a man his size should move, faster than the alcohol in his system should allow, the particular supernatural speed that emerged sometimes when his control was already gone. He had her against the refrigerator before she’d fully registered the movement, his h

Gabriel got food. But first he needed to find Harold Mortem.He’d looked up the quarry offices on his phone before he’d even reached the end of Caty’s road. The building was more substantial than he’d expected for a small Vermont town — two stories, brick and glass, the kind of architecture that announces money without quite shouting it. The lobby inside was expensively decorated in the way of someone who wanted you to know immediately that you were in the presence of success. A secretary looked up from behind a sleek desk with the polished neutrality of someone paid to manage access.Gabriel gave her his most disarming smile. “Is Mr. Mortem in? I’m his son Aaron’s teacher — I have something important to discuss.”She made the call. He was shown through.The office made the lobby look modest. A mahogany desk the size of a small boat. A 72-inch screen on the back wall. The latest equipment, the best of everything, and along one wall, on illuminated shelves and pedestals, a collection of

“Hey, sleeping beauty, wake up.” Gabriel nudged her awake.“Mmm?” Honor sat up and rubbed her eyes. It was dark already and they were in the parking lot of a restaurant. “Where are we?”“Pennsylvania. We’ll stop here for the night. I thought we’d get a bite to eat and then head to the hotel.”“Oh.” She couldn’t help but wonder if they would share a hotel room again. Would they be sleeping in the same bed? She didn’t know why the idea made her nervous. She had already shared a cottage with him in Mount Tabor, she had already passed several nights sleeping with Gabriel’s huge arm curled around her, and he’d always been a perfect gentleman.“Do you like Chinese food?”Her eyes widened. “I’ve never had Chinese food.”“Never? Well, tonight you will try it. Hopefully we can find something you like.” He helped her out of the truck and kept his hand on the small of her back as he escorted her into the upscale Chinese restaurant. There were bamboo plants and colorful murals of mountains and pan

Honor shivered, half in fear and half in excitement. She didn’t even know what that meant, but it sounded intense. She wrapped the towel around herself and grabbed another to towel-dry her hair. She wrapped it around her head like a turban and escaped from the steamy bathroom. She had only the maroon baby-doll nightgown to wear to sleep. She hadn’t really thought about pajamas during their shopping spree. What would he think of her provocative night clothes? Would he think she was deliberately teasing him?Was she deliberately teasing him?She put it on and then looked at herself in the mirror mounted beside the closet door. Good lord, she looked like a call girl.“Uh… Gabriel? Can I borrow a t-shirt to sleep in?”“Why, what’s — oh!”She tried to hide behind the closet door, but he had already seen her.“Wow, baby girl… what is that?” She flushed so furiously she nearly matched the lingerie in color. “The saleslady said you would like it. But it’s… no.” She shook her head helplessly. “

Gabriel’s father called him into the study.It was a room that suited Alexander Shepherd — dark wood, orderly shelves, a desk that communicated authority without needing to say so. Gabriel had sat in this particular chair across from that particular desk enough times in his life to have a complicated relationship with both. He sat down and waited while his father settled himself and steepled his hands in that way he had, the gesture that meant he had already decided what he was going to say and was now organizing how to say it.“Son.” Alexander looked at him with measured eyes. “I know how long you’ve waited for this. I’m glad for you — truly. There is no greater thing than finding your mate.” A pause. “But Gabe. You know as well as I do that this girl is not fit to be your Luna.”Gabriel went very still.“She is weak in every way. Physically, emotionally, mentally — she is completely ignorant of our ways and our culture. She doesn’t shift. She may not even carry a wolf at all. How can