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Ashe
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THE CROSSHAIRS OF HER scope marked his forehead.
Ashe hesitated.
Finger caressing the trigger, only the strange, and somewhat pleasurable, tingle caressing her skin halted his death.
Weird.
She seldom felt anything but indifference toward her victims. And she never faltered. Not ever. She was the agent of death. Her stellar reputation was why the worst of the worst sought her out on the paranormal dark web to hire her services.
Tobias Drakki was the head of the Drakki Dragon family. He was a beast of a man, both physically and, well... business-wise. If fucked with, he fucked back harder.
It was a toss-up whose repute was greater. His or hers.
Her hits rarely lived up to their legend and tended to reside in the larger than life category. This time though, Ashe was surprised to discover the man was everything rumors claimed him to be.
“Impressive, Drakki,” she whispered to herself as her finger tightened on the trigger.
The corners of his eyes squinted just a fraction, before he turned in her direction and belched a fireball the size of a tanker. The earth exploded, a sand cloud the size of freaking Mercury billowed, obscuring him from her view.
Patient like always, she grunted, waiting for him to surface behind the dust. A breeze slid along her left cheek and rustled the strands of her hair. Luck was on her side.
Thanks to the shift in wind, you’ll soon be in my sights once more, Mr. Drakki.
The moment she could make out his face, she had a bullet with his name on it.
Time slowed. Vision narrowing on the area where he’d been, she focused on her surroundings. The noises of wildlife silenced as if they sensed a predator nearby.
Heartbeat slowing as she stroked the trigger, she watched the fine particles of sand dissect through her scope.
A whooshing sounded behind her. The tingling caressing her body intensified. A second later her sensor alerted someone approached from her back. The alarm could be nothing more serious than a rabbit, but most wildlife would create a scurrying sound not that whooshing noise this one had.
Palming the gun strapped to her thigh, she whipped it out of its holster at the same time she turned only her head and shoulders.
Tobias Drakki.
Oh shit! He’d used the debris to cloak his exit from her scope. And he’d flown two miles in less than a minute.
In all his panty-melting hotness Drakki stood there like a god blocking the sunlight from her eyes. She wanted to swoon at his feet.
I am lying on the ground at his feet.
Sweet lizard-goo, the man was better looking up close than through her scope. Black hair with a jaw covered in dark scruff. At least six-eight and broad shouldered. Naked from his shift, his muscled chest led to six-pack abs with arrows on either side that pointed her vision straight down to... oh blessed hypocrisy, his dick is huge.
Oh yeah, he was big and strong, with an edge of a dangerous vibe.
Impressed by his... everything, she swallowed down a big gulp of hunger.
Just the kind of guy I’d normally go for.
She took too long assessing him.
The moment she realized her gun wasn’t high enough to put a bullet in his head was the same instant she detected the murder in his ice-blue eyes.
Rolling, she fired a round aimed at his chest, but he zipped out of the way before the slug hit him. Hitting her feet, she fired again, and he dodged the bullet a second time. Grabbing the blade attached to the small of her back, she flung it while unloading her clip.
Evade all of that at once.
He plucked her knife from midair and zigzagged out of the way of her bullet spree.
How the fuck did he move like that?
The gun clicked empty and he elevated his eyebrows as if to say, ‘what’re you going to do now?’
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his voice deep and gruff, hotter than she would’ve imagined he’d sound.
She smirked. “I will hurt you.”
He shook his head, debris from the sand plume buzzing around his head as he loosened the rubble with his headshake. “Don’t touch her.”
Alerted to newcomers by his comment, she glanced over her shoulder to spy three more dragons behind her. All huge. All naked. All scowling with an air of menace as if they bathed in danger every morning. Tobias Drakki’s presence was a hundred times stronger than theirs.
Do they eat babies for breakfast to put off that vibe?
Aside from her M40A5 Sniper Rifle, she was out of ammo.
She dove for her rifle, flipped it around and the asshole seized the barrel, mashing the metal together until it was a flattened mess at the tip.
He’d ruined her prized possession! “You’re gonna pay for that.”
The dragon tilted his head as he casually plucked the weapon from her hold and tossed it over his shoulder.
Ashe wasn’t stupid. She knew when to run and take her shot another day.
Fleet of foot, she bolted to the right.
And slammed into Tobias Drakki. He’d moved without her realizing it.
Seriously?
It felt like a brick wall halted her retreat. Blinking she shook her head, puzzled when he didn’t even sway from her impact. She probably would’ve bounced off him if he hadn’t caught her by the shoulders.
The dragon lore handbook clearly got it wrong when it claimed these bastards were slow and unsteady, encumbered by their size. But... she frowned at his triple threat friends. They’d been late to the party so maybe Tobias Drakki was the exception to the rule.
“Why isn’t the siren singing us to death?” one of his goons said, she didn’t look to identify the person.
“Don’t give her any ideas,” another spoke up.
Ashe winced at the reminder of her defectiveness. If she could sing a note they’d be corpses at her feet right now instead of mocking her inability. Not being able to serenade her victims had never been a problem until this moment.
“Tobias, could she be Asherah Stone,” his cousin, Dom, asked as he moved into her vision beside Tobias. She’d researched his inner circle to know which of his men to avoid. Dom was at the top of that short list.
“The infamous assassin?” Tobias elevated an eyebrow. “But she’s tiny.”
Compared to him an Amazon is tiny. Like size mattered anyway. She rolled her eyes. In the paranormal world the deadliest individual could be two-feet tall. Brownies were a great example of that, with their vicious teeth and snarly attitude.
The speculation of her identity sparked an array of comments from the other two men.
“No way that’s her.”
“Why would Asherah Stone want to assassinate him?”
“Normally women are flinging themselves at him.”
A snort. “Yeah, like he’s the fuck of the century.”
If these were her men, she’d dole out punishment for this idiotic, unnecessary conversation in front of the enemy. Their lack of focus was why she worked alone.
“Clearly someone hired her,” the dryness in Dom’s tone indicated he agreed with her over their gratuitous verbal exchange.
Drakki’s stare remained pensive and unyielding. Being in his personal space and the subject of his heated stare, resulted in her blood heating and her core clenching with need. She shifted her footing to rub her thighs together, a paltry effort to gain a little friction where it counted, but the moisture soaking her underthings hindered that effect.
Why is it hot that he managed to capture me? She should be kneeing him in the groin and running off—because even heavyweights like him remained sensitive in that one spot.
“Interesting,” Drakki murmured.
She’d have thought her reaction interesting too if her nipples weren’t tingling as if he touched them. Ashe might’ve even been fascinated by her increased desire over him catching her, if he wasn’t holding her against her will.
Nipples cramping thanks to him, it was as if some electrical current arched between them.
Make it stop!
This close to his chest was too much temptation for her breasts and they ached for his rough caress.
Definitely not interesting. More like a gigantic pain in her ass.
She twisted to get out of his hold. The blasted dragon refused to cooperate and held tight, towing her closer to his chest.
That wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t naked and if his scent wasn’t an elixir that made her wetter. It was as if pheromones oozed out of his pores for no other reason than to subdue women. No wonder women threw themselves at him, he was a walking, talking aphrodisiac.
“I kind of want to keep her as a pet.”
Ashe froze at his words. His intent cooling her ardor. The conviction in his tone is what bothered her most because there wasn’t an ounce of playfulness in his voice.
She would’ve said nothing frightened her. But those words terrified her.
It wasn’t the first time she’d heard rumors of sirens being sex trafficked. If the gossip was true, her species was in high demand.
The idea of being enslaved to the dragon gave her chills.
Ashe took a groin shot.