The Alpha's Assassin Bride

CHAPTER 2 — THE FIRST REPORT

Wren didn't sleep.

She lay curled against Torin's side long after he'd drifted off, his arm heavy across her waist, his breath slow and even against her hair. She should have used the stillness to think. Instead she found herself memorizing the warmth of him, the way his hand had curled instinctively tighter around her even in sleep, like some part of him refused to let go even unconscious.

This is not the mission, she told herself. This was never the mission.

She eased out from under his arm anyway, careful, guild-trained silence in every movement. At the door she looked back once. He'd rolled toward the space she'd left, brow furrowed like he felt the absence already.

Something in her chest ached at that. She hated how much she liked the ache.

He woke at first light and found her sitting in the window seat, already dressed, watching the sun climb over the wall.

"You left," he said, voice still rough with sleep.

"I had somewhere to be."

"That's not an answer."

"I know." Wren crossed back to the bed before she could stop herself, and he caught her wrist, gentle, pulling her down until she was sitting beside him, close enough that his forehead rested against her shoulder.

"Stay five more minutes," he murmured.

"I can't."

"Four minutes."

She should have pulled away. Instead she let herself have three of them, her fingers combing absently through his hair while he pressed a slow kiss to the inside of her wrist, right over her pulse, like he could feel exactly how fast it was going.

"Whoever you have to report to," Torin said quietly, his thumb tracing slow circles at her waist, "tell them you couldn't do it."

Wren's expression tightened. "That's not how the guild works."

"I know." His gaze held hers, steady, no demand in it. "I'm asking anyway."

She didn't answer that. Couldn't, yet.

"Torin." She pulled back far enough to look at him. "I have to go. If I don't, they'll know something's wrong, and that puts you in more danger, not less."

His jaw tightened, but he let her go, brushing his thumb once more over her cheek before releasing her entirely. "Come back to me."

"I always have somewhere to come back to now," she said, and it startled her, how much she meant it. "That's new."

And when she left an hour later, she felt him watching from the window — not trusting, not yet, just watching the way a man watches something he's afraid might not come back.

The dead-drop was a hollow oak two miles from the palace wall. Wren left a coded scrap of parchment — target alive, bond confirmed, awaiting instruction — and told herself the ache in her chest was just the cold morning air.

She didn't expect an answer for days.

She got one in under an hour.

A shape dropped from the branches above her, silent as smoke. Wren had her blade half-drawn before she registered the face.

"Kade."

"Don't stab me. I crossed forty miles of guild territory for this conversation." His eyes flicked to her throat, to the faint shimmer the bond had left there overnight, and something in his expression went carefully still. "You look different."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You do. I trained beside you for twelve years, Wren. I know what your face looks like when you've stopped fighting something."

She said nothing, which was answer enough.

"Sable's exact words," Kade said, quieter now, "were: finish it before the moon turns, or I'll send someone who will."

"When does the moon turn?"

"Nine days."

Something cold settled in her stomach, sharper than any threat had landed before, because now there was something specific to lose. "That's not enough time to—"

"To what? Fall in love with him?" Kade's voice wasn't cruel, just tired. "I can see it already. You've got nine days, Wren. I don't know if that's enough time to do the job or enough time to make sure you can't."

He was gone before she could answer, back into the treeline, leaving her alone with a countdown that suddenly felt like it was measuring the wrong thing.

She slipped back through the servants' gate before the kitchens woke. Rurik was waiting in the corridor outside Torin's chambers, arms crossed.

"Where were you," he said. Not a question.

"Walking."

"Before dawn. Outside the walls, on your wedding night."

"Ask Torin. He knows."

"I intend to." Rurik didn't move aside. "I don't trust you."

"Noted." She stepped past him, and he let her go, watching with the particular suspicion of a man filing away one more reason not to like the stranger his king had married.

Torin was at his desk when she returned, but he set the letter down the second she walked in, crossing the room to catch her hand before she'd even shut the door, pulling her close enough that she felt the words before he said them.

"You came back," he said, and there was something careful underneath it, like he'd spent the last hour convincing himself not to expect it.

"I told you I would."

"People tell me a lot of things." His hand found her waist, thumb tracing slow circles through the fabric of her dress. "I want to believe you. I'm choosing to, for now."

Wren heard the distinction and let it sit between them, unaddressed. She leaned into him for one unguarded second before pulling back enough to meet his eyes. "I have to tell you something, and you're not going to like it."

"Tell me anyway."

"They gave me a deadline."

His hand stilled at her waist. "How long?"

"Nine days."

"And after nine days?"

"They send someone else. Someone who won't hesitate the way I did."

Torin's jaw tightened, but instead of stepping back, he pulled her closer, resting his forehead against hers, breathing her in like he was trying to memorize her in case nine days wasn't enough. "Then we have nine days to make sure that doesn't matter."

"Torin—"

"I'm not letting a countdown decide this," he said quietly. "Not after last night."

Before she could answer, a sharp knock cut through the room — urgent, nothing like the earlier summons.

"Enter," Torin called, not releasing her hand.

A guard stepped in, breathless. "My king. There's been an incident at the eastern gate."

"What kind of incident."

"A body, sir. Guild markings. Left where the sentries couldn't miss it."

Wren's stomach dropped before he said the next part.

"There's a message pinned to the corpse," the guard said. "Addressed to the queen."

Torin's grip on her hand tightened, and for the first time since the wedding, Wren felt something other than fear rise up alongside the danger — the sharp, fierce need to protect what she'd only just let herself want.