Trancing the Tiger (Chinese Zodiac Romance Series Book 1) Page 30

  Steeling herself with a deep breath, Nat did as told and stepped inside. The heavy door thudded shut behind her. The Matchmaker was the sole person on earth she trusted. With her life, her soul, her heart. This woman had held Nat’s fate in her hands for the past six years.

  “Well, let me get a good look at you.” The Matchmaker tilted her head, long straight black locks brushing her waist. The corner of the woman’s mouth curved as she examined Nat’s manly appearance. “Hmm. Nice detailing, especially with the nose.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled as she peeled the broad, flat prosthetic off, perhaps for the last time. Just in case, she placed the nose in the small box inside her duffle. Digging her nails beneath her scalp, she peeled off the shorthaired black wig and bald cap. She shook out her long, curly dark auburn locks and sighed.

  The Matchmaker handed her a traditional Chinese dress like the one she wore and ushered her into a closet. The red silk design would be the first feminine item she’d worn in a week. The dress fit like a glove. The Matchmaker had this tailored for me. The woman always looked out for her. After dressing, she applied adhesive remover to the strip of fake stubble on her chin, peeling it off.

  “Ready?” Through the door, a hint of eagerness coated the woman’s normally smooth tone. Not for a minute did Nat forget how important this decision was to the other Chosen.

  Or worry she wouldn’t be the one they wanted.

  The Chosen were just that. Chosen by the Jade Emperor to host the twelve warrior spirit animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Together, the host and the spirit animal defended the Earth against imbalance, like the Red Death—a plague that had decimated almost a third of the world’s population over the last couple of years. The spread of the lethal disease had tipped the world’s balance of yin and yang—complementary concepts of light and dark, fire and water, male and female. Until the Chosen defeated the Plague God and restored this balance, humankind spiraled toward extinction.

  Tonight, Natalie wouldn’t be chosen, not by the Jade Emperor, at least. The spirit of the Snake had been stolen from its host by one of the Matchmaker’s Kongsi members. A Shèhúnzéi—Spirit Thief—Lucy had snatched the Snake from its previous—and evil—host, a man named Zhao. Natalie had memorized every detail of the assignment over the past week. Ever since the Matchmaker handed her this new task.

  “Coming, Matchmaker.” Natalie smiled but her smile soon faded. What if the Matchmaker was wrong? What if the Snake didn’t accept her? Just because she’d been born in the Year of the Snake didn’t ensure compatibility.

  Enough. She smoothed her skirt, straightened her shoulders, and assumed the air of confidence she’d spent the last six years perfecting. No matter what turmoil churned inside her soul, no one would detect her anxiety.

  She twisted the knob and stepped out of the closet. “Thank you again, Matchmaker, for this great and honorable responsibility. I am ready to meet the Chosen.” She inclined her head in deference.

  The Matchmaker’s obsidian eyes glinted. The knots inside Nat’s stomach twined again, weaving from excitement and anticipation to the uncertainty of the unknown.

  What was the scheming woman up to? Her mind flashed over every aspect of this mission, but none stood out. She stomped down her nerves and followed the Matchmaker up a set of creaky stairs and into a narrow corridor. Down the flowery wallpapered hallway, the Matchmaker paused at a set of wooden doors, her hand gracefully swept outward to indicate Nat should proceed first.

  She cast a glance at the woman, but whatever mischief had flashed in her expression disappeared. Focused back on the room, she combined every ounce of her control to stop her hand from trembling as she hauled open the solid hardwood door.

  Candlelight from dozens of lanterns illuminated the figures in the room.

  Four men and a woman. Both unfamiliar to her, one man and the woman stood entwined. Another man she didn’t recognize flanked off to the side.

  Then there was him.

  The air cut off in her throat. It can’t be him. Despite her denial, there was no mistaking the man standing before her. He wasn’t the tallest man in the room, but the largest for sure. Her gaze tripped on his feet, encased in shiny black loafers. Dark charcoal slacks hugged thick, powerful thighs. A casual navy blue dress shirt stretched across his massive chest, the sleeves rolled at the elbows to reveal sculpted forearms and the promise of brawny biceps.

  What the hell was he doing here? Swallowing hard, she forced her focus upward onto his face, and the disdain she knew would greet her.

  She scanned past his strong, rugged jaw for the slight bump in his nose from when he’d broken it at age fifteen. Check. Dark olive eyes—the shade between a deep green and a rich brown. An unmistakable hue. Lower, the firm, seductive lips that would reveal a dimple on the right side when he smiled. Which he definitely wasn’t doing right now. Those lips were pressed tight as a tic worked his jaw. His father was Chinese, his mother Australian, and his mixed heritage lent his features an exotic, striking decadence.

  Kassian. Dammit, Matchmaker. You should have warned me.

  He dropped his hand from his spiked dark locks. The shock of seeing her must have worn off, because those eyes that had widened now narrowed into the hard, cold depths she imagined they did every time he thought of her.

  ***

  “Fuck, no.” The words slipped from Kassian’s mouth as the hallucination in front of him cast a glare of pure betrayal to the Matchmaker, who stood at her right.

  He’d never cursed in front of the Matchmaker before. To be honest, in this moment, he didn’t fucking care. No way in hell was this Nat standing in front of him.

  And no bloody way would she be the new Snake.

  Skewer him and roast him over a pit, because he’d never allow that shit to happen unless he was good and dead. “Fuck.” He shoved off the hand Sheng had placed on his arm in Tiger’s attempt to calm Ox.

  Ox wasn’t agitated. His warrior spirit animal and the others in the room awaited this new Chosen with calm anticipation. Not the blend of puke-your-guts-out turbulence and raging fury storming through Kassian’s body.

  “Ox?”

  “Kassian?”

  Both Sheng and Nat addressed him at the same time. He scraped his hands down his face, scrubbing away the image of Natalie Quan, the girl he’d known since she’d been in diapers.

  No such luck. She continued to gawk at him like he was gaping at her.

  “Natalie is a member of my Lotus League.” At the Matchmaker’s declaration, he whipped his disbelief back to her. Lotus League? Oh, hell no. Nat would never have joined the Matchmaker’s secret gang of assassins.

  Right? He studied her. She clasped her left wrist just below the flowering tattoo of a Lotus. Hot damn. He recognized the tat as one all Lotus members bore, but he couldn’t reconcile Nat sporting the symbol. Hell, but she’d changed. In the place of the waif-life girl of seventeen he’d last seen six years ago, stood a woman, with every charm the Matchmaker had apparently bred into her. Her long auburn hair curled to the middle of her back and dark lashes framed her large cocoa eyes. Like his dad, her father was Chinese. Her mother, Caucasian. The combination made her a bewitching beauty.

  “You know each other?” Sheng, their leader, questioned again. Fuck him.

  Kassian directed his statement straight at the Matchmaker. “This isn’t happening.”

  Before the shrew had a chance to counter him, he cloaked Ox’s spirit. He didn’t shapeshift, but rather, the spirit formed a haze around him as he charged forward, snatched Nat by the legs, and hauled her over his shoulder.

  He burst through the door, thudded down the stairs, and yanked the alleyway door open. In the back of his mind, he registered the rhythmic pounding of Nat’s fists on his back, but screw her protests.

  He’d set her right back on the next flight out.

  Fate of the world be damned, he’d be dead before Nat accepted the Snake.

  Let the Matchmaker scheme her way around that.

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nbsp; On auto-pilot, Ox stormed through the streets. He braced for Sheng’s Tiger to rein him in, but for once his friend didn’t butt in. Together, the other Chosen might be able to take Ox down, but with the mood he was in, they knew better than to try.

  The streets blurred; Kassian surrendered control to Ox. He shouldn’t—he ought to be the one wielding the leash, but his mind was fucked. He required a moment, just a damn minute, to figure out what had happened back there.

  He rolled his shoulders, jerking back from the recess his mind had taken, and uncloaked the beast. What the hell? Ox had brought him to his flat. Not the fucking airport.

  The instant he resumed control, a sharp jab struck into his side, followed by a searing pain in his right shoulder.

  He howled and hunched. Nat toppled over his shoulder and onto the floor, and he followed, catching her head before it cracked on the tiles of his foyer.

  “What the hell, Kassian!” She shoved at his shoulder.

  “Where the fuck have you been, Nat?” Because she sure as hell couldn’t have been where the Matchmaker claimed. Six years ago, she’d sent that bloody note. He’d searched for her, camped out at her family’s house, and nothing. Tonight, she appears out of the blue?

  She ignored his question, pinning him instead with another, “Get off me and let me go!”

  Her reddish brown locks fanned out around her, and the scent of coconut suntan lotion teased his nostrils, provoking long-suppressed desires. Her soft, curvy body cushioned his—the first woman he’d handled in years. His cock responded, blood rushing from his head to that damned organ.

  Fuck. He shot to his feet, backing away from the temptation. The past three years, his life had been a clean slate of celibacy and abstinence. No more drunken player/frat boy. He’d dumped that shmuck’s ass in his past.

  No way in hell would he revisit that chapter of his shitty life.

  Kassian raked his fingers through his spiked hair, attempting to regain control of the shaky, labored inhalations of his lungs. Function, dammit.

  On the floor, Nat raised herself to her elbows, her lithe body displayed in an enticement he was certain she didn’t intend to offer. Just the result of his libido on overdrive. Didn’t help that her low-cut, red silk Chinese dress fit her like a glove. The slits on either side were cut to an indecent height, leaving nothing to his imagination about what kind of panties she was wearing.

  Thong…or nothing at all?

  Subtle, Matchmaker. Waving a red flag in front a bull? He snorted.

  Her long lashes fanned across her cheeks as she lowered them. He opened his mouth to apologize for acting the brute, but her head swept to the left, and to the right. The muscles in her forearms tensed an instant before she sprang to her feet and sprinted toward the open door.

  She was fast, but he was faster. He charged the door, slamming into the frame a second before she did. Snaring his arm around her waist, he hauled her against his body while kicking the door shut and locking it with his free hand.

  She rammed her elbow into his side, stomped her left foot on the top of his, and made to slug her fist into his nose. He blocked her and clamped his arms around her, restricting her movements and any chance of further resistance.

  “Dammit, Natalie. Stop.”

  “Let me go!” She squirmed and writhed, creating the worst kind of friction as her ass ground against his front. Her bloody pheromone-ridden hair teased his nostrils while she bucked, seeking any weakness in his grip. He locked his arms around her, the constriction plumping her breasts and giving him more than an eyeful of her plush flesh.

  Bloody hell, he needed to get laid. Three years of abstinence had been a blessing to him, until this very moment, when it fucked him over.

  ***

  Was there an inch of Kassian that wasn’t pure, rigid muscle? Doubtful. As Natalie butted against him again, the solid steel enveloping her constricted further.

  “Promise to stay put and I’ll release you.” His warm breath purred into her ear, the rumble of his Australian accent echoing deep into her core.

  Damn. After six years of meticulous training, why was she breaking rule number one?

  Never be distracted by a target.

  While Kassian wasn’t exactly her target, he did stand between her and her goal, making him one thing: collateral damage.

  She’d fight tooth and nail to get back to that meeting. To receive the gift she had every right to claim.

  How dare he interfere?

  Struggling against his strength was getting her nowhere, so she did what he asked. Relaxing her muscles, she went limp against him. Her gaze landed on the side table a few feet from her. Perfect.

  “Thank y—” As he released her, she jabbed her elbow into his nose, then lunged for the glass bottle of sparkling water on the table. Her hand wrapped around the bottle’s neck and after she spun back around, she cracked the bottle against his skull.

  The glass thwacked against his head with a deafening thud.

  Kassian didn’t crash to the ground, unconscious, like she’d hoped. Instead, fury burned deep in his darkened eyes, his nostrils flared out, and he folded his hand over hers, still holding the bottle against his skull.

  Oh, crap. The spirit of the Ox flickered over Kassian, and if the animal cloaked him again, there’d be no escape for Nat.

  With painstaking deliberateness, he lifted the bottle from her grasp, while maintaining a death grip on her hands.

  His fuming glower never parting from hers, he flung the bottle at the door, shattering it into a thousand sharp, menacing splinters coated in bubbly water.

  She cringed, easing her lashes up to regard Kassian. A tic worked the tightened muscle of his jaw. Rage and betrayal swirled in his tense expression.

  She swallowed hard against the sudden dryness in her throat.

  He lifted their hands and backed her to the wall, their bodies converging. After he pinned one hand beside her head, he did the same with the other. With unblinking steadfastness, he stared into her eyes.

  His chest rose and fell once, like he struggled with whatever he wanted to say. “If I had the intention of trusting you, you blew your shot.” The words were spoken low, cold.

  Everything she deserved. Didn’t make it hurt less, though. She bit her lip, searching for any reasoning that might convince him to release her.

  If seizing the Snake meant spending an eternity with Kassian scowling at her, did she still desire the spirit?

  Hell, yeah. The image of Mali’s small, cold hand flashed in her mind. Whatever she had to endure, she had, and she would continue to. She’d failed Mali once. She’d never rest until she’d avenged that little girl.

  She met his gaze straight on. “I don’t care about your trust. Release me.”

  A slight shake of his head. “You don’t want the Snake, Nat. Not the Snake.”

  Her indignation lessened. The concern in his pained tone and the furrow in his brow were almost…endearing. Kassian believed he was protecting the seventeen-year-old girl who couldn’t even stand up to her own father.

  “Yes, I do, Kassian.” She sighed. “I need this.”

  His grip relaxed. He eased some of his weight off her while keeping her pinned. “Listen to me. Let me explain what you’re getting yourself into.”

  She tilted her chin up. “I already know.”