Read Online To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 by Ceri Grenelle - Free Book Online Page A

back to his position on the bedside chair. He picked up the mandolin and began to play once more. The woman’s breathing soon became irregular and he waited as she roused, playing a simple tune to lure her from sleep and into the waking world, to welcome the Incendiary to her new life as his mate. Whether she wanted to take part in this new role remained to be seen.
    Cymbeline woke abruptly to satin sheets, a heavy down comforter and soft lilting music. A string instrument plucked and played somewhere to her left. It wasn’t a recording. She could tell from the lack of catches and misplaced background noise her sensitive ears could usually pick up off a track. The sound was lovely. The tune was a hypnotic lullaby, lulling her Wolf to stay calm. She wanted to relax farther into her pillow and let the chords carry her back to the sweet vacancy of sleep. But she wouldn’t. Someone was in the room with her, playing that instrument. And with the way her Wolf was gleefully wagging its proverbial tail, she damn well knew who it was.
    “ Gamό ,” she cursed in Greek. Something a Vrykolakas she’d once worked with taught her.
    “Awake?” A hushed female voice to her right spoke, treading softly enough for Cimby to have missed the movement. “Surprising. It’s been only thirteen hours. Usually Vryk poisoning knocks a Were of your species out for at least twenty. Impressive.”
    “Who are you?” Cymbeline asked, her voice croaking and mouth dry as sandpaper.
    “Don’t be afraid.” She heard a tray of metal settle on a hard surface, then more scuffling around whatever room she was in. There was a fireplace smoldering directly in front of her, she could smell the wood burning and hear it crackling, providing a pleasant ambiance to go with the instrument’s melodic tones.
    “I am not afraid. I am pissed off and have to use the facilities,” she grumbled, closing her eyes, not wanting to remain in whatever reality she had landed herself in. Thirteen hours…she had been gone from her cottage for nearly five days. That was too long. She promised Irisi she would be back in a week.
    The woman laughed, husky and deep, almost as scratchy sounding as Cymbeline’s, like she wasn’t used to laughing. After a few more moments of scuffling sounds, a gentle hand slipped under Cymbeline’s back and lifted her to a sitting position. The instrument’s music wavered for a moment as she struggled to remain upright, worry rising that she didn’t have full use of her limbs yet.
    “Why can’t I move?”
    “The symptoms of the Vryk blood wears off slowly, but it will wear off,” the woman said. “You’ll have full use of your faculties soon enough.” The music started up again, almost as if the musician had been waiting for that answer.
    “How do you feel, Ms. Wolf-who-attacked-our-guards-and-would-be-wise-to-not-do-that-again?”
    The woman sat on the bed in Cymbeline’s line of sight now. She shook her head to dislodge the short, frizzy red curls flying about her ears. She was skinny, too skinny, almost as if she was wasting away. There were dark patches under her green eyes and her skin had a sallow look to it. She wore a black T-shirt, lab coat and old jeans that she probably hadn’t looked drowned in at some point in her life. A knee rested on the edge of the bed where she sat, revealing bare feet. On any other day she would have appreciated the woman’s eccentricities, but not today.
    “Like I cannot move and am being held captive against my will.” Cymbeline grunted, trying not to stare at the woman. That waifish look and red hair reminded her of Irisi.
    “Well, at least your cognitive reasoning skills are intact,” the woman said with a wobbly smile as she placed a breakfast tray full of delicious smells over Cymbeline’s lap.
    “Brilliant,” Cymbeline said sarcastically as she tried to raise her hands off the comforter to take the food, but her strength had not returned completely. She could barely even wiggle