EdgeofEcstasy

Elizabeth
Lapthorne

Book 7 in the Urban Seductions
series.

Melissa is an
Assassin and one of the best. Fiercely independent and with her own set of
rules, she always works alone and never harms an innocent. When her best friend
is murdered, she swears to hunt down the killer. But for that she needs
information and assistance.

Daniel Cranston
believes strongly in working for the greater good but he didn’t ask for a
partner, particularly not a sexy blonde bombshell with revenge on her mind.

When they realize
how powerful their prey is, it’s far too late to turn back. Melissa is
determined to avenge her friend, and Daniel can’t bring himself to leave her
side. Passion and magic explode around them. On the tail of a rogue Assassin,
one who is increasing his powers by draining his victims, what few rules they
each hold dear are all going to be left far behind.

A Romantica®
paranormal erotic romance
from
Ellora’s Cave

The Assassin ignored the hungry cramps in his empty stomach
just as he refused to acknowledge the stiffness in his thigh and calf muscles
from sitting for so long on the bare, hard wooden floor. It had taken him
nearly two days of patience, study and effort, but he had finally reached the zone.
Once, long ago—almost a lifetime—meditation had come easily to him, a second
nature and an integral part of his training.

Yet the Assassin had slowly diverged from the common path.
Over a long period of time he had discovered his true destiny and followed the
teachings he had unearthed in other, less pristine areas of the magical world.
The path to his destiny had been twisted and winding, turning this way and that,
and much of his earlier training—such as the subtle art of cleansing
meditation—had fallen to the wayside. Now he found himself woefully out of
practice.

As his mind wandered, focused on his True Path, the Assassin
scented the dried blood on his hands and clothes. His latest kill had not been
the first for personal gain, but it had been the one to start splintering his
essence.

The first had been not very long before, and a pure
accident. The Tracker had been a woman called Catriona Jones. A very irate
wizard whom she had incarcerated had offered the Assassin an obscene amount of
money to do away with her. An Assassin by nature and by choice, he had readily
agreed.

It had been a thrilling shock to feel the power of her
magic, her essence, seep into his body and mingle with his own. At first the
Assassin had assumed that his magic had consumed Catriona’s, until he’d
realized he could now Track to a degree.

He had long ago dispensed with the ritual cleansing practice
after each kill. The Assassin accepted and embraced the fact that he enjoyed
the rush and wished to savor it. He had not had the faintest inkling that by
dispensing with the law-abiding practice he could amplify his powers.

The next kill had been deliberate. Cautiously he had sounded
out his contacts, elated when he had discovered a discreet hit that had been
put out on a powerful Retriever. It had been easy—a true pleasure—to end his
life. The overflow of the Retriever’s magical essence had transferred itself to
the Assassin as his life force had bled slowly away. The Assassin had clearly seen
his Destiny and his decision had been swift and unshakeable.

The Strategist had been next—another fateful decision, for
it had aided his planning and his knowledge of how best to proceed farther down
his chosen path. It had been the Strategist’s enhancing power that had led him
here, to two days of fasting, meditation and introspection. It had also led to
an empty stomach and cramps in his legs, but that was the small picture. It was
the big picture that he sought.

For when he had killed the security consultant—having
figured he needed more talent in that area—he had immediately felt the
beginnings of his soul shattering. Everyone knew the reason behind the
Assassins’ ritual cleansing—removing a life force, magical or not, was
unnatural and left a stain.

But only those who had studied deeply knew that an almost negligible
transference could occur at the same time. Cleansing oneself of the stain and
any residue of the dead soul had become mandatory, supposedly for survival.
This was not merely to keep an Assassin from collecting an overwhelming amount
of power and essence, but also to protect him from having his soul splinter,
shatter and his magic drain away, leaving him a living husk.

The Assassin could tell that his soul had become unstable,
fractured into too many pieces by the different magical forces currently
inhabiting it. His Strategy magic had instinctively warned him that this could
be fatal and he needed to rectify it immediately.

And so he meditated, reached deeper within himself for the zone
where he could discover his solution. His brain ticked over and as a peaceful
calm entered his chest he saw his problem as if from afar. He had too many
different pieces of essence, all struggling for supremacy. If he had an anchor,
there would be no conflict.

An anchor
, he pondered.
Like what?

The Assassin thought deeply. The answer came to him as if
from somewhere else—somewhere secreted away, hidden inside his brain. He could
feel it there, just out of his reach. A strange, twisted place he had never truly
explored before, despite the many horrible, depraved acts he had performed.

Like your own talent.

If his own magic were stronger, amplified, it could hold his
other essences together.

Yes!

But how could he strengthen his own magic? He was a fully grown
adult male, and although he could study, it could take years or even decades
before his strength and power grew naturally.

By killing more Assassins and obtaining their magic, of
course.

The simplicity and
rightness
of the thought stole the
Assassin’s breath away.

By killing other Assassins, by taking their essence and
power as their lives drained back into the ether, he could add their magic to
his own and stabilize his soul. Then the other essences he had accumulated
would settle and he would be the most powerful wizard in history. The Assassin
felt a rush of twisted excitement at the thought. He would be able to perform
multiple magical talents and continue to accrue even greater power through more
kills.

Slowly, he resurfaced from his deep meditation. A firm plan
grew in leaps and bounds within his mind. This would be perfect. There was one
wizard in particular who had been sniffing around, whom the Assassin had known
he would have to deal with sooner or later. Now the solution had fallen into
his lap.

The Assassin carefully stood on shaky legs as the blood
returned to circulate around his body. He grinned—a wild, feral look—as he
calculated his next steps. It would not be very difficult to kill the
troublesome wizard, even though he had friends in powerful places, but there
were many variables to consider in killing him. The Assassin was not a novice.
Slaughtering magical folk in ways that did not bring questions or too much
comment had been his bread and butter for well over half his life. If anything
he felt excited, refreshed. Now he had a firm, definite plan to follow, he felt
free in a manner he had not experienced since he had first set his stumbling
feet upon his destined path.

If anything, the challenge of assassinating numerous other
Assassins intrigued him and gave him pleasure. Not only would he be increasing
his power and simultaneously anchoring his own essence so that he could accept
the other talents he had consumed, he could also prove to the greater wizarding
world just how magnificent he was and how he, above all others, should be
feared and respected.

Eagerly, the Assassin began to plot and Strategize, reaching
for a notepad and pen as he started the process of designing his plan to kill
his competition.

It didn’t even cross his mind to wonder where the other
voice in his soul had come from.

Melissa Geyton let the heat of the shower spray run over her
body, washing away blood, grit and the clinging, spiritual tendrils of the kill
she had completed not even an hour before. Her long, slender hands rested palm-up
against the slick tile walls as she braced herself in the shower stall to let
the water pound down over her body.

With her head bent, she opened her eyes a crack and watched
the water swirl around the plughole, a little surprised that it was a clean,
clear torrent and not stained pink with blood. She had only been in the shower for
ten minutes. But the physical blood had obviously long ago been cleaned away.
Now only the spiritual and emotional grime needed to be cleansed.

She felt tired, bone weary, yet not in the least regretful,
ashamed or upset. Melissa would sleep just fine tonight, as she had on numerous
other nights after similar Assassinations. Melissa was not cold—far from it.
She felt deep emotions and, according to her regular psych evaluations, was in
no risk of becoming a sociopath. Killing was a talent of hers, both a magical
talent and a worked-upon skill. She just made sure to not kill anyone she would
feel regret over.

Looking over her clear, pale skin, she realized that the
blood really had washed away, even though she could still feel the stain of
death clinging to her. Focusing her mind once again, she slowed her breathing,
drawing more of the steamy air into the depths of her lungs. She pictured in
her mind’s eye the blackness of death being expelled with each breath and only
the lightness of purity being inhaled through the steam.

After a dozen or more deep breaths, she felt her lungs begin
to clear. Melissa reached out and picked up a special bar of soap she had made
herself. Made from a mixture of herbs and flowers, the soap smelled like a
meadow—grassy, floral and pure. Moon-drenched, ionized sea salt had been mixed
into the bar to complete the cleansing. She used it only during this ritual,
which she knew as intimately as the dips and curves of her own body.

As her mind relaxed and she began the finishing touches of
the ceremony, Melissa let her brain wander. Even though she had quite a
reputation in her regular day job as an asset liquidations shark, in certain
underworld circles she was known for far more lethal skills.

Many knowledgeable people shivered when her name was
mentioned, though not many of them had ever dared to meet her face-to-face
while she was working. Melissa had been raised by rich but aloof parents, whose
expectations she had never been able to live up to.

Her father, in particular, had ridden her hard to hone her sharpshooting
skills—but more for the medals, reputation and free beer he could gain from her
talent than pleasure or a desire to spend quality time with his only child.
They had been living just outside London for many of those years, where
shooting skills were highly prized and there were more than a few high-level
marksmen who got a kick from teaching an accomplished young girl.

By the time she hit her mid-teens, Melissa had realized that
neither of her parents wished for a closer relationship with her and nothing
she could do or achieve would grant her the appreciation and love she craved.
Much to her father’s disgust, she’d stopped trying to appease him in any manner
and had refused to pick up a gun since—at least to his knowledge.

Not much later they had moved back to the States. She’d been
too busy with her magical training and education for either parent to push her
back into marksmanship training. They’d had no idea she skipped many of her
extracurricular activities to practice her talents with anyone willing to keep
her secret and train her.

Later, as an adult, she had used her natural abilities and
talents to fulfill a far greater need. Melissa had a reputation for being one
of the best contract Assassins in the whole of the States, provided she
approved of the kill. Many knew that she was highly picky in her selection of
whom she would and would not work for, and especially whom she would kill. A
girl needed her standards, after all.

That afternoon’s kill, for example, had come about when a
distraught father had known a former client of hers and approached her. He’d
found himself in the unenviable position of needing to protect his child and
been rebuffed when he’d sought more traditional help.

Melissa had taken the details, quoted her price if she
should take the job, then performed her own research into the matter. It had
been less than a week later that she had collected enough hard evidence to
satisfy her. Martine was, indeed, taking secret pictures of the children she
was supposed to be caring for and selling them to twisted people for money to
spend on her minor drug habit.

By moving jobs every year or two she had escaped notice,
kept under the radar and would have successfully evaded the Enforcers and other
safety nets for children had it not been for this irate father contacting
Melissa. It had only taken a few days to contact the father, arrange payment,
set herself up and eliminate Martine. Melissa frowned as she soaped her body
and thought about the moral tightrope outsiders might think she walked.

She didn’t have many friends, but those she did have never
asked her why she did what she did. Melissa didn’t know if it was because they
didn’t want to know or were too afraid to ask, but she’d found a balancing of
the scales in the job she performed. Protecting those who needed it could be
done in many ways. Melissa had just found an outlet for her skills that gave
her some sense of satisfaction.

Slowly, she could feel the clinging tendrils of death releasing
their hold on her, and she dunked her long, thick blonde hair under the spray
and soaped it as well. Although the weight of her hair pulled her curls into
waves in the water, they soon sprang back, a mass of long ringlets that
spiraled out of control.

As she cleansed herself she tried to beat back the faint sense
of isolation. Melissa knew deep in her heart that she would get an itchy
feeling of restlessness if she didn’t fulfill the Assassination contracts that periodically
came to her attention. She felt for the victims she helped, the families and
friends who had been wronged. The righting of that wrong, she believed, helped to
balance the scales of justice. It was one of the pillars she could always hold
on to when she wondered why she continued to use her skills in such a manner.

That, and she didn’t know of any other way to use her skills
without becoming a slave to them. She refused to relentlessly pursue the
approval of anyone else, had sworn to not fall into that trap when she’d opened
her eyes to how her parents treated her. Yet the necessary distance she kept
between herself and those around her grew wearying.

Slightly surprised by the endless circling of her brain,
Melissa wondered what had put her so on edge today. Killing didn’t calm her, as
such, but usually she felt as if she had performed a worthy act, something she
could achieve that few others could. She felt it at that moment, to a lesser
degree, but something in it was no longer completely satisfying.

Part of her felt the loneliness of her bare apartment, the
lack of anyone who would be likely to call and the far too few phone numbers
she
could call for a talk should she feel the need. Moments like this, when Melissa
wished she had someone, something other than her own sense of honor to hold on to,
were growing in number with increasing speed as the months passed.

“Sure, girl,” she snorted as she spoke into the silent
bathroom. “And you can mention that on your first date. You like the color
green, your favorite scent is lavender, you enjoy any food except traditional
Japanese and oh, by the way, you’re an Assassin in your spare time and want
someone to talk to after you perform a job now and then. Hope you don’t mind,
old chap.”

The self-directed sarcasm brought out the Britishness in her
tone, something that normally meant she was upset, annoyed or worried. It was
almost her only tell, and one that was thankfully broad enough that only those
closest to her understood the potential torrent of emotions it could be hiding.

Determined to drag herself out of the sullen mood she had
fallen into, she instead turned her mind to her colleague and friend Falconn,
who had recently been murdered. A fellow Assassin, Falconn had worked on a few
cases with Melissa when more than one Sharp Shooter had been required.

Shock and disbelief had gripped her when she’d learned of
his death. Assassins were a paranoid bunch by nature—one being murdered was
almost unheard of. They were a small group, aware of each other by reputation
if not through personal contacts.

Even the Sharp Shooters—who frequently weren’t exactly Assassins
as such, but highly skilled marksmen and women who sometimes acted as Assassins
if no Assassin would assist—were few and far between and still fairly well
known within their circle. Melissa knew the dozen or so Assassins based in
Chicago by name, counted a couple of them among her genuine friends and
believed she knew of the others who were in Central America at any given time.

The fact that Falconn had been killed alone in his apartment
with his security system still online and his personal escape routes untouched
worried Melissa. As her grief had waned, the puzzle of who had killed Falconn
and
how
had begun to gnaw at the corners of Melissa’s brain. Until she
had been distracted by Martine and the necessity of killing her, she had almost
started down a path of obsession over discovering the answers to her friend’s
death.

Now, with Martine safely floating in the currents off
Chicago Harbor and into the deeper seas, Falconn and his death once again took
pride of place in her musings.

“Maybe you have finally realized, old girl, that not only
haven’t you had a genuine date in far too long, but you also have far too few
friends and even fewer people who truly know you,” she said aloud, the words
welling in her chest until they were released. Melissa dunked her head under
the spray, rinsing her body one last time.

Slowly, she felt more like herself once again, the stain of
death having been cleansed from her body and soul, the ritual completed. Maybe
Falconn’s death had touched her so deeply not only because he had been her
friend, one of the few whom she had trusted with her back and her secrets, but
also because it had finally hit home to her just how very alone she had become.

When Melissa thought of those she fully trusted deeply, on a
gut and instinctive level, there were only three people—Kelly, Aiden and
Falconn. And now Falconn was gone. That left her with two people she trusted
implicitly. Not so great for a woman coming dangerously close to her
mid-thirties.

As it had a million times in the week and a half since she
had been called out to Falconn’s apartment, her mind ran over the scene she had
found in his home. In the almost twenty years they had known each other, they
had been partners in crime, sometime lovers and always the very best of
friends. They had been able to rely on each other without thought or question.
Just as he had been her emergency contact next of kin, so too had she been his.

Answering the door to find the Enforcers on her step had
been hands-down the worst moment of her life. The second worst had been what
she had discovered in Falconn’s apartment. The over-riding feeling of
wrongness, of tainted evil, had been nearly overpowering. Melissa had for the
first time in her life wailed like a hurt animal. She had run to her fallen
friend and pulled the thin plastic sheet away.

In her emotional agony, the beloved face of her longest
standing friend and companion had looked almost as if he were asleep. His
delicate features had been soft, as if at rest, his skin pale, his hair falling
haphazardly over his closed eyes. Melissa had momentarily thought it all an
elaborate ploy and had moved to shake Falconn, to berate him for causing her
such anguish.

Until she had realized her ex-lover would never have done
something so brutal to her. With that flash of insight she had known, beyond a
doubt, that he was dead and gone to her forever. Falconn had loved to tease
her, to drive her mental with his pranks, but he had never, ever been cruel to
her.

After she had drawn in numerous deep breaths as she hovered
over Falconn’s body, Melissa had found that she needed to know the brutal truth
behind her friend’s murder. Despite the Enforcers’ warnings, she had pulled
down the thin sheet of plastic and stared dispassionately at Falconn’s ruined
body. His ribs had seemingly exploded outwards, his heart, lungs and liver
appearing to have burst from inside his chest and back. It looked as if somehow
Falconn had exploded from within, which she knew to be utterly impossible.

Melissa had studied death, trained in it, created it, and to
a large degree had a magical talent for it. She had never in her whole life
experienced or even heard of anything remotely like this. Horror held her
frozen in shock. Years of conditioning and training had her acting on instinct.
Despite her abhorrence, she drank in every single iota of information she could
glean with her eyes.

Repulsed, she’d forced herself to close off the tiny part of
her mind that was screaming in abject agony at the loss of her most beloved
friend and partner. It had taken her a moment to screw up her courage, but
knowing Falconn would have done the same for her, Melissa had tentatively
opened her magical senses.

Jacked up, the overpowering sense of wrongness had been not
just her heart telling her how insane the untimely death of her friend and
lover was, but how very unnatural the entire situation was. Slowly, bit by bit,
Melissa had fed more and more of her essence into her magic and studied the
scene before her with ever-growing amounts of enhancement. Not wanting to
overload her senses too quickly, she’d eased herself into it, nearly gagging at
the potent, twisted evil saturating her friend’s death.