Free Sure as Hell by Julie Kenner Page A

Instead she lay there, her head on the pillow, Dante’s arm possessive across her chest. Between her fingers, she held the necklace, her thumb idly rubbing the ridges on the seashell.
    She wasn’t used to feeling so out of sorts. So lost. So . . . emotional.
    And the truth was, it wasn’t just Dante. These thoughts had started long ago. When she’d begun to lose her taste for her job. The kill and the hunt didn’t satisfy. And yet without them, what purpose did she have? What was she without that one thing to define her?
    She didn’t know, and the future seemed to loom before her like an abyss.
    She knew she wanted more; she just didn’t know what. And the warm fuzzy feelings she’d been having weren’t just limited to sex and cuddling. She’d felt a tug of something warm and compassionate when the baron had pulled out all those family photos . . . and completely decimated her ability to inject him with the poison.
    She was losing her edge, and that terrified her.
    Especially since she knew, deep down, that the man beside her could be her perfect mate. She loved him. No matter how terrifying it was to utter those words, even in her own head, she had to acknowledge the truth.
    She loved Dante. And once she was free of the yoke of her profession and had control over her destiny—and her father’s kingdom—perhaps she could find a way to make that love last.
    The thought satisfied her, and she snuggled closer, managing in the process to wake Dante up. “Hey,” he whispered, “you can’t sleep?”
    “Thinking,” she said, secretly happy he’d awakened. She loved talking with him. Loved holding him. Loved everything about him.
    “Lucia?”
    “Mmmm?”
    His gaze met hers, and she saw both strength and fear. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I’m falling in love with you.”
    She gasped, and then she smiled, the slow sweetness spreading through her and lighting her from within. He loved her, too. In all her years had she ever heard anything so wonderful?
    She wanted to repeat the words back to him, but they were too foreign. She’d never said such things aloud—not in earnest, anyway. And so instead she tried to show him, cuddling closer, stroking his skin with soft touches, hoping that he could see in her eyes what she felt in her heart.
    Maybe soon she could work up the courage to speak, but until then she said the only thing that came into her head. In retrospect, she wasn’t sure where the question came from. Perhaps it was innocent; she simply wanted commiseration from someone else stuck working for their father. Or perhaps deep in her heart she knew that his love was too good to be true. And her reality was too bad to overcome.
    Whatever the reason, she asked the question: “You never did tell me. What does your dad have to do with your business rescuing kids? Is one of the kids here?” She almost hoped the answer was yes. That insidious beast of compassion was working on her, and she would happily help Dante look for the child. Penance, she thought, for the life she’d led and the kingdom she would inherit.
    “He doesn’t have a thing to do with it,” Dante said. “I used to work for him, but I cut myself loose.”
    “But you said—”
    “I know. I’m temporarily working for him again. He found the one way to bring me back.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    He hesitated, and for a moment, she thought he wouldn’t say. Then he propped himself up on his elbow. “My father is Jacques Moreau. And someone is out to kill him.”

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Chapter Eight
    J acques Moreau. Hell and damnation, Lucia still couldn’t believe it. The man she’d fallen in love with was the son of her target.
    Her father had well and truly screwed her this time.
    She paced, agitated, back and forth in her suite. She’d managed to hold it together in the room with Dante, centuries of acting and self-control coming to her rescue in the face of a horrific snowfall of information. But he had to know something