Free To Mate an Assassin: The Lost Alphars Series, Book 1 by Ceri Grenelle

and then running frantically through the woods around The Mansion. He flexed his hand with the speed of a snapping snake and grabbed another piece of bacon before she could blink. He had no tells. No tensing of muscles or shifting of weight that warned of movement. A perfect predator. “No table manners,” he murmured, gesturing to the sticky food in her hands.
    “You forget things like table manners when you have had a week from hell. I have been Vryk drugged and taken captive by an arrogant Alphar who thinks I am his mate. And that was just in the past day,” she said around a full mouth. “I think I am excused from proper etiquette, your majesty.” She leaned over to reach the straw bobbing in a glass of orange juice, making sure to blow some bubbles and slurp as obnoxiously as possible. She could feel her Wolf enjoying the game despite her attraction to him, so she did it louder.
    “Just this once, I’ll accept that as an excuse.” He continued to munch on the crispy bacon. Her crispy bacon. She had been eyeing that bacon and no matter how good looking he was, nobody stole her bacon without consequence. There was a small piece remaining in his hand and with a flick of her sore arm she snatched it back and tossed it into her mouth. They sat for a moment, each chewing in silence. The Alphar watched Cymbeline’s mouth as she chewed the bacon, his gaze unwavering.
    “Why did you bring me back?” she asked him, unnerved by his attentiveness.
    His mouth quirked in a smile, and Lords help her, but she hated herself for wanting to feel that quirk against her own lips. The man’s physical presence was so potent, she felt like a teenage girl with her first crush magnetized by a million. If only her trainers could see her now.
    Feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable, Cymbeline decided to shore up her walls by picking on what appeared to be his pet peeves. He seemed to have a thing about proper etiquette so she picked up a pancake with her hand to eat. He took it from her with a stoic, dominant glare and placed it back on the tray. She began to complain when his large hands came down over her own, helping her pick up the fork and knife and slicing the pancakes into pieces.
    Cymbeline tried desperately to ignore the tingles in her hands as he held them within his. It was infuriating that just a touch of his skin against hers could send her flesh ablaze with sensation, when all she wanted to feel was numb and dark against his sensual onslaught. It was what she needed to be in order to escape, to do her job efficiently, which she had every intention of doing. He may have been her superior as her Alphar, but he was also her captor and she refused to be another Stockholm syndrome statistic.
    “You know why,” he said, finally answering her question. He took the fork and speared one of the pancake slices with an acrimonious fervor, as if her question had angered him in some way.
    “I don’t, honestly. I can tell you and your people think I am crazy since I have claimed myself to be the Incendiary,” she stated in a wearisome tone, not wanting him to think he was affecting her in any way.
    “Who knew you were Incendiary when you were chosen during Riddan’s rule?” he asked, changing his course of questioning on a dime. “Who knew besides Riddan?”
    “My trainers. I was raised to become the Incendiary. Other than that, no one. He informed his right-hand man and one other of my existence, as it is with all Incendiaries. I figured his right-hand man was the Captain and the other would either be his Lieutenant or his mate.”
    “Riddan didn’t have a mate, thank goodness.” He held the pancake up to her mouth and she had no choice but to take a bite. She was starving and if this was the only means to acquire food, she would bite the bullet and let him feed her.
    “Why do you say that?” she asked after swallowing and trying with all her might not to blush at the way he watched her chew. “The ‘thank goodness’,