Sign up for our newsletter to hear

about new and upcoming releases.

www.ylva-publishing.com

Other books by Lee Winter

Requiem for Immortals

The Red Files

Shattered

Table of Contents

Other books by Lee Winter

Part One: Masks

Part Two: Bare

About Lee Winter

Other Books from Ylva Publishing

Requiem for Immortals

The Red Files

Coming from Ylva Publishing

The Brutal Truth

Part One: Masks

Requiem

Natalya Tsvetnenko entered the Wellness-Oase in Spittelberggasse and pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead. Soothing nature sounds filled her ears as she glanced around the foyer. This was one of the most luxurious massage salons in Vienna and, during the past three years Natalya had lived in this city, it had been invaluable for easing the side effects of excessive cello practice and playing with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

That some of her aches came from injuries sustained in her former career was neither here nor there. Explaining her old war wounds had actually resulted from encounters with underworld assassins was not exactly high on her agenda. Nonetheless, Wellness-Oase’s highly trained massage therapists were the model of discretion. And Natalya paid well to have their deep-tissue, full-body, elite athlete’s massage that did wonders for her sore points.

She was greeted at the counter by Lotte, an angular, distinguished woman in the white waffle-weave kimono robe and Japanese clog sandals all her staff wore. Lotte raised her hand with an elegant swish. “Christiane erwartet Sie bereits in ihrem üblichen Zimmer, Fräulein Tsvetnenko.”

So Natalya had Christiane this week, who was waiting in Natalya’s usual room. She picked apart German easily these days. Natalya nodded to Lotte and followed her instructions, pleased to have her preferred room, far from the others, which added to her sense of privacy.

She padded softly down the off-white, carpeted hallway, finding room twelve by the usual potted plant on a stand outside it. A sad little Alocasia sanderiana.

Natalya leaned forward to inspect it and came away disheartened. Under-watered. Her lips thinned. She would point this oversight out to Christiane. It was always disappointing when the details were overlooked.

Stepping into the cream-coloured room, she smelled vanilla incense and something else with a touch of spice to it. Pleasant enough. In one corner was a crock pot of hot rocks slowly warming. For the next client, most likely, as Natalya had little interest in the latest new-age fads.

Her gaze drifted higher, to the peace symbol mobile dangling from the ceiling, then trailed to the framed prints of bamboo forests and a small bronze Buddha statue on the windowsill under the timber horizontal blinds. She wondered whether Christiane realized the Buddha was about as Japanese as her faux kimono robe was.

The masseuse in question turned at Natalya’s arrival and offered a polite greeting, then pointed to the table. Her gelled-back, blonde hair was pulled into a perfect bun that shone under the warm lighting.

“Machen Sie sich bitte frei, Fräulein Tsvetnenko. Ich bin in fünf Minuten wieder da.”

Natalya translated that to “Please get ready, I’ll be back in five minutes”.

She shed her clothes, folding her black linen pants, leather jacket, crisp white shirt, and undergarments into an exacting pile, before lining up her polished, black, ankle boots together under the chair in the corner.

Naked, she arranged herself on the table, placing a towel over her rear to signal her readiness. Natalya had no modesty concerns, especially when it meant Christiane’s expert hands could fully access the pressure points and aches in her backside and lower back from too many hours spent sitting.

Natalya had never suffered from modesty anyway. When she examined herself each morning, mapping her scars, she saw power, control, discipline, and beauty in her muscled flanks, strong shoulders and glossy, straight, black hair. And, sometimes, she also saw delicate hands slipping around her waist and clutching her tightly against an equally naked body, still warm from the shower.

Natalya’s lips twitched at the pleasing memory.

It was hard to believe it had been three years since she’d settled here, after a year of touring all over Europe. Four years away from her former life in Australia. A life that was nothing like she’d imagined it would be when, as a teenager, she’d first sought sponsors to allow her to take up a cello scholarship here in Vienna.

The sponsors, associates of her stepmother, Lola, had turned out to be a Melbourne underworld crime family which had sought its pound of flesh, training her as their deadliest of tools. No one would expect a female, especially one so young, and a musical prodigy at that, to be a crime gang’s secret assassin. This was what had made her so devastatingly effective, far exceeding expectations.

She’d agreed to only five years. A fair exchange for the investment in her studies. But none of the associates in the crime family had understood why, when her indentured term to them had finished, she’d kept doing their lethal work, freelance. Especially since she still filled the souls of patrons with her music each night.

What those men with empty eyes failed to understand was that each career had its addictions and contained a thrill for Natalya not easily dismissed. Both made her feel like a god who held beating hearts and quivering minds in her hands. The mistake was in ever seeing her as two different people. Assassin or cellist. Requiem or Natalya.

She had always been both. For her it was so simple—the dominant strengths required to face any given situation leapt to the fore, with an attitude to match. No different from choosing different shoes for a change of event. You put them away again when unneeded.

Such philosophical meanderings were usually left in the past these days. Natalya was forty-five and a world away from Victoria’s seedy underbelly. Nowadays she only ever stirred the human soul instead of destroying it. She’d made her choice. She had few regrets. It was the price she’d paid to have a little mouse in her life. She’d paid it willingly, once she’d understood.

Natalya closed her eyes, wondering what Alison was doing. She’d said something about going to a farmer’s market close to their apartment in Neubau before lunch. She was doing cooking lessons, between taking some violin masterclasses and teaching English as a second language to refugees in a Public Learning Centre in the nearby Fifteenth District. Her enthusiasm for each of these activities was unabated.

It had been unnerving at first, being with someone so different to Natalya. Meshing her existence had been difficult with one so filled with life, love, and empathy, and especially with emotions brimming so close to the surface. Many a time Natalya had questioned her sanity at allowing anyone inside. Not to mention the chaotic way Alison never once lined up her shoes, or always threw her clothes over the back of a chair when a perfectly good hanger was available.

But Alison would smile at her appalled expression and tease her until she decided to overlook the disarray. It turned out the woman had been like the mouse she’d dubbed her four years ago—she’d curled up, small and soft, close to Natalya’s heart, and stubbornly refused to move.

What defense did a world-class assassin have against that?

The massage room’s door opened and clicked shut. Natalya felt her back cool as the towel was slid down to her thighs. The slippery noise of massage oil being rubbed into hands filled the air before she felt Christiane’s fingers on her back.

The masseuse began slowly, mapping Natalya’s contours. As she progressed, Christiane became far more forceful than usual, and twice Natalya swallowed a grunt. She hadn’t realised the woman had it in her.

The sound of wet, slapped flesh, and the heat of hands near her neck took Natalya back. It reminded her of the first kill she’d witnessed as a sixteen-year-old. It was an execution for one of the crime family’s own, a man caught in the act of betrayal. She could still feel Lola’s open hand at the back of her neck, the press of her warm skin against the collar of her school uniform, forcing her to watch.

“Orientation”, her stepmother had called it. For what was to come, after Natalya returned from Vienna, once her scholarship was complete and her duties to the crime family began. It was grooming. Ensuring she understood what she was in for.

Natalya had forgotten most of the faces in those lessons. But what she did remember from that first time was the man’s eyes. Bleak, black, and terrified, they had made her want to crawl into a hole and hide.

And she also remembered her perfume. Sensual, exotic, and arousing.

Natalya’s verdict was not unique, judging by the furtive, lust-filled looks the men gave Lola when she wasn’t watching.

The accompaniment to the scene was the satisfied grunts of those standing witness when the battered betrayer took his last breath. Their way of saying it was done. Over. The grunts were a ritual to disguise the horror. Natalya understood more than most the need for ritual. Her entire life was ritualistic, from the way she stretched each day, to the way she straightened her possessions, turned on her MP3 player, and held her bow.

After the chilling deed was done, no one had met her eyes. Not even Lola. Natalya had been sent to do her homework.

The wet slap of flesh—pleasure and pain—it all sounded the same. Natalya had learned that lesson often over the years.

Christiane’s blows became harder, stronger. Punishing. Like…hatred. Wariness curled through Natalya, her eyes sliding open as she processed the unexpected sensations.

A lone, oiled finger slid up the scar next to her spine and dug in viciously. She gritted her teeth at the pain and stared at the woman’s feet. White socks covered them, bisected by the black silk of the sandals.

“The plant outside needs watering,” Natalya said softly in German. “It is in terrible condition.”

Christiane merely hummed evenly and gave no reply. As if she didn’t understand her words. Those telltale toes in the white socks, however, briefly clenched.

Natalya shifted her hands up to sit flat under her chin, lifting her face just a few inches out of the headrest.

“What part of Melbourne are you from?” she said in English, taking a guess. She used her friendliest tone. Her hands slowly edged apart, feeling the roughness of the white towel beneath her fingertips, as she mentally mapped the edges of the massage table.

“Prah…” The word, begun reflexively as a thoughtless reply to small talk, stopped halfway through “Prahran”, a distinctively Melbourne suburb.

The masseuse’s toes clenched just as the hands on Natalya’s back froze. Natalya’s narrowed eyes flew open at the confirmation, the knowledge of imminent danger filling her with an electricity she’d not felt in three years, eleven months, twelve days. The numbers came to her without conscious calculation. She knew them each day the moment she woke. The days since she’d hunted as Requiem.

She felt her alter ego slapped from her slumber, unleashed, burning, alive—like molten metal coursing through her veins. In her mind, she could hear the thrumming, primal drum beat of Two Steps From Hell’s Protectors of Earth shaking her.

Alertness and adrenaline ripped through her with the familiarity of an old friend. She had not felt this sensation since the night she’d ended a corrupt, killer cop—a man she’d choked and drowned in pig swill. Even almost four years on, she could still taste the twisted jubilation mingled with ice-cold rage over what he’d done to the woman Requiem had claimed as hers. Over what he’d done to Alison’s family.

Without warning, Requiem flung herself from the table, smashing the masseuse to the floor with her bent elbow and snatching up the towel she’d been lying on.

She stood above the groggy woman, bouncing on her heels while she spun the towel into a twisted rope and tested the ends threateningly. Requiem studied the crumpled form on the floor—small, lean, and most definitely not the Austrian woman she knew.

“Unless Christiane’s had a lot of work done in the past twenty minutes, you aren’t her,” Requiem said, voice cold. “Who are you?”

The woman offered her a mutinous look but didn’t answer.

Requiem kicked her solidly in the ribs. “Speak up.”

The intruder was a short, wiry-looking Asian woman, with brooding, dark eyes, and an appraising stare. She didn’t seem alarmed by Natalya’s reaction. Rather, she appeared to have been expecting it.

“Where’s Christiane?” Requiem demanded.

“Linen cupboard. She’ll have a bad headache when she wakes up.” The woman’s voice and eyes openly taunted Requiem.

“Who are you?” she repeated, menace mixed with danger.

Silence.

Requiem’s leg swept out and smacked the side of the woman’s nose, snapping her head to the right with the momentum. A satisfying spurt of blood spattered across her white kimono robe.

Still she didn’t speak. The woman ran lazy eyes over Requiem’s nude form with a hint of appreciation before focusing higher, meeting her furious gaze. Finally her amused lips parted. “I am someone confirming a theory.” She wiped her nose and examined the blood on her fingertips. “I see you’ve lost none of your edge.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Requiem’s tone became low and dark. She tightened the ends of the twisted towel, snapping it straight and relaxing it. Anyone with any self-preservation instincts would have scuttled back.

Her prey did not. Instead she tilted her head back, studying Requiem. “A woman making a garroting cable out of a towel wants me to believe she knows nothing about killing?” came the sceptical response. “That she’s not Australia’s most infamous assassin, Requiem? A woman who police can’t find for years? Not that they’re looking too hard. I mean, I found you.”

“I’m a cellist,” Requiem said with a sneer. She bent down and viciously flicked the woman’s bloodied nose. “Vienna.” Flick. “Philharmonic.” Flick. “Orchestra.” Flick. She gave her a withering look. “Anyone around here could tell you that.”

“I don’t think so.” The woman’s laugh was light, sounding genuine despite the blood soaking her swelling nose.

Requiem studied her in confusion. Her face had to be hurting like hell, yet she was still smiling.

“Well, you’re not just that, are you?” the woman continued. “I know you killed dozens of underworld scum before you ran off here.”

“Last chance.” Requiem yanked the towel in her hands so taut that her sculpted biceps, honed by two-hour workouts every day, stood out in sharp relief. Her voice became terrifyingly soft. “Now—Who. Are. You?”

The smile widened. “A recruiter.”

Requiem threw the towel to the floor and squatted in front of her. She wrenched the upper half of the woman’s kimono apart with force. Beneath the garment she wore a simple white bra, and Requiem rapidly inspected her for surveillance wires, running her fingers under the bra and around to her back. She felt lower, patting down her groin, thighs, and calves. Finding nothing, she slid her fingers up into the woman’s long black hair, pausing behind her ears. Still nothing.

In annoyance, Requiem pushed her away so hard that the woman fell back in a sprawl. Then she pounced.

“Now, let’s start again,” she said coldly, bracketing the woman’s knees with her thighs. “Who the hell are you, and why are you here, invading my space?”

Rather than answer, a slow gaze raked Requiem’s body. Something familiar about the way she studied her niggled at Requiem. When the woman finally spoke, her voice was breathless.

“Invading your space? Says the naked assassin with her cunt in my lap?” An elegant finger traced across Requiem’s muscled stomach, swirling across a small scar above her hip. She arched an eyebrow.

Requiem glanced down at her nude state, then at the finger. “Distracted, are we?”

They both watched the finger drop a little lower, edging towards her neatly trimmed dark hair, and Requiem hissed in a breath of surprise. It had been so long since she’d played with her prey. And even longer still since one of them had the temerity to toy with her back. She’d forgotten how heady it could be.

Arousal shot through her when the dancing digit slid a little lower—merely a fingertip, a fingernail, away from her clit. A prickling sensation shot down Requiem’s spine, a warning as sharp as a knife’s blade, and Requiem wrenched the hand away and jumped to her feet. She picked up her clothes and said with a growl, “Fine. You have your space. Now talk.”

Even with distance from the woman, Requiem’s heart thudded in awareness, her body tightly strung. The base, raw emotions were almost overwhelming. This was what she used to do. This was the real game. The absolute power. Her body ached to feel it again. Requiem’s mounting excitement in her lower gut told her just how close that wandering finger had come. How close the woman would have been to discovering the effect she’d had on Requiem. And that would not do.

The woman sat up casually and leaned back on one arm, a picture of relaxation. Like one of those perfect specimens on the cover of a yoga DVD, all poised class and easy beauty. “I am someone who needs your unique skills, and who understands that you’re available and most likely ready for a change.”

“Not interested.” Requiem slipped on her bra and slid her black boy shorts up her legs.

The woman teasingly began to fiddle with her own robe, widening it. “You haven’t even heard my pitch.”

“Still not interested.” Requiem pulled her pants up with sharp, snapping actions, and almost groaned when the seam hit her groin and shot a bolt of arousal through her. She reached for her shirt, casting her intruder a withering glare. “No pitch can win me over.”

“Really? You’ve been based, or should I say, tied down, in Vienna for three years, I believe. You must be bored by now. Are your little concerts enough? Do you still feel the thrill in your blood, the need to hunt? What if I said the targets were exceptionally vicious and you’d be doing society a favour? These men are the worst of the worst. The challenge of just getting to them would be exciting. Can you honestly tell me what you do now is satisfying enough? Or have they tamed you, Requiem?”

As she spoke, the woman shifted to allow a view of her smooth, flawless legs, all the way up to her white panties. Requiem frowned as she gazed at the ample skin on display. Her heartbeat lifted again, but this time it was not just arousal heightening her senses.

No scars. At all. No wounds, nicks, or cuts.

Who the hell was this woman who seemed to have underworld connections and yet skin this flawless?

“You’re just an amateur,” she said with a dismissive glance. “Playing with fire. What do you know about satisfying me? How could you know? Who have you been talking to?”

“There are stories—more like legends, now—that float around Melbourne, of a female assassin, lethal and sleek as a panther. A predator who hunted, fucked any woman who crossed her, and loved the darkness. Lived it, breathed it. Killed in it.”

“Sounds like a tall tale to me.”

“Is that so? Shall we test that?” The woman shrugged her robe off her shoulders, dropping it to the floor, fully revealing her sheer white bra. Dark, plump nipples were clearly outlined, erect, straining beneath the silk. “Your needs would be fully catered to, of course. They would be part of the remuneration package. And if I don’t meet your requirements, well, we have other women who’d greatly enjoy taking my place.”

Requiem studied her, fighting her arousal. She could all too easily imagine having the woman spread before her, crying out for a release that Requiem would take enormous delight in denying her. She should be denied—for her presumption in thinking she set the terms. For presuming she could have any place at Requiem’s table.

“You think I need that?” Requiem reached for her boots to hide the tremble in her fingers at the intoxicating thought. The scent of arousal was in the air, and she was only too well aware it was her own. She hardened her voice in irritation at her own weakness. “How little you know me.”

The woman laughed. “You’re only human, Requiem. So, back to my offer: Kills, thrills, and unmarked bills. And a pretty perk or two. No one would ever know. Discretion would be absolute in all matters.” Her fingers dropped to her own breast and slid across the hard nipple, then slipped her breast out from her bra. It was as smooth, plump, and as perfect and alluring as the rest of her. Her eyes dared Requiem to be interested. Dared her to be tempted. Dared. Her.

So presumptuous.

But she was right about one thing—she had been restless lately. She’d never acted on it, but neither had an offer been so tempting. It would be so easy. It wasn’t as though Alison would ever know. Requiem could take this job and, while she was at it, take this smug, alluring creature, and make her understand the terrible error she had made in trying to play her. Requiem’s smile felt more like a snarl.

It wouldn’t even be cheating—it wasn’t sexual in the least. It was all about power. It was always about power. She was Requiem, damn it. Requiem. Once Australia’s most feared assassin. She shouldn’t have to check herself like some little housewife. Wildness burned inside her, like an animal straining to be let off its leash. Of late, her pulse often quickened at the thought of being out there, being all that Requiem was. The darkness was still there. You couldn’t turn that off with a pretty penthouse apartment, a classy job, and a sweet woman.

Alison’s face floated into mind, fresh-faced, eager, loyal. Loving.

Her lips thinned.

The other woman seemed to sense her hesitation and swayed closer. “It’s been three years, Requiem,” she said, her voice low and sultry. “Three years of being tied down, playing the meek cellist. And let’s not forget you’re now being trailed around by that little groupie. You must be tired of both by now.”

Requiem froze at the mention of her lover, her breathing compressing into a faint sliver of exhalation. Alarm and rage coursed through her in equal measure.

Had this creature worked out who Alison really was? Who she’d been in Melbourne?

She frowned. They’d known her by a different first name professionally back home. A name she hadn’t been interested in reclaiming when she moved here. So how could she have been recognised a world away?

Requiem thought furiously. Since settling into Vienna, Alison had changed her clothing style to sleeker, darker European fashions, and her hair had gone from a messy, brunette ponytail to an auburn pixie cut. Alison’s own sister hadn’t recognised her at first at the airport during their last reunion. So was it even possible for Alison to have been identified here?

No one alive in the underworld even knew of the connection between them. If this woman had managed to figure out Alison’s identity, then that would be it—Requiem would end her. Immediately. Because no one threatened her mouse, or those whom Alison loved.

No one.

Decided, Requiem glanced at the three exits she’d assessed earlier, as she did every time she entered a room: the window, the air vent, the door. She calculated her options. How it could be done efficiently. How it could be done with minimal mess.

“What’s her name?” the woman was saying casually, as though she hadn’t just signed her own death warrant. “I’ve seen her. She looks adorable. Where on earth did you find her? The library? At the stage door, clutching an autograph book?” She laughed.

Requiem’s nostrils flared. It was the only reaction that betrayed her enormous relief. She didn’t know. She didn’t have a damned clue. Alison was safe. Her heart reduced its manic thudding to a less furious juddering roll of a timpani drum.

“She’s sweet, yes, anyone could see that, but where is the challenge?” The women smirked, heedless to the danger that had been coating the air like ash moments before. “You need letting off the domestic leash. You were never meant to be a pet.”

She stepped right inside Requiem’s space, fingers brushing her jaw, and it took every ounce of effort not to crush her for her insult to Alison. Requiem’s entire focus and being went into revealing nothing at all of her emotional state.

“So what’s it going to be?” the woman asked, sounding bored. “Shall we make a deal? Meet my boss? You’re not the only one on my list, you know. Yes, you’re at the top, obviously, but I can headhunt someone else. So are you willing? Do you wish to…fill my slot?”

Requiem gave her a stony look, the woman’s charm having evaporated the moment she’d dared speak a word about Alison. She could not believe she had weakened briefly in the face of temptation. It wasn’t worth it. She knew that. The rush that came from a power fuck was just that—hormones, highs, and control, all in a sticky mess. Ultimately meaningless.

For Alison, though, the sexual act was a different thing, entirely one of love. She saw it framed in softness, tenderness, and care. For Alison, it was never about release or power. For her, it was about sweetness, lightness, and surrendering to someone. And while Requiem did none of these things…Alison did. She would never brush off sex with someone else as nothing. This deal with the devil would not be nothing to her.

The woman was watching Requiem carefully. She was so close Requiem could feel her breath, smell the faint musk of her arousal. The woman arched herself forward, pressing her breasts into Requiem. Sweetening the deal, she probably thought.

Natalya leaned forward and ran her finger over the erect, bared nipple. It was soft, warm, and oh-so-inviting. Just like old times. Old times that did not have Alison in them. Requiem tapped the nipple pointedly. “I think not,” she said with a cool glance and stepped back.

Because it came down to one thing: the mere thought of the crushing disappointment in Alison’s eyes if she ever found out Requiem had screwed someone else, even just to teach the cocky creature a lesson, would crush the air from Requiem’s lungs.

She could see Alison packing her bags and leaving, because she surely would, given she was that sort of woman. Alison was soft but substantial. Sweet but fierce. She had her pride and Requiem admired her for it, especially after a life of Alison being taught that her needs were nothing and that she was inconsequential. She’d spent most of her adult life believing that her sum worth was that of a nursemaid to her emotionally abusive, narcissistic mother.

When she had broken free, a piece of fire had entered her eyes and never left. It satisfied Requiem beyond words to see it. Women should know their worth. Alison knew hers. And her conditions had always been clear in agreeing to throw away her safe, respectable life and follow an unpredictable, dangerous, ex-assassin to Europe. Alison’s terms had been simple—they were equals and they now belonged to each other.

The image of Alison’s faith and affection flickering and dying…the look of betrayal…it would be like a dagger’s stab. If anyone else had inflicted pain like that on Alison, Requiem would have torn them apart. The thought that her own darkness had allowed her to push aside the consequences even for a heartbeat filled her with dismay.

Requiem’s voice was cold when she spoke. “Get dressed. You have no idea how to meet my needs. I have no interest in what you offer.”

The surprise on the other woman’s face was almost comical. “I don’t understand. I offered you what you want.” Confusion, doubt, and a hint of wariness entered her eyes. “This is what Requiem wants. This.”

Requiem reached down and handed her back her white robe. A protest formed on her lips, then fell, unsaid, as she looked deeper into Requiem’s eyes.

The woman pulled the robe on with jerky movements. The confidence of minutes before was evaporating and, as she slid her hand around one ear to curl her hair into place, the familiarity of the gesture hit Natalya in a blinding flash.

“It’s Mi Na, isn’t it?” she said in surprise, and she ran her eyes over her curiously. “Nabi’s sister? You were the one at boarding school while Nabi followed me around like a shadow, watching me as I learned the business. So you took over? In all her pursuits?” Her eyebrow lift was deliberately condescending.

How had this slip of a girl thought she could ever be as good as her assassin sister? Requiem studied her unmarked skin and bright eyes. No. There was no way she was an assassin. So what was she?

“Fuck you,” Mi Na said flatly, and the intonation was exactly the same as Nabi’s had once been when Requiem had shown her in vivid, naked detail the futility of trying to kill her. Worse, of trying to best her.

Mi Na narrowed her eyes and slowly reached for the CD player, turning up the volume on the gushing waterfalls and bird calls, to just short of deafening. Requiem tilted her head, watching her every move. She bounced lightly on her heels, waiting. The woman was an unarmed amateur. There was no threat. But she was curious.

Suddenly Mi Na reached for her foot and flipped her sandal over. Natalya saw the flash of metal too late.

She was fast, terrifyingly so, just like her sister had been, and slid the blade up to Requiem’s throat. But Requiem had three times the muscle mass on her, and immediately wrenched her hand away and twisted her arm behind her back. She debated whether to snap it. It would be so damned easy. A nice reminder as to who Mi Na was screwing with.

But Mi Na was as fast as Requiem was powerful. She took three light steps up the wall in front of her and somersaulted over Requiem, freeing her arm the moment her body was higher than her limb. On landing, she kicked the hot-rock crock pot at Requiem, who dodged it—barely.

Scorching rocks flew everywhere, tumbling under the table, towards the walls, and at Requiem, who kicked them away. Mi Na picked up a pair of the stones in her bare hands, seemingly not even noticing their searing heat. She hissed in fury, tossing one at Requiem’s head.

Requiem snapped her head away to allow it to whistle by, just as Mi Na hurled the other one. Using her forearm, Requiem smashed that away, too, ignoring the thud of pain. The rock flew straight back, slamming into Mi Na’s shoulder, and she grunted.

Mi Na threw her arms out wildly. One hand connected with a small, heavy Buddha statue which she grasped in her fist. She held it up like a club, swooping it viciously back and forth through the air. She hurled it.

Requiem spun out of the way. She didn’t move quite fast enough. The bronze weight thudded dully off her back, landing on a sore point. She winced. Again with her damn back scar?

She yanked the peace mobile down from the ceiling, just as the woman charged at her. Requiem side stepped her like a bull fighter and wrapped the mess of metal and fishing line around her neck as she rushed by. Mi Na pulled up short and jerked and thrashed as the plastic wire bit savagely into her neck, her face turning hot red.

Requiem yanked hard, as Mi Na, clawing at her throat, desperately tried to free herself. Pulling her close, Requiem leaned into her ear. “One tug and you’re dead.” She yanked the fishing wire a little to make her point. “You’re nowhere near as good as your sister was. If Nabi had wanted it, I’d already be dead. I was aware of her many talents, and she had so many. I still think fondly on several of them.”

Mi Na growled at the suggestiveness, designed to provoke.

Requiem smiled. The enraged often made mistakes. “So tell me, were you planning to fillet me as we fucked?” Requiem asked. “Or was this seduction routine just to whet my appetite? What you really wanted was for me to agree to meet your fictitious boss somewhere later so you could dispose of my body out of the way? Mm?”

Mi Na cried out as Requiem tightened her hold on the fishing wire. “Answer!”

The woman hissed out a “yes”, pain etching her features.

“Well, points for originality. Shame about the execution.”

A peace symbol was pressing into the side of Mi Na’s face, creating an ironic imprint. Requiem almost laughed. “So why not kill me while I was on the table? Too messy? Harder to hide the stains?”

“With your back turned?” Mi Na said, squeezing out her words with difficulty. “You think I have no honour.”

“No honour?” Requiem repeated. “You even sound like her. Who hired you? The dregs of Fleet Crew? Or someone else?”

“No one. This is for myself. For family honour.”

Family honour. Requiem’s grip eased. She’d been right: this silly girl was no assassin. Great. A civilian on a vengeance kick. Although Mi Na had obviously had some actual training. “Family honour? What does that even mean? Nabi and I were not enemies in the end.”

“You broke her heart. She told me. You broke her. Then…I found out later you killed her. You shot her, when she was trying to protect her boss.”

Requiem said nothing for a moment, picking apart the anguish in the words, like ligaments from muscles. “I never killed her.” She didn’t bother denying the rest. The girl’s misplaced affections were hardly her fault.

“You used her! Treated her like dirt. And Sal said you killed her. It’s my right to avenge her. He trained me to fight you.”

Requiem sighed. Saliya Govi. The new head of Fleet Crew. Freshly out of jail, if her sources were right. He’d been the smartest gang member left standing when the dust had cleared after Requiem had betrayed the entire Australian underworld. She had wondered how long it would take someone to figure out she’d been the one. Of course Sal didn’t know for sure, so he’d manipulated Mi Na and sent her after Requiem. No matter the outcome, his hands were clean.

Slippery little shit.

“I didn’t kill your sister,” Requiem said in irritation. “Sal has his own agenda. She died of her wounds when police shot her as she was trying to escape.”

“Bullshit! And she didn’t deserve to die in some dirty alley like she was nothing. She mattered. She mattered to me.”

A burst of scrambling and twisting resulted in Mi Na wriggling out of Requiem’s grip. She let the woman go and sat back on her haunches.

Mi Na did the same and rubbed the red lines at her neck as they eyed each other cautiously, four feet apart.

“I didn’t kill her, like I said,” Requiem said. “Mi Na, your sister was someone I could no more kill, than she could kill me. That was our relationship. Dysfunctional and complicated, but for assassins, that counts as downright friendly.”

There was a strangled, tortured noise and Mi Na brought her hands up to cover her face. Tears slid out from between her fingers as she wept silently.

Requiem stared at the emotional display with distaste, stomach plummeting. She wasn’t any good at this. The failings and frailties of humanity were nothing she’d mastered, beyond how to exploit them. The adrenaline was wearing off as the threat passed. She felt the stillness inside herself, and the seeping away of the part of her that was raw, pure, and dangerous, until Requiem faded.

Natalya lowered herself in front of Mi Na and waited until she had her eye.

“I was there. I held Nabi when she died,” she said evenly. “I held her when she made her peace with the universe, and made her peace with me. There was too much blood loss to save her. She died well. She was unafraid, she was strong, and I think her family would have been proud of her. I know I was. I told her so.”

Tear-filled, suspicious eyes sought the truth.

“I could have killed you just now,” Natalya added. “I didn’t. So you know I have no reason to lie. You know that.”

Mi Na became still, dropping her hands to her lap. Natalya could see their tremble.

“I paid top dollar to get Requiem profiled. Dropped out of med school, used all my savings.” The words were a whisper, like a long-held secret, and Mi Na stared at her hands as she mumbled them. “I had to find out how to get to you, how to get you vulnerable. To understand who you are. What mattered to you. To work out what you need. What you desire. The profiler interviewed some of the women Requiem…toyed with.

“The report I got back said, over and over, you only want power. Power of the hunt. Power over rivals and those who challenge you. That’s who you are. But you…you’re…not her. I don’t understand why you said no. What I did wrong. You should have said yes. He said you’d say yes.”

The plaintive, confused words echoed in Natalya’s head. She sighed and rose.

“Go home, Mi Na,” she said, injecting menace into her tone. “Challenge me or anyone in my life again and I will be ruthless. We both know that I know where your family lives. I know your father personally. I know which hospital he’s in.”

Mi Na’s brown eyes widened in shock.

Natalya had never let go of her informants’ network for this reason. You never knew which tidbit could pay off. For instance, she had been aware that a profiler had been looking into Requiem about six months ago. His subsequent death had been convenient but, for once, unrelated to her. Requiem’s were not the only toes the man had stepped on.

“Do not test me,” she continued. “You would regret it for the rest of your life. Tell me that you understand that, at least?”

Mi Na swallowed and nodded.

Natalya pursed her lips. She was getting soft. Mi Na’s head was bowed again, tears sliding down her cheeks, mingling with the blood from her injured nose, spattering on the floor in an ugly, sopping red mess.

Glancing around at the destruction in the room, and the human carnage on the floor, Natalya shook her head once, and slipped out the door.

Outside, she paused, wondering which way the linen closet was, and how to liberate an unconscious masseuse without anyone knowing…especially the masseuse herself.

She exhaled in annoyance, flexing her shoulders. On top of everything, now she really needed a massage.

Part Two: Bare

Natalya

“Hey, you’re early!” Alison’s voice echoed down the hall as Natalya arrived home at their two-bedroom penthouse apartment. “How come?”

“My masseuse became unwell,” Natalya called back. She filed her keys on a hook behind the door and leaned down to give their slumbering, ancient red heeler, Charlotte, a scratch behind her greying ears. “We cut the session short. What’s that interesting smell?”

“Come and find out.”

Natalya crossed the parquetry floors, glancing at the white walls and precisely placed modern art, musical trinkets, and framed photos of Alison’s family.

Pride of place in the hall was a photo of Alison, her sister, Susan, and niece, Hailey, laughing on the couch in their lounge room. It had felt so strange when they’d come to visit. At the time, Natalya had still been adjusting to having more than one voice in her life. And then suddenly there had been wall-to-wall Ryans. Adding to the surrealness, neither of them called Alison by the name she knew her. It was a dead name from a past that she and Alison didn’t speak about.

Natalya had taken to hiding out on the roof of their apartment building for the solitude. “A breath of fresh air,” she’d told them, as she’d made her daily escape. She’d sat up there, arms around her bent legs, watching over the city like an avenging angel.

She had even caught a burglar one day while she was there. Natalya smirked at the memory of dangling him over the edge while he’d pissed his pants and swore in three different languages to never trouble her building again. She did miss that—showing vermin the light.

Not that she’d shared that with Alison. Her lover didn’t need to know the darkness was still there. What if it frightened her? What if it frightened her off?

That didn’t bear thinking about.

She headed further along the hall. There was nothing of Natalya here, beyond one photo of her father that gave her pause each time she saw it. It was from before Vadim had migrated to Australia, still wearing his Russian Army uniform. So proud and straight, his eyes direct and cool. She had another photo of him, secreted on the top shelf of her closet, of his wedding day to Lola. But she couldn’t bring herself to hang it. The way her former stepmother had died…the way she’d lived…it was all so wrong. Twisted.

Natalya studied her father’s bushy brows and lean, long face in this photo. His medals shone. She missed him. He had raised her alone for most of her life, and he had been her only connection with her past. She had been on her tour of Europe just seven months when the nursing home had called her. It had rocked her to her core, hearing of his death, even though it wasn’t unexpected.

His funeral had not felt safe enough to attend. The reason lay only a few steps away. Natalya and Alison didn’t discuss it, then or now. They didn’t discuss a lot of things. What was the point of scraping over the past? It wasn’t necessary. They had the present. They had this.

But the ache was there as she studied her father’s gentle face.

“I’m making a new recipe I learned in cooking class. Here, come try it.” Alison’s disembodied voice sounded so excited.

Natalya smiled in spite of herself and headed to the kitchen.

Every pot and pan in existence had been pressed into service in the steam-filled room. Tomato spatters were everywhere, along with eggshells and vegetable offcuts. But all Natalya could see was one thing—the delight in Alison’s shining blue eyes. Her hair was sticking up at random angles, and her nose wrinkled as she focused.

Alison held out a wooden spoon to her. Natalya inspected the tomatoey goop on it and her nostrils twitched. Didn’t smell half bad. Her tongue inched out to taste it. Bold, primary flavours hit her, as onion, tomato, and garlic punched in. Then the aftertaste hit.

“How much booze did you put in this?” Her eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“Enough to give it a kick. I might have improvised that bit. Why? Did I overdo it?”

Natalya’s lips twitched. “I think that could kick a donkey. It’s tasty, though, aside from that.”

“Damn. I wanted it to be perfect. For our anniversary.”

Natalya paused and her brows knitted together. It wasn’t quite two years since Alison had moved to Vienna. She remembered the date distinctively, as she did all dates, times, and places. Details were important.

“October 16,” Alison supplied. “It’s five years to the day that you first met me outside that experimental music club.”

Ah.

“‘Met’ is not quite how I remembered it,” Natalya said. “I’m fairly certain breath-freshener-as-mace was used as a threat on my life.”

Alison gave her a sly grin. “Well, sure, but calling it the anniversary of your stalking me because you wanted to kill me has some unsavoury connotations.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Natalya smiled and decided if Alison could whitewash those days, so could she. She winced as she shrugged out of her jacket and slid it on the back of a wooden chair at the kitchen table.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

Natalya glanced up. Alison’s eyes never missed much.

“My masseuse found that scar on my back today, and decided it needed a special kind of pummeling.” She wriggled and straightened her back, stretching a little. “Actually, I think she used her entire body weight on it at one point.”

“Ouch,” Alison said in sympathy, putting the lid on the pot and then turning the heat way down.

Natalya ran her eyes over her lover, taking in the tight jeans and blue shirt rolled up at the sleeves. She felt a familiar tightening of arousal, something she’d never stopped having for this woman. Any thoughts she might become bored with her, or of this life, were fears that had yet to come to pass.

Alison came closer and the smell of her freshly washed hair and scrubbed skin, mingled with tomato aromas, made Natalya want her even more. More than anyone she’d ever known.

What had Mi Na called Alison? A sweet little thing? Actually, she was a woman who had stopped an assassin in her tracks by just being herself.

Alison’s keen, interested gaze took her measure. Something of Natalya’s desire must have shown in her eyes, because Alison’s cheeks warmed. “In the mood, are we?” she asked.

Always in the mood. For this, and for you.

Natalya had never used to want like this. But everything was different with this unassuming woman. She had redefined what Natalya’s body craved. Natalya allowed a seductive smile to curl her lips, making her interest known.

Alison’s lips captured hers immediately, and her tongue sought out Natalya’s with enthusiasm. Alison pressed hard against her, pushing her into a wall and grasping fists of clothing as she eliminated all space between them.

Natalya groaned in surprise and delight. She loved it when Alison took the initiative. Oh, Natalya always loved flinging Alison down and taking her until her body was a series of shaking, whimpering trembles. But this, this burning need, was something else. It undid her every time.

She was propelled into their bedroom, their bedroom—even after all this time, the shock of that still took adjustment. Natalya had been alone for so long that negotiating things like shared beds, bathrooms, and kitchens still sometimes made her itch with discomfort.

When Alison nudged open the door to their bedroom, Natalya pulled away, her eyes widening.

Red petals. On the floor. On the sheets. The music, playing on an iPod in the corner, was a string duet. Two instruments seemed to be dancing around each other, feeling each other out, flirting, seducing. Philip Glass’s Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, she noted. Duet No. 2. How apt: a cellist and a violinist. She glanced at Alison who gave her a cheeky grin.

Alison’s lips were back on Natalya’s, claiming her. That magical tongue was doing things to her that were positively obscene. An approving gasp worked its way from her throat. Natalya’s eyes fluttered closed and she felt her outer clothes wrenched down her body with desperation. There was little skill; it was pure need.

It brought her back to that day.

Their first time together. The real first time. Not the earlier time she’d allowed Alison to have a taste of her, a small piece as a farewell because the woman’s soft eyes had pleaded for it and Natalya couldn’t deny her, despite knowing it was a terrible idea. Risky. She’d held back to protect herself, but it hadn’t entirely worked. She’d still given far more than she’d intended. Not all, but more. And she’d thought of little else since.

Natalya had held out for a year. Finally she had returned one night and, heart hammering in her chest, had asked Alison to return with her to Europe. It was a pivotal moment. For the first time in her entire life—a life spent toying with and controlling others—she’d kissed someone. On the lips.

It had been terrifying. And intoxicating.

Afterwards, they’d barely gotten back to Alison’s apartment before they’d begun tearing clothes off each other. And then… She swallowed at the memory of a time that had left her so vulnerable she could scarcely breathe.

Alison, hair still wet from the light rain that night, had pushed her down, eyes intense and dark, and smoothed her hands all over her, mapping her naked body with a joy that seemed to come from knowing Natalya was hers. She’d touched her. All of her. For an eternity. Because she could. Because Natalya had allowed her to, as her equal.

Natalya had watched the swaying of her pale, bare breasts, revelled in the softness of her skin, as Alison’s burning fingertips teased and touched all around where she most wanted it.

Natalya hadn’t asked for more, or for anything, because she’d wanted Alison to take her any way she wanted. It was the most profound and hardest gift she had ever given anyone. Natalya’s fingers had curled and retracted, fighting her fierce need to have control, to reclaim her power on that confronting, thrilling, terrifying first night.

Her jaw had tightened each time her body quivered—betraying its weakness at desiring to bend to the will of another. The apex predator side of her didn’t want to want this. But, as she’d discovered after roaming Europe alone, not having this was far worse than admitting to needing it.

Natalya’s skin and muscles had shone from perspiration in her efforts not to show how hard it was to be so laid bare. Beneath Alison’s fervent explorations, and in those eyes watching her so intently, lay a well of desire. This was all Alison had wanted in order to be happy.

Even if the fight to surrender killed her, Natalya wanted to give her this night.

Alison’s fingers had stroked her muscles, explored her dips and lines, teased her nipples and skidded over her ribs, before worshipping the planes from her hips down. She had laid heated lips upon her most intimate flesh, tasting her with relish. She’d brought Natalya to the edge over and over but never let her cross. Instead, those taunting lips had rushed back up to Natalya’s and murmured against her mouth how much she loved this. How often she had fantasised about doing this, exactly this, for so long. How much having Natalya, this way, having the power, meant so much. How it had meant everything.

And then, finally, when Natalya had been gasping, on the edge again, voice and nerves raw with want, Alison had entered her for the first time. She had nudged her way between her swollen, wet lower lips with a single, long finger. Slow and gentle, with a tiny, sweet smile on her face, she’d pushed in as far and as deep as she could. And in so doing, she’d discovered Natalya’s darkest secret.

Natalya had tensed because, like the kissing earlier that evening, this was not something she’d done before. Even when alone, she’d never explored much beyond the surface. Without the thrill of power, there had never seemed much point before.

Thanks to her highly active life, Natalya had no idea whether she even still had an intact “virgin’s veil” as they used to call it. So she had lain there, frozen, expecting something—pain, blood maybe… Not everyone experienced these things, but still, she’d tensed, waiting for it.

Alison’s shocked eyes had told Natalya the moment she’d worked it out. Because while Requiem had claimed dozens of women over the years—aggressively, powerfully, confidently—no one had ever taken Natalya.

Nabi had come closest; Requiem had indulged her more than most. But it had still meant nothing and hadn’t crossed her strictest of lines—she’d never allowed such a liberty as kissing or this particular intimacy.

No one had crossed that line until Alison.

Alison had withdrawn her finger and whispered “Oh,” her eyes bright with emotion.

Natalya had found no words sufficient to tell her to stop whatever that look was. How could you put a concept so big into sliced up, rearranged spreads of letters? How could you explain the threats to her body and soul that she’d experienced so young? That in order to feel strong and protected, she’d allowed no one to touch her beyond the superficial?

The act of touching others was nothing to her. Getting people off meant the power was hers, the control hers, and her invincibility was assured. But to allow someone inside you—in every sense—that meant something.

Alison’s hand had cupped Natalya’s reddening face, eyes filled with questions.

Natalya hadn’t been able to explain the heat in her own cheeks. It wasn’t shame. Not embarrassment. Whatever it was, it had burned across her skin, and she’d wrenched her head away. She hadn’t the words for any of this.

But Alison hadn’t wanted her words. Instead she had laid herself across Natalya’s body, pressing her belly, breasts, and thighs against Natalya’s; she’d threaded herself under and through her arms, merging with her. She’d kissed her once more. Thoroughly. Because she now could. Then she’d rocked against her.

Under those delicious, intoxicating, soft kisses that had felt like a fever to Natalya, and against the sweetness of Alison’s body, rhythmically sliding against hers, Natalya had burned from the inside out. She had gradually come apart, gasping in a shuddering orgasm that, for the first time in her life, had absolutely nothing to do with power. It had to do with something else entirely. Something she hadn’t been ready to think about.

* * *

“Where were you just now?”

Alison’s voice broke into Natalya’s memories, and she blinked back to the present. Her fingers drifted through the rose petals on the sheets and she glanced up. “That night together. After your concert. When I came back for you.”

There was a nod, like she already knew. Maybe Natalya always had the same distant look on her face each time she thought of that experience.

Alison pushed her flat onto her back, pressing their bodies together. The weight and warmth was reassuring in its familiarity. “I’ve been thinking of you all day,” she said against her throat between feverish kisses, “thinking of all the ways I’m going to have you. All the ways you’ll know you’re mine.”

The words took a moment to penetrate the fog of Natalya’s overheated brain. Her breasts were seized by hot, frantic fingers, and then a tongue and teeth asserted their claim on her.

But Natalya was still stunned. How had she known?

“They can look at you,” Alison was murmuring. “All your fans, outside the Musikverein every night. All those women, all those men who want you. I see their eyes. I’m not blind. I recognise the look. I see it in the mirror every day.”

Alison sucked hard on her nipple, causing Natalya’s back to arch. “I see your eyes too,” she said. There was a pause and only cold air, as her soft lips lifted off Natalya’s breast.

Alison’s knowing gaze met Natalya’s surprised one. Her small hands were suddenly tugging at Natalya’s boy shorts, pulling them down, but Natalya did not, could not, break the gaze. Alison’s fingers gave one final, sharp tug, and Natalya was naked, exposed. Her arousal on display.

“I see your eyes too,” Alison repeated quietly.

Natalya watched her uncertainly, even as she felt a hand dusting her source, tracing her quivers. Finding the telltale wetness betraying her sharp need.

“And I remind myself that your fans can want you all they like, and you can appreciate them admiring you, but they’re not who you chose, are they?” Alison studied her.

“No.” Natalya looked at her directly.

With a nod of approval, Alison made her way down Natalya’s body. She breathed hotly over her intimate flesh that was trembling to be touched, straining for attention.

Natalya closed her eyes, waiting, her breathing harsh and fast.

She felt Alison pause her inspection and heard her almost idle question. “Did you kill her? The masseuse who hurt your scar today? Because I know masseuses. Especially the expensive kind at that fancy salon you like. Unless specifically asked, they leave scars well alone. So I’m guessing that was no masseuse. I’m almost afraid to ask who she really was.”

Natalya’s eyes sprang open. She glanced down to find Alison watching her closely, her look hard to decipher. Natalya should have known better. It was something they both had in common—a sharp eye for details. She usually appreciated that quality in her lover.

“It was touch and go. But no. Still alive.” Natalya left her tone deliberately light. Alison could take it any way she liked.

“Did you have her then?” Again there was the strange expression.

The harsh, unspoken awareness hung between them—that this was what Requiem did. Requiem fucked anyone who fucked with her, one way or another. Of course Alison knew that better than anyone. But in some twisted way, this topic usually fell under the category of things from Requiem’s past they never discussed.

But today the past was the present. It was a reasonable question.

Natalya licked her lips. “No.” She added conviction to her voice. “No.”

Alison’s eyes glowed, and their faint glint of possessiveness, fear, and tension slipped away. Desire and warmth took their place. “Good,” she said lightly, as though Natalya had merely confirmed she’d picked up milk on the way home. “And now I’m going to make you forget anyone but me.”

Natalya shivered. Alison’s tongue was suddenly driving between her legs, and Natalya cried out at the sensation. Her fingers spasmed and clutched at the sheets as her body was plundered by Alison’s nimble tongue.

Natalya hovered between states of being as those demanding lips blew on her, pulled, licked, nibbled, and claimed her. Natalya gasped as the wetness flowed from her. Inside, it felt like a wolf was howling, as though Requiem was crying out in abandonment, as Natalya twisted, moaned, shuddered, and finally came hard against the feverish mouth of the woman she had claimed as hers.

Hers.

“I feel.” Natalya exhaled the words so softly, unaware she’d even said them until the blue eyes halfway down the bed blinked up at her.

“Mmm,” Alison whispered against her flesh. “I know that. You pretend it’s only ever with a cello in your hands, but I know better. I’ve seen it. Especially fear.”

An objection flew to Natalya’s lips at this outrage. It died at Alison’s next words.

“When I told you my sister was coming for a visit.” Alison’s eyes danced with mirth. “Who knew even the scariest assassins have in-law anxieties?” Her look dared Natalya to deny it.

Natalya felt no desire to confirm that unsavoury little factoid. Her breath was still unsteady when she replied, “I meant that I feel love.”

It was something else they never talked about. Not since that night, two years ago in the rain, when she’d gone back for her and explained she was terrible at this, that she didn’t do love, but they should be together anyway.

She might not do love, but she’d felt it that night. A hint of it, a wisp, swirling around her senses, edging in, like a whisper demanding to be heard. The feeling had almost swallowed her whole when they’d kissed. The knowledge of what this thing between them might be had scared the daylights out of her. Not enough to run, though. She was no coward.

Natalya waited for Alison’s reaction, a lip caught between her teeth.

The stillness between them seemed to swallow all the oxygen. The intensity stripped any amusement from Alison’s eyes.

Natalya wondered if she’d made a terrible tactical error. A coldness filtered into her veins at the thought that this thing might actually be more one-sided than she’d thought. She’d foolishly exposed herself, stripped herself bare and now…

Alison’s eyes softened and lit up with delight. Every emotion in her heart chased across her face. Relief surged through Natalya as Alison smiled and slithered her way up Natalya’s body.

“Hey,” she whispered. “I thought maybe you did. Hoped you did the way I do. But it’s everything hearing it from someone who always says she doesn’t do love.”

Natalya’s eyes fluttered closed and her lips twitched. “Well, I don’t do love. As a rule. But apparently the rules don’t apply to you. God knows, no rule in existence has ever worked in the past.”

She felt the weight of Alison, solid and steady, slide across her torso. An arm slipped around her ribs, claiming her. Natalya cracked an eyelid and saw within Alison’s blinding smile that addictive essence that she knew she could never give up, no matter what.

Natalya had been right, the night under that soft rain, when she’d gone back for this unexpected woman. Her little mouse. She’d sensed then what she understood now as the truth.

Love is not nothing.

###

About Lee Winter

Lee Winter is an award-winning veteran newspaper journalist who has lived in almost every Australian state, covering courts, crime, news, features and humour writing. Now a full-time author and part-time editor, Lee is also a 2015 and 2016 Lambda Literary Award finalist and has won two Golden Crown Literary Awards. She lives in Western Australia with her long-time girlfriend, where she spends much time ruminating on her garden, US politics, and shiny, new gadgets.

CONNECT WITH LEE

Website: www.leewinterauthor.com

Other Books from Ylva Publishing

www.ylva-publishing.com

Requiem for Immortals

Lee Winter

ISBN: 978-3-95533-711-7 (mobi), 978-3-95533-712-4 (epub)

Length: 86,000 words (263 pages)

Professional cellist Natalya Tsvetnenko moves seamlessly among the elite where she fills the souls of symphony patrons with beauty even as she takes the lives of the corrupt of Australia’s ruthless underworld. The cold, exacting assassin is hired to kill a woman who seems so innocent that Natalya can’t understand why anyone would want her dead. As she gets to know her target, she can’t work out why she even cares.

The Red Files

Lee Winter

ISBN: 978-3-95533-331-7 (mobi), 978-3-95533-332-4 (epub)

Length: 103,000 words (365 pages)

Ambitious Daily Sentinel journalist Lauren King is chaffing on LA’s vapid social circuit, reporting on glamorous A-list parties while sparring with her rival—the formidable, icy Catherine Ayers. Ayers is an ex-Washington political correspondent who suffered a humiliating fall from grace, and her acerbic, vicious tongue keeps everyone at bay. Everyone, that is, except knockabout Iowa girl King, who is undaunted, unimpressed and gives as good as she gets.

One night a curious story unfolds before their eyes: One political launch, 34 prostitutes and a palette of missing pink champagne. Can the warring pair work together to unravel an incredible story? This is a lesbian fiction with more than a few mysterious twists.

Coming from Ylva Publishing

www.ylva-publishing.com

The Brutal Truth

Lee Winter

Australian crime reporter Maddie Grey is out of her depth in New York, miserable, and secretly drawn to her powerful, twice-married, media mogul boss, Elena Bartell, who eats failing newspapers for breakfast. As work takes them to Australia, Maddie is goaded into a brief, seemingly harmless bet with her enigmatic boss—where they have to tell the complete truth to each other. It backfires catastrophically. A lesbian romance about the lies we tell ourselves.

Love is Not Nothing

© 2017 by Lee Winter

ISBN (mobi): 978-3-95533-871-8

ISBN (epub): 978-3-95533-872-5

ISBN (pdf): 978-3-95533-873-2

Published by Ylva Publishing, legal entity of Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.

Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.

Owner: Astrid Ohletz

Am Kirschgarten 2

65830 Kriftel

Germany

www.ylva-publishing.com

First edition: 2017

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Credits

Edited by Amanda Jean

Proofread by Robin J Samuels

Cover Design by Adam Llyod