Claiming His Unexpected Baby (Assassins Guild #2) - Michelle Howard Page 0,17

diplomat’s daughter.

Amelie was a simple person with simple needs. She worked and owned a garden center because she liked making things grow and was good at it. “Stay away from me, Roan.”

“Or what?” He laughed and glanced around, nodding to the people gathered. “What will you do?”

“My mate will be angry.”

Roan’s wounded victim façade fell and true rage burned. “Enough with the lies! You don’t have a mate and that’s my daughter you’ve kept from me for years!”

Amelie backed up again and hit a solid mass behind her. Someone blocked her from leaving the circle Roan had created with his demands and brash behavior.

Roan’s gaze lightened when he noticed she couldn’t move. He got in her face and extended his arms to snatch Fleur from Amelie.

“Touch my mate and I will rip your arms off and beat you with them.” The chest behind her rumbled with the words.

In shock, Amelie almost fell forward. Roan’s gaze moved beyond her to the man who shifted her to the side with a slight hand to the waist and stepped between them.

Roan thrust his jaw out. “Who are you?”

“Sulen Czen.”

The color leeched from Roan’s face and even Aviana looked stunned. Scarlett hurried toward her and touched Amelie’s wrist in reassurance. The stranger looked down at her with deep green eyes. His ruthlessly short black hair lay flat against his head and he was dressed in all black with visible weapons strapped to his body beneath the ankle length leather coat.

“What?” Roan choked out.

Fleur chose that moment to pop her head up from Amelie’s shoulder. She stretched her arms toward the dark-haired man. “Daddy!”

Amelie couldn’t control the leap as Fleur made to jump into the stranger’s arms. He caught her easily and swept Fleur up into a protective hold. She buried her face in his chest, her tiny hands holding tight to the folds of his shirt.

Roan and Aviana gasped. Roan spoke first, stuttering. “S-s-she’s mine.”

“No. She’s not,” Sulen said and walked away with a tight grip on Amelie’s arm, pulling her with him.

The crowd parted for them. Outside the community center, he stopped on the walkway and asked, “Where are you staying?”

Amelie swallowed. His name was familiar, of course. Scarlett had given her the name of the Gerelin she’d stolen the hormone from. Sometimes truth was better than a lie her friend had insisted when they filled out Amelie’s papers to stay permanently on the colony and later for Fleur’s birth record.

She’d just never expected to meet the man in person. Sulen Czen.

Chapter 7

As soon as the woman closed the door of her home behind her, Sulen held up the clinging child in his arms to pass over. She reflexively took her kid with a startled look in his direction.

Both mother and child stared at Sulen. The woman with her light brown hair and deep brown eyes and the little girl with her midnight tangle of hair and green eyes that were oddly familiar.

He ignored the unexpected pang of regret caused by his empty arms and got straight to the point. “Who are you?”

She flinched and cuddled the child—her child he assumed—close to her chest. “I’m Amelie Haven.”

Sulen frowned, going through his memory for some recognition of the name. He drew a blank. The name meant nothing to him. Which left him with the unusual dilemma of figuring out why his body was adamantly declaring he claim his bond mate.

“Is your name really Sulen?” she asked with a nervous quiver.

Snorting, Sulen braced his hands on his hips and stared. He wasn’t the one accused of lying in front of several dozens of people. “Yes. Who else would I be?”

The pulse in her throat pounded against her skin, drawing his attention to the two thin scars in a diagonal slash at the base of her throat. Sulen closed the distance between them, noting the way her shoulders tensed. He brushed his thumb over the marks. Another delicate shiver coursed through her body but she didn’t pull away. “These aren’t mine.”

He hated the uncertainty in his voice. Damn it. Sulen knew he hadn’t mated this woman. Those weren’t his bonding marks and the girl wasn’t his child as she’d claimed in front of the ass who’d taken sadistic joy in bullying the woman.

Sulen had been in the back of the room when she declared without flinching in front of everyone that she was mated to him. The man cornering her had said Sulen’s name and implied he wasn’t real. How did they know his name? Caution