by Anna Argent
She glanced around. He wasn’t sure if she was looking for a clock or an exit. “It’s closing time, then. You should go.”
His gaze drifted to where the gutted monitoring device lay. “I asked you to give that to Zoe.”
Her cheeks pinkened, though whether from embarrassment or anger, he couldn’t tell. “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a bomb.”
“So you melted the joints with a soldering iron? Didn’t it cross your mind that using a tool that hot on an explosive device might be dangerous?”
She shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
It was a wonder she hadn’t killed herself. Her father was a hero for seeing her through her more curious, formative years. Talan wished he knew how the man had accomplished such a formidable task, because Talan needed her at his side, trusting him, obeying his orders and answering his questions. And he needed it now.
“How long are you going to keep lying about who you are?”
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t have time for this. I know who you are, Zoe.”
Her shoulders drooped in surrender and she turned away. “How long have you known?”
“Since before I walked through the door.”
“Then why play along? What’s your angle?”
“I already told you. You’re in danger. I don’t know how much your father told you before he died—”
Before he finished speaking, Zoe flung an open box full of craft knives at him, and sprang toward the back door.
Chapter Three
Talan saw each of the eleven knives speeding at him, their trajectories bright, glowing streams of light that made their paths as obvious as if they’d been on rails. He processed the data fast and calculated his possible moves.
As good as his reflexes were, even he couldn’t dodge all of them—not in the split second he had to act.
His mind flowed through the options to reduce the damage he’d sustain, plotting the best course. As soon as he had the optimal solution, he spun and arched his body, letting only one of the knives hit him.
It stabbed through his jeans, imbedding itself into his thigh. He ignored the flash of pain and stalked to where Zoe was tugging on the back doorknob with all her strength.
There was no way she was wrenching the door open without a crowbar or a blowtorch. He’d been thorough in his efforts to keep her contained.
Talan paused for a moment to control his instincts before he dared to touch her. His blood was running hot. The metallic tang of battle lingered in the back of his throat. His senses opened up, making everything brighter and louder. His whole world narrowed down to the space between him and his prey until nothing else mattered.
Zoe must have sensed his approach. She turned around, lifting her hands to either protect herself or hold him at bay. Either way, those hands were delicate, weak, and completely unfit for the job.
He let her strike him, waiting until her hands were at the peak of their backward arc, preparing for another blow. As soon as it was clear he had an opening, he closed the distance between them, putting himself well inside her guard. He refused to let her hurt herself by beating on him. He still had a craft knife sticking out of the side of his thigh, and it wouldn’t be hard for her to knock it out and cut herself in the process.
His hips met her body first, followed closely by his chest. He pinned her against the metal door, gathering her wrists in his fists.
Her slender bones shifted inside his grip, reminding him to ease up on the pressure. Doing so allowed room for her skin to glide against his, so soft and warm it distracted him for a moment, giving him a flash of what it might be like to hold her for reasons other than to keep her from trying to rip his eyes out.
Her scent wove through him, sending his mind flying into forbidden territory. Would she fight to free herself so she could touch him, or would his hold on her body excite her? Either idea worked for him, making his spine tingle with possibilities. He’d give her whatever she wanted, whatever she needed to go along with the untimely erotic demands his body was suddenly making on him.
What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t allow thoughts of sex to come anywhere near his work. He’d turned his cock off two years ago when he’d been assigned this position, and until now, it had obeyed his commands.
And yet now, the weak squirming of one irate woman was enough to destroy all his self-control. As she rubbed against him, he was even feeling the first tingling stirrings of an erection—something he hadn’t had to fight for a long time.
Her lips parted as she gasped for air. Her skin flushed with the effort of her struggles. Her hips wriggled against his body, lighting up his mind with images of taking her against this door. Right here, right now.
With no effort at all, he could have had her out of those jeans, freed his cock and shoved up inside her. Even the thought was nearly enough to make him climax, and he hadn’t even kissed her yet.
A low, feral scream ripped from her throat, dousing him with a bucket of reality.
She didn’t want him. She didn’t even want him touching her. She sure as hell didn’t want him fucking her against a cold metal door.
Talan forced himself to remember the hours he’d spent being tortured, having his skin clawed open and ripped from his skull. It wasn’t a time he enjoyed thinking about, but the end result was effective, ridding him of all thoughts of sex and deflating his cock back into submission.
Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to let her go. Not yet. Not before he was sure she wasn’t going to run off, screaming because he’d lost his head. For all he knew, she’d run right into the waiting arms of any Raide stationed outside.
So rather than letting her go, he held her there, forcing his face to maintain a serene, neutral expression.
“Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Let me go!”
It took her several seconds of struggling before Zoe accepted that she was completely outclassed. Tiny drops of sweat stood out along her hairline, and her skin had gone from frightened, pasty white to an angry red.
For a moment, his body mistook her coloring for the flush of arousal, and his cock twitched with interest. Again. Apparently his visit to tortureland didn’t have lasting effects.
Talan gritted his back teeth and ignored his poorly-timed arousal.
“I swear I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice came out as a growl, rather than the gentle, coaxing tone he’d meant to use.
Through clenched teeth she said, “I can’t promise you the same thing. Let me go!”
He shifted his weight, leaning against her a bit harder. The press of her small, firm breasts distracted him from what he’d intended to say. The thought flitted away, lost and forgotten as he stared down at her.
Her mouth was tight with anger or fear. He couldn’t tell which, and it suddenly became intensely important that he know. Her anger he could stand. She could scream and hit him all she liked so long as she stayed safe. But her fear? That grated against some deep, primitive part of him he hadn’t even realized he possessed until this very moment.
He was supposed to make her fear go away—slay it with brutal force until she was sure she was safe. Only then would she be free to create as she had been born to do.
Sadly, since he was the cause of her distress, he had no idea how to calm her fears without walking away, and that was simply not something he could do twice. Every minute he spent trying to convince her she was safe with him allowed the Raide or their war slaves to draw closer.
Just the thought was enough to have him baring his teeth in challenge.
Zoe flinched against him, letting out a little squeak of panic.
A string of bitter Imonite curses rattled through his head.
All he’d done since meeting her was make things worse. He had to find a way to prove to her that he was no threat. Which meant letting her go.
Slowly, he released one of her wrists and cupped the side of her face. His hand
was rough and square against the curve of her cheek. He stroked his thumb over the skin beneath her eye, reveling in the silky texture.
He’d once held an infant he’d found inside the remains of a crumbled house. The baby’s family had been killed instantly by a Raide blast, but the child had miraculously survived. Talan had heard his squawking little cries over the sound of battle, and found him lying in a pile of rubble. That infant’s skin had been like hers, too soft to be real, and so delicate he was sure his hands would leave behind ugly marks.
Even so, Talan couldn’t help himself. He had to touch Zoe. The compulsion to stroke away the fear he saw in her eyes was too strong for him to resist. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She gripped his wrist as her eyes met his. That contact shot through him, slicing as keenly as the finest sheeng ever created. It left him still and speechless, helpless to do anything but stare back at her, caught completely in her gaze. He couldn’t even breathe for fear of giving her a reason to look away.
Her fingers brushed across his skin, and for a moment his mind was filled with sensory overload. Warm, soft skin. Slender, delicate lines. Subtle strength and the slightest vibration of something. Fear? Anger? Excitement? He couldn’t tell.
She stared at him for a long moment, as if searching for a lie. He let her look as long as she liked, knowing she’d see no subterfuge lurking in his expression.
Slowly, her erratic breathing started to even out. The tightness around her mouth eased. Her pupils expanded and her color shifted, leaving behind pools of soft pink lingering in her cheeks. Her grip on his wrist relaxed, as did the tension radiating through her slim limbs.
Good. That was exactly what he wanted. What he needed.
Talan shifted his weight back until his body was no longer plastered against hers.
As intellectual as Builders were, they were also highly sensitive. Just as a slight shift of an enemy’s hips signaled intent to Talan, every little silent cue he gave her would be processed and analyzed—whether or not she was aware she was doing it. Reading body language was one of the few defense mechanisms Builders had, and right now, he was practically shouting that he was no threat to her. He wasn’t even holding her. She was holding him.
“Let’s pretend I believe you.” Her voice was quiet, soft, with a hint of warmth that made him feel like he was more than some random stranger. Maybe that was one more lie to go with her fake smiles, but he let himself believe otherwise.
Even small moments of pleasure were worth treasuring among the bleak string of pain and loss his life had become since the invasion.
He moved until no part of him was touching her except for the loose shackle of her fingers at his wrists. The slight contact was a delicious form of torture, making him want more—even as he reveled in the warmth of her smooth, bare skin on his.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
So much. Too much. He wanted things from her he didn’t understand, things that surprised even him. “I’m here to bring you home.”
“Home?”
“Your real home.”
“My father said someone would come, but…” She looked away, but not before he saw sadness shadow her eyes.
“But what?”
“I never thought it would be today. I’m not ready. I don’t want to go.”
She was afraid. He could feel it in the way her fingers trembled against his skin.
Talan smoothed his thumbs along the inside of her wrists in an effort to soothe her. “It’s time, Zoe. You’re needed at home.”
“I’m needed here too. I have a business to run. People are depending on me to finish the work they gave me.”
He tried to keep his voice gentle, but everything inside of him was shouting at him to gather her up and hurry her to his truck. “None of that matters now. Someone else will finish your work here. But there is no one else who can do your work on Loriah.”
“This is the only home I know.”
She looked up at him, her expression filled with so much uncertainty and fear it was all he could do not to pull her against his chest and rock her like a frightened child. It wasn’t like him to offer comfort or to be soft on those who sought to avoid their duty, but there was a fragility about Zoe. He worried that if he pushed her too hard, too fast, she might shatter. And she was far too important for him to damage.
“Everything will be fine. You’ll see. There are others just like you. They’re waiting for you now, eager to welcome you to your new home.”
“I always thought I’d have more time.”
She didn’t, and the time he could allow her to adjust to the surprise was running short. “Let me take you to your house so you can gather a few things. We’ll talk on the way, and you can ask me any questions you like. I want you to feel safe with me, Zoe.”
She shook her head and dark, glossy strands of hair escaped from behind her ears. “There’s something I have to do first. I promised my father.”
“Then let me help you. What is it you have to do?”
“It’s the kind of thing I have to do on my own.”
“How long will it take?”
Her gaze slid away, giving away her incoming lie before she even uttered it. “Not long.”
Before he could press her for the truth, the air pressure in the room shifted, and he heard the faint scrape of the front door opening. A second later, the little bell on her counter chimed, demanding her attention.
She swallowed twice. Her fingers slid over his skin as she released his wrist. “I have a customer. I should go see what they want.”
Talan turned his head and peered through the slit in the yellow curtain. An older human man stood there expectantly.
Talan stepped out of her way, giving her silent permission to pass. She tugged her shirt down as if adjusting her armor, and wiped her palms on her jeans. After blowing out a quick, hard breath, she marched through the doorway, brushing the curtain aside.
Talan should have followed her, but there was still the matter of the knife sticking out of his thigh. Besides, he didn’t want to leave this space. It was hers, and he liked standing inside of it, surrounded by the workings of her mind. Maybe other people wouldn’t see it the way he did, but the proof of her Builder’s intellect were all over the place, lingering in the smallest details, all the way down to how she lined up her tools. The fact that they were human tools did little to hide what she really was.
Many of those human tools were now scattered all over her spotless floor, and one was lodged in his thigh.
Quiet voices flowed to his ears as he cleaned up the mess. The craft knife was stuck in his skin. He pulled it out and wiped the blood away on his jeans before placing the tool back with its mates.
A quick dab from a vial of liquid skin he carried disinfected and closed the wound. The few drops of blood he’d gotten on the floor he cleaned away until there was no trace left.
After tonight she was never coming back here again, but leaving behind signs of a struggle after her disappearance would only complicate his future efforts to find more of the Taken.
His job was difficult enough without the added hassle of evading human law enforcement.
The skin at the nape of his neck prickled, warning him of danger.
The cadence of Zoe’s voice changed. Her tone rose higher, her words choppy and sharp. Frightened.
Talan rushed out through the curtain to find the man gripping Zoe’s hands so tight her fingers were all mashed together at awkward angles. He was dragging her toward the open end of the counter, despite her struggles.
The man appeared human, a couple of decades older than Zoe, wide-eyed with panic, his face twisted with desperation. In one shaking hand, he held a gun pointed right at her chest. “You have to come with me.”
Talan didn’t stop to think. His body went into battle mode. A series of possible attacks flowed through his mind as he launched himself high over the counter. He grabbed the man’s throat in one hand and the gun in the
other as he passed overhead. His momentum carried them both to the ground. By the time they’d stopped skidding along the shiny tile, Talan had complete control of the man’s body, pinning him to the floor with a knee to his chest.
Dimly, he was aware of the crack of bone and the man’s high-pitched cry of pain. The gun clattered uselessly to the floor. The man’s arm bent at an awkward angle above his wrist, where Talan had broken it.
He shoved the blade of his forearm against the man’s throat.
Instantly, the stranger stopped fighting. “Please. He has my son.” The words came out choked and breathless, but Talan understood them all the same.
He eased his hold on the man’s neck, but didn’t let him go. “Who has your son?”
Tears slipped out from the corners of the man’s eyes. “He’s not… human.”
“A Raide,” said Zoe, her words breathless with fear.
And for good reason. The Raide were ruthless, cunning and deadly. If this man’s son was truly being held captive by one of them, he was in grave danger.
The man continued. “The creature called himself Krotian. Told me to come here and bring him the woman who worked here.” Anguish tightened the wrinkles between his brows. “He has my son. He’s… hurting him.”
“Did he send anyone else besides you?” Talan demanded.
“I don’t know. His eyes. He just looked at me and the pain…” The man trailed off, unable to finish. “Please let me go. He’s got my boy. He’s hurting my baby boy.”
“Take me to him,” Zoe said. Her tone was firm. Determined. “I’ll teach him what happens to assholes who hurt children.”
Talan pushed to his feet and collected the weapon before sparing her a brief glance. “Like hell. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. For all we know, there is no child.”
“Did you see that man’s face?” Zoe asked. “There’s no way to fake pain like that. A Raide has his son. I’d bet my life on it.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
The human tried to reach for something. “Davy’s picture is in my wallet. I’m not lying.”
“See?” said Zoe.
