Guardian Knight

by Aarti V Raman

  “He will die by my hand,” Castle said soundlessly. With all the ruthless skill to back up his statement. “It will be the last thing I do, Kharaan but it will be done.”

  “I empathize with your anger, Castle. And, much as I would like to avenge Cameron’s death by annihilating every single of those infidels right where they stand, you know why we can’t. Don’t you, Castle?”

  Castle didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Duty. Honor. War. These words were drummed into him since he’d become a conscious adult with a very specific set of skills that had no place in the civilized world.

  Kharaan knew this as well as he knew his own title.

  “What would you have me do, Kharaan?”

  “Wait,” Kharaan responded softly. “Wait till we know exactly what Brandon Rice and his red-haired whore is going to do next. I think…” Kharaan hesitated before continuing hesitantly, “I think we have been wrong in assuming Sebastian Delgado is dead and that Brandon Rice is acting as an independent consultant.”

  “You think Delgado is alive?” Castle was shocked into emotion.

  Kharaan nodded. “I think there is a very real possibility, Akira Naik is the key to this whole puzzle. And we need to find out everything we can about her. Her strengths. And, more importantly, her weaknesses.”

  “Why?” Castle asked, curiously.

  Kharaan smiled and it was worse than Castle’s implacable façade. Because it revealed the true man Kharaan really was – a man who sent everyone into war with no thought to them except as collateral damage.

  “So we can exploit it when the time comes, of course.”

  Part Three: Insight

  Courage is one part stupidity, one part luck, and mostly the ability to do the wrong thing at the right time.

  Thirty-Four

  “I am tired.” Akira said mulishly, stopping dead under a tree.

  “Brand, you hear me? I am tired.” she said again, leaning against the trunk of the tree.

  He continued at a slow pace. “The snakes like to hang around the lower branches and climb down on unsuspecting victims,” he called out over his back.

  With a squeal, she jumped away from the tree.

  Brand turned around in time to see her looking worriedly at the branches, trying to spot a python or an anaconda or a boa constrictor. He suppressed a smile.

  With a sigh, she turned around, shoulders drooping and came towards him.

  And, he thought again, about how close he’d come to losing her. Really losing her.

  The thought made him angry again, for reasons he couldn’t begin to define, so he was harsher when he pulled her across the rotting trunk and to his side.

  “Okay, okay. I get it. You don’t have to dislocate my shoulder, for God’s sake,” she muttered trying to match her shorter stride with his abruptly longer ones.

  “Another ten minutes, and we can make camp for the night,” he said flatly, while she huffed beside him.

  But to his discomfort and her credit, not once did she ask him to carry the backpack that he knew weighed about fifty pounds.

  What, he mused, would make the woman break?

  ~~~~~~

  “I had a dream once.” Akira spoke so softly, that he was startled out of his own mental meandering.

  They’d stopped holding hands, and now he just touched her to get her over the rough spots.

  “What dream?”

  “I wanted to journey into the wilds of South America and document the various tribes that lived here. You know, sort of do what Rumi does, except just be the kid in front of the camera instead of one who was behind it.”

  She glanced at Brand, to figure out what he was thinking. After that very first instant when they’d been alone in that disaster of a room, he’d gone back to being impassive and taciturn. Or angry and sullen.

  The Brand she’d seen after a minor explosion had wrecked her stateroom on the Sea Princess.

  She wanted to know he felt something. Anything. That he wasn’t a man just trying to cheat death and not win every time.

  It was toxic, that kind of thinking.

  “Rumi has a knack for it,” he conceded a few seconds later.

  “Yeah, she does. Henry has some bad moments with her. Like on this job, for instance.” She grinned.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, Henry wanted her to turn down the chance of filming a documentary in the country. Probably knew a thing or two about the political situation brewing here.” Akira shot him a sidelong glance.

  Henry knew Brand. She wanted to see if he took the bait of acknowledging that he knew Henry too.

  “Henry Rousseau’s a very perceptive guy,” he said, nodding.

  They walked quietly for five more minutes, before she sighed. It was a particularly loud sigh.

  “What now?” he asked with long-suffering weariness.

  “Henry knows you. He didn’t tell Rumi how, and he wouldn’t tell me. And I couldn’t press him, later on. So come on, tell me, now,” she insisted.

  Akira caught his forearm, and wrapped her fingers around it. “Won’t you tell me your secret, Brand?”

  ~~~~~~

  Brand looked down at her, while she looked earnestly at him.

  There were smudge marks on her nose, one cheek was deathly white and the other one had a bandage on it. Her hair was in tangles and she hadn’t muttered or complained about the lack of mirrors or feminine items for as long as he’d known her.

  And right now, with his searchlight as the only illumination, her eyes wide and curious, he knew he’d never seen any woman more beautiful.

  The want hit him so suddenly; he almost doubled over with the force of it.

  “Henry and I were at Oxford together,” he found himself answering. “He was studying law too. They recruited him right out of school. And, after, there might have been a couple of times here and there where we might have met.”

  “You mean, like one of your missions?” She was genuinely curious now.

  “Something like that. Now, enough talking, we have some ways to go,” he said curtly, while he dragged on again.

  Akira winced with every step but didn’t say a word.

  Her stoicism only made Brand angrier for some reason.

  They’d been shot at, captured, kidnapped, tortured, and were even now escaping through a jungle that could hold any and all predators. And she hadn’t uttered one word of complaint.

  She hadn’t said anything about her injuries; about the fact that her life was in so much danger they should be constructing armored tankers around her.

  Why wasn’t she even slightly normal?

  ~~~~~

  Akira shrugged and they continued walking. Since she hadn’t relinquished her hold on his forearm she noticed and noted the stiffening of his muscles while they plodded on. And his breathing evened out, deepened.

  He was either sick or angry, she surmised.

  Knowing Brand, it was probably the latter. Although, she didn’t know why he was angry at her. Or at himself. She was just making conversation.

  Because if she stopped, if she stopped for a second and the world slowed down and she had to face what had just happened to her… Akira let out a deep breath, pasted a bright smile on her face and adjusted the damn belts again.

  Suddenly, he stopped dead in the middle of what looked like a very small clearing and said in a very ominous tone, “You stop that now.”

  Akira let the strap fall back in place and looked at him in confusion. “Stop what?”

  “You stop pretending that this is all a fucking joke, a goddamn adventure we’re having. Because we aren’t.” Brand jerked her arm closer to him, so that she all but stumbled on him and spoke harshly. His eyes blacker than sin; the rest of him smoldering with fury.

  “Brandon.”

  “People died, Akira. A man’s brains were blown out in front of you and you stand here and you smile like we are taking a damn stroll in a park. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you sure you don’t
need therapy? Are you sure you don’t have a death wish yourself? That you don’t wish that it was you and not Aloka who died?” He demanded as he shook her once, rattling her to her teeth.

  Her eyes glazed over with anger. She sucked in one humiliated breath.

  “How do you know? About Aloka…how do you know?” she choked out.

  “I know everything, Akira Naik. I know about the accident and the baby and how you had to identify the body because your mother was out of the country. My god, woman. Have some respect for your life, at least.” Brand shook her once again.

  She didn’t think about it. Just opened her mouth and spat at him.

  He let her go, because he was capable of hurting her right now. And he knew it. His fingers were curling into fists even as he let her go, and his eyes glittered with such violent fury that she wanted to step back.

  But she stood her ground and she raised her chin, her body quivering with her rage. Inviting his wrath. Wanting to inflict some damage of her own.

  “Fuck you, Brandon Rice.” She spat again at him.

  Brand gave her one speaking glance.

  “Alright,” he said before snaking one hand out and tumbling her towards him.

  ~~~~~

  Before her outraged lips could protest, Brand kissed Akira.

  Kissed her hard enough to hurt, scraping through lips and teeth and jaw, grinding it all together in a vicious mix of passion and anger.

  And she gave back as good as she got. Her teeth bit his lower lip and she drew first blood while she kissed him back with equal passion and equal anger. Smashing and clashing and wanting him so much it hurt to breathe past this moment. This second.

  He let her go an instant later. Thrusting her away as if he couldn’t believe he’d done that. Hurt a woman.

  His face was a study in regret and confusion and uncontrolled lust. His hands were clenched at his sides, and she looked at the way he was having difficulty breathing.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “I’m so sorry, Akira.”

  Akira smiled triumphantly, unsnapped the straps to the backpack.

  She smiled even wider when Brand took a step back.

  She dropped the pack to the ground, probably jostling thousands of dollars of expensive equipment, but for now, she couldn’t find it in herself to care. He was at a distance of less than three feet away, but it seemed longer.

  She took two steps towards him and said, “Again. For the right reasons this time.” Then she reached up and kissed him.

  Thirty-Five

  Her eyes were open and on his for every single movement of her lips. Brand knew the memory of her, like this, would be indelibly printed on his brain. The way his heart thudded because she brushed her body close, then closer still.

  The way his brain froze up because she linked her arms around his neck and tugged his mouth lower to hers. Way lower.

  This kiss was voracious in its need and intensity. And pure too, in a way he couldn’t fathom.

  But still they didn’t close their eyes. As the want, as much affirmation, as bone-deep need, spiraled out of control.

  Black eyes clashed with brown ones in a battle that both knew was lost a long time ago.

  Akira dragged his shirt up, when they came up for air. Brand swallowed. She laughed once, and it crawled down his spine, as seductive, as sweet as she was, in this moment.

  He went down on his knees and reached out behind her to the backpack. She cocked a brow.

  It was a brief reply. “Provisions.”

  She smiled and sat down next to him.

  His back gleamed in the moonlight. The two scars she’d seen before, she touched now and he flinched before continuing to root in the backpack. Spread the rain poncho on the hard, muddy ground.

  ~~~~~~

  Akira ran her fingers up his spine then, feeling all the different muscles bunch and ripple under her fingers and couldn’t control the way her whole body went damp with arousal and want.

  She wanted this man. And not just because she’d escaped death, again, tonight.

  With a growl he came to her, when she’d just reached his springy, appealing hair and pulled her down underneath him. He was hungry as he kissed her, and stripped her tee shirt off, along with the tank top.

  And then, for a second, he just stared at her.

  “Wow,” he whispered, drinking in the sight of her breasts and slender neck in the moonlight.

  One of his hands was under her naked back, and it moved lower now, to cup her bottom and grind it into his arousal. Her thighs opened and invited him to settle more fully, which he did.

  His other hand slid past her hair, to her face, to trace the smudge on her small nose, the full lips, down to the pulse beating fast on her neck.

  There was something so erotic when he looked at her with single-minded concentration, while he touched her with such single-minded concentration.

  Her breath hung suspended in the air, when his hand cupped one high, round, breast and then brushed over the brown nipple lightly. It came out in a gasp, because his mouth replaced his hand and he nipped lightly, just enough for her to arch her back.

  Akira’s eyes closed on a wave of fluid longing, of excitement so sharp, it was almost pain.

  Her fingers danced over the scar on his chest, while he continued to suckle her, and inched her skirt up. Then in an abrupt gesture, he rent the skirt at the hem and groaned at her red lace bikini panties.

  “You’re going to kill me,” he muttered, while he kissed his way down to her slightly rounded belly.

  All those weeks of doing nothing but eat and sit inside the Locker had added weight to her never completely skinny body. Akira gasped, in no mood to retort, because what he was doing felt so good, and would feel even better just a few inches south.

  Her hands clutched his head, to stop him, to urge him on, she never knew, because he lightly blew on her navel then and licked her belly button. Her nails dug into his shoulders then, that capable, defined pair of shoulders and she whimpered once.

  Brand looked up and she looked down and then, he grinned.

  “Lovely view,” he said, before he kissed his way down the rest of her stomach and inside her panties.

  But now she wanted some licks in herself, touch all that defined muscle. So she reared up and knocked him back and raced kisses all the way down his chest, with a light dusting of hair and a happy trail that she couldn’t miss even if she wanted to.

  His arousal was digging into her stomach and she gave it one quick rub through his pants before unzipping them.

  He raised his hips and together they stripped him off all his clothing and for a second she just sat and stared.

  “Wow,” she said, while she took him in.

  He was like a pagan statue come to life, she thought inanely.

  He lounged under her and let her look at him. Grinning shamelessly, with those appealing licks of heat she could now read in his depthless eyes. All bronzed muscles, and defined body and a wow that put her last three lovers to shame, not that she was comparing mind you.

  Then her eyes slid past his navel to his firm, with-just-the-right-amount-of-dusted- hair-thighs and Akira frowned. “You’re hurt.”

  There was a deep gash, seeping blood and he shrugged. “I’m fine.”

  He took her fingers and kissed their tips and placed her hand on his heart, which drew her eyes back to his chest.

  She could write symphonies about that chest. About the composition of pectoral bones, and the clavicle and the way each shoulder was perfectly aligned. And the way his abdomen contracted with each shuddering breath he took just because she was touching him…

  With no finesse whatsoever, Brand gripped her arms and jerked her down to him and kissed her. Wild and consuming, thrusting his tongue in and conquering hers, in a dance that was a prelude to what was to come.

  His hands were busy shucking off her panties. She kicked them off with a minimum off movement.

  And then he eased her over onto him.

/>   “The leg,” he gritted, teeth clenching, hands bruising her hips because he couldn’t control himself anymore.

  “I like to be on top anyway,” she murmured, before she rose to take him in all the way once. And then rose up.

  He sat up, and that brought them even closer together. It put enormous strain on his already strained muscles, but right now he couldn’t give a damn.