Codename: Nightshade (Deadly Seven Strike Force)

by Anderson, S

  One of his hands moves around my side, caressing my stomach, and I mew like a cat in heat.

  So much for being strong, or composed.

  I feel his body shake with laughter. He knows what he does to me. He knows my body instantly responds to his touch.

  This was never going to be much of a challenge for him.

  Before I can make a remark to contradict my body’s reaction, his lips are on mine.

  Damn him. He always has to win.

  With me, he always does.

  We make out for a few minutes. When he leans back to look at me, there’s this mischievous glint in his eyes that I mildly want to smack away.

  Confident bastard.

  He pulls the hem of my shirt up and over my body, tossing it away and discarding my bra just as quickly. He stares at my breasts with a hunger that tightens my skin.

  I never think much about my body. I think about what I’m capable of. I think about my strengths and my weaknesses. I never think about parts of my body being attractive to someone else. With the exception of Nikolai, I’ve never had someone pursue me in that way, either. I mean, boys used to look at me, and the old pervert who rode the same bus as me would stare at my chest, but no one looked at me the way he does. He looks at me like he’s in pain and I’m the only thing that can sooth him. Or maybe that’s what I see because it’s how I feel when I look at him.

  He’s a man of few words. You have to know how to read his actions. His eyes are always watching, assessing. Over the past two years, I’ve learned his looks for disappointment and approval while in training. In the past fifteen months, I’ve come to understand his private looks. The ones he only shows when he drops his guard. The ones that tell me he’s just as afraid of things as I am. The ones that tell me this is just the beginning of what we have together.

  A peaceful contentment softens the hard lines of his face. “Krasotka.”

  Krasotka. Beautiful. Goosebumps rise along my arms and down my back. My skin is cold and tingly, and my blood is hot beneath it. I feel friction in my own veins as he stares into my eyes.

  He makes me feel beautiful.

  His hands frame my chest, fondling the sides of my breasts. His thumbs brush over my nipples. The combination of it all, the look in his eyes and his touch spark my body to life. I’m a live wire about to fall into a tank of gasoline and explode.

  He wraps his hands around the back of my thighs, lifting me up as he kisses me again. I wind my legs around his waist and clutch his shoulders for balance. I’m not afraid of falling.

  Nikolai will never drop me.

  He alternates between kissing me and sucking on my nipples. The sensation it’s causing is making me crazy. I’m rubbing against him in desperate need. Begging him with whimpers each time he moves his mouth.

  His lips meet mine, and I deepen the kiss, locking my arms around his neck. He takes that as a sign that it’s time to move to the bed.

  I always want Nikolai to get rough with me during sex. We’re both very aggressive fighters. So many times in training I’ve felt the same ache in me that I feel right now. I wonder what it would be like to fight and fuck. It thrills me to picture us tearing at each other and giving over to a darker side I know we both have.

  But Nikolai is never rough with me in these moments. I don’t think he has the ability to be. Not here, not like this. He treasures me. He treats me like fine crystal.

  He lays me down so slowly that I almost miss the exact moment my back hits the bed. He plants a trail of kisses down my body, undoing my pants and discarding the rest of my clothes in a flash. My eyes close, and I savor the feel of his lips on my skin.

  His hands slide up my thighs, spreading my legs further apart as he returns to his spot between my legs. His fingertips explore me, dipping into the wetness a small part of me is still slightly embarrassed of. It’s not a matter of me feeling embarrassed that I’m horny. I got over that when I was thirteen and bought my first vibrator. It’s more that I can’t hide what he does to me. I can hide everything about me—my name, my age, even my nationality. I can hide the fact that I can kill, hide the fact that I detest someone.

  But my body has no lies from this man.

  He touches me, and I get wet. Simple as that.

  He plays with me, rubbing my clit and sliding deeper, then stroking back to tease me again. My heart beats so hard I feel it pulsing in my fingertips, along my skin, and even in the tips of my nipples. Tight, short breaths are all my lungs can manage. He sits on his knees, fondling me until I’m senseless. He doesn’t touch me anywhere else—unless you count the touch of his eyes. He stares at me with the intensity of a panther watching his prey. The hunger in his eyes is so intense now that I’m soaked when he adds a second finger to between my legs. He pumps his fingers in and out, stroking my clit with his thumb. It’s not the same as having him inside of me, but I give myself over to it, anyway. I ride his hand, clinging to his forearm as the pressure begins to build. Just a few more strokes and I cry out as I come.

  “Yebat’,” he says.

  Yebat’. Fuck. I can’t agree with him more. He rests his hand on my lower abdomen as I try to catch my breath. It’s hard to come back down from the pleasure. I feel like I go someplace else when he does that to me. I wonder if that’s a normal every girl’s orgasm kind of thing or just something Nikolai gives me. We all have our special skills. Maybe his is mind-blowing orgasms. My vision blurs a little, but I can see his mouth hanging open, and the hunger has turned into a wide-eyed desperation that reminds me of myself a few minutes ago.

  “What?” I ask, feeling too satisfied to be self-conscious.

  “Do you have any idea how sexy you look when you fall apart like that?”

  My brain is goofy with endorphins. I want to tease him, tell him, “Sure, I often rub one out in front of the mirror just to see my sexy come face.” But he looks so serious in his need right now. I don’t think he’s any more aware of what he’s saying than I am of what I’m doing now.

  I slip my hand under the hem of his tank, surprised to feel his heart hammering hard inside his chest.

  I smirk. “Get this under control, Nick.”

  That spurs him on. He’s off the bed, undressing and back between my thighs in a matter of seconds. He gives me no warning, no extra foreplay, before he slides right in. We both moan, and I’m spinning higher into the whirlwind of sensations. For a second, I hold my breath, bracing myself for him to be more aggressive than he has before. I can feel his body vibrating with lust. I’m excited to feel him unleash it.

  And then he pulls out and reenters so slow it feels like torture.

  Sweet, sweet torture.

  He doesn’t fuck me so hard I bruise, and I’m okay with that. He makes love to me, caresses me, and reminds me I’m his comfort in the chaos. I lose track of how long or fast it is. I know when I start to feel the climb inside again, he’s meeting me groan for groan. I topple over the edge, and he falls with me, both of us covered in sweat and out of breath when we’re done.

  He tells me to stay, to sleep in his arms. He’ll have me up and dressed long before anyone notices me missing. I give in. Not because it’s what he wants me to do, but because I don’t ever want to leave his arms again. Tonight’s the last night I’ll be here. The last night of training. The last night of this chapter in my life. Tomorrow, I find out if I get to become Soldier Vincent or Agent Vincent.

  Tomorrow, I’ll no longer be his student. I’ll be his equal.

  He presses a kiss to my ear. “Goodnight, Poppy.”

  I yawn, big and wide, and smack my lips as I say, “Night.”

  It’s quiet for a few seconds. Sleep starts to take me just as I feel his breath at my ear again.

  “Poppy.” I make a noise, too far gone to speak. “I ranked you number one in the class.”

  I nuzzle my face into his chest. The words are just words. I’m fading into dreamland and can’t make sense of them. They’re not important. Nothing is as important as his s
cent in my nose and his warmth wrapped around my body.

  I’ll ask him to tell me whatever it is he just said again, tomorrow. Maybe at breakfast.

  11

  “Why do you hate your father?”

  I step out of the shower, finding him sitting on the bathroom floor as he asks me that. I gave up hoping I could shower alone after the second day of us remaining here in Missouri. He follows me in here, not to watch. I think he’s just afraid to be alone.

  I don’t know what prompted this question. He knows why I hate Hassan. And he knows damn well I don’t call him my father. “I don’t have a father.”

  His fingers drum on the floor as his cheek twitches. “Why do you hate Hassan?”

  He’s a man with no morals. He’ll sell out anyone around him for any sort of gain. He supplies evil men with the means to do evil things. That’s not the explanation he’s looking for, though. Those are all valid reasons for anyone to hate Hassan, but Nikolai knows my anger goes deeper than that.

  I’m willing to do anything for this man to help break his mind free of whatever Hell he’s been through, but this crosses a personal line for me.

  I dry off and get dressed, counting to ten in my head as I lead us back into the bedroom.

  Then I give in. “Because he let my mother leave him when she was pregnant with me.”

  He knows this story. He knows every detail of my childhood. I don’t know if this is his way of proving I’m who I say I am or if he really has forgotten it.

  “Your mother wasn’t happy with him. She wanted to leave.”

  “My mother has never been happy, period,” I say. “Leaving him meant…”

  I swallow down the rest of the words. My past is behind me. I’m not her or Hassan’s daughter anymore. I’m Agent Vincent. End of story.

  “Leaving him meant going back home,” he says.

  Home. I never had a home. I had a mother who worked two jobs to pay for a parking spot in a good garage that wouldn’t kick us out when we slept in the car. I had constant looks and offhanded remarks that if she didn’t have a kid to worry about she might be able to get back on her feet. I had a walk to a bus stop and a sixteen block jog back to her apartment every time I flew back from visiting Hassan, followed by an, 'oh, that’s right, he doesn’t want to keep you.'

  It’s irrational. I know. I should hate them both. In lots of ways, I do. But I blame Hassan for not holding onto her. My mother tried, but she wasn’t meant to be a mom. I stopped calling her on my birthday when I turned eighteen, and she hasn’t tried to contact me since.

  Hassan still sends me monthly invitations for visits.

  Maybe that’s why he’s easier to hate. He cares. I know hating him hurts him in some way. My mother preferred a world where I never existed, especially once I became a problem in school.

  “I hate that he got her pregnant.”

  That’s the truth. That’s what he’s pushing for. That’s what I admitted the night I lost my virginity to him. I told him my hatred of Hassan had everything to do with me feeling like I should never have been born.

  And he set out to prove to me that my life meant something… everything… to him.

  He’s quiet as he sits on the bed, and then he shakes his head. “How do you know that?”

  I sit in the chair by the window. “You know how.”

  “She wouldn’t have told anyone else that,” he says, hands wringing in his lap now. Another conditioning attack is about to strike.

  I try to talk him through it. “I’ve never told anyone else that. Just you.”

  “How is he doing this?” he asks, rocking forward and back. “Am I unconscious? Is he making me come up with this in my head?”

  I’ve narrowed down the 'he' in these rants as Heinrich and speculate that he’s the main overseer of whatever was done to Nikolai. I don’t know if he’s a doctor, or a soldier, or just a cruel person with a dungeon on hand.

  But I know one day I’ll kill the bastard.

  “This isn’t in your head. This is real. I’m real.”

  I stand and catch the flicker of red and blue lights out of the corner of my eye. I peek around the curtain. Two squad cars and an unmarked SUV are parked directly in front of the room. I don’t see any uniforms, but I’m guessing they’re assessing the best way to overpower us.

  Damn.

  I knew staying put would bite me in the ass, one way or another.

  I run past a still-rocking-as-he-mumbles-to-himself Nikolai and check the bathroom. There’s a window barely big enough for my boot to pass through up high in the room, but there's no other exit.

  “Nick,” I say, arming my gun and slinging my backpack over my back. “We have to get ready to run.”

  “No,” he says. “You can’t know these things unless you have her somewhere.”

  Sweet zombie-loving Christ. We’re about to be caught by the people who scrambled his brain and want to put me six feet under, and he’s got to choose now to go full-metal delusional on me?

  “Where in the hell are you, Claymore?” I mutter, holding my gun to my forehead as I send up a prayer to whatever power might be looking out for us.

  The PA system on one of the cars clicks on with a loud whine. “Penelope Vincent, this is the Springfield P.D.”

  Penelope Vincent. Not Agent Vincent. Not Nightshade. I remember seeing Countess’ face on the news. I suddenly imagine mine gracing the cover of The New York Times tomorrow morning.

  I’ve been burned.

  The council has turned against me.

  “Miss Vincent,” the officer says. “We know you’re in there. Please come out, unarmed, with your hands up, and we'll make this as painless as possible.”

  How did they get the slip on me? I know we should have stayed mobile, but I don’t know how I was tracked here.

  I assess possible outcomes, everything leading to the fact that I’m going to have to turn us in.

  “Where is she?” Nikolai asks. “Where’s Penelope?”

  “Nick, I really need you to snap out of it,” I say, peeking through the curtain again. Now there are more uniforms than I can count. And though the squad cars are stationed closest, I see Army fatigues in the background. They have a sniper positioned on the roof of the drug store across the street. “Get low,” I warn him. I can’t make out the rifle from this distance, but I’m sure they brought in heat-seeking tech.

  How the hell did they find me?

  “Miss Vincent,” a different voice says over the loudspeaker. This one isn’t from around here. His accent is foreign. Austrian… maybe German? His voice is nasally high-pitched. “By now, I’m sure you are well aware that this is more than just a local authority’s raid. You are in possession of something that belongs to me.”

  I don’t have anything that belongs to anyone. I’m in possession of a gun that Hassan gave me. I don’t even know who that guy is. I can’t see him from this viewpoint, and I’m not about to give the sniper more confirmation on where I am in the room.

  I turn back to check on Nikolai. He’s given up his tirade against me, going silent once the German guy started to talk.

  He’s a damn statue. Every inch of him is frozen except the twitch in his cheek.

  “Nick—”

  He grunts, and I see genuine fear in his eyes.

  “Do you know who that is?” I ask, nodding toward the window.

  He doesn’t speak, but I can tell he does.

  Something that belongs to me. “Is that Heinrich?”

  The twitch in his cheek intensifies.

  “It is in your interest to comply with surrender. I will give you to the count of five to come out.”

  “Nick—”

  “One,” Heinrich says.

  “Look at me, Nick. Stay with me. You don’t have to go back to this.”

  “Two.”

  He’s struggling against the restraints his mind is putting on his body.

  “Fight it, Nick.”

  “Three.”

  He moan
s and forces his lips apart. “Go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I say.

  “Four.”

  He starts to whimper, his breathing accelerating. We both know what’s coming.

  “Five,” Heinrich says.

  I stand up, leaving my gun on the floor. I walk to Nikolai. “This isn’t your fault, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get you free.”

  “Very well, Miss Vincent,” Heinrich says. “You have chosen your fate. Mak.”

  Mak. Russian for Poppy.

  The fight drains from Nikolai instantly. My Nick is gone as the assassin takes over. His hand wraps around my throat, and he charges forward. My back slams against the door with enough force to rattle the hinges.

  Damn, that hurts.

  “Bring her out alive,” Heinrich announces over the loudspeaker.

  I have a hundred pleas on the tip of my tongue that I want to throw at Nikolai. I know he’s in there. I’ve brought so much of him out over the past week. But I know Heinrich just turned on the flood that washed all that away. I’ve had seven days up against ten years of programming.

  I never had a chance.

  He drags me by the grip on my neck as he opens the door and steps out. There's no huge show of force. Each squad car contained only two cops. The SUV carried Heinrich and a few dudes in gear like what I found Nikolai in a week ago.

  Always figured I'd go out in a blaze of glory, but I should have known better. The people I kill don't even know I'm watching them. I shouldn't have expected anything different with my own death.

  They don't want to kill me. They want me alive.

  Nikolai leads me to the furthest SUV, where a tall, thin man dressed in a long black coat stands waiting for us.

  Heinrich.

  The middle of his body is too long for the rest of him. His arms stick out like the arms of a T-Rex. He’s got narrow shoulders and no hips to speak of. His head is shaped like a cylinder, rising from his shoulders at the same width as his scrawny neck.

  Heinrich sizes me up before he speaks. He looks from me to Nikolai and back again twice before he settles on addressing Nikolai. “Well done, Subject A.” Subject A. Nikolai doesn’t even have a real name anymore. Heinrich’s accent is heavy, like the leather boots he wears that I’m face to face with. “Ms. Vincent,” he says, staring down at me with beady eyes. “It is an honor to finally meet you.”