Asp (Guardian Shadow World Book 2)

by Kris Michaels

She squeezed his hand and he squeezed it back. Lyric shifted to face him. His eyes blinked open, first one, then both. A smile spread across her face. He was conscious. Finally! He blinked up at her and squeezed her hand again before his eyes rolled back into his head and he convulsed.

  Chapter 8

  Asp fought through layers of heaviness that fell across him like wet blankets—clingy and suffocating. Wood smoke was the first thing he recognized. He clung to the odor and tried to think. The soft angelic voice that soothed him was now silent. His eyes were so heavy, the effort to open them was almost too much, but he managed to lift an eyelid. Nothing came into focus, but once he was able to open one eye, his brain seemed to engage, and it became easier to make his body work. He blinked, trying to bring the greyish-brown over him into focus.

  Fuck, what he wouldn't give to separate his tongue from the roof of his mouth, but damn if he could get the industrial strength adhesive holding it up there it to separate. He lifted his arm, and that's when all hell exploded from the underworld and crash landed on top of his body. A direct fucking hit from Satan himself. Asp gasped, grabbed his hip and convulsed in a spasm of pain.

  "Stop moving, please, you need to stop."

  The soft-spoken words stilled him. He managed to peel his eyes open like the thin, hooked blade of a P-38 opened cans, slowly and with a concentrated effort. He blinked trying to focus. A pathetic, weak moan escaped. Shit. Fitting, because he felt like he'd been beaten by a gang of thugs wielding Louisville sluggers and then left to die.

  He turned his head slightly and peered into the soft light. Hair. Long dark hair. A woman? Hell, his eyes closed again. He was too fucking tired to open them. If she was going to kill him, let her.

  "Don't move or you will make your wounds bleed. I've worked too hard at keeping you alive to let you kill yourself now."

  Well, that didn't sound like she wanted to cause him any harm. He swallowed, or at least he tried to make his throat work. It wasn't happening.

  "Here, drink this."

  Drink? Fuck, yeah. He felt her lift his head, and maybe he'd worry about being as weak as a two-day-old kitten later, but right now...he felt the cool rim of a cup at his lips. He opened his mouth and moaned as the liquid filled his mouth. The taste was cool, fresh, and most importantly, wet. The cup left. Asp tried to grab it.

  "More..." The harsh grit of his voice shattered through the silence.

  "Shhh...I'm getting you some more, but you have to let me help you."

  He could hear her moving and heard the sound of water being poured into a cup. She was back and lifted his head again so he could drink. He allowed her to feed the water to him in slowly measured sips because he was too tired and too weak to do anything else. She lowered his head. Asp tried to speak, tried to move, but couldn't—just slipped into a state of semi-awareness. His mind grasped fragments of remembered sensations. Cool swipes, pain, shivering, cold...so damn cold...blessed water and the voice of an angel.

  Asp woke in a panic. What had woken him? He remained still, for one, because he was too weak to move, but also because some instinct told him his environment had changed. He listened for his angel, but there was a distinct absence of sound, sound that he'd become accustomed to hearing. Her soft humming, the sound of her voice singing a lullaby, her talking to him as she...hell, he blinked and tried once again to focus on the ceiling above him.

  "You’re awake."

  Her voice startled him. He shot his glance to her and blinked at the vision he witnessed. She was beautiful. Her huge, soft, brown eyes smiled at him. Her eyes. Asp could read a person by their eyes, and this woman was no exception. She watched him as he examined her from head to toe. He couldn't help but notice her. She was...all wrong. Why was she here? Where the fuck was here?

  She tipped her head and narrowed her eyes. "You are not FARC?"

  FARC. His mission. Fuck, he'd been shot. A fucking sniper across the ravine from the camp. Asp closed his eyes but gave his answer with a slight shake of his head. Where the hell was he? He shifted his eyes to take in what he could see. His gaze landed on his M-21 and backpack. He glanced from the weapon to woman only to see a smile spread across her face.

  She pointed at Asp. "See, this fighting spirit, this is why you are still alive." She smiled down at him, and fuck him six ways to Sunday, the woman was as beautiful as she sounded. Asp closed his eyes and opened them again. No, he wasn't hallucinating.

  "My grandfather found you. I took care of you. You've been very ill."

  He glanced from the woman to his pack and weapon before forced himself to speak. "How long?" His voice was harsh, and fuck, just saying two words exhausted him.

  "Eleven days since you fell into this valley." The woman stood, she was tall and fuck him if she wasn't curved in all the right places. Asp blinked his gaze back to his gun. There was no way he could lift the damn thing. "You are safe here. My grandfather hid us well. I will stay with you until you are strong enough to travel."

  Asp closed his eyes because he couldn't keep them open any longer. The effort it took to think exhausted his limited capacity. He had no choice but to believe his unexpected benefactor.

  "Thank you." It seemed too little, but he knew the woman had remained with him, in a cave for fuck's sake, and she'd probably saved his ass.

  "Rest now. Your body still needs to heal." Her voice softened, and he nodded, without opening his eyes.

  Asp slept and woke, slept and woke. His guardian angel was beside him every time he'd opened his eyes. She was humming over the fire this time. She stopped and chuckled to herself. "Well of course he has a girlfriend or a wife. The man is gorgeous. Get your head out of the clouds."

  Asp kept his eyes closed but he couldn't help the small smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth. She thought he was gorgeous. Well, right back at you, sweetheart.

  The sounds of her moving became background noise and Asp let himself drift to sleep again.

  Chapter 9

  Asp woke slowly. He was warm, but not hot. His body ached, and his wounded leg hurt, but it wasn't the intense burning it had once been. He blinked his eyes to focus on the woman sitting next to him. She leaned against the cave wall reading a book, unaware of him. It gave him the opportunity to study her. Her long brown hair trailed over one shoulder in a braid. The clothes she wore were different, so obviously he'd been asleep or out of it for a while. She drew her bottom lip into her mouth and held it while she read. She released it and smiled at the book. Her long eyelashes prevented him from seeing her eyes as she looked down at the pages. His gaze followed the long sweep of her neck.

  She shifted, set the book down and regarded him with a soft smile. "Are you awake? Your fever broke yesterday." She moved closer and poured water into a tin cup. "Are you thirsty?"

  Asp groaned and nodded. He could drink the Atlantic Ocean dry. She lifted his head for him, and he sipped at the cup until he drained it.

  "I have some broth."

  Asp blinked up at her and cleared his throat. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome. I'll be right back."

  She lowered his head and moved quietly away from him. Asp took the time to search for his weapon, which hadn't moved. His hands itched with the need to examine it, to clean it. He'd fired it almost two weeks ago. His weapon was their only protection and as soon as he had strength, he'd make sure it was operational.

  He noticed her sleeping pallet against the wall. Three books lay on a flat rock along with a kerosene camp light, a flashlight and a bottle of water. He shifted and pushed himself up to his elbows. The world spun on its axis and didn't bother to tell him to hold on. He closed his eyes and fought through the dizzy spell.

  "You shouldn't be sitting up yet." He blinked her back into focus as she sat beside him. "You were very sick."

  "How long have I been here?" He accepted the cup of broth and fucking hated that his hand shook so badly she had to help him hold it steady as he took a sip. He moaned at the incredible flavor of simple broth. His
stomach growled, making sure he was aware it was pissed with a capital P.

  "Twelve days." She glanced back behind him. "Thirteen. The sun is coming up." She cocked her head and considered for a moment before she asked, "What is your name?"

  "Cooper." He dropped his hand when she took the empty cup, and ungracefully lowered back down onto his pallet, his strength abandoning him.

  "Is that your first or last name?" She put the cup down and pulled her knees toward her.

  "Isaac Cooper."

  "I'm Lyric Gadson. It is a pleasure to finally meet you."

  Her soft laughter filled the cave, and he couldn't resist the pull of his lips upward. Lyric was the perfect name for a woman with the voice of an angel. "Thank you for..." he lifted his hand and made a feeble attempt at a gesture towards the cave opening, "everything." He closed his eyes, drained of any energy.

  "It was the right thing to do."

  "You're an American?"

  She pushed her hand through his hair. He couldn't open his eyes to acknowledge the tender gesture. "Sleep, Isaac Cooper. It’s what your body needs now."

  Asp woke to the sound of pages turning. He opened his eyes and blinked Lyric into focus. The woman was beautiful from angle.

  "Are you staring at me?" she asked without looking at him.

  "I am." He wasn't going to lie and from her comment, she had seen him watching her.

  She dropped her book and smiled at him. "I'm glad you're awake. The book was losing its appeal and having someone to talk to after all this time is pretty amazing."

  "You're American?" She had spoken fluent Spanish to him earlier, yet there was no hesitancy in her American accent.

  She blinked as if surprised and then smiled. "Yeah, I am. Sorry, I told you that before, but you weren't awake to hear me rambling on." She laughed and shook her head. "I talk when I'm nervous or scared, and with you, I was both for a while."

  Asp scratched across his chest and noticed her eyes followed his hand. He held back a chuckle when her eyes flew up to his and then away almost immediately. "Why don't we try the conversation thing now that I'm awake?"

  Lyric laughed, a beautiful melodic sound that filled him with happiness. "Where do you want me to start?"

  Asp lifted his arm and dropped his head onto it, so it was elevated. Her eyes slid to his bicep before she grabbed at the canteen and unscrewed the top. "Thirsty?"

  "Thank you.” He struggled to sit up and the blanket fell to his lap. She lowered her eyes to his lap where the blanket bunched. She handed him the canteen and averted her gaze. "So, I was born in Jacksonville. I was a typical teenage girl…"

  Asp took a drink and listened to her voice as she held an entirely one-sided conversation. He put the cap back on the canteen and lowered back onto the blanket listening to every word and logging every movement. Graceful and beautiful. They talked for hours. Correction, she talked, and Asp listened. She enthralled him with stories of her first days in Colombia, the things she missed about Jacksonville and her mother's death. The tears in her voice when she described the shrine her grandfather built for her family above them against the face of the mountain almost gutted him. Finally, she shrugged and looked at him. "I'm an open book Isaac Cooper. But, you're a mystery and that intrigues me."

  "Is the mystery the only thing you find intriguing?" Asp lifted an eyebrow, because frankly it was the only thing he was capable of lifting, but it was nice to be alive and to be able to appreciate the woman in front of him. He appreciated, holy shit, did he appreciate her. Not just her looks, because the woman was beautiful, but she'd quite literally saved his life.

  A low sexy laugh filled the cave. "I think you know better." She leaned against her backpack using it to pad the pallet she'd built next to him.

  "I'd like to assume I do, but you know what they say about assumptions."

  Lyric laughed again. The sound was magical because it pushed away everything. Every scrap of worry, concern, anxiety and pain that lingered evaporated at the sound. "Are you implying I'm an ass?"

  Asp blinked up at her. "No, why would you..."

  Lyric pointed at him and rolled with laughter. "Oh, God, your face!" She laughed until she wiped tears from her eyes. Finally, between bouts of amusement, she pointed at him. "Assume. It makes an ass of u and me.” She pointed to herself when she said the last word.

  Asp shook his head slowly from side to side. "No, the saying I was referencing was assumptions are usually wrong."

  Lyric's eye widened before she threw her head back and laughed again. "No wonder you looked like that!" She dropped a hand onto his arm and Asp moved his hand over hers. She stilled and turned her attention to the hand covering hers. "It is nice to feel your touch." Her eyes met his. "I'm intrigued by you, Isaac Cooper. The mystery of who you are. That is a very small portion of what draws me to you."

  Asp lifted his hand to her face and she leaned into his touch. "You are beautiful."

  Her eyes closed, and she sighed. "Beauty fades."

  "Not the type of beauty you have. You are beautiful on the inside and it makes the outside that much more appealing." Asp used his thumb to caress her bottom lip and cheek.

  She regarded him for several seconds before a slow smile crept across her expression. "You are a smooth talker. My momma warned me about men like you."

  Asp lowered his hand and entwined their fingers. "Your momma was a very wise woman."

  "She was. She also told me how to deal with men who use words to distract you." Lyric lifted an eyebrow in a silent challenge. One that he accepted immediately.

  "And how do you deal with men like me?"

  Lyric bent down and stopped a fraction of an inch from his lips before she whispered, "I act." She pressed her lips to his and was gone. She grabbed her backpack and walked to the entrance of the small cave. Asp twisted, flinching from the stab of discomfort to watch her. She turned around and winked at him before she slipped out of the cave and left him there, completely dumbfounded.

  Asp rolled onto his back and rubbed the hair on his chest as he gazed at the cave's ceiling. He was so screwed. Lyric ticked every box on the list of his requirements for his dream woman. He'd mentally built the lengthy list through a life of loneliness, and now that he’d found his unicorn, he'd have to leave her as soon as his wounds healed. He'd go back into the shadows, and she'd find someone else. That thought sent a spike of anger through him. The emotion was wasted, however, because they could never be, and she was too...Asp closed his eyes. She was too special to treat as a temporary solution to a permanent itch. He needed to remember that. He needed to protect her from his life, from his world, no matter how much he wanted more.

  Asp woke and knew immediately Lyric was not beside him or in his general proximity. He felt better. Alive. He was still weak, but he no longer felt incapacitated. With considerable effort, he bent into a sitting position. The blanket covering him dropped, exposing his chest and abs and it was a damn good thing it stopped there, just in case Lyric walked back in, because he was buck-assed naked under the blanket. He gathered the material around him and examined the cavern. He noted everything, filing it away as he should have done two weeks ago. He listened carefully to make sure Lyric wasn't coming back and only then lifted his blanket to examine his wound. The thought she had to have seen him like this...and cleaned him...teased at his brain. Fuck, if in any other scenario. Asp shook his head and regretted it immediately as he tried to stop the dizziness that shattered his balance. Once he regained himself, he peeled the bandages away and grimaced at the extent of healing. Not that healing was a bad thing, but damn it, he'd been here for two weeks. His wounds were healing well, thanks to Lyric.

  Thanatos had to believe him dead by now. He'd missed their arranged primary meeting, and the secondary rally point they set up in case shit went bad. Without contact of any kind, Thanatos would get to safety and check in with Anubis and Bengal back at Guardian. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath before he pushed it out again. He was too fucking w
eak to get word to them, but they all knew the price of doing this job. More times than not, an assassin would meet his end via violent means. Asp chuckled. Hell, he hadn't heard of many old assassins. In fact, he couldn't name one. Nope, the odds weren't in his favor. He glanced around the cave. When his time came, the best he could hope for would be to die alone without endangering innocent lives.

  Asp replaced the soft gauze that kept his almost healed wounds clean before he draped the blanket back over himself. He leaned back against the wall. The coolness felt good against his back.

  "You’re up." Lyric's voice startled Asp. He must have dozed off while sitting.

  "Yeah. Trying to be at least." He straightened from the wall and stretched his shoulders slightly. Every move still ate at his reserves of strength.

  "I'll get you something to eat." Lyric moved with effortless grace around the campfire as she prepared him food. He didn't have the energy to move, so he just sat there and watched. Like a creeper. Fuck, his eyes followed the curve of her breast and the way her jeans hugged her legs and ass. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Was he reprehensible? The woman had sacrificed to help him, and he was leering at her like she was food and he a starving hyena. Fuck, he was starving. Cookies would be amazing. He wondered how Mrs. Henshaw was doing. He chuckled at the thought. He was so fucking weak he couldn't even concentrate on one subject. His mind hopped from one thing to another. Did he have a concussion too, or was he brain damaged.? Who knew? Maybe he’d lost too much blood, and he would be like this permanently.

  "What's so funny?"

  Asp jumped, and his eyes flew open. She stood immediately in front of him. "You need to stop sneaking up on me. You're going to give me a heart attack." She laughed and extended a cup with a spoon in it. He took it and said a silent prayer of thanks. Stew, not broth. He emptied the cup in about three seconds flat. Okay, more like three minutes, but fuck, he was starving.