Dark mission 04 - Sacrifice the Wicked

by Karina Cooper

  He’d make this work.

  No matter what, Simon would protect her, love her, until he had no choice but to leave her.

  His tongue speared between the folds of her body, earning a shuddering grip in his hair as she grasped at something, anything. He smiled against her flesh, tilted her hips just so and licked again. And again. Dragging the softness of his tongue against her clit, thrusting it into her, over and over until her hips twisted and writhed and she wailed as she came.

  It wasn’t about her. It was about them.

  “Please,” she gasped. “Simon . . . I want you.”

  “Not too tired?”

  She shook her head, hair tossing around her flushed face.

  Simon rose, running his thumb across his damp mouth. She was so beautiful. Her fragrance would haunt him long into the grave.

  This time, she didn’t stay where he put her. She rolled to her knees, fumbled to help him with his jeans. He laughed softly, divested her of her blouse and bra as she struggled with his pants. Somehow, together, they shed the rest of their clothes. Stripped away the barriers between them.

  Somehow, Simon found himself sinking balls-deep into the woman who loved him, teeth gritted, pulse pounding in his skull. This was real.

  She was real.

  It was enough. For now.

  She arched under him, her legs curving around his waist, holding him to her. Her nails dug into his shoulders, half-moons of pain fracturing through his control.

  He thrust hard, her body rising to meet his, welcoming his cock, clenching around it. She moaned with every surge, opened her eyes.

  He drowned inside them.

  Beautiful, courageous, sexy, wild woman.

  His. All his.

  “Tell me,” he said hoarsely, hips tightening, grinding against hers.

  “I love you,” she cried.

  “More.” He growled the command even as he withdrew. Pulled away from her, until only the pulsing tip of him remained cradled in her wet flesh.

  “Oh, God.” She shuddered, hips rising, back arching. “I love you. I’m yours. Please, please.”

  As his testicles tightened, as every visceral instinct in him surged to raging life, warmth flooded his heart.

  “Mine,” he whispered, dropping his mouth to her shoulder. Kissed her soft, silken skin to her breast. His lips found her nipple just as he thrust once more inside her; rocked her, pushing her farther up the bed as she panted.

  She came apart with a wild, shuddering cry, her head thrown back, shoulders twisting. Her nails scored lines down his shoulders, his biceps, and he bit back his own guttural shout as the pleasure-pain sent him over the edge.

  The world tilted on its axis. As his body uncoiled, as hers clamped down on his shaft and her legs tightened around his hips, Simon let go.

  For the time he had left, he’d love her.

  It seemed to be enough.

  It would never be enough.

  As the sweat cooled on her skin, Parker listened to the steady drum of Simon’s heart beneath her ear and floated bonelessly across the landscape of her own thoughts.

  One of his callused, powerful hands still curled into her hair, his grip loose enough to keep the tension slack, but there. Decidedly there. A mark of possession, maybe, or reassurance.

  Enough that as he breathed, his chest rising and falling steadily beneath her cheek, she shivered.

  You need someone to take care of you.

  He was right. Not in a way that turned her into a housewife or some kind of pet. It was different.

  He was different.

  He watched out for her. Took care of her the way she took care—

  Her throat closed.

  The way she had taken care of her missionaries.

  He stirred, skimming the fingertips of his free hand down her spine. Again, she shivered.

  She loved him.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  Parker turned her head, shifting her weight so that his body cradled hers more readily, and looked up at his jaw. His eyes were closed, lashes a thick line against his angled cheeks.

  It said something that he could tune into her so readily even without looking.

  “You,” she confessed, easily enough.

  His firm lips pulled up at one corner. “I like that.”

  “You’d better.” But any wisp of amusement ghosted by too fast to appreciate. “I’m not okay with this.”

  Now he looked at her, dark eyebrows knitting as his eyes—brown in the dim light—opened. He shifted, gathering her in one arm to pull her higher up on his chest, tighter against him.

  Close enough that her leg curled over one of his muscled thighs and she could look down on him. He let go of her hair, letting the mass tumble to his chest in a wash of red.

  Now he shivered; gooseflesh rippled over his skin.

  His eyes darkened. Lust, need.

  Appreciation.

  She liked that, too.

  But she braced one palm against his chest, just over his heart, and focused on what she needed to say. Even if his erection nudged at her thigh.

  “You can’t die, Simon.”

  Regret replaced apprehension. Raw and so clear that it stole her breath.

  “Stop it,” she added quickly, her voice strained. Her chest ached with it. With all the fear and love and emotional chaos. “I’m not ready to give up on you.”

  “You have to,” he began.

  She covered his mouth with one hand, a move identical to the one he so loved pulling on her.

  His eyes flared.

  Narrowed.

  But a glint of laughter mollified her. Just a little.

  “I’m not going to sit back and let this happen,” she said quickly. A rush of air, a promise Parker hadn’t even been sure she’d intended to make. “I won’t go marching into the Mission to demand that vial back, but I’m not going to wait you out, either.”

  His jaw firmed beneath her hand.

  “I don’t know what I can do,” she continued. Fast. She had to get it out. To make him understand. “But you can’t ask me to sit by and passively wait for you to die. You— You can’t do that. I won’t do it. I l— I love you, and—”

  Damn it. The tears caught her by surprise. They filled her eyes, spilled over as her throat swelled with everything she wasn’t sure how to say.

  Warnings, promises. Challenge.

  His gaze softened. Slowly, he curled his fingers around her hand, pulled it gently from his mouth. “Stop, Parker.” He pressed a kiss into her palm.

  It nearly broke her.

  “Don’t cry, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay.”

  Meaningless words, but only because he didn’t know how true that was.

  She would make it okay.

  “You— You just watch and see,” she whispered. He cupped her cheek, his thumb wiping away her tears.

  Simon said nothing. Instead, slowly, inexorably, he tugged her down. Tilted her head just so, and tenderly brushed her lips with his.

  It was the softest, sweetest kiss she’d ever in her life experienced. No rush. No pressure. Even as her heart surged into overdrive, as her belly shuddered and her breath caught, he nuzzled her lips apart. Drifted across them as if he had all the time in the world.

  It was a dodge. A neat one.

  But as she moaned, Parker thought she’d let this one slide.

  He deserved a break. A time when he didn’t have to think about the threat looming over him.

  And she had plans to make.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Kayleigh’s stomach burned steadily, a knot of pain she imagined as a blob of acid—eating away at her insides, burning a hole through her stomach lining. As a scientist, she knew better than to let her imagination carry her off.

  But as Kayleigh Lauderdale, the woman, she wondered if she’d eventually have to cope with a hole right smack in the middle of her gut.

  It had been a full day since the mess at the Mission. Twenty-four hours, and s
he’d been unable to reach her father.

  He probably had his hands full. She’d paced and fidgeted and hid in Laboratory Seventeen—her own lab. Over half of it remained sealed in plastic protectors, dustcovers protecting the equipment from time and wear while Kayleigh focused on her father’s needs.

  Since stepping in for Nadia Parrish, she hadn’t had time to work on her own projects. Only Eve.

  It had . . . consumed her.

  It consumed him.

  She paced by her workstation, her gaze falling on the small plastic tube propped in front of her keyboard.

  She should have begun work on it.

  But then, she’d been waiting to talk to her dad, and Laurence Lauderdale wasn’t picking up her calls.

  No, wait, that was dramatic, wasn’t it? Kayleigh could imagine what her father was going through right now—reports to the bishop, hearings about Parker Adams’s betrayal.

  That made the second director to betray the Church.

  Kayleigh squinted, hands shaking as she jammed them into her lab coat pockets. Staring at the capped syringe, her mind flashed instead to that room.

  That horrible, stifling room, with Parker’s screams and—and—

  The overhead lights flashed.

  No, that wasn’t right. They flared, developing a low-key corona, an aura that shuddered through her head.

  She flinched, rubbed at her eyes as her eyeballs throbbed into a fully formed eye-strain headache. She knew all about these. Added to her ulcer and insomnia, and she was falling apart.

  Was this what it took to be a leader of scientists?

  Kayleigh stumbled to her chair, found it by feel, and collapsed into the ergonomically curved seat. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tension wrapped up behind her forehead to fade. To at least ease off.

  Stomach, head.

  Heart.

  She felt sick all the way through.

  Resting her fingers on the workstation, they settled instead over the plastic tube with its strange substance inside. Was this it? The end to her efforts?

  She cracked open an eye. The glare from the lights wasn’t so horrible that she couldn’t work.

  And since her dad was busy . . .

  He is butchering innocent people.

  It couldn’t be true. She knew it wasn’t true. Those people were test subjects, already doomed to die.

  And more would without her help.

  But what does he want to do with them?

  The thought wormed its way into the throbbing space behind her eyes. Wriggled there, slimy and seditious.

  What was it he’d always told her?

  Make a better world, Kayleigh.

  She lunged to her feet so fast, the blood drained from her brain. Left her lopsided and clinging to the table.

  A little darkness. That’s all she needed. Just enough to take the worst off the eye strain. Then she’d begin analyzing a sample from the syringe.

  Bury herself in work. In her task. One step at a time.

  One hand over her eyes, she crossed the silent lab, ripped the plastic covers off two of the analysis machines on her way to the lighting panel inset by the door. The tech, programmed to waken when the covers came off, hummed softly.

  Let her father work all of this out. She was going to save lives.

  She drew the light sliders down to dim. The coronas faded from each lamp, down to a faint haze. It would do.

  “Hey, computer,” she called.

  “Query.”

  “Turn on all systems needed for in-depth analysis of viscous contents.” It was easier than listing all of them. The computer knew what she meant.

  “Engaging.”

  Nodding, Kayleigh strode for the workstation—and the bit of murky liquid that was going to make her father very happy.

  “The following equipment has—”

  As she reached for it, her ears plugged.

  The mechanized voice droned around her, unintelligible.

  Her vision narrowed. Tunneled. The syringe slid out of her fingers, hit the edge of the table, and clattered to the floor as Kayleigh collapsed.

  The plastic tube rolled across the pristine linoleum.

  It left a trail of burning gold. A fiery comet, burning all in its wake.

  And then she saw nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Thunder crashed overhead, the end-of-summer storm turning the sky into a playground of blue, purple, and murky black. The rain slammed to the streets in a curtain of gray, limiting visibility to a narrow corridor of blurry lights and acid-tinged mist. The hour hovered somewhere between midnight and one.

  Simon leaned against a lamppost, collar turned up against the rain and feeling twice over the consistency of hammered shit. Hands buried in his pockets, he shivered against a cold that leached the warmth from his very bones—a cold too intense to come from the rain.

  Time. It all came down to time.

  In the alley behind him, Parker waited with an impatience he could all but feel boring into his back. She didn’t like having to wait in hiding. Simon couldn’t blame her; this whole thing had been her idea to begin with. But he wouldn’t risk the chance of recognition.

  Every feed from entertainment to news to police band had gone supernova with the story. Mission Director Parker Adams, traitor to the Holy Order. Armed and dangerous. Wanted at all costs.

  Dead or alive.

  Preferably dead.

  She was too recognizable, and they lacked the freedom topside to find the things Simon knew how to requisition in the lower streets. Her assets had been frozen almost immediately, and whatever allies she might have made as director were either too scared or unwilling to help her now.

  He didn’t have the money or the contacts up here to keep her safe.

  But damn it, he had to try.

  The comm, clenched in one fist, hummed, a short, staccato fluctuation Simon wasn’t sure he didn’t imagine. He waited. Another thrum against his palm cut off only halfway through its standard duration.

  Simon flinched as his head spiked a complaint; a bolt of pain through the back of his skull. Why most of the pain started there, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Whatever the reason, dead would soon enough be dead.

  When his comm vibrated again fifteen seconds later, he pulled the device from his pocket and flipped the lid. “Talk to me.”

  “Oh, man.” Jonas’s voice cut through the rain, his tension. Even through the pain, but it wasn’t kind. Usually so pleasant, tonight it lanced through his senses and scorched everything behind it.

  Simon squinted, wiping away the stinging rain from his eyes with his free hand. “That sounds bad.”

  “Let’s just say that you are seriously going to love these guys,” Jonas replied lightly. “Like, fall down and worship.”

  “I’ll take that bet.” He glanced down the empty street, then into the alley behind him. He couldn’t see Parker from where he leaned, but that meant no one else could, either. The shopping district had long since emptied for the night. “Talk to me.”

  “Okay, between May and me, we’ve managed to cross enough wires to focus attention away from the sec-line for about three minutes.”

  “Not long,” Simon said, frowning. “Are you sure we’ll get through?”

  “It’s all you’ve got. They’ll change guards at two-fifteen, and if everything goes right with our calculations, there shouldn’t be a wait. It’s the quiet shift.”

  It would have to do. “Who’s our contact?”

  “You’ll be meeting them in about half an hour. Where do you want to meet?”

  “You aren’t arranging that for me?”

  “What, and ruin your mysterious man in the rain routine?” Laughter filled the tech’s voice. “I’ve got you tracked, and your ride’s on the way. Stay there if you want, or meet somewhere less, uh, empty for distraction purposes, but decide now.”

  Easy. “We’ll wait.” Simon stepped out of the hazy light, fading into the alley as he transferred
the comm to his other ear. “I’ve got Parker with me.”

  A shadow detached from the depths of the alley. In the broken light afforded by the violent display overhead, he saw her scrape both hands through her sodden hair, pulling it away from her face.

  She looked exhausted. Smudges under her luminous blue eyes told a tale of strain and anxiety that he didn’t have to be psychic to know was for him. He’d scared her earlier. That fucking nosebleed, which was starting to taste less and less like blood and more like he’d licked a copper wire.

  It couldn’t be a good sign.

  “Thanks, Jonas.”

  “That’s why I’m king of the wave.” But Jonas hesitated, and even through the fog in his head, Simon recognized it.

  “What?” he demanded. Parker tucked herself against his side. One slim arm wrapped around his lower back, under his jacket.

  Like she could support his weight if he pitched over. One corner of his mouth hiked up, his heart torn between raw pain and something so much warmer. Love and loss. Fear and pride. He tugged her closer with one hand, pulled her fully into the shelter of his body; tucked her between the wet alley wall and him.

  Jonas sighed. “How are you doing, man?”

  “Can’t complain.” It was all he’d say with Parker right in front of him. Her free hand curled into the front of his jacket.

  “He’s lying,” she offered.

  Ears like a cat.

  Simon glowered at her as Jonas’s laughter spilled out from the frequency. “We’ll be here when your contact arrives,” Simon said sharply and snapped the case closed. Shoving the comm back into his pocket, he opened his mouth, but she beat him to it.

  “I don’t know why you hide it,” she said, leaning back against the alley. Her eyes closed, red-tipped lashes spiked with rain fanning her cheeks. “He’s seen the list of degenerated subjects, he knows.”

  Simon braced one hand against the wall by her side. It let him lean without crushing her with his weight, took the edge off the aches in his body. The exhaustion that was more than just fatigue. “Because I still have things to do. And bitching about it won’t help. Parker—” Her wet hands, chilled by the rain, tunneled under his jacket. His shirt. He hissed out a breath as they found his skin, splayed wide over his stomach. “Dirty.”