by Lea Griffith
So she dressed and walked the halls, taking the lay of the land and reminding herself of her reason for being here. When her sisters had attached themselves to the men of Trident, this house became a base of sorts for them as well. Out of everything they planned for these last years that had been unexpected. She walked the halls, noting every camera and door, every entrance and exit.
So here she was now, eating Trident’s food, wearing their clothes, breathing their air. Bone placed her spoon to the side, drank the obscenely sweet concoction Dmitry informed her was sweet tea, and glanced around the table.
Everyone stared. She raised an eyebrow at them as the woman named, Carmelita, the cook and housekeeper, began to dish more steak and potatoes onto her plate.
Bone held up a hand and the woman stopped, a huge smile on her face.
“Coma! Coma! Es bueno para tu alma, pequeña,” the woman enthused.
Bullet lowered her head but a smile hovered on her lips. Arrow said nothing but her face was soft, her mouth curving.
“No tengo alma, vieja,” Bone replied in a hard, mean tone.
The woman tsked and Bone was reminded of Juana. “Where is Juana?” she asked, not making a move to continue eating.
“She stays with the babies,” Bullet answered.
Bone shifted, reaching for the knife at her side and stroking the blade. “Does she still hum?”
“She does,” Arrow whispered. “And it is beautiful.”
“Mother—where have you buried her?” The question was pulled from her. She wanted to call the words back and swallow them—they conveyed weakness.
“She is on the ridge behind the house. The sun shines on her all day long, Bone. She is safe,” Bullet murmured.
Mother hadn’t been ready for the mission Joseph sent her on. The little Jewish girl from the streets of Tel-Aviv had taken care of the babies when Bone had been away, hence her name, Mother. She’d never been a killer. She had simply been another tool for Joseph to hurt First Team. Minton had taken the young girl’s life and left Bullet to bury her.
If she could resurrect him she would give up whatever part of her soul was left for the simple pleasure of snapping his neck over and over again.
Dmitry reached for and covered the hand holding the knife, pressing it to the table. “You are bleeding, Etzem. Perhaps it is time to fight?”
“I am happy to have taken him,” she said so softly she wondered if anyone heard.
“Yes,” Dmitry replied.
She looked up at him then and lost her breath. The man understood her in a way few others ever had or would. Why now? She had more to do and could yet lose her life in the process. Dmitry deserved someone softer—someone not versed in a thousand different ways to take life.
He pushed his chair back and walked around the table, heading for the doorway but not looking back. She followed, not glancing at her sisters or their men. She concentrated instead on quelling the virulent ache rising in her blood.
Her body softened, preparing—but for what? The lust on her tongue had a different flavor. It wasn’t the sour yearning to feel endings. It was a lighter, more colorful desire to know a beginning.
Dmitry walked with purpose, his wide shoulders a lighthouse in the midst of her present storm. She was on a hair trigger, unable to suppress the contrasting desires raging inside her body. She followed because she was unable to do anything else.
Fight, fight, fight, her soul demanded.
Do not harm him, her heart cautioned.
She was wary of the differences in her need. The unknown mocked her. She was a killer. It was all she knew, all she had ever known, all she wanted to know. Yet the blue of his eyes and the taste of his kiss urged her seek more.
She had told him earlier she didn’t know what it was to be afraid. Yet each time Minton strung her up on that cliff in Arequipa, she’d known the soul-rending thump of it. It mattered not how she yelled or struggled. Those ropes were her bane and her salvation and the simple truth was it had been fear that locked her muscles and kept her from falling.
She had prayed for the end so many times that when faced with a beginning she had no knowledge of how to respond. The end she could handle and was wholly prepared to meet with blood on her hands and hate in her heart. But now she was afloat in a sea of uncertainty. Not knowing how to move forward or back she decided to take refuge in what she did know…fighting.
With the miasma of emotion tearing through her, she doubted she could control the demon demanding bloodlust. She would have to ask Dmitry’s forgiveness before they danced with one another.
Bone watched him disappear through a doorway and followed, her footsteps sure, her heart anything but. She entered a workout room of some sort. Various instruments of health and fitness lined the walls of the enormous space. The ceiling was vaulted, with intermittent hooks dotting the pristine whiteness. From those hooks hung several ropes.
Kill, kill, kill, the demon demanded.
She forced herself to look away lest she adhere to the mantra and become death. Dmitry offered her surcease from the violent winds whipping at her. She would not kill him—not this man who saw more inside her than she damn well knew was there.
Insight took her breath.
He’d introduced her to something she’d never known—not on the plains of Jericho, or within the stone embrace of Masada, not in the entire world. This man with eyes that reminded her of the day she became nothing more than a death-bringer. This man with his kisses that upended her heart, spilling out emotions she’d never imagined she could feel.
He’d introduced her to hope.
Her fists clenched and she looked back to the ropes. Remember, she told herself. He cannot have you—you could be the death of him. And he would hate her when he discovered the truth of who she was and what she had done, indeed, what she was going to do.
“I am versed in all manner of warfare, Etzem. Where should we begin?” he asked in a low voice.
He had stripped his shirt off, leaving him in black cargo pants. He had also removed his boots and her gaze was drawn to his feet. They were the same as his hands, big and strong. Bone allowed her gaze to travel up, over long legs she knew were thick with muscle and then up over his trim waist. There was a large scar along his abdomen. It wrapped from his navel toward his back as if he’d been almost cut in half. The muscles of his abdomen rippled and flowed into chest draped in more heavy muscle. His shoulders were wide enough to carry the weight of her world.
She wouldn’t allow him to bear that weight.
She noticed the bandage on his left shoulder and thought perhaps it was good she’d killed Azrael.
“Do not call me Etzem,” she said in a tight voice.
“Ah yes, things have changed since San Sebastian. What should I call you then?” he asked, arms at his sides, hands loose. His stance indicated he wasn’t worried. His face though was shut down, devoid of all emotion.
It was the reminder she needed that she faced a killer much as herself, one with a conscience.
“Ubiytsa is fine.”
“You speak my native tongue as if you were born there,” he told her.
Was he trying to distract her from her rage? She almost laughed. There was no escape from the hallowed embrace of that emotion.
“Did you hear me, ubiytsa?” he asked calmly.
Ninka’s language had always brought Bone a measure of peace. She had learned it first. Then Japanese, Gaelic, French, Arabic, Portuguese, and Spanish. Russian came as easy to Bone as breathing when she was with Dmitry.
She shrugged. “I speak many languages as if I were born in the country of origin. Another talent of mine Joseph made sure to hone. I have an ear for inflection.”
As she waited on his next move Bone catalogued her surroundings. A fifty by fifty foot mat covered the floor right in the middle of the room. The ropes dangled at each corner and she smiled, let the demon loose to flow and ride the blood in her body, bringing heat and hate to every molecule of her being.
He cocked his head. “I will not call you killer. Not here.”
“But you already have and I suspect it’s because you understand the truth. A killer is all that I am. Taking life is all that I know.”
“I disagree. There is more to you. I have felt it. I have tasted it. But you need the fight, so let’s fight.”
“I know who trained you,” she admitted casually, stepping onto the mat he stood in the middle of.
The lighting in the room was low, but it did not matter. She had been trained in the dark, in the light and every nuance in between.
He nodded. “I suspect you know much about me that I don’t know about you. One day soon we will talk about it all, da?”
“I killed Abela when I was nine years old,” she told him.
His reaction surprised her. He clapped. It was a taunt. “I heard he was killed by a student and once I knew about you I wondered. You move like him but lighter, faster. You are also emotionless, which is something he prized in his students. He was an evil man.”
“I wrenched his head from his body and took it back to Joseph. Abela was vain. He thought no one was as good at killing as he. Unfortunately, his student had become his teacher.” Bone sighed, letting it flow through her body and out her mouth. “I have known nothing but the fight for too many years to count. I have ended more life than you can imagine and you want to fight with me?” She snorted delicately.
“I would rather we spar but you seem determined to talk me to death. I came prepared for your best. Shall we?”
He took two steps and was in her space, breathing down her neck. The T-shirt she wore was no match for the heat he generated. It slithered down her neck, pebbled her nipples and sank under her skin. She shoved her reaction aside.
“We will dance. Are you strong enough to stop me from killing you?” she asked mildly. She wanted to applaud her restraint but could not move, strangely frozen by his warmth, by how he made her feel.
“Let us see.”
She flexed her hands and struck between one breath and the next, striking him in his injured shoulder with her open palm and curving around his body to stand behind him. He went to a knee at her punch, caught his breath and turned in less time than it took for her to blink.
He was good. Controlled enough to take the pain and remain composed so as not to strike out in fear or rage.
“Abela taught me how to channel my rage, but I fear here with you, I am out of control,” she mused, more to herself than him. She was afraid she would damage him even as she refused to acknowledge how much it would hurt her to do so.
He turned and swept out with his foot. Bone jumped and avoided the move with ease. As soon as her feet touched the mat, he was on her, striking everywhere—head, neck, abdomen, legs. She blocked his blows and turned many right back on him.
He was pulling punches and it pissed her off. She grabbed his left arm and twisted, sliding under it before pulling up and back. He grunted but turned into her hold, breaking it.
He rushed her, taking her down with sheer brute force, the same technique he’d used in St. Petersburg, but she slithered out of his hold and kicked him in the side. He rolled with her kick and came to his haunches. She stood five feet away and began walking in a circle around him. He didn’t try to follow her with his eyes and she admired his strength. Most men would be desperate to keep her in their sight.
“I would say your control is a thing of beauty.” He was barely winded.
But barely was enough and her rage knew it.
“You haven’t offered up much of a fight. I need more,” she bit out.
“I’m afraid I will hurt you, and that is something I find myself surprised I cannot do. It is the only thing that saves you, I fear.”
She laughed. Threw back her head and laughed, the sound hollow and ringing through the room. “What does it save me from?”
His face hardened, the blue of his eyes darkening to a storm-tossed sea. “Me taking you to this mat and fucking you until you can’t breathe, and I no longer crave the feel of you wrapped around my cock.”
Her heart knocked against her lungs begging for her breath back. There was nothing she could say—both her mind and body numb at the thought of him doing just that.
“You should hate me,” she whispered.
“It hasn’t happened yet, and believe me, I’ve tried. But maybe I can make you hate me enough that it’s no longer an issue,” he responded.
The heat in his voice singed her.
“You will hate me,” she assured him.
He inclined his head and the sadness of the gesture chased the numbness and replaced it with…pain.
Two more men entered from another door, and then there were three men to her one. She’d seen them in the courtyard earlier. They were part of Raines’ team and by the looks on their faces did not find her diminutive form a threat at all. This was his play then.
As the numbness had disappeared, so too did the pain. Red hazed her vision and she breathed through it, controlling the deceptive pull of the hate, making it hers thus making it a weapon.
“You cannot hurt me but you will let others?” she taunted him. “So much for your truth.”
He cocked his head and sighed. “I do not like the thought of anyone touching you—that was my truth. But you need a fight I can’t give you at the moment. Besides, they will be easy pickings for you, ubiytsa. They are here to tire you out for my grand finale.”
Killer, he called her. She sank low, her stance solid and balanced, one foot slightly in front of the other, both knees bent. Bone closed her eyes and waited, giving over to the rage.
She closed her eyes. “Let us do this.”
They struck as a coordinated unit and she ducked low, avoiding each of them as she turned and punched one in the head and the other in the side. Both men grunted and fell but got up immediately. They rushed at her again and it was more of the same, a punch, a kick, and she was back in the forest outside of Vadim Yesipov’s mansion, craving death and needing the release.
She turned her mind off and kept her eyes closed. Bone opened her ears and her mind, drilling past the obvious noises of feet over rubber. She allowed the beat of their hearts and their breathing to reverberate in her ears. So many times she had faced opponents. So many times she killed. The lust rose and ebbed, a black wave pulling her under. Soon she would not be able to stop.
She followed their footsteps, all the time aware of exactly where Dmitry was in the room. He became her anchor and it was unacceptable. She stilled, took a deep breath and centered herself.
She didn’t need an anchor. She had her hate and in the times when she couldn’t handle the fires of her hate, she had her sisters.
Her senses flared out. The men hadn’t feared her when they’d walked in but now the room was permeated with their sweat and panic. She reveled in it.
Bone tossed one man in a classic Judo throw and followed him down, pulling her punch before she crushed his windpipe. She didn’t know what held her hand—maybe it was the subtle scent of juniper and pine entwined with her quarry’s fear that stopped her. The second man took advantage of her stillness, grabbing her around the neck and pulling her to her back. He wrapped his legs around her waist, but her arms were there so she was able to leverage and twist, gaining his top and punching him in the head, in the chest and capturing his hand, crushing the bones with ease. He screamed and tried to push her off.
The first man punched her in the side of the head and she rolled, taking the blow and coming to her feet for a split second before she pirouetted in the air and took him down with a single kick to the side of his face. He spun and fell, out cold while the first scrambled away from her, terror on his face as he tried to ward her off with his good hand.
Then Dmitry was there, wrapping her in a bear hug similar to what he’d done of the roof in St. Petersburg. She went limp and the demon inside scratched at her mind.
“Stop,” he urged in a gruff voice.
She h
ung there in his arms, the rage spiraling. “Fight me, goddamn it!”
“I will not. I cannot do this with you, Bone. Do not ask it of me. You are tearing yourself to pieces,” he said and in his voice was a struggle.
“It is all I know, Asinimov. Please do not do this to me.”
She had never begged for anything from anyone. Not from Minton, not from Joseph, not from anyone, yet she’d just begged Dmitry Asinimov.
“U tebya hrupkie kostochki. Sogneshjsja ti ili slomaeshjsja?” he asked softly.
“I will not break!”
It was a scream from the very heart of her.
“I will not let you but neither will I let you break me,” he whispered and then he put her down, stepped away, and walked out of the room, leaving her alone.
Bone allowed her head to fall forward, the long, brown skeins of her hair lank with perspiration. She was nowhere near stable enough to see anyone. She needed to purge but suddenly it wasn’t as important as it had been when she’d walked in.
She looked around the room. The ropes still taunted her.
She was alone.
Always she was alone.
Chapter Seven
Dmitry made it to his room in time for the devil riding his back to sink in his fangs and tear into his soul. He closed the door and punched the wall, hand going through drywall with ease. He would not be the one to hurt her—it wasn’t in him.
But he’d been close to unleashing his own demons. She called forth parts of him he’d hidden for years under the veneer of a solid, stable man. She made him want to lose control.
He stepped out of his pants and walked to the bathroom. His hand was bleeding, his shoulder was doing the same and still he got under scalding hot water and showered, trying to eliminate the traces of her on his skin.
She felt right in his arms, her small bones and curvy body a benediction against his own. He wanted to stalk back to her, demand all the answers she had, fuck her blind and then walk away.
He struck the tile wall and winced. The tile cracked but did not break. He was left handed and his shoulder was on fire. The bitch had punched him right in it, moving for his weakness with no remorse.
