by Zoe York
“I care, Kent.”
“Hey, Elena?”
“Are you going to ask me out on a date again?”
“No.”
“Sorry. What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
And of course, she laughed. He was the great charmer, and damn him, but it was starting to work on her too. “I think I’m jealous of your armor.”
“Oh? Why? All armor starts out as pretend. You pretend to be happy until you are.”
“So it’s all fake?”
“No, oh, god. No, Elena. It feels that way sometimes. But if I have to put on a face anyway, I’ll put on one that makes someone else smile, if not myself. ‘Cause here’s the really strange thing, love. I find that every once in a while, someone else’s smile passes on to me—like when you smiled when you danced in the street.”
She pushed back into her seat and looked out the passenger window. It hurt her back, having to turn the whole way, a painful reminder of her burden. “My armor’s heavier than yours, Kent.”
“Set it down, then.”
She wanted to smack him. And hug him. And punch the shit out of him for being so damned cavalier. It wasn’t just an eye. It was her life. Her job. Her whole future brushed away because of a terrorist’s bullet. Worse, that single gash ruined her past too. Years of work, long nights in tears, torn ligaments, busted lips to earn a uniform she no longer had a right to wear.
And her friends. They were gone too. Her comrades all had new war stories to tell that didn’t involve her. They tried. They visited, but there was always that twinge of sadness and the glimmer of relief that at least it hadn’t happened to them. “Skit!”
“What? What the hell is a skit?”
But she couldn’t stop the swearing any more than she could stop the damned tears running down her ugly face. “Skit, skit, skit!”
She was vaguely aware that the car no longer inched up the mountain and slightly more aware that her door was being yanked open. But there was no denying the rooting warmth that sprang to life inside her when Kent reached in, pulled her out, and wrapped his arms around her.
She tried fighting him off.
She kicked.
She screamed.
And he whispered. Just...whispered. “Set it down.”
Her hand cracked across his cheek. “Get off. Don’t fucking patronize me. Let me go!”
“Good.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“If hitting me makes it better, Elena, do it. Hit me.”
She did. She punched and twisted, elbowing him in the eye, but he kept his grip around her waist as those stupid whispers came out of his mouth.
“Kent!”
“Put it on me. That’s it...all that armor. I’m not letting go of you.”
“It’s not fair! It’s not! I did everything right.”
“I know.”
“And I hate people like you, lucky bastards who have everything.” And then she couldn’t talk. Couldn’t fight. Nothing left in her but a scream, and it took the longest damn time fighting its way out. She yelled until the mountains shook with it. Or maybe that was her. Only one thing stayed steady. Kent.
He hit her, a solid and painful thud to the back.
“What?”
“You feel that? You’re alive. You’re strong.”
“I’m crying, and I’m half-blind.”
She shrieked as he hauled her up by the top of her kira, dangling her inches from the ground. “Goddammit, you’re alive. We both know people who aren’t. People better than you and for damn well better than...”
“Kent?”
“Shit.” He twisted into himself. He put her down but didn’t let go, even as he tucked his head into his shoulder. “Better than me.”
Better than me.
Three broken words. Her hand moved to his, and he turned away, croaking out a frail laugh. “Damn.”
“Kent I—”
He kept a death grip on her hand, as if holding onto her kept away whatever memory threatened to overtake him. “It’s fifty damned degrees, and I’m standing on the side of a mountain crying in front of a woman who yells at me. Not cool.”
“I don’t know. It’s working for me.” And perhaps, he’d been right about the armor. She was lighter than before. Yes, some of it must have come off and her head fell onto his shoulder as easy as a prayer. There was no doubt. No wondering if this was right or wrong. She let go and Kent was there to bear her weight.
A wild and stupid thought burrowed into her foggy head. Maybe it was the elevation. Maybe it was the man, a man who thrived on laughter that she’d taken away these last two days. She wanted to give it back, to try to make him smile for once.
Elena covered her face, and with a little flick, popped out her eye. She was better with the patch anyway, up here. Her pride had kept her waiting too long between eye polishings. Maybe that had been part of her armor too. She would wear it again. Her eye was hers, and it did make life easier, but she didn’t need it. Not really. Not here.
Kent plopped next to her against the side of the car and nudged her shoulder. “You okay?”
She nodded without looking up. “Ja.”
“Yes is so much hotter in Swedish. Is this a bad moment to flirt?” he asked with a weak chuckle as he wiped his eyes with the edge of his gho.
“Ja.”
“Oh.”
She tapped his hand with her fist. “Open up.”
“Why? What’s this...Jesus Christ! Fuck!”
Elena laughed as hard as she’d cried. Her chest near burst with it as she threw her amazingly expensive prosthesis in the air then dove to catch it before it hit the ground. He called out the name of a certain Jerusalemite so many times that she nearly turned to make sure he wasn’t there.
With one knee in the dirt and the other propping up his shoulder, Kent gave her back her eyeball. “Don’t.”
“It’s a joke.”
“You’re not good at jokes, Elena. I swear to God...” Head shaking, he wrenched open her door and motioned for her to get back inside.
She was still laughing when he finally did the same. They looked at each other and doubled over again. Then the air changed. Too late, she realized he’d stopped laughing.
Kent looked at her dead on, and shame burned her face. She dropped her head, pulling her hair back around to cover the red, scarred cavity. “I’ve got my patch here. I just need to put my eye in the case first. It’s cool. An empty socket is jarring for people the first time they—”
Kent leaned over and pulled her up. His lips brushed right above her eyebrow. That eyebrow. He cocked his head to the side and tilted her jaw from left to right. “You were saying something?”
“I guess not.”
“I guess not.” He twisted back into his seat and put the car into gear.
— NINE —
At least he knew what the case was for now: her eye. Kent shrugged. He rolled down the window and spat. Man things. Rough, non-crying man things. He wasn’t ashamed of their moment, but all the same, he sniffed his pits and cracked his neck. Because, man things.
Their continued trek northwest took them toward the Chumbi Valley and the contested territory between China and Bhutan. “Good place for smuggling. Nice and desolate.”
“I hate this country for what it did to my mother. Then I come here and...” She sighed and rolled down the window to lay her head out, even as the chilly spring air whipped inside the car. “I come here, and all I see is the beauty.”
Above, shaggy, bleating goats clung as precariously to the cliffs as the nearby houses. The dying sun painted the mountains blue and purple. However, this wasn’t his gho’s only competition for color. Every few miles, a sun-colored temple would emerge from a village below with tiny flags that waved on the wind like fingers in the air.
Around the next bend, the road straightened out a little, enough to see a Royal Bhutanese Police checkpoint ahead. He didn’t ask if Elena was ready for this. Her chin was thrust out an
d her eye sharp. Even in the dying light, they burned with anticipation. Her nod was quick. Sharp. Elena was an axe sparking against a grindstone, ready for action.
I’ve never wanted a woman more.
He put the car in park by the officer’s dirt bike and rolled down the window. “Good afternoon?”
“Permit!”
Elena leaned forward. “Good afternoon,” she repeated before switching out of English. While she spoke, the man reviewed the paperwork, a slow smile creeping across his face. It didn’t reach the officer’s eyes.
“Honey?”
Elena didn’t respond immediately, her hands winding around themselves as she spoke. She finished with a huff and flicked wrist. “We’re being hustled.”
“Who cares? Pay the money, and let’s go.” Everybody had a vibe. A read. A tell. And although Kent couldn’t understand a single word out of his mouth, the man was clearly an ass. The world was full of folks like him. Dicks for no reason. “There’s no point. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
He and Elena hadn’t passed many cars on this road. They were probably the only entertainment this fucker had all day.
A fucker in a too-tight suit and gloves that were unbuttoned at the wrist. Scuffed pants and a torn collar. Okay, maybe Kent hadn’t done the best job of prepping for this mission, but Bhutan wasn’t the sort of place that tolerated that sort of thing. Appearances meant a lot in the kingdom, and this guy wasn’t exactly bringing it. “This is a set up.”
Any other woman—hell, any other person might scream or perhaps ask for clarification. Not Elena. She moved her arm back and her hand down near the opening of her kira. “Two more just came out of a crevasse behind us.”
“One more out of the officer’s hut in front of us.”
She snorted. “It’s almost too easy.”
Kent grabbed the ‘officer’ by the scruff, jamming the bastard’s head into the top of the car door. “True, that.”
But if Elena heard him, he didn’t know. She’d already gotten out, hands hidden in her kira. Sweet thing was actually giving these guys a chance. Kent popped out of the driver’s side door and planted his fist in the temple of the recovering not-a-cop. His compatriot rushed from the direction of the hut with a cricket bat in hand. “Elena?”
“Got it. I’m really going to enjoy this.” She shot out like a pissed-off ball from a pissed-off cannon. Kent wanted to watch, man, he did, but there were two jerks behind him determined to get their asses kicked. He’d be a cad not to oblige them. He hated blood. It was such an annoyance to get it out of his clothes, and having his Kent Wangs laundered took ever so much time. “Sirs, can we speak to one another as gentleman?”
If they’d spoken English and if Elena hadn’t done whatever she was doing to make the cricket bat man cry, it might have worked. Kent easily dodged a punch. He wrapped his arm around one guy’s back, using it as leverage to hoist himself up and kick the other in the throat. While the latter recovered, Kent directed his attention to the first man, narrowly avoiding a knife in the arm.
Kent had his limits. It was one thing to play, another to waste his time, but at the point where someone meant to end his life, Kent made it a general rule to put a permanent end to such endeavors.
He looked at the punk straight on as he twisted the hand holding the knife. And kept turning it. Turning it until the bastard dropped to his knees and cried. Turning it until the hand snapped and went limp in his grip.
The man’s associate scurried toward the hut and Elena, an instant death sentence. Kent reached for his gun, but before he could deliver that fatal kiss, Elena delivered a roundhouse that knocked the man out cold.
Kent tugged at the belt of his gho, stripping as he casually made his way to the car. “It was difficult to move in this, Elena.”
“You’re just not used to it.” She rifled through her latest victim’s pockets. “We’re in the foothills of the Himalayas, and you’re taking your clothes off? Any excuse with you, isn’t it?”
He fluffed out the long-sleeved shirt he’d worn underneath the outfit. “You’re good.”
“I know. Do I want to know what happened to the original officer?” She threw him the cricket bat. “We might need that later.”
“Thanks, and no, I don’t want to know what happened to him. He might be at home and warm in his bed.”
“Maybe he’s dead.”
“Could be. We don’t have time to check.”
“If we look—”
“—and find him, we’re caught with false papers and a dead cop. I don’t think these men are killers. They’re not going to get the drop on an armed officer with a bat. But if it makes you feel better...”
“It will.”
He pulled out his phone and messaged Ava to have someone follow up. “Done.”
Elena’s fist crunched into the jaw of one of the men groaning at her feet until he passed out again. “Good. I hate the idea of a man in pain. So you’ve never wanted a woman more, huh?”
“What?”
“You said it right before we stopped.”
“I am gloriously busted. Curious though. Only after completely and thoroughly kicking ass whilst taking names, do you begin to flirt.”
“You started it.” Elena’s eyebrows drew together, but her smile betrayed her. She pointed toward the purpling sky. “We should get up the road.”
“Agreed.”
“Separately.”
“Negative, dear. There’s a lovely steakhouse within walking distance of my Boston apartment.”
“Kent.”
“No? I have a condo in LA if you want to try something a little more avant-garde.”
“We can’t leave these guys here with that motorcycle. It’s built for off-roading and we might need it. Better to take theirs than to steal one from decent people later on.”
Kent didn’t like the idea of being away from her. The logical part of him whispered that she didn’t need his protection. But the woman had a knack for stimulating baser male thinking. He kicked the dirt and did a loop around their guests with his hands in his pockets. “They’re going to wake up soon, and no, I don’t want to be here when they do. I don’t want to leave them with any means to catch up to us, especially now. We’re close to where we need to be, aren’t we?”
“Fairly.”
“We can’t drive in the dark. Correction, I’m not risking my neck on an unlit mountain. I’ll take the bike. Keep an eye out for a place to stop. If you hear gunshots—”
“Run off, and keep myself safe?”
“Hell, no. Get out of the car, and shoot back.”
She slapped his stomach on the way past him. His need to touch her was too strong to fight. Kent’s hand latched onto that wrist, and he twisted her around until her chest smashed into his.
— TEN —
His kiss cut through her walls like a hot machete through butter. Or maybe she’d simply laid down the rest of her armor. Nothing mattered in Kent’s arms. There, amongst the passed-out criminals and blood splatter, the light of life burned within Elena for the first time since her injury. She felt alive and—well—pretty.
Then sharp, blinding pain cracked the back of her skull. Kent’s lips wrenched away. His arm whizzed overhead, reaching for the man who’d hit her.
There were countless ways to take down a person. Some immobilized. Some caused incontrovertible pain. But what she saw through the haze of her throbbing head was a beating, a proper, alleyway whipping.
Kent’s legs were on either side of the man. His fists dueled for the right to attack, one pummeling, stopping only to pull back and do it again. His back moved like a wave, his shoulders sending all the power of his upper body into his closed hands.
“Kent?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t stop punching. She wasn’t even sure if he’d heard, and that was perhaps the most dangerous thing. Blood fever, her commander had called it. It had happened to her after seeing her training partner killed, and it was happening to Kent now.
/>
“Kent? Kent!” Her approach was loud, stomping and calling his name, hoping that something broke through the haze. “It’s me. Just me.”
Kent twitched under her palm. He rose, bit by bit, like a plant unfurling and turning toward the sun. “Let me see your head.”
“It’s fine. No damage. No blood. Some throbbing. I’m more concerned about your knuckles.”
He sniffed and licked the corner of his lips. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that. I really do detest blood.” He picked up her unconscious attacker by his coat and wiped his knuckles across the fabric. Without a word of warning, he dragged the man to the edge of the road and the cliff. To her horror, his leg pulled back.
“Don’t you dare kick him off.”
Back straight. Hooded eyes. Lips thin as glass. “He hurt you.”
“I hurt him first and better.”
Kent stepped forward.
So did she. “Leave it. Get on the motorcycle. I’ll take the car.”
“You can’t drive.”
“I can. It’s fine.”
It wasn’t enough for him. He checked her, flashing lights in her eye and murmuring over her head. He finished with a gruff, “Fine then,” and walked away.
“Kent!”
“Before you ask, he’s staying on the edge of that cliff. If he rolls off, so be it. Let’s go. We’re running out of light.”
She left it at that, trusting Kent’s earlier words that someone had been contacted about the officer and would hopefully arrive in time to round up these boy scouts.
Her larger concerns rested on the shoulders of the man walking away from her. Each time she thought she had a handle on Kent, he’d break free of the box she drew around him. Her attachment rankled her. It’d grown too deep, too soon. When he looked at her, she didn’t think about her past. He’d been unbelievably freeing. The problem, however, was that she had to be smart about her future.
How could she hope to approach the head of the Order of Ambra after this and have to reveal that she was falling for Kent? She’d be dismissed outright.
There was no point in pursuing a future with Kent. Not now and even if she got into the knighthood, not then either—at least for a while. She had to prove herself, and that meant not getting her heart—or any other part of her body—filled by that insane man.
