He darted from room to room. They were running out of time before they were discovered. Desperation clawed at his chest as he found each one empty. At the top of the stairs, he paused when a faint cry reached him. Unsure of where the sound came from, he wandered farther down the hall, hoping that the sound would repeat.
Mumbles and whines of pain came through the door farthest away from the master bedroom. As he opened the door, the floor beneath him started to shake, which intensified the closer he moved into the room. Not knowing what had caused the house to move, his need to protect her ramped up.
His eyes snapped to the woman who lay curled in the corner of a tiny mattress, whimpering. After a minute, he realized that the louder her whines, the more the house shook. Sprinting toward the wall she had burrowed against, he scooped her up into his arms and tried to soothe her with unintelligible words that streamed from his mouth. He pressed her tighter to his chest when his words failed to reach her, and wondered how he could get her to calm down.
Nothing seemed to make a difference to her dream state; without a thought, he growled, a low, soft growl of frustration. For a reason he couldn’t fathom, his growl had triggered something inside her. She reached her arms around his shoulders and pressed her face against his neck before she let out a sigh. His rioting emotions settled as she relaxed into his hold, and for the first time in a month, the tension dissipated.
His glance roamed around the room until his gaze landed on the empty sleeve of crackers and bottle of water. A pain struck him in the chest when he realized how she had been surviving for a month. She had avoided him and his senses—which was damn near impossible given how hard he searched for her—but at a heavy cost. He could feel her ribs as he pressed her tighter against his body. While lost in his assessment, she burrowed closer, mumbling, as if she craved his warmth.
Although distracted, he sensed movement outside, a harsh reminder that they weren’t alone. Silently, he jogged down the stairs, doing as little as possible to jostle her in his arms, and burst through the back door, not bothering to shut it behind him. Fear for her had him listening for anyone who may have given chase, but after close to a mile, he knew that they escaped without being noticed.
He doubled back to his SUV that he had parked several miles from the house he surveilled, and slid her into the passenger seat. He locked the door and rushed around to the driver’s side. He turned toward her when she mumbled and reached for him, but knowing they were exposed, he turned on the heater and strapped her in.
She settled back into her seat, and he waited until she fell into a peaceful sleep before he put the SUV in drive and headed home. As he drove through the deserted streets, he glanced at the woman next to him often.
When he first spotted her, he thought that she might be too fragile to learn about his world and the dangers that came along with it, but she had proved herself with her ability to survive for so long on her own. She demonstrated defensive techniques, shaking the house when she sensed danger, but not knowing what they had done to her, or why, left her exposed. Vowing again to protect her, he drove straight to his mountain home, breathing a sigh of relief when the garage door closed behind him.
Soon, he would have answers, but first, he needed to get her to trust him. And he would have to work on that first thing in the morning.
Chapter Two
Ara
Something had gone wrong, terribly wrong, and she had known from the moment the morning sun warmed her face.
Whenever she had chosen a place to sleep, she sequestered herself in a room with no windows, which usually led her to the most basic room in the house. Sometimes it was a child’s room or a laundry room, because she had to make sure that she wouldn’t be seen, even by chance. She hadn’t seen or felt sunlight in over six months due to her captivity and after, by hiding during the day.
But another feeling gave her pause. A solid chest pressed against her back, his breathing deep and even. The scent of the woods and rain settled over her, and as she tried to place it, she knew that the scent was unfamiliar to her.
Panic swarmed her, leaving her breaths shallow and her muscles clenched with tension. She forced her eyes open and spotted the muscular arm draped over her waist. An immense hand with long, elegant fingers spread across her belly. Never in her twenty-six years had she allowed a man to touch her, much less hold her in her sleep, confirming her initial thought.
Without realizing her actions, she pushed away from the embrace. Each second that she believed she had been recaptured had increased her struggles, but his strong hold wouldn’t allow her to move more than a few inches at a time.
A low warning growl sounded in her ear, and she stopped her movements. The familiar sound registered in her frightened mind.
His arm clamped down on her when she stopped moving, bringing her closer to his body, and she relaxed into his hold.
In the last few weeks, she often dreamed about that growl and another louder one that had signified his outrage when she had used her power on him. The latter sound had wounded her whenever she thought about it, which was too often for her liking. The shifter who had tracked her down to the warehouse, the one she had been tempted to believe when he told her he wanted to protect her, now held her. That explained the warmth that surrounded her, and without thinking about it, she sank into him until her back touched his bare chest.
Closing her eyes, she thought back to when she first spotted him. Her captives had thrown her back in her cell after a day spent with the pinch of needles in any vein they could find to sample. It wasn’t easy considering they collapsed most of them.
She had been relieved when she had avoided a confrontation with the man who scared her more than the others, but soon after she dropped into a chair in the corner of their enclosure, an explosion echoed through the hallway a short distance away. It had startled her, but she couldn’t bring herself to move from the chair.
A guard burst into the room and headed straight toward her. He wrapped a beefy hand around her upper arm, ready to run, when the tall, handsome shifter stepped into the room. The fierce look etched on the shifter’s face had stunned the guard and he dropped his grip on her.
Inside, something screamed at her to go to the shifter and seek protection from him. Although he stormed into the room dressed in black from head to toe, weapons scattered throughout his body, she found herself wanting to trust him. The others went with the men dressed for combat without question, but the sensible part of her, the one that kept her alive, had rejected the thought of his help, and the indecision froze her to the spot.
When the shifter had killed the guard, she knew it was her one opportunity to escape and she took it. Somehow, she blinded everyone around her, making her invisible to them, and raced out of the building without being spotted.
Exhaustion and pain had left her body and powers depleted, so when she came across the scene at the warehouse, she grew frustrated that she couldn’t prevent the scientist she hated from hurting someone else. The woman had been defenseless, and although she could do little to help her, she felt as though she had to try.
As Ara lay there on the soft bed, she hoped that the woman had survived.
Pulled out of her thoughts when the shifter’s arm tightened around her waist, she blushed when she remembered how often she thought about him since he last tried to help her. She had gotten to know a lot about shifters while she had been confined with them, but nothing could prepare her for the impression this shifter alone made on her. For the first time in her life, she found herself deeply attracted to a man.
Nothing in her life had led her to seek out relationships, even friendships, because of the secret she kept. She hadn’t dated and stayed out of situations where she might draw male attention, so the lick of heat that traveled through her body the moment her eyes had landed on him took her by surprise.
His size alone should have intimidated her. She calculated that he stood six and a half feet tall, with wide shoulders, a muscul
ar chest and arms, and strong legs, but it had been the softness of his chocolate gaze that made her pause. She didn’t trust easily, but something in his gaze had her protective walls crashing around her.
For a long moment, she wished that her life had been different.
Another soft growl brought her out of her thoughts, and she had to acknowledge the urgent need that had woken her in the first place.
She listened to his deep breaths as they brushed against her neck, and when she thought that he’d fallen back to sleep, she wiggled her way to the edge of the bed. Before she could rise and look for the bathroom, she found herself flat on her back in the middle of the bed, with a very pissed-off shifter hovering above her.
“I…have to use the restroom,” she squeaked.
He lost his fierce expression but when his gaze traveled over her body, his face revealed a hunger for her that she would have thought impossible. Instead of meeting her eyes when she gasped, he took his time with his continued exploration. Every once in a while, his hand gently brushed against an innocent part of her—first her shoulder, then her hip, before he moved to her outer thigh. Each solicited a reaction that was completely new to her, and she bit her lip to prevent the mewing sounds caught in her throat from escaping. As his touches lingered for more than a few seconds, she found herself leaning into them, craving more.
When he brought his gaze back to hers, she felt her face flush with heat as he searched for something in their depths.
She couldn’t help but wonder what he thought of her. Despite being half starved for most of the past year, her curves hadn’t disappeared, much to her disappointment. But when she caught the heat that flared in the brown depths, all thoughts of her flaws flew from her mind.
“Don’t try to run,” he said.
Confused for a split second at the change of subject, she swallowed before she answered. “I won’t.”
With her promise, he shifted his body off her, but kept his gaze on her as she rose. He indicated the direction with the tilt of his head.
She nodded her thanks before she pushed open the door, scrambled inside, and shut it behind her.
She walked to the mirror. When she brought her gaze up to her reflection, she cringed back. Her hair had tumbled loose sometime during the night and knotted into a tangled mess. She noticed that her eyes hadn’t lost the dark smudges that lined the bottom of her lids, even though she hadn’t expected it after one good night’s sleep.
She turned away from her reflection. As she washed her face and untangled her hair with her fingers, she thought about how much her life had changed.
The day after she refused protection, she had gone to the public library to see whether her bank accounts were still intact. She had lived frugally and saved most of her earnings during her four years as an executive accountant, enough to go on the run until she could change her name and disappear, but she quickly found that her life had been stolen from her. There had been no records of her. Her name, her Social Security number, her bank account, everything that identified her. All of it had been wiped. With no address, no job, no money, and no identity whatsoever, she couldn’t run.
Despite knowing that her existence had been deleted, joy bubbled inside her because she was free. Free of the experiments, of the abuse. Everything else she could figure out when the time came.
After she had taken care of the essentials, she glanced longingly at the walk-in shower. But she had already taken too much time as she contemplated the situation she found herself in.
Walking to the door, she opened it and jumped back when she found him right outside. If possible, he seemed bigger than she remembered and the strength that rolled off his body had her easing away from him.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
Something deep inside relaxed, sensing the truth in his words, and when he reached for her hand and interlaced their fingers, she didn’t tense. As he pulled her out of the room and down the stairs, she ignored her surroundings as her eyes stayed on their locked hands.
“There are shutters on every window that are armed with sensors. There are alarm panels in every room. I have motion sensors surrounding the property, so no one will get in or out without alerting me. You’re safe here.” He paused for a long moment. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
“Ara.”
“I’m Reaper.”
Her eyes widened at his name, but he ignored her surprise and escorted her into the kitchen.
He pulled out a chair for her, and when she sat, she couldn’t keep her eyes away from him. For a man his size, she didn’t expect such agile movements as he roamed around the kitchen. His hands flashed as he first set the coffee to brew, moving on to chop vegetables for an omelet, before he peeled and sliced fruit.
When the coffee finished brewing, he poured her a cup and slid it in front of her. For a reason she couldn’t fathom, the smell of coffee had her eyes tearing up. Before she could reach for it, he rounded the island in a blur and gripped her upper arms in a gentle hold, lifting her until her face pressed against his chest and his arms surrounded her.
“What’s wrong?”
“I…haven’t had coffee in a long time. I don’t know why I’m emotional about it,” she admitted.
Her life had gone to shit and the entire time she had been confined, she wouldn’t let her captor break her spirit. But the moment Reaper had showed her basic compassion, she found that she couldn’t control the tears that poured down her face. He rubbed her back, whispering words of warmth until the tears slowed, and when she pulled back and took a deep breath to get her emotions under control, he still held her.
“Thank you.” She meant more than the words portrayed. For the first time, she was safe, because of him.
He pulled back and scanned her face. Satisfied that she wouldn’t break down again, he nodded before he walked back around the counter to finish breakfast.
When he plated their food and walked to sit next to her at the breakfast bar, her eyes widened at the amount of food he had given her. A sharp laugh brought her gaze to his face, before she happened a glance at his sizable plate and breathed a sigh of relief.
All she’d known for the last few months had been hunger and weakness, and now that she had food in front of her, she found herself starved.
She waited until he sat and picked up his fork before she did the same. When she took her first bite, she couldn’t help the moan that passed through her mouth as she tasted the eggs, and she closed her eyes to savor the moment.
His strangled words brought her back to reality.
“How did you end up at Standard?”
The moment she opened her eyes, she could see the fire banked in his and noticed his gaze focused on her mouth. Thinking that she had something on her lip, her tongue darted out and licked. His loud groan shot straight toward her core.
“I walked in on a robbery,” she blurted.
His scrutiny moved away from her mouth, and she became mesmerized by the way anger had etched lines on his face. He looked fierce, but for a reason she didn’t understand, she wasn’t afraid of him. Fascinated, but not afraid.
“What?”
“I had been working late and decided to grab a bite to eat at a convenience store close to my apartment. I hadn’t been aware of the quiet I had walked into, until I heard the clerk whimper. The gun cocked when I looked up, and before I could think about it, I had disarmed the man and shoved him into the counter, knocking him out. And I had done it all from across the room.”
“You could’ve been killed,” he growled.
She shrugged before she continued her story.
“What I didn’t know at the time was that I had been spotted. I was kidnapped the next night. While I walked home, I felt a sharp pain on my neck, and when I woke up, I found myself dressed in scrubs and locked in a glass enclosure, and I knew I was being watched. For the first few months, I had a cell of my own as they tried to test my blood and my abilities.”
“Teste
d them how?” he asked.
Unsure of how much to tell him about her time in captivity, she picked up both of their empty plates, rinsed and stowed them in the dishwasher, before she tackled the rest of the dishes. It gave her time to shore up her strength to tell him everything. By the time she turned back to him, he stood near the counter with his fists clenched at his sides, ready to hear about her time at Standard.
“The one who’d captured me wanted to know what abilities I had, other than moving people and objects with my mind. He ordered my blood to be taken, every day, but more than that, he liked to threaten me because he thought that was the key to my powers. It wasn’t. When my blood didn’t reveal anything, he moved on to the physical stuff. He knew that his touch revolted me, but he tried. Every time he tried, I was able to fight him off, but as punishment, he sent in the guards to give me a beating, thinking that I couldn’t defend myself if I passed out from the pain. But he was wrong again—”
A loud roar ripped through the house and she froze at the sound. She slammed her lids shut and waited for something to happen, but when she heard and felt nothing, she blinked her eyes open.
Soon, she relaxed as she watched Reaper pace around the kitchen. His breaths were deep and staggered, and for a few moments, she thought that he had his anger under control. Until he put his fist through a concrete pillar.
Without even glancing at his bleeding fist, he stalked toward her and stopped a few feet away. “Did he…ever…?”
Her eyes widened after a few moments of trying to decipher his question. “No, no—I fought him off.”
At her answer, he continued to pace around the room. Close to a half hour later, his steps slowed and his breathing dropped back to normal. He caught her gaze and searched her face.
While he’d been dealing with the anger at her situation, she had tracked every movement. Not because she had been scared of him, but because something about him drew her. She wanted to wrap her arms around his waist and offer him comfort, but didn’t know him well enough to unlock her body and move. Something about the way he moved, all sinew and muscle, had radiated power. But she hesitated to close the distance between them for one reason. He was breathtakingly handsome.
Reaper (A Dark Assassins Novel Book Two) Page 2
