Abandon the Night

by Joss Ware

  Zoë stumbled and swore, half falling against him in a waft of some unfamiliar, pungent scent. “I can’t walk in these stupid things,” she said, trying to pull away even as she clutched at him with her other hand, attempting to maintain her balance. “Let go.”

  Quent felt his lips twist unpleasantly. He turned her to face him, easily able to maneuver her against the wall in a little alcove, handicapped as she was in heels and a long gown. And damn. The shoes now made her as tall as he was. “I’m not feeling so inclined to do that, luv.”

  Up close she was even more striking—a combination of his exotic, earthy Zoë with this polished, glittery being. Tiny, bejeweled clips sparkled in her sleek ink-dark hair and her skin glowed mahogany next to the blinding white gown, with some golden sheen over shoulders and throat that had not come from nature. Her mouth, crumpled up in annoyance, was the same lush pink it had always been, and now, deliciously, level with his. Her eyes had been lined with heavy dark makeup that made them look more intense. She no longer smelled of cinnamon and lemon, but of something more manufactured. Plasticky. Powdery.

  Aware that they could still be seen, he resisted the desire to flatten her against the wall and see if she still tasted like herself. Instead, he tried to pull one of the myriad of questions he had from his scattered, lust-filled, relieved brain.

  She was safe.

  But before he could pluck something relevant to say from the whirlwind that was his mind, she squirmed under the firm grip on her bare shoulders and crossed her arms. “How the hell did you get away from Seattle so damned quickly?” she hissed.

  Incredulous fury superseded desire and he straightened. “So you admit that you set me up?”

  “I didn’t want you in the damned way,” she replied. “I knew you’d eventually outsmart the nuke-brain, but I didn’t expect it to be so quickly. And you’re limping.”

  Quent wasn’t certain whether to be insulted or complimented by that. “He’s a bloody knobber. I’m surprised he got the best of you before,” he added, gesturing to the cut on her arm that was from Seattle.

  Zoë glared at him, eye to eye. “So you’ve made up with your father,” she replied, changing the subject. “How damned cozy is that? Speaking of which, you looked like you were enjoying yourself quite a bit.”

  “Who the hell did you up like this?” he shot back, unable to keep a lift of jealousy from sifting over him. As soon as Fielding or any of the other wanks saw her, they’d be sniffing all around. He sidled over to block her from view of the rest of the room.

  “It wasn’t my idea, genius. Apparently, this is how the women dress from your world. I don’t know how the fuck they walk in these shoes. You seem delighted to be back.”

  “And what do you mean you didn’t want me in the way?” Quent demanded, ignoring her comment. Two could play that game. “What the hell are you up to?”

  Zoë swallowed and stilled, her lips curling in. For once, she didn’t seem to have anything to say. Her eyes, always large and brown, now seemed even more so. Her lashes spiked long and thick beneath perfectly arched brows. Fielding certainly hadn’t wasted any time in re-making her.

  Had he slept with her yet? How could he resist?

  Even now, Quent was ready to shuck aside his confusion and sink right into that compulsion. He could figure out what she was up to later.

  “Seattle wasn’t going to hurt you,” she told him, the defiance back in her voice and expression. “He was just supposed to keep you from Mecca for a few days. Why are you limping?”

  “Your plan didn’t work out too well, luv. He may not have hurt me, but he shot Theo.” He kept his voice flat.

  “No!” Her eyes widened in shock, misery washing over her face. The defiance was gone, and he felt her deflate under his hands. “Is he dead?” She curled her hands over his shoulders.

  “He got shot in the chest. Probably a lung, Zoë. It’ll be a miracle if he makes it. Fence is taking him back to Envy. If he gets there in time, Elliott might be able to save him.”

  “No,” she wailed softly. “Quent, I’m…I didn’t mean for that to happen. You have to believe me. Seattle knew that the deal was off if anything happened to you.”

  “Obviously he didn’t think it extended to my companions.” Despite his cool words, he felt her remorse, and reminded himself that she hadn’t pulled the trigger that injured Theo. This was a dangerous world with many threats. If anyone was to blame besides the shooter, it was Quent himself, for pushing the envelope with Seattle.

  “No,” she whispered. She shook her head. “I’m so sorry. Not that it makes a fucking difference, but I am.”

  “What the hell did you think you were doing bargaining with Seattle anyway? He wants to catch you too.”

  She was no longer his defiant, fiery Zoë. “Not anymore. I promised him I’d tell him how to find Remington Truth when I got finished in Mecca. That was the deal and you were the—what’s the word? My guarantee. But I figured you’d escape from him before I got back anyway. Just not so damn soon.”

  “Remington Truth. You’d sell her out too?” Quent stared at her. Who was this woman? She’d always been mercenary, but this was different.

  “I wasn’t going to tell him everything, genius. Just that Remington Truth was dead. And that one of his family members was still alive and that he should be looking for someone other than the old man.”

  “And Seattle would have just let you walk away after you tricked him like that?”

  “He’s so fucking greedy, he’d take anything and consider it a head start against everyone else. He’d do anything to get a crystal.”

  Quent shook his head. “A bloody damn risk you took, Zoë. And look how it’s turned out.”

  She closed her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.” She looked away, and he was entranced by the curve of her jaw, a fringe of dark hair brushing against it, right there, a breath away.

  He slowly leaned in, close enough to feel her warmth and to smell the undernote of spice still clinging to her. His mouth brushed over her silky skin, there along her jaw, and she breathed a little raggedly, tilting her head as if to give him better access. Quent closed his eyes and moved in closer, his arms going around her, gathering her close, long and tall and warm.

  “Ah, Zoë,” he murmured, unable to keep from finding her mouth with his. He shouldn’t, he knew he shouldn’t, not here, not until he got the whole story…but he needed her. She was safe. She was here. He loved her.

  Their noses bumped as, unfamiliar with her added height, they slipped into a deep, slick kiss. Gentle, with an underlying urgency, a subtle questioning. His hands molded over her bare back, smoothing along the jut of her shoulder blades and over the bump of her spine as she sighed against him.

  She tasted the same. Lovely, sensual Zoë.

  Who’d betrayed him for a reason he still didn’t understand. Quent pulled away. Reluctant, but determined. “Why did you do it?” he whispered. “I have to understand.”

  How many times had he asked her a similar question? How many times had she evaded?

  Would he ever learn who she really was?

  Her eyelashes, crusted with makeup, fluttered down to shutter her expression. She was going to try and wiggle out of it, he knew. Part of him, for a moment, was willing to let her. To just slide back into their pattern of hot, frantic sex. She felt so good, he wanted to bury his face in her neck and kiss her until she cried and sighed beneath him. He wanted her hands on him, comforting and familiar. Something steady in this hated world.

  He wanted an excuse to forget about Fielding, forget about the temptation of Atlantis, forget about the ugly things he had to do.

  But he was no longer satisfied to just have her body. He wanted all of her.

  He realized she hadn’t answered, and he was about to demand an answer from her again when she looked up.

  “I wanted to kill Fielding. For you.”

  A rush of confusion and heat swirled through him as he recognized the naked truth in her eyes
. “No, you don’t,” he replied automatically. Then, fear rushed over him as he comprehended what she’d said. “No, you don’t.”

  She was tugging away from him, determination and something sad in her face. “I didn’t expect you to change your mind, but when I saw you here—”

  “Change my mind?” Quent held on to her shoulders, barely keeping his voice low. “About Fielding?”

  “I understand he’s your father, and that things have changed. Blood is thicker than water, and that would just make it more difficult.”

  He shook his head. “No. Nothing’s changed. Nothing he could say or do would change my mind. I know how it looks, but no. I hate the bastard.” Yet, he felt a little tug of something inside. Fielding had secrets and knowledge. He’d found Atlantis.

  Maybe there was another way. Maybe he could get the crystal.

  Quent focused back on Zoë, and tightening his fingers, he demanded, “What are you doing here, dressed like this, tonight?”

  “I offered my services to him as an assassin, so I could get close to him. He’d be dead by now if I knew which damn side his crystal is, and we wouldn’t be having this ass-crap conversation.”

  “Oh, yes, we bloody well would,” he shot back, hissing between clenched teeth as he tried to keep his voice down. “Don’t you know what a fucking risk you’re taking? You might succeed, but you’d never make it out of here alive.”

  “Might succeed?” she retorted. “There’s no fucking might about it.”

  He was close to her face, so close he could feel her warm breath. “Zoë,” he said desperately, trying to pare through her bravado to the reason why she’d be so bloody buggering idiotic.

  “Fuck, Quent, I know the damn risks.” She drew in a deep breath and straightened so that their eyes were once again level. “I want you to be free. I want to do it for you, so your hands will stay clean.”

  Quent had no words. He simply stared at her, cold and heat battling for control of his body. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’d carry the guilt forever if you killed your father. I want to take it from you.”

  “But no thought to how I might feel, knowing you thought I was too incompetent, too weak to do it myself? That I’m a bloody pansy?” Annoyance turned into anger. They all thought he was damned worthless. “I’m too damned fragile?”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. If I thought you were incompetent, I wouldn’t worry about you carrying the damn burden of killing him, would I?” she snapped. “Genius.”

  “So I’m such a git that I’d let you do it for me?” He felt his eyes bulging with anger at her presumption. He had to remind himself not to squeeze too hard on her shoulders. “Who the hell do you think I am?”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she ground out from between clenched teeth. “You ass-crap idiot. I’ve already lived through losing everything. I was protecting myself too.”

  “Zoë.” The blinding fury began to ease.

  “I knew you’d be nuked. Why the hell do you think I had Seattle detain you?” Now she looked up at him. The spark was back in her eyes, a little subdued, a little hesitant, but it was there.

  “We could have done it together,” he said, still trying to feel his way through this web of confusion. What the hell was she trying to say? “But you ran away. Again.”

  Just then her eyes widened as she looked behind him, and the next thing he knew, she’d yanked him against her.

  He reacted instinctively, slamming her into the wall as her hot mouth found his and her arms pulled the back of his head close. Quent’s mouth opened automatically over her lips, awareness prickling everywhere over his back and shoulders as he plastered his hands against the wall alongside her shoulders. Images flitted at the corners of his mind, but his focus was on Zoë, and he was easily able to keep them at bay.

  “So sorry to interrupt,” said a smooth voice. “But I do believe your father is looking for you.”

  Quent took a solid moment before disengaging himself from heaven and then turned to see Liam Hegelsen. “I was hoping not to be disturbed,” he told the man haughtily.

  Hegelsen’s cool blue eyes lit with amusement, then swept over Zoë. And lingered. “I’ll pass that on to Fielding. I’m certain he’ll accept your apologies.”

  Zoë had stepped away from the wall, putting a distance between herself and Quent that he didn’t care for. But in the interest of keeping his feelings for Zoë under the radar, he resisted the urge to curve an arm around her waist and pull her close. “Ah, that’s not necessary. I can pick up later.” His back to Hegelsen, Quent shot her one last we’ll finish this later look, then pivoted to walk away with the other man.

  “Where have you been all these years?” asked Hegelsen. The former Dane had been CEO of the hottest electronics and computer company since Apple and one of Fielding’s closest associates. He looked exactly the same as he had in 2010, but the woman Quent had earlier seen on his arm wasn’t his wife. Not a surprise. “Fielding never once mentioned that you’d ‘Evolved’ with us.”

  Quent shrugged and smiled. “It was a bit of an experiment.”

  “Obviously one that you came through quite happily,” Liam replied with an easy smile. “Your father must be delighted that you’ve returned.”

  “He is. And I confess, I’m fascinated by all that you’ve done since the Evolution,” Quent replied.

  “It’s quite amazing, isn’t it?”

  “The fact that Atlantis actually exists,” Quent agreed. “I am thoroughly fascinated.”

  “I’ve been living with that knowledge for years and it still never ceases to amaze me. What we could have done with the energy of those crystals! They would have changed the face of electronics, of the way we produce energy, even manufacture. They could have changed everything.”

  Quent looked at him, surprised at the man’s fervor. “But everything has changed.”

  “Indeed. But there is yet much that could be done. If—ah, there he is.” Liam interrupted himself and beckoned toward Fielding, who’d taken his seat on a dais and appeared to be waiting for their arrival. He glanced back at Quent. “You’ve seen it then. The original crystal?”

  Quent had been under the impression that Fielding’s underwater aquarium and its contents were not public knowledge. But Liam was a member of the Inner Circle, so of course he would know. “It’s quite magnificent. The energy emanating from it alone fills the room.”

  “So does that mean you’ll be staying with us, here in Mecca? It’s a paradise,” Liam said as they approached the high table.

  Yes, one with snakes in its underbelly. Present company included.

  “It certainly looks that way,” Quent replied. As he made his way around a cluster of conversing people and onto the dais, he managed to glance covertly back toward Zoë.

  She was gone.

  CHAPTER 17

  Zoë fumed.

  She stalked back and forth in the little, windowless room to which she’d been relegated, down some hall in the depths of Fielding’s castle. Two white lights burned softly, giving the space a frosted glow. The gown tangled around her feet—she’d kicked off the heels ages ago, whipping them angrily against the wall. Two dark marks marred the pristine white.

  All of her other clothes had disappeared since she changed earlier, so she was stuck wearing this crap-ass, Elite dress.

  Quent was somewhere, kissing his father’s behind. He’d looked pissed off and too damn removed, unapproachable, in that smooth dark suit and slate blue shirt he’d been wearing in the dining room. It was as if he’d turned into someone else with cold eyes—and a stick up his ass.

  Except when he’d leaned in to kiss her. Then everything got all soft and mushy. At least, inside Zoë. She swore again. Loudly. She should have known not to get involved with him.

  To let him matter. Son of a bitch.

  And on top of every damned other thing, the door to this room was fucking locked.

  She was a prisoner.
/>   Zoë paced and stalked and kicked at the wall and door. She still had her bow and arrow, which Fielding had allowed her to keep after he informed her who her first assassination assignment was going to be. Her other weapon, which had been hidden beneath her clothing was still under the low bed where she’d kicked it earlier, during her altercation with the maidservant.

  But neither weapon was doing her any good in this damned space, where there was nothing but a low bed, white walls, and a tiny little room with a toilet and sink.

  Finally, she lay down. To think, she told herself, even though her knees trembled with fatigue and—ah hell, she might as well admit it—she was a little frightened. Maybe more than a little.

  Here she was, in the depths of the Elite lair. Trapped.

  Her chest felt tight and she closed her eyes. The last time she’d felt this way had been that horrible night of the zombie attack, when everything was out of control. Since then, she’d managed to stay in control, to make decisions, to decide what was best for her.

  Quent’s face settled in her mind. His handsome countenance that had somehow become so dear to her; a face that usurped Naanaa’s beautiful, calming one in her mind.

  Despite the fact that she wasn’t sure what to make of his being here, palling around with the man he planned to kill, for some reason, the thought of him did calm her. When had he come to be so important to her, so imperative?

  You’re staying with me.

  When he said that this morning—no, he’d demanded and ordered it, Zoë had been shocked at the rush of desire that shot through her. Stay with him. Stay with comfort. Companionship.

  And yet, anger and fear overrode that undernote of temptation. No one ordered her about. Even Fielding, the man to whom she’d offered her services.

  He’d locked her away, but he couldn’t control her. If the worst happened, and she couldn’t kill him and escape, well then, she guessed she’d be joining Naanaa and Papi and the others in whatever afterlife there was.