Her thoughts stalled at Zeke tugging her in the opposite direction, forcing her to follow him.
She resisted, pressing the soles of her feet into the smooth pavers. Zeke jerked her forward. Liz scratched his hand, arm and shoulder.
“Stop it,” he growled.
“Not until you let go of me.”
He halted so quickly Liz bumped into him. Before she could regain her balance and flee, Zeke bent at the waist and slung her over his shoulder.
Liz’s breath whooshed out on a shocked cry, her arms flailing helplessly, smacking his back.
Zeke hurried down the hall.
“Goddamn you,” she spat. “Put me down.”
He tightened his arm around her.
She pummeled his kidneys.
“Motherfuck,” he roared, then brought his palm down on her ass, again and again, as hard as he could.
The sting registered seconds after the harsh smacking sounds, the pain proving more than Liz could bear. She stopped hitting him in favor of protecting her ass. “You prick,” she shouted.
“You started it.” He turned the corner into another hall, his breath pumping out, his strides lumbering from her weight.
She yelled, “Let. Me. Go.”
“Goddammit, keep quiet.”
“Or what? You’ll beat me up?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“My father!” she cried.
Zeke hauled in a noisy breath, choking it out with his words. “He’s safe.”
What? How? “You have him?” Her words and body bounced as Zeke moved down the mansion’s seldom-used back stairs. “How could you have him? Until a few minutes ago, you could barely breathe, much less have had enough strength to rescue anyone. Who fired? Who’s firing now?”
In a far corner of the structure, there were muted blasts, silence, then more shots from automatic weapons.
At the bottom of the stairs, Zeke bent down and released Liz. She stumbled back, her shoulder hitting the wall. Damn. Her face scrunched at the pain. She lifted her hand to massage it, then froze at what she saw. Inches from her feet were two more of Carreon’s men, their bloodied bodies on top of each other, arms and legs tangled.
Shivering uncontrollably, Liz pushed away from the wall and rounded the corpses only to bump into Zeke.
Her mouth opened on a new protest. He cut it off, snaking his arm around her shoulders.
She had no choice except to follow, lurching against him as he brought her outside to the drive that led to the garage.
A van waited, the kind small business owners use to deliver flowers or antiques. There were no side windows in the business end of the vehicle, its color as black as Zeke’s eyes. With its headlights off, the transport would be nearly invisible on the heavily shadowed landscape, just another indistinct form beneath the frail threads of moonlight.
Zeke pulled Liz to its back doors. She wanted to fight him but wasn’t certain if she should.
He’d said her father was safe.
Was it possible he was inside the vehicle? She looked at the small windows at the top of its doors.
A new wave of gunfire sounded from within, so faint it must have come from the other side of the mansion. Not trusting the battle to remain there, Liz glanced over, expecting the worst.
Two men dashed outside, each gripping an assault rifle. Spare weapons and two-way radios bounced from belts slung across their chests. They were dressed in black, their sharp, Native American features resembling Zeke’s.
Still holding on to her, he asked, “Losses?”
“None that we know of,” the stockier of his men said, then glanced at Zeke’s chest illuminated by a slash of light from inside. His brows lifted at the healed bullet wounds and fresh scratches from Liz’s nails. After sneaking a peek at her, he continued, “Aaron, Ike and Samuel are still in there. We disabled the security system and cameras first as planned.” Concern flashed across his face. “Some of Carreon’s men escaped through passages in the walls. We tried to follow but couldn’t.”
“Our guys are continuing to search,” the other man promised, his face a mask, not revealing his thoughts. “They won’t leave until the job’s finished.”
Swearing beneath his breath, Zeke opened the van’s back door. “We can’t wait for them. We need to go now.”
As his men strode to the front of the vehicle, Liz peered into its darkened interior, looking for her father. A large shadow to the left caught her attention, until she realized it was a cache of weapons. Her heart fell, even as hope hung on.
“He’s safe,” Zeke had said.
She wanted to believe him but couldn’t imagine how he could be telling her the truth.
Why would his men help her father? Why would any of them rescue her when Carreon had said Zeke wanted her dead so that his life and his people’s would be easier without her healing their enemies?
“Get in,” he ordered.
She didn’t—wouldn’t, not until she saw her father again. Turning to Zeke, she leveled with him. “I know you’re planning to kill me. I also know that I won’t be able to stop it no matter what I say or do. So I’m asking you to execute me here. Let me be with my father again. Please.”
“Execute you?” Indignation and shock colored his question.
Whether his reaction was genuine or an act, Liz had no idea. Nor did she care. She was so tired of fighting, so weary from worry. “Just let me see him one last time,” she begged. “Then do what you want to me. It doesn’t matter any longer.”
He arched one dark brow. “You’d offer your life for a moment with your father? You care so much for him?”
Was he serious? She made a face. “As much as you care for the woman I took you from, the one you were trying to reach before I healed you.”
He stared at her, misery sweeping his features. Quick tears sparkled in his eyes, making him seem oddly young. The boy Liz had imagined him to be, after which she’d chided herself for such a foolish fantasy.
“As much as you obviously loved your wife,” she said, “I also love—”
“I was back with Gabrielle, my daughter,” he interrupted, then cleared his throat before continuing. “She was eight years old when Carreon’s men murdered her, her mother and a dozen other women from our clan, many of them elderly. My men and I had just taken them to another child’s birthday party when they attacked.”
Liz’s stomach rolled. On instinct, as one person to another, she rested her hand on his forearm.
Zeke’s muscles bunched while the rest of him went rigid, his expression telling her he didn’t want pity or concern from someone like her.
Embarrassed, Liz brought back her hand and curled her fingers into a loose fist. “I’m so sorry,” she said, meaning it.
“Are you?” His expression hardened. “I told you, your father’s safe. If you want to see him again, then get inside the damn van before I throw you in there.”
She wanted to argue, to question him as to where he had her father, how his men had rescued him. A spurt of approaching gunfire changed her mind on that. Liz scooted over the rough carpeting to the side facing the weapons. Sleek and deadly, their metal parts gleamed in the scant light.
Once inside, Zeke shut the doors, locking them. The vehicle’s motor rumbled to life, its tires swishing over the drive, taking them from the mansion’s lights. Given the van’s small windows, the moon’s glow did little to alleviate the darkness within.
Not yet adjusted to the gloom, Liz could no longer clearly see Zeke. However, she remained all too aware of his presence. Heat radiated from his big body. His skin smelled of sex. She heard his quiet respirations and then his sharp intake of breath.
“What happened?” she blurted, blinking rapidly in a futile attempt to see. Had he taken a bullet at the mansion that she hadn’t noticed? “Are you in pain?”
“Fuck yeah. Don’t you recall clawing me?”
He was whining about that when three bullets to his chest hadn’t gotten a rise out of him? Leani
ng back, Liz stated the obvious. “I wanted you to let me go.”
He breathed heavily again. “Not a chance.”
An internal alarm went off at the change in his voice. From a tone thick with aggravation to one laced with purpose and arousal. The van made a quick right. Liz dug her nails into the carpeting, then glanced at the moon spilling through the back windows, casting the interior in its silvery glow. When they stayed on this course and the light remained, she regarded Zeke.
He sat with one leg outstretched—his toes no more than an inch from her calf—his other leg bent at the knee, his forearm draped over it. He didn’t bother to cover his balls or cock that still glistened with come. He stared at her nudity, his expression unrepentant.
Liz’s nipples puckered, tightening to a point where they began to hurt.
As though Zeke approved of her response to his ruthless masculinity, he offered a smug smile.
Arrogant SOB. Resisting the urge to cover herself, Liz remained as she was. Her breasts quivered with each bounce of the van. Her parted legs revealed her cunt, damp with his ejaculate and her previous excitement.
He studied that part of her the longest.
She managed to speak without passion. “Where’s my father?”
Zeke perused her body at his leisure and with a right that said she now belonged to him.
“Safe.”
He sounded like Carreon, doling out cryptic answers that revealed nothing. Screw that shit. She wasn’t going to be put off that easily any longer. “Where, dammit?”
He ignored her.
She saw red—boiling, brutal red. Curling her fingers, Liz hurled herself at him, ready to draw blood.
“Oh no, you don’t.” He caught her wrists, using his hold to turn her around and trap her against him.
“Let go of me,” she snapped.
His grip tightened. Not enough to harm but to let her know he wasn’t about to give her what she wanted.
Liz rammed her back into his chest.
Muttering an oath, he wrapped her arms around her torso, confining her further. Liz slammed her heels into his shins. He didn’t budge. She dug her elbows into whatever part of him she could reach until she was breathless.
As she sucked in air, Zeke pressed his mouth to her ear. “Stop fighting me, or I’ll give you a fucking spanking you’ll never forget.”
“Not if I kick you in the balls first.”
He inhaled deeply, tempering his anger as he spoke. “Your father’s safe. No one’s going to hurt him. I give you my word on that.”
“Your word means nothing.”
“I’m not Carreon.”
“No, you’re worse.”
He released his breath in what sounded like a pissed sigh, then kissed her cheek.
Startled at his unexpected gentleness, Liz turned her face from him. “Stop it. I don’t want you touching me.”
“You did at Carreon’s mansion.” He brushed his lips over her shoulder, then again settled his mouth on her ear, his breath tickling it. “Don’t deny it. I saw what was in your eyes. I felt your body’s response.”
“Like hell,” she lied. “I—”
Her words stopped as Zeke released one of her hands and cupped her mound, his fingers dipping over its edge to touch her moist vaginal lips and erect clit.
He flicked the small nub with his thumb. On a wanting gasp, Liz lifted her buttocks.
“You want this,” he murmured.
No. She didn’t…couldn’t. He was the enemy. No better than Carreon. In time, Zeke would prove to be as brutal. She shook her head, her hair swishing over his chest.
He stroked her again. A surge of pleasure dashed from her pussy to her belly. He whispered, “Admit it.”
Liz bit back a whimper and spoke through her teeth. “Let me go.”
“No.”
“Damn you.” She closed her legs so he couldn’t continue.
Unfazed, he brought his hand to his face, inhaling deeply of her scent mingled with his.
Liz panted out her words. “If my father’s safe, then where is he? If you’re not going to kill me, then where are we going?”
His chest quivered as he spoke. “In time, you’ll see.”
“See what?” she argued, trying to pull away. His embrace tightened, not allowing it. Liz snapped, “Are you going to ransom me to Carreon? Is that it? Do you think he’d pay to get me back?”
“With money? No.”
His answer was so blunt, Liz stopped struggling and looked over. Moonlight played on the sharp angles of his face, his sable eyes glinting with it. “Then what? He has one of your men?” she asked. “You intend to trade me for him?”
Not giving him a chance to confirm or deny, she continued, “That’s why you were headed to my office. You intended to kidnap me all along so you could trade me for him.”
He studied her for a long moment as though buying time to frame his answer. “I have no intention of trading you for anyone or anything, Liz. It’s you I wanted and sought all along.”
“What?”
His lips curled up in a wolfish smile. “Not for me, though I might have changed my mind on that.”
Alarm returned, mingled with too much wayward lust. “What?”
“I came for you because of my brother Jacob.” Zeke pressed his face into her hair and inhaled deeply. “He’s the only family I have left. Carreon’s men attacked him tonight. You’re going to heal him.”
Chapter Four
While the battle played out, Carreon waited in a room hidden within the stronghold’s bowels. The area was reachable through a series of corridors, accessible only to those he summoned.
It was within this space that he’d trapped his father, who’d been foolish enough to let down his guard. At the sound of his son’s footfalls that night, the older man had lifted his head from the breast of a woman who was decades younger. Her areola was cocoa-colored, tight, glistening from his tongue. His other mistress, equally youthful, had been behind him at the time, sucking his neck, her tapered nails stroking his cock.
Carreon recalled his father’s look of irritation at the interruption of pleasure. His expression soon turned to confusion and finally shock at the men who rushed inside. His final transformation to pure fear took no more than a few seconds. By then, it was over. The ceilings and walls sprayed with blood, the stink of gunpowder masking the women’s delicate perfumes and the odor of sex, the weapons’ reports still ringing in Carreon’s ears.
The stench of death and merciless noise disturbed him, but he’d waited to leave, making certain his father was beyond healing, which left him to rule the clan. He was the oldest son. His male siblings, all products of different mothers, had gone into hiding upon hearing what happened. They knew what their fate would be if they remained.
They’d learned that night what his father had not. Never trust family, especially a son who wanted it all for himself—his clan’s territory and Neekoma’s, along with the man’s ability to see the future. What riches and power that would bring when nurtured in the right hands.
A matter Carreon couldn’t dwell on right now.
Tonight’s gunfire had stopped minutes before, the shouting and moans turning to an uneasy quiet.
In no hurry to investigate, Carreon remained in front of the fireplace, its conical shape Southwestern in design, its beige façade flawless, the blood washed away, the bullet holes patched and painted, the air sweetened by lush plants and flowers that graced the arched niches or flowed down elevated platforms that were nearly as high as the ceiling. Over the door hung a monitor, its power source independent of the rest of the security system, the camera showing him what was on the other side.
Minutes before, he’d used a two-way radio to summon his men. Three of them now came down the brightly lit hall, their strides purposeful, obedient to his wishes.
“Remove your weapons,” Carreon ordered.
The youngest of the trio, Willy, jerked slightly even though he held no rifle or pistol. He gl
anced around as though to see where his boss’s voice had come from. The other two men lowered their submachine guns to the floor, after which they removed the spare Glocks they carried in their waistbands and around their ankles. The metal detector and full-body scanner prior to the door assured no one entered the safe room armed in any way. A matter Carreon had seen to after his father’s death.
Once the men had straightened, he regarded them. Thomas, the one on the left, was brawny from bodybuilding, his gray shirt and thick neck spattered with blood. Dark splotches also stained Hector’s clothes that draped his lean, muscled frame. He and Thomas looked straight ahead at the door, not at the camera. Willy shifted from foot to foot, much as a little boy would when he has to pee or as a man does when he has something to fear.
His shirt and slacks bore no trace of blood. They were too pristine.
Carreon pressed a button on the control panel to his side. With a muffled whoosh, the reinforced steel door opened. Hector and Thomas stepped in first, followed by Willy. Carreon pressed another button. Willy glanced over as the door closed on its own, the sound of its harsh metal lock reverberating through the room.
“Why haven’t you brought me Neekoma’s men?” Carreon asked.
At his mild tone, Willy stared, bewilderment and dread obvious on his twentysomething face.
Carreon ignored the man, concentrating on the others. “Did you let them escape as Neekoma did?”
“We captured one,” Thomas offered. The room’s subdued lighting sparkled off the sweat glistening on his forehead and upper lip. His rich complexion was darker than usual, blood rushing to his face. He was a trusted lieutenant, firing upon Carreon’s father as ordered, not questioning the assassination in the least.
“One,” Carreon repeated.
Again, Willy shifted his weight. Thomas and Hector seemed incapable of movement, their attention remaining on Carreon’s face, not his hands still at his sides, posing no danger.
“What of the others?” he asked.
Hector frowned. “The fucking cowards ran into the desert. Our men followed but lost sight of them. It’s as though they vanished.”
Or more likely escaped into a tunnel. One of a vast network Carreon sensed Zeke’s people had constructed to hide where they’d built their stronghold, keeping their clan safe from attack.
Come Fill Me (The Prophecy) Page 5
