Enemy Mine

by Karin Harlow

  Selena hurled herself from the vacant dead host and tumbled back into her own body. Her vision still impaired, Selena knew the swords would guide her, and the nanorians would power her.

  She sprang up and blindly reached for Nikko but caught only air.

  Demonic laughter reverberated around her head. “I hold your lover in my hands! The necklace for his life!”

  “Don’t do it, Selena!” Nikko shouted. “I’ve got this bitch!”

  Lamia’s shrieks of pain reverberated in Selena’s head. Her swords flew out of her hands. Lamia’s screams intensified, the smell of sulfur so strong Selena could barely breathe. Fire flashed around her, singeing her skin, as the grunting of struggling bodies and the copper scent of blood filled her senses.

  “You picked the wrong bitch today, vampire,” Lamia screeched at Nikko.

  The sound of steel piercing flesh and bones shivered through Selena. The warm spray of blood across her face, immediately followed by the sound of a dying heart, terrified her.

  “Nikko!” she screamed. “Nikko!” she screamed again when he didn’t answer. Not him, please. Not Nikko!

  “You fucking bitch!” Selena screamed, rushing forward.

  A large hand caught hers and pressed something hard, warm, and wet into it. “That bitch’s heart,” Nikko said in Selena’s ear.

  “Oh, my God!” she breathed. Her knees gave way and Selena sank to the ground as wave after chaotic wave of relief crashed into her. Tears burned her sightless eyes, and her chest tightened so hard she was sure she was having a heart attack. Strong arms wrapped around her. Lips pressed to her forehead.

  “We did it, Selena,” Nikko whispered, gently rocking her.

  She touched the face she could not see, her shaky hands tracing over his lips, his cheeks, his nose, his eyes. “You’re alive!” she cried.

  His body stiffened; then he gently brushed a thumb over her eyelids. “Your eyes, Selena?”

  “Lamia’s venom.”

  He growled. “You can’t see?”

  “Not at the moment.” Maybe never again.

  “The heart, Selena,” he said, opening her hand. He took it from her and pressed it into the sixth setting of her necklace. “Will that help?”

  She brushed her fingertips across the warm, sticky stone lying against her skin. It flared with warmth and power. The other five vibrated in welcome. With her own natural power, combined with the staggering power of all seven stones and Nikko’s blood, not a single immortal save for the devil himself or Rurik would be able to challenge her and win.

  With Lamia dead, one heart remained.

  It was hers for the taking. But she needed to hurry. Her father was closing in.

  “Nikko,” she whispered, grabbing his shoulders. “We need to go before Paymon realizes he has lost a valued disciple and another of his Hellkeepers.”

  “I’m not leaving without Marisol,” Nikko said, helping her up.

  Selena’s stomach dropped to her feet. Moving Marisol now would be signing her death warrant.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  She’s safe where she is!” Selena shouted.

  “Paymon knows where she is!”

  “No, he doesn’t. Lamia never made it to the island to confirm it. You have to believe me when I tell you, for now she’s protected in the sanctuary with Father Ken.”

  “She’ll be safe with us both.”

  Selena dug her nails into Nikko’s arms. “Nikko, she must stay on the island. Please, trust me on this.”

  Tension steeled his body. “That bitch daemon was on her way to nab her! She isn’t safe.” He lowered his head to Selena’s and lowered his voice. “Trust in me that I can protect her, Selena. The people I work with can protect her.”

  Vehemently Selena shook her head. He didn’t understand. “Lamia would not have been able to set foot on consecrated ground without alerting the priest. Father Ken and Sister Agnes understand Marisol is not to leave the grounds.” Selena grabbed Nikko’s hands. “Paymon is playing a high-stakes game of truth or dare. He only suspects I’m in the area. He doesn’t know about Marisol. He thinks she’s dead. I don’t know how Lamia knew to come here or even suspect I had a daughter! But I can bet you Paymon doesn’t; if he did, he would have made a move a longtime ago. When I collect the seventh stone, I’m going to call him out, and it will end!” Selena felt Nikko’s resolve stiffen when his muscles continued to tighten. “Can you protect her from being possessed by even a mundane daemon?”

  “If you teach me, yes.”

  “I can’t teach you. Unless you are daemon, it cannot be taught. Can you fight a legion of daemons?”

  “As you taught me, I can resist them.”

  “Even in a panic room constructed of lead, if they wanted Marisol, they could swarm in and rip her from your arms. And if they can get that close, they can destroy her mind.” Selena reached up to his face and cupped it between her hands. “Nikko, she’s on an island, in a Catholic church in the presence of a renowned exorcist and a woman married to Jesus Christ in mind, body, and soul. There is no other place in our world safer. Please. Let’s get out of here before Paymon tracks down his dead bitch and her sidekick.”

  Finally, Nikko’s muscles loosened. “I don’t like this, Selena, but I trust you to know what’s best for Marisol.”

  “Thank you.”

  They had been airborne on the L.O.S.T. jet for almost an hour. Worry wore on Nikko’s mind. Selena’s sight had not improved, and she had become uncharacteristically quiet. She sat staring out the window at the sky she could still not see. Trying to draw her into conversation had been futile. She had erected a wall around her. And damn if he could get through it.

  The stubborn set of her jaw, her tight lips, and her continued silence had him feeling completely helpless. He didn’t know what to do. If there was anything that could be done.

  He moved into the seat next to her and touched her fist, unprying her stiff fingers. She tensed. “Selena,” he softly said, “tell me what to do.”

  She turned to him, her face rigid. “When this is over, I don’t want to see you again.” She laughed bitterly. “If I can actually see again, I don’t want any contact with you. I want your word you’ll respect that.”

  He stiffened as the bottom dropped out of his gut. “What the—”

  “My attorney will handle the visitation details for you with Marisol.”

  She turned back to stare out the window. Nikko sagged in his seat.

  He knew what was bugging her. And he couldn’t blame her.

  He’d told her there was no room in his life for her. Was this her revenge? He’d meant it when he said it and still believed it—but not the way she thought. Didn’t she know there would always be a place for her in his life, just not the house with the white picket fence?

  Nikko shook his head, moving across the aisle from her. Women! He had never been able to figure them out. He stared out his own window, welcoming the burn of the sun. His vampire habits were becoming more ingrained—his desire for blood, not food. His strength was still peaking. He’d handled Lamia. And while he was still learning to control his impulsiveness, half the time he didn’t want to. Especially when it came to Selena. He looked over at her relaxed body. She drops that grenade on me and she’s relaxed?

  He looked back out the window, squinting, his fingers drumming the armrests. Unable to remain still, he stood and, with his hands locked behind his back, scowling at Selena, began to pace the aisle from the cockpit to the aft bedroom/meeting room.

  Each time he looked at her, she remained unmoving. His frustration mounted. “Damn it, Selena!” he shouted. “Millions of lives are at stake, and you choose now to play head games with me.” It gave him a small amount of satisfaction to see some color rise in her cheeks. “It nearly killed me to keep that fucking daemon out of your body! And now you shut down?” He crouched down beside her seat and touched her knees. “We’re a team. You need me. You can’t just walk away from that.”

  “I do
n’t need you. But rest assured, I have no plans to walk away from what we have to do.”

  He grasped her knees. She flinched. Damn it, he didn’t mean to— He rubbed where his fingers had probably bruised. “Then why did you say what you just said?”

  She turned from the window and looked at him. “How did you kill Lamia?”

  Hell if he knew, he just had. “I’m a trained observer, Selena. I watched every move you made carving up Malphas. I simply repeated it.”

  “How did you keep her from entering my body while I was still in the host?”

  Should he tell her how it had scared ten years off his life when he thought that daemon bitch had killed her and left her to rot in the dead body? “I saw the vapor trail coming out of the host’s mouth and made a beeline straight for you. I started hacking away at it. The daemon manifested in pieces. I grabbed her torso and started cutting, but she got hold of me with one of the arms still attached to it.”

  “She said she had you.”

  “She did, but I had her more.” He touched beside her eyes. “Will you see again?”

  Selena turned her head away. “I don’t know.”

  Not letting her pull away from him again, Nikko moved into the seat beside her. “What does what I did to Lamia have to do with anything?”

  She sighed and sat back in her seat. “No mortal knows the extraction procedure. No mortal has ever killed a Hellkeeper before you.”

  “You forget, you shot me up with some powerful vampire blood, not to mention I have enough of your blood circulating inside to give me a few of your daemon moves.”

  “You always were strong and smart, Nikko. You’re much stronger now, and learning about my world. It’s Marisol’s world too. You could hold your own against most immortals.” She swallowed hard and squeezed her eyes closed.

  “What is it, Selena?”

  She was silent for a moment. “If something happens to me, Nikko”—she inhaled deeply—“take my necklace and my swords, and—harvest my heart the same way you harvested Lamia’s. Set into the necklace, it will give you the power to destroy my father.”

  His heart stopped. His jaw fell open. He shook his head, stunned.

  She grabbed his hands. “Promise me you’ll do it!”

  “I can’t make that promise, Selena.”

  “You will do it! It’s the only way to kill Paymon and give our daughter a normal life.”

  Nikko squeezed his eyes shut. His guts churned as if they had been tossed into a blender on PUREE. He couldn’t do it. Nor could he allow her to give up. “Your sudden lack of spirit disappoints me, Selena,” he taunted.

  “I don’t lack spirit, Nikko. I am just a realist. I’m blind, in case you haven’t noticed. I don’t know when or if my sight will return. I only say what I say to you so that you are prepared in the event something happens to me.” Her body trembled, and despite her show of bravado, a single tear tracked down her cheek. “I’m not invincible, Nikko. Paymon has the power of ten Lamias.”

  Nikko leaned in, wanting simply to comfort, but he could not resist kissing the tear away. “Lamia was a piece of cake.”

  He felt Selena crack a smile. He smiled back and kissed her cheek again. Then her nose. Her chin. Her bottom lip. He inhaled her familiar sultry scent, glad she did not stink like the other daemons. His fingers slipped into her hair and he pulled her lips against his. Heat flared inside him with just these chaste kisses. God, he wanted her again. But he could not go there. He would want her again, and again. She was a drug he was addicted to and had to kick if he was going to live on his own terms. His life wasn’t set up for a full-time family. He was a full-time L.O.S.T. operative. The best he could offer Selena was a part-time-lover position.

  Selena shook her head, pulling his hands from her. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  He rose and moved back into his seat. He felt like a yo-yo when it came to his feelings for Selena. One minute he could not keep his hands off her, the next he was telling her there was no future for them, then he turned around and comforted her.

  He raked his fingers through his hair and dropped his head into his hands. Each time he told himself there was no room for her, he found himself wanting more of her. He shook off the longing and shifted to safer ground. “I’m going to text my handler and see if he’ll okay a conference call among the three of us. We have a lot of details to hammer out before the auction.”

  Selena nodded and turned back to the window.

  Nikko sent the text and was immediately given the go-ahead. He picked up the remote on the table across from him and hit a button. The flat screen on the bulkhead flashed on. Nikko hit a few keys on the laptop beneath it, and immediately a blue screen flashed. While they would not be able to see Godfather, for obvious reasons, he would be able to see them.

  “Do you copy, Mr. Black?” Nikko asked.

  “I copy,” Godfather’s computer-regenerated voice answered.

  “I have Selena de la Roja here with me. She has agreed to act on our behalf—”

  “Whoa, slow down, cowboy,” Selena said, sitting up and looking toward the screen. “I agreed to not make waves. Don’t volunteer me for something I have no clue about the details of.” She turned toward Nikko. “And I have not run any of this past Señor Balderama.”

  “And you won’t,” Godfather stated.

  “I don’t work for you, sir,” Selena said to the screen.

  “Alerting your handler will serve no purpose, Miss dela Roja. The American government will take it over from here, with your much-appreciated help.”

  Selena stood and moved out from between the seats, stumbling as she turned too early. Nikko reached out and steadied her. She flung him off.

  “Are you impaired?” Godfather asked her.

  “At the moment, I can’t see.”

  “Is the condition permanent?” he asked matter-of-factly.

  Selena shook her head. “I don’t know. But regardless, you cannot ask me to in effect double-cross the man I trust like a father. His intentions are the same as yours. Why not work together?”

  “We are, he just won’t know it.”

  Selena shook her head and felt for a seat. Finding one to her right, she sat. “I don’t roll that way, Mr. Black.”

  “Selena,” Nikko said, “it’s not that big of a deal. Balderama will make his bid, lose, and think the world is going to shit, and you can tell him after the fact that the cask was picked up by the US government.”

  She looked up to Nikko with her blind eyes. His heart broke for her. “If it’s not that big of a deal, then allow Los Cuatro to take possession of the cask and store it.”

  “Negative,” Godfather said. “With US possession, there will never be doubt of its nonuse.”

  “Are you insinuating Los Cuatro has nefarious intentions?”

  “I’m not insinuating anything, I’m stating a fact: in US possession, the cask will be safely stored and left untouched.”

  “So you’re saying the US would never use nukes for any reason?”

  “Not at all, but not that nuke.” Godfather paused, and Nikko knew he was working hard to remain patient with the defiant Latina. “Miss de la Roja, we’re taking possession of it with or without your cooperation.”

  “Well, that’s going to be pretty damn hard, since the auction is happening at my club with my security. If the venue is changed again, no one will show up, and you can kiss ID’ing the players at the table and getting your hands on that cask adios.”

  “Cruz tells me you have the power to get into heads and extract information. Let’s make this easy. Get the location of the cask from Noslov and we bypass the auction.”

  “And keep Los Cuatro out of the mix?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “No deal. Besides … Noslov doesn’t have the cask or knowledge of its whereabouts. He’s merely the agent.”

  “And you believe that?” Nikko asked.

  “It’s the truth.” She gazed toward the scre
en. “For the sake of argument, let’s say you know the location. You botched the job once—how do you expect me or Los Cuatro to trust you’ll succeed a second time?”

  Nikko cringed. Damn her, that was a smack in Godfather’s face as well as Nikko’s.

  Unbelievably, Godfather chuckled. “I can see why Cruz fell for you. A woman who stands firmly on her principle and is loyal to the marrow. Come to work for me, and there will be no reason to feel as if you’ve betrayed your cause.”

  Nikko’s head snapped back in shock. What the—?

  “Lo siento, Señor Negro, I already have a job.”

  “Then keep what you have, but forgo the info sharing with Balderama.”

  “I’ll consider it,” Selena said.

  Selena was dug in. The only way to get her to cross the line was to compromise.

  “A small compromise then, Miss de la Roja.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Take a meeting with Señor Balderama with Cruz in attendance”—Selena opened her mouth to protest—“solely in the capacity of an ambassador of sorts, to vouch for the integrity and seriousness of the United States government’s interest in the cask.”

  “What if he refuses to cooperate?”

  “Then it will be up to you both to convince him we are on the same side and that it would be most detrimental to his organization should he refuse.”

  “That, Mr. Black, sounds ominously like a threat.”

  “It was meant to.”

  Selena sat back and crossed her arms.

  “She agrees,” Nikko said, looking at the screen.

  “I can see that,” Godfather said drolly. “Check in when you hit the ground, Cruz, and coordinate with your team. We have a lot to go over.”

  “Roger that,” Nikko said, then clicked the connection off. He touched Selena’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “Señor is not going to like this one bit, and because I am the bearer of doom he will no longer trust me.”

  “I don’t understand why it should be so difficult for him to understand we’re on the same side, and it’s in his best interest to let us do the heavy lifting. What does he have to lose?”