She refused to stay with him, refused to risk Gideon or herself on trusting that he was not out to harm them.
In front of the mirror, she tamed and reshaped her wet locks. Sliding into the fluffy white bathrobe, she stepped out of the bathroom to find an array of clothes already waiting.
Rafe motioned to the items on the bed. “I guessed your size.”
Selecting a pair of black gauchos, a camisole-style tank top, and undergarments, she stepped back into the bathroom and dressed quickly, doing her best to banish the memory of his mouth on hers, the tingling heat, the numbing desire…
To forget.
She had her work cut out for her.
CHAPTER 16
Kit paused, fork poised over her egg-white-and-cheese omelet as she watched Rafe wolf down a tower of chocolate-chip pancakes. Chewing vigorously, he reached for his cup of coffee and took a healthy swig. His eyes met hers over the mug’s rim. His throat worked, swallowing.
“Something wrong with your food?”
“No,” she murmured, motioning to his plate. “Do you eat like that all the time?”
“I have a good metabolism.” He raised a slice of bacon to his lips.
The diner was crowded, voices buzzing around them, waitresses wearing unattractive maroon uniforms zipping busily amid the tables. A heavy odor of grease hung in the air.
He glanced down at her plate and gave a small shake of his dark head. “You don’t eat enough.”
“I eat plenty.” She reached for one of the crisp slices of turkey bacon on her plate. “I just prefer food that doesn’t harden my arteries.” No sense explaining to him that her stomach was too twisted into knots as she planned her next move for her to eat anything heavy.
Only, with no money, her options once she escaped were limited. Ironically, she had decided that her only hope rested with Darius. No one would be monitoring him or tracing his calls. He was completely off the radar. His death was speculated to have occurred long ago. Certainly no one knew he was in Houston. Otherwise, NODEAL would have captured and killed him years ago.
Once she gave Rafe the slip, she would find a place to lie low and call Darius to come get her. As far as alternatives went, she didn’t like it, but she had no other choice.
She watched as Rafe took a bite of bacon and chewed calmly. Four more pieces remained on his plate, alongside several links of sausage.
“You eat like a man destined for bypass surgery.”
“I’m fit.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a vague smile. A moment passed before he spoke again. “So, was there a special reason your brother and his wife left town?”
Shaking her head, she smiled knowingly. “You won’t get me to tell you where they are.”
He cut another bite of pancakes out of his stack. “Aren’t you worried he’ll return to Houston when he doesn’t hear from you?”
“They’ve been warned to stay away. Gideon won’t come back.”
He looked up at her, holding her gaze. “Even for you?”
She mulled over that. He was right. Her brother wouldn’t wait forever. If he didn’t hear from her soon after her enigmatic message, he would come looking for her. Just another reason to escape Rafe. And quickly.
“I wouldn’t wait,” he added, that deep exotic voice of his causing her heart to trip, her blood to race. She suspected she would hear it in her dreams long after she left him. “I would come for you.”
A spark raced down her spine at his words. I would come for you.
He meant that he would come after his own sister. If he had one. Not her. Not Kit. She meant nothing to him, a prize to be served up to EFLA, and she wouldn’t mistake his meaning. Still, her hand gripping her fork trembled from his words—and the thrill they gave her.
They resumed eating in silence. Kit glanced out the window to the right of their table, eyeing the crowded parking lot. Apparently the diner was a local favorite. Rafe’s Hummer was parked in the far back, in the only spot they could find. It loomed high over the other vehicles. A busy intersection bustled beyond the parking lot. Plenty of traffic. Easy to get lost in. She just had to go about getting lost.
When they finished their meal, Rafe picked the check up off the table and guided her through the narrow aisle between the counter and tables, a proprietary hand on her elbow.
They joined the others standing in line to pay. Four people stood ahead of them—one a young mother with a crying infant on her hip and a whining toddler writhing at her feet.
Kit smoothed a sweating palm against her thigh and lifted her voice over that of the wailing baby. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”
Rafe turned to level a hard, searching look on her. She fought to hold that stare, to not flicker an eye and give away her thoughts.
Finally, he nodded. “Be quick.”
Pulse quickening, she squeezed past the people waiting to be seated and walked down a narrow hallway to the bathrooms. She hurried past the door marked Women, diving into the noisy kitchen.
Dishes clattered. Fryers sizzled and popped. She pushed through the crowded room, past the startled-looking kitchen staff.
A frazzled-looking man wearing a hairnet and a stained apron grabbed her arm. “Hey! You don’t work here. What are you doing back here?”
“Where’s your back door?” she demanded, heart pounding madly in her ears.
The man stared at her blankly.
With a grunt of frustration, she shrugged off his grasp and pushed on, finding the door on her own.
Bursting through the heavy door, she plunged into the thick heat. The smell of rot from two nearby Dumpsters was thick and suffocating.
Her gaze scanned her surroundings. A Wal-Mart superstore loomed behind the diner, a wide stretch of blue-gray.
She hurried forward, knowing that every moment was precious. She had to find a phone and call Darius. She had to hide. She weaved between parked cars in the diner’s back lot, heading for the Wal-Mart.
“Kit!”
She jerked and looked over her shoulder. Shit. Had he even paid yet? He had caught up with her sooner than she’d expected.
Rafe’s eyes connected with hers across the distance. The fury there was unmistakable.
Turning, she started to run, legs pumping hard, shoes pounding on the hot pavement.
He called her name again. Louder this time. Her shoes pounded the hot asphalt harder.
She darted between the parked cars, shooting through the quasi-road separating the two parking lots, flying in front of a car. It blasted its horn at her.
“Kit!” Rafe raged behind her.
His voice sounded closer now, but she didn’t risk a glance over her shoulder, didn’t dare look again at the desperate fury on his face. She didn’t have to. She felt it. Knew that if he got his hands on her he wouldn’t let her slip away again.
This was her only chance.
Rafe closed in on Kit, wind rushing in his hair. He kept his speed carefully in check, knowing he could overtake her in an instant, but he couldn’t risk unleashing himself. It would only raise her suspicion. The last thing he wanted was to see fear and disgust mingle with the distrust in her gaze.
A car whipped past him, tires squealing, the stink of burning rubber filling his nostrils as the vehicle crossed the parking lot at an angle, heading directly for Kit.
“Kit!” he roared as the dark sedan screeched to a halt behind her.
She must have heard something in his voice. Something besides the anger of before.
She turned to look as two men emerged from the car. Lockhart and Davis. The two idiots he’d dealt with outside Gideon’s house. They must have been tipped off, as Rafe had been. But he had made certain to leave all her belongings behind. Could she still be wearing the transmitter? What had he overlooked?
She froze. The two men squared off before her, sliding pistols from beneath their jackets.
“Kit. Run!” Rafe shouted, no longer caring if they knew he wasn’t on the level.
Dropping
all restraint, he sprinted forward in a blur, pulling a gun from the inside of his jacket as he moved. In his peripheral vision, he noted panicked shoppers diving behind cars, screaming and shouting as if in some B-grade movie. He estimated he had five minutes before the local authorities arrived.
“No!” he cried, the shout ripping from deep in his chest as Lockhart aimed his gun and fired at Kit. Everything slowed then. A split second lingered, tearing at Rafe’s heart.
Shock crossed Kit’s face. Horror. The same horror that seized him.
Her arms flung wide in the air from the impact. Blood bloomed across her bright pink tank top, starting at her stomach and spreading outward. He was instantly assailed with the coppery-sweet scent. Her legs buckled beneath her and she dropped to the asphalt, lying limply, as still as a rag doll tossed to the ground.
A growl ripped from his throat. He sprang, pouncing on Lockhart’s back in one leap, sending his gun flying through the air. It clattered several feet away, skidding beneath a car. He wrapped an arm around Lockhart’s neck, digging his fingers into soft flesh.
Lockhart screamed, thrashing wildly, waging a useless fight.
“What the hell!” Davis shouted.
“Shoot him! Just shoot him!” Lockhart whirled in a crazed circle, as if he could shake Rafe from his back.
Rafe tightened his arm around the man’s throat, knowing he could snap it with little effort. His fury—the beast—urged him to do just that. His gaze fell on Kit, on her blood, thick and dark, staining her clothes, spilling out of her. He inhaled, breathing death through his nose.
No. No! This was not supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. It never had before. It couldn’t now. Not with her.
Sirens sounded in the distance.
He didn’t have time for this. He needed to get Kit help. But neither could he let these agents carry tales back to EFLA and Laurent. Even if he was at his end with EFLA, the less they knew about him—about the truth—the better.
“Hold still!” Davis shouted, pointing his gun.
Lockhart actually obeyed, finding a position that put Rafe in the direct line of fire.
He heard the click of the bullet leaving the chamber, the slight whizz of the silencer as the bullet burst forth from the barrel, its hum as it crossed through air in a direct path for him.
The moment before the bullet met his back, Rafe wrenched his weight to the side, forcing Lockhart around. The agent took the bullet solidly in the chest. His body jerked against Rafe’s.
Shoppers peering over the hoods of cars screamed in terror.
Hopping aside as Lockhart collapsed, Rafe spared only a quick glance at the man, at the vacant eyes staring straight ahead, instantly dead.
He turned his attention on the second agent as the sirens grew to a piercing wail.
“Wait,” Davis stammered. “P-please.” He waved a hand before him in a defensive gesture and dragged his feet back several steps, even as he lifted his gun again and took aim at Rafe.
Rafe lunged forward before Davis could squeeze off another round. Seizing the man’s head in both hands, he ground out, “I warned you to stay away.” The words dropped like rocks in the air.
With a hard turn of his hands, he twisted Davis’s neck. Instant death. Too sudden for pain to register. Far more humane than the gut shot Kit was suffering on the hot asphalt.
Davis’s body dropped like a sack of cement.
Rafe launched himself over the fallen body, dropping to his knees at Kit’s side. Hot breath escaped him in an agonized hiss at the sight of the blood flowing thickly from the gaping hole in her tank top, in her stomach, just below her breasts.
He tried to speak, but his words came out garbled, choked and indecipherable.
Her eyes stared straight head, glassy with immeasurable pain. Her lips worked, but no sound escaped.
“Kit,” he called her name, running a hand over her brow, wincing at cold, clammy skin.
Those glassy eyes shifted, falling on him with a vague sort of focus.
“Can you see me, Kit? I’m here.”
“Rafe,” she choked out. The effort sent her into a coughing fit. Blood gurgled at the back of her throat.
Sirens blared, congesting the air.
Cursing, he swept her into his arms just as police cars roared into the parking lot. Cradling her close, he ran, sprinting across the back end of the parking lot, the diner a blur of blue and red.
For perhaps the first time in his life, he suffered no concern for the beast unleashed inside him, the primeval rush that burned through his veins, making him move faster than he had ever moved in his life.
He didn’t care if anyone saw him—or the flash of him, a blur before their eyes, more wind than man.
The only thing he cared about was Kit. About making certain she survived. That had been his goal from the start. Even before he knew her. Before he knew how stubborn and infuriating she could be. How strong. How loyal to those she loved. How different from any woman he had ever known. How sweet she tasted.
Now he knew. And he could not imagining living if she died.
He had seen gut shots more times than he cared to recall. He had grown accustomed to the sight. To battlefields swimming in blood and gore. Grown men crying for their mothers. He had swum in death before he ever joined EFLA. So much so that he feared he would never see good in anything again. See life.
But he had. He’d come through it all and managed to hold on to a scrap of hope, to retain some compassion and faith in humanity.
But this…Kit.
This was different.
He would never be the same if he lost her.
CHAPTER 17
Securing Kit carefully in the passenger seat, Rafe vaulted over the hood of the vehicle. Once behind the steering wheel, he gunned out of the parking lot in a screech of burning tires.
Recalling a hospital he had passed several exits back, he floored the accelerator and zipped onto the highway.
He had no choice. He had to take her there. He would risk exposure before risking her dying on him. The police would interrogate him, as they would Kit, when she regained consciousness. If she did…
He squeezed his eyes in a tight blink. Not if. When.
A sharp, sudden rattle of breath escaped her, more like a shocked gasp, as if she could not breathe and just realized it, as if she were choking on her own blood.
Reaching over, he pressed a hand against her wound. A thick flow of blood congealed over his fingers like warm syrup, swamping him with sick dread.
The erratic rasp of her breathing filled the inside of the vehicle, the sounds growing more desperate. She fought for every breath, the sound rattling on the air.
He pounded the steering wheel with the palm of one hand. “Damn! Why did you run? Why?”
Because you didn’t tell her, an insidious little voice whispered across his mind. You couldn’t bring your self to tell her the truth. Because you couldn’t stand the thought of her looking at you with loathing.
“Selfish bastard,” he muttered to himself, nostrils flaring against the overwhelming odor of her blood. What did it matter how she looked at him? What mattered was keeping her alive.
Turning off the highway and onto the feeder road, he weaved through traffic and toward the hospital looming ahead. He darted a quick glance at Kit’s face. Gunmetal gray. Her head lolled to the side of the headrest, facing him. The sight of those pale, bloodless lips sent a bolt of fear through him.
“Kit,” he called, staring into her bottle-green eyes. They looked at him, but didn’t see him. Didn’t see anything.
He reached over and pressed fingers to the pulse at her neck. Nothing. He pressed harder, determined to find it, to feel life in her. She coughed, spraying blood on his arm.
Cursing, he dropped his hand from her neck. Driving with one hand on the wheel, he pressed his palm over the bullet wound.
In that moment, he knew what he had to do. Born of instinct. Wild, brute impulse seized him
.
He pulled off the feeder, careening through a shopping center. Maneuvering the vehicle to the back of the sprawling parking lot, where no cars were parked, he jerked to a hard stop on an empty stretch of asphalt.
They weren’t going to make it to the hospital in time. The realization settled like a dead weight in the pit of his stomach.
Knowing this, he vaulted from the vehicle. With a vicious yank, he opened the passenger door, scooped her into his arms, and carried her to the backseat.
Heart hammering like a drum against his chest, he ripped her tank top, severing the fabric in his hands. The bullet wound was a dark, jagged hole in her stomach. Slipping a hand beneath her neck, he lifted her off the seat, bringing her closer. She hung in his arms, a dead weight. Her head lolled limply, eyes at half mast, the green of her gaze peering out dully, the color fading with every breath she struggled to take.
“Kit,” he whispered, swiping a palm over the hole in her stomach, attempting to wipe it clean of blood. Impossible. The blood kept coming. As soon as he wiped at the wound, more came, constant as a river.
He splayed a hand against the small of her back, bringing her closer yet. Her flesh beneath his hand felt waxy. Empty of life.
An impulse came to him. Sudden and savage. A burning in his veins. Fed by desperation, an urge born of intuition.
Hardly aware of himself, of what he was doing, he brought her closer, his face hovering an inch over hers.
“I’m sorry, Kit,” he breathed over her wound, the odor of her death, of the ebbing life, making him sick. “I’m so sorry.” And he was.
Sorry if it worked. Sorry if it did not.
Ignoring the voice of logic that warned that this was wrong, he moistened his lips. Only one thing was for certain—being right, safe, normal…human—would not keep her alive.
And she had to live. There really was no choice. Not for him. Not for her. He was determined to keep her alive. Even if she never forgave him for it. Even if unleashing his power pushed at the boundaries of right and wrong, good and evil. All his mother had warned against. He didn’t care.
Kiss of a Dark Moon Page 12
