Flame's Dawn

by Jillian David

  “What?”

  Anger glinting in her fierce expression shifted into a ghost of a smile. “Well, damn it all. Isn’t this just fabulous?”

  “Come again?” The hard set to her jaw worried him.

  A wry lift to the corner of her mouth gave him a flicker of hope. “How perfect are we? I should be declared insane. You’ve got a story that will seal my commitment to the asylum if I ever tell it. Perfect.”

  “You’re not horrified?”

  Her high-pitched laugh came out weak, strained. “Yeah, I’m pretty creeped out right now. It’s not every day I hang out with a cold-blooded killer. Hold on, that’s not true if you count the past year of my life. Could be the company I’m keeping.”

  When he shifted, she flinched, and he cursed himself all over again.

  “I won’t hurt you, I swear.” He wanted to touch her, convince her of his sincerity, make her forget the horrors she’d survived. Make her forget the horror that he represented.

  “You won’t hurt me? Ha. See, that’s the only part of this cock-and-bull story that I completely believe.” She dropped her head into her hands.

  “It’s true.” He studied her hunched shoulders. “Why aren’t you running away from me?”

  She propped her chin on her fisted hand. “First, I can’t get away. Not yet. Second, you are judged by your actions, not your history.”

  “Pardon?”

  “We both have pasts that are better left hidden.” She held up a hand at his protest. “So, in Saigon, were you Indebted then?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Getting easy kills.” In for a penny. “And trying to find an ancient text rumored to have the knowledge to free me from this life.”

  Her amazed expression opened like the petals of a flower. “Really? You were trying to stop being what you are?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Well ... yeah, probably.” She shook her head. “So you had extra strength then?”

  “Yes, part of my curse means that it’s particularly hard for me to be killed, which is a bonus in a war zone.”

  “Makes sense. So why did you stay with me in the closet? Why didn’t you attack that guy and take him out? Or escape?”

  “Because I couldn’t risk you being hurt.”

  She bit her lower lip. “What about that promise on the roof to find me?”

  “I failed. If I hadn’t done what I promised, you might not have suffered.”

  “I’m sure you had your own life to lead.”

  “You truly want to know what I was doing between Saigon and now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing, all right?” he spat. “I was doing nothing except killing criminals because I’m not strong enough to resist the knife’s call. I have nothing to show for the past six years.”

  Turning her palms up, she said, “It’s not your job to save me, Barnaby.”

  “By the gods above, it is, when I’m the cause of your danger.” He consciously relaxed his fisted hands when she scooted back. “A true man keeps his promise. There’s no way I can atone for what happened to you. Even if we had a future ...”

  “Even if we had a future, it’s gone now, right?” Pointing to her chest, she added, “Because we can’t ... because ... yeah.”

  “No! That’s not what I mean.”

  She wrapped her hands over each upper arm. “Don’t lie on my account. I know the score. I know what’s happened to me. I’m not fit for anyone’s future.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all.” How had he lost all control of this conversation? She wasn’t the problem. Not even close.

  “Bull.”

  “Please.”

  Between her tear-filled eyes and the pulse pounding at her neck, he didn’t know how to help. A red flush crept over her neck, and she laced her fingers together, as if by doing so she could hold herself together.

  Her chin rose. “Look, I’d love to storm out and go for a long walk to process all this craziness, but my stupid legs aren’t working enough to get more than fifty feet into the wilderness on account of fallout from my bad workplace decisions, the miscarriage of a cult leader’s baby, and forced tranquilizer use. So I’m going to have to ask you to leave me alone for a while.”

  “Jane ...”

  “You say you’re jonesing for a kill. Why don’t you go get it?” The ice in her voice chilled his skin.

  “What?”

  “Put your money where your mouth is. Get out. Please.”

  “Does it count that this is my cabin?”

  Like a vase shattering, she burst into tears.

  Coward that he was, Barnaby fled.

  • • •

  Jane’s wretched day only got worse when night started to fall and there was no sign of Barnaby.

  Since she had used up her quota of walking by pacing, she now lolled on the couch in her ill-fitting tracksuit, exhausted. Way too many trips to the front window and back, combined with her battered heart, had left her spent in body and spirit.

  Oh my God, she’d kicked Barnaby out of his own house. Told him to go and do the thing that disturbed her most about him.

  Why was she scared? He’d never hurt her, right?

  So what if he’d sacrificed his entire existence years ago to save flippin’ Elizabeth, Queen of England. Maybe he could get sainthood.

  Sure, he had protected Jane in Saigon, and then he’d rescued her from the hellish psych ward.

  Then he upended his entire life and helped her to heal, waiting on her hand and foot, and allowing her to regain her strength.

  She wasn’t scared of Barnaby.

  Jane was scared of herself, scared that she might never deserve a life with a good man. A man who put others ahead of himself.

  Nasty self-contempt rattled against her ribs.

  God, look what she’d done, in the name of her job.

  What right did she have to judge him?

  The crunch of gravel and the flash of headlights made her heart jump in her chest.

  She steeled herself to give Barnaby the apology he deserved.

  A car door slammed.

  All right. She took a deep breath.

  Then a second door slammed, and a third.

  At the fourth door slam, fear drove her to her feet next to the couch.

  Male voices filtered through the walls.

  A shadow flickered across the front window, followed by a harsh flashlight beam that pierced the interior of the cabin.

  She dove to the floor.

  Maybe it was the police?

  Maybe monkeys would fly out of her butt.

  At a rap on the door, she jumped.

  “... said she’d be in here,” a male voice growled.

  A more tenor-voiced man replied, “The girl at the store said he drove off by himself ... your woman’s got to be in the cabin.”

  “Then get in there and find her.”

  “We don’t know she’s here for sure. It’s breaking and entering.”

  “Like I care about that shit? I want her ass here. Now. Dig it?” She knew that growling voice. Sweat beaded her upper lip.

  “Roger, boss.”

  At the first heavy thud against the door, she scanned the cabin for an escape route.

  One way in and out through the front door, unless she counted the porch. Suspended at least twenty feet above the steep mountainside below, the porch wouldn’t work. Too weak to climb down the angled cantilevered supports and drop to the ground, she had run out of options in record time.

  The thuds stopped.

  She crawled to the bedroom.

  How about the small closet? No. Someone would look there for sure. Her only chance was to convince them no one was home.

  A crash of glass from the front window sent shards of dread slicing through her nerves.

  Dragging herself under the bed, she edged toward the wall as footsteps came closer. She curled into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest.
<
br />   The overhead light came on.

  With a familiar clomp, a pair of tan Dingos scuffed to a halt at the end of the bed.

  A second set of shoes, worn loafers, stopped about four feet away from Jane, next to the chair Barnaby sat in while she slept. Her heart rate cranked into high gear.

  “Jesus, when I get my hands on that woman, she’ll be sorry, that’s all I can say.”

  Thumps and crashes from the kitchen and living room bore testament to the destruction of Barnaby’s cabin retreat. Somehow, she’d pay for the damage. Only right, since Thompson and his buddies would never have come here if it weren’t for Jane and her failed mission.

  God, how she’d failed.

  The loafers pivoted ninety degrees away from her hiding place.

  Then the bedside lamp shattered, tiny pieces of glass skidding under the bed.

  With a crunch on the ruined material, the loafers moved away.

  Silence.

  Maybe they’d left.

  Out of the corner of her eye, the buckles on the damned Dingo boots glinted as they came to a stop on the other side of the bed.

  Sweat dripped down her forehead, and she bit her fist to keep quiet.

  “Hello, lost little dove.” Thompson’s voice vibrated with barely contained fury.

  Before she could turn, her head jerked as Thompson dragged her by her hair from under the bed. Glass scored her arms. Pain blasted from her scalp as he pulled her to a sitting position.

  “Get up,” Thompson said in a too-calm-to-be-believed tone.

  His heavy, sweaty face looming over her. Same man, same cruelty.

  On tottering legs, she stood up against the closet door, using the handle for support.

  Dusty loafers, that other jerk, chuckled from behind Thompson’s shoulder.

  Two other men hovered in the doorway of the bedroom.

  The DEA did not have a training module for this scenario.

  Because there was no solution.

  A strange calm settled over Jane. All her struggle to find a purpose in this crazy world. It had all been for nothing.

  Poor Barnaby. He’d rescued her only to postpone the inevitable outcome.

  A metal click grabbed her attention. Thompson pointed a black Magnum at her.

  Well, this was going to hurt.

  Her legs shook. They wouldn’t hold her for long.

  Probably didn’t need much time anyway. Still, a perverse instinct to stall the unavoidable took over.

  “Why are you doing this, Thompson?” she asked.

  “You know too much.” He licked those damp lips that previously had been all over her.

  She shuddered. “No one would believe me, with as many drugs as were in my system. So why all the trouble?”

  “Who wants to take a chance with a narc?”

  “I’m not—”

  “Shut up. Your boss, Howard, and I are business partners. I know what you are.”

  Confirmation of her fears nailed her between the eyes. “Please, I—”

  “Don’t care. You’re done.” He motioned dusty loafers over and handed him the gun. “Actually, you do it. I don’t want any blood on my hands.”

  “What harm could another drop do?” Devil made her ask. She had a serious case of the don’t-cares.

  Thompson snatched the gun back himself and leveled it at her head.

  The world exploded.

  Chapter 16

  Barnaby dragged his sorry ass back to Jane, steering the car back to the cabin.

  His entire existence. For nothing. And the relief he felt from that kill earlier today, like it somehow gave his life purpose? Bunk and hypocrisy.

  The only thing preventing his separation from humanity waited in that cabin.

  His instinct for danger went off the charts, nearly blinding him.

  Fifty yards before cresting the top of the mountain, he stomped the brakes and parked the Nova. Leaving the door open, he disappeared into the woods and slunk his way to the cabin. With the sun down, the darkness allowed him to get within twenty feet of the front door.

  A dark Chrysler Imperial hissed and popped in front of the closed cabin door. Where the living room window had been, now jagged pieces of broken glass jutted up from the sill. Voices and thuds from within the cabin iced Barnaby’s blood.

  Jane.

  As he crouched and sidled to the window, the voices confirmed his worst fears.

  “Why are you doing this, Thompson?” Her voice, thin in the night air, drove Barnaby to a protective madness.

  When he peered through the ruined window, light from the bedroom cast two men in shadows. But the voices came from within that room.

  The minion.

  And Jane.

  Barnaby heard a metallic click that stopped his heart.

  With one smooth movement, he drew the knife from his leg sheath and hurdled the windowsill. In two steps, he’d reached the men in the doorway and felled them with lightning-fast thrusts of the knife.

  Before the men could drop, Barnaby sunk the blade into the chest of a big, hulking man several feet away from Thompson.

  Pivoting, Barnaby spied Jane’s mouth opening in an O of horror as Thompson aimed a gun squarely at her. She clutched the closet doorknob in a white-knuckled grip.

  “Don’t move,” the man snarled.

  Thompson could have been talking to either of them, but Barnaby held still, just in case. The distance to save Jane from a bullet was too great. The bed and a minion stood in the way. Barnaby could vault the bed but would never stop Thompson in time.

  But if the minion fired and missed, that would give Barnaby enough time to get to Thompson.

  Locking his gaze on to Jane, Barnaby mouthed the word “down.” When Thompson spun back to him, Barnaby held stock-still.

  “I will not have my empire destroyed by lowlifes like you two,” Thompson seethed. His eyes darted over the bodies of his fallen comrades, and he wiped sweat from his forehead. “I won’t fail my master, either.”

  “We won’t tell,” Barnaby said.

  Thompson’s wild, minion-insane eyes rolled in his sockets. “Don’t care what you will and won’t do, Indebted. I’m removing your options. Besides, lord Jerahmeel requires my obedience. Therefore, if I cannot mate with her, then she will die.”

  Barnaby hurled himself at the man.

  Thompson pulled the trigger.

  Jane dropped to the floor, limp.

  Thompson nailed Barnaby in the head with the butt of the gun, staggering him backward. Barnaby shook his head and planted his feet, ready to strike, but his hands were empty.

  The knife lay on the floor, inches from Jane.

  As she lifted her head and reached for the knife, Barnaby howled a warning to stop. Any mortal who touched the blade would die instantly.

  Recoiling as if a snake had bitten her, Jane curled into a ball as Thompson took aim at her again.

  Barnaby hit the man square between the shoulder blades, and the gun went off in a splinter of wood inches from her head. Jane yelped. God, if she’d been hit ... Barnaby leveled Thompson with a few good blows and a cracking kick to the shin. Then Thompson planted his meaty fist into Barnaby’s cheekbone, enough to make stars spin around Barnaby’s head. Whoreson minion was tremendously strong.

  Thompson cocked the gun again. “All right, you first, Mr. Hero. I’ll take my time finishing off Ms. Rat afterward.”

  Not acceptable. Barnaby drove Thompson into the far wall, indenting the solid wood wall and knocking the gun out of the man’s hand. The desire to reconnect with the cursed knife drove Barnaby insane. He wanted to kill the minion, but he needed to have the knife in his hand when he did it. Separation from the knife tore Barnaby apart.

  In the split second he turned his back on Thompson, the minion pounded Barnaby in a commendable set of kidney punches. Barnaby would piss blood later. If there was a later. He hauled air into his lungs and braced for another impact when he felt the man loom over him. Barnaby couldn’t discern much with h
is swollen eyes and addled brain.

  Then, a bang and thud.

  Then nothing.

  Because he didn’t know what he would find, Barnaby raised his head slowly, praying that the gunshot had missed Jane.

  Her tear-streaked face and wide, teal eyes smashed his heart to pieces. Thompson lay gasping on the cabin floor, a spreading bloom of blood soaking his shirt. Jane’s hand shook, but she kept the gun aimed at Thompson.

  Then the damned minion planted his meaty hands on the floor and pushed to a sitting position.

  He was getting up.

  And his furious gaze had locked on to Jane.

  No. Barnaby grabbed his knife and plunged it into Thompson’s chest, right below the sternum. The knife flared as it drank the corrupt soul into the metal. Barnaby sighed in blissful relief.

  At a strangled cry from Jane, though, his joy at the kill drained into the floor to mingle with Thompson’s blood.

  “Oh, my love,” he said softly. Easing the gun out of her grip, he set it far away from the now-still body on the floor. Quickly, he cleaned and stowed his knife.

  “Barnaby? You came back.” When her voice cracked like that, his heart flipped over.

  He pulled her into his arms and held on until she squeaked in pain. His grip was too tight. Couldn’t help it. This was Jane. He’d nearly lost her because of his pride. She was his last anchor to humanity.

  Without her, he would be a husk of a man. A sham of a living creature.

  He brushed his mouth over her forehead, almost to convince himself that she lived. Her skin, clean and vital, reassured him.

  “Oh my God, those men—Thompson—was going to kill me. What happened to Thompson? He looked bigger, meaner ... possessed, almost,” she said. “You killed them so quickly? With that knife?”

  Leaning back, he blew out air he didn’t know he’d been holding. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  “You really are a killer, aren’t you? That whole story was completely true.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  She pushed a fall of hair off of her face. “Well, I’m a killer now, too.”

  “It’s not the same. What you had to do was different.”

  Her voice registered as barely a whisper. “I killed him.”

  “He would have hurt you, Jane. Besides, you only slowed Thompson down so I could finish him off.”