by Jory Strong
He released her hair. "I have been accused of many things, but never of being loco."
Dry mouthed, Eliana forced her attention away from the warlord and onto the woman who was to take her to the bathroom. There was speculation in Rosa's eyes.
Eliana offered a tentative smile. It wasn't returned, but the old woman's lips weren't as thin as they'd been a moment earlier.
"This way," Rosa said.
Makayla had not moved from the stairwell entry. There was less hostility in her expression than before, but still enough of it that hope flared and Eliana wrapped mental arms around that hope, hugging it tightly to her chest.
Makayla obviously didn't fear the warlord. To get rid of an unwelcome guest, Makayla might be willing to help her escape. Especially if I spend time in Josiah's bed.
Eliana tried pushing the thought away, but it only cycled more frantically when she followed Rosa into a bedroom that could only be Josiah's and then into a bathroom with a claw-footed tub.
Rosa moved to a mirrored cabinet, opened it and pulled out a bar of soap, handing it to Eliana. It smelled like the warlord.
Eliana shivered. Once she'd bathed, she'd smell as though she belonged to him.
Rosa left, partially closing the door behind her. Eliana stoppered the tub and opened the hot and cold water faucets but didn't strip. As much as she longed to slip into the water and scrub away the memory of being seen and touched by the men Josiah had killed, desperation threatened to drown her.
She'd wait for Makayla to bring the dress. She'd plead with Makayla to help her get out of the house before nightfall.
A knock sounded on the door. "Come in," Eliana said.
Makayla entered, turned to shut the door, but the stern-faced Rosa stood there as if afraid to allow the two of them to be alone together.
Eliana's hope of gaining an ally plummeted, leaving the insides of her chest feeling raw and her throat aching.
Makayla turned back toward Eliana, frustration on her face before it became a mask of politeness. She hung an off-white dress from the top of the mirror. "All yours."
"Thank you."
A nod and Makayla left. Rosa closed the door with a decisive snap.
Eliana stripped and slipped into the heated water. Its warmth made her think of what she'd felt upon waking in Jax's arms, pressed against the hard, hot length of his body. I wish—
But wishes were foolish. Wishes were things she couldn't afford, though it didn't prevent her from picturing him as he'd stripped out of his shirt the night before, revealing ink-covered skin she hadn't had nearly enough time to explore.
She understood the meaning of some of the art, or thought she did, from the scraps of papers passed around by the girls she'd gone to school with. It was a punishable offense to get caught with anything that indicated an interest in the men who populated the warrens, especially the warlords.
NO MERCY. Only a hard, ruthless man would ink those words across his heart.
He was that man. But he was more too.
Her heart fluttered at remembering him capturing a tear when she'd been thinking of leaving Michael in the woods. It tightened with the remembered feel of the scars across his back.
He'd suffered. He'd lost people he cared about. No warren was taken without death.
She tried to force thoughts of Jax away, but it was impossible as she bathed. The glide of her hands over skin made her think of his touch.
For so long it'd felt as if she lived in the cold. After being with Jax, part of her refused to go back to that place of icy aloneness.
The water cooled and she got out of the tub, dried and dressed, a blush climbing her neck and flaming through her cheeks at the feel of the material against her bare body.
The lack of panties and bra made her feel vulnerable, sensual, nervous. She shivered, torn between the hope that Jax would come for her, and the knowledge of what might happen with Josiah if Jax didn't.
Eliana smoothed her hands over the dress, hesitant to leave the safety of the bathroom until it occurred to her that there might still be a chance to gain Makayla's help.
She opened the door and stepped into the bedroom. A dark-haired boy no older than five sat next to the doorway, a homemade book on his lap.
Her throat closed. For an instant she saw another dark-haired boy sitting with his head down, his small finger tracing letters in a homemade book.
The boy in Josiah's bedroom looked up, easing some of the tightness in her chest and throat. He didn't look like Michael.
He scrambled to his feet. "I'll take you to the front parlor."
"Are you Josiah's son?"
He didn't answer, though each one of his glances as they crossed to the bedroom door chiseled away at defenses that had already been weakened by the encounter with Jax.
They stepped into the hallway and traveled to the opposite end of the house, then entered a room with delicately patterned wallpaper and windows that looked out on the street and the old plaza with its dry fountain.
The boy sat on a loveseat and touched his hand to the cushion next to him. Hope shone in his eyes that she would sit next to him.
Her throat tightened again, but for a different reason. Rosa was right in what she'd told Josiah. The boy needed a mother. He craved one.
She joined him on the loveseat and he snuggled closer, the way Michael used to do. "I'm Jacob."
She was sorry she hadn't given Josiah her first name. She hadn't thought she could, not when there was every chance that the trackers were searching for a woman named Eliana.
"I'm Marie."
He placed his book on her lap. "Will you read to me?"
Ache streaked through her chest. A burn started there and traveled up her throat and into her eyes. She brushed Jacob's hair off his forehead, heart spasming at the smile he gave her, a smile that was far more similar to Michael's smile than Jacob's features were.
Except Michael wasn't this age any longer. She had to believe he'd been found, that he was okay.
He'd be a teen now. The baby sister who'd just started walking would be eleven, only a year younger than she'd been when she'd trusted her heart and slipped away to meet Ansell. Her older brothers might have already left the family to join the tribes of their mates, or have taken mates and remained, fathering children.
A chasm opened inside her. She was no longer twelve. The life in the wild lands that she'd dreamed of and schemed to return to no longer existed. Her family would be happy for her return and Ansell, if he was still with the tribe, would be punished, but… Time had moved on, and all their lives with it.
She allowed herself to dream about staying instead of escaping, about what it would be like if Jax came to retrieve her because he wanted her, not the reward, what it would be like if he prevailed against Stefan and kept her.
They were foolish thoughts, as fanciful as the tales Michael used to love. Jax wouldn't come for her.
Her hand dropped to the book on her lap. "Start at the beginning?"
"If that'd be okay with you."
She opened the book to the first page and began reading. Jacob relaxed in contentment, and she couldn't stop herself from imagining a smaller version of Jax snuggled up next to her for a story.
Chapter 8
Steps away from one of the salvage boxes, Jax thought about tossing the panties and bra into it and being done with Eliana.
There were plenty of women who wanted in his bed. And not one of them would leave unless he forced her to go.
He should ring the bells that'd signal to his scattered men that the search was over. He should take one of the women available in the house up to his room. Hell, he should take a couple of them and fuck the memory of Eliana out of his mind.
He touched the pocket holding the wispy, barely-there panties and bra. And kept going, past the salvage box.
A trespasser stepped into view. At Jax's left, Rand grunted. "We've got company."
"I see him. He's one of Josiah's men."
"DeAn
gelo. Inner circle."
Jax nodded.
The white bandanna tied around DeAngelo's upper arm said he'd been sent with a message and any harm done to him would be returned ten-fold.
Jax stopped, forcing the messenger to come to him.
DeAngelo arrived wearing a smirk and fueling the anger already riding Jax. Maybe he should have some of the spies in his territory rounded up for questioning, or better yet, catch a tracker and work some answers about who wanted Eliana back out of him.
"Josiah wants to know if you're missing anything of value," DeAngelo said.
Eliana's naked image filled Jax's thoughts. In a heartbeat, anger flashed into furious possessiveness. She better not have been touched. If she had…
The cool metal of the gun at his back offered a solution and a warning. Men would die if he lost his head over a woman, if he let one mean too much to him. Good men, his men, would pay the price if he went to war with Josiah over Eliana.
"What does Josiah think he has that belongs to me?" Jax asked.
"Something damn fine, too good for a run-in with a couple of men intent on raping her."
Hot rage returned, and Jax knew DeAngelo had been watching for it, saw it because he couldn't come anywhere close to hiding it.
"Josiah have the men?" Jax asked, not bothering to suppress the intention to kill them from his voice.
"Already dealt with. Pretty sure he'll say you're welcome to the corpses."
And Eliana? How badly did they hurt her before she ended up with Josiah?
"What does Josiah want for her?"
DeAngelo shrugged. "Don't know. You want to bargain for her, you come with me. No guards. Just you."
"Fuck that," Rand said, and Jax knew that none of his guys would question why he'd called off the search once they knew Josiah had her. As far as they were concerned, she was nothing special, just another easy woman, one who'd happened to leave his territory before he learned she was worth something to someone.
Jax's heart skipped a beat because that didn't explain DeAngelo's showing up with a message. "She say she belongs to me?"
The smirk returned. "Told that to the scum Josiah killed. Just told Josiah she'd been in your bed last night."
And she'd fucking end up there again. "All right. I'll play Josiah's game."
DeAngelo laughed. "Don't think he cares one way or another whether you want to bargain for her. Just doesn't want any trouble when she turns all grateful and spreads her—"
Jax lunged forward, but Rand was on him in an instant, keeping him from jumping DeAngelo.
He slammed his elbow into Rand's ribs, tried to shake him off.
Rand grunted but held on. "White flag, Jax. You let your shit go on DeAngelo, you're not coming out of Josiah's territory fit to fuck any woman, much less the one Josiah's got."
Jax wrestled his temper down. Trouble. That's what she was, but she was his trouble.
He stopped struggling. Four heartbeats later Rand released him. Looking at Rand, he said, "Back in three, at the far corner of section two. Tell the men."
"Sure thing."
Clock was ticking. He'd come out in three hours, and alive, or they'd start preparing for war.
DeAngelo turned his back on them and started walking. Jax's gun hand twitched.
Rand muttered, "Keep your shit together, Jax."
"Working on it."
"Work hard. Goddamn, I should have placed a bet with Noah."
Jax ignored him and headed toward Josiah's territory. He didn't make any effort to catch up to DeAngelo, didn't need to. He knew the way to Josiah's place, and with DeAngelo in sight and wearing the white rag, no one would be stupid enough to attack.
Too bad. He'd fucking welcome an attack right now.
Jax took a deep breath, refused to think about Eliana with Josiah. Rand had it right. He needed to get his shit together and keep it together. Better yet, he needed to figure out how to break his obsession with her. He was starting to think just fucking wouldn't do it, not that he wouldn't do just that when he got his hands on her.
At his border, the houses were all painted shades of green. Tagging marked the place where his turf met Josiah's, not that it was needed. The color of the houses changed to shades of blue.
Women were out in some of the yards, same as they'd been in his territory. There were kids, some playing in the dirt, some helping with laundry hung on lines between houses, some working in small gardens.
DeAngelo's pace slowed over a couple of blocks until the two of them were walking side-by-side. The smirk warned Jax that he wasn't going to like what was coming.
"We're going to the house, not the shop."
Jax's heart spasmed. He couldn't prevent it, but at least the reaction wasn't out there for DeAngelo to see.
Doesn't mean Eliana wants to be with Josiah, he told himself. Doesn't mean he gave her a choice about going to his house. Josiah was as much of a manwhore as any other warlord; hard not to be with so many willing women around.
Shrugging, Jax said, "House is just as good a place as any to do this."
The smirk widened. "If you say so."
Jax kept his shit together by not responding.
They reached the entranceway to a maze of secured passageways through a rubbled mix of old office buildings.
DeAngelo took the lead. Jax followed.
When they emerged from the concrete maze, the sight of the Victorian house fired Jax's nerve-endings. Don't react when you see her.
The door opened when they reached the porch. The same old woman who'd been keeping house and watching Josiah's sister the last time he'd gone there, said, "He's waiting for you upstairs, in the front parlor."
DeAngelo led the way and stopped next to the doorway. Jax went in, an inferno blast of heat halting him the instant he saw Eliana. Just looking at her was nearly enough to unravel him.
Their eyes met, scorching the air between them. The hint of erotic fear he saw in her satisfied him more than a blowjob from another woman would.
Her hair was pulled to the side, baring the left side of her neck and the mark he'd left on her, reminding him of the emotions that'd engulfed him when he had his mouth and teeth on her satiny skin.
She was wearing a virginal, off-white dress. On another woman it would have caused his eyes to slide away with disinterest. On her, it accented a freshness that heightened her exotic beauty and had him mentally peeling the fabric away to reveal breasts capped with tight nipples and the small triangle of pubic hair that would arrow his attention to the snug haven where their bodies joined.
Her feet were bare, making him remember the time he'd been counting the number of kids a polygamist had when the man laughed and said, "Best way to keep women out of trouble is to keep them barefoot and pregnant."
The motherfucker might just be on to something.
Jax's cock agreed.
His eyes returned to her face and her lashes lowered, everything about her going submissive. This was part of what fueled the obsession, he realized, along with the freshness and the fact that she hadn't wanted anything from him, hadn't tried to capitalize on the surrender of her virginity.
The urge to spear his fingers through her hair and tug so her mouth was lifted to his had him moving forward with intent. Josiah's laugh was like gunfire blasting him into consciousness.
Fuck. He'd been so caught up in Eliana that no one else existed.
"Guess there's no question about her being yours," Josiah said from a chair next to the loveseat, not even an arms-length away from Eliana.
Jax dropped onto a dark blue cushion, the positioning of the furniture requiring him to twist to face Josiah, with Eliana intentionally placed between them. The message clear. If they didn't reach an agreement, she became Josiah's.
"Wait downstairs," Josiah told DeAngelo. "I don't think this will take long."
DeAngelo pushed away from the doorframe and left. Jax draped an arm along the back of the loveseat. His thigh touched Eliana's and for the first ti
me in his life, the desire to pull a woman onto his lap wasn't casual lust, but animal possessiveness.
He breathed deeply, but instead of her scent, his nostrils filled with the smell of masculine soap, Josiah's soap.
Jax gripped the back of the loveseat, fought against lunging forward. If she'd been wearing Josiah's colors, he wouldn't have managed to keep from starting a fight.
Josiah's smile was amusement at his expense, and Jax vowed that if he ever had the chance to make Josiah suffer over a woman, he'd take that chance.
"Shall we start the bargaining?" Josiah asked, glancing at Eliana, his eyes sliding down her body appreciatively.
Jax's gun hand twitched on the back of the loveseat.
Josiah laughed. "Maybe I'll just give her to you and groom someone to take over your territory. Marie is a beautiful woman. In a month's time you'll probably kill half your men for looking at her."
Where his thigh touched Eliana's, Jax felt a little shudder go through her. At having given Josiah a different name? Or because now he knew she'd given him a false one too?
"What do you want?" he asked Josiah.
"Two hundred pounds of copper."
Exactly twice the price Diego had offered Noah. It couldn't be a coincidence but he didn't care. He didn't have time for this bullshit.
"Done," Jax said, unable to keep himself from grasping a handful of Eliana's silky hair to demonstrate she belonged to him.
A soft sound of want escaped before Eliana could prevent it. He'd come for her. But more importantly, he didn't act like a man who intended to surrender her to another man, even if that man could offer far more than two hundred pounds of copper to get her back.
Jax tugged the fisted strands and her nipples became hard points pressed to the front of the borrowed dress. Heat rushed up her neck and spread across her cheeks. Embarrassment, that he so easily showed his mastery over her body.
A hard, thorough kiss followed, ending when Josiah asked, "Should I throw in use of a room before you leave?"
Jax stood. His hand manacled her upper arm, commanding her to her feet.
Josiah laughed. "I'll take that as a no."
He rose from the chair. "Since we're neighbors, I'll give you twenty-four hours to make good on our deal. I'll put a man where you cross from my territory into yours."
