by Anna Argent
He came in low, sweeping her beloved ASS YARD stick high with the full force of his weight. The purple crystals sparkled in the faint blue light coming from Radek’s spear.
And while a glowing weapon fell firmly in the What the Hell? category, she didn’t have time to think about the implications. Instead, her entire focus was on the giant man who shoved her backward until she came to an abrupt stop against a hard metal wall.
Sharp pain spiraled out from the back of her skull where it struck the wall. Dizziness slid through her. Bright lights splashed across her field of vision. The urge to close her eyes was nearly irresistible. The only thing that kept her conscious was the certain knowledge that if she passed out, she would become a statistic. Victim. Prey.
Like hell.
Ava gathered her strength, let out a scream of rage, and charging, slammed the bat down onto the giant man’s head.
The move was awkward. She couldn’t give him the full force of her strength, but an object that hard contacting his skull definitely got his attention.
The bad kind of attention.
He snarled and wrapped a beefy hand around her throat. He pulled her head away from the wall and slammed it back again, making her curls bob around her face.
Another sharp knife of pain sliced through her skull, but it was less important than the fact that she could no longer pull in a breath.
Ava kicked and clawed, using every evasive maneuver she knew, but there was little she could do with such a huge weight plastering her against a wall with her feet dangling above the ground.
She tried to calm herself enough to think, but the searing fury coursing through her was almost as distracting as her impending suffocation.
Her innate feeling of doom danced around in her empty lungs, causing panic to spread through her tingling limbs.
Her heart fluttered as it struggled to circulate what little oxygen she had left in her blood. Her toes began to buzz, and her fingers felt number by the second.
The sound of her heels weakly hitting the metal wall mocked her. The stench of sweat filled her nose. With no breath left to blow it out, she was forced to endure.
But not for long. She didn’t have much time left.
Doom, doom, doom!
Little dots of light and color—like exploding fireflies filled with glitter—went off in her vision.
From the corner of her eye, she could see Radek flash by. On her right came a grunt of pain, and a thud of a body falling.
He was fighting her enemies.
A pale blue light flared, but she couldn’t tell if it was real or her oxygen-starved brain playing tricks on her.
“Burn him!” ordered Radek. She couldn’t see him anymore, but she recognized his deep, enraged voice.
Burn him? Sure, that would be great, but she had no lighter, no matches. There were no convenient iron pokers heating in equally convenient nearby fireplaces either. How the hell was she supposed to burn anything?
“Burn him!” This time the order was more commanding. “Burn him with your hands!”
Her hands? Confusion fell over her like a dense fog, dulling her dwindling senses.
She tried to figure out how she was going to burn anyone when she could barely manage to do more than dangle here while she suffocated.
More grunts echoed around her. Beau’s voice rose in a growl of pain. Heavy footsteps beat against the ground. Gravel crunched underfoot.
Radek’s voice came again, harsh between the dull thuds of fists hitting flesh. “Use your hands!”
Then she felt it: heat spilling from her fingertips. It wasn’t a trick of the mind. She really was putting off heat. A lot of it.
Ava stopped thrashing, stopped fighting. She shut out everything else but the feel of her hands growing hotter against this asshole’s skin.
She had no idea how it happened, but the more she focused on the heat spilling from her hands, the more heat she put off. Every scrap of rage and fear seemed to flow though her, converting to a fire in her blood like she’d never felt before.
A faint sizzling sound slipped in between the grunts of combat. The man holding her began making desperate noises of pain and confusion.
Ava kept concentrating on her hands, shoving every last bit of energy she had into them. With every weakening beat of her heart, more fire bloomed inside her grip.
The man holding her screamed and reared back, letting her go. As he did, she caught a glimpse of the blisters lining his forearms. They were in the shape of her hands—angry, red and sizzling as his skin bubbled.
The first breath of air hit her lungs like a drug. Euphoria swirled through her mind, taking control and forcing her to stay where she was, rather than chasing after the burned man to finish him off. She sucked in breath after breath, wheezing and gasping in an effort to get enough.
By the time she was strong enough to lift her head, she saw a pale blue blur of light flare brighter. The giant who’d hurt her limped away, holding his blistered arms.
A sense of confusion rattled around inside her head, but it was nothing compared to the deep wash of relief she felt with every breath she inhaled.
The machine shed went quiet. One man lay on the ground, unmoving. There was a deep gash across his shoulder, and several shallower ones sprinkled across his arms and legs. His chest rose and fell, telling her that he was still alive.
The other two men—Beau and his giant, strangling buddy—were gone.
Only Radek remained.
He was breathing hard and bleeding from a couple of shallow cuts across his bare chest. There was a bruise forming under the dark skin on his left cheek, and more blood leaking from his nose.
He wiped it away, but didn’t approach. The light on the end of the pole he held dimmed until it was gone. The wooden stick seemed innocuous and completely incapable of the damage she’d seen it inflict.
Then again, her own hands had done just as much damage. She stared at them, wondering how it was possible.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She couldn’t speak. Not yet. Her throat was still too busy frantically funneling air into her lungs. Instead she nodded and bent to pick up her baseball bat. Just in case she was going to need to use it again.
He took a step closer, but she pointed the bat at him in warning. Her arm was weak and shaking, but he was smart enough to understand her unspoken command.
He took a small step back.
“You have to know by now that I won’t hurt you.”
“Maybe. But my head is a bit foggy right now. I think it’s best if we just stay in our separate corners until I’m thinking straight.”
“They got away,” he said, watching her. “Should I follow them and finish what they started?”
Her head stopped pounding so hard. “No. No one is dead yet. That’s probably for the best.”
“I wanted to kill them,” he said, as though it was important that she understand that. “They attacked you. Two of them had knives.”
Sure enough, she saw one blade in the hand of the unconscious man, and another lying nearby. “What about the third guy?” she asked.
His gaze slid down to her bruised neck. “His hands were weapon enough, don’t you think?”
She definitely did. “Thanks for stopping him. I’ve grown rather fond of breathing.”
Now that oxygen was no longer in short supply, she had the sense to realize what they’d just done. “This won’t stop Beau’s bad behavior. He’ll come back, and this time with more friends.”
Radek’s bronze eyes moved back to the mouth of the alley. “I could follow them. Take care of the problem for good.”
“You mean kill them?” she asked. He was unlike any man she’d ever seen, and that weapon he wielded was the stuff of sci-fi movies.
He looked at her again, and that deep sense of relief flared. “Does it matter?”
Beneath the heavy leather bands around his wrists, tendons shifted and muscles bunched. His chest was wide and completely bare, d
espite the chill in the air. From the waist down he looked normal enough in jeans and boots, but there was no mistaking that he wasn’t normal. Not even close.
Every move he made radiated fluid strength. Confidence.
And why shouldn’t he be confident? The man was a huge, graceful mass of bone and muscles, armed with some kind of magical weapon, with the skill to fend off multiple dangerous men in the space of a few seconds.
He was the kind of man who could do whatever he wanted if he put his mind to it.
The highly tuned sense of danger Ava had been born with—the one that flared every time trouble was near—was humming in the background, as if it too was uncertain of his intentions.
Once he was distracted by the unconscious man again, Ava shifted toward the door of the machine shed and the escape route it offered.
Without looking at her, he said, “If you run, I’m going to have to catch you.”
“You can try. I think you should be more worried about being attached to three assault charges.”
“One of whom has your fingerprints burned into his flesh.”
Okay. Point taken. “What the hell was that trick with the blazing hands? And how did you know it was even possible for me to do it?”
That bronze stare hit her, nearly driving the breath from her lungs again. “How do you think?”
Ava knew she was a freak. She’d never fit in. If not for her mom’s neighbor taking pity on her when her mom died, Ava wouldn’t have had the family she had now. She was adopted. Welcomed.
But she had never been like them.
And here he was, with knowledge about her that even she didn’t have. The only way she could begin to explain it was, “You can do the same thing, can’t you? You’re like me.”
He continued staring at her. “I’m from Loriah, of House Soric. And now I know that you are too.”
“I don’t even know what any of that means.”
“You will. Soon.” Before she even had time to flinch, Radek moved inside her reach, grabbed her bat so she couldn’t beat him with it. He used his free hand to lift her chin. “For now I will make sure you’re safe.”
As he inspected the damage to her throat, his warm, rough fingers grazed across her neck, giving her a shiver. The feeling was gone so fast she barely had time to acknowledge it, much less understand it.
His touch lingered, probed, caressed. “You’ll wear a bruise for a while. Can you swallow okay? Any trouble breathing?”
Only when he touched her, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “I’m fine.”
His fingers shifted slightly, sliding across her jaw.
This time she was sure about the shiver she felt. It started at the tips of his fingers and wriggled its way down to her toes, shaking everything in between.
One big hand splayed through her hair, holding her skull still. The other covered her neck, growing colder by the second, like some kind of living ice pack.
Ava nearly groaned in pleasure as her battered tissue cooled. The throbbing eased until all she could feel was his gentle, restrained strength.
“That’s it,” he crooned. “Just relax and let me dull your pain.”
She didn’t know this man, no matter how familiar he acted. Letting him touch her was both dangerous and stupid.
But it felt so damn good.
After what was probably way too long, she finally gathered enough willpower to do what she knew was best. Safest.
Ava gripped his thick wrist and tugged, forcing him to move his hand from her skin. “I have to go home. Beau could go after my sister. I need to be there to keep an eye on her.”
He rubbed his fingertips over his bottom lip as if touching her had somehow affected him too. “If those men bother you again, I’ll have to kill them. We don’t have time for this kind of delay.”
Why his violent statement made her feel a sudden surge of warmth, she had no idea. Then again, a whole lot had happened tonight that she didn’t understand.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“You’re needed at home. Your real home.”
“My real home is currently occupied by two women who have no idea how to defend themselves from the likes of Beau. That’s where I’m needed. That’s where I’m going.”
She turned her back on him, hoping her instincts weren’t broken. If he posed a threat, she was screwed. He’d taken down those men with so little effort he wasn’t even breathing hard. If he turned on her, she didn’t stand a chance.
His deep voice was quiet but commanding. “Go home, Ava. We’ll talk soon. In the meantime, I’ll be nearby if you need me.”
“I appreciate your help tonight, but I think it’s best if you just be on your way.”
“I can’t leave without you.”
“I said I’m not leaving my family. End of discussion.”
He let out a long, slow sigh, like he was trying to rein in his frustration. “There’s a lot more you need to know, but it can wait. Good night, Ava.”
She walked away, keeping her gaze firmly in front of her. She knew if she turned around and looked at him again, she’d be tempted to find out more about him—more about what he knew about her. That broad, naked expanse of his chest alone was enough to make her want to stick around and enjoy the sight.
He was like her—the only person like her she’d met since her mother’s death. And for the first time since that terrifying night, Ava remembered what it was like to not feel so alone. Not to feel so alien.
But she had a family here who needed her. People who depended on her, both financially and for their basic care and safety. They’d taken her in when no one else would, and for that she owed them everything. Learning more about who she used to be or where she came from couldn’t matter more than her family here and now. She loved them too much to let it matter, and if Radek stayed, her temptation to learn more would soon overwhelm her good sense.
“While I am deeply grateful for everything you’ve done, I’d rather you keep going on to wherever it is you were headed,” she said as she walked off. “It’s better if I never see you again. Good bye, Radek.”
Forever.
*****
Radek watched her walk away, using every bit of self-control he possessed to keep his feet planted where they were.
He wanted to follow Ava, to wrap his hands around her and hold her still while he forced her to listen to him.
People were dying. His people. Her people.
She had dismissed him like it didn’t even matter. He’d saved her life, and it hadn’t even earned him the chance to plead his case.
Fuck that.
She might not like him. She might not even like the fact that she was needed at home. But he’d be damned if she thought she could decide they were done and just walk away.
He deserved more than that.
Once his temper cooled enough that he wasn’t blowing plumes of steam into the air, he trusted his actions enough to let himself move.
Ava was going to listen to him one way or another. Even if he had to use force to make it happen.
Chapter Seven
Exhaustion clung to Ava’s limbs, slowing down her every move. She’d hardly slept at all, but rather spent the night pacing the house, checking on Mom and Emily every few minutes to make sure they were still safely asleep in their beds. Beau hadn’t come for them.
The little bit of sleep she had had was plagued with both nightmares about her family being slaughtered, and sweet, wicked dreams about Radek’s hands all over her.
She’d woken up in a sweat, shaking and terrified, though it hadn’t been the nightmares that had really scared her. It had been the other dreams. The dark, erotic images her brain had concocted in an effort to steal her peace of mind.
She couldn’t want Radek. He was a stranger. Dangerous. Alien.
Just like her.
Of all the men she could have had the hots for, she had to go and pick one who wanted to drag her away from her life here, leaving her fa
mily unprotected.
Over Ava’s dead body.
She forced herself out of bed and shambled downstairs to make coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.
Mom walked in, already dressed for work at the bank. Her tan slacks were too big for her again, thanks to the latest round of chemo. Her skin was sallow and pale, except for the dark grooves that cut deep beneath her eyes. Her blond wig covered a lot of the damage cancer had done to her, but Ava wasn’t fooled.
Mom was sick. Still. All the pain and effort she’d gone through to rid her body of the evil invader had failed. It was just a matter of time before the doctors admitted defeat. Heaven knew Mom never would.
“Coffee?” Ava offered.
“I’ll pass.” Mom winced and scrunched up her nose in disgust. “You got in late. Everything okay at work?”
Ava pulled her robe’s collar up to hide the faint bruises on her neck. “Stacy had to leave early again. Sick babies. It took a while to close up by myself.”
It wasn’t technically a lie, but Ava had left out one big, giant, sexy, scary part.
At the thought of Radek, his image flared in her mind, making even the staunchest parts of her go all weak and girly.
Not fair.
“Emily has a test today,” Mom said as she slid a piece of white bread into the toaster.
Ava switched gears and nuked some water for Mom’s tea. “I’ll make sure she gets up in time.”
“She said her car is acting up. Can you drive her to campus? I can pick her up after work so you’re not late for your shift.”
“Sure. I’ll get her up early enough we can drop off her car at the garage on the way.”
“I hope it’s not as expensive as last time.”
“My tips have been pretty good,” Ava lied. “I can cover it.”
“You’re already paying half of her tuition. At your age you should be spending your money on new clothes and nights out with the girls.”
Ava put an arm around her mom. “You and Emily are my girls. Besides, new clothes are wasted in this town and its lack of decent men. Now a new green apron… that would be sexy.”
