The Hunted

by L. A. Banks

  “You need to get out of here. And I’m not sure how I feel about any of this mess between us, okay? You’ve obviously made your decision. I told you, I made mine.” The fact that he could move so easily through any barriers around her worried her.

  He stepped in close enough for her to see him in the moonlight. The blue glow of it painted streaks down his black T-shirt, over his shoulder, and the bottom of his jaw. His eyes were dark, not flickering. She was glad. But another part of her felt a pang because she no longer had that effect on him.

  “I’m stronger, too, that’s all,” he murmured, stepping even closer now so their bellies touched. “You do have that effect on me, still. Always will.” He closed his eyes and smiled. “I’m just trying not to strike a match.”

  “You don’t have the right to go into my head like that anymore,” she said, pulling away. But she had to fold her arms to stop the shiver of want that rushed through her. She couldn’t even watch the hunger in his eyes when he opened them. It wasn’t gonna work this time. No.

  “I didn’t go into your head. All I had to do was listen to the night. I knew you wouldn’t run, and were in trouble. Just like I know your team is in deep shit out here. That’s why I came. You were yelling it in your mind, broadcasting it for me to hear.” He chuckled, putting his hands on her shoulders and allowing them to deliciously slide down her arms. “You’re powerful, honey. Your thoughts are stronger than you know. You also sent more than a regulation SOS to me. After what just went down between us, too . . . I don’t have to go in to hear you. Never did.”

  “Look,” she said with a swallow, stepping back. “My guys will be up here soon, this whole convo is bad form. Plus, this isn’t even my people’s place. It’s a friend of Mar’s—”

  “You all need to watch your backs out here. They ain’t what you think, baby. His squad has some deep shit with them. But they seem to be cool at the moment.”

  “They’re trying to help us, no matter what you think you saw.”

  “So I gathered,” he said softly against her neck as he moved in to seal the space she’d made between them. “Know exactly where the poor brother is. He’s dying inside. But he had to make a decision.”

  “We both did.”

  She’d meant her voice to come out with more force, more anger. She also noticed that he had referred to Kamal, and not the incident with Abdul being in her face. Growth perhaps. Guilty conscience, most likely. But oddly, and as irrational as it was, the fact that the presence of another male competing for her attention hadn’t even fazed him, stung.

  “I know, baby,” he said quietly after a moment. “This time I got myself really snagged between a rock and a hard place, but I wanted to see you just one more time. No disrespect to you, or your people intended.”

  His kissed her ear, and pulled it between his lips slowly, and let his breath out hard, then backed away. “I gotta go, but I just wanted you to know how I really felt, before some shit went down that’s irreversible.”

  The sensation that began at her ear had traveled down her neck, past her shoulder, wound its way around her heart, and was sending a slow, deep charge of desire through her belly as it crept lower. She could barely speak, much less breathe, but she had to know. “You’re gonna do this insane thing, aren’t you? For power and glory? Try to hijack daylight? To what end?”

  He shook his head and came in close to her again. Even though she stepped back, his finger traced her cheek. “Aw, baby, no. I’m doing it for you.”

  She closed her eyes at the sound of his voice, tender and gentle and reminding her with the touch the way he used to trace her face on the beach. “Don’t do this, it’s not fair.”

  “Life ain’t fair,” he said with a thick swallow. “I got busted. They found out I was playing both ends against the middle. The council called my bluff, the old counselor wants to cut a deal—your life, and your team’s lives, for this one thing I gotta do for him. You’re worth it.”

  “No, I’m not.” She shook her head and reached up to stroke the nape of his neck. “Nobody is worth your soul. Why didn’t you tell me before that they’d found you out?”

  “My soul is probably not even on the table for negotiation, baby. That’s long gone, now, no doubt. I’m scramblin’ for crumbs at this juncture. When you do some shit and you plea-bargain, you gonna do some time. Shabazz told you as much. That’s the law in all realms. So . . . I gotta go away for a little while. I didn’t tell you earlier because I didn’t want to break your heart. I knew you’d try to rush in and fix something that just couldn’t be fixed.”

  Her hand slipped from his neck. Part of her registered something in him that gave her pause. He’d told her the truth but not all of it. He still had a window, a sliver of a chance, but had lost hope . . . was too afraid to gamble one more time. Why? And that information was securely locked away.

  One palm rested on his shoulder as she held the side of his face, and her eyes sought his in the darkness. “Tell me why you have to do this. I can fight. We can get rid of this thing together.”

  “You won’t give this up till I show you what you’re up against, will you?”

  “No, the deal is, you still don’t get it.” She stared at him, her body tense with renewed anger and frustration. “I’m a Neteru. This is what I do for a living . . . I’m not just your woman, or your ex-woman, whateva. What hurts more than you can know is that you have no respect for who I am, my capability, or my skill.” She dropped her hands and folded her arms. “And it fucks me up, because, brother, I’m your damned equal. Yeah,” she said, nodding slowly, her eyes never leaving his. “Different strengths, different skills, but just as worthy as yours—and don’t you forget, I told your ass that this threat was serious—waaaay long before you had to come over here and find out. Do not patronize me, or treat me like some young girl who can’t hold her own. Got it? Your info is late and corrupted. Female instinct. Neteru style.”

  He sighed and cradled her face in his hands and closed his eyes tight. Her speech, while noble, was way off the mark. She couldn’t handle this bullshit coming down any better than he could, and she had no concept of how his world functioned . . . the lengths they would go.

  “Damali, you have always been so stubborn, but I love you too much to watch you go out there without a strategy, just swinging wild tomorrow. This thing that hunts me is in so much pain, is so wounded, that it’s gone insane. Yet, the glimmer of what she was, still remains—and they want to prostitute even that. Part of me feels sorry for her, strange as that may seem.”

  “Show me, then, and stop all the lies of omission and stop blocking my hunt,” Damali whispered through her teeth. “Compassion is in the man I know, so it’s not strange to me that you’d say that. But to never back down from a threat against the innocent, is in the woman before you. Give me and my team a fighting chance, Carlos. Lift the mental block on at least some of this and let me in . . . As crazy as it sounds, I’ll be honest with you—even though you’ve lied to me, because I can stand up for my shit and put it in the light. That’s a Neteru strength you need to respect. So, I won’t lie, I miss being there . . . in your head with you, along with everything else we shared. One last gift. The truth, please, so I can turn it loose, and finish it.”

  Her words contained double meaning, and he nodded, acknowledging both issues. It was going to be hard to turn anything between them loose, or to finish it, and yet a mental lock was a final gift, as well as a final torture. So strange. So complex. His lungs expanded on a ragged inhale. He nodded.

  She relaxed and touched his shoulders to make the connection more direct, but could tell he was gathering control over his emotions, just like she was. She could feel that through his hands, hear it in his breath, didn’t need to do more than that. No extra-sensory perception required. She knew this man. He knew her.

  Carlos’s cool palms became warm against her face, and as their minds locked, a full blast of sensation hit her. Everything this man had kept away from her since
it all began filled her, rushed through her, making them both fight not to make a sound in the charged night air. He suddenly held her to him hard, and she could feel him making love to her, right there, standing in the middle of the floor, neither of them moving, him clutching the back of her T-shirt, her holding his shoulder blades in a familiar embrace, phantom spasms claiming her, rocking her from memory. No, that’s not what I was asking you to share! His eyes went solid red.

  When he lowered his forehead to hers, the perspiration from his mingled with the sheen on hers. His damp cheek stuck to her cheek as his face slid to her throat. Her skin drank in his salty essence, making her knees buckle. He let out a hard pant and swallowed down a swift-moving moan that threatened to pass his lips, and turned his head from her.

  This isn’t fair . . .

  I keep trying to tell you, none of this is fair. But you wanted everything in my head—this came before her, will be there after her. Respect that much truth from me.

  Just the sensation of him repressing the spasm that was coursing through him made her gasp against her will. She pressed her breasts against his chest, unable to conquer the sting and ache, the need for him to touch her there. He lifted his head, and glanced at the bed. She immediately read the thought, and shook her head, even though he’d already banished the concept. Not here. Never anywhere.

  He was talking to her in fits and starts of mentally stumbling words. Admonishing himself, trying to stick to the subject of the Amazon threat one moment, begging her for one more hard-down passionate time together in the next, his inner voice panicked. After tonight . . . we won’t ever again. Damn, just one more time.

  Instantly she could hear her shirt seams giving at the shoulders, and he flattened his palm against her back to keep from tearing the fabric. He dropped his hold on her, walking in a circle, going to the window to just be able to breathe.

  “I know you already knew all this,” he said, trying to steady himself. “But before you saw anything else, I wanted you to know how much you’re in me, are a part of me. You needed to know that first.”

  “I don’t understand? First?” She blinked back tears of fury. Oh, shit, it was already too late . . .

  How could she comprehend any of his feelings if she went into the next level of his thoughts—the darker levels? Her understanding would get twisted, just like all things do when they sink into the abyss. It might ruin her. She didn’t need knowledge like this.

  Yet, the only thing he could hold onto was the hope that after what she’d just felt, she had to know beyond a shadow of a doubt just what she’d meant to him from the start. That total consumption, that brand, was right under the surface of his skin, damn near oozing out of it. She didn’t have to venture deep to connect with it, and it had been a monster trying to hold her mind at bay. It was too hard, next to impossible, to keep it compartmentalized with the scent of her so close, her body heat sending infrared tracer toward him. The quick heartbeat in her chest was getting confused with the throb in his groin, was married to it now.

  He was in so much distress, mentally, physically, emotionally, that for moments he couldn’t answer her—new strength notwithstanding. He wasn’t ever gonna be strong enough to pull out of her magnet. Her eyes. Her arms. Away from her mouth. Once he’d touched her, held her, it was all over. Kissed her, he was done. Remembered what it felt like to be inside her, history, her voice. Then he saw her onstage on her knees in her red dress, calling him hard like a siren . . . “Baby, don’t make me do this . . .”

  Tears glittered in her eyes. She didn’t understand. Nothing he was about to do would ever change how he felt about her. But everything he was about to do would irrevocably change how she felt about him. And perhaps a selfish part of his mind, the part that knew he’d live an eternity like the old counselor, nursing the memories—he wanted a fresh videotape to play over and over again in his brain. She just didn’t understand how much he needed to be with her just one more time before tomorrow night . . . just one more, long, sweet, pure, awesome, stop-the-hands-of-time till the sun came up before she’d never let him hold her like that again.

  When she came to him and touched his back, her hands burned where they fell, and he thought for a moment that she might understand. He grabbed her so fast, and kissed her with such intensity that it brought new tears to her eyes as he sent his full spectrum of emotions for her without censure. He couldn’t help it.

  “Remember, please remember, no matter what,” he whispered hard, panicked, kissing her face, her neck, her eyes, and finally her mouth, crushing it, making her scrabble at his back, yielding to the sway.

  “You remember,” she said on a shallow breath, breaking his seal. “This is how I’ve always felt about you . . . don’t do this. Take me to a lair, somewhere, anywhere, just one more time . . . Carlos, please. If that’s what you need to keep you from giving up your soul, then . . .”

  Her fingernails dug into his scalp and through his hair as she pulled him down, standing on tiptoes, her body arching against him so hard that he had to break from her mouth to release the sound he could no longer swallow. The night creatures went still beyond the window. Near sobbing, he separated their bodies, and placed her hands at either side of his face, covering her wrists, holding her palms firm to his cheeks so she could read him deep.

  “You’re not safe in a lair with me, and I wouldn’t be able to hear anything but you. I’m over the top. I’ve got two minutes and the whole camp squad will be up here. Look at it, baby, and weep. It’s so ugly. Don’t fight this thing on its home court. Go home.”

  He watched her struggle to remove her hands from beneath his, but he held her firmly Tears ran down her face, and she began sobbing.

  “Let me go!”

  “No, you wanted to see it, and are determined to fight it. Then you have to know it.” His voice was gentle, calm, her struggle maddening, ripping at his heart from the inside out.

  He could hear a squadron rallying, running in their direction. Damali’s shoulders were slumped, her head bent and resting against his chest. Repeatedly she wailed no. The sounds of heartbreak coming from low in her belly as she chanted, begged, saying no like a mere word could change his fate.

  Bitter sobs threaded in the stanza. Her plea “No,” had initially come out shrill, deepened, got bottom in it, was whispered, was harmonized with hiccupping tears, hysteria giving way to pleads, no, then lucid, calm, talking to his chest in a low murmur of reverence, speaking to it like it was a dark confessional, searching for an invisible priest within it to give her absolutions from the sin of still loving him. Trying to negotiate with the insane, trying to use one word to release the hostage, him, held behind high, dark walls.

  Through the word no, he could still feel her loving him. Through the grisly visions trapped within the mind of a twisted entity, Damali loved him. Through the scenes of massacres he could feel her heart shattering for this thing that would take from her in much the same way. Even while she shut her eyes and sobbed until no more tears would come, she repeated the refrain, loving him so hard, refusing to turn it loose, even when her heart went into mild arrhythmia as she saw him lie down with another woman. That’s when he couldn’t hold on.

  He pushed her away, the pain too great to endure. Looking at her once, he begged her in his head to remember who he was before she saw that, and was gone.

  Frenzied yells for Damali bounced off the walls, echoed in her, scored her mind as she shut her eyes and sat down slowly on the side of a bed. Her hand remained over her chest as she sat without a word. Storm trooper—sounding footsteps slammed against the wood stairs, rocking the single-story guest house as thirty-two armed guardians tried to enter the bunker at once.

  A chain yanked and a hundred watts slapped her tear-streaked face. A strong hand forced her chin to the side as three guardians appraised her neck and checked her for puncture wounds. Too late. It was in her heart, the gash. It was in her soul, the siphon. It was in her lungs, the silent scream. It was in her hea
d, the unfathomable. And it ran all over her skin making it crawl.

  Curiosity killed the cat; satisfaction of knowing wasn’t even bringing her back. Every image was more horrible than the next, but the last one . . . no. The last one wasn’t historical tragedy. The last one wasn’t watching a war tear through a village, like a remote mental movie—a horrific but somewhat distant newsreel. It wasn’t buffered by the double helix of memory passed from one entity, supplanted in the vision of another, with all the smells, sounds, textures, tastes removed from it in the transfer sanitized for her consumption. It wasn’t like watching the sinister mob-like confession of the counselor, just a dirty deal. Angering, yes; heart stopping, no. Oh, no.

  The last image was brought to her in Technicolor . . . just as her man had allowed it to take root in his desire, his bloodstream, then to harvest his mind.

  She could feel the burn, the crave, took the hit of foreign Neteru that knocked his head back. Mature, ripened slayer. Felt the Amazon’s skin, nuzzled her scent as her jaw grazed the inside of her thigh. Tangled her fingers in her long, dark braids, tasted her tart, blood-bitter mouth. Felt the power of her arch, heard her voice come from low in her throat, felt what he’d craved from the reverse point of view. Damali stared at the wall, staring a hole right through it as Shabazz knelt on one side of her, Kamal on the other, trying to reach her.

  Wasn’t nobody home to reach after the shit she just saw.

  Damali closed her eyes slowly, willing the image to go away. But a permanent visual adhered to the inside of her lids. She could still feel Carlos, the tremble, the initial penetration, what it felt like to sink into aching, wet woman . . . the rip of incisors in a jaw as thrusts drew seed up from a tortured place beneath a shaft stroking pleasure, and the unrelenting need to deliver a bite at the same time. She was on her feet. The team backed up. She turned over a cot, wild in the eyes, driving that picture out of her head. Sad eyes met hers. Crossbows, arrows, walking sticks, automatic weapons were lowered.