Wrath & Bones (The Marnie Baranuik Files Book 4)

by A. J. Aalto

  Batten faced this with what I thought was amazing restraint. He didn’t respond. What could he say? Sayomi was enjoying her position right now; there was no law here to punish her, as everyone in the town was still recuperating at the Stout Ginger Prince, and she could easily shoot Batten and get away, at least temporarily.

  “Am I making you angry?” she asked, eager for a sign that she was.

  “Where is he now?” Batten asked, as casually as you might ask if there were walnuts in someone’s homemade chocolate chip cookies.

  “Dead,” she said, and the Blue Sense slammed me again: Lie. Either she didn’t know for sure that Colonel Jack was dead, or she knew for a fact that he wasn't, but either way, the lie was atop everything else in her thoughts. “He lived a very long time after you left him behind.”

  “Left him?” His voice had dropped to deadly quiet, and I started to think I wouldn’t have to deal with Sayomi myself, because Batten was going to forget his law enforcement ideals and just shoot her right in the fucking face. His gun was right there in his holster. His backup gun was on his ankle. He made no attempt to reach for either, hands held loosely together, elbows on knees, shoulders relaxed. All of this was calculated artifice, I knew; Batten could go from ho-hum to choke-a-bitch in under a second and you wouldn’t see it coming. He could probably have his gun and fire off half a dozen rounds before she could react, unless she was well-trained, and I had no way of knowing that. Batten would know. Batten was studying her body, the way she held her weapon, the way she held herself, the placement of her feet, her choice of gun, her choice of footwear… it all told a story to his trained eye.

  What he didn’t know was that Folkenflik was very close, and that I had no gun to back him up with. With a gun, I was a surprisingly good shot, considering my clumsiness at most things. Without a gun, I was a fairly bad shot, since bullets don’t come out of my finger-guns no matter how enthusiastically I pull my mental triggers. No matter. This bitch was not going to shoot my Second, my Kill-Notch. Something very like my Bond with Harry roared to life, but I didn’t spare a minute to second-guess it. That hunk of muscle and jerk-faced brains and badass attitude was mine. Mine. I would be damned if I was going to let her blow his hunky face off his hunky pants. Besides, I'd only gotten to fuck him five times, and that was some bullshit. I realized with an angry huff that Harry’s “permission ploy” had robbed me of several opportunities to play with that magnificent man-meat out there, and now this hose-beast was going to put him in the ground? Oh, fuck no. I grit my teeth and eased the zipper open some more, enough to get through in a hurry. I had it just about fully unzipped when there was noisy motion out by the fire. Sayomi shouted something.

  I didn’t even look. I dove through the opening and somersaulted, rolling to my feet, ignoring the snow against one sock. I was a flying flurry of limbs and braids as I cartwheeled toward my goal, bouncing to a stop between her and my Second. Batten had his gun aimed at her, but in a flash, it was aimed at the back of my head as I put myself where I needed to be. Both of them shouted angrily but I shut them up with a war cry, baring my teeth. It probably looked ridiculous, but it felt badass.

  I showed her my fists and challenged, “Drop the gun, ya pussy, and face me like a real bitch.”

  “Marnie, Jesus!” Batten planted a big hand on my head and tried to shove me down out of his way but I was keyed up and fast, and I rebounded.

  Sayomi’s lip curled back and she fired her gun once, brap! Then twice more, brap brap! Her aim sucked so bad that I blinked with surprise. Then Batten’s left arm shot over my shoulder and hooked me around the face, burying my nose in the crook of his elbow as he took me to the ground. His right arm extended past me to fire back at her once. Our struggle fucked his shot and the bullet ping-whapped off of something in the distance. He growled and pressed me down; my face was in his armpit and my ridiculous brain spit out unhelpfully, Brut? He fired again, but Sayomi threw herself to one side in a duck-and-cover.

  Using a mid-air spin-flip of my legs to add strength to my twist, I flung out of Batten’s over-confident hold on me and dodged his second swipe. Rob Hood would have been so proud. I pumped my small legs to close the distance between me and Sayomi. Grabbing my lanyard out of my shirt, I put the dog whistle between my teeth and started blasting on it as I pelted toward my target. Sayomi looked up just in time to gasp before my stocking-clad right foot hit her in the mouth.

  I spit the whistle with a final poot and screamed in pain as her teeth hit my big toe.

  Sayomi went “Mrf!” and crumpled further, hands cupping her mouth, eyes wide. I heard the tent shake as Declan flew out and I heard Batten snarling behind me, but mostly I heard the excited yip as Folkenflik joined the fray. I whipped around to see the white werefox lunge out of the shadows at Batten, and fumbled with the whistle again to whoof-whoof desperately into it, the only noise my whistling breath.

  The werefox was already leaping into the air with too much potential to shift gears mid-flight, but he changed his mind about what he’d do when he got to the brawny human. He hit Batten in the chest, knocking him back, but rebounded off and raced across the icy asphalt towards me immediately. I wasn’t entirely confident in his intentions, so I scrambled to a snow pile and took a dive.

  Folkenflik latched onto Sayomi’s defensively upraised forearm. She threw her arm out quickly, slamming him into the asphalt. This was the second time her Second had turned on her, and she didn’t like it one bit. She went for her gun and I realized too late that I hadn’t kicked it away from her. She shot Folkenflik in the rump as he took off into the shadows. Then she swung around and turned the gun on Batten.

  His gun was already trained on her. They were in a stand-off. I didn’t dare move. She had bad aim, yes, but there was no guarantee she wouldn’t hit him, and I couldn’t be sure we could get him medical care close by. Grimston had been pretty far from the nearest town, if I recalled. My eyes darted from side to side, searching desperately for anything I could use as a weapon, when Declan spoke up from beside the tent.

  “You’re out of bullets, Sayomi.”

  Ah, the old Clue gambit, I thought. One plus two plus two plus one. Good one, Irish.

  She proved him wrong by shooting at him. Declan squawked, a funny bawk noise that sounded more like a chicken being chased than a man felled by a gunshot. Batten fired one last time, but Sayomi had chosen to retreat, diving behind several nearby newspaper vending machines and a parking meter box before sprinting into the night.

  I got up and tried to hobble to Declan, but my big toe really hurt from her chompers, so I hop-scotched to his side and dropped to my knees. “Where did she get you?” I panted.

  “Nowhere, Dr. B. I faked a hit,” he said, sitting up.

  Batten grabbed me by the arm and hauled me back to my feet. He was an inferno, eyes bulging. “What the fuck, Baranuik?”

  I heard the name and put a finger in the air. “Firstly, I’d just like to say, it really irks me when you treat me like one of the guys.”

  He blinked rapidly in my face. I swear to you, I could feel the breeze it created. “Why did you stick your nose in it?”

  “She was lying when she said your grandfather was dead,” I said excitedly. “There’s a chance he could be alive.”

  “She knows nothing,” Batten informed me tightly. “Only been his DaySitter for a year.”

  I should have expected him to keep himself current on the workings of House Sarokhanian. “Okay, well, maybe she was just saying that to hurt you, but still, I had to do something. She was going to shoot you.”

  “She’d never held a gun before in her life,” he barked. “I had this.”

  “She had a werefox. I had the whistle!”

  “Do. Not. Save. Me,” he said, enunciating every word carefully through what was only very thinly-controlled rage.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, stunned, searching his face. “What wouldn’t I do for you?”

  “Don’t do that again.”


  “Are you nuts? That bitch could have killed you.”

  “I’m serious.” He started storming away from me, though where he thought he was going was beyond me.

  “Mark, I will always help—“

  “I don’t need your help.” His voice rocketed up in volume. “I don’t want your help. Back off.”

  “I thought we were beyond this. Why are you being stupid?”

  Batten rounded on me and I wondered if this was what a first-time bull fighter felt like in the face of a pissed-off side of beef. “If you get one thing through your thick skull, Marnie, I want you to get this: you are never, ever to help me again. Got it?”

  I was beyond speechless. This was more than machismo. This wasn’t dick-waggling ego. “Why?”

  “Just tell me ‘yes.’”

  “Just tell me why.”

  “Say ‘yes,'” he demanded, quivering and red in the face.

  “Fuck your ‘yes,’ and fuck you, too,” I said, stinging. “We’re a team, Kill-Notch. I’ve got your back. You’re not alone in this. You’re helping me, for fuck’s sake. The least I can do is help you, too.”

  “Never again, Marnie.” He punctuated with a point in my face. “It stops now. I stop until you promise. You let me handle it.”

  He meant it. There was zero give in his face. He would not be moved. I was speechless and beyond confused, blinking rapidly in the face of his assholishness.

  I struggled to understand for one more heartbeat and then lied, “Fine. You want to handle your own fights, Mr. Balls-Out, you go right the fuck ahead. I’m out.”

  “Damn right, you’re out.”

  “Don’t talk to me,” I shouted. “I’m out, remember?”

  “You’re out!” he agreed vociferously.

  “I’m so out, you can’t even see me.”

  “Just do this one thing for me, Marnie, and don’t be a bitch about it.”

  My jaw dropped but I recovered quickly. “You can’t seeeeee me, dumbass. I’m an invisible bitch.”

  His mouth worked for a second and then he blurted, “Tell it to your business cards.”

  “At least I have business cards!” I yelled at his back as he stormed away into the dark. Granted, that was a lousy comeback, but “tell it to your business cards” wasn't going to make anyone's Top Ten list, either. Declan was watching us like a shell-shocked kid caught between bickering parents on the verge of a messy divorce, already deciding which parent he’d live with, and which one he’d play for extra cookies. I looked down at him as he tried to be still and unnoticed in the firelight.

  “What the fuck was all that?” he whispered.

  “It was something,” I said, my own voice barely a breath. “It was somethin’ else.”

  We waited for Batten to come back for a little bit before returning to the tent, figuring Sayomi would go lick her wounds and not try again too soon. I wondered what would become of her Second, and whether or not Folkenflik would return. He’d heal quickly from the bullet wound, but the betrayal, maybe not so much. My own Second had also turned on me. I felt the need to lick my wounds, too. Maybe Sayomi and I should ditch our Seconds and form an alliance of our own. That was probably the worst idea I'd had all day.

  A little before four in the morning, the tent zipper was loudly and unceremoniously yanked down and Batten filled the opening with his dark shadow, waking us both.

  “Dr. Edgar, get out,” Jerkface ordered.

  Declan didn’t argue, and assured him, “I’m going. I’m getting there,” scooting on his ass to the tent flap.

  I glared in the blank shadow that was Batten’s face. Not able to see him wasn’t a problem, since I could never read his emotions that way anyway.

  “I can hear your jaw doing that thing,” I warned him. “Your clenchiness is really quite too much.”

  “Channeling Harry again?”

  I huffed imperiously. “Shruff and cinders. I’m fast approaching annoyed.”

  “Good,” he murmured knowingly. “Any minute now, you’ll be tearing off my pants.”

  That actually sounded like a perfect solution, but I ignored the throb between my legs. “You’re not winning an argument with dick again.”

  “I want to apologize,” he said.

  “Freak.”

  “I shouldn’t have been such an ass.”

  “Like you can help it?”

  “Trying to make nice, here, Snickerdoodle.”

  “Why? Does your boner need attention?”

  Batten sighed for a long time, longer than he should have had breath for. Then he poked something on his watch and a little light illuminated the space between us. His face was no longer furious and the quivering had stopped. “I suppose I deserved that.”

  “According to my Invisible Bitch handbook, you deserve a big smack in the wiener.”

  At that, Batten smiled at his boots. “Am I supposed to get it out? That make you feel better?”

  “No,” I sniffed indignantly. “And don’t try to dangle your carrot in front of this mule. I’m mad at you. Also you just woke me the fuck up. I was dreaming about a giant mug of hot cocoa and a plate of cookies the size of a Volkswagen.”

  He squatted beside me, bouncing slightly as he came smoothly into place. “Tell me how to fix it.”

  “Some folks like to heat the cocoa powder with the milk once it gets kinda warm, but I think it works best if you mix it in just before you take the hot milk off the stove.” I looked at him straight in the eye and sighed. “I lied. I’m always going to rescue you. If I see you in need, I’m gonna be there, Mark. There’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.”

  That calculating gaze of his searched my face, found the truth of it, and dropped. “You want to rethink that.”

  “I don’t need to.” I lifted my chin. “You don’t give me enough credit, Kill-Notch. I’m not the same crazy boob you first met. You think Hood and I just hang around twiddling his dink?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Don’t do that.”

  My lips twitched at his uncharacteristic show of jealousy. “I’ve got mad skills now, dude. And you?” I pointed at him, wiggling my finger at his forehead to indicate his brain. “You’re gonna learn that, or I will school you.”

  “Harry’s right,” he said. “You’re getting some lip on you.”

  “My sass ain’t goin’ anywhere,” I assured him.

  “I see.” He dropped his eyes to the emergency blanket like he might be considering tossing it aside. Parts of me stirred awake eagerly. “So what are you telling me?”

  “You wanted this trip,” I reminded him. “You could have stayed in Colorado. You didn’t. When you heard about the quests, you could have stayed at Felstein. You didn’t. You bought your ticket, and I punched it. I’m the goddamn engineer. You’re the passenger.”

  “So what do you wanna do about it?”

  I peeled back the blanket and sat up, getting in his face. He didn’t shrink away. His eyes flashed, and one of his brows darted up playfully.

  “You don’t tell me what happens going forward,” I said. “I tell you.”

  “And what happens next?” he said, his voice falling to a husky whisper as he casually dropped all the control in my lap, just like that.

  Oh, this was new. My body woke up with a shiver, and I let my eyes wander my favorite parts of his body like I was browsing treats in a cake shop; those broad, muscular shoulders, strong arms I wanted to sink my teeth into, square, stubble-rough jaw to nibble, that big, warm chest. I couldn’t see his tight ass from this angle, but my lips curled up at the memory of grabbing it while we fucked, driving him deeper, faster. Could I have him any way I wanted? Was that on offer, here? His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, and his shoulders did an interesting little unintentional flex, like he wanted to reach for me but was trying to be patient and let me call the shots. The temperature between us went up quickly, though neither of us moved an inch. Yet.

  I grabbed the collar of his leather jacket. “This is coming off
,” I told him, and watched him with hungry eyes while he complied with my request. Request? Shit, it was an order, and Kill-Notch was obeying. My libido purred to attention, and I jerked my chin at his black t-shirt. “That, too. I want to see you.”

  Batten’s chin dropped and he gave me a challenging look through his lashes, flashing a grin. “Bossy,” he noted. “Anything else I can do for you, ma’am?”

  “Stop talking,” I said, and bit my lip as he slipped his shirt over his head, revealing a rich tan and three fresh kill-notch tattoos beside the older, faded ones on his left pectoral muscle.

  He was a thing of beauty, and seeing him half undressed again made my brain slide into a pleasant buzz; our fight forgotten, all I could think about was tasting him alllll over. I stripped off my gloves and tossed them in the dark, putting my bare hands on his chest, running them all over his upper body greedily. Pushing him by the meaty shoulders, I moved him from crouch to sit. “Be a good boy and take those pants off.”

  He chuckled at my cheekiness; I thought he was going to sass me, but his hand went to his belt. I removed his boots and socks while he made quick work of wriggling his pants down over his hips. Dark boxer briefs were the last obstacle to my getting what I wanted, but Batten’s ability to be the less dominant partner was fading fast. He crawled across the tent floor like a hungry predator, pressing me back, and for the moment, I yielded to his exploring hands as his mouth sought mine.

  Kissing Kill-Notch was always a breathless adventure. My toes curled with pleasure and I tried to kick off my shoe. When his arm dropped to help me, I said into his mouth. “Oh no, your hands are needed elsewhere.”

  He complied without complaint, cupping a breast and fondling it gently.

  “Gimme, gimme, gimme,” I barely breathed, stroking his ass and giving it a light spank. He laughed into my mouth, grinding between my legs teasingly.

  “Now, lay down,” he said.