by Romi Hart
Her behavior and her advances threw him off balance. She made him susceptible to their influence. In a way, she exercised that influence herself. She wouldn’t have cared if she did that to anyone else. Now she saw just how duplicitous and underhanded it seemed. Correction. She saw just how duplicitous and underhanded it was.
The Prometheus Crest didn’t play people that way. They were far too guileless and straightforward to ever do anything like that. The SeamStream Crest viewed them with contempt for that, but now Claire began to doubt.
The Prometheus Crest were good people. They were honest and straightforward and acted with integrity. That was why Finn wasn’t expecting potential allies to behave in a deceitful way. It made him vulnerable to their machinations, but it also made him better than the Novaks.
The Prometheus Crest wasn’t weak for being honest and straightforward. They didn’t play people like that because they didn’t ever want to feel the shame and guilt of doing it to someone they really cared about. They didn’t want to feel what she was feeling right now.
Her heart wrenched when he put out his hand but stopped himself from touching her. “I…Look, I just want to say I’m sorry about the way things worked out. I want to say I’m sorry if I did anything to offend you or hurt your feelings. I didn’t mean to. I want you to understand that. I didn’t mean to…. you know…..” He didn’t finish.
She didn’t want to hear this. She didn’t want to listen to him apologize to her—her! “You didn’t mean to what?”
He waved his hand at nothing. He scanned the office, but there was nothing to see. “You know…. I didn’t mean to…you know…. reject you.”
The blood rushed up her neck to her cheeks. She had to lower her eyes, but when she did, she saw his body under his clothes. “You didn’t.”
“Anyway, I just want to say goodbye. It’s been…you know…. interesting.”
Her eyes snapped up. “I’m sure we’ll see each other at the next negotiation.”
He shook his head. “I’m out. I won’t be here. I’m leaving. Victor will be around, but I won’t come with him.”
Claire’s eyes hurt staring at him so hard. “You what?”
“I’m leaving.” He passed his hand across his eyes and let out a long breath. “I need to take off for a while. I need to…you know. I need to think. I need to get off by myself for a while until I figure out what I’m doing.”
Looking at him hurt. Everything hurt. He was leaving. She had one chance to touch him. She would probably never touch him again. She would never get a chance to smell him or feel his skin against her mouth.
She never kissed him. She hated herself for that. She had him alone in her house and what did she do? She put her face in his crotch but she never kissed him. Now she would never get a chance. She might never see him again.
She should kiss him right now. She should kiss him before he got into the elevator and rode out of her life forever. That was what she should do.
Before she could muster the courage to do it, he crossed the last inch of portentous space holding them apart and squeezed her arm. Then he turned and walked away. He didn’t wait for the elevator. He barged into the stairwell and vanished.
10
Finn scanned the countryside. He soared over the deep Quag in his dragon form and eyed the terrain in search of a place to land. After a week away from Anarock, he still couldn’t find anywhere he wanted to hang out for more than a day.
He descended to observe a few of the Prometheus Crest hunting camps, but he dismissed them and flew off somewhere else. He ventured farther into the Quag, far from human habitation and even scorned his own people.
The sun rose behind him. Heat crept over the land, but he didn’t alter course. He didn’t want to see life. He didn’t want anything. He wanted to be alone, maybe forever.
He couldn’t get Claire Novak out of his mind. No matter how many times he commanded himself to think about something else, his thoughts always drifted back to her. He couldn’t stop himself from reliving every second of his dealings with the Novaks. Should he have handled it differently? Should he have handled her differently?
What should he have done? Should he have shoved her away? Should he have stopped her from touching him and putting her arms around him and tantalizing him like she did? Should he have turned the tables on her and made himself the aggressor? Should he have attacked her and taken her in all his wild primal ferocity?
From this distance, he could see that he could have done exactly that. He could have fucked her to kingdom come and gotten away with it. Back then, in her father’s house, he hesitated to do it because he didn’t want to offend her family or sabotage the negotiation between their Crests.
He couldn’t rewrite history now. He could only wander the skies in search of something he couldn’t define. He flatly refused to think he might be searching for her. That was preposterous. He wouldn’t allow her to affect his life after he left her behind in town.
He crossed Lake Verret and headed north along the Belle River into the trackless wilderness of the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge. He could get lost in there and no one would ever find him.
He searched for a place to land, but he found only open rivers. At last, he settled on a grassy expanse buried in dense forest. He touched down and folded his wings against his back. He let go of this dragon instinct and collapsed into the frail man who could understand and judge logically and rationally.
He surveyed his surroundings, but everything he saw and everything he thought left him cold and depressed. What exactly did he think he was going to do out here? There was nowhere to sleep, nowhere to eat, no one to talk to, no one to feel sorry for his plight.
Part of him wished he could just go home, but that meant listening to his father and Elliot bickering about Alexa and Victor and every other cursed thing. It meant getting mixed up in Crest business and running errands for Victor. It would probably lead him back to the Novaks and he didn’t want that.
He wanted to stay out here until his past disappeared. He wanted to erase everything that happened between him and the SeamStream Crest. He wanted to forget about Claire.
He turned his attention to the problem of getting something to eat and finding a place to sleep tonight, even if it was dawn. He could fish as a dragon, but he didn’t really want to do that, either. He wanted to stay a man. Why?
Did he really want to punish himself by keeping to the one form that could really fathom his predicament? Was he really as pathetic as that? Did he really want to wallow in misery instead of taking the most obvious possible avenue to escape it?
He marched into the trees and started hunting for a spot to build some kind of shelter. He spent enough time in these swamps on hunting trips with Bryce and Victor to know the drill. He could build himself a thatch hut in a few hours. That didn’t concern him.
He hated this place already. He wanted to take wing and leave. He wanted to go find somewhere better even when he knew he wouldn’t find one. He couldn’t keep wandering without risking some human spotting him. If they reported him to the military, he would wind up in a firefight against a dozen or so jet planes. He spent most of the last week on the wing so he better hide out for a while.
He plunged into the densest undergrowth. He searched for a clearing or something with a likely combination of fallen trees, debris, and space, but he didn’t really look. He reverted into his own thoughts and that led him back to dwelling on Claire.
Her ivory face hovered before his mind’s eye. Her startling blue orbs held him mesmerized. Her honey-blonde hair drifted in luscious waves that…
A twig snapped behind him. He whipped around and listened, but nothing disturbed the intense throbbing vibrance of the Quag. Insects rasped out of sight. Birds chirped. The whole Quag pulsed with life, but he didn’t see anything.
He faced front to continue his search for nothing in particular. He crossed another ten yards when he sensed something behind him. He didn’t hear anything
this time, but he couldn’t deny something was there.
He wheeled to scan the undergrowth. He stood still straining every nerve to the breaking point. He didn’t see or hear anything, but every hair quivered. Something was there. He spent too much time out here to miss the subtle hint of tension in the air. Even the regular swamp racket shimmered with it.
He couldn’t turn back to pursue his journey. He had to keep staring into the shrubbery even when there was nothing there. His instincts wouldn’t let him leave or turn his back.
The feeling died as quickly as it began. One minute, it held him tense and listening. The next, it vaporized to nothing. It released its hold and let him go. He could start walking again, but he lingered. He scowled into the trees a few minutes more, but when he went back to venturing on his way, he kept listening and casting his gaze right and left in search of it.
He crossed a large clearing. He might be tempted to build a base here, but after the bizarre experience of a few minutes before, he rejected it. It was too big and too exposed. He opted instead for thicker brush.
He plunged into solid trees growing one next to the other. He sought the deepest, darkest, most hidden areas. He spotted a patch of bare ground not ten feet wide. Wall-to-wall trunks closed it in a curtain of foliage. He headed for it. It would make a perfect spot to build his shelter, but before he reached it, he stopped dead in his tracks when…. Holy Christ, was that her?
He halted where he was and stared. She wore black fatigues, leather boots laced up her shins, a black t-shirt and a black leather bomber jacket over it, but he could never mistake her for anyone else. Her glossy hair bunched in a ponytail behind her head and her piercing blue eyes traced the undergrowth without missing a single detail.
She looked so different from the high-powered businesswoman he left back in New Orleans, but it was definitely her. It was her all over.
He blinked at her like something out of his fevered dreams. “Claire? What are you doing here?”
She cast a momentary glance in his direction and gazed into the woods behind him. She advanced and almost walked past him like he wasn’t there.
She probably would have done exactly that, but he couldn’t let that happen. Was she the one following him?
He shot out an arm and grabbed her. “Claire! It’s me. It’s Finn. What are you doing here?”
She didn’t look at him at all this time. She traced her attention over the swamp behind his back. “Yeah. I know.”
She tugged her arm free and started to leave. Finn couldn’t allow that. He dodged in front of her and blocked her path. “Hey! I’m talking to you. What are you doing here? Are you following me?”
She hauled her clear eyes up to his face with an obvious effort. “I know who you are, Finn. You don’t have to remind me.”
“Is that so?” He bobbed his head back and forth in front of her. He wanted all her attention on him instead of whatever behind him interested her more. “Then start explaining yourself. What are you doing here? How did you know I would be here?”
Her expression changed in a heartbeat. She retracted her head between her shoulders. “I’m not following you. I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
“Then what are you doing here? What on God’s green Earth could get you to leave your skyrise office to come out here?”
Her mystical blue eyes drifted to the bushes. “I’m looking for someone.”
“Who?” he demanded.
She didn’t look at him. She kept scanning behind him for something out of sight. The next minute, she veered around him and took a few steps away.
Finn’s heart leaped into his throat. She was the absolute last person on the planet he expected to meet out here. He left Anarock to get away from her, but now that she was here, he couldn’t let her walk away from him. He couldn’t let her ignore him like he didn’t exist.
Without thinking, he let his arm dart out again. He seized her arm and whipped her around fast. Her eyes popped when he jerked her against him. He hissed through clenched teeth fighting back the impulse to lose his temper. “I asked you a question. What are you doing out here?”
She struggled against his hold. “Let me go. I need to go find…..”
“You’re not going anywhere until I get some answers. I left you in an office at the top of the Sheraton Hotel and now you’re here. I never thought I’d live to see you anywhere without carpet under your high heels and now you’re out here in these fatigues and boots. What the hell is going on? Answer me!”
She stiffened. Her eyes flashed, but a second later, she relented. “Fine. You remember when you first came to my father’s office and we were talking about a truck we wanted to bring over the border? It’s here somewhere. The man who stole it for us hid it somewhere out here. I’m supposed to meet him and hand over payment so he’ll tell me where he hid it.”
Finn narrowed his eyes at her. “Give me one reason I should believe you.”
Her gaze sliced over his shoulder one more time. A hint of doubt crossed her features. Then she turned her incredible beauty up to his sight. “Come with me. I’ll show you.”
Now he looked over his shoulder. The impenetrable woods blocked his view, but in those few words, his whole world changed. He frowned. “Go with you?”
She rotated around him, but when she walked away, she did it slowly enough that he could keep pace with her. “I have to find him and I don’t have much time. Once I locate the truck, I’ll be able to explain everything to you, but right now, I gotta move.”
She didn’t stop. She strode off into the undergrowth. That purposeful stride and the unbending intent of her gaze drew Finn after her. They entered the thicket. Finn didn’t keep track of where they went. He followed her going he knew not where.
When he studied his surroundings now, he looked and listened for something—something that would tell him where they might find their target. From her comments, they were looking for a man—a man and a truck.
All at once, she flung her arm in front of him. She pulled him to a halt behind a thick mass of leaves and sticks. She crouched low and hauled Finn down next to her. “Here,” she whispered.
He hissed back. “Why here?”
She pointed her chin toward the bushes. When he parted the greenery, he spotted a large semi-truck parked in the middle of nowhere. He blinked at it hardly daring to believe it was real.
It was a full-sized tractor-trailer, an eighteen-wheeler that had no business in the middle of the Quag. It was parked on spongy grass with its thick wheels already sunk into the soil. Finn couldn’t make out any tire tracks leading to the spot, so how did it get here? It looked like someone dropped it out of the clear blue sky. It sat there in perfect condition with no driver or anybody else around.
Finn frowned. Something didn’t add up here. He bent low to ask Claire what was going on when a man emerged from the swamp. He sauntered down the truck looking around.
Finn straightened up to go out there, but Claire seized his shirt and yanked him back. “No!”
“You said you were meeting him here. Come on.”
She chopped her hand through the air and hissed in a guttural croak. “That’s not him. If he sees us, the jig is up. We can’t go out there until the real operative shows and that’s not him.”
Finn made himself sink down next to her, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to go out there and confront…whoever it was. If this was the truck she came out here to locate, he wanted to take possession of it for the Novaks.
The guy ambled all the way down the long vehicle to the trees. Then he entered them and the swamp swallowed him like he was never there. Finn didn’t want to let him go. He wanted to do something, to accomplish something. In that instant, he realized this was what he was hankering after all this time. This was the missing link that kept him interested and engaged back in Anarock. He wanted to do something. He needed a purpose.
Claire hunched her shoulders and sighed. She lowered herself to one knee. “Crap.”
“What’s going on?” Finn whispered. “If that wasn’t the guy, where is he?”
“I don’t know.” She scanned the clearing. “I don’t see him. Whoever that is might have killed him.”
Finn’s spine tingled. He didn’t trust himself to speak above a whisper. “You said you were going to steal this truck from your enemies south of the border. Did they catch up with you?”
“Not them. This is someone else.”
He didn’t want to ask too many questions. Did he really want to know all the SeamStream Crest’s sordid dealings? Did he dare? The Prometheus Crest had enough problems of its own. Why would he want to go courting someone else’s?
Just then, another man appeared near the truck’s rear end. He burst through the undergrowth where the first man came into view. He followed the first guy’s path without deviating from it, but this was definitely a different person.
Claire jumped up. “That’s him! Come on.”
She snatched Finn’s sleeve and pulled him through the leaves. They broke out into the sunshine and Claire started for the stranger. A smile broke across the guy’s face and he increased his stride to meet them.
At that moment, bullets rattled from the woods and ripped into the clearing. The guy pirouetted toward them as they peppered his chest and legs and neck. He danced first one way and then the other. Blood spattered his clothes and spurted from his throat. His arms swung out to both sides.
The gunfire tossed him in all directions. He stumbled and staggered back, but he couldn’t get away. He smashed into the truck’s gas tank and the last bullets exploded out of his torso.
Finn spun around erupting out of his skin. He rounded on the bullets and burst out of his puny body. The dragon shot forth. He didn’t even try to stop it.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Claire wheel at the same moment. The rat-a-tat-tat of machine gunfire disturbed the Quag. Bullets tore leaves aside and pocked into the truck. They plunged straight through Claire and popped the tires. The rubber burped and air hissed from the holes. The truck slumped onto its axels, but….
