“Nope. Check the drawers. I’ve been here for days.”
She went over to the dresser and yanked the top drawer open, revealing a couple of neatly folded pairs of pants, tees, underwear and socks.
“There’s a hostel up the hill,” he said. “Maybe they still have rooms.”
“Lautaro booked this room for me. He never said you were here too.”
“Well, I guess whoever took his reservation didn’t know I already had the room. Better overbooked than not booked.” He grinned at her.
“I’m not going to the hostel.”
“Nor am I.”
“Merc… What kind of name is that, anyway?”
“The kind given to me by my friends.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Merc.”
“Are you following me?”
He laughed. “Um…I got here first, so I guess it would be you who’s following me.”
“I told Summer I was coming back here. She must have told Sam.”
“The info does flow that way.”
“I want you to leave.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I want you to leave.”
“No.” Ash stamped her foot, frustrated with their futile conversation.
That made him laugh again. “Then how about this? We use the room in shifts. I suspect you want to sleep nights, so I’ll sleep during the day. Just be quiet if you’re here when I’m sleeping.”
“That’s unacceptable.”
“Then go find another room.”
The memory of their first real—their only, she corrected herself—encounter popped into her mind, the feel of his hips between her legs, the way he knew just how to—.
She flashed a look at him. He was looking at the ground. The times he’d been in her dreams had been just as vibrant as the live action.
“There are no other rooms,” she said. “The town’s bursting at the seams. Everyone’s come to see where the miracles happened.”
His tawny brows lifted. “What miracles?”
“Like you don’t know. Who would trek out to this hole in the wall otherwise?”
“I’m sourcing coffee for the fort.”
“Uh-huh. Because that’s the way most home roasters find their raw beans.”
“The thorough ones, anyway.” He held out his hand to shake. “So, do we have a deal?”
He didn’t move toward her, so she had to cross the room to him. She reluctantly did so and slipped her hand into his, momentarily losing herself in the feel of his big hand wrapping around hers.
Seemed he wasn’t as unaffected as he pretended. The muscles at the corners of his jaw bunched, and his eyes hardened.
“Deal.” She pulled her hand free. “But you take the futon.”
He shrugged. “So what about these miracles you mentioned?”
She tilted her head, studying him. “You should know. You did them. Someone has protected this town from the violence in the region.”
“Good. I guess.”
Ash narrowed her eyes. “How can you meet with coffee growers at night?”
“Doesn’t have to be at night. But evening meetings mean I don’t have to take them away from their daily workloads. And all that coffee I’ve been sampling has been keeping me up anyway.”
Ash considered her options. Staying with him was likely safe. After all, they had shared friends whose concern might keep him from behaving badly.
“We all know if I behave badly, Summer will tell Sam, who’ll have my ass. Of course, by then the damage will be done.” The grin he gave her could eat a girl’s soul.
She had a hard time breaking the spell she’d been under since she entered their shared room. “You know what I think?” she asked, stepping close.
“Yes.” His grin widened.
“I think you enjoy bullying people.”
“Is that what you were thinking?”
He seemed skeptical. And truthfully, she’d been thinking how she wished he’d just shut up and press that irresistible mouth of his against hers. She lifted her chin. “Yes. In fact, it was.”
He made a noncommittal grunt. “I’m hungry. Are you? With so many tourists flooding the town, several of the homes around the plaza have set up makeshift cafés. Some of them are quite good. Can I buy you lunch?”
Eating was not what she wanted him to do with that mouth. Unless—
“Or we could stay here?” he offered.
Heat rushed from Ash’s neck straight up her cheeks. “It’s raining outside.”
He stepped closer. What was it about his body that made hers so charged? “Will you melt if you get wet?”
Yes. Yes, she would—when he was the one melting her. Wait. That wasn’t what he meant, was it? His eyebrows lifted.
“I’m talking about rain,” she said.
“So was I.”
“I have a slicker with me.”
His smile started at one side of his mouth and slowly stretched across his lips to the other. “Lunch it is.”
Ash’s arrival complicated things. Without her, he could have just kept himself from being seen. But with her, he had to hide his layers of weapons from her, and hide them and his appearance from everyone else.
He projected himself to the community around them as a slim, twenty-something, urbane Colombian male from Bogotá. It made the villagers slightly more comfortable with him and Ash. The Legionnaires had all learned Spanish during their time in the training camps. And his mirage helped correct his Australian accent.
Ashlyn. His female. He looked over at her, struck by how relieved he was to see her—and how equally terrified he was that she’d risked everything to come back down here.
Lautaro should have sent her home the moment he saw her. Just tucked her in a pod, under a sleep compulsion, and sent her right back to the fort.
Merc had tried to puzzle out the reason for her visit, but she kept that knowledge fairly well locked away. She had surprising mental abilities, for a regular.
When he’d caught her in the bathroom giving herself a critical once-over, it had been all he could do not to seduce her on the spot. He still ached from the pain of that missed opportunity.
He reminded himself that he was stronger than his hunger, stronger than the Matchmaker’s Curse. He had to beat it back, if only to set her free.
The rain was now just a light drizzle. Where he was taking her had covered seating, so they’d be able to sit outside and still enjoy their meal. Along the main plaza, several pop-up cafés were cordoned off in front of shops and homes, offering the overflow of tourists places to eat.
The day was warm, even with the rain. The dampness made Ashlyn’s hair curl slightly as the breeze tossed it about.
Damn, but he wished she hadn’t come back. There was a current in the air he didn’t like.
Trouble was coming.
There was no way any of them, mutant or regular, could resist its power.
Merc selected one of the eateries. The waiter came over and listed the items on the menu. They both picked corn rice with river shrimp. Ash ordered a coconut lemonade, and Merc took a beer. When they were alone, he leaned back in his chair and considered her.
“Why do you travel alone?” he asked.
She sipped her drink, then tilted her head. “Is that an existential question?”
“Purely logistical. This area isn’t exactly the safest for a lone woman.”
“I was here before with no problems. Maybe safety is overrated.”
“So is abduction, torture, extortion, and rape.”
“I have nothing to extort. There’s no ransom to collect. And I can’t explain it, but I feel protected.”
“You have a restless soul.”
She leaned her elbows on the small bistro table. “Don’t you? Don’t you want adventure, to see everything there is to see, to learn everything there is to learn?”
“No. I’d like to have a little garden plot at the top of a lush mountain.”
<
br /> “Why are you here? I mean, really, ditch the coffee cover.”
“Looking for a friend and keeping a lookout for my enemies.”
Ash’s eyes got big. “You are doing something illegal.”
“Depends. If you adhere to regular ethics, maybe.” A corner of Merc’s mouth tilted up when he saw her frown. She was so deliciously naïve. Her soul still saw beauty—in nature and in humans. If he weren’t strong enough to resist her, their joining would shred her—long before the Omnis ever even came for her. “Why did you come back?”
Took a couple beats for her to answer. “Something happened here. Something I can’t let go of.”
“The miracles you mentioned.”
She stared into his eyes. Were she a mutant, she’d be ferreting out all of his secrets with her agile mind. Their food came. They went silent while the waiter asked if they needed anything else. They didn’t.
“What happened here is connected to you somehow,” she said.
“But I’m a bully, remember? Bullies don’t create miracles.”
“Merc, I need to know that you won’t lie to me.”
“Sadly, the boundary between lies and truth is insubstantial.”
“Selena said you were fighters. You’re really here to cut a deal with drug lords, aren’t you?”
Merc cast a glance around the plaza. “This would be the place to do that. But not everyone here is involved with contraband.”
“And you?”
“What I’m after is so much worse than that.”
“You’re just trying to scare me.”
“Is it working?”
“Yes. We can’t share that room. I don’t feel safe around you.”
“You don’t feel safe around me? Or within yourself when you’re around me?” Her answer was clearly the latter, and it sent another jolt to his perpetually aroused state. He shifted in his seat. “You’re welcome to find another place to stay. Even better, you could go home.”
Ash stared at her food. “I also came here for you.”
Merc went quiet as he glared across the table at her. “Why?”
“The nightmares.”
“Of?”
“You. In trouble.”
“And you think you could help me? You, a little regular civilian from Colorado?”
She frowned. He hated that he’d brought the shadows to her eyes.
“The danger wasn’t clear. It seemed it was your heart or your spirit in trouble.”
Merc fiddled with his fork and the leftover food on his plate. “I lied when I said I didn’t want you.” Her eyes shot up to his. “I should have said that I didn’t want to want you.”
“Same difference.”
“Not at all.”
“Well, I don’t want to want you either.” She straightened and folded her hands in her lap. She had the stormiest blue eyes he’d ever seen. “I really just want my life back the way it was.”
“Then you should forget everything that happened here. Some things shouldn’t be delved into.”
“I need the answers.”
“Why can’t you just accept that it was what it was? Let it go. Go home and have your regular life.”
Her lips moved soundlessly over words she struggled with before she said, “Merc, I’m losing my mind. Things have been happening that I can’t explain. Dreams, knowings, cravings. None of that makes sense.”
“If you get the answers you’re after, all of that will get worse. So you have a choice to make: meet the devil in the details, or keep the bliss of ignorance. You can’t have it both ways.”
“But you know the answers I’m after?”
“Yes.”
They lingered for a bit longer. Merc was relieved that she didn’t dig deeper. What would he do if she chose the devil instead of bliss?
He’d deal with it when it happened. Until then, he had to double down on his efforts here so he could get them both back to Colorado in one piece.
“I’m surprised no one seems to recognize you,” Ash said as they walked back to the room they shared.
And that was thanks to the mirage he wore. “You were here before. No one is falling over themselves to greet you.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t involved in making miracles.”
“Nor was I.” No, what he’d created was its evil twin—a portal to hell, a black hole that he had to close once and for all.
They reached their shared room. Ash dug out her keys. “So we have an agreement? You’ll be away from the room until the morning?”
“Yup.”
“And you’ll knock before coming in?”
He grinned. “Course.”
“Do you need anything from here before you go?”
“Nope. Maybe we can have breakfast in the morning. You a late sleeper?”
“I can be. But I’m not here to relax. And I only have a short while to figure out what I need to.”
“Want my help?”
“I don’t trust you. You’ll flummox me with your weird thinking, and I’ll leave here as mystified as ever.”
Merc felt the humor—and hope—leave him. She matched him perfectly in intellect, curiosity, humor, hunger. She was almost a better match than his Tina had been. But any way he looked at it, he couldn’t accept her as his mate. Rejecting her was the noble thing to do. She would live, and she would thrive without him. And he would die, thereby satisfying the Matchmaker’s Curse.
It was the right decision, yet every cell in his body resisted that decision.
He craved her.
She opened the door. He’d already tested the room’s energy, making sure no regular or mutant lingered inside. The place was clear. She would be safe when he left—he’d make sure of that.
The afternoon showers had moved out, leaving a soft blue sky that made her face glow in the light reflected off the white stucco.
Somehow, he had to convince her to go back to Colorado before she lost more than just her job. The key to her survival lay in returning to her regular existence.
“Bye for now, Ashlyn. Sleep well. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
Her eyes widened as a look of revulsion filled her features. She rushed across the room to check the bed. He wished he could stay and tease her more, but he had work to do. He stepped out and mentally closed and locked the door.
The monsters were calling him. And where the monsters were, so was Flynn.
Merc walked into the crowded square. He’d learned where the mine workers liked to hang out. Shielding himself, he went to that cantina. Flynn’s energetic shield also covered the workers, but in a less stable way. His protection of them only meant their thoughts were fuzzier to mutant infiltration. The more a worker knew about what was happening at the mine, the higher the degree of fog that covered their minds.
Merc had found several that had an intense degree of shielding, but one of them had a weak spot—he hated his work. More than hated, he was terrified of it. That fear was a road Merc could ride into his mind. The ethics of doing that, however, were something he was going to have to clear with Liege.
I found the one, Merc said to Liege. He’d previously explained to his boss his plan to target one of Flynn’s employees, using Flynn’s own technique.
Do it. But remember, you’re strictly an observer. Don’t influence him in any way. No more playing God.
I wasn’t playing God. I simply misdirected my rage.
What you see may be triggering again. Pull out if you need to. If you don’t, I will pull you out.
Copy that, Merc said. He’s in town for a bit. Not sure when he’s heading back to the mines. Until he does, I’m going to practice connecting with him.
Doing this crosses a line, Guerre said.
Merc wasn’t surprised that the healer spoke up. Guerre was often the conscience of the team. And convos like this with Liege were usually open so that the group in Colorado stayed informed.
There are no lines, Guerre. There is only beating the Omnis at their games, Merc rep
lied. Something of critical importance was happening at the mines, given the intense security surrounding it. If it took possessing someone to get inside, he was going to make it happen.
Be aware that some of your mark’s energy may cling to you when you exit him, Guerre said. I’ll clear you if that happens.
18
There was no air conditioning in her little rented room, but the bars on the windows let her leave them open to get the tropical cross-breeze without sacrificing her safety. Unfortunately, the nighttime temps weren’t significantly cooler than the daytime, and the breeze was nearly nonexistent.
Ash lay in her bed, listening to the sounds of the town. Having done little more than catnap on her long trip out, she thought she’d be overtired and unable to sleep, but that wasn’t the case. As soon as she shut her eyes, she didn’t open them again until the sun was high the next morning.
She felt great. It had been a long time since she’d slept so well. No nightmares. No strange visions. No panic or anxiety.
For that alone, she was glad she’d come back.
She smiled as she looked up at the ceiling. She’d had a pleasant visit with Merc yesterday. Surprisingly so. She still held a violent level of lust for him, but it seemed there might be something beyond that. Maybe they could be friends…and that might lead to the way out of this twisted attraction she held for him, a preoccupation that was at the front of every thought. If that—and some great sleeping—was all she got out of this return trip, it was worth it.
She got out of bed and went barefoot to the little kitchenette, searching for coffee-making supplies. Except for a few mismatched dishes, there was no coffee pot and no coffee—ground or not. At this point, she’d settle for chewing on a few roasted beans.
Someone knocked on her door. Was that Merc? Was he back for his shift with the room? Her heart started a rough beat as she hurried to the door.
There was no peephole, so she spoke through the wood. “Who’s there?”
“I have breakfast for you, señorita.” The voice belonged to an adolescent. Not Merc.
“I didn’t order breakfast.”
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 17