by Toby Neal
Again, so many juxtapositions.
Sophie wiggled her feet, trying to get circulation going. The one advantage she had managed to wring from him was keeping her feet free. Her hands, too, while firmly bound, had a little wiggle room. Maybe she could get one of them out.
“Mano did not understand what this was about for me. We were classmates at Kamehameha, and he always knew I was special. Different. But he didn’t respect it. He thought it was because of my missionary name. But that’s not the part of me that is mighty, that will be remembered forever.”
Sophie couldn’t believe it, but she was gaining an inch in wiggling her hands out of the bindings, and having made up her mind that she had to kill him first, it seemed as if strength was pouring into her body, greater strength than a mere adrenaline hit.
The headache was gone and Sophie focused her eyes on Blackthorne’s back as she worked her hands against the ropes while he meticulously rearranged the bone hooks in their large circle on the floor. He rose to his feet and returned to the cabinet, pulling out the deepest drawer at the bottom.
Sophie continued her frantic working at the bindings. Her skin gave way, and the slickness of blood began to lubricate the ropes. She didn’t even feel it.
Blackthorne turned back and carried the large, heavy drawer over to the edge of the circle closest to Sophie. “I want you to see this.” He approached her and that was the cue to stop her relentless working at the ropes. Blackthorne lifted her shoulders and dragged her closer to the circle. Grasping her short, thick, curly hair, he held her head aloft to look into the 4’ x 1’ box shelf.
Sophie gave a gasp, muffled by the gag, and her head swam nauseously as she glimpsed the contents of the tray: a skeleton, the bones stained the rust red of Lahaina soil, gleaming in the overhead light.
“My wife. My queen.” Blackthorne stroked the dome of the skull reverently. “She has been lost to me all this time, and in this life, I have been looking for her. But we will have another time.”
Sophie shivered, ripples of fear chasing over her skin. Blackthorne was unhinged.
Blackthorne released her head, patting her hair gently. “For some reason I keep thinking of that quote from Jefferson: ‘from time to time, the tree of liberty must be refreshed by the blood of patriots and tyrants.’ I don’t know if it completely applies here, but the tree of our power must be watered by the blood of someone brave, someone with plenty of her own mana. And you certainly have that.”
He turned around and began taking the bones out of the tray, caressing each one in a sensual way as he interspersed them between the bone hooks.
Sophie resumed her abrading of the ropes, focusing on sliding her right hand up and down. The blood slicking the rope was softening it. Must be some kind of hemp, not a synthetic rope, one part of her mind remotely observed. The strength that continued to surge through her in life-giving pulses cleared her foggy brain and erased the throb of her ankle.
There was mana in the room all right, and it was helping her.
Pounding began on the exterior of the steel door, muffled by some sort of soundproofing. Blackthorne’s head flew up, and his eyes narrowed. “We don’t have much time.”
No, Sophie didn’t. She tightened her abs, drawing her knees up against her chest, curling her back to give herself more room. As Blackthorne went back to his preparations, turning his back to her, she dug deep and, using core strength and her shoulder for leverage, she rolled up onto her knees. He heard the movement and swiveled to look at her.
She kept her eyes down, her position on her knees mutely submissive.
This had been one of Assan’s favorite positions for her: meeting him at the door when he came home from work, on her knees, with a restraint ready for his pleasure, her head bent and eyes down.
Blackthorne gave her a long look before he turned away and finished setting out the bones. He rose to his feet, his back to her, clearly satisfied that she was merely awaiting his performance. He walked back to the cabinet as the pounding changed to the high-pitched whine of a drill.
“Perhaps you were right. I should have given them a demand to work on. They obviously don’t value your life.”
Sophie had her right hand halfway out of the bindings. The rope was caught on one of the tiny bones in the back of her hand, and there was no help for it. She gave a massive tug with her biceps and the tiny bone snapped, a reverberation through her body that still did not translate into pain.
Something, or someone, was helping her.
Thank you, God, and mana of the ancestors.
She shook the binding off her bleeding, broken hand, but kept both of them behind her back in the same submissive position.
Blackthorne had underestimated her, and he wouldn’t have a chance to again.
Chapter Eighteen
The king brushed the feathers of his ‘ahu ‘ula cape—so soft, so rare. It was amazing that the vivid color of the multitude of tiny ‘I’iwi and O’o feathers had lasted so long.
The whine of the drill from the team breaking in from outside was getting louder—they were going after a couple of places on the door to guess by the different pitches of the tools.
He straightened to look down at the bone circle on the floor of the safe room.
Such beauty: his hooks drew in the mana, and the bones of his queen focused it.
He glanced back at the woman. She gazed at him, her head down but her eyes pleading from her position on her knees.
She must think he was going to have mercy on her, but he could not. His return demanded a release of more mana, a flow of blood to strengthen his journey. Still, she was an appealing sight. She had caramel skin, huge dark eyes, and a truly lovely face though marred by a terrible scar across one cheekbone and up into her dense, curly hair. Somehow the scar made her more interesting.
He wished he could leave her alive, but a king never flinched from what needed to be done.
He walked over to the cabinet and removed the ceremonial knife. He had not been able to find a Hawaiian one; this was a lesser tool, but would have to do, and at least was not something as crude as the metal pocketknife he’d used earlier.
He turned to face her, the obsidian weapon, kidnapped by a Native American several hundred years ago, balanced across his palms.
He didn’t want a big, messy scene. She was strong, and even with her bindings, would thrash about and disturb his arrangements. Better to lure her inside the circle, trick her into submitting.
“Some blood must be spilled to release more mana. I am going to make a small incision in my leg into the circle,” he said, approaching her. “You have some medical training. Show me a place that will be safe for the first aid team to treat when they get in here. I’m going to move you inside the circle so you can show me the right place to do it.”
Hope bloomed in her eyes, and she nodded. He liked her gagged and silent—that was how women should be. The women he paid to have sex with in Chinatown loved being tied and gagged.
Pain tightened the lines of her body as she lowered her head and closed her eyes trustingly at his approach. Her ankle, tucked beneath her, was hugely swollen.
Poor thing. Her suffering would be over soon.
He tucked the obsidian knife into his malo as he approached her, grasping her under the arms to lift her as he’d done before—but this time, her arms flew open and grabbed him by the ankles, so fast he hardly had time to register what was happening.
The woman surged to her feet with a howl muffled by the gag, her strength unbelievable as she yanked him right off his feet. He crashed down into the circle, his head bouncing off the concrete floor.
Stars filled his vision and he tried to roll onto his side, but she came down on him, her elbow stabbing him in the gut, blowing out his air. She flipped him onto his stomach and leapt on his back. He writhed beneath her with all his strength, just trying to get a breath, as she whipped the knife out of his malo and pulled his head back by his hair.
He went utt
erly still, feeling the jagged, razor sharp edge of the knife at his throat, her inarticulate, muffled growls of rage in his ear.
“Do it,” he whispered. “Send me back to my ancestors.”
Another long moment. He felt her strength, her restraint—and her indecision. He shut his eyes, waiting, then yelled, “Do it!”
The door came down behind them with a ground-shaking crash.
He was out of time. “Kill me!” he screamed.
Still she hesitated. He could feel her looking back over her shoulder at the SWAT team, hear their thumping boots.
The king wrenched his hair out of her hand and flung his head forward and his throat onto the blade.
It didn’t hurt.
He had thought it would hurt as his blood spurted. It didn’t, but his lungs burned and bubbled, his vision dimmed, and his body twitched, losing motor control as she flopped him onto his back and pressed the loose part of the feather cape against the wound in his neck, screaming for help through her gag.
She was ruining the feathers of his precious cape. When he came back in the next life, he would find her and punish her for that.
Chapter Nineteen
The medics must have been right behind SWAT, because two of them pulled Sophie off of Blackthorne, and immediately went to work trying to stanch the wound in his neck. She staggered, gasping for breath against the gag as two SWAT team members caught Sophie under the arms. A knife flashed and the gag was gone, and she groaned at the sensation of at last being able to close her aching mouth.
“I didn’t kill him,” she said. “He lunged onto the blade. I was restraining him.” Trembling and thin, her voice sounded like it came from somewhere far away, and the SWAT officer holding the arm with the broken hand pushed the black, anonymous-looking helmet up to reveal a familiar face. “Lei,” Sophie whispered, relief at seeing her friend’s warm brown eyes weakening her knees.
“Damn, girl,” Lei said. “Trust you to take down the perp when we thought you might be dead.” She hugged Sophie, pressing her close, and inadvertently jarred her hand. Sophie yelped, pulling her broken hand up against her chest as her head swam and her knees buckled.
Whatever the force had been that had given her super strength departed, and Sophie folded like a puppet with cut strings, blackness dropping over her like the curtain at the end of a performance.
She was moving, jostling, held close in someone’s arms. Everything hurt, but especially her head. And her hand. And her ankle…she was a mess. This was worse than her big fight with the Punisher last year…
She had gone somewhere for a minute but was back.
Someone was carrying her. Why wasn’t she on a gurney? Who was strong enough to carry a five foot nine, hundred and forty-pound woman up a flight of stairs and across that huge house?
Jake Dunn.
She recognized his familiar smell, made acrid with fear and stress and adrenaline.
They had been here before: she injured, him carrying her—and now she recognized his voice, a low rumble in his chest against her ear. He emitted a stream of profanity mixed with prayers, as if he could curse God into getting his way.
“I’m okay.” Her voice was muffled but clear. She was proud of that. “Sprained ankle, broken hand, and a concussion, but I’m okay.”
Jake stopped. She kept her eyes closed, afraid to see what was in his face as he looked down at her. “Good. We have to stop doing this,” he said.
“On that we agree.”
They reached the ambulance, and she finally opened her eyes as he settled her on a gurney. Jake’s face was a mask of distress looming over her, his gray eyes stormy, as the EMTs strapped her down and barraged her with questions. Sophie ignored them and fixed her gaze on Jake. “Call Todd Remarkian,” Sophie said. “Call Todd and tell him to meet me at the hospital. Tell him I need him.”
Then Sophie shut her eyes so she didn’t have to see how she’d hurt him.
Chapter Twenty
Sophie spent the night in the hospital for observation but was discharged the next morning, her hand splinted and on crutches for the sprained ankle. Lei walked beside her as Connor pushed her wheelchair out of the hospital toward one of Security Solutions’ SUVs.
“I want you to come to my place,” Connor said. “There’s better security.” He had spent the night in a chair by her bedside holding her hand, and she’d been glad of the company.
“No. I want to go to my own place. Mary Watson’s,” Sophie said.
“Why does she need security?” Lei scrunched her brow. “‘Kamehameha III’ is safely in the morgue. I am going to have to do an official debrief with you, anyway.”
“She needs security because that scumbag Assan Ang is still loose. I don’t want her to take any chances,” Connor said.
Sophie’s brain felt sluggish from the remains of the concussion and pain medication, but she struggled to assess her choices.
Connor’s place was out. She was not ready to be alone with him in his home, even for a short time—it felt too much like giving ground, like making a commitment. Calling for him when she was vulnerable was all she felt capable of right now.
Mary Watson’s identity and home were secret—but how secret would her alter ego be with Connor, Marcella, Jake, and Lei all visiting her there?
“Take me to my father’s apartment,” she rasped. “They have good security. And Lei—can you pick up my dog? I miss Ginger.”
She told her friend where to get Ginger, and sighed as Connor settled her into the buttery leather of the high-end SUV. “Thank you.”
He slammed the door harder than necessary.
She glanced over at Connor as he hopped into the driver’s seat. His eyes were a brief blaze of turquoise in his stubbled face as they met hers, then he turned on the vehicle, put it in gear, and focused on the road. His linen shirt was crumpled from sleeping in the armchair, and so were his black slacks, and even unshaven and disheveled, he was almost too handsome. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. But thanks for coming and helping me, anyway.” She made her voice firm and low.
“I want to put an operative on you. I haven’t found Ang since he escaped.”
“I’m okay with you putting an operative on me—it’s your company, and I’m an employee who’s taken a few too many hits lately.” Sophie sighed. “I told you that Assan knows how to stay off the grid. And he has a lot of contacts and people who owe him all over the world.”
“He must, if I can’t find him. I can protect you at my place, though.”
“It’s not your job to protect me.”
“Isn’t it?” Again, the brief blaze of his eyes. “I can’t lose you now that I found you. Damn it.”
“No, it isn’t your job to protect me. I can protect myself just fine.” Stubbornness and pride drove her words. She glanced over at Connor.
His lips were pinched, his jaw tight. He radiated frustration. “These situations you keep getting into are not reassuring me that you have it all together.”
“Just ask Blackthorne who won our little standoff yesterday,” Sophie said. “Getting injured on the job is part of the risk of my work, as you well know. But I’m not an idiot. I know Assan is a huge threat and not to be underestimated. After what he had done to the last guy I kissed…well, you’re in danger too. Because of all of that, I would appreciate it if you’d stay with me at my father’s apartment until I get back on my feet.”
Connor slanted her a glance that made her toes curl. “You sure about that?”
“I am.” She stroked his arm with her good hand, and smiled.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lei took Sophie’s official statement accompanied by Sergeant Chimes at Sophie’s father’s elegant penthouse apartment upon their arrival. Dr. Kinoshita, Security Solutions’ staff psychologist, came by and did her post-incident psych debrief. Exhausted and headachy by then, Sophie went to bed while Connor fixed her chicken soup, worked his business on her computers, and played
with their dogs.
Having Connor in her space was remarkably easy, and made her feel safe. She slept well and ate well, blossoming under his nurturing. Cuddling and kisses heated things up between them, but Connor was a gentleman and she knew he’d wait as long as she needed him to for more—and she wanted to be totally healed so that she could make the most of that moment.
Lei finally called Sophie on the fifth day after the standoff to tell her that the investigation into Mano’s murder was concluded. The recording from the interior safe that Blackthorne had made backed up Sophie’s videotaped statement of events. “I wish we could find some physical evidence tying Blackthorne to Mano’s body, but there was nothing on the body besides that one hair, which doesn’t match anything on or around Blackthorne. Still, as the DA pointed out, there are a million ways a body can pick up an anonymous hair, and we’re closing the case. His death has officially been ruled a suicide. Blackthorne was certainly off his nut.”
“I haven’t heard that phrase before, but I can guess its meaning,” Sophie said. A shiver rippled down her spine as Connor nibbled a spot behind her ear. “I’m just glad everything is wrapped up.”
“Well enough. And the Bishop Museum is very happy to have his collection of bone hooks and the bones of the queen. His estate was left to the museum as well, and they are planning to turn his home into an extension of the museum. There was a surprise in his will, too—a major bequest to benefit the Hui to Restore Kakela. The queen will get her proper resting place, after all.”
“I think the ghost of Kamehameha would have liked that,” Sophie said.
She ended the call and turned around into Connor’s arms, and lost herself in a kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sophie got off the plane on Maui a few days later, wearing a neoprene brace and off her crutches. A small, light resin cast on her hand and the last of her laser treatments to remove her scar were completed. She was on the Valley Isle for multiple purposes: to pick up her possessions from the condo that she’d thought she would return to, to drop by the Kakela site to pick up the final check for Security Solutions and remove their battered tech equipment, and to deliver the surprise bequest from Blackthorne’s estate to the Hui to restore the queen’s burial site. After all of that, she was meeting Jake out at the rock star’s house to get started on their next job.