I stumbled backward as the massive black form emerged near the ceiling and started moving down the side of the shelf. My foot caught a pile of books left on the floor, and I hit the ground hard, struggling to right myself before the thing was on top of me.
One of its legs stepped over me and planted on my left side. Another did the same on my right, and I was caged by black furry bars as its fangs spread and lowered toward me.
They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die, but all I could think about was all the unfinished business that would remain unfinished forever.
My eyes squeezed shut as I waited for the strike, but the blow never came. It was moving its back legs in a repetitive motion as it kept me caged beneath it. My arms pulled to my sides and my legs straighten as it lifted me off the floor and the room began to spin. But it wasn’t the room spinning—it was me.
The pain intensified as I spun around like a piece of paper in the wind, its legs wrapping me like a baby swaddled in a tight blanket.
A tornado must have hit the shop, because the sound of a freight train suddenly rolled through it, and the black furry bars lifted off of me in one swift movement like a house coming off of its foundation.
As my vision cleared, I could see the new threat towering over me, its claws tossing black pipe cleaners through the air as they were ripped from the giant furry bulb.
“Katie!” I screamed. “Run!”
The creature making confetti out of the spider stopped and turned as if noticing me for the first time. It dropped the insect and came toward me. I pushed my way out of the thin blanket of silk and slid under the library table. A foot the size of a watermelon landed on the floor next to me, and then the room went completely still.
“What do you want?” I whispered. The stupid question slipped out of my mouth without a thought.
A giant claw hooked the fabric of my shirt and dragged me out from under the table. I dangled in the air, suspended by the massive scaled appendage and looked into the bright blue eyes of Katie Bishop.
SIX
The place looked different with the lights on. We were at the CTC—Central Training Center—where I almost dove twenty stories to my death. With its matching black ceiling, floor, and walls, the room looked like the inside of a black hole.
“That’s the intention,” said Greer. A psychological illusion meant to put the trainee off balance. “If you can’t visually tell which side is up or down, you’re more aware of your center of gravity.”
We were about to start our first day of training. Now that we knew what my trigger was, it was vital that I learned how to control it. Until that happened, Greer wouldn’t let me out of the house without an escort.
“You should have been able to kill that thing yourself,” he said.
He was referring to the black widow that got past Rhom at the shop. Fortunately for me, Katie’s dragon emerged to save the day. She didn’t have a clue what she was. That all changed a week ago when she found herself faced with the dilemma of dying, or exposing her beast. She ended up saving both of our lives in exchange for being outed.
The widow wasn’t actually trying to kill me, but Katie was excess baggage she didn’t need. Too bad the spider didn’t get the memo about the dragon.
As soon as her deadly claw lowered me back to the floor that day, Katie looked in the mirror and her dragon immediately shed its skin and returned to its home on her backside. Like an obedient dog, it submitted.
“Does that happen often?” I asked when it was over.
“Never. Well, I don’t think so.” She told me about an incident when some guy followed her out of a club and got a little too persistent. She blacked out, but in the back of her mind she knew he got what he deserved.
I considered not telling Greer about Katie’s secret. It would just fuel an unpleasant argument whenever I wanted to see her. But Rhom took care of that. He heard the riot and came storming into the shop just in time to see the dragon retreat.
Greer took it better than I expected. He liked the idea of me having Katie as backup. “The dragon obviously knows you,” he’d said, and that was the end of it.
I dropped my duffle bag on the floor. “Where do we start?”
He said nothing as he dropped his own bag next to mine, studying me to determine the best approach for taming my inner shrew.
The dark interior made the room look cozy, but the expanse of it became clear when he removed his shoes and took his time walking the perimeter.
He was wearing a pair of black warmup pants and a black T-shirt. “Another strategic illusion?” I asked, referring to the way he blended with the rest of the room, his exposed skin the only thing distinguishing him from the walls.
He watched me in silence. Maybe this was part of the training, a way of psyching the opponent. But as he moved around the room, I got the feeling he was looking for something underneath my skin, an entry point or some Achilles’ heel.
“Penny for your thoughts.” I smiled sweetly, anticipating the unpleasant dance we were about to engage in.
“This isn’t a competition, Alex. You win, I win. You lose, I lose.”
There was a medieval looking chair in the far corner of the room with metal cuffs chained to the arms and legs. “Is that for me?”
“If necessary.” He stopped to face me as he said it, gauging my reaction to the possibility of restraints. The last time he cuffed me I ended up with a needle in my neck. The heaviness of the chair offered some additional insurance that this session wouldn’t end the way that one did.
The door opened and Thomas walked in the room. He was wearing similar workout attire and had his hair pulled back in a stub of a ponytail.
“Good morning, Thomas. Tag team today?”
“You bet, sugar.”
I looked back and forth between the two of them. “Haven’t we been down this road before?” I was referring to the night I almost killed them both—with Greer’s own knife. Arthur Richmond had locked me in a basement and tried to beat the whereabouts of the amulet out of me. At the time, no one knew I was a walking time bomb, and I almost killed everyone in the room when my little secret came out.
“There won’t be any weapons in the room tonight,” Greer informed me. “And I’ve arranged for a little extra reinforcement.” He nodded to my rear. “Just in case.”
I turned around and saw Rhom standing behind me. “Smart move.”
As any good leader should, Greer had the power to give orders without words. He looked at Thomas and Rhom and the two men moved to the back wall.
He approached the center of the room and removed his shirt, exposing his lean waist and toned abdominal muscles. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him shirtless, and I knew exactly what that skin felt like against mine. But no matter how many times I saw his bare body, my breathing never failed to skip a beat.
Greer Sinclair was the prototype for what a man should look like.
“Are you trying to distract me?” I asked.
“Is it working?”
“This isn’t exactly a fair fight, you know. I’m not coming out of the closet without a little bloodshed.” As soon as the words left my mouth I regretted agreeing to any of this. “I don’t suppose you have a hypodermic in that bag?”
He slowly shook his head. “I think we need to simulate a more realistic scenario. Wouldn’t you agree, Thomas?” he asked without taking his eyes off of mine.
“Yes sir, boss,” Thomas replied.
“I’m not getting in that chair.”
Greer looked at the torturous contraption and then back at me. “I wouldn’t think of putting you in that chair—yet.”
He came forward and stopped within a foot of me. “Give me your hand.”
“Are you going to cut me?”
“Yes.”
I did what any obedient student would do. I stuck out my hand and whined pathetically. “Not too deep, now. Just nick me a little, Greer.”
Greer didn’t hesitate. He took
his knife, sharpened enough to slice effortlessly through an alligator’s skin, and drew a half-inch cut in the center of my palm. Then he tossed it to Rhom and told him to get rid of it.
Rhom opened the door and tossed the knife outside before locking us in.
At first I felt nothing, but a few seconds after the blade lifted from my skin, the latent pain kicked in. The cut expanded as my blood pushed through the edges like an eruption of pomegranate syrup.
My eyes burned and then cooled as my vision became crystal clear. Who the hell is this fucker?
“Alex?” I heard someone say. “Do you know me?”
I looked up and cocked my head at the two men standing against the wall. If I killed the one in front of me quickly, I’d have plenty of time to get to the other two before they made it to the door.
“What?” I craned my head back around to look at the one in front of me. “Do I know you?” I repeated back to him. “Yeah, I know you. You’re the idiot who just cut me.”
He took a few steps backward and turned around, giving me ample opportunity to strike. Why is he doing that? A large tattoo covered his skin and disappeared under the edge of his waistband. I studied the strange pattern as broken images teased my memory. I shook off the distraction and considered the best way to preserve the ink trophy once I carved it from his back.
I looked to my right as the men standing in the distance moved. Their leader was exposed and vulnerable, and that was making them nervous. He was their master, and a good warrior always protects his master.
The tattoo articulated like a complex mechanism as he walked away from me, each line flowing like a living breathing organism as his muscles rolled and contracted.
About ten feet out, he stopped. His shoulders expanded with each of his deep controlled breaths. “Shall we?” he offered without turning around.
I laughed—in a non-funny way. “You’re a cocky bastard, aren’t you?”
“So I’ve been told. And capable.”
“Of?”
Now he turned to look at me. His grin faded as his hands contracted into tight fists. “Of breaking you.” His eyes never wavered as they stared into the blue light coming from mine.
Normally I’d let my opponent make the first move, but this one was getting under my skin with his cocky confidence, like he’d be the one walking away when it was over. “You need to learn some manners.” I picked up speed as I moved toward him and reached for his throat.
He grabbed my wrist and my eyes turned into floodlights of blue. Partly from the shock that he’d managed to get his hands on me without me detecting his movement, and partly from the sight of the blood running down my arm. He pulled it to his mouth and pressed his lips over the trail of red. I could feel his tongue moving against my skin, his eyes never leaving mine as he tasted it.
His brow arched. “Salty.”
The rage was beating against my chest, fighting to get out from under all the skin and bone so it could kill the man who’d just stolen my blood. My blood!
Part of me felt sorry for him because he was about to suffer a painful annihilation. But the part of me that wanted to see his own blood drain from his body overruled.
He started it, but I would end it.
“Say my name,” he whispered with my wrist still gripped in his hand. And for reasons I couldn’t comprehend, I allowed it. I closed my eyes and shook my head as the two voices in my mind reasoned with me in opposite directions.
The dangerous voice won and I threw myself backward, flipping in the air before landing about halfway between him and the other two men at the back of the room.
“Damn, Greer. The girl has moves,” one of the men said. “Time for the shackles?”
I looked at the one they called Greer. He was the only real threat in the room. The others were just white noise. “No shackles today, Greer,” I declared as I slowly shook my head.
I ran at him full speed, flipping my torso to extend my legs toward his chest. He absorbed the impact of the kick and slammed against the mat. I got back on my feet. So did he. I came at him again. This time he shifted sideways, causing me to sail past him and land hard against the padded wall. Over and over he took a defensive stance, never once attempting an offensive move.
“Why aren’t you fighting?” His indifference was infuriating. “Are you stupid?”
He took a shallow breath and ordered his men out of the room. The two men looked at each other, and then left without questioning the logic of leaving him alone with a woman who was trying to kill him.
As soon as they were gone, I opened my mouth to antagonize him into striking. This time I wouldn’t make the mistake of coming at him. That approach just wasn’t working. But before I knew what hit me, my arms were tucked behind my back and my cheek was pressed against the cold rubberized pad lining the wall.
“Enough,” he growled. “We end this here and now.”
“Agreed. Now why don’t you get off of me?”
He pushed me deeper into the wall. The heat coming off of him caused my already flushed skin to glisten with a thin film of moisture, and when his warm breath hit the side of my face, I thought I’d break out in a full sweat. His fingers circled my wrists and then I felt something cold slip around them.
He’d cuffed me.
“No,” I protested. A fight on equal ground was one thing, but this was no fair fight.
“You were pretty effective the last time I put these on you.” He flipped me around to face him. “Now, we’re not leaving this room until we come to an understanding. Is that clear?”
His face was inches from mine, glowing from the light coming from my eyes that made his skin look silver. I looked in his eyes and calculated what it would take to get him to release me. Men are pretty easy creatures, after all. There are two kinds: the ones who lead with their heads and the ones who lead with their dicks. I wondered which kind he was.
I trailed my eyes down his face to the hollow of his neck, and then brought them back up to his. “Maybe we can come to some sort of arrangement,” I coaxed. “You do like girls, don’t you?”
His chest expanded, pushing me deeper into the wall. Then he leaned in even closer until I could feel the heat and moisture coming off of his lips. “I’m the other kind,” he said.
The room began to spin as my wheels started coming off the tracks. The rage came on so fast I thought my eyes might explode from the intensity of the light.
“Look at me.” He forced my eyes to stay on his as the convulsion of rage rolled through me. “You know who I am, Alex. I’m in there somewhere.”
An image of a girl swirled around in my head. It was me, but it wasn’t. I was sitting in a room, eating breakfast with the man who had me pinned to the wall. He was reading the newspaper. Do I know him?
My eyes flashed and the light dimmed as they began to cool down. I could feel my body softening as more images fragmented around his face, and the rage lessened to mild irritation.
“No, you don’t,” he warned. “I need you good and mad.” He reached behind me and removed the cuffs. Then he took my hand and crushed it to release a fresh stream of blood from the cut. As the pain shot through me, he yanked my bloody palm up to my face and sent a fresh blaze of blue flooding from my eyes. “That’s my girl.”
“I’ll kill you for that.” It was an empty threat. The urge to kill him was replaced by a strange sense of betrayal, and an even stranger sense of…warmth.
He lowered my hand to my side but wouldn’t let go of it. With his other, he cupped my face and ran his thumb across my lower lip. “Now, you see me.”
My focus blurred, and for the first time I couldn’t decide what to do with the man caging me against the wall. Rule number one: when cornered, make a goddamn decision. But as my namby-pamby brain made a recovery and my urge to kill returned, he blindsided me with a soft kiss.
It felt like an oncoming jet, the threat hurling straight for me as I pressed against the wall, suspended like a butterfly trapped in a web of
brilliant blue. My brain had simply ceased to function, and all I could do was gaze at his parted lips as he pulled away and deepened his own gaze back at me.
My heartbeat accelerated as I panicked, and then the fear sailed right past me with a roar while the oxygen left my lungs in a heady rush.
“Greer?”
I knew him, and for the first time since he’d cut me, I had no impulse to hurt him.
He let go of my hand, and I glanced down at the blood that was now covering his palm. His eyes followed mine and then trailed back up to my face. “Still want me dead?” He opened his bloodstained hand to give me a better view. “Or have you figured out that I’m not the enemy?”
My head shook as the revelation made its way through my brain and I began to realize what was happening. I could slow my thoughts and logically piece together the scenario, separating him into the non-threat category of my mind, warming from the strange affection I felt for him. I recognized him completely for the first time.
A switch had been flipped like some muscle memory in my brain had finally kicked in.
“You must control this, Alex.” He reached for my hand, squeezing it again before I could object.
“Ow! Jesus, Greer.” My eyes flared but quickly dulled back down as I implemented my newly acquired self-control. “You know I could try to kill you for that.”
“But you won’t.” He rested his forearm on the wall as he leaned over me. “Reason before revenge—yes?”
The trace of anger immediately melted away, a wide grin spreading across my face. For the first time in my life I felt real power. Not because I was cognizant of the devastating damage I was capable of, but because I knew I could control it instead of it controlling me.
Now that was power.
Greer held up his index finger as he backed away from me. He walked to the door on the other side of the room and motioned Rhom and Thomas back inside. The three of them threw me glances as they conferred, and when they seemed to agree that everything was under control, he walked back to me and delivered my fate.
The Blood Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 2) Page 6