by Lea Griffith
She nodded, cheeks going pink, nipples furling.
“I gave you my heart and I need one to replace my loss. I’ve decided nobody’s but yours will do.”
He waited, his heart thumping, his blood streaming like superheated metal through his veins.
Bone stepped to him then, soft and gentle, capitulation in every line of her body. She released the lip she’d been chewing and he breathed in. She unbuttoned his shirt, slowly, pushing it off his shoulders before she pushed his T-shirt up, skimming his chest and raking her short nails over his nipples. She smiled a siren’s smile. He drew in a rough breath, wondering if he was dreaming, hoping against hope he wasn’t.
She unbuttoned his pants, stroking over his hard cock, before she pushed them down his hips. He stepped out of his boots and then out of his pants and boxer briefs.
He stood there, cock jutting proudly from his body and he waited.
She took her tank top off, released the front clasp of her bra and then stepped out of her pants. “We will have to go slow,” she whispered.
“Of course, I wouldn’t hurt you, Etzem,” he assured her.
“No.” She shook her head. “Because I want to feel it all, every inch of you inside me. I want to taste every kiss and I want you to know that as much as you want me, I want you.”
He went to his knees then. Always she brought him to his knees. “Come here,” he pleaded.
She walked to him slowly and he pulled her into his embrace, wrapping his arms around her and feeling her skin on his. He leaned back, looked up at her and she traced his lips, his brow and over his cheeks.
“Show me how to be more, Dmitry. Show me what love could be.”
“It is this,” he said, licking the tip of her breast. Her head fell back and she moaned. “It is this,” he whispered again, stroking along her opening before he dipped a single finger into her body. “And it is this.” He kissed the area over her heart.
She held him to her, hands wrapped in his hair, body quivering under this touches.
He picked her up and placed her gently on the bed. She scooted back and he followed, careful not to put his full weight on her but keeping their skin in contact.
“I need you,” she said and her eyes widened at her admission.
“Then you shall have me,” Dmitry assured her as he sank into her heat and stayed there.
He took her body with every ounce of tenderness inside him. He kissed her, he licked her, he fucked her, and before it was all said and done, he loved her unequivocally.
She writhed beneath him, her body, scarred and perfect, covered in their combined sweat making him lose his mind. Her pussy gripped him deep, refusing to let him leave. When they sailed over the crest it was together.
And it was perfect.
•●•
Bone woke on a silent scream, her senses flaring out to determine the threat before she raised her eyes. She took in her surroundings with a single breath. Dmitry remained asleep but Blade was in the room.
Bone opened her eyes, silently slid out of the bed and covered Dmitry before she turned to her sister and raised her chin.
“It is time to talk, sister,” Blade whispered in the darkness.
Bone pulled on her clothes, steeled her heart and followed her sister from the room. She did not glance back.
This house was different from the other. There was a panic room but the single story ranch-style abode on a basement wasn’t as sprawling as the one in Virginia. Rand vowed to rebuild. Bone did not think that was a possibility given what she knew about his government and their involvement with The Collective.
She followed Blade out of the house and to the farthest edge of the property. Bullet and Arrow were not there.
“Where are our sisters?” Bone inquired, something oily moving through her gut.
“This is not their fight,” Blade said firmly.
“The boy belongs to all of us,” Bone said firmly. “I do not understand this subterfuge, Blade.”
“They are weaker now as a result of having given their hearts to men.” Blade’s words carried sorrow.
Her skin prickled, and she tasted foreboding on the slight breeze. “And what of me?”
“You might lust for the Russian but death still holds you. Surely your heart has not been compromised so,” Blade bit out.
“You sound desperate, sister.” Bone kept her tone low, soothing. “Tell me what you are truly here for.”
“Nameless,” Blade said to the sky.
Bone went cold. All hopes of knowing love with Dmitry were placed in a lockbox inside her mind. Whatever hovered in her sister’s tone didn’t bode well for Bone’s future.
“I remember her,” Bone affirmed.
“She is the darkness at the edge of my vision. She is the sound of pain that rings in my ear. Always she is there, Bone. Do you remember her screams? Do you remember the death in that room?”
Blade was in the past. Bone needed her in the present.
“You think to remind me of my part in this? For what reason?” Bone demanded.
“Do. You. Remember?” Blade asked again.
Bone needed Dmitry’s warmth but she feared she’d never know anything but the cold again. “I remember you waking us all, taking us to that abandoned cabin and asking us to help you,” Bone said softly. “I remember the jungle cats screaming and the night birds singing. It was a song of death, Blade. I told you I remember.”
“She was in such pain and I tried to keep her secret but I needed my sisters so I came to you all and you were there. Minton watched us from the shadows. Did you know that?” Blade’s gaze sliced to Bone and in her night-veiled green eyes was the horror of that night.
Bone had not known though she’d sensed other eyes. “I did. He tried to get me to tell him of what we did there.” The screams of the children he’d thrown over the cliff to persuade her resounded in Bone’s ears.
“He was there watching. I may never understand his motivation but he did not tell Joseph until later what happened that night. It’s why Joseph hasn’t killed us before.”
Ice cold. The rage washed over her now, calling her to duty. “Joseph knows about the boy. We are aware he suspects who the boy is. And Joseph cannot kill what he cannot catch.”
“He knows. And we have all been fooling ourselves if we think Joseph hasn’t guessed every move we would make,” Blade said, and in her voice were the melodic tones of death. “And she knows as well—what we did, what she gave up that night—and she wants what she considers hers back.”
“Then we will kill her as well. The boy is ours,” Bone promised. She didn’t understand her sister’s mood. Doubt had no place in their plans and yet it sounded as if Blade were filled with it. “I do not care that Joseph has guessed every move. It’s the truth the thought makes me happy because in the end, everything we planned has been seen through and he is running now, Blade. We are so close.”
Blade sighed. “We cannot kill her, Bone. You cannot kill her. She is like us, but different. She is like Ninka but stronger. Not as strong as us but perhaps harder in a different way.” Blade lowered her gaze to the ground and took a deep breath. “She was Nameless. He didn’t even allow her a name but he took her life much as he took ours. She was to be his to replace the loss of his wife.”
Bone was frozen now, fear an incipient staccato beat at the base of her skull. “What are you telling me, Blade?”
“She is hunting us. As I hunt the boy, she is hunting me but she is coming for you first. She remembers what you did that night, Bone. She holds you responsible.”
Bone wanted to scream at the pain of that night. She had been ten years old and had dealt death many times by then but that single night she’d done the unthinkable. She hadn’t known what to do and so she’d done nothing.
Death.
Her fear was quickly replaced by white-hot rage that built and built into an inferno. “Let. Her. Come.”
“She has watched us suffer, Bone, not lifting a finger to
help us and she will not stop until the boy is with her and Joseph is dead by her hand. I cannot fight two fronts,” Blade responded.
Bone stared at Blade. “You have held this information close to you and I would know why,” she demanded.
“I asked my sisters to help another. I brought this upon you. With the burdens we all carried, none of you needed more, but she became mine the moment we were taken to the big house and made to lie with our captor. I heard her cries as Joseph raped her and I vowed that no matter what happened I would help her live so that she could know revenge as well. When her belly swelled and she began to bleed, I couldn’t handle it myself. I needed my sisters. And you were all there.”
Bone nodded. Revenge she understood. Loyalty she understood.
“But now she comes for the boy and that I will not accept,” Blade whispered savagely.
“She has dogged us for years, Blade. You should have told us sooner that she harbored resentment,” Bone chastised.
Blade shrugged. “I did not know she even suspected it was you, Arrow, and Bullet who helped. She was broken and I thought her mind a vast empty space that could not be recaptured. When I realized she had survived intact, that Joseph held her and continued to try and breed her, well, I was unwilling to risk my sisters for one who wouldn’t help herself.
“She was as much a victim as any of us,” Bone said, the words scraping her throat.
“She was and she was not,” Blade returned. “She made a decision that changed her course. From that point on she was no longer mine.”
“You speak in riddles now, sister. Tell me.”
“I thought her gone, of no concern. As the years passed I heard no more of her but when Bullet came to Arequipa she was there with Grant. And she was in China with Arrow. Whether she was helping there or not I haven’t been able to determine. Since then she has been preoccupied searching for the boy. It wasn’t an issue until recently and she amped up her efforts. It was as if you engaging with Asinimov stirred her anger. She was in the woods the night Asinimov rescued you. That is too close. She has become a threat that must be dealt with.”
“So I will lead her from here,” Bone assured her. “She will not be close when you take down Nodachi and get the boy. She wants what is not hers to have.”
“She thinks the boy is hers, Bone, and you know it. She is out there and she will not give up. Grant is helping her.”
Shock ghosted through Bone. She’d known a woman was following them, knew Grant was helping her but for some reason verification made it all the more real. “She is but another player in this game. If she wants me, if she feels I am responsible for her loss that night, I will accept my share of the blame and she will move on or die.”
“She is trained but not as we are. I would that you did not kill her,” Blade requested. “Remember, she too suffered the unspeakable.”
“You speak on one breath of her no longer being yours. With the next you caution me against harming her. Make up your mind, Blade.”
“I said she suffered and for that she’s earned at least a stay. You will do what you will do. I am simply asking you to try not to harm her before we know the truth of it all,” Blade urged.
“I can make you no promises, sister. I am about to give up my chance at happiness because I helped another live all those years ago. My rage is greater than it has ever been—even the night I found out what Joseph did to you. I might understand her reasons but I will not allow her to hurt any of us. And the boy is ours—we kept him safe, protected him from a truth that would destroy him, gave him a chance at life.”
Blade sighed. “What is life if you must hide to live it?”
Bone’s chest hurt at the heartbreak in Blade’s voice. She was tired of feeling. Indeed she preferred the nothingness of her hate.
“You cannot return there,” Blade said, guessing Bone’s intent which reminded Bone they were all connected in a way not many others ever experienced.
The bonds forged in Hell…
“I must. If it’s retribution she wants, I will give her a chance at it,” Bone whispered.
“What of your Asinimov?” Blade asked.
“He will be angry. I know this and yet it will not sway me from my duty to the boy, to you and Arrow and Bullet. Find the child, Blade. Get him to safety so that you may begin the final play and we can all have our revenge.”
“For Ninka,” Blade said, once again directing her words to the sky.
Bone nodded. “For us all.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I did not think I could know love,” she murmured at Dmitry’s side.
Bone had left her sister among the towering eucalyptus trees and walked back to his side, crawling into bed with him and letting his warmth soothe the places made cold with talk of death.
She had never questioned her life, the whys and wherefores of it all, but now she did. When she’d found someone who made her want more than the death-dealing that came so easy to her, why was fate so intent on taking it from her?
Perhaps she was more like her father than she realized. Maybe the loyalty to his wife had made him go crazy. Maybe the love he had for her made him blind to the reality that he was never meant for anything more than killing.
She had never known the stirrings of love until she’d tasted Dmitry Asinimov. She was different now and the burden of the loyalty she had to her sisters, while absolute, had become another weight on her soul.
Though he’d vowed it wasn’t what he wanted, he had changed her.
She had more steps to take it seemed. More miles to travel and another reckoning to meet with. Nameless was probably out there right now, waiting for Bone to make a move.
It had taken Bone a long time to sleep but she’d finally given over, waking to find him on his stomach, face turned toward her, snoring softly. She’d played with his body, licking his skin and rubbing the firmness of his muscles, testing his reactions and knowing she had found something she did not deserve.
And he was awake because she’d played but she did not regret interrupting his rest. His beautiful gaze pierced her, splitting her open and demanding everything she was. “No one deserves it more. And if you keep rubbing my ass I am going to fuck you.”
“That would not be a bad thing, would it?”
He laughed and turned over, his cock showing it her it most definitely would not be a bad thing.
“I don’t know how to love, Dmitry, but I want to learn because if anyone deserves to be loved, it is you.”
He pulled her closer to him, smoothing a kiss over her brow and pushing her hair from her face. “I think you are my savior, Bone. Before you, I was empty, searching for a past even as I ran from it.”
“I am not sorry I killed your father or your mother.”
He kissed her lips this time. “I am not either.”
“But I am sorry we could not save Ninka,” she whispered. The pain of that morning in Arequipa was fresh. She feared it always would be.
“My sister. If I could have found her in time enough to save her, perhaps I wouldn’t have you now. There are steps we take, Etzem, that lead us to our lives. My life is you so I will no longer regret the steps I’ve taken because of where I am now.”
“I do not know that I can be what you need,” she told him baldly. Better he know now than hope for something else.
“We have already discussed change. I cannot change you, Bone Breaker. To try would make you something different from the woman I’ve given myself to. That would destroy me as surely as it would destroy you.”
“You have changed me though,” she admitted. “I still have secrets, Dmitry. There are things I cannot tell you, not yet.”
He nodded, hands moving up and down her back, soothing. “I understand your loyalty and I would not change that either. But I will demand that you keep me in the loop. I would go crazy not knowing where you are. Do not ask that of me. I will not ask for specifics and I would be a complete fucking dumbass to think you need me to protect you
, but it will not stop me from trying. To me you are fragile glass and I would give my last breath to keep you safe whether you can do that on your own or not.”
“You ask for things that are foreign to me,” she whispered.
He glanced at her, worry lining his brow. “How about this,” he said, pressing his hips forward and groaning as her hand stroked his hard cock. “I ask you for nothing but this emotion between us that grows hot when I look at you and turns molten when I feel your hands on my body. How about I ask you for nothing but the pleasure that we create when our bodies touch?”
“Vsegda,” she said at his lips.
His eyes lowered, the blue burning and being answered by the fire inside her belly for this man. “You would promise me that?”
“Right here, right now, I would promise you forever.”
Once she gave the words life they expanded between them becoming something more than she’d ever known. But they were also bitter because she knew she was leaving once again.
He tangled her hair in his hands and came over her, his lips at hers. She opened her legs to him, the length of his cock on her thigh hot as she was consumed by want. He did not kiss her, simply held her there until he sank slowly inside her body, pushing in so deeply she felt possessed, owned.
“Moye,” he said, lips grazing hers as they moved.
“I will remember this,” she promised, more to herself than to Dmitry.
“Yes,” he ground out as she angled her hips, taking him even deeper and using her internal muscles to clench on him.
He stroked her then, retreating to her precipice to slide in again slowly. He built the heat in her body, and they shared sweat and breath. He stared at her, holding her hair and not allowing anything but her hips to move.
She met each thrust, giving herself to him, cementing him in her mind and heart. She did not think about tomorrow. She did not think about her sisters.
All she knew was Dmitry.
How long he made love to her she did not know. It seemed forever but not long enough. Her body craved and he answered her call, giving everything he was to her and abolishing her fear and pain. The heat called to her, the completion of what he wrought inside her demanding as he pushed in harder, deeper, faster.