by Lara Adrian
Together they hurried to remove her clothing, then his. If she thought they would make it to her bedroom, Scythe’s impatient snarl and rampant arousal told her otherwise.
He tugged her down onto the soft rug in front of the fireplace, positioning her beneath him. She was shameless with him, opening her thighs as he settled between her legs on his knees. His cock thrust upward, a thick spear that surged past his navel. Dermaglyphs tracked along its length, the most erotic thing she had ever seen.
Her mouth watered as she gazed at him, and in her core bloomed an inferno of urgent desire.
She nearly screamed when he bent forward to press his mouth to the center of her body. Her sex went molten, pleasure streaking along her nerve endings with each sensual lick and suckle of his mouth. He didn’t stop until the first hard jolts of release shook her.
She splintered apart, writhing under the lashes of his wicked tongue.
She groaned in protest when the heat of his mouth left her. Her disappointment didn’t last. Her next breath was a jagged cry as Scythe repositioned and impaled her with one slow, impossibly deep thrust.
Fireworks exploded behind her closed eyelids as he set the perfect pace. He was incredibly big, and she was woefully out of practice, but her body seemed to bloom around him. She’d never felt so invaded. So complete.
Despite that she was still coming down from the crest of one climax, another soon began to build as she and Scythe moved as one. Their gazes locked, breath mingling, they fell into a rhythm that was both raw and sublime.
She couldn’t hold back her orgasm. She didn’t even try. It shattered her, sending her soaring into a place of glittering orange stars and endless night as she held Scythe’s intense stare and surrendered herself to the pleasure only he could give her.
His own control lasted only moments longer than hers.
On a hoarse shout, he erupted inside her.
She clutched him as he rocked and shuddered above her, amazed to think that she had been the one to bring this lethal Hunter to his knees. Because as powerless as she was to resist the need that had ignited between them, so was he. She saw that now. She felt it with each powerful movement of his body, and with each roaring throb of his pulse.
After a long while, he finally slowed. With a kiss to her lips, then her brow, he rolled off her and gathered her against him.
For a man who claimed to have no tenderness in him, the way he held her was as if she were made of glass. As if she were the most precious thing he’d ever touched. Not in all her time with Sal—not even in the best of times—had she ever felt such careful attention. Emotion clogged her throat and misted her eyes as she snuggled into Scythe’s chest, sighing with comfort under the shelter of his arm.
She wasn’t sure how long they lay there, silent but for the tandem beating of their hearts and the quiet rasp of their breathing. Her hand rested on the muscles of his stunted forearm, her fingers idly tracing the beautiful lines of his glyphs. She didn’t shy away from the rounded end of his wrist. She let her fingers explore this part of him, too, wanting him to know that she accepted all that he was, and what he’d come through in order to arrive here with her.
She was so steeped in contentment, so blissfully lost in what they’d shared, the sound of his deep voice jolted her.
“I was sixteen when my collar came off. By then, I’d already been removed from Dragos’s training lab and assigned a Minion handler. I had already proven myself in a dozen different missions, all of them lethal. Killing was all I knew. And then, suddenly, I woke up on my cot and my UV collar was open. It lay on the mattress next to me, cold and unfastened, and by some miracle, I was alive.”
Chiara tilted her head and placed a kiss on his arm. “That was the night twenty years ago when the Order freed all of the Hunters?”
“Yes. Although I didn’t know that until a long time later. None of us knew it was the Order that hacked into Dragos’s laboratory computers and disabled the electronic locks on our collars. All we knew was that we were free.” He grunted, irony in the sound. “For many of the Hunters who broke out of the labs or walked away from their handlers that night, freedom was more than they could handle. We were raised to be machines. Nameless. Merciless. We were trained as weapons, nothing more. We didn’t know how to function any other way. A lot of us still don’t.”
“Your half-brothers,” she murmured, recalling that every Hunter shared the genes of the same sire—the last of the Ancients, the otherworlders who fathered the Breed race here on Earth. “How many of you escaped the program?”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. Probably dozens. Maybe more. Except for a few I’ve crossed paths with—or swords—there’s no telling how many of my Hunter brethren still survive, or where they might be living.”
She shuddered to think it. All of those lost Breed boys and full-grown, deadly males, ill-equipped for any kind of normal life, left to make their way in a world that must have seemed so foreign to them. And then there was Scythe. He wore his suffering for all to see.
“Did you lose your hand before or after you had your freedom?” she asked softly.
“After.”
He went silent for a long moment, and she waited, giving him the choice to either trust her or keep his pain—and his past—to himself.
“There was a woman I met in Nevada several years after I was freed. A human woman named Mayrene. She had a narcotics addiction that kept her constantly in search of money, shelter, even food. She was peddling herself on the Las Vegas strip when I saw her. At first, I paid her to be my blood Host.” He shrugged. “For a few months, it worked for both of us. Then I found out about the boy.”
Chiara’s breath caught in her breast. Even though she knew it was a biological impossibility for a Breed male to impregnate an average human female, there was a note of affection in Scythe’s voice as he spoke about this child.
“Jacob was young, just three years old, the first time Mayrene brought him with her to one of our meetings.”
“The same age as Pietro,” Chiara murmured, her heart squeezing. “Was he afraid of you? Did he understand that you and his mother were helping each other?”
Scythe chuckled, but there was sorrow in the sound. And regret. “He wasn’t afraid of anything, not even me. Very much like your Pietro.”
She lifted her head and shifted so she could look at him. “You loved him.”
He nodded. “As much as I knew how, I suppose I loved them both. Before I realized it, we’d become something of a family. I protected Mayrene and her son, kept them fed and sheltered so that she didn’t need to sell her body anymore. She saw to my needs... when she was sober enough for me to tolerate her. There were times the heroin was so thick in her blood, I wanted to vomit. As for the rest, well, it wasn’t long before I didn’t want anything she had to offer me. Eventually, I left.”
“Did you ever see her again?”
“Yes, I did.” His eyes were fathomless obsidian, his mouth a grim line within the trim black beard that framed it. “A few months later, I heard rumors that a gang of Breed males had run through Vegas sweeping up humans to use for game in an illegal blood club. My first thought was Mayrene. I went by her apartment, and she was gone. Jacob too. One of her junkie friends told me Mayrene hadn’t been home for a couple of nights. She said Mayrene and the boy had left in a dark sedan with a couple of mean-looking Breed males.”
“Oh, my God.” Chiara closed her eyes, not wanting to imagine the kind of danger Mayrene and her child had gotten into. “Tell me she and Jacob weren’t taken for one of those sick killing clubs...”
Scythe’s expression remained stoic, expressionless. “I tracked them down later that night. The club had been set up in a storage facility on the outskirts of the city. The place was locked down and secure, armed Breed guards at every entrance. I could’ve killed a sentry, but I didn’t want to risk alerting the whole place to my arrival. Instead, I found a ventilation duct that let out on the roof. I climbed inside, then craw
led through the bowels of the building, following the sounds of humans weeping and screaming.”
“Were they—” Chiara couldn’t say the words. “Did you find Jacob and Mayrene there?”
He nodded, a tendon pulsing in his jaw. “They were in a basement holding cell, along with half a dozen other humans. Jacob wasn’t the only child among them.”
Dread rose up her throat as he went on.
“The ventilation duct terminated above the cell. At the end of it was large generator fan. Those spinning blades were the only thing standing between me and the only two people who mattered to me in my life. I could stop the blades with the power of my mind, but the mental hold would be weakened by my worry for Mayrene and her son.” He went quiet for a long moment, no doubt reliving the nightmare in his mind’s eye. “I couldn’t risk that. I had to immobilize the blades some other way. I managed to jam one of my guns into the fan. The blades stopped, but the engine started to whine and smoke. I called to Mayrene as I knocked out the duct’s wire mesh screen. She rushed over with Jacob and I told her to pass the boy up to me, that I was going to pull them both up into the duct.”
Chiara sat up, unable to lie still when her heart was hammering with worry. She was too afraid to ask questions, hanging on every syllable as he spoke.
“We worked fast, but black smoke was as thick as fog by the time I had Jacob safely through the blades and inside the ventilation duct with me. I started to pull Mayrene up next, but one of the other women in the cell started screaming for me to help her instead. She crawled up Mayrene’s back like an animal. The extra weight dropped them both. I tried again, and this time I was able to pull Mayrene safely up. There wasn’t a second to spare. The fan’s engine accelerated, and the blades dislodged my gun. The fan was spinning faster, spewing so much smoke it was impossible to see anything in front of me.”
He rubbed his hand over his jaw and expelled a curse under his breath. “I knew we didn’t have much time before the whole damned place dissolved into gunfire and chaos. I had to get Jacob and Mayrene out of there. But when I turned and grabbed the boy into my arms, he said, ‘What about the others? We have to save them all.’”
Chiara reached out to him, smoothing her fingers over his handsome, tormented face. He didn’t withdraw, but he felt a thousand miles away from her now, his gaze bleak.
“I should’ve ignored the kid. He had no concept of the danger he was in. He didn’t know enough to be afraid. He only knew that I had come to save him and his mother, and he thought I could save them all. He was dead wrong.”
“Oh, Scythe... You don’t have to tell me anything else.”
“Yes, I do. I want you to know.” His voice was wooden and clipped, as if the words were spilling out of him without his control. “I couldn’t ignore Jacob. I didn’t want to see the hurt or confusion in his face. I didn’t want him to hate me. So, I told Mayrene how to get out of the building the same way I came in. I told her to take Jacob and wait for me on the roof while I got the others out of the cell.”
He blinked and lowered his head, a picture of profound pain. “They took off, and I turned back to the spinning blades of the fan. I tried to stall the engine with my mind, but my focus was fractured. All I could think about—all that mattered—was the two people I’d let out of my sight, out of my protection. I realized I had to use something else to stop the blades this time. I couldn’t risk forfeiting another weapon. So I reached in and grabbed one of the blades in my grip.”
Chiara sucked in a gasp. “You said they were razor sharp.”
He nodded. “My right hand was bleeding like bitch, but the blade stayed immobile. I shouted for the captives to give me the children first, then I’d help the adults. No one obeyed. They were all hysterical. The group of them charged the wall and began climbing over one another to be the first spared. It was chaos. It was a disaster in the making. And then I heard Mayrene’s anguished scream echo down through the ducts.”
“Oh, no.” Chiara fought against the sick feeling that wanted to strangle her. “Oh, Scythe... no.”
“All of my attention pivoted in that one instant. I lost my focus. I glanced away from the blades and the people scrambling for me to save them. Someone grabbed hold of my hand. I felt my other hand’s grasp slip on the fan blade. By then it was too late. The engine wailed as the rotators began to spin again. My hand was gone before I even realized my mistake.”
He said it so calmly, as if the loss of limb meant nothing to him. And then she realized why. A broken sob caught in the back of her throat. “Mayrene and Jacob...”
He shook his head. “They were dead on the roof by the time I reached them. The gang of blood clubbers had torn out their throats. There was no saving either one of them.”
Tears rolled down Chiara’s cheeks, too fast and hot for her to blink them back. She nestled down against his chest, wrapping her arms around him because as much as she needed to be closer, she felt he did too. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t remember much else about that night. I remember killing. I remember wading through rivers of blood—my own and that of the other males I slaughtered in that place. When I woke up, it was nearly sunrise and I was lying in blood-soaked sand near the edge of the desert outside the strip. Another former Hunter found me. If not for Asher, I’d be dead too. He dragged me out of the desert, then kicked my ass to keep me going in the weeks of recuperation that followed.”
“I think I like Asher.”
Scythe grunted, the first trace of a smile edging his mouth. “I have no doubt you would. And I’m certain he’d like you, which makes me glad the bastard is halfway around the world from here. Or so I assume.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“I haven’t seen him in many years.”
“What about the rest of your brothers who survived the Hunter program?”
He shrugged. “I’m aware of a few, but aside from connecting with Trygg a couple of years ago, I prefer my solitude. Life is simpler that way.”
“So, why did you complicate everything by coming here to help me?”
The question blurted out of her, something she’d been trying to understand from the moment she saw him in Rome and learned that he—of all people—had signed on to be her protector.
“You are a complication to be sure, Chiara Genova.” He lifted her chin on the edge of his hand. His black irises swallowed her up, flecks of glowing embers mesmerizing her with their kindling heat. “You are also the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met. And I would do anything—sacrifice any part of me, including my last breath—to keep you safe.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, nor did he give her the chance. His mouth claimed hers, kissing her with a reverence that staggered her. She moaned and arched into him, bringing her arms around his neck as her tongue danced with his.
She felt the precise instant that something was wrong.
His body tensed, his kiss halting abruptly. He set her back from him, his head cocked as he stilled and listened to the silence all around them.
“Scythe?” Dread chased away the heat they shared. “What's wrong?”
He let out a chilling snarl. “We’ve got company. The son of a bitch is here.”
Chapter 9
Scythe leaped to his feet, pulling Chiara up with him. “Get dressed. Quick.” He shoved her sweater and leggings at her, then bent to grab his pants from the floor and hurried to yank them on. “I need you to find someplace safe to hide, someplace with a solid door and a damned strong lock—”
“There’s a panic room,” she reminded him as she pulled on her clothing. “It’s in the wine cellar at the other end of the house.”
“Yes. Go there now.” He wasn’t about to squander precious time donning his shirt or putting on his boots. His main thought—his only concern—was getting Chiara out of harm’s way so he could deal with the danger closing in from outside.
She hesitated, watching as he raced to retrieve a pair of loaded semiautomatic pi
stols from the large oak bar in the living room, one of several weapons caches he’d stowed around the villa in preparation for any chance that he might be caught off-guard by her assailant’s return.
When he pivoted back to her, her face was stricken with dread. “Are you sure it’s him? You’re sure it’s the male who attacked me?”
He knew his gaze was grim as he shoved one of the weapons into the waistband of his jeans. “I’m sure.”
It had taken his internal radar too long to penetrate the haze of his lust with Chiara, but now his head was ringing with the portent of danger—all of it centered on her. And while he didn’t need the sensor alarms to confirm it, in that next instant, one of the tripwires on the property was triggered. The breach sent a pulse of warning to the phone in his pocket.
“Take this.” He put one of the firearms in Chiara’s hands. “Get to the panic room and lock yourself inside. If anyone breaks through the door, you empty every goddamned round into the son of a bitch. Understand?”
She swallowed, her big brown eyes searching. “I hate the idea of leaving you, Scythe. This is my fight too—”
“Damn it, Chiara. Get the fuck out of here, now!”
His voice boomed with the intensity of his fear. With the depth of his affection for her, a feeling that seemed too big, too profound, for him to acknowledge when all of his battle instincts were on high alert. This woman meant too much to him, more than Mayrene ever had. More than anyone.
He couldn’t stand the thought of Chiara in peril. The thought of her being injured... or worse?
He shook his head, a violent curse erupting from between his teeth and fangs.
He wasn’t sure who needed the comfort more, but he couldn’t resist drawing her close, however briefly. He kissed her lips, then hugged her tight before setting her away from him again. “Go, sweetheart. Please.”
Her nod wobbled, but she took a step past him.
Too late.
Scythe knew it by the sudden banging in his temples. There was no chance to get her to safety, even if she had fled the room without taking the time to dress. Her assailant was already inside.