The Last Warrior

by Kylie Brant

  She twisted in his grasp and panted, “Dammit, Joe.”

  Primitive satisfaction had him smiling at the frustrated desire in those two words. “Soon,” he promised, sliding his hand down the outside of her leg. He reversed course and she caught her breath as his fingers grazed the sensitive skin inside her shorts, traced the crease where thigh met pelvis. He drew his head back to watch her, and something clenched hard in his chest.

  Delaney’s eyes were heavy-lidded, the gold expanded around the iris like twin jewels. Her lips were swollen from his, her hair tangled from his fingers and he felt a primordial surge of pleasure at the sight. With one deliberate finger he stroked her, damp heat beneath lace, and she jerked helplessly in response.

  There was a roaring in his system, like thunder crashing atop a butte, and watching her pleasure magnified his own. He cupped and stroked her, coaxing her hips to match the rhythm of his movements. Her throat arched and he was driven to test the delicate cord of her neck with his teeth in a primitive taste for flesh.

  He slipped his fingers inside the elastic of her panties and covered her mound. His fingertips were moistened with her desire and he slid them over her in a motion meant to torment. Something like a sob escaped her and he increased the pressure, bending to take a nipple in his mouth.

  The dual assault had her twisting against him, in a sensual struggle that honed the keen edge of passion, sharp as a blade. And when he stroked one finger inside her dampness, and watched her shatter, the greedy hunger rocketed through him, demanding a release.

  He freed her for the moment it took to shed his clothes and had her back in his arms before her eyes had fluttered all the way open. The look in them was dazed, drugged, and his touch was a shade rough as he pushed her shorts over the curve of her hips, down the silky length of thigh and kicked them away.

  He cupped her bottom and lifted her, stepping between her open thighs and barely managed to restrain himself from entering her with one urgent thrust. The passion was pounding in his veins, careening through his blood until his every sense was focused on the burning need to bury himself in her. He pressed her back against the wall, and positioned her legs, growling when she locked her ankles around his hips.

  Her fingers found him then, in one lingering firm stroke that had his vision hazing and his senses fogging. He pressed against her sweet yielding flesh and buried himself to the hilt. There was a stunning moment of clarity where he was aware of every individual heightened sensation. The trickle of perspiration on his back, the blood hammering in his veins, the bite of Delaney’s nails on his shoulders, the sweet clutch and release of her inner muscles working against his hardness.

  And then clarity exploded in a wash of savage hunger and he surged against her, control lost, over and over, trying to get closer. Deeper. His vision narrowed until she was the only point in it as flesh slapped against flesh and she strained and shuddered against him.

  He heard her cry out and he pounded into her faster, frantic now. Then pleasure abruptly slammed into him, spun him up and over the edge into a vortex of sensation.

  Fingers of sunlight were slanting through the blinds and across Delaney’s face, creating enough heat that she awakened, uncomfortably warm. She opened one eye to glare balefully at the offending blind, before dragging open the other eyelid. As always upon awakening, her brain was sluggish. The first thing she was going to buy, she vowed, was some room-darkening shades. She sat up, kicked at the sheet twisted around her ankles and yawned. Maybe even a small window air conditioner. One that would keep her cool enough that she wouldn’t haven’t to sleep nude.

  Nude. Her gaze bounced down, widened. Leaning over she yanked at the sheet and pulled it up, her mind in shock. She shouldn’t be nude. She’d had shorts on. A shirt. She distinctly remembered…

  She fell back on the bed with a mortified groan. She distinctly remembered all but inviting Joe Youngblood to tear her clothes off of her. And if memory served, it hadn’t taken all that much coaxing for him to do just that. She yanked a pillow over her face to shut out the humiliating recollection. But it wouldn’t be so easily banished. The problem with orgasms was that they only wiped the mind clean for a few moments. Well, substantially longer if people knew what they were doing and could, somehow, string round one with rounds two and three so smoothly that it felt like one long, mind-shattering free fall into pleasure.

  Joe Youngblood had definitely known what he was doing.

  Do I need a condom?

  She shivered at the recollection of his voice. It had been a little late to ask since he’d carried her from the kitchen to the bed and had already been buried deep inside her again. But at least he’d summoned the brain-power to think of protection eventually. She hadn’t even given it a moment’s consideration, which made her ever-grateful for the contraceptive patch on her hip. Apparently she’d undergone more changes than she’d thought in the last couple years if she could so easily forget basic sexual safety.

  The pillow was tossed aside, and she stared at the ceiling broodingly. One of the only positives for having made her share of mistakes is that it gave her a point of reference. Sleeping with Joe Youngblood wasn’t the worst error she’d ever made in her life. But God help her, it ranked right up there. She’d spent the night having mind-blowing sex with a man she barely knew and who was going to be darn hard to avoid in the future.

  But she hadn’t dreamed.

  She hadn’t struggled beneath an oppressive blanket of PTSD nightmares that could suck her into their vortex and leave her feeling weak and frightened and hopeless. She supposed she had Joe Youngblood to thank for that, but somehow she couldn’t summon a speck of gratitude.

  Chapter 5

  The shadow-shrouded alley smelled like death. Joe peered through the gloom, gun drawn, and hoped the odor wasn’t an omen. He nudged Arnie and jerked his head toward the overflowing Dumpster against the wall of the next building. Arnie nodded, and they fanned out, approaching carefully. Quintero had been wilier than they’d given him credit for. They’d arrived at his apartment shortly after dawn, warrant in hand. But the drug dealer had gone out the bedroom window as they’d been coming through the front door. He’d disappeared into the alley moments before and the large refuse container offered the best chance of concealment.

  Joe held up one hand, and his partner halted, gun trained on the Dumpster. Joe went on silently, spinning rapidly around the other side. The space was empty.

  He glanced back at Arnie, the two men communicating silently. While his partner stayed put, Joe checked the rest of the dingy area.

  Nothing. Joe turned around, headed back toward Arnie. He was still three yards away when he saw the first sign of movement from the pile of debris inside the Dumpster.

  “Down, get down!” He leaped to the side as he shouted, a split second before the area exploded in gunfire. The scene fragmented into stills. Quintero rising from the garbage, his automatic spraying bullets. Arnie stumbling backward, falling against the building. Sliding down its wall to the rubbish-strewn ground.

  Joe dived toward his friend, his sights on Quintero as the man turned the gun on him. They fired at the same time, and Joe hit the ground, shielding Arnie’s prone body, prepared to shoot again.

  But Quintero was slumped over the front of the Dumpster, his body motionless. As Joe watched, the man’s gun slipped from his hand, clattered to the ground.

  “He dead?” Arnie mumbled.

  The sound of his partner’s voice had never sounded so good. “Are you?” Joe shot him a quick look, noting the blood running freely down his arm, before turning a watchful gaze back on the dealer.

  “Not…even…close.” Arnie stifled a moan as he shifted position, cursed colorfully in English before switching to Spanish. Navajo was too precise a language to lend itself to eloquent cursing. The halting string of obscenities eased Joe’s worry.

  Keeping his gun trained on Quintero, Joe pulled his radio from his belt and called for an ambulance. Then he approached t
he dealer.

  He reached out to grab the man’s hair, lifted his head. Quintero’s eyes fluttered, then slid closed again. “You made some bad mistakes all around. You can fix one, though. Give us your supplier’s name. That’s all we want. We’ll have help here in a few minutes.”

  But when Joe heard the breath whistling through the man’s chest, he knew that the ambulance wasn’t going to be there in time. Quintero’s lips were moving, but Joe had to lean close to make out the words.

  “Go…to…hell.”

  The distant sound of sirens could already be heard, but the man’s body had gone limp. Joe released him and eased away. Hell was an Anglo concept, not a Navajo one. But if it did exist, he was pretty sure Quintero was already on his way there.

  Arnie had already been taken away to the hospital, but Joe waited for FBI agent Delmer Mitchell to arrive on the scene. Another member of the task force, he was investigating the suspected drug-related homicides of three Navajo youth two weeks earlier.

  Joe stood a ways off as the agent went through Quintero’s pockets. “Seems like your job would be easier if you could just do this yourself.”

  Joe didn’t bother answering. The Navajo aversion to death was too deeply ingrained in him to be put aside simply to conduct the search, and he knew it was useless to try and explain it to the belagana. Mitchell held up a cell phone, car keys and a large wad of cash. “This is it.” He got to his feet, holding the contents up for Joe’s perusal.

  Shoving aside his distaste at touching the dead man’s belongings, he took the cell phone and turned it over, studying it. It looked like one of the disposables that were showing up in nearby department stores. Many of the homes on Navajo Nation lands still didn’t have landlines but cell phones were getting increasingly common, though the coverage was sporadic. Some criminals assumed they were untraceable with the use of prepaid plans. Joe was hoping that didn’t turn out to be the case.

  He pressed the button to list the incoming call log and was unsurprised to find it empty. The same was true of the outgoing log. But when he hit Redial a number appeared on the screen and a hard smile crossed his lips.

  A whistle escaped Mitchell’s lips. “The guy was carrying over five thousand dollars.” He looked at Joe. “You get anything?”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t have much time. He’d have to follow up on the caller before news of Quintero’s death got out. “I’m going to search his apartment. And then I’ll find out whether or not this number leads anywhere.”

  “Good-sized bust?” Captain Tapahe leaned back in his chair, working his shoulders tiredly.

  Standing before the man’s desk, Joe nodded. “About three kilos of ice. Street value would be about a million, a million point three.”

  Tapahe’s face brightened. “Not bad. Maybe he’s our guy after all.”

  Joe shook his head. “I don’t think so. I was surprised Quintero has risen that high in the feeding chain, but he doesn’t have the brains to coordinate the kind of network we’re tracking. He was strictly a middleman, and he wasn’t interested in sharing the name of his supplier.”

  “Well, he won’t be talking now.” The captain’s voice was matter-of-fact. “The warrant turn up anything in his apartment?”

  Joe shifted his weight. His left knee had taken the brunt of his fall that afternoon, and it was throbbing. “He had a throwaway cell phone on him. There were no calls logged on the incoming or outgoing list, but I was able to retrieve one number by hitting Redial.” The captain looked hopeful. “I sent a text message pretending to be Quintero, arranging to meet the guy in back of McDonald’s. Ran the number on the Avalanche he was driving. Showed up registered to Brant Graywolf.” Joe was familiar with the prominent family name and the kid’s juvie sheet.

  “Not surprising,” the captain grunted. “The kid’s been in and out of drugs for years. Quintero was probably his supplier. Did you question him?”

  “I plan to round up all of Quintero’s known clients and acquaintances. Brant goes to the top of the list. I’m hoping Lucas Tallhorse can perform a dump on the cell and retrieve the incoming and outgoing call logs.” It went without saying that the NTP lacked the funds for specialized technicians. But Officer Tallhorse had proven to be a pretty decent techie in his own right. If Tapahe okayed it, the chief would let the man give the phone a shot, in lieu of his other duties.

  The captain nodded. “I’ll make sure he gets to it. Did you find anything else of interest during the search?”

  “He was carrying over five thousand on him, and we found another twenty grand in a shoe box stashed under some floorboards beneath the bed.” The man’s imagination hadn’t exceeded his IQ.

  “I’ve got something else here for you.” The captain riffled through the piles of papers on his desk until he came up with a scribbled note, which he handed to Joe. “A Hank Yazzie was busted last night for selling liquor out of his garage. Guess he had quite a business going. Anyway, he’s trying to cut a deal and offered up some information about the homicides Mitchell’s investigating.”

  Joe felt interest stirring. “Anything that sounded credible?”

  Tapahe shrugged. “It might be bogus, but he mentioned Quintero. Said he sold alcohol to Oree and that they sometimes drank together. One of those times, just last week he claims, Quintero mentioned something about the murders. Yazzie thinks he may have been involved.”

  Joe narrowed his gaze, considering. With the recent government crackdown on the ingredients for the cheaper, easier-to-make meth, more and more addicts were turning to the crystal ice Quintero had been selling. Because ice was substantially more expensive, there was a corresponding rise in burglaries and robberies as addicts sought to support their habit. But the increased crime rate they’d been experiencing hadn’t prepared any of them for the sheer brutality of the execution-style murder of the three young men. Homicides were still relatively infrequent on the reservation. If Quintero had been involved in that, he’d been more dangerous than Joe had realized.

  Joe tucked the note in his pocket. “I’ll pass this on to Agent Mitchell. He might want to talk to Yazzie himself.” He’d let the fed determine if there was any truth in the man’s talk. “What have you heard about Arnie’s condition?”

  A smile cracked Tapahe’s countenance for the first time. “He’s going to be okay. Bucking for discharge, and barring that, offering bribes to anyone who’ll bring him a cheeseburger.”

  Relief eased the knot in Joe’s chest. Arnie had assured him he was all right, but Joe hadn’t been able to get any such reassurance from the medics who’d arrived on the scene. And the aftermath of the shooting and search had kept him occupied for hours.

  The captain continued. “They dug one bullet out of his arm. The Kevlar stopped the other one. Lucky thing. Would have hit him in the heart. That’s why they’re keeping him. They want to monitor his heart for bruising.”

  Joe winced in sympathy. The vests were lifesavers but they didn’t deflect a bullet, just caught and spread its momentum over a larger portion of the body. Arnie was lucky the vest had prevented the bullet from penetrating the skin.

  Glancing at his watch, Joe said, “I’ll swing by the hospital on the way home.”

  “You do that. But don’t let him talk you into smuggling him some fries.”

  Joe walked out without making any promises. It was hard to tell when he might be in Arnie’s position, and it never hurt to rack up a few points to call in whenever that time might come.

  “The mutton stew was excellent.” Delaney leaned back in her chair and smiled across the table at Charley Youngblood. “And fry bread has just gone on my list of favorites.”

  “It was my pleasure.” The older man spoke with a courtliness that was as much a part of him as his seamed weathered face. He was dressed in what seemed a uniform of sorts on the Navajo lands: jeans, Western-style shirt and cowboy boots. Hammered silver and turquoise wristbands encircled his wrists, and his long gray hair was gathered into a tight roll at the nape of
his neck and bound with yarn. “I don’t often have guests. Next time you stay for dinner you must try nitsid digoohi, kneel-down corn bread. I think you’ll like that, as well.”

  “I’m looking forward to sampling many of the traditional foods during the course of my work here.” And if this afternoon was any indication, she was going to enjoy writing this book even more than she’d expected. Charley Youngblood was clearly a traditionalist, and a fascinating source of Navajo lore. They’d spent hours talking about native legends, and she’d found him a natural storyteller, with a gift for creating intriguing windows into his culture’s past. Already she was toying with the idea of organizing the book to allow entire quotes, complete with photos, of people like Charley who contributed to it. She doubted she could replicate the sheer magic of his words.

  The time spent in his company had been soothing. It was easy to immerse herself in the project as she listened to him retell the Creation story, the tale of Changing Woman, the Sun the Moon and the Stars. Easy to forget, at least for a time, his relationship to the man she couldn’t quite push from her thoughts.

  She could feel her cheeks heat at the memory of last night. She’d felt awkward coming here today, given what had transpired between her and Joe, even realizing Charley wouldn’t be aware of it. The only thing that had eased her discomfort was knowing Joe would be at work. She didn’t want a chance encounter with him here.

  She didn’t want a chance encounter with him anywhere. But she wasn’t naive enough to think she could avoid him indefinitely. Given enough time, she would, however, be ready to face him again with defenses firmly realigned.

  Her gaze traveled over the interior of the house. The log structure was six-sided, she assumed to emulate some of the traditional hogans. The interior was comprised of one large living space. The main area was simply yet comfortably furnished with an overstuffed couch and armchairs. The dining area was tucked into one corner, partitioned from the galley kitchen by a counter. A hallway leading to the back of the home led to what she assumed would be bedrooms and a bath.