Warlord

by Angela Knight

  She took pity on him. “In my time, nobody consults a computer to discover if they’re in love.”

  “In your time, nobody has computers implanted in their brains.” He gave his head another brisk rub with the towel and sighed. “Something unusual is happening to me. I’m just not sure what it is.”

  Jane felt a little bubble of pleasure expand in her heart. He did love her, whether he realized it or not. Then she squared her shoulders and pushed the delight away. “Which is why I think we should back off. The separation is going to be bad enough as it is. Knowing I’ll never see you again…”

  He turned and threw the towel across the room with a sudden, violent flip of his wrist. “That’s why I think we need to seize every moment we have together.” Moving toward her, he took her shoulders in his hands. “Jane, in my profession, I’ve learned life can be snuffed out in an instant. It’s stupid to waste it.”

  She gazed up into the pure, strong lines of his face. “Dammit, I know that. I’m a reporter—I’ve seen it. One minute you’re going to the store to buy a loaf of bread, the next minute a train caves in the side of your Toyota, or some asshole shoots you from his car just for the hell of it. But you have to live as though that’s not going to happen, or you’ll drive yourself nuts.” She sighed. “And frankly, I’m going to be in some serious fucking pain when you leave. I don’t want it to be worse.”

  “And I think you’ll end up regretting the chances you lost,” Baran said, lifting his square chin at her. “I don’t intend to allow that.”

  “So you’ll…what?” Her heart began to pound.

  He smiled slowly, darkly. “Seduce you every chance I get.”

  Jane swallowed. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  For the next three days Druas made himself scarce. Once again, Jane found herself carrying around her scanner and cell phone, waiting for the next call that would mean somebody was dying.

  Meanwhile, the tension grew thick enough to cut. Tom Reynolds carried through on his promise to install taps on her phones. Jane signed the paperwork giving her permission, inwardly reluctant, but knowing she couldn’t afford to raise his suspicions.

  But when so many days passed without a call from Druas, she soon realized they’d been raised anyway. The detective started dropping by the paper and questioning Baran, Jane, and her employees, grilling them over and over on the same details until he managed to get on everybody’s nerves.

  “Look,” she finally exploded after he’d asked to speak to her privately in her office for the fourth time. Baran had allowed it only because Freika was curled up under her desk. “It’s not Baran. He didn’t do it. I’ve told you repeatedly, I was with him when the killings occurred, and he did not do them. Do you think I’m lying? Hell, the entire paper staff saw us leave after we got the tip on the fire. Do you think they’re lying?”

  Reynolds glanced up from his notebook, his gaze cool and accessing. “Maybe he didn’t do that one.”

  “Dru…” Jane barely caught herself before she said the killer’s name. “…The murderer called us. He told us it was happening. We did everything we could do to stop it. Hell, Baran charged into a burning building to save that girl. As she’ll tell you when she regains consciousness.” The victim was in an induced coma while her body healed from the burns she suffered.

  “If she regains consciousness.” Tom scrawled something in his notebook. “She may die.”

  Jane dragged her hands through her hair in frustration. “Why would I lie, Tom? Just tell me that. You’ve known me since I was twelve years old. Do you really think I’d protect the kind of monster who’d do these crimes?”

  Suddenly the bland cop facade cracked. Tom sat forward in his chair to glare at her. “Dammit, Jane, I don’t want to believe that, but I know you’re hiding something. I can smell it, I can see it in your eyes. And there’s a hell of a lot about this situation that stinks. I don’t like the way Arvid never wants to leave you alone. I don’t like the timing—he appeared the day after the first woman died. I don’t like the fact that he keeps playing hero, but the people he ‘saves’ always die anyway. I don’t like the fact that nobody, not even your best friend, has ever heard you mention this guy, and yet now he’s grafted to your ass. It all stinks, Jane, and you know it!”

  “He didn’t kill those people, Tom!”

  “Yeah? Well, who has he killed?”

  She froze. Under the desk, Freika lifted his head from his paws.

  Grim satisfaction gleamed in Tom’s eyes, and he sat back in his chair. “Yeah, you know something.”

  “He’s a photographer, Tom. He’s just a photographer.”

  “Bullshit. I’ve met a lot of photographers in my line of work, and none of them moved the way he does, had the look in their eyes he’s got—when he deigns to take those fucking sunglasses off so I can see his eyes. He smells like former military to me. Some kind of really nasty former military.”

  “He’s not the killer.”

  Tom leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Jane, is he threatening you? Is he forcing you to cover for him? I can provide protection….”

  She laughed shortly. “No, he’s not threatening me, and I’m not covering for him. I’m telling the truth. He’s not the one who’s doing these things.”

  “Well, somebody sure as hell is.”

  Her temper snapped. “Yeah, somebody is, Tom. Why don’t you get out of my fucking office and go look for that somebody?”

  Reynolds flipped his notebook shut and rose from his chair. His eyes locked on her. “You’ve got all my numbers, Jane. When you get tired of letting women die, give me a call.”

  He stalked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

  Jane slumped back in her chair, covering her face with both hands. “Damn. Damn damn damn.”

  “Well,” Freika said from beneath the desk, “that did not go well.”

  She sighed. “You’ve got a gift for understatement, furball.”

  When Jane wasn’t listening to the scanner, trying to get out a newspaper, or fencing with irate police detectives, Baran was teaching her just how thin her willpower was.

  His promise to seduce her had not been an idle threat.

  She might have been able to resist him if he’d approached her with his usual pose of erotic dominance, but he didn’t make it that easy for her. There was a tenderness now in every touch, every kiss, every whisper. Where before he’d overwhelmed her with sheer, bluntforce sensuality, now he seemed to be saying with each brush of his fingers what he couldn’t put into words: that he loved her.

  And God help her, she found it impossible to say no.

  Even knowing what it would eventually cost her.

  The way he knew her scared her sometimes, such as the night she finally yielded to the urging of common sense and went back into the attic after her father’s gun.

  Baran had simply walked into the room, moved two boxes out of the way, opened a third and reached inside. He’d turned around and handed her the gun. “Sensors” was all he said.

  Yet he didn’t ask her what it was about that stack of cardboard that terrified her so. She had the feeling that somehow he knew.

  Later that same night Jane lay sprawled across the width of the bed, limp and helpless, staring blindly up at a ceiling washed in gold light. Baran had collected every candle in the house and lit them one by one before arranging them around the bedroom and turning out the lights. He’d even turned on her CD player and set it to spill something soft and jazzy into the room. The singer’s voice crooned past the snap and crackle of the police scanner as Baran’s hair slid like silk over her thighs.

  He was feasting on her sex, his tongue swirling lazily. One big hand teased and pinched her nipple, as two fingers of the other stroked slowly in and out of her core. He seemed to savor each creamy lick for its own sake, rather than just engaging in foreplay to get her hot enough for his pleasure.

  Not that she needed any more foreplay. She’d already come
twice. She knew he’d bring her with his mouth again in a moment.

  And she didn’t want that. She wanted him. In her. “Baran,” she moaned. “Please. I…AH!…need you.”

  “You have me.”

  Somehow she managed to force her lax neck muscles to lift her head so she could look down at him. He watched her over the plane of her body, his dark eyes burning in the soft darkness.

  But instead of the male triumph she’d seen before, there was a hint of something lost and desperate in his gaze, as if he was storing away the taste of her, the sight of her, the feel of her. Saving those sensations in some mental memory bank for the day she was gone. “Now,” he whispered, “you have me.”

  He rose to all fours. Muscle flowed through his shoulders and arms as he crawled up her body like a great cat, the head of his erect shaft brushing her skin. She found herself unable to look away from his intent stare. He settled over her, his body surrounding hers in strength and heat, a blanket of hot muscle. His gaze never left hers as he lifted just enough to aim himself.

  Then he sank inside, a long, slow thrust, and she caught her breath.

  Baran lowered his head, his long hair curtaining her face. He reached up an absent hand to sweep it aside. Then he found her mouth with his and kissed her as he began a slow, teasing thrusting. His lips felt hot and soft and slick.

  Jane kissed him back as the pleasure rose in a warm wave, swamping them lazily. Arching against him, she came with a moan even as he groaned and poured himself into her.

  It was only later, as she lay curled in the cove of his body staring blindly at the dancing flame of one of the candles, that she felt a tear slide down her face. “Baran, when you leave, it’s going to be…”

  The hair-roughened arm around her waist tightened. “Yeah. I know.” He pulled her closer.

  The scanner crackled.

  She woke from a light doze to the feeling of his tongue swirling over her nipple. Whimpering helplessly, she threaded her fingers through his silken hair and lost herself in him.

  “Tayanita One-Eight,” the scanner blared. “Reported stabbing, one-oh-two Bajor Lane.”

  Jane jerked up her head. “Shit. Baran…”

  He lifted his head. “I hear it.”

  “Caller describes a white male, over six foot, long hair, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Code five with a knife.”

  “May not be him,” Jane said as he rolled off her and grabbed his pants off the floor.

  “Female victim suffered a laceration to the throat.”

  “It’s him,” Baran said, jerked the slacks up his long legs. “He’s using his imagizer to change his appearance again.”

  Jane shot out of the bed and started pulling on the clothes he’d stripped away. “Why didn’t he call us this time?”

  “I have no idea, but I don’t like it. He’s broken the pattern.” He sat down to pull on his shoes. “Freika!”

  “I hear you, boss.” The wolf trotted into the room from the hallway, where he’d been curled outside the door.

  “Where the hell is Bajor Lane?” Jane jerked on her boots. “I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “TE gave me a map,” he said, frowning. She looked up to see his eyes slide out of focus. “It’s at the other end of the county, eighteen-point-two miles from here. Looks like a heavily wooded area.”

  “Hell, it’s going to take us twenty minutes to get there.” She jumped up, grabbed the scanner and headed for the stairs, Baran and Freika at her heels. “I wonder why the hell he didn’t call us this time….”

  They were halfway there when she remembered the gun, tucked away in her nightstand drawer. Jane cursed; they didn’t have time to go back for it.

  Just as well. She didn’t want anything to do with the fucking thing anyway.

  It was a harrowing trip in the dark. Jane strongly suspected that without Baran’s flawless directions, she’d never have found the place.

  Bajor Lane was a gravel road that snaked through thick woods. Trees loomed on either side, ghostly in the SUV’s headlights as she drove. Something about the whole scene made the hair rise on the back of her neck. That feeling was intensified by the knowledge that Druas was probably somewhere out there, watching. What the hell was he up to now?

  Seventeen

  They rounded a bend in the road to see the revolving blue-and- white glow of patrol car lights casting shadows on a lone double-wide mobile home. Jane spotted Tom’s champagne Crown Vic and knew they were in for another grilling on their whereabouts during the time the woman had been murdered.

  She spotted something lying under a bright blue plastic tarp in the center of the gravel road; the victim, waiting for the last crime scene photos before the coroner took her away.

  “Too late again,” Baran growled. Jane could almost feel his rage burning in the darkness like something molten.

  After parking behind the farthest patrol car, she got out carrying her notebook, Baran and Freika moving around to join her. The Warlord had the camera looped around his neck, but his eyes flicked restlessly over the surrounding woods, and she knew he was scanning for Druas.

  Then he stopped in midstep. “He’s here,” Baran murmured.

  “Yeah, I see him,” Freika said, pitching his voice too low for the cops to hear. “He’s talking to Reynolds in that group of cops.”

  Startled, Jane looked toward the group as her stomach laced into knots. A tall, skinny blond man she’d never seen before was standing with the detective, the lights of the surrounding cars throwing grotesque shadows as he gestured violently. His lifted voice carried clearly up the street. “I don’t know what the fuck happened. We’d just got out of the car when this guy walks up and grins at her, and then he fuckin’ cut her, and she…”

  “The blond guy?” she asked softly.

  “Yeah,” Baran said, his tone grim. “I don’t like this. Let’s get the hell—”

  “That’s him!” the blond shouted suddenly. Jane jerked, feeling her stomach plunge. He was pointing right at them. “That’s the guy that did it! He had a tattoo on his face….”

  As if in slow motion, Jane watched the group of cops turn toward them, Tom’s eyes narrowing. As their attention was diverted, something nasty and triumphant flashed across the blond’s narrow face.

  A couple of feet away, two deputies standing beside a patrol car pivoted in their direction. Jane registered the wariness flashing over the face of the nearest man, a burly black officer. The eyes of his fellow cop widened under a shock of carrot red hair. “Sir,” the black deputy said to Baran, reaching for his sidearm as he stepped toward them, “we need to talk to—”

  “Look out!” Druas shouted.

  The Warlord grabbed the cop’s shoulder and jerked, pulling him off-balance. The man staggered past them. Baran slammed an elbow in the back of his head. As he fell, out cold, the Warlord pivoted and punched the redhead in the face. The deputy collapsed in a boneless heap on the gravel road.

  It had all happened too quickly for anyone else to react.

  Jane heard Tom roar, saw several of the cops reach for their guns as the whole herd started forward. Druas, grinning maliciously over their heads, winked and blew her a mocking kiss.

  Then the world flew sideways and something hard slammed into her stomach. Jane screamed before she realized Baran had jerked her off her feet and tossed her over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry. One powerful arm clamped across the back of her thighs as he started running, bounding toward the woods.

  “Stop!” somebody bellowed. “Stop or we’ll shoot!”

  Baran didn’t even break step.

  Something popped, sounding more like a child’s cap gun than the 9mm Smith & Wesson Jane knew the cops carried. She cringed and covered her head with both hands.

  “Hold your fire!” Reynolds bellowed. “You’ll hit the woman!”

  Thank you, Tom!

  Her head almost slapped into Baran’s butt as he leaped over something. Yelping, Jane flailed around until she managed to h
ook her fingers in the fabric of his T-shirt. Between bruising impacts with his shoulder, she gasped, “I’ve…got…a car!”

  “They could catch us in a car!” Freika yelled back, racing through the dark at Baran’s heels. “Nothing human can keep up with a Warlord on foot.”

  She realized he was right as they plunged into the trees. Jane had no idea how fast they were going, but even Freika was running like hell to keep up. How was Baran doing it? She wouldn’t have thought it possible to carry a grown woman at a dead run through thick woods, yet Baran didn’t even seem to notice her weight. Must be in riatt, she decided woozily as her stomach protested jolting against his rock-hard shoulder.

  Clutching his shirt, she looked up to spot the swing and jitter of flashlight beams. The deputies had charged into the woods after them. She clamped her eyes shut and prayed nobody popped off another shot. Given her position, any bullet would probably end up in her head.

  The flight through the woods seemed endless. Jane could barely see the trees Baran dodged around or the brush he either bulled through or leaped over. Yet he ran without breaking stride. With his sensors, the woods must have looked as bright as day, or he’d never have been able to do it.

  She, on the other hand, jounced along in the center of a black, half-seen world with his shoulder pounding into her belly. It was all she could do not to vomit down his back.

  Somehow Jane managed to hold it together until the shouts of the deputies faded behind them. Finally, unable to take any more, she yelled, “Baran…stop! I’m going…to…be…sick!”

  He kept going.

  “I…mean…it!”

  Something in her tone must have told him Jane was serious. He slid to a halt and lowered her to her feet. She promptly collapsed onto all fours, swallowing desperately as she fought to control her gastric rebellion.

  Freika flopped onto his side, panting like a bellows. Even Baran was breathing hard. Managing a glance up at him, she saw his eyes glowing in the dark like a pair of coals. “What the…hell are…we doing?”