Arousal surged over him, through him, drawing him tight as a bow, and Aiden’s eyes slipped shut. He buried his face in her neck, groaning in bliss as her arms caught him, holding him tightly in place. Together they thrust and rocked, infinitely gentle, yet overflowing with the passion of a love that was unexpectedly real.
Annie slipped one arm around his upper back, the other around his bottom, pulling him tighter, into her body. She drew up her knees and slid the soles of her feet down his thighs, allowing their legs to tangle and embrace.
Unable to hold back, Aiden began to thrust faster, harder. All the while she urged him on with words and movement, rising higher up the crest. He rose, watching her face. The expression she wore looked amazingly similar to pain, quickly shifting into bliss. Smiles chased frowns, soft moans punctuated words of love and curses. He brushed her lips with a kiss, meeting her eyes briefly as they opened, hazy with passion. “Now, Aiden… hard…”
And he complied, pounding into her body fast and hard, the sound of their flesh punctuated by groans, the sound of her hand slapping his ass as she came…
When her nails bit into his skin, he went over with her name on a groan, endless ropes of semen breaking from his body into the welcoming embrace of hers. She peaked once more, churning down on his still hard cock, before finally releasing him, slowing to a weary halt.
Aiden balanced above her body, trembling arms locked into place, listening to the sound of his breath, his heart racing in counterpart to hers. Their gazes met and locked.
Her lips moved but no sound came out. He knew what she was trying to say.
“I love you too, Annie Tanaka. Forever.”
She pulled him down into her arms, and he rested on the cushion of her body, content to stay in her arms.
“Damn. I left my staff on that roof.” It was perfectly balanced to her hand. No doubt it’d be gone by the time the sun rose.
“I’ll go get it.”
“No, don’t bother.”
Aiden sat up, the sheet spilling around his hips, “There aren’t many people skilled at making those anymore. You don’t want to lose it.”
He slipped into worn jeans and tennis shoes. “Back in a flash.” He leaned over and kissed her, and kissed her once again. He grinned, and suddenly, in that smile, she saw Guo Lee.
“You look like him.”
“Who?”
“Guo Lee. You have his smile. It always seemed familiar to me. Now I know why.”
He leaned down and kissed her again, slow and deep. “Thank you. I love you, Annie. Stay awake till I come back, okay?”
“Okay.” She sat up, watching him on his way out the door. “I love you, Aiden.”
He looked over his shoulder and grinned. And then he was gone.
And he didn’t come back.
Chapter Nine
Okay, if I were an insane, murderous kidnapper, where would I be?
Annie stood on the roof where she and Aiden had been early that morning. Her staff was shattered into bloody splinters. Clearly, he hadn’t gone easily.
She tamped down panic and fear, refining it into clarity of thought. A body lay at her feet, Sophia, her opponent from a few nights back. She’d been drained dry, her throat slashed, her belly gaping wide in an obscene display of carnage.
There wasn’t enough blood for this to be the murder scene, so she’d been deposited here after death, a macabre calling card for Annie. She’d already contacted Greene about the corpse. Beyond that, there was little she could do. Sophia’s crumpled body had been arranged. Her dark hair haloed around her head, one arm extended, one finger pointing…
Annie looked at the wall where she and Aiden had made love. A ragged scrap of paper fluttered there. Gingerly, she read the note without touching it. Bloody fingerprints smeared the dirty paper. A time, a location, and soon, very soon, Annie’s monster would have a face.
She sprinted back to her apartment, scrambled out of her clothing, and dressed in her best silks. She stood before her weapons wall, looking at the empty spot the staff had occupied. A curved sabre hung, its red tassel a bright spot against the wall. She reached for it and paused. Her grandfather’s katana held a place of honor on her wall, it gleamed, ancient, wicked and sharp.
The katana went into a sash that she wrapped around her waist.
Once outside, she climbed to the roof, barely noticing the fog coming in from the ocean. With trembling fingers, she lit incense before the altar of General Kwan, then knelt in silent prayer and meditation. A light breeze tumbled through the gardens. Wind-chimes clattered and sang. Up into the sky, her prayers rose on streamers of fragrant smoke.
“Look how beautiful she is.”
Aiden rested on hands and knees in the middle of the chain link cage. His opponent was down, bleeding and broken.
But still alive.
Carin’s pet was more a monster than either he or Annie could have guessed. His nanites morphed and healed at an insane, incredible rate. He glanced up, despair in his heart as Annie entered the old condemned parking garage. The brilliant red of her silks were a shocking point of brilliance in the dimly lit building. Her tunic was sleeveless. Her silk pants flowed like water. She carried no weapons other than the long, elegant katana in her sash. The Japanese sword looked slightly incongruous on the Chinese suit.
Carin strolled back and forth outside of the cage, the sole audience member to this circus of the macabre. He’d awakened from the rooftop fight bloody and battered, bound hand and foot. He’d been careless, not expecting an attack from three side. From the floor, he’d watched helplessly as Carin’s pet had taken Sophia against a wall. They’d fucked in an obscene parody of what he’d done with Annie, while Carin directed their actions, a calm, detached observer. He must have passed out, because the next thing he remembered was the cage. Sophia lay dead on the concrete floor, the monster hunched over her, feeding. She’d died with a look of disbelief on her face.
He’d turned his back to them, shutting the monster’s laughter from his ears. Now he was locked in a cage, Carin’s fighter was slowly rousing and Annie on the outside with Carin. She had no clue how deadly the blonde beauty was.
Aiden turned inward, going back all those years, all those brutal hours in horse stance, drilling endless forms and maneuvers. Guo had been a grim, silent presence in his life, never praising, always challenging. And once he was gone, the Lees had taken over his training. One day it would be Ah Mei, with her sharp eyes and sharper tongue. Another day he’d have Paul drilling him in footwork. Or Ping with the staff forms.
When the family had left San Francisco, they’d left him behind. He’d never felt so betrayed in his entire existence. He was their grandson, nephew and brother, and yet they’d simply packed and returned to China, telling him that it wasn’t his time to go home just yet. He’d known only that there were other students, but he didn’t know who they were. He hadn’t known how to find them.
Deliberately, Aiden set aside the anger and the betrayal of his past and allowed all the old teaching to flow, to once again enrich his soul. He remembered animals and elements, old wisdom and new techniques. Wood, metal, fire, earth and water. Those would be his salvation today.
And when the beast came at him, bloody and savage, Aiden would be ready. The thing was now twitching on the floor, rapidly healing wounds that should have been fatal. Aiden remembered him from long ago. His name had been Luke. He’d been a good fighter once, climbing quickly up the to the high stakes fights in the city. He’d had strength and skill and though they’d never fought, Aiden thought they’d have been a match. And then he’d vanished. He’d been sick near to death with Dragon’s Blood. Aiden hadn’t recognized him until they fought on the roof.
Well, he’d obviously found his cure, and Carin had found the ultimate play toy. He wondered how she kept it under control.
He wanted to kill the beast. He wanted to step up, snap its neck, but Guo’s words through Annie kept coming back. So again and again he disabled the cr
eature that had once been a man, watching carefully as it recovered from every defeat. Every time, it recovered a bit more slowly.
“Annie, you know that I used to be a fighter before I married Nakashima?”
Annie nodded, keeping a careful eye on Aiden and the downed man in the cage. The other man’s face was bloody, but not from fighting. There were pools and splatters of blood and offal over to her left, by a wall. This is where Sophia had died. She looked at Carin, whose white skin was marred by a fine spray of red.
The man in the cage was a monster, but not the monster she was looking for.
“Nakashima loves me to distraction, you know. He allows me every indulgence, every whim I could ever desire. When I wanted to learn sword, he sent the finest masters from Japan to teach me katana. I’ve studied for years. And when I caught Hemo, he healed me.”
Annie felt her breath catch.
She stepped to where a bag lay on the floor, and bent down, reverently lifting a finely made sword from the bag. “Shall we duel?”
Carin was dressed in traditional Japanese Kendo gear, long flowing pants sashed at the waist, and a black tunic that wrapped over in the front. With a smile on her pink lips, Carin unbelted her gi and let it slip away, leaving her upper body bare. “You don’t like seeing these, do you?” Vivid tattooing spilled over her shoulders to her breasts, forming solid blocks on her arms and shoulders.
She turned, lifting her pale blonde hair, and displayed a squirming serpent with the head of a demon. Annie flinched.
“You’re probably right. These aren’t like Aiden’s. His are the badge of mastery, the regal House of the Dragon. Isn’t that what those symbols mean, Aiden? That you are a master of your school? Mine symbolize Nakashima’s Yakuza organization. It was his wedding present to me.”
She turned back to Annie. “He’s really very good. I’ve seen Aiden fight dozens of times, and he never revealed his training… at least, not till I locked him up with Luke there.” She smiled coyly. “And all those times we made love…”
“Fucked, Carin. We fucked. There was no love involved.” Aiden spoke softly, yet his voice carried across the cavernous space.
There was a flicker in Carin’s eyes that might have been pain. It might have been rage. Annie wasn’t sure.
“All those times we fucked… and I never saw that tattoo. You’re very clever, Aiden.”
Down on the floor of the cage, Luke was stirring once again. Mercilessly, Aiden brought a foot down, knocking him unconscious.
“Annie. Swords or bare hands? I mean to kill you. I imagine swords will be quicker.”
“Then we’ll use swords. I don’t mean to kill you, Carin. I mean to arrest you.”
“Arrest? You’re police? So you’re clever too, hiding up there in Wharf. And you’ve been looking for me?”
“For the person who’s been killing fighters.”
Carin nodded in an exaggerated parody of understanding. “But aren’t you also looking for the person who killed his wife?”
“They’re the same person, Carin.”
“And Luke is down. As soon as the police come, he’ll be taken into custody, Carin.” Aiden hooked his fingers into the steel mesh of the cage, desperately looking for a weak spot. There was none.
Carin didn’t even look in Aiden’s direction. “Annie, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?” She smoothly pulled the katana from its sheath.
Annie followed suit. They stood in a formal stance, swords up in the air. She swallowed. Her experience with the katana was limited to the training with her grandfather. Annie had never sparred.
“Don’t you remember, Annie?” Carin closed quickly, and Annie blocked the down stroke. “On the pier that day, you lay broken on the dock while I fed off his wife. Me, not Luke.”
Annie froze, the memory rushing back, crashing into her brain. The creature dripping with oily water and the blood of her friend, lank, blonde hair straggling around its… her face.
“Didn’t you like it when I fisted you, Annie?” She held up a slender arm, closing her hand into a fist. “It was so sexy. Don’t you remember how wonderful my climax was?”
Like lightning, Carin attacked, bearing down on Annie in a flurry of lethal blows. Only the recent training with Guo kept her alive and unharmed, instinct kicking in when her brain couldn’t.
“Dragon’s Blood, Annie. I’ve always had a soft spot for Aiden and those dragons he wears on his body. One was for his love, so I took her away. I’ve been anticipating tasting him… saving him for a special occasion.”
Annie went blind to everything but the monster that was trying to kill her, to maim and ravage and rape her once again. She defended, and defended again, using every scrap of strength and speed she possessed, to no avail. The monster was not only enhanced, her training was exquisite.
“Tonight you’ll feed me. It won’t be as fine as the seeded fighters, but the symbolism will be lovely. And if I’m still hungry, I’ll let the Dragon there feed me. But I’ll be careful and make him last for days.” She pressed in with a blazing attack, the lethal blade a blur in Annie’s peripheral vision.
Annie lurched backward, bereft of her normal grace. The other woman’s blade only missed by a hair. They slowly moved back and forth, a lethal game of cat and mouse played out around the bloody cage.
She needed to disarm her.
Another strike whizzed by. This one seared open a line on Annie’s face. The pain was fire-hot, waking her from the stupor of her fear.
She backed up, giving herself space. On her back, the dragon burned as though newly imprinted in her skin. She wasn’t using her tools, and her most effective tool was her training.
Annie transferred the sword to a right-handed grip, lowering herself into the more comfortable tai chi stance. The sword was longer than she was accustomed to, more curved, but she could adapt. Her movement shifted. She became low and sinuous, breaking every formal fencing rule that Carin adhered to so rigidly.
“Good job, Annie. Breathe.”
She heard Aiden speak but didn’t respond. When Carin next attacked, she parried and kicked, delivering a thudding blow to the shin. And thus it continued, attack and defend. Annie landed blow after crippling blow to the other woman’s legs. With every breath, she became grounded, clear and determined.
Finally, Carin lunged. Annie grasped her by the sword arm, twisting, pulling her into a painful and awkward hold until the katana slipped loose from Carin’s fingers. Annie kicked the blade away, and lost her own blade at the same time.
She considered her weapons… tiger, bear, crane… The other woman took a rigid karate stance. Rigid, not flowing. Annie moved into water strider, loose, flowing, flexible. With a sweep to the side, she averted the strike. With a step forward, the same sweep returned and crashed into Carin’s ribcage, aborting her forward drive. Tiger followed, fingers digging, crushing, slamming deep into her torso. Ribs snapped under the brutal attack. Bear twisted her arm, dislocating the shoulder and dropping Carin to the ground.
It took mere seconds.
She recovered as quickly as Luke had, prompting Aiden to check the other man. He was still down, but Aiden delivered a good blow to the head just to make sure. As he’d expected, Luke was playing possum, gathering his strength to attack.
Carin was back on her feet, bloody, shaken, but still dangerous. In the distance, Aiden could hear the piercing squall of sirens. “Hang in, Annie, cops are coming.”
She gave a bare nod. Her stance was relaxed, more her natural style, that deceptive casualness that she’d perfected so long ago. Carin charged, leaving behind her training, meaning to catch Annie around the waist, but she wasn’t there. And somehow, Carin continued on her path through the air, crashing awkwardly to the floor. She skated along the asphalt, bare skin abrading, blood oozing from the torn tattoos. Even her nanites couldn’t replace the missing ink.
She screamed, coming to her feet once more and attacking, working both women closer and closer to the swords.
Carin caught Annie off guard. Aiden winced when she went down heavily, only to spring to her feet in a gravity defying back-flip. One of Guo’s signature moves.
Annie’s best offense was her defense. Every time the other woman attacked, she found herself thrown off balance or taking a wicked blow. The average fighter would have been flattened and devastated. But between her nanites and her insanity, Carin persevered and Annie would soon grow weary.
Aiden wanted to cry in relief as the police began to pour into the room. Their electronically charged weapons would take Carin down easily. She cursed, hands extended to her sides, and suddenly it was over. They’d survived, caught the killers, and they were both still on their feet. They were both alive.
Aiden looked at Luke collapsed on the floor, and then over at where Carin stood surrounded by officers, upper body naked and bloody, her lower body swathed in voluminous trousers. Her normally lush, glossy hair now straggled with sweat. Blood oozed from abrasions on her skin.
Annie stood next to Greene. She glanced in Aiden’s direction as an officer freed him from the cage. On the floor, Luke rolled, clutching his head and groaning in pain. Aiden stepped out of the cage and started toward Annie with a smile on his face. And then he froze. A scream built in his throat and broke free.
“Annie!”
They say those truly horrible moments occur in slow motion, but this one didn’t. It took a heartbeat, a blur of vision, a fragment of a thought. It was over before Aiden could move again.
A blade appeared in Carin’s hand. It had been concealed by the folds of her trousers. She struck. The blade bit into Annie’s flesh, into her turned back, into her abdomen, and through the muscles of her right arm. She staggered forward. Her tunic fell away in tatters, displaying the dragon of the Lee house.
Annie spun, rising up, whirling in a circle. Her grandfather’s katana sang through the air, and Carin stood, knife in hand, an awed and amazed expression on her face. Annie froze, her back to her opponent, her head bowed and her left arm extended, the blade pointed behind her. Blood ran to the polished tip of the sword, gathered, and dripped to the floor.
Dragon's Blood (Black Planet Book 1) Page 9