by Zoe Forward
The corners of his lips twitched and eventually broke into a smile. “A wedgie from hell?”
“Apparently, panty lines are taboo in these pants.” She rotated to face him, which she discovered didn’t hurt. Puzzled, she lifted her shirt a little and probed her side. Not as painful. Not a significant wound anymore. Just remnant blood. How was this possible? “Why do you think I’d be healed by now? No one heals that fast. Voice coercion, magic, super speed healing… I don’t understand.” And what had he meant by “what you are”?
He compressed his lips. “You have to remember at least this. It’s basic biology.”
“I recall things like how to drive. I remember languages and how to fight, but I can’t remember anything specific about me, other than a vague and very small memory of my mother. No one heals instantly. You’re delusional.”
“I don’t know what to do with you.” He closed his eyes and massaged his eyelids. She could’ve sworn he muttered, “Lord, help me.” Louder, he said, “I can’t help you.”
“Someone thinks you can.”
“I’m not a fucking babysitter. I can’t take you where I’m going. No one is supposed to know about me.”
“Someone does.” Softly, she added, “I don’t have anywhere to go. Do you really want me to leave?”
His shoulders deflated and eyelids dropped closed on a long sigh. “This was so not a part of today’s agenda. Hell, this year’s agenda.”
“If I don’t leave, are you going to kill me to make sure I don’t remember you?”
“I can’t erase your memory of me,” he grouched. “Voice coercion doesn’t work on our kind or Antonio’s.” His eyebrows squished together. “But if I was going to kill you, Nova, I would’ve already done it.”
“What aren’t you saying about me? Special healing, this voice thing…” She gripped her head against another wave of pain. “What am I?”
She tried to slow her breathing. Her heart seemed to be doing revolutions inside her chest. Who am I? She grabbed his hand. “You have to know me. I have to seem familiar to you in some way.”
“Trust me, I’d never forget you if we’d met before. Females of our kind are so rare they’re almost extinct. You have to remember the witch war last century? The other side targeted females? Smart of them, but left us in trouble.” He slumped back against his seat and gave a defeated sigh. “It’s why I’m supposed to protect you until you get back to your people. That’s an old rule. Dammit.”
“Are you a spy? MI6 or Russia or something? Does that imply I’m a spy, too? Or are we some sort of military genetic experiment with kicked-up abilities?”
He was quiet for a moment, pinning her down with his piercing stare. “No. We’re so much worse.”
Chapter Three
“So, you’re a bad guy?” Nova asked.
Roman’s hometown was the world of the wacky, deranged, messed up, and insane. But an amnesic, drop-dead gorgeous lycan with his name permanently inked into her pale skin?
His name.
A woman who flicked his dead brother’s lighter? Twice. Like Shane had always done when stressed. Shane got atomized by a bomb while holding that lighter several years ago.
Call him spooked.
To the point he felt conflicting needs to run far and fast from her and at the same time wrap her up tight in protection so she’d never leave.
But the feeling when she’d been pressed against him, the softness of her hair floating over his skin, the perfection of how her small hand had fit into his… Little surprised or terrified him, but her effect on him did.
A bad guy? He smothered a smile at the naiveté of the question. “Do you wish I was your heroic rescuer? That’s cute.”
“You didn’t do any rescuing. That part was all me.”
“I’m no one’s hero. Most label me an abomination. It’s my lot in life. I do scary things beyond what you could even imagine. It’s why you’re best off if you get out of the car. Go your own way.”
“You do scary things? Like pick up a girl and murder her on the side of the road?”
“Are you frightened?”
“I’m terrified,” she said sarcastically without a hint of fear. “You lumped us together earlier when you said ‘our kind,’ so I assume I also do bad things.”
“You killed that guy in the club.”
“You mean the one who planned to shoot you in the heart?”
“I’m not saying I feel bad for him. Just pointing out murder’s not exactly a heroine move.”
“So I’m a bad girl? You like that, don’t you?” She stared out the window, her lips compressed against a smile. “I like it.”
Holy shit, she was incredible.
He dealt with the deadliest of preternatural creatures on a daily basis. His curse to the Crown required he hunt down and destroy paranormal threats bent on power, greed, or world domination.
But he’d never encountered someone like her.
He wasn’t allowed personal attachments—at least his handler didn’t permit them. Gerard, their human liaison to the monarch, wanted him and his brothers to remain cursed, single, and focused. But one or two nights with a woman? No problem. The guy wasn’t all bad. Their sixty-one-year-old human handler had managed them since the inception of the curse forty-six years ago, supervising the logistics and the minutiae of their missions to handle paranormal terrorists. Beyond the job, Gerard shared the monarch’s view of them as monsters that deserved to suffer simply for being born lycanthrope.
If Gerard or the newly crowned king, Francis, found out about Nova, they’d find some twisted reason to force Roman to kill her. Because she wasn’t human and because she knew who he was, she would be seen as an unacceptable distraction. Honestly, he was distracted. And would remain sidetracked for however long she was in his life. Because on the surface, at least, she was everything he hadn’t known he admired in a woman, and he felt compelled to help her, protect her…and damn it, he wanted her. He had no wish to take part in the whole lycan mating with one of their kind for the long-term bullshit, but dabbling for a while might work.
Why was he even doing these mental gyrations? He’d known her for what? An hour? Damn the upcoming full moon and its sexual pull on their kind. Not all myths about werewolves or lycans were untrue. They all experienced the drive to mate when the moon was full. However, lycans technically were incapable of shifting into a dog or wolf, as ridiculous lore might suggest. They could transform into dangerous superhuman predators six times faster and stronger than any person.
“There’s something worse than a spy?” she asked. “Am I an assassin for hire? Or a mercenary? I’ve got these skills. I instantly know other people’s weaknesses and strengths.”
He pulled a rough hand through his hair and cast his gaze upward as if an angel of God would swoop down to solve her identity crisis.
He should get on the road again to avoid noticing how well she wore leather with her “wedgie from hell”—kill him now, but that was hilarious. Her wearing leather didn’t advertise for dirty sex in a corner like it would in many in techno clubs. The kind of sex his brother, Flynn, couldn’t resist, which is one of the reasons they kept Roman as the front man when in public with humans, and Flynn in the background managing logistics and tech.
“Why is your name on me?” She rubbed the stylized tattoo as if doing so might erase it. No such luck. “Why is this happening to me?”
He massaged his wrist. Odd coincidence that he had his own wrist tattoo. His intricate, bracelet-like sigil symbolized his curse.
“I don’t know why you have that tattoo,” he said. “Coincidence?” An asteroid hitting them in this car carried a higher probability. He brushed his thumb across his eyebrow.
“Your deductive reasoning skills are simply breathtaking.”
She was a fucking smart-ass.
Another thing he li
ked about her.
He also liked her authoritative, take-no-bullshit attitude. Nova had fine, angled features, and dark, curly auburn hair, and lean, long limbs which he now knew from being up close and touching were toned. Her lips were pink, not because she applied gloss but because they came that way.
Remember… Someone used her to try to get him out of the subbasement before the shitshow started. Had they wanted him present for the showdown? Or maybe have her there to distract him enough he’d forget about getting the vial? That same someone had known his deceased brother’s bizarre habit of flicking the lighter two clicks by two clicks when stressed. That person knew him seeing the lighter would stop him in his tracks—and stop him from hurting her.
Not that he would’ve actually hurt her. Threaten, sure, in order to drive her away. Because she incited in him something instant and stupid, something mindless that he wouldn’t allow. Couldn’t allow. Hell, he’d almost kissed her, of all idiocies. He had to protect her, even from himself.
No one should’ve known why he was there—to get the vial. No one should have known him at all. To the rest of the world, he was a ghost. None gave him credit when he saved their lives. No accolades, no thank you’s. Which brought him back around to who knew enough about him to put that tattoo on her and send those texts? This whole thing with Nova could be an honest, though disturbing, attempt to get him out of harm’s way. He bet it heralded something far less altruistic.
The dated pager in his jacket buzzed. He whipped it out. And stared at the message.
Meet at home in 24.
He thought, Now? You’ve got to be kidding.
He didn’t have a personal smartphone or any sort of electronics that could be monitored or tracked. Occasionally, he used burner phones. Pagers were old-school enough that ones like this couldn’t be tracked. It was his one connection to the people who pulled his strings.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He didn’t answer as he pushed open the door and pressed the short-range earbud in his ear, even though he didn’t need to touch it for it to be active. It broadcast everything audible around him. Softly, he said, “I got recalled for a meeting. Did you, Flynn?”
He paced to the trunk of the car. Did his handler know about Nova? Had they been caught together on camera?
Shit.
“No,” said his brother, Flynn, who wasn’t too far away, likely on the way to the airport. “Is she in the car with—”
“This is about the new royal throwing around his weight,” he interrupted. “We’re going to England. Actually, only I’m going in. No choice.”
“She is in the car,” Flynn said. He’d been on the roof of the building across from the club, sniper rifle at the ready. Of course he’d seen Roman leave with Nova. “We need to discuss the importance of following a plan. I can’t believe you blew him up. It was a simple retrieve.”
“I got the vial.”
“Who cares about the vial when you picked up a passenger who’s not supposed to know we exist? Why is there a woman in the fucking car with you?”
“It’s complicated,” he muttered. “But I got it.”
“I saw on surveillance she took a bullet for you and pulled some moves that looked bloody hot for someone in tight leather. I bet it’s as complicated as your balls in a twist.”
He whispered, “She’s one of us. It’s a female with amnesia who doesn’t know what she is or who she is. There’s more we’ll talk about later.”
“Jesus, a lycan? I think I have the cameras controlled, but if she got caught… You think that’s why you’re getting called in by yourself?”
“I don’t know. I have to go in,” he intoned without emotion and massaged his tattooed wrist. If one of them disobeyed an order, they’d all be punished, and possibly killed. Maybe not a death sentence for resisting an in-person meeting with the newly crowned king, but the curse would start hurting all of them. They’d tested it in the past. He wouldn’t be the one to bring harm to his brothers.
“You have to go in,” Flynn repeated. “She’s lycan?” He blew out a long whistle. “The last time I got close to a non-mated female, I almost got my nuts sliced off. Man, it was worth it. I’ll bet she smells amazing.”
“This isn’t about sex.”
“Sure it’s not,” Flynn said sarcastically. “She’s hot as all bloody hell, and she’s one of us.” He paused. “You think she’s a spy? What’s she doing targeting you to help her?”
Roman switched to Gaelic, which he and his brothers used when they didn’t want anyone around listening in. Over their long lives, they’d picked up multiple languages. The dead ones, like Gaelic and Latin, turned out to be the most useful. “I don’t know who she is. Neither does she. But this has something to do with Shane.”
“He’s dead and gone. How can this be about him?”
He quickly explained the Zippo lighter connection.
“Is she…did she mate him?” Flynn responded.
Denial roared through Roman’s brain, dark and deadly.
“It’s been almost two years,” Flynn said. “Why would she appear now? Makes no sense. We would’ve known about her if she belonged to him, wouldn’t we? He spent very little time apart from us. He didn’t have time to go find someone like her and build a relationship in secret. Gerard would have known, and if Gerard had known, we would.”
Roman got back in the car and faced her. In English, he asked, “Did you know Shane?”
“Who’s Shane? I can’t remember my own name? Why would I remember anyone else’s?”
“Are you a spy?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. An hour ago, I didn’t know I could speak German and Italian or that I could fight.”
In his ear, Flynn asked, “She’s got to know what she is. She has to understand why you want to get her naked. Don’t bother denying it.”
He pressed his ear, turned his head away from her to duck it low, and snapped in Gaelic, “Unlike you, I don’t want to screw anything female that crosses my path.”
“That’s unfair,” Flynn shot back.
“Belfast.”
A pause. “Okay, that girl had phenomenal tits, and I was bored waiting in the hotel for you to get your ass in gear.”
“I almost lost my arm because you missed my signal.”
“I said I was sorry. It’s been eight months since Belfast.”
Roman froze and met her startled gaze as a small smile played at the edges of her lips. Shit, could Nova speak Gaelic? His face and neck heated.
He turned away from her again to whisper, “I’ll meet you at the plane. I think she understands us.”
Silence came from Flynn’s end. Roman gripped the steering wheel tight with both hands and asked out loud in Gaelic while staring through the windshield, “Do you understand me?”
Her smile. Devastating and stunning…
Although she’d caught him trying to be secretive, the Flynn blowjob conversation didn’t embarrass him…not too much. Her smile hit him straight in the gut and stole his breath for a whole other reason. A reason that meant trouble for him. He’d forgotten what this felt like since it’d been decades, maybe a half century since he experienced anything this immediate with any woman. He tried to label it—temptation, lure, magnetism. He wasn’t a monk. He had sex. Regularly. But his partners didn’t get anything from him beyond mutual physical release. He didn’t let them. None did whatever the hell this was.
Lycans, in general, didn’t do insta-love or any of that fated mate crap in literature, but there sure was insta-attraction. He’d experienced it once before with a human woman, before the curse, but she’d turned out to have the fidelity of an alley cat, so it hadn’t lasted. His mother’s words flitted through his head, “Instant chemistry leads to scorching sex. Everyone needs to find that at least once. It’ll blow your mind.” With affection, he silentl
y cursed his mom’s candidness.
Pull it together. She’s hurt. She’s alone and clinging to me as the only person she knows. This is about figuring out who she is and getting her out of my life.
She had to belong to someone, maybe not mated but at least a family. Lycan society functioned on old rules, like a female wasn’t to be touched or even looked upon unless it was sanctioned by her family. They decided whether she could be out in the public eye or hidden away at home. Most kept their women hidden under heavy guard since there were so few females left. She could also be mated to someone else. His dead brother, perhaps. No, that made no sense. Shane had been out of his mind, possessed by a demon for a long time before he died in a bomb explosion.
The ruling body of lycan society, the Lycan Council, had decreed long ago that all unmated, unprotected females who were spotted out in the world were to be reported immediately. Thank God, he didn’t feel an ounce of obligation to that aging group of chauvinistic assholes or their stupid rules. The Crown’s rules, on the other hand…
Don’t forget you have no choice but to leave her. Help her and leave her.
He sighed and dropped his head. “Nova, please, get out of the car. You go your way, and I’ll go mine. Run and run far. Disappear where no one can find you. I’m not someone you should be around or trust.”
When she didn’t reply, he looked up into her remarkable blue-green eyes. In an agonized whisper, he said, “Go. Please.”
“You’re supposed to help me, remember?” She tugged her lower lip between her teeth.
“I never agreed to help you. I don’t know you.” He fixated on her mouth. The indentation of her upper lip looked soft. A single taste before she left would be so good.
“I jumped in front of a bullet to save you,” she said. “That’s got to count for something.”