by Lea Griffith
That one word was a blunt-edged knife to her heart. “You fucked up.”
He leaned against her, his smell taunting, his heat the most wonderful she’d ever felt.
“What did you say?” he asked.
Arrow swore molten fire licked her neck.
She reached back grabbing his shoulders and flipping him over her own. She followed him down and made to strike, pulling the blow right before she pushed his nose into his brain.
She heard weapons being engaged, triggers cocking in the sudden silence. Adam Collins’ ebony eyes watched her and that feeling of being smothered by the darkness returned.
Arrow laughed then. Even to her ears it was an ugly sound. “I said you fucked up. Oh, not in that I’m only an animal knowing pain and death. But that you think I have a soul. It’s a fact, Mr. Collins, I was born without one. It’s why Joseph came for me. It’s why my first kills were made in silence at the age of four. I was reborn from the black swamp of hell, a descendant of the demon child, the greatest warrior in Japanese history. And I have no soul.” She took a deep breath, glanced at the sky, and stood.
Mr. Collins remained on the ground.
“It’s the truth, Mr. Collins, I am death.”
•●•
Her eyes glowed in the moonlight. The beauty of her face was surreal, and at that moment what he felt between them was beyond his experience. That he would contemplate her eyes when she’d damn near killed his ass was fucked up, to say the least.
She stood over him, watching, waiting, and Adam’s heart bled. In the starkness of her words was a cry for help. A plea for release. He’d heard something similar to it once. With Aziveh. Married off to an elderly tribal leader, her father bargained his youngest daughter as protection from the war around him. He’d also gotten her away from the American infidel she’d given her heart to.
The memory of Aziveh’s face as she’d told him to leave, the pain and weight of her words, held nothing on Arrow’s. If losing Aziveh that day in the dusty heat of Afghanistan had broken his heart, hearing Arrow call herself death gutted Adam.
And it pissed him off. She was everything Adam struggled not to be. She didn’t value life as evidenced by the fact that she took it so easily. He’d heard Bullet list some of Arrow’s kills. They’d not all been bad people. Some of them just hadn’t fit into Joseph Bombardier’s plans and therefore required elimination.
She had gotten the upper hand on him easily. He really needed to get his shit together and stop trying to smell her, feel her heat every time she came close.
He got to his feet. She didn’t move a muscle, daring him with her stillness and those fucking cat eyes.
“Don’t do it, Adam,” Bullet warned him again.
He glanced at her and nodded to Rand. Bullet lifted her chin and defiantly shook her head. He gazed at Saya then. Her name meant “swiftest arrow.” She wouldn’t get the best of him ever again.
He held a hand up to her and said, “Shall we then?” Then he bowed low.
She didn’t make a sound as she attacked. The woman moved so fast had he not been trained in darkness himself, he wouldn’t have been able to catch her movements. As it was, the very silence of her movements, the lack of sound from her exertions—no whisper of clothing rubbing against clothing or inhalation from breathing—forced Adam to work harder to protect himself than he’d ever worked before.
He landed a punch, which he pulled, but she’d swirled behind him, striking him in the kidney before she stepped away. Adam felt more than heard the men around him moving closer. He held up a fist and immediately their movement ceased.
“You will not catch me. Darkness flows in the spaces light cannot reach,” she taunted.
Adam centered himself, called on the Great Spirit, recognizing this was an important moment for him. Something would change irrevocably in this small clearing tonight. The rush of that feeling moved through him then, sweet and cooling. He closed his eyes and focused, his senses sharpening.
She feinted with a kick then hit him with a back-fist to the jaw. It fucking hurt, but he absorbed the blow by turning and grabbing her other fist in mid-swing. Her next move shocked the shit out of him. With two steps she literally ran up the front of his body, somersaulting backward in the air and clipping him in the chin with first one foot and then the other.
He grunted and shook his head to clear the stars. This would be a dogfight then.
She landed lightly and Adam opened his eyes. White Eagle had never been able to explain the way Adam could see in the dark once he’d centered himself in the Great Spirit. It was his gift, his grandfather told him. It had saved Adam more than once. It would save Arrow tonight.
She was highlighted with a ghostly pale light, as if the moon sought to outline her for Adam. She was fast, faster than Adam maybe, her moves a mixture of various martial arts he couldn’t put his finger on. They were a perfect blend. But he was stronger. There were no two ways about it.
She stood tall then and cocked her head. “You see me?”
He cursed himself even as he bum-rushed her. She cuffed him in the temple and the stars returned, but he managed to get a solid whack to her diaphragm which made air whoosh past his ears.
She spun in a three-sixty, slashing at him with a vicious side-kick that grazed, but then she retreated a few steps. Hurting her made him want to vomit. Acid churned but as she lifted her chin at him and waved him forward, he put his dislike of harming women to the side.
She was a killer. Arrow had to be stopped.
“Don’t, Adam,” Bullet’s voice was soft but he heard it.
“I must,” he responded.
Arrow bent her knees and lifted her hands in a beautiful move that made Adam think of the cougars that roamed the west. It was effortless and deadly. Her preferred weapon was the bow and arrow, but she’d not lied. She was death. From the tip of her ebony-covered head to the bottom of her tiny feet, she was a death-bringer.
He reached behind his back, grabbed for the syringe in his pocket, and prepared himself.
Adam took one step toward her, she pivoted, and he swore she flew at him. Her feet didn’t seem to touch the ground, but between one breath and the next, he pushed the needle home in her side.
He’d gotten lucky.
She looked up at him, eyes wide as a ribbon of black slithered through her amber gaze. Fear?
“No honor,” she whispered.
He caught her body as it gave in to the tranquilizer. “No other way,” he murmured against her ear. He lifted her in his arms and began walking toward the house.
Bullet’s voice was harsh in the quiet of the night around them. “She’ll hate you.”
Adam took a deep breath, letting the scent of plum blossoms settle in the pit of his stomach. His hands clenched around her body, and he mentally shook himself. The truth was the truth.
“I don’t care,” he bit out and kept walking.
Chapter Five
Arrow woke with a rough slide into consciousness. Awareness pricked her mind, instincts clamoring to keep her breathing even and deep. She acceded to them, keeping her eyes closed as she assessed her surroundings. Her head pounded and her limbs felt weighted.
He’d tranquilized her, the move dishonorable in a fight she’d accepted with a worthy opponent. Her sisters would mock her openly. Arrow had ever been the fool for a good fight. And this time she’d paid for it.
Cedar and citrus invaded her nostrils, followed by a subtler scent unique to him. That he was in the room with her didn’t surprise her. That they’d not tied her down did. And she rested on a bed. Why not the floor in the basement as they’d done to Bullet?
Blade had told Arrow and Bone about the room. Ken Nodachi enjoyed taunting Blade with its presence. Blade had relished the opportunity to visit. Arrow remembered her sister’s face as she’d spoken of Nodachi. When Arrow saw the man in Arequipa, she’d understood Blade’s fascination and hatred. He was a hard man. A deep man with many secrets. Much like the one who
watched her now.
“You’re awake.” His thoughts were unfathomable by his tone. But his voice gave away his location. Stupid.
Arrow opened her eyes to darkness. The inevitable fear rose and she pushed it down, down, down, where it couldn’t reach her. She would make him pay for that. “I am.”
She sat up and her stomach rebelled.
“There’s water on the table beside the bed.”
Anger pinched her—a ripple on the pond of her tranquility. “Had you not cheated in a fair fight there would be no need for water.”
“Surely you understand why. You’re a menace. Besides, what you call cheating I call plain old good sense.”
He scoffed at her. So be it.
“What I understand is that I will never trust you in a fight again. And make no mistake, we will fight again.”
“You should never trust anyone in a fight, Saya. How have you managed to become so deadly? All these mistakes you keep making lead me to believe it’s you who’s been lucky.”
She curled her fingers in to her palms and clenched searching for calm as she ignored his question. “Why did you tranq me? What was the purpose? Had Bullet simply asked I would have listened to you.”
He flicked on a light then. Her eyes adjusted immediately. She’d been born with not only a peculiar eye color but also the ability to see in any light, whether bright or none at all. She watched his pupils contract, his body’s reaction to the sudden entry of light and his awareness she’d not even blinked.
“It worked with Bullet. We figured it’d work with you. You have an agenda that doesn’t align with ours. We’d hoped you’d take the time to speak with us.”
He’d not run anything by Bullet then. She glanced at him as she took a sip of the water by the bed. “You knock out all your guests I’m assuming?”
He barked a laugh. “Only Collective assassins.”
She shrugged. “I’m no longer Collective.”
Silence reigned for a moment. Chills danced up her arms.
“Are you Joseph’s?”
How she wished for her bow and arrow. She would skewer him for that question. Instead she remained quiet. So did he, and his contemplation didn’t bother her as much as she knew he hoped it did.
She was naked. Of course they’d removed her clothing. She’d come unarmed and they’d stripped her of clothing. To demean her? Oh, they really had no idea if that was their motivation. Arrow had grown up in Hell. Naked and afraid were her very best friends.
His gaze was tactile and her nipples peaked, sensation shooting through her chest straight to her core. She cocked her head, analyzing the unknown feelings. His gaze fell.
Enough. “Where is Bullet?” she asked.
His face hardened and any interest she’d seen there seconds ago, dissolved. Bitterness rode the curves of his mouth and Arrow breathed in a sigh of relief. Bitterness she could handle. It was the other emotion that flared in his pitch eyes she refused to deal with.
She had used her body as a weapon before, though. Gave it a moment’s contemplation and then dismissed it. For some reason the thought of luring the man before her with sex made her stomach clench. Maybe because she recognized there would be follow through and that Arrow would never allow.
He watched her watching him and it became a test of sorts for them both. Things lay in the air between them that neither seemed inclined to reach out and touch.
“Bullet?” she asked again, keeping her voice light.
“I don’t know. Are you hungry?”
She laughed. “You’ll feed but not clothe me? Interesting,” she responded.
“There are clothes at the foot of the bed.”
Arrow picked the clothes up and stepped into them. White cotton underwear, white sports bra, black T-shirt, and black cargo pants. No shoes. She sighed, not bothering to hide it. “Tell me of this agenda,” she demanded.
“We want Joseph and The Collective destroyed.” His voice was hot, deep and stroked her skin like warm water.
“Yet you said our agendas didn’t align. It seems to me they ride side by side, together. That is what all of First Team wants. Bullet told you this when she gave you her name.” She looked up at him then, gave him the full force of her stare.
Most men turned away from her unable to meet her gaze full-on, understanding she was beyond their ability to handle. The man before her smiled and it unsettled Arrow. She licked her suddenly dry lips. His smile froze.
“You were headed to kill the Chinese president.”
She feigned a gasp. “No! Was I?”
“Tsk, tsk, Saya. Sarcasm doesn’t become you. You and I both know that’s exactly what you were headed to do. I tried to stop you from killing in Mexico. You asked why the tranq? You are a force to be reckoned with and we couldn’t allow you to throw the entire Eastern Hemisphere into chaos. The tranq allowed us to stop you and perhaps gain your cooperation.”
“Yet I would say that I came here on my own, thus your assertion I was on my way to kill the President of China is incorrect.”
He shook his head. “That you stopped here to visit Bullet doesn’t play into this discussion.”
“Yet here I remain,” she reminded him.
He shrugged. “Semantics.”
She stared him, hearing his words, processing them, and searching for underlying motives. He believed what he said. But this went much deeper than his off-the-cuff analysis of her motives, and she was going to set him straight.
Arrow breathed deeply, trying to control the rage she knew her next words would bring to the surface. “There was a child who lived in the Fujian Province of China. Her name was Ching Lan and when she was young, her mother and father escaped the oppression of her homeland and moved to Canada. They made a name for themselves there, grew to be respected as pillars of their Asian community. Their daughter went to school in America and eventually she signed up with an organization whose goal was to help children in need.”
Adam Collins stood still as she walked to stand in front of him.
“I met Ching Lan when I approached her about a particular child who needed a guardian. I’d watched Ching Lan, knew her to be not only a motherly type but also versed in martial arts, so a protector in all aspects. The child, you see, is precious to me and a simple, ordinary nanny would not do.” She stared at him, daring him to stop her. Surely he knew where this was going. “I set her up in Shanghai, told her she wouldn’t be allowed any communication with her family for the duration of her time as guardian for the child. She agreed and she was honest to a fault. She never swayed from the duty she’d accepted. She never faltered.”
His eyes flinched then, just the barest reaction to her tale.
“Until the day the President of China sent in a squad of killers to attempt to take the child. On orders from Joseph Bombardier, Ching Lan was shot and beheaded in front of the child she’d become guardian to.”
She moved so close to him the tips of her breasts brushed his chest. His heat called to her but there was no time to berate herself. “But you know all this, don’t you, Mr. Collins? After all, you were there.”
He blinked just once. It was enough.
She nodded. “I was too. But I was too late, her body was still warm, the boy gone, but there you were. You and Mr. Nodachi. You covered her body, but I took her home and only I heard her mother’s cries. Ching Lan took an honorable position as guardian and Joseph had China’s president,” she sneered the word, “kill an innocent. Do you know why, Mr. Collins? Do you know why the boy was so important?”
“I don’t,” he admitted into her silence.
She leaned even closer to him, eyes closing for a blissful second as their bodies meshed together almost perfectly. For a moment Arrow mourned her birth. Would that she could have known the touch of this man.
He didn’t stiffen, didn’t push her away, but she heard his knuckles pop as he fisted his hands.
“He’s important because he’s ours. Do you have any idea what we would do
for those we consider ours? We would kill most definitely, Mr. Collins, but it goes beyond even death.”
“You cannot be judge and jury,” he said in a hard voice.
She stepped away then, shaking her head. “It has nothing to do with right or wrong. As the boy was ours, so was Ching Lan. What is ours no one has permission to harm or take. It is simple, Mr. Collins, the strongest survive. And the ones that aren’t strong, if they aren’t killed first, we do our best to protect. I realize Bullet wants to see Joseph and The Collective ended. We all do. But ultimately, it has always been about possession. We are the boy’s guardians. I was Ching Lan’s guardian. As she guarded the boy, I guarded her. And I failed. Her bullet-ridden body and her head lying two feet away attested to the fact.”
She took a deep breath and leveled her gaze on him.
“From the moment her life left her, the President of China became mine. His death is mine to dispense.”
•●•
Adam wanted to sink to his knees and weep. Never had the need to do so been so great. Her pain reached between them, its fingers clawing and ripping into his soul with vicious, sweeping strikes.
Her gaze sought to finish what her words started. Her amber eyes were beautiful; he’d not ever seen anything quite so lovely in his thirty-two years, but she was death. And it didn’t matter. He would hold her but knew she’d turn from him, never allowing the comfort of his touch.
He had been there when the woman was killed. Had just confirmed she was the one he was searching for when men in black masks stormed the house at the sea’s edge. The men moved like smoke and he’d been unable to get a bead on them with his scope. They’d killed the woman and begun searching for the child before he’d been able to get in position. Arrow was wrong about one thing: the child had not seen Ching Lan killed. He’d been safe though the men searched mightily for him.
The woman hadn’t pled for her life. Not once. Adam had wondered who she was being loyal to. Now he knew. The child was her priority and she’d been willing die for him.
“Where is the child, Mr. Collins?”
“I have no idea,” he said. And it was the truth. He didn’t know. It was better that way.