by Lea Griffith
Would Adam Collins appreciate such a gift? Would he understand that he’d managed to do something no one else ever had? Probably not, but she determined she would gift him with it anyway. It was the least she could do for a warrior such as him.
Once the ends were notched she began to sand the bamboo, loving strokes along the wood that smoothed giving sheen to the light wood. Bamboo was a tensile wood that bent with ease but could break after time. The power in the wood lay in the creator and the art of crafting. Use weighed the wood with elasticity thereby making it less than what it was when it had been crafted.
Arrow’s longbows never became less. Her wood remained strong, giving her arrows the needed velocity to reach their targets. Maybe the lives she took absorbed into the wood itself. Arrow fancied it was simply her desire that the wood remain strong that it did so. Though death destroyed, her wood brought justice.
She hummed lightly, the song Juana taught all of First Team when they’d arrived in Arequipa. She hummed as she cut the silk and the hemp in long strands. She hummed as she attached the hemp to the notches in the yumi and the silk to the grips.
She hummed until her throat was dry and the longbows were completed. Then she started on the ya. By the time darkness blanketed the sky, she was finished. And she was cold.
So very cold.
•●•
Adam watched her throughout the day. He’d called her name at dinner time but she hadn’t responded. Bullet said it would be that way—that once Arrow began crafting she would be silent until the end.
But she hadn’t been entirely silent. She’d hummed to herself and the notes of her sad song reached into Adam’s soul and squeezed. He’d returned to patrol and mentally kicked his own ass for letting her achieve that depth.
He ran a hand over his head and wiped it down his face. Fatigue rode his body right now but his mind turned over and over endlessly. How dare she enter his life and turn his emotions on end? How fucking dare she. He’d loved Aziveh for years, and though she’d been lost to him, he’d never stopped loving her. All of his attempts to find her met failure, but he would never stop. Certainly his lust for another woman could be overcome by his love for Aziveh.
Yet those words rang false, and try as he might, he couldn’t make them true. As his patrol ended, he sought Saya out again. She was still on the porch, her hands once again palming the glass. What did she stare at, this woman who hated the dark but became one with it so easily?
His heart turned over, stupid fucking organ, as her scent slithered to him and wrapped around his nose, invading his throat with the taste of honey. Her skin shone opalescent in the rising moon and he wondered how in the hell he was going to shake this woman’s hold on him. Her smell dominated even that of boiling wood, hemp string, and metal.
“Did you need something, Mr. Collins?”
Her voice whisked through him, touching with a light caress and stroking along his nerves. Would her hands do the same thing as he moved in and out of her body? Would they grab and knead the muscles of his back as his hips glided between her thighs?
He grunted but held back the words that threatened, saying instead, “It’s time to eat.”
She nodded and turned her head toward him. Her eyes were piercing, seeing things he’d rather keep hidden. “I could eat.”
He turned at that and felt more than heard her presence at his back.
“You do not like having me at your back,” she said softly. No humor, just a simple acknowledgement.
“I do not like having anyone at my back,” he responded in a hard voice. “Much less a killer.”
She tsked, clucking her tongue against the edge of her teeth. “If you keep on, Mr. Collins, I will get the impression you don’t like me.”
He laughed then, and like her there was no humor in the tones of it. “I don’t like you, Saya.” But I want you like I want my next breath.
“This I know well. You don’t like me but your body calls to mine.”
Her words stopped him in his tracks. Between one breath and the next he had her against the wall, her throat in one hand and her wrists in the other. Saya’s startled gaze met his, something passing in the golden depths that could be the promise of death or desire.
“What did you say?” he managed past clenched teeth.
Her nostrils flared, and there was that something again, a whisper of black in the amber glass of her eyes. She lowered her gaze then and he took a deep breath. The hardened tips of her breasts pressed against his chest and he exhaled harshly. Goddamn her.
“I believe truth is the only virtue I can claim.” She lifted her face and stared at him, more honesty in her eyes than he’d ever imagined. “My body hears the call of yours and wants to answer, but between us there is a bridge of duty that leads to death. I cannot answer your body’s call, even though my own weeps to do so.”
Her bow mouth moved, lips forming the words that called to Adam. He lowered his head, mouth just above hers, tasting every breath she took. Need shook his foundations, and he could no more stop the reflexive press of his hips against her than he could prevent his mouth from meeting hers.
She hissed in a breath and he was lost.
He stroked over the seam of her lips, drinking her sigh and diving into the heat of her with a plunge of his tongue. Honey wasn’t as sweet as Saya. Nothing in Adam’s experience could have prepared him for the desire that swept through him when her tongue met his. Tentative, it stroked over before wrapping around his in a dance that had them both trying to crawl into one another.
He lifted away and she followed him. At some point he’d released her wrists, though he still held her throat in his hand. She grabbed his shoulders and her nails dug into the muscles there as she pulled him closer. He stroked along the creamy skin of her neck, felt the shudder work through his body as he once again gave in to the insanity that was Saya. Heat, need, pleasure, they all built into something Adam had never felt, and it was beautiful.
He let her take him, her tongue erotic in its timid ferocity, her lips a benediction to his starved body. She moaned, and it was the sexiest sound he’d ever heard. Over and over their lips fused until blood roared through his eardrums and the pounding of her heart echoed his own.
“Oh!”
The soft exclamation made Adam lift his head and search out the cause.
Bullet stood at the end of the hall, hand on her mouth and fear in her eyes.
Adam growled low in his throat, a clear indication she had no business here. His head blocked Bullet’s view of her sister, and that was at it should be. Adam didn’t question his need to protect Saya. It was instinctive and he acceded to it. Her heavy, panting breaths made him harden even more, but the look he shot Bullet was full of warning.
She finally nodded and retreated back to the kitchen. Where Adam had been leading Saya to begin with.
A minute passed and tension replaced the desire that moments ago threatened to take them under. He stepped away from the lure of her body and cleared his throat.
“I should apologize but it would be a lie, wouldn’t it?” he asked, wincing when she raised lust-drenched eyes to his.
“It would. Your veracity saves your life right now,” she responded with a sigh.
He barked out a laugh as he reached to feather a finger over her passion-swollen lips. “I appreciate that.”
She smiled then and her tongue darted out to stroke along the tip of his finger. “You taste of things I have only imagined.”
He pulled away from her, lowering his hand and taking a deep breath. It did nothing to ease the constriction of his jeans on his dick, and nothing to slow the racing of his heart. He didn’t respond, couldn’t have formed the words to describe what just happened, so he turned away and strode to the kitchen.
“What do I taste of, Adam Collins?”
He stopped and turned, pinning her with his gaze. So fucking gorgeous she trapped the breath in his lungs, he would give her another truth and hope it didn’t doom him.<
br />
“You taste of lust spiced with honey and plum blossoms. It is desire mixed with heat and rain. It is need flavored with wind and fire. And now, Saya, do you know what you taste of?”
She shook her head, the same tongue that had run rampant in his mouth moments ago darting out to wet her lush bottom lip.
He smiled and the emotion that flitted through him was wickedly intense. He wanted to pound his chest and give a primal roar.
“Now you taste of me.”
Chapter Twelve
Arrow’s quarry sat in a utilitarian chair under a single bright light bulb hung from the ceiling. The building, constructed a long time ago, had recently been shored up with new timber and metal panels. On top of the metal panel sound-proofing insulation had been placed. Whoever screamed in this building would not be heard.
She and Bullet quieted the guards with disgusting ease, moving as the unit they’d been trained to be. Two short, they were still an effective machine against five guards unprepared for their level of training. Special Forces they may be, but none were the caliber of First Team. They’d dispatched them to la-la land with little to no effort.
Bullet entered the building first and Arrow brought up the rear. They blacked the cameras before ever approaching the guards and estimated there was approximately ten minutes before a hue and cry was raised.
Her feet made no noise on the concrete floor and when she raised her leg to kick the chair out from under Hunstall she wasn’t surprised when he woke from a dead sleep. Startled, his eyes reflected fear at first which he sought to quickly mask with indifference. She smelled his perverted lust soon after.
“I figured you bitches would show,” he said with a laugh. “And here you are.”
His hands were tied behind his back, his attention focused entirely on Arrow so his shock wasn’t unexpected as Bullet crept behind him and placed a blade at his throat.
“I’m going to untie you, Damon, and you’re going to take one step to the right,” Bullet instructed him, her voice carrying death in the tones. “Nod if you understand my English.”
“One wrong move, Damon, and my ya will find your throat,” Arrow said into the silence.
The man seethed but nodded and Arrow watched for any sign he thought to disobey. He did as instructed and his movement gave Bullet time to step away.
“Pick up the chair, Damon, and sit your ass back in it,” she told him, using his name repeatedly as if he were a child.
Once again, he did as instructed. The smirk he wore was designed to piss her off. It did nothing but tell Arrow how rattled he was. The knowledge he was nearing his end was written all over his face.
“I have questions, Damon, and you will answer them. If you’re truthful, I will kill you swiftly. If you lie to me, I will rip into you over and over with my ya. You will die but it will be painful. And then there’s Bullet who desires a reckoning with you. If you want it to end quickly, answer my questions with nothing but truth. You understand?”
He nodded. Joseph trained Damon almost as well as he’d trained them. But almost was only close enough in horseshoes. And this was no game.
“Why did he send you?”
The man whose life she held notched in her longbow didn’t hesitate. “To capture you.”
Bullet slid in with a quick flick of her wrist, slicing a thin ribbon down his cheek before she eased back into the shadows.
“I’ll ask again, Damon. Why did he send you?”
There was a flicker of his eyes. “He wants you two bitches but he wants the boy more. He thought he was here.”
“You lie. He knows the boy isn’t here because he has the boy.”
Bullet whispered the blade across Damon’s throat and retreated. He screamed, unprepared for the attack and startled when it did little more than bite into the surface layers of skin.
“He doesn’t have the boy!” Fear wound through Damon’s voice and it called to Arrow’s baser urge to kill quickly. The man was in pain and needed the release of death. How many weighed him down now? And after all, he was as much an instrument as First Team. He deserved her compassion.
“He would kill us all. He doesn’t deserve pity.” Bullet’s voice cut through the darkness.
“There is no honor in retreat, Bullet.” If she gave him death before he gave up what he knew, that would be retreat. Arrow’s words affirmed her intent. She lowered the weapon and gazed at Damon.
Sweat poured from him and in the cold of the fall night that wasn’t a good thing. Blood leaked sluggishly from his calf, pooling beneath the chair. No other marks were evident. He hadn’t been questioned yet then. Arrow nodded. Adam Collins had waited for her.
She squelched the heat that thought began in her abdomen. There was no place for it here among the death she was about to dispense.
“Then who has him?” Arrow asked softly.
“We thought you bitches did,” Damon yelled.
Bullet stood at Arrow’s side. “How many babies are left, Damon?”
“I don’t know. I don’t count the young ones, they are nothing to me. Just like you, I kill to survive. The weaker ones mean nothing.”
A hand shot out of the darkness and the punch it delivered rocked Hunstall out of the chair and onto the floor.
“Achot, you started without me.” Bone had arrived.
Arrow eased. She’d heard her sister enter, recognized Bullet had too.
Damon spit out blood and possibly some teeth, then raised his head and glared at Arrow.
“Damon, get back in the chair. Bone is here now and you know how she gets,” Arrow reminded him.
Slowly, Hunstall pulled himself back into the chair, lifting his chin defiantly. “Your heads will look fine above his fireplace.”
“Hold, Bone.” Arrow prevented another punch. They needed him alert enough to answer questions and time was ticking down.
“You wound me. This piece of tzoah is nothing. He holds no information simply because Joseph doesn’t trust him.”
“I am his most trusted assassin. I have not betrayed him like you bitches have!” Spittle flew from his mouth as he responded to Bone’s taunt.
Her sister laughed and it was a stunning sound in this place. Bone’s laugh had been the precursor for many a shi to odoru. And with Bone it was always a true dance with death. Her hands, feet, her entire body was her weapon. Fighting with Bone was to court the end of your life. She was the deadliest sister simply because she enjoyed killing.
Arrow’s skin prickled. People were headed their way.
“Bullet, lock the door,” she instructed her sister.
“Done,” Bone said before Bullet could move.
Arrow nodded and stepped toward Hunstall who seemed to shrink before her eyes. “That you think Joseph trusts you speaks to how far you’ve fallen, Damon. He trusts no one—it was one of our first lessons. Tell me, Damon, how many are in the woods beyond this house?” She kept her voice cajoling, soft and low.
“I came in with five. I think that leaves one still out there.”
“Who?”
“Karoly,” Hunstall bit out.
Arrow let her ya fly and it struck Hunstall in the shoulder pinning him to the wooden chair he sat in.
His agony poured from this throat like the fire that probably eclipsed his world at that moment.
“Who?”
“Donner! It’s, Donner!” He reached for the arrow.
“If you pull it out, it will hurt much more. Breathe, Damon. You’ve been through worse than this,” Arrow soothed him.
She shut down emotionally, nothing but her objective filling the void where her soul would have been.
“Donner is here?” she asked slowly.
“Yes. He was to be second in once the perimeter was breached. You were my objective and Donner was here for Bullet.”
Another blow rocked Hunstall sideways but Bone held him up this time keeping him from hitting the floor.
“If you break his jaw, he can’t speak, Bone,” Arrow admon
ished quietly.
Bone laughed again and Hunstall groaned. That the man could still groan was proof her sister pulled her punch.
“Answers, sisters, we need them, Trident is here,” Bullet said into the sudden silence.
Arrow reacted to the urgency, getting in Hunstall’s face as Bone held both his hands behind his back.
“Where is Joseph heading?”
“China.”
Truth. It was as they’d hoped. She stroked a hand over his hair.
“Where is the boy?”
“He is right under your noses, bitch, but you’ll never find him,” Hunstall said and then laughed.
Arrow grabbed the ya and twisted, smiling when Hunstall screeched in pain. “Your pain is my gain, Damon. The sounds of your screams tickle my eardrums and make the death inside me want. Slow or quick, Damon, after all it is your choice.”
“He thinks you have the boy. If you don’t he has no idea where he is,” Damon bit out and there was again a hint of truth.
“He knows. I want to know why he sent you here,” Arrow said at Damon’s ear.
There was a crunch and Damon moaned. Bone broke his fingers because Damon thought to strike with Arrow so close. Stupid man.
Arrow let her fingertips glide along the side of his face like a mother would her child. “I want to know, Damon. Tell me, please, so this drags out no longer.”
Damon was a child then as he cuddled into her hand. Something vicious sliced through Arrow and for a split second she regretted what was about to happen.
“A minute at most, sister,” Bullet said from the door. The sounds of banging and even a small explosion sounded beyond the door.
“Tell me, Damon, and I will release you,” she promised.
“He wanted you and Bullet, but you were secondary,” Hunstall said and then groaned. “He wants the child, but he wants the child’s mother even more.”
Arrow stood up then, fear wending through her heart, making her mouth dry. “The boy’s mother?”