by Lea Griffith
“I believe you said it best in Mexico, Saya. This is not a game,” he murmured.
She’d spoken aloud? Arrow was losing control, the waves crashing and ebbing, battering and slicing through her sea of calm.
“Don’t do this, Mr. Collins.”
He tipped her face up and her gaze sought his unerringly. “It must be done.”
She swallowed hard and pushed up and away from Adam. “I won’t do this with you.”
His face went hard and her heart stuttered. “You will.”
His tone brooked no argument and anger pierced her. He thought because he’d fucked her once he deserved something from her? “You want the truth, Mr. Collins? The entire, sordid, unvarnished truth? You want to know how Joseph Bombardier took innocent children, babies, from the only homes they knew and forged them in the hot fires of his hate? You want the details of how I was placed in a darkened, locked room, starved and thirsted until I begged for death? Is that what you want?” She began to pace, her rage forcing her to move lest she fight the man who’d given her something no one else ever had.
“I want the truth. All of it. But mostly, Saya, I want you to purge it.”
She stopped and glanced at him before she grabbed her hair and pulled. The pain did nothing but his face blanked. Arrow felt herself decompensating—she had to fight to hold onto her sanity in that moment. The memories were always there, but normally she was strong enough to hold them off. Tonight, after taking this man inside her body, she was weak.
And it was unacceptable. He made to get up and her gaze drilled into him.
“Do not move, Mr. Collins. You want the entire truth, but if you move I will kill you where you stand and walk away from here unchanged and committed even more to death.”
Please let him understand. Please let him just…be…still. Any movement on his part would be considered an act of aggression. She was beyond logic now as the memories cleaved her in two.
His hands fisted on his thighs and he must have recognized the truth of her words because though he sat up straighter, he didn’t move otherwise.
“When Joseph killed my sohei I made him a promise. Four years old, covered in the blood of the only father I had ever known, I swore to him I would take his throat with my arrow and I would drink his chi, revel in the feel and taste of it as it slid down my throat. Do you know what he did?” she asked as she continued to fist her hair and pull, hoping the bite of pain would center her.
Adam shook his head. Silence was good.
“He laughed at me and kicked my master’s head down the steps of the temple. I didn’t even get to bury my dead. Then he knocked me out and when I woke in the darkness fear held my hand and drenched me in its bittersweet perfume.”
“Darkness has been used against me from the crib. You asked how my sohei punished me. They used the black. Do you know the things that can be seen in the absence of light? My eyes are sensitive, they always have been, and I’ve discovered it is a genetic mutation that gives them this color, but I can literally see in the dark. Do you know how incredibly lonely the darkness is? It presses on you, unrelenting until it’s all you know, all you taste and all you feel, but it never offers succor. I was a baby but it did not matter how loud I cried, my sohei never came until I was silent. To have that used against me again by Joseph was akin to tearing off my fingernails one at a time.
I was four when I took my first life but then Joseph took me and began his conditioning and it was my life being taken. “You will be a fine addition, killer.” That’s what he said to me when he opened the door the first time. I had nearly broken but finally remembered that a blind man doesn’t fear the snake.”
Adam’s gaze bored into her skull. She felt his perusal, but she was locked in that tiny room again, alone and frightened beyond measure.
“I managed to rip a piece of wood from the wall of that room and I honed it into a small sliver. When Joseph came close, I stuck him with it, but I was not yet quick enough, strong enough to damage him the way I needed to escape. He laughed at me and I went into the water pit. When he pulled me out, I was put back in the black room.”
I learned to do what he wanted or suffer the room. I knew the darkness hated me, but even so that’s where I thrived. My hate found a purpose in that room and it grew, festered, until I had to kill or go mad.
I was almost a full year younger than the others, though they did not know that. But my mind was stronger than theirs. I had been born to kill, you see, and they were being broken and reconditioned. His work with me was more about controlling the demon inside.
“You will take my enemies to hell for me, Arrow,” he said before my first kill for him. In my head the only person I wanted to see there was Joseph. He is very superstitious. He believed the ramblings of my sohei; he believed I was a descendant of a demon. But I was not. I was a child, flesh and blood, bone and marrow, and I had been made into a killer.
When he began to train us all together, it was—difficult. I had not been trained to work with others and Bone, Blade, and Bullet were older than me. We were each punished in specific ways but sometimes we were given each other’s punishments and those times were actually reward. Punishments can be reward, did you know that?” She took a deep breath then, let it flow through her body and mind. She glanced at him and saw his gaze trained on her, black eyes bright in the moon-bit night.
“I messed up frequently because trusting another child with something you don’t even understand is nearly impossible. But we did it and learned from one another in the process. Bullet taught us revenge. Blade taught us hate. Bone taught us how to lust for death. And I taught my sisters how to control their fear and panic, how to make their minds stronger in the face of destruction. The weakest of us, Ninka, was a tool Bombardier used to sharpen our hatred.
“When he had her killed in front of us, it was the string that bound us tighter together. From the moment she left this world, the rest of us became sisters. Not based in love, Mr. Collins. Based in hate. As we have grown, we have become more than sisters. As we trained we became pack mates. Like wild animals we bonded together, conditioned to kill or be killed, and we are effective at what we do.”
It was quiet in the room and she barked out a laugh.
“So there you have it. Not too much detail, but just enough to give you an idea of what you laid down with in that bed.” She laughed again and it sounded horrible in the stillness. Adam watched her, face blank, black eyes full of compassion and so different from the ones she saw in her dreams. “When you say purge, Mr. Collins, it is a pipe dream. I could no more purge Joseph Bombardier from my life than I could stop breathing. He created the hate inside of me and to separate from that will stop my heart from beating. But I can kill him. I can bathe in his blood and know that he’ll never do to another baby what he did to First Team. But once that is done, I am finished. As a soulless creature born only for death, Arrow will disappear.”
“Why?”
“Always with the questions, Mr. Collins. But the answer to that is simple. Arrow will disappear because a killer without a target is a killer no more. And killing is all I’ve ever known.”
Chapter Nineteen
Soulless, she’d said. Adam could not comprehend the thought. She was so much more than a killer. Yet how to tell a woman who’d been bred for death-bringing that she could be…
What?
Adam growled. Her gaze pinned him to the spot and rage simmered in his gut. A baby in a crib honed to become a killer. What the fuck kind of monsters did that? And it all began with a mother who should have protected her child, and instead, because of some superstitious bullshit, turned her over to the devil.
“Come here,” he ordered.
Her back straightened before her stance relaxed. She was fucking glorious just then. A warrior silhouetted in moonlight that bent and curved around her body, highlighting her danger while at the same time making him want.
“I will hurt you, Mr. Collins.”
Her thu
mb and forefinger rubbed together, the only tell she’d ever demonstrated. That she longed for the string of her bow between those fingers was an indication of just how upset she was.
“My name is Adam. In this room—tonight—you will use it because you are not Arrow here, you are Saya,” he bit out between clenched teeth.
He wanted to pull her sohei from the ground and rip them to shreds. He wanted to kill Joseph Bombardier with his bare hands and then reanimate him so he could do it again and again and again. His hands tightened into fists, and his back almost bowed under the force of his fury.
They took something precious and molded it to be deadly. Yet underneath her surface lay a heart that yearned for love and acceptance. She trained it to not feel, but in this room he had heard it beat harder as her body accepted his.
And he would hear it again, feel it under his hands and mouth, and know he brought her to that. Maybe killing was all she had known, but he would give her more tonight and hope she didn’t take too much from him come the morning.
“I will hurt you, Adam.”
His name on her lips locked every muscle in his body. Her voice was flavored with longing, the husky tones of it dripping with need.
“I can handle anything you choose to dish out, Saya. Now come here to me.” No quarter given.
She attacked him as he’d known she would. The woman was walking a line between this world and the next as all killers did. Immersed for too long in taking life, she didn’t have reason to think she deserved more. And he’d just backed her into a proverbial wall. For her there was no choice but to fight.
He absorbed the blow to his jaw and spun, catching her around the waist, caging her arms, and moving his head to the side to avoid a head butt. He dug his chin into the area between her neck and shoulder, and she stilled immediately. Pain and pleasure—a vicious circle.
“I can smell you, Saya. The cotton of your panties does nothing to hide your arousal. Even as you hate me, you want me inside your body.”
Anger vibrated through her. Holding her, he felt it, and it made the flames of his rage fan higher. They hurt this woman.
She twisted in his arms. He squeezed harder and at that moment she wrapped her legs back and around his knees, then twisted her body again and effectively tripped him, taking them both to the floor.
He was unprepared and hit hard, but before she could untangle herself, he had her hands in his and his body settled between her legs. She used her legs like a vise then, squeezing his midsection until he maneuvered up far enough that she was forced to squeeze his hips instead.
He slammed his mouth down on hers and she bit at him, drawing blood. He continued to kiss her, the lust burning too hot for him to do anything other than take her once again.
“Do not,” she begged even as her hips curled up, pressing against him, a plea in her eyes and actions.
“I can do nothing else,” he responded.
She arched and bucked, trying to throw him off, but all she did in the end was seat his cock more firmly at her entrance. The only barrier between them was thin cotton. He pressed forward and his eyes crossed at the heat of her pussy.
He transferred both her hands to one of his and ripped her panties off before pushing his sweats down. Adam grabbed her hip and between one breath and the next he was inside her.
He dropped his forehead to hers, catching her gaze and refusing to let her look away. “Tonight you are Saya,” he said.
“I am Arrow, Mr. Collins.”
He rolled his hips, making sure to rub his pubis against hers, catching her gasp with his mouth when he rubbed against her clit. “Saya.”
Another roll and her arms relaxed, eyes going hot as she bit her lip. But she remained silent, and he knew then she wouldn’t naysay him. He had her body now, wrapped up in his.
“Say my name, Saya,” he murmured at her throat.
She shook her head violently, refusing him even as he dipped into her body over and over.
“You. Will. Say. My,” he thrust harder and her breasts bounced deliciously. “Name.”
She looked at him beneath her lashes and then said, “Adam.”
It was full of heat, stripping his control. He came inside her so hard, so suddenly, that for a split second he lost his mind. It rushed from the tip of his cock, leaving him locked inside and filling her with a promise he refused to voice.
She could not have him. He was forsworn.
She took everything. And he was lost.
Her body rippled around his, internal muscles stroking his shaft, pulling even more from him as she gave herself up to release.
It took long moments for him to realize they were on the floor and still wrapped around each other. He raised his head from her chest and pulled his flesh from hers. She moaned, he groaned, and then began to harden again. His body was as much of an enemy as Arrow herself.
Saya, on the other hand, was…not.
He lifted her limp body into his arms and was surprised when she let him. He transferred them to the bed. As their sweat began to cool, he wrapped her in his arms and pulled the covers over their bodies. Then he pushed her head to his shoulder and waited.
Her breathing deepened and he thought her asleep, until her tongue touched the vein that ran up his neck. She suckled the skin there. Adams hips flexed instinctively as the heat she stirred relentlessly sank into his skin and tortured his cock.
“I have something you can suck,” he said with a grin.
She said nothing, but he felt her lips curve.
“You took too much, Mr.—”
He squeezed her hip in warning.
“Adam.”
He kissed her forehead and his mouth watered—plum blossoms. “I didn’t have to take anything, Saya. You willingly gave it to me.”
She nodded, and it was with no small amount of shock that he realized she’d agreed with him. “Will you tell me of her?”
Ice stopped the blood in his veins. “Who?”
“The one who has your heart.”
“She isn’t here between us, Saya,” he responded, and then he pulled away from her a just a bit and rubbed his chest.
“If you are here, then she is too. You cannot live without your heart, and if she holds it, and you still breathe, then she is here.”
Her words forced said breath from his lungs. Like the kidney blow she delivered with ease, she’d sucker-punched him in the gut. Spoken softly, they rang in his ears like a cymbal.
He was here. And Aziveh most definitely was not. It hit him then, the truth of this thing with Saya. Adam was loyal to a fault. He could have never fucked another woman if his heart was still truly engaged with Aziveh.
The knowledge was devastating. He turned away from her and sat up, needing to move away from the source of his angst so he could think clearly. Aziveh’s name did not bring chills to his skin. The memory of her brown eyes did not stir him.
Instead a killer’s name reverberated through his mind and eyes the color of Midas’s gold made his heart thud heavily. He couldn’t use Aziveh as a talisman anymore. Not after losing and then finding himself in Saya.
He heard the rustling of the sheets and glanced back. The moon cut through the darkness she so abhorred and danced along her skin. Her heart-shaped face was drawn in relief. She was so fucking beautiful it made him ache inside. But that beauty was eclipsed by what she held inside. She had no fucking idea…
“Tell me of her,” she cajoled and her hard demand was hidden by the silken tone.
Adam pulled on his sweats and ran a hand over his head. Saya’s eyes followed his movement, gaze caressing the planes of his body and furthering the throb in his chest. “What would you like to know?”
He gave in simply because at some point over the last hours what Saya wanted had become important to Adam. Fuck.
“Tell me of Aziveh.”
He took a moment to settle in the chair she’d vacated earlier, and he stared out the same window. What had she seen looking into the night? Had s
he found whatever she was looking for?
“I was a soldier years ago. In fact, that’s where I met Rand, in Ranger school. We were on the same team and had been deployed to Afghanistan for support and special operations.” Adam took a deep breath, but it didn’t help the dread of reliving his nightmare. “I remember the first time I saw Aziveh,” he trailed off lost in the remembering.
“Tell me,” Saya whispered.
“She was the oldest daughter of a village warlord who had gone against the Taliban and offered shelter and support to the coalition forces. She was a tiny woman, barely up to my breastbone, but her eyes took my breath. Big and the color of chocolate, they seemed to look through me, see every part of who I was, and she didn’t judge, didn’t find me lacking. If her eyes took my breath, it was her smile that took my heart. I think I fell in love with her the second time I saw her. She smiled at me and the sun got brighter.”
He took another breath and rubbed his chest. He couldn’t look at Saya while he spoke of this. He couldn’t. So he didn’t.
“Her father welcomed us into his home because we were protection from the Taliban. He offered us his food because we gave him money for information. But it was his daughter I went to see every single day. I met her at the market. I met her in the fields. Whenever I had time, I snuck away to meet the woman with soulful chocolate eyes and a heartbreaking smile.”
She had a generous heart, wanted to get out of Afghanistan, come back to America with me. We made such plans because after the first time I held her in my arms, touched my lips to hers, I knew she was mine.”
He did look at Saya then, some part of him wanting her to understand something he couldn’t verbally communicate. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open on a small “O.” Something about that look hurt Adam, and he realized something new. He hated hurting Saya. He turned his gaze back to the window.
“We never told her father we were planning to steal her away to America. I made plans for her to obtain a visa, and she was supposed to head back here long before me, though I would have been able to see her home. But her father knew just the same. It was hard for me to keep my gaze from her when we visited his village. Yeah,” he said roughly. “He knew I wanted his daughter for my own.