by Nya Rayne
She tried to roll him over so she could get to his back pockets where the real money was usually kept, but he was heavy. Actually, more than heavy—the man was built like a Mini Cooper. Stormy moved so her back pressed against the door, wedged her feet between the leather seat and his body, and pushed while twisting her lower body, forcing him onto the floor.
A quick search of his back pockets yielded nothing but lint.
“Where the hell is his damn wallet?” She ran her left arm across her sweat-beaded brow and tried to slow the thudding of her heart as she quickly patted him down from shoulders to ankles. She patted him down a second time, blood pounding in her ears. He had to have one—he was a business man, for freak’s sake.
She saw it—his sports coat. Stormy lifted it from the floor, felt the pockets and found the leather jewel she’d been seeking.
Flipping it open, she hesitated when a picture of Cruddy Face with a decent looking redhead and two grinning, freckle-faced kids stared back at her. He had a family—children and a wife. They probably had a big beautiful home on one and a half acres of land and a yellow Labrador, all surrounded by a pristine white picket fence.
“The American dream,” she whispered.
He had everything and he was out here trolling for diseases. With gritted teeth and clenched jaws she stared down at Cruddy Face with his perfect little family. She would give her right arm to have someone—anyone—waiting at home for her. Hell, just to have a home to go to at the end of the day.
A dream? Perhaps. But add a couple of kids to that, and she would be living the Urban Cinderella’s story.
Stormy had been on her own since she was seventeen, running from state to state and from one menial job to the next. She’d slept on bus benches, under bridges, and on the steps in front of drug houses. On the rare occasion that she had a bed to sleep in, it was always a rundown motel in the worse part of whatever town she happened to be in.
This trick had it all, and still he was out here in the middle of the night picking up whores.
She shook her head, pulled all of the cash from the wallet, and shoved it in her bag. Discarding the wallet, she hesitated. Retrieving the wallet once more, she found the picture of Cruddy Face and his family.
Stormy pulled the Taser out of her purse and planted it firmly in his groin. She pulled the trigger once, allowed the charge to die and pulled the trigger again. His body flopped back and forth, twisted, turned and writhed, but he didn’t wake up.
“That’s for being a complete jackass.”
She placed the picture she’d taken from his wallet in his hand, hoping that when he regained consciousness he would see the error of his ways. Satisfied, she climbed out of the car, her bag clutched beneath her arm.
Fetid scents wafted at her from all directions, and she gagged and covered her nose with her hand. Squeezing her nostrils shut, she inhaled through her mouth and would have sworn on a stack of King James Bibles that she had just licked the sludge covered ground.
Stormy picked up her pace, refusing to breathe at all.
Less than fifteen feet from the car, an overpowering sense of dread settled into her spine and delved into every bone in her body. Her heart faltered and her knees threatened to give out.
A loud crack and a scream from above brought her gaze up in time to see a body fly from a window several stories high. It was a man. That much she could tell from the shape of his body. His arms flailed out at his sides as he hurtled toward the ground.
The body caved in the hood of the Town Car, the crash echoing through the quiet night like a bomb going off at a monastery. The windshield of the car imploded while the remaining windows exploded, sending tiny splinters of glass in all directions.
Stormy screamed, pressed against the brick wall beside her, and tried to shield her head and face with her purse. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be freaking happening right now,” she ground out through gritted teeth.
Out of nowhere, another man appeared a mere ten feet away from her. He was tall, his body wrapped in hard muscles beneath the thin material of his white cotton shirt. Hair the color of night fell past his shoulders, and his facial features were strong, as if etched by the most sacred of tools.
Entranced by his presence, Stormy forgot she was supposed to be frightened. She blinked, once, twice, three times. This had to be a figment of her imagination; it had to be. She blinked a few more times, but there he still stood. He was broad shouldered, barrel-chested, and at least six foot four or six foot five. In a stadium full of men there would be no place for him to hide.
He stalked over broken glass toward the guy sprawled on the hood of the car. His ghostly gray eyes glittered with ruthless intent, his body rippling with violence and anger. Rage emanated from him so strongly it was palpable, a living beast with its claws placed firmly around her neck.
The man moved with an unnatural elegance. His body, his essence was familiar, but she’d never seen him before. His aura was a lover’s seductive touch against her soul, whispering words she’d only dreamed of hearing.
Stormy watched in awed silence as he yanked his foe off the smashed hood of the Lincoln and held him high above his head, arms and legs dangling. He drew back his free hand, preparing for the death strike and she saw talons where nails should have been.
Her heart stuttered. Her lungs refused to function. Her head spun and the world around her moved, twisted in on itself, and thrust her forward.
She should be escaping, racing away from him, but her feet wouldn’t veer off their track, which was taking her directly to him. Her body refused to heed the warning this time to run hard, fast, and further away from danger.
Stormy wiped at the twin streams trailing from her eyes. Why the hell am I crying? As she thought this her mouth moved, speaking words in an ancient tongue she didn’t understand.
Chapter Two
The woman collided with Fury.
He couldn’t move or think past the rush of sensations rolling through his body. He was a man awakening from a dead sleep, being reborn into a new world with a new purpose.
Moments ago he’d been on a mission of retribution, nothing more, just a simple mission to snatch Luzivius before he could disappear again and use him to draw that prick of a brother of his, Terroar, out of hiding.
Terroar had not only once been a member of their pack, but he and Fury had also been as close as twins, having emerged from separate sera at the exact same moment. They had been the best of friends until Terroar had hand-delivered Fury to Dr. Marstow and his group of “truth seekers” two years ago.
Fury dropped Luzivius’s body and caught the woman. She was softly chanting—“Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. I give myself to you as only I could”—in an ancient tongue he hadn’t heard in millennia.
“Blessed Anubis, no,” he whispered.
His normally still heart pulsed and skipped as his once deadened lungs greedily filled, absorbing the oxygen and pushing it out into every tissue and nerve of his body. His eyes widened as brilliant branches of transparent golds and reds burst from her body, twisting and spiraling upward in a fiery tree of life. It grew and reached heavenward until he could no longer see where it ended.
As he stood, his face skyward, his arms holding the woman to his side, Fury understood that this was the reward he’d been working for—his gift after one too many millennia of unwavering faith and service.
An onlooker wouldn’t have been able to see what was taking place with X-ray spectacles, because this was meant for Fury and Fury alone. It was two halves of the same whole coming together.
The red and gold branches swayed and bent, falling back to the earth, plummeting toward him, determined to bind them together.
Fury closed his eyes. The vengeful part of him wanted nothing to do with the woman. It wanted freedom to hunt and kill. But the lonely, sleeping part of him that was newly awakening wanted this, had waited for this—for her, and it would not be denied.
There was no pl
ace to run or hide. This was his gift. This woman, whoever she was, was the very air filling his now necessary lungs. She was the pulse that caused his once deadened heart to beat.
She was of Anubis, and she was his.
The powerful branches of life wrapped around and bound him to her. It shook his soul. A new pulse and purpose reverberated through him, something he thought he’d never feel again. He had wondered over the millennia—in secret—if this moment would ever happen, and on a few occasions, he had even dared to hope for it.
He looked down at her. “My chosen mate. Why now, Anubis? Of all times, why now?”
There was no place on the face of the planet where she could hide from him, or he from her. Regardless of whether he wanted to or not, he would protect her as he had never protected another because she was now his life—the beginning and the end.
A door behind him crashed open, ricocheting against the cinder block wall. A stray cat leapt from its hiding place inside an overturned trash can and onto the chain link fence separating the alley from the wharf. Fury turned, a snarl rippling from his throat, the foremost thought in his mind to protect and keep the woman safe.
He pushed her behind him and held her there with one hand while he turned his full attention on the interloper.
“What the hell?” A burly bald man wearing a white button down shirt and black slacks moved deeper into the alley. The door banged closed behind him. He glared from Fury to what was left of the Town Car and back. “What the hell did you do to my fucking car?” He took a determined step in Fury’s direction, his fists coming up in a show of challenge.
Fury moved forward with preternatural speed, his forehead connecting with the man’s nose. Bones crunched and shifted. The man dropped like a rock. He sprawled on the ground, still as a corpse. He would wake in an hour or two with a concussion and a desperate need for a doctor.
The woman collapsed against his back, her arms falling loose by her sides. Fury turned and pulled her into his arms.
Certain there would be no more interruptions, he took her in for the first time. She was petite, with a tiny waist and perfect candy-apple breasts. She couldn’t have been any taller than five foot four and may have weighed a hundred and five pounds, but only after a hearty holiday dinner. His eyes roved over her midsection, her breasts, and up to her long, swan-like neck. He dipped his head, taking her scent into his mind and his body for all time, burying it, so that in a world of seven trillion people, he would be able to find her. She smelled of honeysuckle and jasmine, exhaustion, and dehydration.
Fury subconsciously pulled her closer, cradling her head against his chest.
“What are you, Captain Save-a-Ho?” Hatrid asked, landing silently a few feet behind Fury, a limp figure clutched in each of his large fists. He’d definitely spent too much time pretending to be human.
Fury didn’t turn to face him, so when Hatrid invaded his mind it came as no surprise. Outside of a few flings here and there over the millennia, Fury had never paid much attention to women. No Anubi did until they were given a woman of their own to protect and love—a female descendent of Anubis himself.
Luzivius moaned, drawing the attention of both Anubi. He tried to push himself up, but Fury planted one of his sturdy mountaineer boots firmly on the side of the wayward Anubi’s skull. There was a faint cracking sound, but Fury paid it no mind.
“What did she do, fall out of the sky and into your arms? You were down here for what, two minutes?”
He could feel Hatrid’s disbelief, but he wasn’t in a position to do anything about it. Deciding it was best to use their mental link lest she be listening, he replied, You know as well as I do, we don’t pick when and where we meet our chosen.
This. Is. Not. Happening right now! We have things to take care of! Hatrid hefted up one of the limp bodies for emphasis.
Don’t you think I know that? Fury replied as a moan of pain issued from inside the partially flattened vehicle. It was a male baritone voice. He sounded groggy and like he was in a hell of a lot of pain. The back passenger side door was open, as if someone had recently gotten out. Fury gazed down at the unconscious woman in his arms, and quickly took in her manner of dress: her slip of a skirt, the smooth skin of her shapely stomach, and the green bandana scarf she was using for a top. His eyes roamed down her curvaceous legs to her feet, which were stuck in what had to be the most hideously uncomfortable, but sexy, shoes he’d ever laid eyes on.
Pros…titute? Escort? Fury sniffed. I don’t smell sex on her. He censored that thought before Hatrid was able to pluck it out of his mind. Fury shook his head, his body tensed, and his hold on the woman tightened. He took two giant steps and leapt into the sky, his body and hers vanishing as he did so.
Where the hell are you going? What about Luzivius? Hatrid sneered. This is your mess, Fury! I won’t clean it up for you!
I don’t expect you to. Leave the humans in the alley and take Luzivius to the tombs, then check in with Crul. I’ll meet up with you when I can.
We don’t have time for this fucking bullshit, Hatrid all but shouted.
Several aggressive gusts of wind pushed against Fury, knocking him to and fro, jostling his package, forcing him to glide higher and yaw to the right. Even as he severed the link between them, Fury understood that this little show of power was Hatrid’s attempt at a temper tantrum.
An hour and a half later at his pack’s compound deep within the mountains of Vancouver, Canada, Fury settled back on the floor beside his bed. He was more pissed off now than he had been in the alley when he assumed she, Ambrosia Stormy Wyatt, was a prostitute.
He didn’t know of many Anubi who had received their chosen mates, but of the few who had, all had been given pure women.
Of course, that could have more to do with the era in which they met, and less to do with the edict of Anubis. Not to mention, it had been over fifteen years since he last heard of any Anubi earning Anubis’s favor in such a way. The women of this particular era—the twenty-first century—well, they didn’t seem to prize their virtue very highly. Which meant the chances of his or any other Anubi’s mate being pure were as slim as those of finding a rose blooming in Nefertiti’s tomb.
Because these women possessed psychic gifts, they were usually found working as traveling gypsies, fortunetellers, doctors, or veterinarians. Some, like Crul’s mate, Tempest, were Soothers, able to control and sedate humans and animals alike with the sound of her voice. Some were Seers, able to predict the future. Some were Casters, able to weave powerful mystical spells, and some were born Telepaths. Regardless of how many gifts a potential mate had, if she wasn’t born with the ankh, the Egyptian symbol of life, somewhere on her body, she was not of Anubis’s blood.
He had yet to locate the symbol on Stormy, but that didn’t concern him. What did was that not only was she suffering from dehydration and exhaustion, but she was also malnourished. All three cases were mild, but they were there. He was surer than anything that she could not be trusted to take care of herself or to make her own decisions. Her current profession was proof of that.
He had seen all this and more the moment he’d merged his mind with hers while she slept.
Fury had viewed the deaths of her family members, one after the other, and each time her heart broke, so had his. He’d seen images of her father, and found it difficult to understand the strained and sometimes awkward relationship they shared. One thing he did understand though: she had loved the man.
The moment she was told of her mother’s death, her life had been filled with loneliness and longing, always being shuffled from one family member to the next. Fury witnessed her constant need to flee as she got older, running from one city to the next with no true destination in mind. He revisited her many menial jobs over the last few years, but it appeared that even when she was in a place she liked, and around people she thought she could trust, she never remained longer than three weeks. The need to run, to protect herself, always returned. He’d delved into the deepes
t places in her mind in hopes of figuring out what she was running from, but each time he got close, he was met by a solid black wall—some kind of subconscious defense system.
Each wall he met had a memory of a relative’s death associated with it—her mother, her aunt, her grandmother. To make matters worse, all of their deaths seemed to have taken place under mysterious circumstances.
It would have taken a little doing, but Fury could have broken through her defenses to find the answers he sought. Unfortunately, he could not be sure that she would come out of it with all her mental faculties intact.
It was not a chance he was willing to take.
Stormy rolled from her side on to her back, a soft sound slipping from her supple lips.
Fury’s newly beating heart stuttered, quickly syncing its rhythm to hers. His hand going to his chest, he thought, This is going to take a little getting used to.
Chapter Three
Stormy blinked slowly up at the log-lined ceiling as she tried to will away the haze clouding her mind. Her head felt like the abused end of a battering ram.
“What the hell?”
“How are you feeling?”
Stormy whipped her head around to face the velvety smooth male voice. Her heart rate increased, her hackles rose, and her already dry throat got just a little dryer at the realization that she wasn’t alone. Fear and confusion gave way to trepidation as she stared at the man from the alley.
She buried that feeling as quickly as it rose up. “What am I doing here? Who are you? What do you want? Where am I?” The night crashed down on her. Well, the night up to the point when she had met him. She fought against the dizziness that tried to engulf her as she sat up, clutching the covers to her chest.
There were two things she was absolutely sure of at the moment: she shouldn’t be in a bed, and he damn sure shouldn’t be standing over her looking like every woman’s wet dream.