But success in that mission meant partnering with Salvatore, who had a similar wish for Adam. If their plan didn’t work, Alexander could just suck the life from Adam and fuck Maya again himself, perhaps breeding that amazing power into whatever little brat came from such a union.
The latter would be the easier thing, and Alexander recognized that, sadly, easier was what he usually did. It was one of the reasons he and his son Christopher were so distant.
Christopher was more like his grandfather, industrious and overachieving. His son loathed Alexander’s easygoing and sometimes careless ways, believing that they were leading to the decline of their Shadow Hunter clan.
His conscience pricked by the likely condemnation that would result if he acted rashly, Alexander tabled the thought of draining Adam. If there was to be an end to the curse staining the Shadow Hunters, it would be through him and through Salvatore’s Genesis project, so he cautioned himself to be patient.
At least this one time.
He would wait for Salvatore to keep his end of the bargain and deliver a willing Adam—ideally, close to the Equinox when Adam’s fertility and power would be greatest. It was in these years in and around the first triad of life that a Hunter was meant to mate. Even though Adam had not grown up with the benefits of a Hunter clan, either Shadow or Light, there was no escaping the nature of their race.
The hunger for power would grow in Adam until he found his mate and created new life. Powerful life, if he was paired with an equally strong female Hunter.
Genesis, Alexander thought, kind of liking the idea of playing God.
CHAPTER
3
Tighter. That’s it, Bobbie. You can do it,” the physical therapist urged as Bobbie Carrera struggled to squeeze the flat rubber circle. She had managed to almost get her hand closed around the flexible ring when the muscles in her forearm and hand spasmed, forcing her to release the grip trainer.
Frustration slammed through her, but her PT was quick to respond with positive encouragement.
“Not to worry, Bobbie. Your grip strength is improving with each visit. It’s just a matter of time—”
“Before I’m back to normal,” she muttered.
“Before you’re stronger, and that’s something to be proud of,” her PT clarified.
“Right. Stronger,” she parroted, reminding herself that normal was a word she could no longer use for herself. Bobbie was never going to be normal again. The IED that had exploded close to her had stolen that possibility along with so many others. She flushed away the pity party and focused on the next set of exercises her PT had planned for today’s session. With each lift, push, and pull, she was slowly growing stronger.
She would be almost normal, she told herself.
When her session with the PT was finished, she thanked him, picked up her cane, and gingerly walked to one of the pieces of equipment they had not used during their workout.
She still had over an hour to kill until her brother was done with his internship nearby and could drive her home. Time enough to work what parts of her were still whole, she thought, and proceeded to use a mix of free weights and the exercise machines until sweat dripped from every pore of her body. With the last clank of the weights and her strength waning, she called it a day and headed to the showers.
The locker room was relatively empty, but Bobbie wasn’t keen on revealing her body to others. There were too-visible scars from the explosions that had killed almost all of her platoon. Only her platoon leader and ex-lover—Gil Martinez—had survived the attack. Although she wasn’t sure you could call being comatose and connected to a bunch of machines living.
She had fared much better, although her doctors had been shocked at that. Besides the wound to her arm, her leg had been damaged and there had been massive internal injuries. To hear the doctors talk, her abdomen had been nothing more than a complex jigsaw puzzle that had taken hours to piece back together.
She gathered up her clothes and toiletries and walked toward the shower stall, where she hung her cane and towel on a hook. She undressed behind the curtain of the stall, prepped the shower, and stepped in. Squirting a fragrant shower gel into her hand from a nearby dispenser, she lathered up, thinking about how lucky she was to be alive.
Alive but alone, she told herself. Lately, as her body grew stronger, so did the urge to not be alone. As she ran her hands across her body, feeling the slickness of the soap along her skin, she recalled how it had felt to be loved. To feel a man’s hands along her skin, stroking it. Giving her pleasure, she thought, as she cupped her breasts and her nipples tightened beneath her fingers.
She ran her hands across the tips and between her legs came an insistent tension that needed release after so many months of solitude. That loneliness was weighing on her, growing more demanding with each passing day.
As she caressed her breasts, she slid her hand toward her center to seek assuagement. But as she skimmed her soapy palm down her torso, the ridges of the scars along her midsection seemed as large as the craters on the moon.
For months she had told herself that it didn’t matter. In truth, she had been so busy just trying to do the everyday things like walk or pick up a glass that something so far removed as being intimate with a man or having babies hadn’t been on her radar.
But suddenly images of her sister Liliana’s very pregnant belly flashed through her mind along with the faces of her dead men. Life and death, twined together in her current existence like two serpents, never to be separated.
She had survived, but inside there were parts of her that were lifeless, and nothing could change that. The reality of that stabbed deep, more painful than her many injuries. Drove her to bury her face in her hands and fight back the tears.
Tears would accomplish nothing, she reminded herself. They wouldn’t bring back her men or heal Gil. The tears wouldn’t give her the babies and happy life she had envisioned for herself before joining the Marines, the American Dream kind of existence that her family had embraced.
Stiffening her spine, she forced herself to rise, finished showering, and dressed in the curtained area outside the stall.
When she had mustered enough control to meet her brother, she took a deep breath and put on her game face, not wanting him to see her upset. She grabbed her cane with her right hand—her left was too weak to be of much help—and hoisted herself to her feet. A slight pulling sensation came along her midsection. She rubbed at the spot directly above the line where she had been stitched back together like a rag doll. The ache calmed and she exited the gym facility.
Outside, the early spring morning held a hint of the summer heat to come. Bright sun drenched the tree-lined parking lot and as a slight ocean breeze kicked up, a shower of white petals drifted down from the flowering maples along the edge of the lot.
Bobbie paused to savor the brightness of the azure sky, fresh spring leaves bursting with life and the ivory blossoms up in the trees falling on her like giant snowflakes. Before her injuries, she might not have taken the time to appreciate the beauty in an ordinary day, but now she did. Now she appreciated every minute of the second life with which she had been gifted.
With a deep breath, she lifted her face to the sun, absorbing the wonder of the day, feeling the energy of it soak into her, revitalizing her tired body.
Then she began her trek across the parking lot to Tony’s car. Even though her gait was guarded, she was thankful for the mobility after her first bedridden months back home. She had hated being confined to a hospital bed, and no matter how painful those initial steps, she had been determined to move on her own two feet.
Reaching the other side of the parking lot, she walked toward her younger brother Tony’s “baby”—a vintage Chevrolet Camaro that Tony had restored over the years with their older brother Mick’s help. Although Bobbie could drive, she still felt a little uncertain at times behind the wheel. Since her PT schedule had coincided with her brother’s internship and the gym was across from
his workplace, it only made sense to carpool.
As she waited, Bobbie considered the building where Tony was working. It was not what she had expected in what had once been an older and run-down part of town. The office building and adjacent lab and warehouse space were ultramodern and elegant.
SolTerra. Sun and earth, Bobbie thought, as she scrutinized the large sign above the entrance to the gleaming glass and steel buildings. Beside the name was a distinctive logo combining fanciful images of two orbs—probably a Sun and Earth—joining together. The sign was made of what looked like stainless steel and brass and was quite stylized, almost a work of art. The Sun had a number of squiggly rays spreading outward from its surface while the Earth boasted a series of concentric circles and lines. At the place where the orbs merged, the two symbols melded to create a surprisingly harmonious design.
The logo fit the place, she thought, impressed by the way the modern buildings blended with the carefully maintained natural environment around them. A peaceful synergy of man and nature, Bobbie thought.
She leaned against the bumper of her brother’s vehicle, careful not to scratch the paint while taking advantage of the relaxing view as she waited for Tony. It was early afternoon and the employee lot was full, but with little activity. Most people were probably at work within the buildings.
As she passed the time, appreciating the serenity of the compound and the warmth of the spring sun seeping into her body, a twenty something man exited the office building. His head was buried in his phone as he texted while walking, his long strides quickly closing the distance to the parking lot.
Smartly dressed in a charcoal-gray raw silk suit and snowy white shirt, he stood quite a few inches over six feet, with broad shoulders that narrowed into lean hips and those long fluid legs. Sandy hair was stylishly gelled into place and sun-streaked. Handsome, from what she could see of his downturned face as he approached. An aquiline nose, sharp cheekbones, and well-defined jaw rounded out the impressive package.
But there was something even more compelling that drew her—the impression of innate power that radiated from him. Its presence wafted all around him, demanding that she pay attention.
Gil had possessed that kind of power. She supposed that was why he had made such a good leader. The men and women under his command had sensed that energy and respected it. She, on the other hand, had loved taming that power in bed.
This man harbored that same aura of leadership, but in spades, she thought, finding herself more and more intrigued the closer that he came. Her earlier desire rekindled as she imagined how such strength might satisfy.
As he finally raised his head from his phone, their gazes collided. He had eyes the color of the shadows in a rain forest, verdant and filled with mutable hues. His eyes widened in surprise as she continued to engage his gaze, and something inside Bobbie couldn’t resist taking a step toward him.
It was almost as if he was a magnet drawing her in, but she wasn’t a piece of some malleable base metal, she thought, checking the impulse to continue to his side. Resisting the pull, she leaned back against the car and waited for him to make the next move.
CHAPTER
4
Adam didn’t know what to make of the attractive young woman standing in the parking lot, eyeballing him.
He hadn’t noticed her when he had first left the building, too involved in the e-mail exchange spewing onto his smartphone. But as he had gotten closer to the woman, he’d discerned a different vibe in the air, almost like the low hum of power emanating from a live electrical wire. That made him pause to search out the source of that buzz, and there she had been.
Tall and rangy, with eyes the color of whiskey, he thought, as he met her arresting gaze. All around her was a bright aura of sapphire blue, more powerful than any he had ever perceived in another human.
He blinked, thinking it had to be a figment of his imagination or possibly glare from the car behind her. Although it was an older vehicle, it was buffed to extreme shininess and the chrome trimmings glinted a silvery blue in the sunlight.
That was it, he told himself, and yet he felt as if there was almost a physical connection stretching across the twenty or so feet that separated them, a connection that she must be experiencing also, he thought, as her aura seemed to brighten the longer they stared at each other. It limned her curvaceous body. An amazingly womanly, but powerful body.
She took a step in his direction and he found himself doing the same, his gaze still locked on hers. All of his attention focused on the fascinating woman just a few feet away. He was so intent on reaching her that he failed to notice the van parked in the visitor area and directly in his path. He didn’t observe the side passenger door sliding open, but he couldn’t ignore the oversized man who exited to block his way.
Adam was tall, but this man had quite a few inches on him in both height and width. His arms, neck, and chest were massive and corded with thick, powerful muscles quite capable of inflicting serious physical damage. The man stood on legs with thighs as thick as tree trunks and most likely as immobile.
As Adam examined the man’s features, he noted the ragged scar running along the man’s jawline. The scar was silver with age, but no less fearsome for that.
Adam jerked back a step, feeling threatened not only by the man’s physical presence, but also by the blood-red aura of dark energy surrounding him. The air around Adam crackled with it, so potent was the force.
Suddenly a similar sensation raked the hackles along the back of his neck, propelling a chill through his body.
As Adam turned, he realized there was another man behind him, as big and brawny as the first. His body was encircled with a crimson aura that screamed trouble.
“What do you want?” Adam asked. If this was a mugging, he would give them whatever they needed to avoid injury not only to himself, but to the young woman who was suddenly heading his way, her gait hurried and yet awkward.
He realized she was using a cane and physically disabled, but she was still proceeding toward him, unmindful of the threat. That only made her even more vulnerable, which meant he had to act carefully to protect her.
“We want you, Mr. Bruno,” the first man answered and laid his thick hands on Adam’s shoulders. With that first contact a blast of power surged through Adam.
It was like being stung by a jellyfish, only one with ten thousand volts, Adam thought, as his body jerked from the shock, and burning pain erupted at the spot where the man had grabbed him. With each millisecond that passed, Adam grew weaker. He had to break free before the man drained him of life. Bringing his arms up between the other man’s outstretched arms, Adam shoved outward, dislodging the man’s hands from his shoulders.
An intense echo of power reverberated from the contact and sparks flew like metal striking metal. The man staggered backward as he experienced the jolt.
Adam was no sooner free than the second man encircled him with his arms, sending yet another shock into Adam’s body. The electricity raced through him, bringing more pain and robbing him of strength once again. As his knees began to buckle, Adam summoned his waning strength and tossed the man behind him up and over his body. His attacker landed with a heavy thud on the ground beside his friend, who was still recovering from the earlier blast Adam had released.
Adam somehow stayed on his feet, swaying, his mind disoriented from the electrical shocks, more potent than those from any stun gun. In response, the power inside him screamed to be set free, but before he could command it, the two men were upon him, lethal energy coursing from their touch, threatening to overwhelm him.
Bobbie witnessed the man stagger as his two assailants renewed their hold. She didn’t have time to ponder why he wasn’t fighting anymore. Instinct told her to act as she finally reached the trio.
She smashed her cane down across the arm of the man closest to her. It was like hitting a concrete block. The force of her blow reverberated painfully up the cane, but she managed to break the assailant’
s grip.
The assailant grunted in pain and leaned away, exposing his front. Bobbie swung her cane like a baseball bat, hitting him squarely across the nose.
Blood spewed over her and the other two men as he staggered back, holding his face and howling from the blow.
Home run, she thought, and turned back to the fray.
“Bitch,” his friend said, and released his captive to launch a hook at her face. She blocked his punch with her damaged left forearm, ignoring the searing pain when his strike landed on weakened muscle and fragile bone. Reaching past the pain, she shot out with her right hand to land a vicious chop to his windpipe that had him backpedaling, gasping for air.
But only for a few precious seconds.
The man charged her, and Bobbie braced for impact, aware she was no match for someone his size in her current condition but hoping she’d be able to use his momentum and weight against him. But before her assailant could come any closer, the handsome man seemed to come out of his stupor. One moment he was feet away and then in a blur of light, he intercepted the man in midair and tackled him to the ground.
Stunned by his speed, Bobbie watched in awe as their bodies went down hard in a sprawl of arms and legs. But before anything else could happen, the shouts of people running from the SolTerra building toward the commotion caught the attention of their two attackers.
The man on the ground scrambled to his feet and shuffled back to stand beside his broken-nosed friend. The two men hesitated for a moment as if wondering if they could overcome the crowd swarming toward them. But then the taller, older one Bobbie had bloodied jerked his head in the direction of the van.
One moment they were before her and then in the blink of an eye, they were streaks of light disappearing through the open door of the van. With the squeal of tires and burning rubber, the vehicle jerked into reverse and then sped away, sideswiping a few cars at the far end of the lot as their attackers made their escape.
The Lost (Sin Hunters) Page 3