Jude; The Fallen (The Fallen Series, Book 2) (19 page)

“No, this is a market,” Coriander answered, swinging her pack over her shoulder. “The Khan el-Khalili to be exact.” She smiled at him, taking no note of the frown of displeasure on his face. “The largest in Cairo. I always find what I need here.”

Jude adjusted the duffel in his grip and followed her as she walked inside. “I take it we need things?”

“We always need things, dear.” He could hear the eye roll in her tone. She continued forward, the bright red of her ponytail swinging rhythmically from side to side as she walked.

He gritted his teeth against the sigh in her voice. “Look, if we’re here so you can buy a toothbrush, I’m going to be very put out.” She didn’t answer. They passed stall after stall, each one overflowing with a myriad of merchandise from silk scarves to pottery to cell phones. She wove in and out of the crowd with purpose; she obviously knew her way around. Several of the stall owners paused in their sales pitches to flag her down, but she merely nodded and smiled, returning their beckoning hands with a wave of her own.

“I’ve got a toothbrush,” she called back over her shoulder. “What I don’t have is a gun. And neither do you. We’re about to rectify that.”

Jude grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “What?” He lowered his voice to hiss in her ear, “We’re buying weapons?”

She blinked up at him. “Of course. There’s no way either of us could have gotten them into the country. I told you I wasn’t into smuggling.” Coriander grasped his fingers and pried them loose from her arm. “Keep your panties on, sunshine. I’ve been doing business down here for years.”

“Coriander,” he warned. She waved him off.

“Don’t ‘Coriander’ me,” she shot back. “Or do you want to run off on this demon-killing spree with nothing but your bare hands?” Her eyes raked over him. “You can get away with the Bruty McBruteness act, but me, I need a piece. One that goes bang.” He huffed and she continued, “I realize that you’re used to staring them down with that scary expression of yours, but let’s face it, I’m hardly intimidating. And nothing says ‘Don’t fuck with me’ like a pair of hand cannons.” She turned around and walked on, ducking into a side alley.

He followed her twists and turns past more stalls, and with each step he noticed the atmosphere changing. More people leaning out from doorways, casting furtive glances, speaking in hushed tones. They were veering off the beaten path. He made sure to keep his eyes on her at all times, just in case he needed to grab her and bust out with some of the McBruteness she accused him of a second ago.

Coriander slipped into another side street, and turned to knock with a light pattern of raps on a large wooden door. A square peephole covered with bars opened, and a man’s voice murmured in Arabic. She spoke quickly, but with confidence, and in seconds he heard the sound of locks sliding back and the door opened. Coriander grabbed for his hand and pulled him inside.

A tall, thin Egyptian man dressed in jeans and a t-shirt shut the door behind him. He whirled on scuffed basketball shoes and gathered Coriander up in a gentle hug.

“Dr. Rhodes! A pleasure, a pleasure! What can Salih do for you this evening?” he asked in accented English.

She returned the hug and smiled. “Thank you, Salih. Do you have the usual?”

“Of course, of course. I keep an assortment on hand just for you. Only the finest for my Dr. Rhodes.” He ushered them through a curtained archway. “Come through.”

The room was small and sparse, with only two tables against the back wall. Woven carpets acted as tablecloths, and two boxes sat on the tabletop. Jude made out the barrels of several styles of guns sticking up.

“Please,” Salih gestured to the boxes, “make your selections.”

Jude’s head reeled at the geniality of the tall man, offering Coriander her pick of firearms as if he were selling her something as mundane as a head wrap or home décor.

She wasted no time, diving right in to rifle through the goods with enthusiasm.

Jude's eyes narrowed as Coriander began to pile guns and knives on the second carpet-covered table, pausing every so often to lift a weapon into the air for inspection, as if she were checking fruit for blemishes. Salih nodded emphatically as she moved from item to item, no doubt calculating the final tally in his head with glee.

"Are you serious?" he hissed into her ear. "I mean, yes,
demons
, and all that, but don't you think this is a little much? Christ, I've been doing this for ages and have managed just fine with a pair of .45's."

She turned and flashed him a placating smile. "He has my baby," she countered, and he could see the anger and determination glittering in her eyes. "And when he sees you, there's no way he's going to pass up a shot at bagging himself a holy host." He pursed his lips in irritation as she continued, "So, there's you to consider as well. I have a dual need here to act upon this threat and protect that which I love." She patted him on the cheek as if he were Ashtiru. "And I do love you. I really do. It just so happens that demonstrating my love involves weapons. Lots of weapons."

Coriander turned back to the table and put her hands on her hips, surveying her choices. She shot Salih a bright smile. “We’ll take these. Jude, pay the man.”

Salih whipped out a beat-up calculator out of his back pocket and stabbed at the keys. It went on for what seemed like ages, and when Jude opened his mouth to protest, the Egyptian man shoved the calculator in his face.

“If it pleases you, Mr. Dr. Rhodes’ friend.”

Jude choked back a splutter at the figure on the screen, but at Coriander’s harsh glare, dug out his wallet. “I assume you will accept American dollars?”

Salih nodded. “Of course.”

He pulled out a wad of cash and pressed it into Salih’s outstretched palm. “That should cover it.”

Salih flipped through the bills and tucked them away before retrieving several boxes of ammunition and placing them on the table. He turned to Coriander. “With my compliments,” he smiled. “Will there be anything else?”

“No, I think that should do it,” Coriander replied, already packing away the purchases. “Thank you again, Salih. You’re a lifesaver.” She turned and presented Jude with two large, shiny guns. “45’s, I believe you said.”

He stayed quiet and sank to one knee, stowing the weapons in his bag. He zipped it up and rose to his feet, taking Coriander by the hand and leading her back out front. She said her goodbyes to Salih and once again they were back in the alley.

“Now what?” he asked her.

“Now we can go the hotel. If there’s one thing I learned about Egypt, you never check in anywhere without protection.”

“I hate Egypt.”

Coriander raised a hand to her mouth in mock horror. “Take it back.”

“No.”

She snorted and poked him in the bicep. “And here I was thinking we could do a guided tour or something after we find Ash.” She smiled at his frown. “Think about it, big guy. Endless dunes of sand, camel spit, not to mention the impromptu political coup. Fun and educational. What’s not to love?”

He stared after her as she wound them back to the entrance and hailed a cab.

He shut the door of the room, dropping the bag off to the side, when he was suddenly face to face with a clinging Coriander. Her arms wrapped around his waist like bands of steel while she buried her face in the hollow of his throat, nipping and sucking with a frenzy. While her ministrations were causing interest in the lower half of his body, he grunted and managed to take hold of her upper arms and push her back.

“I know you want me,” she rasped, eyes bright and glassy.

“Of course I do, but you need to sleep more than you need sex.” It came out rougher than he’d intended, based on the way her spine snapped straight and her eyes darkened to points.

Coriander’s face flushed deeper, the pink of arousal flooding to a raging shade of crimson. “Don’t tell me what I need.” She twitched in his grasp, and he wondered how long it would be before she tried to clock him one.

“Please,” he said, switching tactics as he ushered her to the side of the bed. “Listen, for once. I know you’re wound up and you want to get going, but there’s nothing to be done about that tonight. It’s blind frustration, Coriander, but you need rest to focus on tomorrow.”

Her hands grabbed at him again. “What I need is for you to pound me into this mattress.” She snaked her hands lower, fighting his fingers as she tried to get between his torso and the waistband of his jeans. “Come on, fuck me.”

Jude stilled her hands and huffed out a breath of annoyance. “Not like this. Not now.”

She snorted and launched herself at him again, latching onto his collarbone, biting down through the cotton of his t-shirt with purpose. “Why?” she whined.

The needy sound went straight to his groin, and he cursed under his breath at the traitorous jerk of his cock. Jude pulled her off and lowered his head to gaze directly into her eyes. “Because the next time I take you, it won’t be because you’re looking for a distraction. The next time I get you under me, I plan on making sure you know exactly why you’re there.” His hand brushed across the swell of her cheek, and her mouth parted as his fingers touched the corner of her mouth. “We’re not going to fuck away your pain. I’m done with that.” Her green eyes went wide and liquid with the admission. “I’m more interested in laying you down and giving you everything you’ve ever needed. And when I do, I promise I will do everything I can to please you. Not because you’re trying to run away from something.” His lips ghosted over hers with little more than a touch and a breath. “But because the chase is over.”

A tiny gasp split her lips as she stepped back, her eyes misting over with a swirl of intensity. She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth and blinked long lashes at him, as if his words had finally registered.

“Say it.”

With those two words, it was as if she’d ripped him open from stem to stern, leaving him to bleed out on the dingy carpet. His skin prickled with the sudden wash of exposure, running down his body like rivulets of sweat. There would be no greater moment, no better timing in all the universe, and he banished the thought that it was happening here at Christ only knew what time it was, in a seedy hotel room in the ass-back end of Egypt.

But it was perfect by all other estimations.

Jude stared into her face, drinking in the sight of her trembling lips and the delicate flutter of lashes as she tried to blink away the tears that formed in corner of her eyes. The realization that she was anything and everything to him, that she was tied into his soul in ways that could only be divine spread out over him like a shroud. He didn’t know if it was faith or sheer, blind insanity, but whatever it was heated him from the inside out. It blossomed, coaxed into life as it crept through his blood to set down roots and grow.

“I love you.”

Coriander launched herself into his arms again, pressing her lips to his in a forceful kiss that spoke of everything that had solidified between them. She buried her face in his neck and clung to him.

“Oh, God, I love you too,” she whispered.

Jude set her back and smiled. “It was inevitable, wasn’t it? I couldn’t resist you if I tried.”

She was beautiful as she smiled back. “But you tried very hard. It’s commendable.”

He rolled his eyes and pushed her toward the bed. “Change and get in there. I’m about to drop. We can discuss my valiant attempts at refusing your charms tomorrow, and you can mock me all you want.”

“I would never do that.” Coriander protested, and he glared at the innocent smirk plastered on her lips.

“Liar.”

“On occasion.”

He huffed at her light laugh, grateful to see the playful element to her personality returning bit by bit. She vacillated between highs and lows, her mercurial nature rising and falling like the tides. He meant it when he said he loved her, and somehow the rightness of expressing the sentiment settled into his heart with a swiftness that should have worried him. But watching her as she undressed and slipped under the covers, he realized there was really nothing to worry about on this particular front. All his worry and concern rested on the mission of bringing Ashtiru home and destroying the demon who would dare harm her.

Loving Coriander was the easy part. If only everything else was that simple. He could take it on faith that it would be, but it would take more than Coriander to make him believe it.