The Taste of Night (13 page)

“One. You have twenty seconds.” He pumped a cartridge into another gun’s chamber, and his eyes narrowed
meaningfully on mine. “Then I’m coming after you myself.”

Linus and Marcus began to yell enthusiastically from the side. No questioning who their favorite superhero was.

“You said you were sitting out,” I said, shooting them a nasty look.

“That was to keep the numbers even.” He flashed me that feral grin. “With the two of us they’re still even.”

“But the rest of them have had an entire minute to spread throughout the labyrinth.”

“And you have the element of surprise on your side.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Nineteen, eighteen…”

“Asshole.” I yanked off my other shoe and entered the maze on the run. And as I pulled back the safety on my gun, I momentarily forgot Joaquin and Regan and my evil, murderous father. It’d almost be worth getting run down by Chandra…if I could run her down in the end.

My heart was slamming against my ribs by the time I’d counted off the final fifteen seconds, and I knew if I didn’t settle my nerves soon Hunter would scent me out before I’d gone another twenty paces. I slammed into a dead end and was forced to turn around, which made me think I could double back and surprise him, though he might anticipate that. No, I wanted my shot at Chandra before taking on the troop’s weapons master…and before anyone else could get to her.

Of course, I tended to be a little single-minded when it came to vengeance, and Hunter might anticipate this as well, enabling him to plow through the rest of the unsuspecting players like a bull through Pamplona. But that, I thought, smiling to myself, could be to my advantage. Find a hidey-hole and simply let Hunter clear the way.

I squinted through a slat between two of the erected walls. No wonder Hunter had said not to rely on sight. Every so often a player could be spotted fleeing two or three rows away, but you had to stop moving entirely to see it, and still
had to reach them once you did. Besides, the slats were too thin to point the gun nozzles through, so shooting between them was also out, though I was willing to bet little Jasmine could have squeezed through them in Gumby-girl mode. All I could do was be alert. And creative. I thought about climbing over the walls, but then I’d be a target from all sides. I didn’t want to leave here green.

I glanced at the sky and hitched my gun higher. Full dark was another fifteen minutes away, give or take. So how did the Tulpa manage to get to the center of the maze in mere seconds? Could I be lucky enough that the ability was hereditary? Because that would be the way to do it. Get to the center, win the game first, and battle my way out from within.

Right now I just had to concentrate on avoiding Hunter, and so I moved quickly, silently, and took calculated risks in charging around corners. Finally I scented a mild thread of warming honey on burned toast. Keeping low, I turned the next corner…and nearly bumped into Jewell.

“Wha…where—?” She was green before she could finish the sentence.

“Sorry,” I said. The whites of her eyes tinted over as she rolled them. A second later she shot upward and out of the maze. One down, eight more to go.

There was a grunt, then an outraged howl from my left, approximately three feet away, and Felix jumped into the air, though it was more instinctive than any sort of attempt to leave the maze. I used the intervening seconds to whip around two corners in quick succession, and ducked into a pocket of darkness that had already bloomed with the night. A second later Micah yelped in surprise, and turned to glare at me. Felix sauntered around the corner as I straightened, and gave me a grin as green as the grass in springtime.

“How’s it feel to get a dose of your own medicine, you green fuck?” Felix said, giving Micah a semiplayful shove. Micah shoved back, and they both vaulted into the air, Felix calling out behind him, “Good job, Olivia!”

“Thanks a lot,” I muttered as cries of “Olivia?” and “Olivia’s here?” went up around the maze. So much for the element of surprise. Refocusing, I settled my energy back into myself and stepped forward, not a second too soon. A paintball splatted right where my head had been. I rolled and dodged two more pellets in quick succession, then aimed without sighting, and fired behind me. Hunter lunged back into hiding, and I squeezed off another shot before fleeing around the corner.

I needed distance. Hunter was right on top of me, but I might be able to lose him if I made a few right choices…and if I got lucky. Sucking in a deep breath through my nose, I again tried to relax. I was about to let the air out through my mouth when I had a thought. Holding the thought—one of Hunter—and breath in my mouth, I turned to the wall I was pressed against and pushed the air out through the slats, sending my pheromones, my nervous energy, and my thoughts of him out with it. I pressed my eye against the slat, and within seconds saw a figure skulking through the shadows. Smiling, I headed in the opposite direction, deeper into the yawning maze. Closer to Chandra.

Three more times I blew through the slats, and three more times I sent agents on meandering chases. I doubled back twice to make little green men out of Gregor and Riddick. Vanessa got away, though a half minute later I heard her cry out, and up she went, a green blur of cursing fury. Quickly, silently, I counted the players who’d exited the game. Seven. And none of them Hunter, I thought, setting my teeth, which meant he was still somewhere behind me…and only Chandra remained ahead.

I was getting closer to the core of the maze. The zigzagging paths were getting shorter, even the dead ends. I still got stuck; for every corner I turned I had to navigate two dead ends, and I finally gave up trying to retain even a remote sense of direction and just concentrated on moving quickly. I stumbled, falling to my hands, and though I barely
made a sound, it sounded like a cannonball to my ears. Picking up a rock, I catapulted it over the nearest wall, into the next row, where it clattered loudly, hoping that’d alleviate some of the damage.

And then my diligence was rewarded.

She’d been heading my way, and pulled up as the sight of my gun landed between her eyes. “Next time you try to run someone over,” I said, backing her up, “check the rearview mirror to make sure they’re down for good.”

I motioned with my head for her to throw her own weapon down. She did, and it clattered harmlessly to the ground. “Go to hell.”

“You’ll go first, and you’ll go green.”

“Just get it over with, Malibu Barbie.”

But I backed away instead. She frowned, watching me with mistrust. “It wasn’t really fair that you didn’t know I was here, so I’ll give you another chance to get as far away as possible. On my count. One…”

She didn’t have to be asked twice. She readied herself to run.

“Two,” I said. Knees bent, she rocked on her tiptoes, waiting for my final count. I shot her. Then I smiled. “Three.”

“Bitch,” she spat, and green-tinted saliva landed on my bare foot. It refreshed the image of a cab hurtling toward me, so I shot her again, not just twice, but four times, nailing her the last time on the fly as she vaulted into the air just to get away from me. She wobbled mid-air, and I smiled as she disappeared.

The smile dropped as a muzzle settled cool and firm on the back of my neck. “Should have saved one of those for me.”

Oops. At this range I’d be green for a week. I shifted, knowing I’d been bested, but still wondered how much distance I could get between myself and the gun if I took off now.

“Uh-uh,” Hunter said, grasping my shoulder with his free hand. “Throw your weapon down, and make sure it’s out of reach.”

My gun skittered away and was quickly eaten by the shadows creeping up from the dirt floor. It was almost full dark now. Outside, the voices of the disqualified players rose and fell in muted chatter, but we were deep in the labyrinth, well out of their sight line. Hunter turned me into him and backed me against the wall, so I was pressed against the cool concrete on one side and the hot warmth of his body on the other. He paused to look me over.

“Better hurry. A few more seconds and you’ll have to call game.” I tried to breathe easily, trying not to reveal fear or intimidation, trying especially not to reveal that it came from the nearness of his body and not the gun pointed loosely at my side.
I am not afraid,
I repeated over and over in my mind, but it was a lie. I was trembling in my Wonderbra.

“Well that’s the thing about being the one to make the rules,” Hunter said, his voice low and filled with something that alarmed me even more. “You get to break them any time you want.”

Even with night settling around us, this close to mine his face was clearly defined. His brown eyes pooled with depth, his black hair was slick with shadows, and his breath was like the stream blowing in off the gulf. Desire usually smelled earthy, but Hunter’s was dense, musky with heat. He smelled dangerous…and I liked my men dangerous.

“Break the rules?” I asked, meeting his gaze directly. “Or change them to meet your needs?”

“Same difference.” His eyes traveled down to my lips, then back again.

My eyes did the same. “You’re complicating things.”

His brows quirked philosophically. “Life tends to be complicated.”

“So we should just consider this a training exercise, then?” I asked, swallowing hard. “For life, I mean?”

He hummed in the back of his throat, inching closer. “Not all life lessons are unpleasant.”

I leaned into him, my eyes fluttering shut. Even humans
reacted to pheromones, though they were unaware of it, but when you could
smell
them—really scent every molecule and particle making up a particular chemical compound—well, it was like walking into a hothouse on a blustery winter day. It flooded the senses…and made you want to undress. Blood raced to places in my body that weren’t supposed to have a pulse. I groaned, releasing my own pheromones into the air, and pushed his weapon aside so nothing lay between us.

Hunter closed the gap with his body.

We’d kissed once before. I’d possessed the aureole that first time, and in order to keep him safe I’d passed it along to him, exhaling the power of temporary immortality into his mouth, a chaste kiss turned torrid as his body responded to it, to me, even while unconscious. Unfortunately a bit of my soul or essence or
something
had been passed into Hunter as well—and we now knew things about each other no other person alive knew. He had lost his parents to the Shadows, I my sister. He had a child he’d die to protect; I had one I didn’t even acknowledge. I blamed our sense of shared intimacy on this bartered knowledge, just as I blamed this moment on the circumstances, telling myself that any woman would have to be dead not to feel a modicum of sexual attraction to a six-foot-three, rock-hard superhero. And while that first kiss had been a gift given out of duty rather than passion, it wasn’t until now that I realized I’d stored the taste of him inside me.

It was shocking to find a gentle, restful place on his warrior’s body, and I slipped my tongue along the edges of his lips—only a quick taste, I thought—just to experience the vitality behind all that softness. His immediate response flooded me, my brain numbing as his lips pressed against mine so that I was unable to process scent and taste, thought and reason, longing and touch, all at the same time. That kiss was like swollen storm clouds ready to erupt, and when he moaned into my mouth it was dewy and thunderous and zinging with ozone.

“What the hell is going on in there?”

We broke the kiss, both of us pulling back at the same time, and I blinked hard to get my bearings, to stop my head from spinning and my heart from slamming in my breast. Hunter called time, his voice so hoarse and deep it could set off car alarms, and I glanced up to find that not only had it grown full dark, but the sky above the maze was roiling with cloud cover. The haze was thick and low like an orchard of vaporous hanging fruit, laced in mist, sweet and ripe in the moist heat. I swallowed hard.

So this was what happened when two superheroes made things complicated.

And goddammit, it was too much. I felt like I’d just gorged on something rich and fine, and now—even after only a swift taste—I felt weighed down, like I was buried beneath boulders. Being this open and vulnerable felt like I was digging my own grave. I didn’t want any more pain squeezing at my heart. I’d had enough for one lifetime.

And that was what truly made Hunter dangerous, I thought, wiping a hand across my mouth. He made me forget he could hurt me.

I shifted my gaze, breath shaky, to find him regarding me just as warily. I cursed inwardly as his powerful aura snapped white and gold sparks around him, like he was a sparkler on the Fourth of July, and I was the darkness. It reminded me of the differences between us; male to female, his pure, unadulterated Light to my half Shadow, but instead of that complementing me, it made me feel bereft and lacking. But then I glanced at his lips again before I could stop myself. They were parted and still moist from my kiss.

Stop it, Jo
, I told myself, slamming down the mental shields that would keep my secrets even from myself. And so I did.

The gun was lolling in his fingers, and I moved swiftly, firing downward so the pellet struck somewhere in the buttocks, or perhaps the thigh. He jolted, grinding closer, making me immediately wish I’d chosen another tactic, and
remaining too close, he didn’t release me. And he didn’t turn green because he’d already called time. In fact, he didn’t turn anything but mad.

“You set me up,” I said as his eyes flashed betrayal. “You sent me in here knowing the others would either take each other out or be too surprised to see me to react. You followed because you wanted this.”

I ignored the fact that I’d wanted it, too. Because of our once-shared power he knew I hungered for him, and that one kiss was enough to leave me raw and aching and vulnerable. So I refused to feel guilty under the weight of that steady stare. He’d made this happen, even knowing there was a place inside me he couldn’t touch, a bruised spot already occupied and fiercely guarded where Ben lived, and always would. That wouldn’t change just because Hunter lured me into straying mazes, made storm clouds roil above my head…and caused my heart to pound like the thunder fueling it all.