Triple Infinity (9 page)

It had been dark for hours when Triaten made it back into the ranch. He passed by the
library, only to see it empty. No Shiv. He made his way back to the kitchen, where Stewart was prepping fruit for the morning. He gave Triaten a nod as he walked in.

“Shiv around?” Triaten asked.

“I haven’t seen her since this afternoon. She asked who she could get to take her into town to pick up her car. Said she was feeling claustrophobic. I told her to ask one of the ranch hands.”

Triaten inwardl
y sighed — who could blame her. “Who took her in?”

“Sammy, I think. He was gone for a few hours and came in late for dinner. Didn’t ask him, though.”

“And Shafar and DeLisio status?”

“Still secluded in the Fireside room. Wanted brandy about a half hour ago. Not sure where their gaggles are.”

Triaten nodded.  “Thanks.”

He left the kitchen and went back to the library and turned the light on. Everything was exactly as Shiv had left it before lunch. He walked in.

Her pencil still sat on the floor where she had dropped it next to the sketches. He doubted she had even been back in there since he left her in the kitchen. He picked up an indigo tile, flipping it in his fingers as he held it up to the light. If she pulled it off, it was going to be a masterpiece of a mosaic.

“Triaten, call for you.” Stewart
stood at the library doorway, phone in hand.

Triaten’s gut sank. He hadn’t even heard it ring. He grabbed the phone and braced himself. “This is Triaten.”

“Triaten, Joe here. I think we’re about to having a situation down here at the bar. I would have just called over to the hotel for back-up, but it’s about Shiv. She’s not in the best frame of mind, and we have a slew of those guys that are staying up at the ranch in here. They’ve already driven out everyone else. So it’s just me and her right now, if you get my drift.”

“I got it. Do you think you can keep things at bay till I get there?”

“Should be okay. My bat’s handy. But be quick.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

Triaten booked it out the door and down the mountain in twelve minutes. It wasn’t fast enough.

After a quick check in the bar, only to find it mostly empty, with no Joe or Shiv
— just a few of Shafar’s men at a pool table — Triaten went back out into the street.

The ruckus that came from behind the bar told him instantly where they were. He tore to the back of building,
where a yellow parking light flickered under the mist that had turned to sleet.

Joe had positioned himself against the back wall of the bar, bat raised and ready
to crush any of the nine drunkards in a half-circle around him. The drunks were jabbing in and out, trying to draw a swing. Pack mentality — someone would take the first hit, and then the rest could attack. Triaten scanned through the jerking bodies, searching for Shiv.

When he finally caught a glimpse of her, she was terrified. Te
rrified and pissed. A hand clamped onto Joe’s back, she had half-wedged herself between Joe and the wall. Her black shirt was torn and half-hanging down her body, her skin raw to the cold and dim yellow light. Triaten noted in relief that her bra and jeans were still intact.

Joe caught Triaten’s eye and started to swing at the same moment Triaten smashed two skulls together as announcement of his
presence. The first three fell to the ground.

Joe swiped
his second swing, when he took a vicious punch to the jaw, sending him stumbling back against the wall, nearly smashing Shiv. With swift kicks, Triaten took out two more by removing their kneecaps. Five down.

Propped on the wall, Joe tried to get his head about at him just as two more advanced on him and Shiv. Seeing Joe waver, Shiv grabbed the bat from his hand and swung, eyes squeezed shut. She made hard contact with one
of the drunks on the arm, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. Three heads taller than her, he laughed as he ripped the bat from her hands. He threw the bat away from the group, and advanced on her. He reached down with a thick hand and grabbed Shiv by the neck, pushing her body back toward the building.

Triaten
dodged two flailing punches. Easy, since both men projected their thoughts long before their fists were thrown. In battle, Triaten could effortlessly read people, their next moves, and their fear. And if they hadn’t been attacking Shiv, Triaten maybe would have felt a little sorry for them, taking him on. As it was, he grabbed one of them and ruthlessly rammed him headfirst into the wall. The man crumbled. Triaten turned to the other punch-thrower, swept his feet out, and then fed his face to the rocky ground. Seven down.

“Little
slutty bitch.” The thickly accented words turned Triaten’s head. Shiv clawed at the arm that had her choked to the wall, her toes no longer touching ground.

He ran at her, elbow up and busting the face of the drunk attacking Joe along the way. Triaten’s first punch broke the man’s contact with Shiv, sending him stumbling down to his knees. Nine down.

But Triaten didn’t stop. He kicked the choking bastard hard in the stomach, knocking him flailing, flat onto his back. Triaten could feel bones breaking in the man’s face as he bent over and pummeled his head. Punch after punch.

It wasn’t until he heard Joe’s voice yelling at him,
breaking his fog, that he halted his arm in mid-swing.

“Triaten, you
gotta stop it, man, before you kill him!” Joe shook his shoulder.

Triaten looked up at Joe, then back down at DeLisio’s man. He was out cold, his face mangled.

Triaten shot straight up, taking a step back from the limp body. He slowly scanned his surroundings. There were only twitches from the fallen nine.

His eyes landed on S
hiv. She slid slowly down the side of the building and contracted herself into a ball, her head buried in her hands.

He looked at Joe. “Thanks, Joe. Sorry you got caught in it.”

Joe gently rubbed his jaw, as blood seeped from a split-lip, courtesy of the well-placed punch. “No problem. Just happy you showed up. I realized too late what was going down. You know I wasn’t giving her up without a fight.”

Triaten nodded and patted him on the shoulder. “I do. You’re a good one, Joe. Thanks.” He pointed at Joe’s face. “And you need to go get stitches on that.”

“I guess.” Joe shrugged. “I just hate waking up Doc Smith.”

“He won’t mind. He knows you fight the good fight.”

“He’s gonna be pissed at you, though, having to clean up this mess.” Joe tilted his head at the nine lumps on the ground.

“Give him my apologies.”

Joe threw a thumb at Shiv. “You got her?”

“I do.” Triaten’s eyes shifted to her huddled form.

Joe went in the back door of the bar, and Triaten walked over and sat down next to Shiv, leaning against the wall. Her head remained hidden, tucked into her bent knees. There wasn’t much movement and Triaten wondered if she was silently crying or passed out.

He slid his hand under her
dark hair onto the back of her neck, and gently stroked the long divot. He leaned into her ear. “How’s your throat, love?”

She pulled her head up and looked at him. No tears, but her cheeks looked flush in embarrassment.

“Rough –” she coughed as the word stuttered out. “Wow, that’s a sexy voice.”

“You want to tell me how all that happened?”

Shiv looked down into her knees, picking at her jeans. “Not really.” Her voice still sounded scraggly. “I can be a stupid drunk, sometimes.”

He reached around her and pulled up her torn sleeve to cover her bare shoulder. “I doubt you were looking to get attacked by a gang of drunkards.”

“No. But I’m also smart enough to know not to entice. And when it’s time to leave.”

“So what happened?”

She shrugged her shoulders, looking up at the foggy mist, rays from the yellow light twinkling in the wet air. “The smart was replaced by stupid, I guess. I was just lucky Joe has a bat handy. God, I hate being weak.” She looked at Triaten. “And you. Holy nasty mother eff-er — where did you learn to fight like that?”

Triaten chuckled. Okay, so maybe she was still a little drunk.

Her eyes narrowed at Triaten. “You’re going to tell me to not ask questions again, aren’t you?”

An arm flailed on one of the prone bodies in front of them. Triaten stood up and held his hand down to her. “We should get out of here before they all wake up and realize what just happened to them.”

She grabbed his hand and got to her feet. “You’re avoiding the answer.”

“Indeed, I am. Come on, we’re taking your car back up to the ranch, so you have it and can come and go as you please.”

They stepped around the bodies littering the rocky parking lot. At the last man, Shiv paused, looking down at him in the dim light. It was the one that had been choking her. His face was a bloody, mangled wreck.

“Shit
, you really messed him up.” She glanced at Triaten, eyes wide. “He deserved it. But you pulverized him.”

Triaten didn’t look down at the man. “
I probably went too far. It’s actually what I really wanted to be doing to DeLisio last night after we got back from the trail. These men have a very different way of treating women.”

Shiv stepped around the body and stood in front of Triaten, looking up at him
. Her feet were planted. “Is it wrong for me to be turned on right now?”

A laugh shot out of
Triaten, shaking the thick, misty air around them. “Probably. Though I’m not going to complain.” He grabbed her shoulders, stepping her away from body on the ground and turning her toward the car. “But let’s first get up to the ranch so I can take a look at your neck. Then you can tell me how turned on you are.”

At the ranch, Triaten had Shiv situated on a fat
, tufted leather chair in the study. The door was closed and he had pulled a floor lamp over to check out her neck. Her head tilted back, she stared at the mahogany coffered ceiling. Triaten tilted the light. Brutal red marks lined the side of her throat, still showing outlines of the fat fingers that had been crushing her neck.

Kneeling on the floor between her legs, he ran his middle and forefinger softly across the marks, noting her twinge at the touch. But she worked hard not to pull away from his hand. She’d be bruised and sore, but it didn’t look like any permanent damage.

Triaten pulled his fingers away, his hands landing on her thighs. “It doesn’t look too bad. It’ll hurt for a while.”

Shiv brought her chin down to look at Triaten and smiled. “
And I’m left with the sexy voice?”

“For a couple days, maybe.” He didn’t move his hands from her legs, instead, squeezing them. “Shiv, you’re not weak, you know.”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Triaten, I don’t think you saw me swing that bat. It wouldn’t have killed a fly on his sleeve.”

“That you even grabbed the bat proves you’re not weak.”

“All that proves is how stupid I can be. That doesn’t make me strong.”

“On the contrary, I have been between your thighs, love,” Triaten’s palms moved up and down the length of her lap, “and believe me, those things are not weak. Vise-like.”

With a smile, Shiv hands went to his shoulders, fingers tilting up to play with dark hair on the back of his head. “Vise-like, you say?”

Triaten nodded. “Vise-like. And those fingers of yours. I’ve never had such deep gouges in my back.”

Shiv scooted forward on the chair, her face inches from Triaten’s, her dark hair falling forward to dust his shoulders. “Those are your own fault. If you don’t like the cajoling, then you should just be giving me what I want, when I want it. Then no demands would have to be made.”

“You know the longer I make you wait, the better it is.”

“Debatable.”

The smile that he gave her was indecent. “I’m willing to debate it if you are.”

“You know that to properly research, you’re going to have to perform twice, maybe three times to scientifically gather the facts.”

“Won’t be a problem, love.”

His lips met hers, already on fire for his mouth. Triaten grabbed her backside and pulled her forward, spreading her thighs and clasping her tight onto his belly. He kept one hand on her back, crushing her to his stomach, as his other went up her spine, under her shirt.

He grabbed the top of the rip from earlier, and pulled
it down, slowly tearing the shirt the full length off her body.

She pulled back from his mouth with a wicked smile. “Now that rip, I don’t mind. Before we do this. It doesn’t mean a thing?”

“For me, no. You?”

“No, not a thing.”

Triaten’s hands went to her breasts, diving under her bra, teasing the nipples first with his thumbs, and then moving his mouth across her flesh as he unhooked the band. She arched backward, hands griping the chair’s arms, as she reveled in the hard caress, the soft cut of his teeth.