War Bringer (31 page)

“Will you take a picture of me in the water?”

“I’m not a photographer.”

“It’s just like staring down a scope. Just point and shoot.” She showed him the button. “Use this one.”

Look at the camera, not her chest, asshole,
he told himself. It was a hard argument to make when her breasts rose in generous mounds above their cups. She reached behind herself and unfastened the hooks of her bra. He focused on the camera’s details so he wouldn’t think about the girl.

He caught just a glimpse of her breasts before she turned, presenting him with her graceful back…and the most stunning body art he’d ever seen. Some incredible artist had etched a butterfly that covered her entire back. The bottom of the wings stroked her hips, and the upper tips of the wings hugged her shoulders.

Val went cold. Fucking ice cold.
 

“Why a butterfly, Ace?”

She arched her back and looked over her shoulder at him. “Do you like it? I just had it done recently.”

“It’s beautiful. But why a butterfly?” God, was she the one Jafaar had said he was sending to infiltrate the team?

“They are fragile and mystical and change the world with their paper-thin wings. They represent rebirth, transformation. They’re powerful beings.”

He lifted her camera shot a few images, then took some with his phone. Holy fuck. He hoped he wasn’t going to have to pick between her and his team, because there was no choice to make. He never wanted to see her beautiful butterfly ruined by a bullet, but his team would always come first.

* * *

Kelan spent the evening in the bunker, working with Rocco on the cryptic documents from Bladen’s library. Rocco quit about a half-hour ahead of him. When Kelan couldn’t make sense of what he was reading anymore, he decided to call it a day. He had reached a collection of documents that talked about a War Bringer, but in these documents, the War Bringer was an enemy of the Omni World Order. This War Bringer was no unifier; he was a destroyer. The legends Kelan was reading pegged this guy as someone the Omnis feared and were ever on the lookout for.
 

“You’re the War Bringer…the true one,”
the old man from the tunnel had said. Was he referring to this legend?

Kelan leaned back in his chair and rubbed his thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose. Nothing with this group made sense. Nothing the Omnis did was straightforward. Nothing meant what it meant.

He stood up and stretched. Tomorrow, he’d write up an analysis of the papers he read today. He checked his watch. It was almost midnight. Fiona was hopefully sound asleep. If she wasn’t in his room, he’d join her in hers.

Max came out of the ops room, catching Kelan before he left. “Hey, bro.”

“Night, Max.”

Max shook his head. He looked troubled. Kelan frowned. “What is it?”

“Fiona bought a car online earlier today. A real piece of shit. Why would she do that when you just gave her the Acadia?” He lifted his shoulders. “I just got that alert…and the one that said she emptied out her bank account at an ATM in town.”

“Fuck. Where is she now? She here?”

“Yeah. Her room, I think. I know she came back from town, but I don’t know if she’s being good about keeping her tracker on.”

Kelan took the stairs to the den three at a time. He felt a wash of rage, such a foreign emotion to him. Even fighting an enemy never summoned anger. Lethal intent, yes. Rage, never.

His chest was expanding and contracting in rapid waves as he walked down the hallway to the living room stairs. He looked across Blade’s stately living room and had the insane urge to tear it apart. He fisted his hands into tight balls and went up the stairs to the bridge.
 

Outside her room, he paused. Blood was pounding in his head. He was deaf to any sound and not certain he could even form words in his current state. Instead of making matters worse by confronting her now, he decided to wait and cool down a bit. He pivoted on his heel and went to his room, right next to hers.
 

God. Damn.
He wanted to break something. He paced the length of his room. Spreading his fingers out wide, he focused on his breathing. Anything he broke out of sheer rage would never be whole again. Only he could dissipate his anger, and he had to do it before he saw her again. He forced his breathing to slow until his blood wasn’t drumming in his ears anymore; it had returned to the source of his emotional explosion—his heart.

He ripped his tee over his head and rubbed his chest with the heel of his hand. It wasn’t anger he’d been feeling, he realized, but fear, fear of a life without Fiona.

He heard her door close. He stepped into the hall. She was hurrying toward the stairs with her overnight bag and purse. He took the stairs two and three at a time, catching up with her between the living room and the wine cellar. He caught her arm and spun her around.

She was crying. She dropped her overnight bag. “Let me go, Kelan.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to.”

He released her and straightened. “Don’t do this, Fiona.” He rubbed his chest again.
Goddamn
, it hurt.

Fiona wiped her tears and resumed her trek toward the garage. Kelan heard the screams his soul made. None of them hit the air. She took the keys to her Acadia out of the basket, then walked into the garage. The lights popped on. He followed her.

* * *
 

Fiona opened her door and tossed her purse inside, then realized she’d left her overnight bag in the hallway. God, this would have been so much easier if Kelan had just let her go.

She turned to say a last goodbye. He was right there. He bent down and took a knife out of his ankle sheath. Her eyes widened. What was he going to do with that?
 

 
He held the tip of the wickedly sharp KA-BAR to his chest. “Don’t leave me on the wayside of your life, struck but too crippled to get out of the road.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “Show me mercy, Fiona. Kill me outright.” The tip of his knife cut his skin.
 

“Kelan, stop!” She pulled at his hand, but her strength was no match for his, and wrestling for the knife widened the cut. She cried as she set her hands on either side of it, flattening them against his bare skin.

“Dig my heart out of my chest and take it with you, where it belongs. Because without you, I won’t need it.”

“Kelan—”

“Do it, Fiona. Or don’t fucking go.”

She quit struggling with him as a sob broke from her, which she tried to stop, but that first one was the start of an endless string of them. She leaned forward to kiss the small incision Kelan had made, relieved he’d lowered his knife. Her tears mingled with his blood.

His fingers dug into her hair and fisted it, lifting her head as his mouth smashed against hers. She didn’t know if the blood she tasted was his or hers. At least he wasn’t trying to stab himself any longer. She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted herself into their kiss, opening for him, trying to let him see how deeply she loved him.
 

He slammed his fist on the hood of her SUV, releasing the knife, freeing his hand to hold her against him, to stroke her back, to cup her ass. The kiss ended and started again, in a sloppy, vicious twist of lips and tongues and teeth. The deeper the kiss, the more they both hungered.
 

He moved her just enough so that he could open the door to the back seat. Bracing his foot on the edge of the car, he lifted her up, over his knee, onto his thigh. Bending her backward, he kissed her chin, her throat, nuzzled the space between her breasts through her T-shirt.
 

Fiona arched her back, rolling forward on Kelan’s hard thigh. The pressure against her clit sent waves of heat through her body. She whimpered. He gripped her hips, kissing her as he rocked her forward and back, grinding her core against his thigh.
 

Something broke free inside of her. She clamped her thighs around his big leg and gave herself over to the sensations rolling through her. When they eased somewhat, Kelan ordered in a gruff voice, “Put your legs around me.”
 

She did as asked. He leaned into her SUV, one knee on the seat as he brought her inside, setting her on the bench seat. She barely noticed the curves of the seat against her side. She just wanted Kelan in there with her.
 

Kelan unfastened her jeans and pulled them and her panties down to her ankles. He opened his zipper, then settled between her legs. Fee urgently wanted him inside her. She watched as he positioned himself, and then he entered her, filling her, stretching her.
 

Completing her.

Like this, they were one.
 

She reached for his face, holding him to her as she kissed him. Tears still spilled down her cheeks as she opened herself to all the sensations pummeling her—his dark, wounded eyes, the desperation in the way he took her, his hands so gentle on her.

Bracing her heels on the bench seat, she pushed up, meeting his thrusts. He held her hips, angling her a little differently. He pushed her shirt up, pulled her bra up over her breasts, then mouthed her hardened nipple. Heat speared her core. She cried out, feeling the beginning waves that would take her to her release. His thumb lightly brushed her clit, sending her headlong over the edge. She wrapped her arms around his waist and thrust against his body, spurring him to longer strokes that only deepened her passion. He was not far behind her. She felt his hot release shoot into her body, and took everything he gave her.
 

For a long moment afterward, neither of them moved nor spoke. They were both breathing hard. Kelan stared into her eyes as he stroked her face. He withdrew, then pulled back and got out of the car to straighten himself. She did the same.

She took the hand he held out and let him help her from the car. He sheathed his knife, shut the door, then picked her up and carried her back into the house.
 

“When you can cut the heart out of my chest, then you can go.” He bent when they reached the place where she’d dropped her bag and picked it up. “I have no doubt, none at all, that you’re strong enough to do it. So until then, you stay with me. We’ll spend every moment that we have left together.”

Fiona felt herself crying again. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

* * *

“Max. The garage went dark. What the fuck’s going on?” Kit barked into his comm unit.
 

“Um. K and Fiona are having…words.”

“Oh. They okay?”

“Don’t know, and I’m not about to interrupt them to ask. They’ll either bring themselves inside, or we’ll go clean up the blood after a while.”

“Shit.”

“S’all cool, boss. I’ll get you if you’re needed.”

“Right. Copy that. Night, Max.”

Chapter
 
Twenty-Eight

Kelan carried her to his room and kicked the door shut behind them. Like all the rooms in Ty’s house, this one was furnished in typical western ranch decor, with rough aspen log furniture and deep greens, blues, and burgundy textiles. His room had a California king bed and the standard furniture—dresser, side chairs, small table, nightstands—that all the other bedrooms had. He’d simplified his room’s decor by getting rid of the knickknacks. Still, it was a far cry from the streamlined simplicity of their condo in Fort Collins.

He set her on her feet by the edge of his bed, then put her bag down.

“I left my purse in the car,” she said.

He stood before her, a great wall of a man. Uncompromising. Certain of himself and the world and their future.
 

“We’ll get it tomorrow.”
 

He moved into her space as he peeled off her jacket. She sat on the mattress. He put a knee down beside her. She scrambled backward, making room for him even as he crawled over her. His hair fell forward in a dark fringe.
 

There were no lights on in his room, but the blinds weren’t drawn. Muted light from outside filtered in around them, giving his eyes an unholy glow.

His anger had not yet abated.
 

She moved farther onto the bed as he crouched over her. She ran her hands up his arms, over his corded muscles. He took her hands and lifted them above her head, then kissed the soft inside skin of her upper arm. He hadn’t shaved since the morning—she loved the scrape of his face. She squirmed, but his one-handed grip was relentless.
 

He kissed his way across her almost bare shoulder to her throat. He drew a deep breath of her skin, then brushed his lips against her neck.

“Kelan—” she started. They needed to talk.

“Not yet.” His warm mouth moved over her larynx, then down the center of her chest.
 

“Let me hold you.”

“No,” he whispered. She felt his hot breath on the inside curve of her breast. His free hand lifted the bottom of her tank top, baring her belly for his enjoyment. He nibbled at the curve of her ribs, the soft bend of her waist.

He straightened, getting off the bed. His dark eyes held hers as he set his foot on the bed. He removed his ankle sheath, putting his KA-BAR on his nightstand.
 

“Take off my boot.”

She sat up and unlaced it, then pulled it off him. His sock quickly followed. He set his other foot on the bed and had her remove that boot and sock, too. He lifted her leg and untied her sneaker, dropping it and her sock on the floor. He bared her other foot, then leaned forward. Taking hold of her tee, he pulled it over her head. He reached behind her and unfastened her bra. He pushed her shoulder back against the bed, straightening her so he could unfasten her jeans and drag them and her panties off.
 

He kissed her as he pulled her closer to the edge of the bed. Then he knelt between her legs to help himself to her sweet flesh. He slipped a finger inside her, just one finger, then added a second. She could feel how slick she was. She sat up and started to touch herself, but he moved her hand away and put his mouth where her fingers had been, while his slipped in and out of her.