Danger That Is Damion (13 page)

***

Lara materialized several minutes later in the alley behind the mall, out of sight. At least now she knew the wind-walking disability came with the dizziness. In its absence she was still mobile, but then, so was Damion. Her skills were back. Her head was clear. She had a window of opportunity to decipher fact from fiction, friends from enemies, Damion included. If he was intentionally using some GTECH skill to create her illness, she had no idea how close he had to be to do it. She didn’t linger, didn’t dare, knowing he’d be seconds behind her. Rushing onto the sidewalk speckled with shoppers, she charged toward the mall’s main entrance, stumbling slightly as the hum in her head returned with full force, a rush of dizziness suffusing her.

She shoved it aside and entered the mall, urgently maneuvering to get out of the main corridor, and any chance of being within Damion’s visual. Darting inside a large department store to her left, she headed past the makeup counters and straight to women’s clothing.

Grabbing a few things off the racks—jeans and T-shirts—that she could change into, she headed toward the dressing rooms, which were unattended. As she hurried down the hall, she realized that the idea of changing clothes, and her appearance, though a good one, was hampered by a problem—she had no money, no purse, no resources—but she knew how to create an identity, even garner credit cards. She just had to get out of this mall and get to work.

Lara swayed, her steps uneven, but she didn’t dare stop walking until she was at the room farthest from the entrance. She could feel the mental images, or hallucinations, or whatever these episodes were, coming on again. The fact that Damion wasn’t here and couldn’t be intentionally causing them was cold comfort. Or could he? How powerful was he? Enough to attack her mind from a distance?

Desperateness rose inside her to find a place that was secure where she could try to sleep off her weakness, a place where she wouldn’t end up in a ball on the floor in public.

She opened the dressing room door and struggled with the slide lock, which didn’t fit together properly, until she just gave up. At least it was a solid door, not a curtain.

Lara tried to hang the clothes on the wall hook, missing, but not caring. She couldn’t settle onto the built-in bench fast enough. The hum in her head, in her ears, grew louder again, inescapable, and she had the impression of having a bad seat in a small plane.

Drawing her knees to her chest, she used them as a pillow, letting her head droop and her lashes lower. She just needed to rest a second, hide here until Damion gave up on the search for her. Out of sight, out of mind. Yes. Perfect. She’d rest, and he’d give up searching. If he was near, if he was causing this, maybe he’d just pass her by, and she’d be okay again.

***

No way was Damion allowing Lara to get away from him. There were too many unanswered questions about what she was involved in, and truth be told, this reached beyond duty and honor. Everything male inside him screamed “find her and protect her,” and yes, “mine” in a ridiculous, primal way—feelings that were really going to bite him in the backside if she betrayed him.

Determined, driven to find her, he walked through the entrance to the mall and into the scurry of busy shoppers without really seeing them, stretching his mental feelers for Lara, seeking the familiar strand of energy a Tracker used to locate a target, usually an injured GTECH who couldn’t maintain their shields, betting that Lara didn’t have hers up. And if Damion could find her, so could Lucian.

Damion shut his eyes, ignoring whoever bumped into him, focused on Lara, on the moment he’d kissed her, on the taste of her, the feel of her, the energy that was her. Mentally reaching, touching, seeking, and then finding that wisp of her presence, different from the male GTECHs he’d tracked, and from the human females marked by sex with a GTECH—an energy that was both familiar and all Lara.

His eyes snapped open, and he started walking, cutting through the department store, heading straight to the ladies’ clothing section and the dressing room in the corner. He entered the hallway to the changing areas without delay, following the energy, the essence that was Lara.

He didn’t hesitate at the door, certain she was behind it. He turned the knob and entered the small room, shutting himself inside with her. The feminine scent of her—familiar like her energy, alluring and spicy—rushed over him, like flowers blooming on a hot, summer day. But the sight of her, curled in the corner of the bench, much like she had been in the shower, legs pulled to her chest, sent a chill down his spine. It sparked fear that she was again lost between hallucination and reality.

“I’d make a scene and yell at you to get out if I thought you’d care,” she whispered, clearly aware of who had joined her. She lifted her head slowly, as if it were a heavy weight, hard to endure, fixing him in a black-eyed glossy stare. Her soft dark hair. A beautiful mess framing her makeup-free, ivory face.

“And I’d ask why you ran,” he said, “but I wouldn’t like the answer, and it wouldn’t change the outcome. I found you.”

“How
did
you find me?” she asked.

“I’m a Tracker,” he said. “That’s what we do. We find people.”

“Tracker,” she repeated. “Is that some special boy’s club I wasn’t invited to or what?”

Interesting. No one inside Zodius City would be without this information. He leaned against the door. “It’s a skill a select number of GTECHs possess. I’m one of those Trackers, and so is Lucian. That means if I found you, so can he.”

“That explains so much,” she said, the flip remark doing nothing to disguise the heaviness beneath it. “And how exactly do I hide from you and Lucian?”

A mental shield was as natural to a GTECH as breathing. Yet she didn’t know what it was? Just another piece of a puzzle that didn’t fit together, but he planned to try—just not now. Not when Lucian would be coming for her.

“You hide from Lucian by coming with me,” he said, sitting down beside her, his hand settling on her knees. “And by trusting me.”

She sucked in a breath, as if his touch shocked her, but instead of shoving him away as he expected, she latched onto him and seemed to sigh a breath of relief, almost pleasure.

“Oh God, that feels so good,” she said, dropping her head on her knees and scooting closer to him, until he wrapped his arms around her knees.

Heat rushed through him, hot and fast, a reaction to her soft sounds, her soft touch.

“Ah well, yeah, okay. If that feels good, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

She lifted her head and stared at him, searching his face. “You really don’t know what you’re doing to me, do you?”

“If you’re accusing me of sexual voodoo again,” he said, breathing in the sweet, feminine scent of her, leaning closer to draw it in, his gaze sweeping her lush, kissable mouth, “I’m going to accuse you of the same.”

“That isn’t an answer,” she murmured, the warmth of her breath teasing his cheek. “It’s deflection.”

He knew damn well things were getting too personal with Lara, that soldiers didn’t do personal, they did duty. But still he found himself saying, “If I were going to deflect, I’d dodge and avoid. And I definitely wouldn’t do this.” His mouth brushed hers, a caress, barely there, yet it burned through him like a wildfire, lighting up every pore of his body.

It was a lingering kiss, a gentle kiss—at least it was until Lara moaned and pressed her hand to his face. In a slide of tongues, she was in his lap, his back against the wall, her hips spreading his, and damn, he could get used to her just like this. All over him, around him, on him. The feel of her pressed close, the taste of her urgency, her absolute need for him, was more than he could stand. Damion slid his hand up her back, the other lacing into her hair, deepening the kiss even further, drinking her in—thirsting for her, like he’d never thirsted for a woman. Knowing this wasn’t a good choice, knowing it was dangerous, for the first time since joining the army, he didn’t care.

His phone sounded, and damn if telephone calls weren’t his saving grace with this woman. The sound jerked Damion back to his senses, and somehow, he managed to tear his lips from hers. She tried to kiss him again, and hell, he let her, wanted her to. Somehow he yanked his cell from his belt, lavishing one last slide of his tongue against hers, before he forced her mouth from his, holding her back while he glanced at the ID and answered.

“Talk to me, Houston,” he said, his voice rough and gravelly, even to his own ears.

“We tangled with Lucian and Sabrina, but they got away,” came the voice he recognized as Houston’s.

Damion hesitated, debating about asking for backup, and not because he didn’t trust Houston, but because he was quite certain that the woman melting like warm, sweet honey in his arms could easily turn brittle and cold if he made one wrong move. “Take care of the woman trapped in the underground facility,” he said, and gave Houston the entry codes. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

He hung up, searching Lara’s face. “Lucian and Sabrina are on the move. We need to be too.” Which meant getting themselves underground and fast, before Lucian picked up Lara’s energy path. His fingers slid around the back of her neck, and he gave her a quick kiss. “But later, we are going to talk about your need to jump my bones in unusual places and cuss me.” He helped her to her feet and held her steady. “How do you feel? Are you okay to move?”

“Yes,” she said, her gaze sliding to his chest. “I think I am now.”

“What does that mean? You think you are
now
?” He’d seen how she’d been when he’d first found her. “You’re still hallucinating, aren’t you?”

“I’m okay,” she said, and turned away, reaching for the doorknob, clearly doing her own share of deflecting. Damion pressed his hand to the wooden surface above her head. “If you run from me when we leave this room, I
will
find you. That is, if Lucian and Sabrina don’t find you first and kill you.”

She didn’t turn. “I know,” she said softly.

“So you aren’t going to run?” he queried insistently.

Rotating to face him, she pressed her back to the door, tilted her chin upward to stare at him, her eyes now bright green and alert, a brilliant contrast to her dark hair and pale skin. “No, Damion, I’m not going to run. I told you I needed you, and that was the truth. I realize that now. I need you.”

There were layers beneath that statement, layers he was going to explore and understand, some of which his gut told him he wasn’t going to like. For now, though, he’d settle for getting them both out of here alive. “You’ll be explaining that statement, and a whole lot more, in the very near future.”

Her chin lifted defiantly. “You do love a good fight, don’t you?”

When they ended with her on top of him, kissing him senseless, hell yeah, he loved a good fight. And as he yanked open the door he did so hoping for a downright raging battle that didn’t include Lucian and Sabrina.

With her hand tucked in Damion’s, Lara followed him down the dressing room hallway, then watched him peer around the corner and into the store, watching the subtle flex of muscle along his shoulders, the lethal air of danger that seemed to radiate off him. He was tall, broad, and sexy—things that made kissing him oh-so-good and oh-so-dangerous. Because when she did, she not only forgot the hum in her head, but she forgot who and what he was. GTECH Renegade—one of the killers who’d stolen her family from her.

And so Lara had made a decision back in that dressing room, a decision that surviving meant not only taking things one moment at a time, but with her head in a muddled mess, she had to trust her instincts. The facts as she knew them were most certainly flawed. How flawed was the question she intended to have answered.

Going with the flow of that instinct, she believed Damion had no idea he could control her hallucinations with his touch, his kiss. He was right. She’d been desperate to save his life, willing to risk her own, known on some level that she was even supposed to.
Instincts
. Yes. They were all she had, and she was putting them to use. And Damion. She had Damion. Whatever that meant, good or bad, she was going with it and with him. Almost, but not quite, trusting him. There was something about Damion, something that spoke to her soul. She didn’t understand it and didn’t want to try. She just needed him to be worthy. God, how she needed him to be one of the good guys.

He motioned her forward, and together they weaved a path toward the side exit, avoiding the main mall entrance, where Lucian and Sabrina would be likely to enter. They kept close to the walls, hidden by clothing racks. They eased into the main walkways only when moving from one department to the next.

The loudspeaker announced five minutes until store closing, and Damion cast Lara a displeased look. The crowds, which offered cover, were already thin, and they were about to get thinner.

They were close to the door though, only one department left to clear, and on the move again, in the home stretch and counting, when Damion suddenly yanked Lara into a corner. In an instant, her backside was pressed against his hips, his hand sliding intimately to her stomach, his mouth near her ear. “Shhh,” he murmured, a second before Lucian and Sabrina walked by.

Heart racing, she shrank against him, her hands pressed behind her, flattening them on his powerful thighs, as she tried to melt farther into him, and into the shadows of several clothing racks.