Hunted Warrior (15 page)

If the cartels were powerful—so powerful as to kidnap Dragon Kings such as his cousin, Nynn, from their home with impunity—what was the use of the gifts bestowed by the Dragon? Mal wasn't the only complacent one among their kind. He was simply the one who couldn't afford to be complacent. Ever.

He'd made the mistake of assuming that his assured handling of the Council—only ten people—was the same as leading an entire race. It was time to stop delegating. It was time to take matters into his own hands. He could've used conventional means to follow Avyi, namely having his people take on the task and investigate her possible role in the assassination attempt. But he wanted to do it himself. He was finally, assuredly taking action, with reasons that had become thornier by the day.

Beyond even his growing desire for Avyi, he was all the more curious about her purported gift. If he were to believe it, he would need to see proof for himself. Without that proof, they were done. He would never be able to trust such a practiced charlatan. Which cartel held the woman? To what ends? That these basic questions couldn't be answered were a weight on his soul, if only because they layered suspicion over his growing regard for her.

He stared up into the near darkness. Glimmers from the large ferry's external lighting caught the panes of glass and refracted prisms of light into the double berth.

Turning on his side, he used the slight glare to watch her sleep. The almost-light cast deep shadows over her delicate features. She could be Pendray, with women sometimes as hearty as Vikings and sometimes as delicate as fairies. She could be Tigony, having brought forth legends of sirens and water nymphs. But none of that truly mattered. She was a foundling without a clan, claiming a gift that no Dragon King had ever dared boast.

She had only taken off her boots before groggily washing up and returning to her bed. In fact, washing up for bed included slipping on her brass knuckles and sliding a switchblade into her hip pocket. Had she learned that from life with Aster, or from her years as a migrant Garnis tagalong?

His guess was the latter. He couldn't imagine Dr. Aster forcing her to sleep in a cage while permitting her access to weapons. Despite Avyi's sleep-armor, Mal wasn't intimidated or fearful of her. His powers were vast, and he knew that Avyi believed their destinies intertwined. She wouldn't have cause to turn against him until her mission was fulfilled.

Was that before or after they became lovers?

Mal jerked awake from his half-sleeping state. He could barely imagine her naked, let alone beneath him or above him or kneeling before him, both of them seeking the heady release of pleasure. He could readily admit that she was beautiful. But her defensive posture and obvious distrust was a barrier to his imagination. She flinched whenever he was too near, when she wasn't the one to offer physical closeness.

That meant she was more likely expecting to initiate their sexual encounter. Encounters? No, the idea of one time was hard enough to grapple with. But letting her take the lead wasn't Mal's intention. If they were going to spend days, perhaps longer, in one another's company, and if she already expected a moment of supreme intimacy, he wasn't going to wait for her to come to him. Their affair would be brief and, at the center of his being, he knew it would be intense. The prospect stirred his blood.

Across the narrow aisle between their beds, she made a quiet mewling sound in her sleep. Mal took in a deep breath. He wanted breathy, sweaty, excited sounds.

He wanted her mindless.

And if she had lived a conjugal life with Dr. Aster, he wanted to wipe that life away. He wanted to replace those memories with newer, brighter ones.

Fool
.

As if such damage could be erased with a couple good fucks.

That mewling sound became more intense. She thrashed under her blanket. She muttered in a language Mal didn't understand. He only understood when, in the darkness, she screamed. It was a scream to open the skies.

In a flash, Mal was out of bed and leaning across her mattress. Before touching her anywhere, he pinned the hand wearing the brass knuckles. She jumped to full awareness and fought him like a cat caught by its hind paws. Twisting at the waist, still screaming, she used the tight ball of her sleeping position as a coil to strike out. She reached for her switchblade, but Mal caught it from her hand and tossed it back toward his bed.

“Avyi! Wake up.” He used the weight of his upper body to restrain her thrashing fury. Dragon damn, she was agile. “Stop! Wake up
now
.”

He gave her a shake and caught the back of her head, where her hair was unbound and as slippery-clean as water.

Continuing to fight, Avyi's eyes flared opened. Even in those dimmed shadows, Mal recognized very little of the woman he'd come to know. She was feral. Blank. Absent of reason. Only intensity remained. She was the equivalent of a rabid animal fighting the captor who would put her down.

“Pet,” he shouted with his most authoritative voice. “You will
stop
. You don't deserve this mattress. You don't deserve
me
.”

She stilled. A sob hitched her chest. The fight dropped out of her body as if her bones were popped balloons. “Forgive me,” she said, weeping openly now.

Mal had no choice but to offer what he could—invoking Dr. Aster—to bring her back into her true self. Did such a thing exist, he wondered, or would she always be so deeply, dangerously connected to the mad doctor of the Aster cartel?

“Avyi, it's me. Malnefoley. C'mon. Wake up. All the way, now.”

He watched as the life came back into her eyes, first as suspicion. “Where am I?”

“The
Forza
. On our way to Florence, remember? To find Cadmin.”

He didn't believe in Cadmin, and no way was he Dr. Aster. Both were benevolent lies to pull her free of the nightmare.

She blinked rapidly, then pushed the backs of her hands across her eyes. She hadn't been crying. It seemed more a gesture of frustration. “I remember. What are you doing holding me?”

“I was only trying to wake you.”

She raised her brows.

Mal looked down as if he were watching another person. He'd taken up position on her mattress, lying beside her—almost on top of her. She'd pushed her upper body against his chest. His arms were around her back, cradling between her shoulders and down across her spine.
Cradling
was the right word, because the comfort he offered had little to do with the sudden realization that her lithe, compact form was nestled against his. It didn't matter that she wore her black tank top and a charcoal gray sweater that sloped over one shoulder. It didn't matter that he couldn't reach an inch of skin other than her face and neck. He'd only wanted her to stop screaming, to save her from whatever had made her so afraid—or so angry.

Realizing their closeness rekindled the cross between erotic and muddled thoughts. Her breasts were small but felt heavenly when pressed against his bare chest. He had chosen to sleep shirtless. They were only a few scant layers of fabric from being skin to skin.

Too many layers.

There were too many layers between them.

He would've laid her down right then, naked man to naked woman, had he comprehended her true intentions. He wasn't a noble man by refraining. No, he had been played a fool before, with his emotions amplified by physical ecstasy. The consequences continued to shred his soul—out of regret, and out of mortification.

That didn't mean he would let go of Avyi, especially when she rested her head back against the pillow with a sigh honed by pure relief. Her dark hair was midnight in their shared cabin, and it tickled his nose with its unexpected softness.

“You were screaming. Do you remember why?”

“I was hacking his head off.”

“His? Dr. Aster?”

She nodded.

“But when I shook you and shouted for you to wake up, you didn't respond.” He tipped her chin up and frowned. Had he been born Indranan, he would've used his gift of telepathy without shame. He wanted in her head that badly. Would knowing her thoughts be worth the pain he knew he'd find there? “But when I spoke to you as if I were the doctor, you responded.”

“Words are powerful, and so is he.”

“I'm glad the dream was to your advantage.”

“Me, too. I prefer those to the ones where he wins our last contest.” She patted his chest in a dismissive gesture. “I'll be fine now, Mal.”

“You called me Mal.”

“It was time. Go back to bed.”

He touched the damp hair at her temples and trailed his fingers down to her parted lips. “And if I don't?”

*  *  *

Avyi knew she would never be able to get back to sleep, even if Mal had returned to his bunk. He was pressed fully against her, holding her when the worst of her terrors were ripping her apart. That she desired him beyond the point of curiosity made her still. Her breathing had just been returning to normal when his question amped her adrenaline again. She couldn't look away from his firm mouth, which had formed the words that would change everything between them, no matter her answer.

Yet her dream still haunted her. It wasn't a prediction, because victory shifted back and forth. She considered it a horror movie she wouldn't see finished until she met her former master again. Face to face. The last confrontation before they would be free of one another.
That
was a prediction. He would kill her, or she would kill him. The field of battle, the weaponry, the method, the circumstances—they remained obscured, akin to knowing she and Mal would become lovers.

Would they do so now? He practically asked as much, while she was the one in control.

“Stay,” she whispered.

Pushing away fear, she took Mal's fingers in her own and encouraged him to continue tracing her eyes, her cheeks, her throat. She felt safer by offering her overt permission, leading him to every inch of skin he touched.

Moonlight through the berth's single window highlighted his profile and glimpses of the big body pushed flush against her. He wore his noble lineage well, with strongly defined muscles across his chest and down his abdomen. They bore the telltale striations of a man who knew how to care for himself. She had known so many Dragon Kings who relied on their gifts and let their physical assets deteriorate.

That wasn't the case with Malnefoley. He was chiseled. Virile. Tempting bronze hair dusted his pectorals and formed a narrow path between the square ripples of his stomach, to where it disappeared beneath the waistband of his briefs. That hair would tickle her breasts if she lay on top of him . . . or if he lay on top of her.

Why shouldn't I?

His gift and his physical form were blessings from the Dragon. She would be well served by accepting those blessings into her deepest core. His negligent posture and complete relaxation called to her in primal ways. She was taut and almost scared by what might happen between them. He was apparently willing to wait. Didn't he care? Or was he so assured that he knew it would happen eventually?

Well, that was easy enough to answer. She'd told him as much. “We're more enemies than allies,” she said, her throat tight. “I can't believe in you, and you don't believe in me.”

“Are we going to? Is that part of what you've seen of our future?”

“No . . .”

“People make love without needing anything but the release.” His pectorals bunched as he adjusted his hold around her waist. “It's called pleasure, Avyi. How much pleasure have you had in your life?”

Frozen, she stared as Mal slipped his hand between their bodies and rubbed his right hand over his groin. Rather than embarrassment—she would've been mortified—he appeared as confident as always. His expression was intense. Desire shone from his eyes.

“I'm thinking about us,” he said. “And I'm touching myself. Both give me . . .” He placed a delicate kiss just below her earlobe. “Pleasure.”

“Then continue.” She gave him a smile that made the constant pressures behind her sternum lessen, before changing sensation. Adrenaline was one thing. This was the slow pour of honey in her veins. Lassitude and a deep craving intertwined. “Unless I need to tease you. I have ten fingers, after all.”

“
That
was a joke.”

Her smile deepened. “Was it?”

“You show me.” Mal tossed the covers aside. It was all Avyi could do to keep from gasping. His manhood was long, thick, bulging against the confines of his briefs. The head pushed up against the waistband, altering the intimate shape of the underwear and making it erotic.

“But lose the brass knuckles first,” he said with a matching grin. With even less ceremony than she would have thought, she handed them over. She swiftly stripped out of her shirt and cargo pants. If she stopped to think about what she was doing, she would stop altogether.

She didn't want that.

She straddled him as she had in the maze, then dragged her fingertips along his muscled thighs and trim hips. The position gave her a measure of power she wasn't willing to relinquish. His gaze traveled over her breasts, her belly, and returned to her face. He bracketed her hips with his strong hands and elegant fingers.

“Damn,” he whispered.

“Show me how.” Her voice didn't sound like her. Husky. More deeply pitched. “I've never . . .”

“Never?” His stunned expression was replaced by something like resolution. She'd hoped for as much. The Giva would loathe to shirk his duties, but she only wanted the man named Malnefoley.

She lifted just enough for Mal to push down his briefs. They lost all hesitation. His hands became more insistent as he touched her. She feasted on the feel of his hard body. His arms, angling to form a
V
as he explored her body, were thick with tense muscles. His chest was taut. His stomach was a rigid playground for her tongue, lips, fingernails.