Hunted Warrior (6 page)

Their eyes met. “Run,” was all he said, aiming that eerie blue gaze directly at her.

A third Pendray, a woman, tried to catch the Pet as she darted past. She only managed to grab a purple linen sleeve, which tore away. The Pet clasped both hands into a knot of knuckles—one set protected by a row of metal—and swung her arms like an Olympian spinning to throw a hammer. Connect. Crack. The woman's jaw skewed to a garishly sick angle, like hinges coming loose from a door.

Heart pounding, with hair freakishly active across her skin, straining up from her pores, the Pet did exactly as the Dragon Kings' leader instructed. She ran. The quiver containing five arrows bounced against her back. Her direction didn't matter. The maze could consume her, but she knew what she needed to do to escape.

Those Pendray didn't stand a chance.

The air crackled and swirled. A slim tornado appeared from the clear dusk sky. She turned left, right, forward, dead end, back again, as the Cretan plain transformed into a battle between ozone and humidity.

Her gift served her well. Moments before the first lightning strike, she saw when it would happen, how it would happen, and who it would destroy. She pressed into a bleached stone corner, tucking between a small boulder and a wall. Vital organs protected. Head bowed. Only at the last second did she whip the quiver off her back and huddle over it, protecting it with her torso—as if her body could protect a weapon that had weathered countless years. Then again, it had likely never been struck by the full force of an enraged Tigony.

The sky lit like the explosion of a bomb. Heat ricocheted through the maze walls. The Pet huddled as energy washed over her hiding place. It wasn't enough to protect against the quick-burst fires that streaked her skin and singed the ends of her hair.

Sound came next—the loudest, nearest thunder eardrums could endure, whether human or Dragon King. She screamed, as if a bellow of equal fury could ward off the pain. She never heard the noise tearing out of her mouth, although her throat was abraded and raw by the time she took a breath.

Then . . . nothing.

She couldn't tell beyond the buzzing in her ears if the skirmish was over. She dared look back over her shoulder, peeking out from her meager shelter.

“Giva?” she shouted, although the word sounded warped.

Across the half dozen leveled walls between her and the Giva, the Pet could no longer see the Pendray. He held the first attacker's Dragon-forged sword, which was streaked with crimson. His eyes . . .

His eyes were lost to a fury she had never seen, not even from a Pendray at the height of a berserker rage. Yet his voice was utterly flat when he said, “They're dead.”

“I know.”

The Pet shouldered the quiver and ran back. The way was easier now. Flattened. A few pits and smoldering, lava-hot rocks meant she still had to be careful. Forgoing the risks, she nimbly hopped on a wall. Her balance faltered. She was standing on one foot, her arms pinwheeling. She breathed through her nose and calmed her pulse until she could lower her leg. Using the back of her boot heel, she kicked away some razor-sharp rock. Then it was a quick hop down to run toward the Giva.

Winded, her abdomen tight with continuing spasms, she landed and found herself in the midst of three fallen bodies. They were charred black, their skin peeled away and turned to ash. They'd been decapitated.

The Giva transferred the Dragon-forged sword to his left hand. His shoulder, which had been ripped open in the fighting, was now gashed to the bone. The injury only made him look more ferocious. He was pulsing with energy, even though he'd just aimed an electrical storm at three of their own kind. Maybe that was why he still pulsed with unspent aggression. The Giva was not meant to kill other Dragon Kings.

Then again, when was the last time anyone had attempted to kill an Honorable Giva?

“Hello?”

He lifted his chin. Blood smeared across his forehead and dampened the hair around one temple. The Pet jerked when his eyes met hers. She was looking at an entirely different man, one drained of civilization and hewn of primitive impulses. She'd suspected he was capable of such rage, but to see it in the flesh was overwhelming. Cadmin might stand a chance if she could turn this sophisticated, influential beast to her cause.

Moving with caution, she recalled the techniques Dr. Aster had used in his lab. He never wanted to lose his so-called patients. That meant each surgery was precise and careful. No mistakes. The men and women he'd captured were there for the long haul, and he needed them completely recovered after each experiment. The Pet was as well versed in the use of sutures as she was scalpels, but the Tigony had other methods.

“May I . . . ?” She nodded to his wound.

He looked down at it as if taking notice for the first time. When he returned his eyes to hers, he had regained some hold on himself. The man was returning. The tempestuous beast few ever witnessed was retreating, gone back into hiding behind a cultured facade.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“You trust me with your care?”

“I have no other choice. And others may try again. We can't stay here much longer.”

“I've found what I came for.”

“Guided by prophecy,” he said with a sneer. “Do what you can for my shoulder and keep your mouth shut. Fate. Destiny. They doesn't exist. The only thing I care about is getting you back to Greece. I'll drag you there by your hair if I must.”

She couldn't help a quirking smile. “Then maybe I shouldn't mend you after all.”

“Are you surprised?”

“What?”

“You said you'd be surprised if you made a joke.” He sat heavily. “That was close.”

“I can promise more if you quit with this talk of returning to Greece. But that won't happen, and you told me to shut up.”

Gingerly, he edged to the ground, still gripping the sword. She knelt before him. At that lower vantage, he was even bigger than she'd imagined, with long limbs and a sturdy, muscular torso, made even more apparent because of a long, singed rip along the midsection of his dress shirt. He was breathing through his nose, probably to process the pain. Each inhalation lifted his chest and tightened his exposed abdominals.

Gorgeous
.

The thought was as quick as it was pointless, unless she chose to believe the most intimidating of her prophecies: that she and Malnefoley would become lovers. She'd known since first meeting him among the burning rubble of the Asters' laboratory. The fleeting image had grown stronger every day. Until that moment, she had never believed it to be more than curiosity born of her imagination. Now it blazed with the certainty of something that had already happened.

She looked into his eyes and shivered.

Fighting back to the present, she withdrew her switchblade. She cut his shirt into strips, and whipped off her own belt. “In your condition, how precise can you be with your gift?”

He lifted his left hand. It wobbled. Sparks shot in all directions. He made a frustrated grunting noise in his throat.

“If you don't help me,” she said, “your fighting hand will be useless. I have the feeling you'll be needing it again shortly.”

“I think you're right. Curious, what that quiver brought down on us.”

“If you don't consider that an assassination attempt, you're crazier than you think I am.” She caught his left hand and carefully aligned each fingertip along the deep tear in the flesh of his shoulder. “I'm going to hold you still. Understand? Dig deep, but only enough to cauterize the wound.”

“It'll hurt you.”

“You can feel bad about it later.” She nodded to the torn shirt and her belt. “I can help you with those, but not enough.”

He winced. His face was slicked with sweat.

She leaned close, closer than she'd been to another individual since escaping Dr. Aster. She pressed her forehead against his. “Malnefoley, you must. Did you hear me? I used your name. Do this, and you can help me pick
my
name. I'm no one's Pet. You know that by now.”

He said nothing, but the upward press of his forehead was stronger. “I'm ready.”

“Then do it, Malnefoley. Do it.”

CHAPTER

B
eyond the blasted annoyance of his raw nerves, Mal could feel two things: the Pet's forehead pressed against his, and her fingers aligned with his. He could see where he touched the gash in his shoulder, but his nerves were malfunctioning. Pain and flesh had no barrier. They were one fluid entity.

But he could feel her.

The Pet smacked her forehead against his. “Concentrate. Do it!”

Mal surged.

He had never felt his own electrical shocks. He was immune to the tornado of sparking lightning he flung at his enemies. So nothing prepared him for the squirming eels of static and sparks that burned his flesh. He cried out a curse.

She didn't reply, likely because of the anguish reflected in her green-gold eyes. She was his conduit, the equivalent of touching a downed power line when standing in a puddle. On his own, he was grounded. Gripped by her hands, with his blood as the lubricant between their fingers, he was just as much a victim. His body jerked. He kicked, fought, but kept up a river-wild current strong enough to cauterize without paralyzing them both. Nerve damage. Crippling burns. So many risks.

She didn't let go.

He watched and watched as fireworks obscured where their palms twined. Surely his skin must be flaying away. So many said the Tigony power was exactly that: the feeling of having one's skin burned away one layer at a time.

“Enough!”

Yanking upright, she pulled their hands away. Sparks shot from his fingertips but they were soon exhausted.

The Pet was straddling his torso. She lowered her arms so that his hands lay inert on the rocky earth. She was wild, with her pinned-up hair in static spikes and her eyes full of daring. And triumph.

She leaned down and kissed him. An errant spark renewed between their skin, with slippery wetness to soothe the melding of flesh against flesh. The kiss itself was anything but soothing. The strong, sure push of their mouths turned everything unnatural . . .
natural
. They had done battle, and they would celebrate in the oldest, most pleasurable way. Mal used his good arm to clasp behind her neck. He pulled her closer and took control.

One of them tasted of blood. Perhaps they both did. There was dust and salt and hidden sweetness. She had an agile tongue, keeping pace with the bold strokes he swept through her mouth. Sharp, tiny teeth nipped his lower lip. He caught her lip in the return, this time with more force. He liked her wince. She shook against his hold at the back of her neck. Mal wasn't letting go; he was enjoying this heat and sense of command. The Pet changed tactics. She adjusted where her knees straddled either side of his chest, finding a resilient balance. She brought up both sets of knuckles—one skin, one brass—and angled them against the sides of his neck. A pinch of pressure against his carotid artery streaked washes of black across his vision. He grabbed a tight fistful of short hair at her crown and chuckled against her mouth.

Stalemate.

Neutral ground was the act of kissing. Keep kissing, keep the peace.

Mal redoubled the assault he had so abruptly started, where lip to lip had flared into a searing passion as hot as the fire they had wielded together. He slid his hand down her back and filled his palm with her taut ass. She flexed her hips when he gripped hard—then harder still. He would need her to surrender, eventually, but that goal was far away as she moaned. The idea that she might surrender more readily to their bodies' demands than to his will was actually arousing, although it would mean being defied.

No one said no to the Honorable Giva. The Pet did.

Would she say no to Malnefoley, the man?

“You'll live,” she said, breathless. Her hazel eyes had lost some of their triumphant defiance. They were glassed over with a delicious fog that made Mal eager for more. He had affected her. He could change the direction of the wind, turn back the tide, and make the Pet a picture of sensuality. “Better yet, you'll fight.”