Scratch (2 page)

She’d come too far to back down now. She needed answers,
needed to know why his ancestor’s name was one of five on a list inside an old
parched book.

Her father might be dead but his once flawless reputation
was still very much on the line. She’d do whatever she had to, to prove he’d
been right and the critics wrong. Even without her pledge to him, she owed him
that much at least as his only child and the one person who’d encouraged him in
his work to ease his grief after his wife’s death.

He raised a dark brow. “That now you’re hoping to track down
the
Illawatti
tribe.”

She blinked. He knew more than she’d ever thought possible.
If such a tribe still existed, she’d find them. “So…you don’t think I’m a
raving lunatic?”

Just like my dad.

Blake stalked over to the window and peered between the
moldy, almost transparent curtains. His profile revealed shadowed stubble and
sensual lips that were made for kissing…all over. A smattering of goose bumps
littered her flesh at the thought, even as his dark eyebrows slashed downward
and he peered harder outside.

“No. Actually, I don’t,” he murmured abstractedly.

Was he for real? Did he know more than he let on? She pushed
for more. “So you agree there’s a good possibility the
Illawatti
tribe
exist—”

“We need to leave,” he growled.

She frowned. “Not until I get some answers—”

The breath whooshed hard from her throat as he threw himself
at her. His weight knocked her to the ground simultaneously to the window
shattering, glass raining down as if blades of ice.

The dog a few doors down once again took up its relentless
yapping. She closed her eyes, stunningly aware the muscled bulk of Blake’s body
sheltered her. If it had been any other time she’d have taken advantage of the
situation, perhaps pressed her soft curves against his hard, masculine body,
her mouth against the tanned column of his throat.

What was she thinking?

The fact this man could absolve the mockery that had become
her father’s name was the least of her concern right then. A bullet had torn a
hole through the opposite wall. Shock consumed her, pushed her heart rate into
high gear. “Someone is shooting at you!”

He effortlessly scooped her up and half-ran into what had to
be the only bedroom. “No,” he corrected grimly. “They’re shooting at us.”

She jerked her head up, straining to read his expression.
The pool of light leaking into the bedroom allowed her to note his composure,
his strange-colored stare that scanned the room to seemingly consider every
possible option before he acted. “What the hell are you saying?” she asked in a
loud whisper that somehow enhanced the sudden spike of her blood pressure.

She
was a target?

He glanced down at her. “I apologize in advance. Your
hellish day isn’t about to improve any time soon.”

Bloody hell.

In a couple of strides he was across the bedroom. After
putting her back on her own two feet, he snapped open the doors of a small
built-in closet before he dragged out some clothes. In an undertone he
instructed, “Get dressed, quickly. Change your appearance in any way you can.”

“But—”

“You were followed, recognized. We have a few minutes at
best.”

She didn’t argue. She valued her life far too much.

Unlike her father.

She thrust her arms into a checked red-and-black flannel
jacket. Twisting her hair, she shoved it up and under a red baseball cap before
pulling the visor low. Her leather pants would have to do.

Blake was taking no chances either and had already dragged
up a pair of gray sweats over his jeans. He shrugged a flannel jacket similar to
hers over his t-shirt and then motioned for her to follow him into the
adjoining bathroom.

The front door crashed open, the deadbolt clanging as it
skidded across the floor.

She pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream even as
Blake cursed and locked the bathroom door behind him, plunging them into
shadow. Her vision quickly adjusted and she watched him move to the open
window, effortlessly tearing the fly screen from its wonky frame.

Though her throat was dry and her heart fluttered like a
caged bird, it was an odd sensation to realize that she felt safe with this
man, this stranger.

He turned to her, gesturing that she hurry and climb through
the window. “It’s a bit of a drop, but you should be fine if you’re careful.”

He held out a hand and she swallowed back hesitation before
she accepted his firm clasp and climbed onto the sill. A shiver shot up her arm
at the contact. All her senses buzzed, clarifying the primal danger and
toughness hidden beneath Blake’s gentlemanly veneer.

Traits that could only be advantageous against whoever
wanted them dead.

She released his hand then immediately gulped down breaths
to stay quiet at the telltale creak of a floorboard just outside the bathroom
door. She closed her eyes, too scared to look below. She’d always had an
unhealthy fear of heights. Add would-be murderers on the other side of the
flimsy door and she suddenly grappled not to freeze with terror.

Don’t be an idiot. You don’t need the touch of a man to
stay strong.

Taking a breath, she gripped the sill and swung down,
hanging by her clammy fingertips. She gritted her teeth, the tendons in her
fingers straining. There was no way she could hang on much longer.

Gunshots boomed and ricocheted above. She gasped, her eyes
cracking open and her heart jerking crazily in her chest. Clearly whoever was
trying to kill them had decided there was no longer any need for the silencer.
She
had
to jump.

She looked below. Holy shit! The ground appeared to
undulate, a writhing inky sea of shadowed asphalt that was easily a twenty-foot
drop.

Blake jumped onto the sill in a crouch. “Go!”

She took a breath and let go, sprawling onto the ground a
second or two later in a bone-jarring thud. Her pulse jerking, she looked up.
Blake leaped into the air, landing effortlessly on the balls of his feet with
his knees bent.

For a big man he was as graceful as a cat.

A half-thought edged her consciousness for one ludicrous
moment before Blake took her hand and dragged her upright.

“Are you all right?” he asked gruffly. At her jerky nod he added,
“Let’s go.”

They sprinted toward the end of the pitch-black alley where
dumpster bins cast big, menacing shadows along one side of the musty,
urine-scented brick walls. Blake abruptly stilled, tugging her against him as a
dark van screeched to a stop at the end of the alley, blocking their exit. “Act
like lovers.” His mouth covered hers and he kissed her with knee-knocking,
nerve-awakening skill.

This isn’t real…this isn’t real.

Yet the funeral, the adrenaline and danger of being hunted
like criminals, somehow, impossibly, all faded as his dark-spice scent teased
and beckoned, his arms shielding her and the tip of his tongue edging her lips.

It was beyond bizarre that this stranger made her feel safe,
secure—as though all the bad stuff in her life was no more.

He pulled her closer against him, her curves slotting
perfectly against his hard torso and his arousal straining against her belly.
She groaned, for one wild, shameless moment forgetting about everything but
feeling
again. She undulated against his cock, aching to have him right there
against the stinking wall if need be.

The muscles in his shoulders bunched, the rumbling of his
growl barely audible over her raging heartbeat when she jerked back, gasping
for breath, for sanity. “No!”

The van rolled out of sight. She pressed an unsteady hand to
her just-kissed mouth, stifling the chaos inside her mind, inside her body. She
was only glad the shadows hid her face, her reawakened body.

“We’d better keep moving,” Blake said thickly, sounding as
dazed as she felt.

She swallowed, dragging back sanity. “Of course.” Forcing
her legs to cooperate, she followed Blake from out of the darkness and across
the poorly lit street fronting the apartments.

He headed toward the parked motorbike. “The Ducati is yours,
yes?”

He’d seen her through the curtains?

She nodded stiffly. “Yes.”

Blake cursed as two men burst through the front door of his
apartment and charged toward them along the landing, their guns drawn. A shot
fired and Blake broke into a sprint, all but carrying her along.

She fumbled in her pocket, retrieving the Ducati’s key and
pushing it into his hand. She knew instinctively he could ride, and ride well.

He released her and in one fluid motion mounted the bike and
inserted its key. Giving it a twist the Ducati roared to life. She leaped
behind him, sliding close and snaking her arms around his waist.

Blake yanked her helmet free from the handlebars. It
clattered onto the asphalt. There was no time for anything but climbing aboard
and clinging tight.

The van squealed around the corner behind them, full pelt,
and Blake gunned the bike before accelerating at breakneck speed. “Hang on,” he
yelled, his words all but snatched away in the wind.

Her grip tightened. The red baseball cap tore off her head
in the sudden airstream. Another shot sounded. A bullet ripped through the air,
puncturing Blake’s shoulder with a dull thud she could hear even above the
headwind and the Ducati’s engine.

He grunted, but the bike remained steady and fast.

Heart in her throat, Alexia risked unbalancing the bike as
she twisted in her seat. Beneath the flickering streetlight she could just make
out the two men as they threw themselves into the van, the driver then spinning
the van’s wheels and giving chase.

She turned back, immediately distracted by the dark, shadowy
stain of crimson all too quickly coloring Blake’s shirt.
Oh, shit.
She
pressed the heel of her hand on his wound to stem the flow.

The muscles along his arm jerked, but she held on despite
his obvious pain. Blood was already pulsing between her fingers, the wind
pushing wet streams up her arm and beneath her sleeve before the blood caked
dry.

At an intersection Blake veered a sharp left, and she
automatically leaned with him, a part of the bike. At any other time, with the
wind madly whipping at her long, tied back hair, her clothes pressed snug
against her torso and this big, adept rider in front, she’d have given in to
the thrill of the ride.

Blake handled the Ducati with skill, winding in and out of
the tight traffic and the glare of oncoming headlights as though it was a walk
in the park. In the backstreets he easily outmaneuvered the less nimble van,
and eventually he cut under an old railway bridge and then headed northwest,
away from the city.

She frowned. Her hand was dripping wet with his blood. He
should be headed to a hospital, not away from one. He couldn’t possibly stay
conscious much longer.

But the city was hours behind them when he finally pulled
onto a dirt road, a full moon emerging from behind clouds and lighting the
barren countryside. He slowed further before he turned the bike onto another
road that was little more than a pot-holed track.

Over a small rise, open paddocks stretched before them,
eerie in their desolate, half-lit world. Down below, on one side of the track,
a huge, gnarled old fig tree spread shadowy branches out wide. A large
farmhouse framed the distant sky, and farther along, she could just make out a
white-railed picket fence that surrounded a barn.

Blake trundled the small distance to the fig tree and parked
the Ducati behind its trunk and overhanging branches. She slid off before he
dismounted with a ragged, barely repressed groan.

“You’ll bleed to death if we stay here,” she said, hating
that her voice trembled with anxiety and revealed how much she already cared
for him. She’d never had a long-term relationship. Though deep down she knew it
wasn’t logical, her mother’s death had taught her that to care for someone was
to feel deep hurt, loss and abandonment. Her father’s suicide had only cemented
that reasoning.

“The barn is safe enough,” he croaked.

“And you know this how?”

“Experience.”

At the wry humor in his voice, she couldn’t help but mutter,
“On the run a lot, are you?”

He didn’t answer, but she followed him regardless, trusting him
in this, despite the odd heaviness in her belly, the tightness in her chest.
Something didn’t sit right. But what did she expect? They were little more than
strangers thrust together because of a journal and a name. Not to mention some
men who’d tried to kill them.

She glanced sideways, looking up at his dark profile that no
doubt concealed a shitload of pain and a whole lot of answers she’d yet to
hear. She cleared her throat, suddenly hesitant, nervous. “Why were the men
shooting at us back there? Who were they? Do you know them?”

His steps didn’t falter. “They were following you. Probably
hoping you’d lead them to me. And no, I don’t know them.” He turned to her.
“But I know of them.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. Then staggered, before righting himself again.
His breath hissed and he clutched at his shoulder. He must have wrenched it.
Fresh blood stained his already wet shirt.

“Never mind,” she whispered, her belly churning. “Tell me
when you’ve had some rest.” She only hoped he didn’t bleed out first.

They detoured around the house and approached the barn,
where horses took shape out of the shadows. She climbed through the railed
fence after Blake. A couple of the horses whinnied, even more snorted and
stamped their feet, tossing their manes with their necks extended.

“Easy,” Blake soothed as one—clearly the stallion—galloped
toward them, squealing at the intruders. The horse snorted, his nostrils
flaring. The animal quivered as he seemingly picked up the scent of blood, and
Blake used his good arm to run a hand over his dark coat, settling him. “Steady
boy.”