Storm of Shadows (38 page)

Read Storm of Shadows Online

Authors: Christina Dodd

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #General

Her knees collapsed, the joints in her shoulders and elbows on fire from the strain. She screamed in agony and rage.
Someone bent close, put his head on the table beside her, and breathed garlic and rot in her face. “This is just the beginning, pretty girl,” he said, and jerked her arms again.
It was Louis Fournier’s security guard, Joscelin Deschanel, the guy with the cold, cruel face, the brute who had publicly accused her of Louis’s murder.
“You!” She could scarcely speak for the pain. “What are you doing here?”
“I came in with them.” He jerked his neck toward the fight she could hear going on behind them.
“You work for Fujimoto Akihiro?”
“No. But I was sent along to make sure nothing goes wrong this time. No matter what happens, I’m to clean up the mess.” And he smiled.
His smile was horrible.
He was going to make sure they all died.
“You want to watch?” He swung her off the table and, still holding her arms, dropped her to her knees.
She closed her eyes, battled the pain, then opened them. Because she did want to watch. She couldn’t stand not to watch.
Aaron fought. He climbed the bookshelves, reached the top, and shoved against the next bookshelf until it fell with a roar that scattered books and slammed two of the assassins to the floor.
Fujimoto screamed curses at his men.
Deschanel chuckled to hear them shriek in pain. “Smart. Good fighter,” he said to her. “Too bad about him.”
“You can’t kill Aaron,” she said.
Oh, God, please make it true.
“I can kill anyone.” Deschanel spoke English, but with a harsh accent, and he had no inflection in his voice. He might as well have been discussing accounting.
She knew she shouldn’t bring it up. She was afraid an accusation might anger him. But she had to say it. “You killed Louis.”
“I did. I was ordered to do so. I’m going to kill you, too. More orders. But with you, I can take my time.”
She couldn’t think of that. And she wanted to know—“Who gives you your orders?”
“I don’t know.” After a thoughtful pause, he added, “But I’m scared of him.”
“Scared of him.” Who, or what, could ever scare this monster?
Still in that reflective tone, Deschanel said, “Your boy’s hurt. As soon as they can get their hands on him, he’s done. There. See?”
One assassin caught Aaron as he tried to climb another bookshelf, and jerked him to the ground.
The impact made Aaron go limp for a crucial second.
The other assassin followed up with a kick to the ribs.
Aaron caught his foot and flipped him.
The assassin rolled, came to his feet, and tackled Aaron.
Then they had him. He groaned as they hauled him up to a standing position, and gasped as they punched his belly, over and over, heavy motions that drove deep.
Rosamund flinched as each blow landed, then stared as Fujimoto ran forward, yelling like a samurai warrior.
A wave of fetid breath once more washed over her as Deschanel said, “Watch this. The Jap has got one great revenge planned.”
With a flourish, Fujimoto opened his trench coat. From a specially built pocket inside the lining, he pulled an eighteen-inch samurai sword.
Rosamund was appalled. “Is he crazy? He can’t use a sword here in the library. He can’t—”
He can’t kill Aaron before my eyes.
She tried to spring forward.
Deschanel laughed and moved her arms higher.
She felt her shoulder dislocate; the bone came out of the socket in one slow, torturous movement. Red spots swam before her eyes; she thought she was going to throw up.
All the while, that hateful voice droned. “Fujimoto has a thing about being a samurai—fat chance he could ever be one. He’s short and weak, and refuses to practice his self-defense. But samurai beheaded their enemies, and he thinks that’s cool.”
Rosamund was barely hanging on to consciousness.
She suffered such agony. She wrestled with such fear. The tension, the anguish and the pain made her want to scream, and scream, and scream. But she couldn’t. She didn’t dare. Aaron was totally focused on Fujimoto and the sword, and if he could even have a chance of getting away, she couldn’t distract him.
Aaron didn’t look worried. He stood insolently, laughing a little as he said, “A little dramatic, aren’t you, Fujimoto?”
Fujimoto responded with a rapid spate of Japanese, and although Rosamund understood little of the language, she understood the tone—not complimentary, and very smug.
Then he barked out a series of commands.
The assassins bowed to him, then forced Aaron to his knees. One of them grabbed his hair and stretched his neck out.
“They can’t kill him. They can’t kill him.” Rosamund repeated the mantra over and over, but she didn’t believe it.
Her eyes were dry as she stared, and stared. She had already seen Aaron die once to save her. Then he’d returned to her and before she could touch him, hold him, know that he was Aaron and truly alive . . . he would die again, and in her defense.
She couldn’t stand this.
This was her fault.
Fujimoto lifted the sword above his head with both hands. The blade glistened in the light.
Rosamund braced herself for the anguish she knew would follow.
The sword whistled as it descended . . . and as the edge reached Aaron’s neck, he turned to smoke.
The blade passed through him.
Then he was human again. Human . . . and unharmed.
Rosamund collapsed in relief, and at last the tears came, rolling down her face, relief made real.
In unison, the assassins released him and backed off, their hands held out as if they feared having touched him.
In that dreadful monotone, Deschanel said, “Neat trick.”
Fujimoto stared at Aaron, examined the blade as if somehow it had malfunctioned, then stared at Aaron again.
Slowly Aaron got to his feet, his gaze fixed on Fujimoto.
“Your guy is pissed. If the Jap was smart, he would run,” Deschanel said.
Instead, Aaron hit Fujimoto with a lightning-fast right cross to the gut.
Fujimoto flailed backward, stumbled over the piles of fallen library books, and before he landed, Aaron grabbed him by the collar, stood him up, and hit him between the eyes.
Fujimoto’s head snapped back, and Rosamund saw his consciousness shatter.
The guy slammed into the floor. He was out.
The assassins—the two who were conscious—turned tail and ran.
The shelves behind Aaron were tilted sideways. Books were scattered across the floor. The other assassins sprawled beneath Aaron’s feet, unmoving.
Aaron turned to face Rosamund and Deschanel. His eyes were cold and deadly. “Come on.”
Deschanel dropped Rosamund to the floor.
She collapsed, her arms numb, her elbows burning, and the dislocated shoulder . . . oh, God. The pain came at her in waves, each wave bigger than the next. Yet she couldn’t do anything except roll into a ball under the table and make herself as small as possible.
“Don’t be stupid. I’ve got a pistol.” Reaching into his pocket, Deschanel pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Aaron.
To Rosamund’s inexperienced eyes, the pistol looked like a cannon.
Aaron seemed unimpressed. “Use it or shut up.”
Deschanel laughed, and when he did, he boomed like Jabba the Hutt. “I like you. But you knew that.”
“I don’t like you,” Aaron replied. “So I guess I’m going to have to kill you.”
Deschanel laughed again, a slow merriment that sat so gracelessly on his flat, cruel face. He placed the pistol on the table, and flexed his fists. “I will enjoy everything I do to you.” He took a step. “You won’t.”
Aaron watched Deschanel lumber toward him, step by step, a giant who lived to create pain and death, and Aaron’s face was calm, certain. He looked as if he were waiting.
When Deschanel was four feet away from the table, Aaron leaned down to the unconscious assassin at his feet. He opened the assassin’s coat and quick as lightning pulled the handgun out of its holster. Straightening, he emptied six shots, one after the other, into Joscelin Deschanel.
The noise was tremendous, six sharp reports, and Rosamund never saw it coming.
Apparently, neither did Deschanel.
For a second, nothing changed. He kept walking.
Rosamund thought that somehow, Aaron had missed.
Then, like a giant redwood, Deschanel tilted, staggered, and slowly toppled to the floor, slamming into the linoleum hard enough to rattle the table.
He wore an expression of surprise.
Aaron leaped Deschanel’s body, pulling his cell phone from his pocket, and ran to Rosamund’s side. He knelt, not touching her. “What did he do to you?”
“Dislocated my shoulder.” Woozy as she was, sick with pain and the trauma of seeing men fight, fall, die, she could only stare at Aaron with her hungry gaze, observing the tilt of his chin, the shining black hair, the bones of his face, so masculine and sculpted, the dark, dark eyes that scrutinized her anxiously.
“You’re going into shock.” He removed his coat and placed it over her shivering body, then dialed nine-one-one, gave the location, demanded immediate assistance.
With a measured moan of distress, Rosamund worked herself into a sitting position. Tears of pain welled in her eyes and rolled down her face.
“What are you doing?” Aaron tried to help her.
Slowly, painfully, she leaned her broken body into him. “I saw you hit by all those rocks. I held your cold body in my arms.” She kissed him, breathed his scent, and soaked in his comfort. “And I don’t care . . . if this isn’t really you. I don’t care if the Others are playing a trick. For right now, you’re mine, and I don’t dare ask for eternity.”
Chapter 39
“H
ey, Samuel, did you bust them out of jail?” Charisma stood in the kitchen in Irving’s mansion and hopped on one foot, nuclear with excitement.
“With the help of Irving’s crack law team, yes, I did.” Samuel stepped aside to allow Aaron and Rosamund to step in. “Here you go. Here are the reprobates.”
Through the hubbub that broke out, no one listened to Samuel as he said, “I suppose we’re required to have a group hug?”
Aaron grinned at his friends around the long table: Irving, getting to his feet with Caleb’s help; Jacqueline, sporting a new diamond engagement ring; Isabelle, glowing with refined happiness at the sight of them; Charisma rushing at him, arms wide. “No!” He stopped her with his hands outstretched. “We were not just in jail. We were in jail in the
hospital
.”
Charisma took a slow step forward and embraced him gingerly, then with an eye on Rosamund’s sling, embraced her just as gingerly. “You guys do look a little rough.”
Rosamund smiled at his friends. “I’m so glad to be here.”
“Yes, being here with us beats being handcuffed to a hospital bed,” Samuel said.
“Charming as always, Samuel.” Isabelle tapped her fingernails on the table, more ruffled by Samuel’s blunt speaking than Aaron thought was warranted.
Rosamund didn’t seem offended. “Having my shoulder dislocated is not an experience I want to repeat. Neither is having it put back in its socket.”
Samuel pulled out a chair for her. “Sit down before you fall down.”
She thanked him and sank into the chair so gratefully, Aaron said, “You need to go to bed.”
“No. Please.” She relaxed with a sigh. “I’m simply tired from the trip home, and now I want to sit here and enjoy my friends.”
Irving seated himself again—at the head of the table, of course. “I’m pleased you consider this your home.”

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