Blood and Bone: (Royal Blood #6) (14 page)

W
hen you’re encased
in total and complete darkness, any light is blinding.

When my prison shattered above me, at first I thought angels of death had come to take me away. Two men stood haloed by the light, their hands grabbing my limbs and hauling me from my tomb. They were coming to take me to hell.

The angels wore the faces of Jackson and X, which was weird as fuck. X was dead. If he was anything in the afterlife, it was a demon made of fire. Lucifer’s right-hand man.

“Mercy!
Thank fucking God,
” X exclaimed, his arms closing around me.

Shit, the oxygen deprivation had gone to my head, and I was hallucinating. It was the only explanation.

As oxygen filled my lungs, I began coughing and rolled onto my side. Jackson was there, and it was the Jackson I remembered. No wings, just perspiration and a dirty face. Did Jackson dig me up? Well, I’ll be damned.

“Moltke’s going to murder everyone in MI6,” I muttered. “He said he saw Vesper die. Lorelei…” I swallowed. “What he did to her was the same as Vesper. He wants revenge on us all…”

“We know,” the apparition that looked like X said. “We know. He’s got the hard drive and the Veltium-34. It’s only a matter of time before he strikes.”

“He’s moved up his timetable…” I said. “We have to warn them… In three days, he’ll have what he needs to complete…to complete the weaponization of the Veltium-34… Then… I don’t know how, but he’ll use it.”

“Leave it to me,” Jackson said. “I’ll make sure they get the intel.”

I pushed my shaking body into a seated position and peered at the hallucination. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen X when I shouldn’t have. When I’d been tortured by The Watchman, I’d projected him into a familiar scene. The field outside the cottage, the stars stretching over our heads into infinity. X loved the stars.

“Do you see that?” I asked Jackson.

“See what?” He glanced around the graveyard.

“Him.” I jabbed a finger at X…or the figment of my imagination. I wasn’t sure which to refer to him as.

“Mr. Blood?” Jackson asked, cocking his head to the side.

“Mr. Blood?” I asked, turning on my ass so I faced X. “
Mr. Blood?
”

“She thinks I’m a hallucination,” he drawled. “Give her a minute.”

“How do you know when the minute is up?” Jackson asked in his own unique and clueless way.

My mind was like a raging whirlpool of emotions and pain as I took deep breaths. X was dead, and then X was alive. Jackson could see the apparition just as clearly as I was seeing it now. Slowly, oxygen began fueling my brain, and reality became tangible.

Putting two and two together, I raised my hand and slapped X in the face as hard as I could. My palm cracked against his skin, forcing his head to the side.

He raised his hand and started rubbing his jaw. “
That’s
how you know.”

“
I thought you were dead!
” I shrieked at him. “
I thought you were gone!
”

“Calm yourself,” X soothed. “You’re in shock.”

There was no way in hell I was listening to anything he had to say. I lunged, throwing myself on him, and he fall backward onto the grass with me on top. He winced as I battered my fists against him, but I hardly noticed the change in his expression.

“You left me, you left me,
you left me!
”

Sitting, he wrapped his arms around me, forcing my body against his in an attempt to calm the raging storm I’d whipped myself into. Hurricane Mercy.

“Shh,” he soothed. “I’m here, Mercy. I’m here.” His lips brushed against my forehead as I sank against his chest, the fight bleeding from my limbs. “I’ll explain everything, but we need to get you out of here, okay?”

“You’re not dead?”

“I’m not dead.”

Tears began to spill down my cheeks as he lifted me into his arms, and I was vaguely aware of being carried through the darkness and placed in a car. Grasping X’s arm, I prodded at the blood that soaked his T-shirt and ran down his bare arm.

“A scratch,” he whispered.

Letting my arm drop, he fastened my seat belt and climbed into the driver’s seat. Whatever happened next, I didn’t know. Knowing I was safe with Jackson and X, I allowed the darkness to take me again.

W
hen I finally surfaced again
, I was lying on the bed in the hotel room Jackson had found for us. The same bed I’d lain in and let my anguish at X’s death try to take me.

Blinking, I focused on the body that lay next to me.

“Where’s Jackson?” I asked X. He was beside me, his back against the headboard, his fingers probing his shoulder.

“He’s gone to report your intel to MI6,” he replied, reaching for one of those square sticky bandage things doctors stuck on wounds at the hospital. Whatever they were called.

I pushed myself up, ignoring the fatigue that still clung inside my head, stuffing it up with cotton wool. “You’re hurt…”

“Moltke shot me,” he said like it was akin to getting a scratch. “What I want to know is how you overpowered that assassin.”

I took a deep breath. The assassin… “Jackson shot him,” I said and shook my head. “He… He had a photo of you…”

“Jackson mentioned something like that,” X mused. “I’m sorry you believed…” He hesitated and glanced at me, his expression dark.

“It was a message,” I said. “He knew about your compulsion, and he used it to send me a message… That’s how I knew…”

“Moltke believes I’m dead,” he said dryly. “And I would have been if it wasn’t for Hawkes.”

I paused. “Hawkes?”

“The old fucker dove into the Thames and fished me out,” he said, leaning against the headboard. “He took me back to his safe house and dug out the bullet.” Glancing at his shoulder, he prodded the wound that now looked ugly and red. “I messed up his stitches.”

“Hawkes…” I’d all but forgotten that I’d enlisted his help to get a message to X. Had I led him into a trap without knowing? “The meet for the stolen hard drive was another trap, wasn’t it?”

X nodded. “Couldn’t be helped. I knew what I was risking, and I went anyway.”

“
Fuck
.” I rubbed my eyes. “And Hawkes followed you.”

“As far as Hawkes is concerned, we’re even as it gets.” He glanced at me. “Lorelei got out of the UK safe.”

A little of the pressure weighing on my heart lifted. “Good.”

I closed my eyes for a moment and rolled away from him. He moved with me like I was a gravitational force pulling him in. I lay for a moment, feeling the pressure of X’s legs against my back.

“X…” I hesitated, not knowing how to explain the pain that had split me in two when I believed he was gone.

“I know,” he replied.

Of all the emotions swirling through me at that moment, the one I chose to grab onto was anger. X left me. X could have died. Moltke buried me alive. Moltke almost killed X. X left me. He’d promised he would never leave again, and what did he do?
He left.

“You left me,” I said, beginning to grind my teeth.

“I had to leave to protect you,” he said. “It was the only thing I could do.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I spat, turning so I could see him. “You made me a promise after we escaped The Watchman. Always and forever. You and me until the end. You left and almost got yourself killed. Then I almost got taken out by a fucking assassin.” My voice began to rise, my anger getting dangerously close to overwhelming me. “I felt like dying. When I thought you’d died,
I wanted to die with you
.” I pushed myself to my knees, the mattress rocking. “I can’t fucking believe you let me think you were dead!” Straddling him, I jammed my palm against his gunshot wound.

His expression contorted in pain, and he grasped my wrist, flipping me back onto the bed. Pinning me down with his weight, he lowered his lips to mine.

“Always and forever, Mercy,” he murmured.

I seethed, my gaze burning into his. I wanted to tell him that he’d broken my heart and the unfaltering trust I’d placed in him. I wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt me…and he knew it.

How did I know he wouldn’t do something like this again in the name of love?
I didn’t
. I didn’t, but that was the risk I had taken when I’d pledged my soul to him.

“I fucking hate you for leaving me,” I hissed.

“No, you don’t,” he murmured, his lips brushing against mine. “You’re angry. That’s a very different emotion to hate.”

“So you’re the emotion king now?” I scoffed. “
That’s rich
.”

His mouth closed over mine, his tongue wrapping greedily around mine. Despite how pissed off I was with him, my body exploded underneath his touch, and I found myself fumbling with the button on his jeans.

“I hate you,” I mumbled between kisses. “Absolutely fucking loathe you.”

“If it feels like this, then loathe as much as you like,” he replied, ridding me of my top.

He pulled my arms above my head, forcing my breasts to jut upward, and as he latched onto one, then the other, I wriggled underneath him.

“You know you were the only thing that went through my mind when I was falling…” he murmured, letting my wrists go and moving down my body.

When he fell? Oh, the river…

“I don’t remember hitting the water,” he went on, unzipping my jeans. Kissing the spot just above my underwear, he added, “I fell, I saw the water, then…” He yanked my jeans off, exposing my pussy and forcing my legs apart. “Then all I saw was you. Mercy Reid…”

I gasped as his tongue rasped the length of my most private part—the part of me that was reserved only for him, no matter how much of a fucking asshole he’d been—and sucked on my clit,
hard
.

“
Ugh
,” I grunted. “Fuck you.”

“I’m in the process of fucking you,” he replied, sliding a finger into my wetness. “I almost died, and then I almost lost you. I intend to reunite with you hard and fast, Mercy Reid.”

Like I just realized the gravity of what we’d been through in the space of a few days, my eyes opened, and I moaned loudly. “
X
.” He climbed up my body, his erection pressing against my opening, and an overwhelming need came over me. “Don’t leave me.”

He thrust, his cock driving deep, and I clutched him to me.

“I won’t,” he replied, his breath heavy against the curve of my jaw. “
I won’t leave you again
.” He pulled out and thrust again, sending a spike of pleasure racing through my body. “You and me until the end.”

His mouth found mine, his tongue tasting every inch of me as we fucked. We forged our love anew, relishing the primal connection we shared during sex, the world and its fucked up problems falling away until it was just me and X.

We’d face our next challenge sooner rather than later, but for now…we were alive and in each other’s arms. That had to count for something.

You and me until the end
.

I
fucked Mercy hard
, pounding into her to remind her what we shared transcended any one stupid argument…
no matter the consequence.

I spilled my seed into her, coming and coming until I could give nothing more, and then fell beside her. Cradling her spent body against mine, I allowed her scent to sink into my senses until Mercy Reid was everything. She’d been through so much tonight…so much anguish. It was my fault she’d sought revenge on Moltke, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it.

“You risked yourself by going into that factory,” I said, breaking the spell our fucking had woven over us. “It was unacceptable.”

“Our entire lives are about risks,” she spat at me. “I was reacting in the only way I knew how.”

“By throwing yourself in headfirst like you did at the wharf?”

“Don’t turn this back on me,” she exclaimed. “Don’t you fucking dare make this my fault.”

“I took a calculated risk,” I drawled. “Your risk was reckless. If our lives are about risks, then we should talk about the nature of them.”

“Are you calling me a hypocrite?” she asked, another storm brewing.

“We’re both big fucking hypocrites,” I retorted. She jammed her finger against my shoulder, and I hissed. “I’ll never heal if you keep doing that.”

“Stop being a fucking ass, then.”

“You know me better than anyone ever has,” I said, grasping her breast and twisting her nipple. “Deep down, you understand why I do the things I do.
There is always a reason
.”

She hissed, arching her back and forcing her body against mine. “Don’t try to justify your shitty decisions, X. Just admit you stuffed up, and say you’re fucking sorry.”

“Admit that I was wrong?” I asked, lowering my lips against her skin. Sinking my teeth into the swell of her soft breast, I bit down hard.

She moaned as she fisted her hands into my hair and then pulled my mouth away. Before I could pin her with my weight, she flipped me over, turning the tables of power in her favor. Damn, I’d taught her one too many tricks, but I did love it when she was on top…

“
Don’t
,” she hissed, her eyes blazing. “You’ve had your fill of fucking me into submission for one night.”

“I haven’t fucked you for control in a very long time,
Mercy Reid
.”

She snorted and climbed off me, clearly hurt.

I watched with narrowed eyes as she pulled her clothes on hastily, finishing her haphazard ensemble with her boots. Opening the bedroom door, she paused, her jaw tense.

Glancing back at me, she snarled, “Leave me again and I’ll kill you myself.”

The door slammed behind her, and I was left alone to stew in the mess of my own making.

An agent never left his partner, and a man never left his woman…and I’d done both, setting of a chain reaction that could have cost the very life I was trying to protect. I’d hurt Mercy more than I ever had before…all in the name of love.

Emotions got you killed, and emotions were what saved me. I didn’t know how to balance the two, but at least I was smart enough to know I’d fucked up big time.

It should have been me in that hole.