Claimed (12 page)

“Did you find anything good?” Chiana waved a hand toward the small stack of books.

“Couple of things.” Creed flipped to a marked page and shoved the volume toward her. “This is pretty interesting.”

He watched her face tighten as she read the paragraphs he pointed to. Until he’d read them himself sometime after midnight, he hadn’t considered the state of her hymen. Now knowing if she was a virgin was of paramount importance. Her cheeks reddened, but he wasn’t sure whether from anger or embarrassment.

Creed knew the time to ask about her sexual experience was when she shut the book and shoved it back to him. He would have done so if the server hadn’t shown up with the first tray of food. Chiana dug in, eyes on the plate rather than on him.

Despite their meals’ difference in size, they finished eating at nearly the same time. Offered more coffee, Creed readily accepted and asked for a full to-go cup as well. The caffeine was a blessed pick-me-up, and he wanted to keep it coming.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“No, I need to pee.” Chiana started to slide out of the booth; Creed’s arm stopped her.

“We’ve had this talk,” he said. “I worry about you, darling, when we’re not together.”

“Ha, ha.” Chiana shoved against his arm. “Let me out or, I’ll go right here on the seat.”

“You’ll sit in it, not me.”

“Seriously, let me out.”

Creed dropped his arm and released her. He watched as she started toward the other end of the diner, then abruptly stopped and turned. By the time she got back to Creed, he was on his feet and cursing the length of time they’d lingered at the table.

“What’s
he
doing here?” Chiana’s question came out as a near whisper.

“More importantly, how did your partner find us?”

Grabbing her hand, Creed headed toward a door with a sign marking it as an emergency exit only. Mick might look like just another customer to everyone else, but he saw trouble in the man’s hard steps and harder eyes.

An alarm buzzed when he slammed the red-striped arm across the door. A shout of “Hey, you can’t go out there!” followed almost instantly.

Creed started for his car at a dead run, Chiana right on his heels. Scenarios raced through his mind during the block-long dash, from bullets plowing into his back to Mick grabbing Chiana and dragging her away with him. The man might be her partner, but Creed was certain what mattered most to Mick were money and a promotion. If he’d figured out her secret, turning Chiana into the agency to study could easily get him both.

Blessing the mechanic who’d turned his standard engine into a powerhouse under the hood, Creed fired it up, hit the gas and roared out of the shelter’s parking lot.

“Mick’s pick-up,” Chiana said as they passed the restaurant. “He’s getting in it.”

This was definitely a complication they didn’t need. If Mick had his engine improved as well, the slim head start they had wouldn’t be enough. They needed a lucky break. Or an unlucky break for Mick, like a flat tire or his engine blowing.

Catching lights on yellow and ignoring the speed limit, Creed sped to an interstate entrance and rolled into the double-lane traffic between a semi-truck and a delivery van. Chiana turned in her seat beside him, watching for Mick’s truck to come into sight. As the miles slipped by with no sign of him, Creed slowed slightly and started thinking about a Plan B. The biggest question was Chiana’s in the diner—how
had
Mick found them?

“Got any tattoos?” he asked.

Chiana turned to him and said, “One. On my back.”

“Bingo.”

“What does that mean, bingo?”

“It means we’re going to visit another friend of mine.”

* * * *

Curses rolled from Mick’s mouth in a loud, steady flow. The bitch had gotten away. She was supposed to be with him, not that bastard Creed. Harrington expected them on the streets in another twenty-four hours, and he did not want to think about what the consequences might be if that didn’t happen.

He wiped a hand across his forehead, ridding it of sweat. Something was wrong with him. Probably something he ate. Damn food poisoning, probably. That would be his luck.

Food poisoning would explain the sweats if not the memory gaps and an odd floating sensation, like his body was acting independently of his brain.

A wave of nausea roiled over him. He slammed his foot on the brake, pulled to the shoulder, fell out of the truck and dropped to his knees. He planted his hands on the gravel as dry heaves wracked his body and welcomed the darkness as he lost consciousness.

Rhori slid out of the wasted body and resumed the familiar form of a raven. He tipped his head, watching the man through pitch black eyes flecked with gold. This man was no warrior. He was weak and unsuitable as a host. Yet he had knowledge of the woman. Rhori saw no choice but to use him until the mind and body broke.

He floated to the ground, landing by Mick’s shoulder. Flapping his wings, he cawed softly, willing the man to wake. Odin was waiting, and would not be satisfied until he had the woman before him.

Longing for his own plane raged through Rhori. He hated this world of hard surfaces and the loud noises belching from the metal boxes on the roads. Green fields that stretched as far as the eye could see in his land bore little resemblance to the patches of grass boxed in by fences. He’d watched people crowd into them, so near to one another and yet oblivious to all but their own wants and needs.

He cawed louder; Mick didn’t move. Rhori hopped onto the man’s back and pecked hard against his neck. When he was rewarded with a groan, he attacked Mick’s cheek with his beak until blood came. When the man’s eyes flickered open and his hand went to the wetness on his face, Rhori flew up to settle on a wire directly above the groggy man.

“What the hell?”

The words were more puzzled than angry. Rhori stared without blinking as the man pushed himself to his hands and knees, then shoved upright with a loud moan and curse words. He waited as his previous host bent over, consumed with dry heaves, and until he staggered to his large metal box and got in.

When the truck began to move, so did Rhori. The man needed rest, and Rhori was willing to be patient for a time. He wanted that body to be fully revived before he entered him again. This time, he refused to be denied his prize.

* * * *

Chiana leaned her head against the seat back, still not sure how her entire life could go to hell so fast. Until this morning, one hit every twenty-four hours of Wil’s magic serum, precisely timed, had kept her Valkyrie side calmed down and her human blood in control. Of course, that was before she’d been located.

A cold shiver ran through her at the memory of the cold hand against her skin, the whisper against her ear.

When she’d heard the harsh words, “You’re ours,” she had imagined some hell creature singling her out for execution, a demonic hit man with horns and a tail. That’s before the scent of scorched skin—her scorched skin—hit her, and before the pain of the brand downed her like a punch.

Her mother’s arm had borne the faintest trace of a similar brand. She’d passed it off as a drunken mistake from her youth. In her mother’s last days, as her life dwindled from her, Cryssa had confessed the marking’s meaning to Chiana. With a pain in her eyes deeper than that wracking her body, she shared their family history with Chiana.

“We’re almost there,” Creed said, breaking into her thoughts. “It won’t be long.”

A few minutes later, he yanked the SUV to the side of the highway and grabbed a cell phone from the glove compartment. Turning away, he punched in a number. She caught his end of the quiet conversation and wondered once again how insane she had to be to stay with this man.

“I need the vault,” she heard, followed by a quick, “I’ve got tagged cargo. Whatever else you have planned, cancel.”

The conversation didn’t take over 30 seconds. Chiana expected him to toss the phone back into the glove compartment. Instead, he slid out of the SUV. She leaned forward and watched through his open door as he pulled out the memory card and set it on fire. He smashed his booted foot on the phone, just as he had the tracer he’d taken from her bra the day before. After several hard stomps, Creed tossed the phone under the front tire, slid back in and dropped the vehicle into drive.

Chiana heard the thin crunch of cracking plastic as the tire rolled over the phone, and she reminded herself not to make this man mad. He had an interesting way of disposing of things he didn’t want anymore.

They rolled fast until the next exit. Creed slammed on the brakes to slide around the curve that took them off the interstate and onto a two-lane state road. A truck stop sat a few hundred yards away. Creed pulled into the paved lot and drove around the large, low building. He circled the idling semis, stopping at a building at the rear. Basically a box with aluminum siding, it boasted a large sign on the front that said
CB repair
.

Creed parked in the shadow next to the building. Turning off the engine, he pocketed the keys and said, “Let’s go.”

Chiana slid out and started toward the building.

“There.” Creed pointed toward a you-drive van a few yards away. He was in full alert mode, she realized, stiff with the same tension as a junkyard dog on a stormy night.

A man stepped out from behind the truck as they approached. The glare of the fuel center’s lights barely reached this far back, so Chiana caught only a general impression of the man. Tall, skinny, cowboy hat and full beard. The snap of his heels came from boots, she was certain. When he spoke, she caught a Texas drawl that fit that supposition.

“Hey, man,” came the twangy greeting. “We rolling or standing still?”

“Depends,” Creed said. “You got that thing upholstered?”

The man nodded. “Even Superman couldn’t see into this baby, it’s got so much lead lining it.”

“Good enough.”

Chiana lagged behind, wondering if she should get smart and make a run for it. Before she could decide, Creed stepped back and took her hand, as if he’d sensed her uncertainty. A flicker of electricity raced up her arm with that touch. She was certain he felt it too, because he held her hand loosely and dropped his grip as soon as they reached the back of the truck.

“Come on in,” the man invited, unlatching the back doors and flipping one open. Blocked by the door, Creed and the stranger, Chiana stepped inside.

It wasn’t what she expected. What should have been empty space looked like a back-alley doctor’s office. A long steel counter with drawers underneath took up one wall, and a sink was nestled in a corner. A rolling stool sat at the head of a sheet-covered metal cot, and a high-backed chair filled another corner. A small table next to the recliner held a gooseneck lamp; a magazine rack sat on the other side of the chair.

The most unusual aspect was the thick, vinyl covering on floor, walls and ceiling, reminiscent of the gym mats Chiana remembered from her phys ed days. The cowboy reached up, rapped near the top of the back wall and said, “See? Top security.”

Creed nodded and stomped his foot on the floor of the truck bed. His reward was a hollow thud.

“I told you, man. Lead overcoat.”

He turned toward Chiana and, with a courteous bow, said, “Call me Tex. It’s not my name, but it’s a helluva lot better than what my daddy stuck me with. You hungry? Thirsty?”

“I’m good.” Her appetite had been lost to the whorl of fear and dread rising inside her.

“Okay then.” Tex leaned against the counter. “What can I do for you today?”

“Ask him.” Chiana nodded toward Creed, who watched with narrowed eyes. He kept his gaze on her as he moved closer to Tex and spoke too softly for Chiana to hear. His actions grated. The high-handed son of a bitch had no right to ignore her. She was off for two days. She should be snuggled down on her own couch with a movie and a delivery pizza, not stuck in the middle of Creed’s secret agent fantasy.

Or maybe it was a kidnap fantasy. He’d sent Mick away, after all. Wil, too. For all she knew those drawers held weird-ass bondage gear. Her anger simmered hotter. If those two guys thought she was going to lie down like a sacrificial lamb…

“Hey, asshole.”

She smiled as Creed’s eyes widened. She always could get a man’s attention.

“We got a problem here?” Tex asked.

Creed studied the woman across from him. Something was making her angry. Maybe the confinement or the uncertainty of the whole situation. Her face was tight, her stance aggressive. Her fingers twitched like she would love to take a swing at someone or something.

“No problem,” he said, forcing himself to stay calm. It was time to find out if that spell was more than a bunch of words.

A few long steps closed the space between them. Chiana’s attention stayed on him, although she flinched when he slung an arm around her shoulders. Creed felt her body slump as the fight went out of her. He let out a long breath of relief. The relief became something else as Chiana turned and curled against him, her breasts tight against his chest, slipping her thigh between his legs.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she whispered, her hand moving along his jaw. The tone was that of an apologetic lover, her words as velvet as her touch. Creed’s pulse grew faster and he began to feel that now-familiar ache of need.