Dark Paradise (3 page)

“Yup.”

“We’ll tag along.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want the company. Thanks just the same.”

“Listen, honey,” Elder said, “you’ll be lucky to reach the post alive with that bounty, knives or not. We’re going to trade as well. No reason we shouldn’t travel together. Obviously you don’t belong to a group.”

“There’s a reason for that,” she replied, a slow anger beginning to cover the cautious fear. “I don’t like groups. I don’t like company, period. So you and your colossal friend will do me the immense favor of fucking off.”

Elder laughed. “No, Cin Trinity. We don’t do favors. We’ll stick with you.”

Damn them. They thought to catch her off guard, steal her bag and knives, and leave her raped and battered body alongside an overgrown path somewhere between the caves and the trading post. But there was nothing she could do about it. Not yet, anyway.

“Suit yourselves, then. But fair warning. You get too close and I’ll release my knives. I swear it.”

Elder held up his hands, palms forward, his eyes wide and innocent. “We believe you, sweetheart.”

Mach merely glowered.

None of them moved. She rolled her eyes, sighing. “Look, I’m not giving you my back. If you insist on going with me, then we’ll walk side by side.”

“Fair enough,” Elder agreed.

First chance she got, she’d lose the bastards. Good thing she’d eaten a poe, otherwise they’d get her in her sleep. But they’d be the ones sleeping tonight, and that’s when she’d slip away.

They began their journey from the hill side by side, and by the time they’d reached the bottom, Cin had managed to widen the distance between them. Not by much, though. They edged ever closer, eyes straight ahead, pretending to ignore her.

“Tell your story.”

She started at the suddenness of Mach’s gruff voice and tightened her grip on her restless knives. She would have to holster them soon, or they’d rip themselves loose from her hands and dive for the first warm body they saw.

She shrugged. “I got none.”

“Everybody has a story, sweetheart,” Elder said, his voice softer but no less commanding.

She glanced at the two of them, their strong legs carrying them with long but casual strides that were checked, she could tell, in order to keep with her slower pace. Even as she watched them, they ended up somehow one on each side of her, and she wasn’t fooled for a single moment by their attempts to pretend they didn’t even notice.

“My story isn’t interesting,” she said and had to force her jaw to relax.
Bastards.

“How long have you been here?”

Again she glanced at Elder. She couldn’t tell yet who the leader of the two was but assumed Mach filled that position. Not only because of his hugeness, but because when she’d watched them making love, Mach was commanding the hell out of Elder. “Almost two years.”

“Two years without a group or even a companion? How have you survived?” Then Elder’s gaze lit on her knives. “The knives can only do so much.”

Mach just seemed to listen, to watch. He didn’t talk much. And that was the kind of company she preferred. She glared at Elder as one of her hands seized up in a painful spasm. “Why don’t you stop talking?”

“Put the fucking knives away before they get free and cut your throat. We’re not going to hurt you.” Elder seemed to have lost his patience.

Mach snorted, his contempt obvious. “She fears us.”

She turned her glare to Mach, but replied to Elder. “They wouldn’t hurt their mistress. You’d be the one in trouble. Which makes me wonder why you insist on taking such a risk going with me. I don’t have anything special. Killing me won’t get you anywhere. So why the fuck won’t you just leave me alone?”

Now it was Elder’s turn to shrug. “Because we don’t want to.” But he shot a quick, almost furtive glance across to Mach.

“I saw that,” she said. She stopped walking, knives held at the ready. “I want to know what you’re planning.
Now
.”

They stopped with her. Mach raised an eyebrow, and for a brief second, her mind flashed to an image of his naked ass as he thrust into Elder.

She shook her head to dislodge the memory. “Well?”

Elder spread his arms, a sheepish smile spreading across his handsome face. “You caught us, honey. We’re planning on waiting until you fall asleep before raping and killing you, stealing your bag and your knives, and then going on our happy way to the trading post.”

Again, Mach snorted. Maybe it was his way of laughing.

She narrowed her eyes, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “I can believe that.”

Mach put his hands on his hips and stared down at her, his dark eyes impatient. “Knives won’t stop me.”

Staring up at him, glimpsing the dark animal lurking in the savage depths of his eyes, she knew he told the truth. If he wanted her, or her goods, he’d take them.

“We’re protecting you, honey.”

She sneered. “Why would you want to protect me?”

Elder stuck out his bottom lip, then tilted his head. His hair, shorter and lighter than Mach’s, barely brushed his wide shoulders. “It’s not just you, sweetheart. Mach has a soft spot for the innocent and unprotected. We both took a vow long ago to offer our protection where it was needed.” He spread his hands, and the expression on his face was dead serious. “It’s what keeps us alive. We give back.”

She rolled her eyes. She’d wandered on to a couple of superstitious fruitcakes. “I don’t need or want your protection. I want to be left alone.”

Elder nodded. “Okay. We won’t force ourselves on you.”

“Zippers tonight,” Mach warned.

She shuddered. “I’ve faced them before.” Her hands shook, and she could hold Saint and Satan no longer. Carefully she holstered them. “I’ll be fine. I always have been.”

Mach’s cold gaze lit on her face, then traveled to her arms. “Liar.”

She rubbed her cramped hands, glad to be rid of the knives, caring nothing, or so she told herself, for the fact that Mach was eyeing the thin scars that crisscrossed her arms and dissected her left cheek. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

Elder walked to her, grasped her chin and stared into her eyes for an interminable moment. “Maybe.”

She jerked out of his hard grip. “Get away from me.”

Mach had already started walking away. “Elder.” His voice was soft, yet very, very commanding, and Elder snapped his gaze from her face to Mach’s back. “Leave her.”

Elder didn’t hesitate. With something close to shock, she watched them both walk away without a single glance back, their long strides taking them out of her sight within minutes.

She rubbed her arms. “Damn it.” But despite the doubt and regret clamoring in her gut, she refused to call them back. She didn’t need their company. Even if they were telling the truth about their attempts to offer protection, she couldn’t trust them. She’d become exhausted from the stress of traveling with people she couldn’t trust.

Trying with little success to put the mysterious duo from her mind, she hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and headed for the trading post. With any luck, she’d reach it in a couple of days.

If she survived the night, of course. If she survived the zippers.

Ripindal was full of monsters.

She made good time. Her dinner of poe kept her going, and she made only short, infrequent stops during the night to drink, check her feet, and take care of business.

The night sky began to lighten before the trouble came. She’d almost convinced herself the zippers wouldn’t find her, when they did.

Chapter Three

They slipped out of the strange reddish mist, and without a thought, she dropped to the ground. She was pretty sure she’d spotted them first. If she lay like a slug upon the ground without so much as twitching, they might miss her.

Her heart beat like the wings of a trapped hummingbird as she lodged herself between a rock and a broken tress stump, her breath held and stomach muscles clenched. Sweat ran down her face in itchy rivulets, but she dared not move to wipe it away.

Dread and numbing terror climbed from her stomach to her brain, and for one horrifying minute, she had to fight not to shut down and pass out. She couldn’t fight if she fainted.

She sank her teeth into her bottom lip, enough to cause a sharp pain but not enough to draw blood. The bastards would smell her out if she bled.

Her entire body trembled when she tried to force herself to draw in a slow, deep breath. The air wanted to burst from her mouth in loud desperation. Silently she gagged on her fear and waited. There was nothing else she could do.

She caught movement from her peripheral vision. The morning began to arrive too quickly, pushing back the black shadows and creating hiding places that were much less dense than she wished for.

Moving only her eyes, she watched the zippers slide through the semidarkness toward her. They were hideous.

Shaped like their namesake, they were as long and willowy as a small tree. They had no arms, but then, they didn’t need them.

Their colors were varied, but the majority of the zippers were a dirty gray with splotches of red that reminded one of old blood. Their faces were just a continuation of the long bodies, with no definition to speak of. They had small black eyes like beads and round mouths overcrowded with dozens of tiny, sharp protuberances that served as teeth.

When they came upon food—any being containing blood and bone—their fronts “unzipped” and sucked part of the prey in. The victim would be held fast as the zippers tore into flesh with no regard for the pain they caused.

Cin had seen the zippers feed twice and had almost been their dinner once. It wasn’t something she was likely to forget.

It was those tiny teeth that had given her the scars she carried. Well, most of them. She’d managed to escape, thanks in part to Saint and Satan, and in part to a hapless three-legged dog that wasn’t quick enough to get away.

The zippers fought over the dog, and she’d gotten away with her life.

Barely. Luck had saved her that night, but she had a feeling she was on her own this time.

She dared not move, even to reach for her knives. One twitch and the zippers would know she was there.

The zippers suddenly halted, and she nearly screamed. If they’d spotted her, she was as good as dead. She blinked sweat from her eyes.

They stood still as stones, mouths clicking in that odd, disturbing way they had of communicating. Then they came alive, twisting from side to side like vertical snakes. They knew something—or someone—was in the area.

Her.

Her sigh was shaky but made her feel marginally better. She’d go out fighting the bastards. She refused to let fear freeze her. She would not just hand herself over.

She took a deep breath, then exploded from her hiding place, drawing Saint and Satan as she found her feet. She screamed her war cry and released the eager knives, sending them like death darts toward the crowd of killer zippers.

As Saint and Satan took care of business, slicing and dicing the zippers, she could have run. Might have, even, but something else caught her gaze.

Two men burst from the shadows. In their fists were blazing torches, and with their own roars of challenge, they ran headlong into the fray.

She watched as Saint was pulled into the gaping maw of a yellowish zipper, and that was all it took to make her rage overcome her fear. She couldn’t lose her knives. They were all she had.

And with the two men there, her confidence was greater.

Then the zippers were engulfed in a smoky blaze, and she screamed as Saint disappeared. He’d burn, and die, and she’d be unable to handle Satan’s grief with his twin gone.

She threw herself toward the fire. Red heat kissed her naked hands as she clawed at the zipper, but before she could reach into the screaming creature’s mouth, she was jerked away and flung to the ground.

Mach leaned toward her. “Stay!”

“Saint!” she cried, her voice plaintive and desperate, aimed at Mach’s retreating back. “My knives!”

But if he understood or even heard her, she couldn’t know. He made no indication.

Cin had never been one to do as ordered, and she wasn’t going to start now. As Mach’s huge body stood outlined by the burning, fighting zippers, she pushed herself once more to her feet and ran toward the battle.

She knew her hands hurt, but it was as though the pain came through thick layers of gauze. She ran, arms pumping, boots kicking up clumps of sod, and dimly realized the zippers were calling more of their own. They converged upon the burning clearing like hideous and deadly ghouls, ready to protect their own and devour anyone who stood in their way.

But on her side were Mach, Elder, Saint, and Satan. Saint wasn’t dead; he sliced his way through the charred middle of the zipper and flew through the air after making a quick stop to check on and click hilts with Satan.

She laughed, unable to help it. Part of it was hysteria, but part of it was pure devilry and happiness at the chaos. She wasn’t alone in her fight; thus her fear was stomped away between the heels of her blood thirst.

“Bastards,” she screamed. “Satan, to me!” And surprisingly, he was more than willing. He flew to her right hand as though born there, and Saint followed his lead, landing in her left. She jumped at the zippers, slashing and striking and slicing, tearing through them as one would a thin piece of fabric.

She felt someone behind her and knew without looking that either Mach or Elder had her back. Elder then, for she caught sight of Mach when a zipper dropped dead to the ground, and for a second, her gaze met Mach’s dark one.

Beneath the rage and the killing, she felt a surge of sexual energy and knew if the battle were to end at that second, she would throw herself at the men and lose herself in fucking and the release it offered.

In moments, it was over. The dead littered the ground, some of them smoking, some still burning in a bright blaze, and Cin saw only two injured able to slip away.

Elder stabbed a burning but still living zipper as it writhed upon the ground, ending its misery.