Harlequin Nocturne March 2014 Bundle: Shadowmaster\Running with Wolves (7 page)

“She ain't available. I'll tell her you asked after her when she's free.” He began to close the door, but Phoenix wedged her boot in the crack.

“What's your name?” she asked.

“Repo.”

“Where's Sammael?” she asked. “Did something happen to him?”

“Why do you think that?”

“I've heard a lot of arguing, but not his voice.”

Repo shrugged.

“He didn't return with your crew, did he?”

“That ain't none of your business. It ain't smart to pry into stuff that ain't your business, not in the Fringe.”

“It's my business when he's the one who's supposed to get me out of the city.”

“He's Boss. He can do what he wants, and he don't report to nobody. If your info checks out, he'll keep his word.”

The door groaned as Repo closed it behind him. Phoenix hardly noticed.

If your info checks out,
the man had said. So Brita
had
been lying about Sammael already knowing that Phoenix had been telling the
“truth”
about her information.

But why? Just to throw Phoenix off her guard even more? Someone's voice—a man's—rose above the others Phoenix could hear in another part of the building.

Sammael's. He was back. Safe.

Finding her way to the bed, Phoenix sat down heavily. She felt as if she had won a sudden and unexpected reprieve from some terrible punishment, and yet she was ashamed. Ashamed that she'd cared about Sammael's welfare, not just about losing her chance to learn the nature of his connection to Drakon.

Ashamed that she could imagine his fingers pushing her hair back as tenderly as he had the boy's, speaking to her just as gently.

Could she make him care for her? Not simply desire her, but care in a way that he wouldn't want her to leave his side until his work was done?

No. She had to concentrate on what she knew was real...the sexual desire he refused to act on for reasons of his own. If it was weakness he feared, she had to make him believe he was in no danger of falling into a trap by making love to her. If it was her dhampir blood that drew him to her, so much the better. He wouldn't give himself away by trying to take it, but there still might be a way to use his craving against him.

If
Brita hadn't already told him that Phoenix was part Opir.

* * *

It had been a very close call.

The crew was nervous, exchanging uneasy whispers, fidgeting, glancing right and left as if they expected Enforcers to burst in on the Hold at any moment.

That, Drakon thought, wasn't going to happen. The men and women who'd finished up with the shipment had narrowly escaped the Enforcers, it was true, but they weren't anywhere near the Hold, and the crew would settle down once they knew they were safe.

But every moment of the debriefing, as Drakon covered each small error and moment of nearly fatal inattention, he thought of Lark. He had been thinking of her when they had been in the midst of unloading the shipment of produce and hiding it as close to the city Wall as possible, in preparation for bringing it through after the next nightfall made it safer to move the material.

He'd been thinking of her when they'd run into the Enforcer patrol soon after releasing the fugitive humans. He'd thought of her when he had come so very close to capture—to losing his life, since he was required and intended to die first—after he'd deliberately caught the Enforcers' attention and led them on what once had been commonly known as a
“wild-goose chase.”

And he'd imagined her body, her warm lips, her welcoming arms as he made it to the Hold just before dawn, half regretting that he had survived. Knowing that she had, at best, offered herself to him only because it was a way of buying her escape from the Enclave.

Knowing, too, that she might even have been behind the Enforcers' attack.

Now, as he discussed the operation with his crew, he could think only of going to her. Brita had moved Lark to new quarters—ignoring Drakon's express orders to keep her firmly locked up in his room—and had reported that their
guest
had been very cooperative ever since.

Perhaps
too
cooperative.

Recalling himself to the task at hand, Drakon finished the debriefing. “Go eat and rest,” he said, rising as he dismissed the crew. Brita and most of the others left, but a few lingered.

“What you gonna do now?” Shank said with a leering glance. “Go check on the client, maybe give her a little personal attention?” He glanced around the table at the others who had remained. “It's
her
fault there're so many Enforcers around, whether they're really chasing her or she brought them with her.”

Drakon walked around the table and backhanded the human, sending him flying halfway across the room. It was always a risk to display his more-than-human strength, but he had to keep Shank in line before he encouraged others to defy his Boss.

When Shank lifted himself off the floor, groaning and swearing, Drakon was standing over him.

“You can leave now,” he said, “or stay and keep your mouth shut. But if you run and pass on information that can damage this Hold or any of the crew, I will personally hunt you down. Understand?”

Shank wiped his bloody lip with the back of his hand. “I get it,” he said sullenly.

For a moment all Drakon could do was stare at the blood on Shank's mouth. Fresh blood. So long since he'd had it. So easy to take.

So deadly to his purpose.

“Sleep,” he told the others, quickly backing away. “I'm sending most of you out tonight to finish the job. Those who don't want to risk it and forfeit their share of the profit are free to do so.”

With many glances at the unfortunate Shank, the last of the crew filed out of the meeting room. Drakon spent a good half-hour walking aimlessly through the corridors, trying to convince himself not to go to Lark's new quarters. He didn't succeed.

He found the lock broken, but if the prisoner had made any attempt to escape, Brita hadn't reported it. Lark was standing in the center of the small, damp room as if she had been expecting him.

“Did you do it?” he demanded, striding to stand directly in front of her, toe to toe, face-to-face.

She searched his eyes, her own slightly moist, as if she'd been weeping. “Do what?” she asked.

“Bring the Enforcers in to hunt us down?”

“What are you talking about?”

He grabbed Lark by the shoulders, not gently. “You know. And now I have reason to think we were almost ambushed because of you.”

“Ambushed?” Her chin jerked up. “You seem to have forgotten that Brita was with me all night.”

Of course Lark was right. Brita had been very clear on the matter, though she obviously trusted Lark no more than she had before. “That means nothing,” he said, “if your plan was to make everyone in the Fringe believe the Enforcers were only interested in you, and that everyone else was reasonably safe.”

Shaking him off, she gave him a look of utter contempt. “Safe?” she said. “I'm not telepathic, able to figure out where you and your crew were going to be doing
‘business'
last night.”

Her logical response hardly set Drakon at ease. In the year he'd been leading his crew, not once had they walked into a trap. When it had finally happened, the one who might be responsible had a clear-cut alibi.

And Lark's sincerity—now that he was with her, smelling her, feeling her heat—only increased his uncertainty.
Someone
among the crew would have had to inform the Enforcers, but it hadn't been this woman.

That would mean he had a traitor among his crew. And that he couldn't accept.

Why?
he asked himself,
when
you
are the ultimate traitor?

“How many Enforcers attacked you?” she asked, her brow creased in a very good approximation of worry.

“Nine,” he said, his anger draining away.

“Nine.” She laughed shortly. “Even if Brita hadn't been here and I'd been in touch with the Enforcers, do you really think I'd have thought that nine of them would be enough to take on you
and
your crew?”

Once again, Drakon had to admit that she was either the best liar in the Enclave or he was the greatest fool here
or
in Erebus.

But one fact couldn't be denied. The Enforcers were in the Fringe because of Lark, one way or another. Ultimately, she would have been the cause if any of the crew had been caught or killed.

And she was
his
responsibility.

He turned away from her and paced across the room. “What am I to do with you?” he asked.

“You haven't checked out my information, have you?”

“When would I have done that?” he demanded, turning to face her again.

Lark shrugged, a slight shift in her expression suggesting that she had been about to speak and had thought better of it. His suspicion flared again.

“Look,” she said, “put me in a concrete-walled cell with a bucket and a pile of straw, if that'll make you feel better. But I can't tell you anything I don't know, or confess to something I didn't do.” She returned to the bed and lay down, closing her eyes as if she knew she had nothing to fear. “Maybe you should look among your own people for a leak. And tell me if you find anything interesting.”

Chapter 7

L
ark's dismissive manner aroused Drakon's anger all over again. “You seem very comfortable here all of a sudden,” he said, moving closer to the bed.

She opened her eyes and sighed. “You may have noticed by now that I'm not the type to beg and whimper. Believe it or not, I don't want anyone to get killed on my behalf. The sooner you can get me out—”

“We know they're watching the Wall much more carefully than they ever have before,” he said. “We have one last job to finish, but after what happened this morning, I'm not taking my crew out again until I can find a way to solve our current problem.”

She sat up, her back against the wall, plucking at the tumbled sheets. “Okay. I've accepted that I may be here for a while. What else do you want me to say?”

Drakon wondered what he
did
want her to say. He turned to leave.

“Brita and I had a talk while you were gone,” Lark said.

Very much on his guard, Drakon turned again and stalked toward her. “What kind of a talk?” he asked.

“Well, first she moved me out of your room. She didn't say it right out, but I think she was worried that you'd fall prey to my feminine wiles.” Lark grinned, an expression which, under the circumstances, seemed more than a little crazy. “But we know that didn't work, don't we? You're not interested.” She sobered again with the same startling suddenness. “Brita did seem to want me to understand you better, or at least what you do here. I don't know why.”

Neither did Drakon. “What did she say?” he asked, taking up his pacing again.

“She told me what you do for the people of the Fringe, and how well you treat the convicts you smuggle out of the city.”

Drakon almost laughed. In his former life, he hadn't been able to ignore the suffering here, though for the first few years he'd tried to block out everything he hadn't wanted to see. In so many ways, he'd been far worse than merely blind.

Now he saw far too much. And what he did now could never make up for what was coming.

“Is this why you feel so safe?” he asked harshly. “Because Brita told you these stories about my many kindnesses? You shouldn't believe her.”

He felt her gaze tracking his agitated strides across the room and back again. “I was wrong about you,” she said. “You know, since I came here, I've seen things I never let myself think about before. I've had a real look at people who don't have anything except a tiny government stipend to live on, no decent housing, never enough food. People who have to scrounge for whatever they can find to make life bearable.”

“And how do you feel now that you know these things?” Drakon asked without slowing his pace.

“Helpless,” she said. “Even if I stayed in San Francisco, I wouldn't know how to make a difference.”

She couldn't make a difference, Drakon thought. No one could, not with the Enclave run as it was now.

Again and again he had tried to justify his purpose here. What he was going to do... Could it result in anything worse than what already existed in this city?

Yes, the death of one important man might achieve what the Citadel intended. The entire Enclave might collapse from within. He couldn't pretend otherwise.

But the Opiri seemed to forget, again and again, how resilient and stubborn human beings could be. The mayor's assassination and the resulting chaos might finally force the government, with all its corruption, to acknowledge the weakness in the system they had built since the end of the War. The Senate would realize that simply stopping the tribute wouldn't lead to peace, only a conflict as bad as or worse than the one before. But the Enforcers and their reign of terror would have to come to an end, as well.

A new way would have to be found. The Enclave could even become stronger, able to fully hold its own against Erebus far into the foreseeable future. And if it did, Erebus would also have to change.

So he told himself, when he was at his weakest. When he doubted. When he thought of the Scrappers and those desperate to avoid deportation, the ones his guilt and former convictions bound him to help.

When he forgot to hate.

“There's nothing you can do,” he said, coming to a stop.

“But something has to be done, doesn't it?”

Once again she threw him off balance, leaving him with an anger that could only turn on itself. “What do you suggest?” he asked, wondering what she'd say if she knew what he was.

“All it takes is more people doing what
you
are. And if...” She swallowed and looked up. “If you need to turn me in to the Enforcers so you can keep doing it—”

“You'd surrender so easily, after all the trouble you've gone to in order to escape?”

“So you
do
believe that's what I want?”

He released an explosive breath. “If you were like this with your former employers, I wonder why they didn't strangle you long before you had the opportunity to access that restricted information.”

“They were tempted more than once, I imagine,” she said, bitter self-deprecation in her voice.

Drakon moved closer to her. “You weren't happy there,” he said. “Maybe the blackmail wasn't just because you needed money.”

“Do you want my employment history now? My résumé, perhaps? Do you have a position in mind?”

Now, Drakon thought, was not the time to tell her the position he imagined her in.

“Who are you, Lark?” he asked, suddenly needing to know. To know
everything:
about her past, her likes and dislikes, her family, all the little secrets she kept from him.

“I could ask you the same,” she said. “You're a mass of contradictions. The difference between us is that you're already trying to change things, even if it's only a little at a time.”

“I'm no hero,” he said.

“Most heroes don't think they
are,
” she said.

“Don't worry, Lark,” he said, leaning over her. “There's no need for all this noble posturing. I
will
get you out of this city.”

Her gaze dropped to her lap, and Drakon could feel himself beginning to slide down a dangerous slope, one that called on an emotion even more deadly than sympathy. His body was causing him enough trouble, reminding him that becoming an Opir far from reduced physical desire. In many ways the transformation only increased it, especially if there was blood involved.

For the hundredth time he tried, unsuccessfully, not to imagine that slender neck bent back, those breasts bared to his mouth, those strong, round thighs open beneath him....

Her touch snapped him out of imagination and into a reality more jarring than anything he could create in his mind. Suddenly, her face was very close to his, her scent swirling about his head like the most potent aphrodisiac.

“Posturing,” she said, the word hardly more than a breath. “Is that what you think I'm doing? Ready to make the ultimate sacrifice like some heroine stepping in front of a train to save a crowd of orphans?”

The image almost made him laugh, though it really wasn't funny at all. Sacrifices weren't always noble.

“It's not just for them, you know,” she said softly, her fingertip brushing his chin.

He caught her hand to still it. “What are you talking about?”

“Brita told me you almost died out there.”

His body shut down cold. “Brita? But you said she spoke to you before I—”

“She came here again as your meeting was breaking up,” Lark said. “She had a lot of the same questions you did about how the Enforcers might have found you. She said you were solely responsible for leading the Enforcers away, and that you'd never have let yourself be taken alive.”

He stepped back, his movement as jerky as a newborn foal's. “She wasn't with us. I was never in any danger.”

“She said Repo told her otherwise.”

Furious with both Brita and Repo, Drakon started for the door again. Moving more quickly and silently than he would have thought possible, Lark stepped right into his path.

“I'm sorry,” she said quietly. “I'm truly sorry I brought this down on you.”

Drakon tried to brush her aside without hurting her. “There's no need for this,” he said.

“It's not because I'm attracted to you, though I am,” she said, holding her ground. “Maybe it's something I just...” She looked away, flushing. “I feel for you.”

“Feel?”
he repeated mockingly. “In a little more than twenty-four hours you've developed...
feelings
for someone you don't know, a Fringe criminal, because of a few fairy tales?”

“You wanted to know about me,” she said. “I've been alone most of my life. Both my parents died when I was quite young. I developed certain instincts. I learned something about reading people. I learned well enough that I was able to pass the gov exams and get a decent position without any help or any connections.”

“And yet these
‘instincts'
initially told you that I stole from the desperate and that I could be sexually manipulated,” he said. “And I seem to remember that you got yourself into trouble by blackmailing someone you should have left alone.”

“Those were both mistakes,” she said quietly. “But I don't think I'm making a mistake now.”

“And you tell me this...why?” he snapped, alarmed at the emotion her words seemed to be awakening in
him
. “What more do you have to gain?”

“Your life.”

“I've given strict orders that if anything happens to me, Brita will still get you out.”

“You almost speak as if you wish you were dead.”

Her insight hit him hard. How often had he wished just that, unable to shake off either the memories of the old life or the obligations of the new?

“I think you lost something very important to you,” she said. “Some
one
. I did, too. Maybe that's why—”

“You know nothing,” he snarled, pushing her aside. But she caught at him with unexpected strength and swung him around. She rose on the balls of her feet and kissed him, recklessly, hungrily, as if he were her only connection to life—not merely survival, but life itself.

And he lost the battle. Every human and Opir instinct deserted him, the knowledge that this was dangerous...wrong, according to his old code, the code he'd been forced to set aside when he'd been converted. It had been so long since he had wanted a woman this much. So long since he'd done more than simply satisfy his carnal urges.

It wasn't like that with Lark, and he didn't know why. He couldn't make sense of it. Admiration for her courage and level head wasn't enough. Her concern for him—her
feelings
—weren't enough.

But suddenly his tongue was thrusting between her lips and her hands were digging into his back as he cupped her bottom. She pressed her hips against him, rubbing his swollen cock through his clothing and hers.

A few moments later they were on her slightly sagging bed, and Drakon wasn't thinking at all. There were endless seconds of urgent fumbling as he worked at the buttons of her borrowed shirt and she his fly.

There was no undressing. He suckled on her nipple through her thin T-shirt as she kicked off her pants. He didn't even bother to remove the slip of damp, silky cloth beneath; he simply pulled it aside and thrust into her wetness, some part of him remembering to move slowly until her thighs tightened around his waist to draw him deeper. After that it was all fast, hard rhythm and Lark's little gasps and moans, her back arching and her eyes closed, murmuring the occasional hoarse demand that he move still harder and faster.

Somehow, they both made it last. When he felt himself, or her, come too close to completion, he slowed and buried his head in the curve of her neck, smelling the blood, feeling it beat in time with his, wanting it so badly that he thought he might lose control, utterly.

She bent her head farther back as if she knew what he wanted, as if
she
wanted it, too. But she didn't know what he was. Could this be the kind of instinct sometimes found in serfs...that the giving of blood could sometimes result in the kind of ecstatic sexual pleasure few humans ever knew?

His teeth ached, and he knew he could no longer restrain his need for release. He pounded into her, and she cried out as her body tightened and throbbed around him. He followed an instant later, shuddering, his muscles tensing and relaxing until he pulled out and rolled over, bathed in sweat.

Lark lay quietly, making no attempt to move closer to him or even touch him. She stared up at the ceiling as if she had no idea what she'd done. As if the whole encounter had been as much beyond her volition as it had been beyond his.

“Lark,” he said.

She moved her head slightly toward him without meeting his gaze. “I didn't...” She swallowed. “It wasn't what I expected.”

Suddenly, he was angry again—irrationally, furiously angry. “Not the tender lover you expected?”

“That isn't it.” She finally rolled over to face him, her expression grave rather than relaxed and sated. “I already told you...” Tears filled her eyes. “I don't expect you to understand.”

She turned away from him, folding in on herself. Drakon felt something in his heart give way, dammed emotion that wasn't only anger, after all. He touched her shoulder gently.

“You're imagining these feelings, Lark,” he said.

Hiding behind the shield of her tangled hair, she shook her head. “You're making fun of me.”

As if that were the worst thing he could do to her, he thought. “I'm not making fun of you,” he said, pulling a strand of hair out of her face. “You're naive. I'm not.”

“No. You're just stubborn. And blind.”

Drakon sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, yanking on the zipper of his fly. “There can't be anything more than this.”