Night Betrayed (11 page)

The crystal on the long cord bounced and jounced against her stomach, heavy and hot but still covered by its heavy pouch. She bent forward to try and subdue it because there was no flipping way she was going to let go of that mane. Especially since her ass was shifting and bouncing like a popcorn kernel in hot grease.

“I’ve got to take care of them first,” he replied in a determined voice by her ear. “Got to find that girl.”

“No,” she shouted, chancing to turn once again in her seat. She nearly clipped his chin with her temple, and he gave her a quick downward glance. “They found her! Go back, Theo!”

“They found her?” The tension eased a bit from his torso, but still they shot toward the zombies, his bracing arm solid as before.

The crystal was getting warmer and the heat seeped into her belly where she’d bent over to cup it close, and she worried that the temperature might bother the horse. And the zombies, few as there were, would soon sense it, if she didn’t get Theo to turn around. “Please! Go back! It’s too dangerous!”

He eased up on the horse at that moment and she felt him shift away to look down at her. “Are you hurt? Are you all right?”

“Take me back. Please,” she said, avoiding the question but clearly leading him to believe that she was hurt. “They found her. It’s not worth it.”

Her teeth were chattering now; somehow, her body was supporting her in the misleading of Theo. Selena gripped the mane more tightly and felt his legs shift as he eased up on the horse. The creature responded, slowing and turning to head back to the settlement. The mustang was by no means walking or even trotting; they were still going along at a gallop—but at least it wasn’t at breakneck speed.

Which was good . . . and bad. Because now she was even more acutely, insanely aware of the details of her surroundings: the warmth leeching into her back; the bare, muscled arm next to hers; the lap into which she’d been positioned; and the clean, masculine scent of Vonnie’s soap mixed with fire smoke, wine, and Theo.

At that moment, she wasn’t certain which was a bigger threat to her sanity: his proximity or the orange-eyed zombies stumbling away in the distance.

She had a bad feeling it wasn’t the zombies.

Theo hadn’t felt this exhilarated in a long time.

The brush of thick, sweet-smelling hair from the woman in front of him, combined with the anger vibrating from her, only made him feel even more alive.

Not that it had been the smartest thing he’d ever done—barreling up to her and swooping down like Viggo Mortenson in Hidalgo to scoop her up—but what a rush when she’d landed perfectly in front of him. Reckless, yeah, but when hadn’t he been a little crazy?

And it had been a while since he’d let loose like this. He’d fucking missed the rush.

Theo grinned in the dark, still holding the torch in one hand and getting a mouthful of thick hair because of the way he had to lean forward. She was pissed, but she’d get over it when he reminded her how dangerous it had been for her to be out by herself. But, hell, what a crazy-brave thing for her to do . . . stupid but brave.

Not unlike me.

The wall of the settlement, and its main gate, loomed ahead, and he found the doors spreading wide to allow them entrance.

Selena slid to the ground the moment he slowed the mustang to a walk, and before he even dismounted, she’d disappeared. Again. Theo wasn’t able to follow her immediately, for their arrival had drawn a cluster of people around them—including Jen.

“You were amazing,” she said, rushing up to him, her hand already clinging to his arm as he slid off the horse. “I saw you out there; I was watching over the walls. So bang.”

An unfamiliar flare of impatience washed through him, but he resisted the urge to dislodge her grip. Instead, he looked at Patrick Dilecki, who’d coordinated the search parties and remained in the settlement as a point of contact. “You found the girl?” Theo asked.

“Yes, she’s safe. She’d fallen asleep under her bed.” He sounded grim and tired as he laid his hand on the horse’s neck. The mustang belonged to Dilecki, and he’d been the one to offer it to Theo when he explained that Selena had gone out by herself.

Theo wasn’t certain whether to be relieved or annoyed. He supposed Hannah’s mother was feeling the same way, so he merely settled on relieved. Yet, the urge to get back out there, to destroy those zombies before they could hurt anyone else, spiked through him. They’d been lucky this time, but he’d been a witness to many other events when the outcome hadn’t been so rosy.

His adrenaline rush hadn’t faded. And the memory of the carnage he’d seen over the years spurred in him the desire to go back out beyond the walls and finish the job he’d begun. Those damn, blockheaded zombies would be waiting for their next opportunity.

“What were you going to do?” asked Jen. “With that torch?”

Her eyes shone as she looked up at him, and once again Theo was struck by how young she looked . . . and by how she hadn’t mentioned Selena at all.

Speaking of which. He needed to have words with that crazy woman. What the hell did she think she was doing, going out there by herself, with no protection, no weapons but whatever that pendant she was hiding around her neck?

“I was going to throw it at them,” he told Jen absently as he scanned the shadows. Surely Selena had to be around here somewhere; she wouldn’t be sneaking out again . . . Would she?

“The torch?” she asked.

Pulled back to the moment by her urgent hand, Theo looked down at Jen. “Yes,” he said, trying to keep the impatience from his voice. “I was going to throw the torch at them. They’re afraid of fire.”

“Where are you going?” she asked, a bit of petulance in her tone.

It was the same sort of petulance that had caused him to give in and kiss her awhile ago, just after that exchange—that kiss—with Selena. Still annoyed by her calling him a youngster in that condescending tone, he’d given Selena the mental flip-off when she walked away—as if the kiss had never happened.

Probably what surprised and annoyed him the most then was the way his fucking knees had gone weak. And his brain had collapsed. Because if his brain would have been working properly, he would have yanked Selena back for more . . . instead of succumbing to a different pair of puckered lips and an easy assuagement of his ego.

Hell, after what had happened with Sage—who’d called his kiss “nice”—and Selena—who’d pretty much done the same, though not in so many words—Theo couldn’t be blamed for feeling a little petulant himself. His ego had been more than bruised. “I have to take care of something,” he told Jen now. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

He didn’t hear what she said as he slipped away, his eyes paring through the milling crowd. The festive mood had obviously deteriorated since the girl had gone missing, and despite the happy ending, it was tainted by the false alarm.

Theo passed a group of the twenty-somethings he’d been hanging out with all evening—Jen’s friends—and realized they weren’t all that young. They merely seemed young to him. Hell, at age twenty-eight, he and Lou had been raking in the bucks because of their techno-geek brilliance. They’d had the CEOs of two Fortune 500 companies afraid to turn off their BlackBerrys without asking them first. They’d had the owner of one of Vegas’s biggest casinos turning the entire electronics systems over to them and their consulting firm for a security upgrade. They’d been workaholics on track to retire by the time they were forty-five, figuring they’d have a chance to live and travel and maybe even marry by then.

It probably would have happened, too, if all hell hadn’t broken loose. If the men and women in the elite Cult of Atlantis hadn’t decided that immortality was worth the destruction of the rest of the earth and civilization.

And so, as Theo walked past the group and they offered him a beer, he took it. He nodded and smiled and wished to hell that he remembered what it was like to be so young and to have had such an uneventful life. It would, he thought, be heaven not to have those nightmares that still woke him in a cold sweat.

Gangas sucked, but they were nothing compared to what he and Lou and the rest of the survivors had lived through for the first twenty years after the Change.

He was halfway through the beer when he found Selena.

Rather, when she found him.

It wasn’t exactly how he’d planned for the meeting to go.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” she said, walking right up to him. She bristled like the way Lou used to wear his hair—straight up spiky all over.

“I might ask you the same question,” he responded, removing the beer bottle from his mouth. He’d been in the middle of a drink. “Sneaking out without any protection or any weapon except that thing around your neck.”

That surprised her, for she grabbed at her belly where he suspected the object hung, beneath her tunic. But that didn’t keep her from flaring back at him. “What I do is none of your business. You’re not my father or my son—or anyone in between. You have nothing to do with me and you couldn’t even begin to understand the things I’ve been through in this life. Your busted stunt out there could have gotten either one of us killed.”

“I was trying to save your life,” he shot back wryly. “Paybacks, you know?” Theo shifted on his feet. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, thinking mainly of the ganga slashes.

“Other than to give me a damned heart attack, no. But I don’t need any help from you,” Selena replied. Her voice had calmed, as if she realized it had risen too loudly, but they were in the edge of a shadow from one of the small houses, beneath an apple tree. “I knew what I was doing. I’m a long damn way from being a child.”

He had to agree with that.

And from the look in her eyes, she was pretty damn pissed at being treated like one. “I’m old enough to be your mother,” Selena was saying. “So back the hell off and go hang out with your friends. You can give orders to Jennifer all you want. She’d probably appreciate it. Just don’t go riding around and doing stupid stunts like that.”

He smothered a smile. He’d never heard that lecture before. Not that it ever made a difference.

Theo felt some of his annoyance drain away. He was getting it now. “That’s not what you were saying a while ago, over there. I believe your exact words were something like ‘not bad for a guy who was dead three days ago.’ ”

That flustered the hell out of her. Her eyelids fluttered and she stepped back.

Theo pressed his advantage, all of a sudden feeling very much in control. That fascination he’d seen earlier in her face, and the flash of horror, had given way to worry.

The kind of worry that made him want to cuddle her up and tell her it was all going to be okay—except that he’d realized he was the cause of the worry. And that, in his mind, wasn’t an altogether bad thing.

“Maybe we ought to test it out again and then you can compare the way I kiss to a guy who’s never been dead.” He stepped closer and suddenly his own veins were singing. His skin leapt and prickled and he looked down at her mouth . . .

. . . which had sort of puckered and crinkled, and then a little tip of tongue slipped out nervously, and that little flicker nearly had him dropping to his knees.

“Don’t,” she said, and put out a hand to stop him. It touched his chest.

Now, Theo had been taught very well that when a woman said no or don’t or stop, that was what a guy did. Even if her eyes said yes. Even if the zing of attraction between them was practically visible. So, much as he wanted to, he didn’t move any closer. But he looked down at her and caught her gaze with his—a bit difficult, in the faulty light, but he did manage to do so.

“Aw, come on, Selena,” he said coaxingly. “I’m just a kid. What do you have to fear from me?” He grinned when her lips twitched and he noticed that her breathing had shifted into something more sketchy. A little disrupted.

“Nothing,” she managed.

“Then why don’t you teach me a thing or two? Show me how it’s done?” he asked, his voice low and mellow; his eyes focused on hers.

Her fingers convulsed on his chest and he reached up to close a hand over them. “You’re crazy,” she managed to say. He could tell what a task it was for her to force those words out.

“What do you expect from a guy who was dead three days ago?” He leaned in, trapping her hand against his chest, and was rewarded by her eyes widening and her breathing shifting. “I might be crazy, but I still want to kiss you”—she opened her mouth to speak, but he continued—“ . . . among other things.”

Her eyes fluttered and her body shivered. Taking that as a good sign, he leaned in.

She met his mouth with hers, lush and warm. Their lips shifted and molded, their tongues danced and slid, and he gathered Selena closer. His body jolted alive and hot as he tasted her—the warm sleekness of her mouth—and as she gave a little sigh against his lips.

Good. Really . . . fucking . . . good was about all his brain could process, because it was all hot and needy and alive. More . . .

But before he could get in deeper, get her gathered up against him and get down to business, she shifted back a bit. Pulling her mouth away from his reluctant one, she pressed both hands flat onto his chest. He was certain she could feel the racing of his heart.

“You could have killed us, doing that whole Kate & Leopold thing.” The lecture tone was back in her voice, albeit unsteadily.

“That what?” He literally had to shift his brain back into play and he eased away—fully, painfully aware of how close the swell of her breasts were to the back of his hand where he held hers pinned gently to his chest.

“The horse thing,” she replied a little more steadily. “Riding up and yanking me onto the horse without stopping.”

“That wasn’t a yank, that was a scoop. Or even a sweep,” he said, his mouth sliding into a smile. Now they were getting somewhere. “Kate & Leopold?”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “It’s on a
DVD
.”

“I figured that. A chick flick, with a name like that. But I was thinking more like Hidalgo,” he replied. “When I saw it in my head. The whole sweeping-scooping sort of thing.”