Shadow Game (40 page)

"I'm going to kill you, Miller," Cowlings snarled, wiping blood from his shattered nose. His face appeared much like pulp. Even his eyes were swelling.

"You're welcome to try," Ryland answered softly.

Lily concentrated on the picture on the wall to Ryland's right and it began to tremble violently. It suddenly jumped free and flew toward Russell Cowlings. It rocked and spun, dipping low, picking up speed as it rose sharply. Cowlings ducked and dodged, desperately trying to avoid the attacking picture.

Ryland lunged at him, feigning an attack, distracting him. Cowlings stumbled backward, turning his attention to his human opponent. The picture slammed down hard over the top of his head, breaking through canvas, glass, and frame and settling around his neck. Cowlings looked more stunned than hurt.

"Go, Lily." Ryland had no choice. If he left their enemy alive, Lily would be in danger, as would all of his men. He couldn't bear for her to be a witness.

She obeyed, limping heavily as she went. Her leg was throbbing so badly it was making her feel sick. Nearly useless, she was dragging herself toward the exit. The heavy drape along the alcove wall suddenly leapt to life; it reached out and whipped around her, wrapping her up in coils of material. The drape wound so tightly it threatened to cut off her air. Lily was unable to see anything or to fight the heavy folds. Her arms were locked to her sides.

Her leg gave out and she fell, trapped in the ever-tightening coils, suddenly in danger of suffocation.
Ryland
! Panic-stricken, she gasped his name in her mind.

She knew he was in a fight for his life. For all their lives. She was even ashamed that she had pleaded for his help, risking distracting him, but she couldn't help herself. Lily had never felt so panicked in all her life.

Be calm
. That was Nicolas. It was amazing that she could hear him when she was screaming so loudly in her head.

She breath was shallow and she closed her eyes and began to use her brain. She had tremendous power, tremendous control. Years of practicing had honed her skills. Russell Cowlings was preoccupied with fighting and he was not nearly as strong as she was. Lily began to fight for control of the heavy drapes. The battle didn't last long. Cowlings had no stamina for a prolonged mental fight nor did he have the necessary skills built up to divide his attention.

Ryland went in low and mean, needing a quick finish. Nicolas was close but he was controlling security cameras and steering any late-nighters away from the alcove. Cowlings was a vicious fighter and quick. He had always been one of the best in hand-to-hand combat and was smart enough to keep out of reach, snapping a series of hard kicks to force Ryland to stay away from him.

Ryland fought down the urge to move too quickly, taking his time, blocking the kicks and pushing slowly inside. He was the stronger physically and once he got his hands on Cowlings it would be over. Ryland caught sight of the two-foot-high ashtray just inside the alcove. The round cylinder was made of metal. Even as he kept up his slow pursuit of Cowlings, he concentrated on the cylinder, forcing the canister to tip over slowly, floating lightly to the thickly carpeted floor to keep from making noise.

Blocking several vicious kicks, he sent the cylinder rolling between Cowling's legs, causing him to stumble back. Instantly Ryland exploded into action, driving in fast with the edge of his hand to Cowling's throat, crushing everything in it's path as it drove through. It sickened him, watching the man fall. Watching him struggle to breathe, an impossible task. Ryland tried to feel nothing. Tried to go dead inside.

He whirled around to find Lily's enormous eyes staring at him in horror. She scrambled out from under the heavy draperies, trying to crawl to Cowlings with the vague idea of helping him.

Get clear! Get clear! There are too many coming down and I can't hold them off.

Ryland caught her around her waist, lifted her bodily into his arms, and sprinted for the door. He burst into the night, running for the corner where he knew Arly waited in the car.

"I have to go with John. If the limousine is still parked and waiting for me, Higgens is going to know I didn't leave immediately," Lily protested.

Ryland didn't slow down, didn't glance at Nicolas as he emerged from another door and paced alongside of him. They separated at the car, diving from either side into the backseat. Ryland dumped Lily onto the floor.

"Go, Arly, go now." Ryland's voice was harsh. He told Lily, "Call John on the cell phone and tell him to get the hell out of there."

Lily glanced up at Ryland's grim face and obeyed him. John protested, wanted to know what was going on, but the urgency in her voice finally convinced him. He promised to leave for home immediately.

"Thanks for hanging back and covering us," Ryland said.

Nicolas shrugged. "Kaden took the children home. They were happy to play for a while. I wanted a little more excitement so I thought I'd just hang around." He leaned down to examine Lily's face. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"Ryland is. Cowlings had a knife," she said.

Arly twisted his head around to stare. "What the hell happened?"

"Just drive," Ryland snapped. "It's a scratch, no more," he added in protest as Lily came up on her knees and Nicolas lifted his shirt to look him over.

"You're damned lucky, Captain," Nicolas said. "You should have broken his neck when you had him the first time. You knew he had to be taken out. You gave him a shot at you deliberately."

Ryland didn't answer, staring out the window, his fixed gaze turbulent.

"She could have been killed, Rye. He was going after her to shake you up."

"Damn it, Nico, I know that. Don't you think I know that?" Ryland swung his head around to glare at Nicolas.

Nicolas shrugged his broad shoulders with studied casualness. "You should have killed him the first time you laid your hands on him back at the fence when we escaped."

Ryland leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, bile rising. He fought it down, his fingers finding and tunneling in the thick silky strands of Lily's hair. He closed his fist and held her that way. Unknowing. Just needing her presence.

Seventeen

"DAMN it, Lily, I just killed a man. I liked him. I've been to his parents' home. What the hell did you want me to do?" Ryland was pacing back and forth, raw, pent-up emotion boiling to the surface and spilling out, making his voice harsh. "He was a good soldier. A good person. I don't know what the hell happened to him." He was remembering Russell Cowlings and the memories hurt.

He couldn't look at her, couldn't see the horror in her eyes again. Resolutely he kept his back to her as he paced the length of her bedroom and back again. Lily was still running her bath, her velvet cloak thrown carelessly over the back of the stuffed armchair. Her sexy red gown was in a heap on the floor. He snatched it up and crushed the material in his hands. "You could have been killed, Lily. He could have killed you. I let him go the first time because I was worried what you might think. Damn it." The words exploded out of him. "I'm good at what I do. You can't just look at me with accusation and shake me up so I can't function. Do you have any idea what would have happened if he had gotten away? I put all the men in danger to keep from killing him in front of you." He hoped that was true. He wished it were true. If it wasn't, it meant he had hesitated because Cowlings had been a friend. And that was a bad, bad thing. Either way he deserved the whip in Nicolas's voice.

Lily pinned her hair up and stepped into the hot bathwater, praying it would help unlock the muscles knotting in her leg. Her shoulder throbbed where Cowlings had made contact in his leap on the stairway and she knew she had a terrible bruise there. She hadn't bothered to check; tears were running down her face and she doubted she would even see her image in the mirror. She ached for Ryland. Felt his pain. Felt how sick he was and how angry at himself. He was yelling at her, but she knew his fierce rage was really directed at himself.

Steam rose around her as Lily forced her body into the hot water. She couldn't comfort him. She couldn't think of any way to take away his pain. He had reached out to her when her father had been murdered. He had been there when she found out she had been an experiment. She could only sit in a gigantic marble Jacuzzi filled with hot steamy water, crying and wondering why someone with her brain didn't have a clue what to do.

"Lily?" Ryland rested his hip against the bathroom door-jamb, her gown still crumpled in his hand. She hadn't looked at him once since they'd raced out of the hotel. Not one single time, as if she couldn't bear the sight of him. She couldn't have hurt him more if she'd plunged a knife in his gut. "You might as well just understand something right here and now. This is what I do, what I've been trained to do, damn it!"

She didn't look at him, staring straight ahead. Ryland stepped closer. He was going to have an ulcer before he ever got a commitment out of her. He could see the ugly black and purple bruise forming high up on the back of her shoulder. "Are you listening to me?" The harsh rage was gone from his voice. "I'm not letting you go because you saw me doing something that was necessary. You may as well know I won't. It's a stupid reason for you to give up on us." He brought the red material up to his face, rubbed it against his jaw. He wasn't going to lose her.

Ryland had no idea how it had happened or when it had happened, but she was so firmly entrenched in his heart, in his soul, he couldn't breathe without her. When she still didn't answer, just sat there with steam curling her hair and tears falling into the water, he sighed heavily, the anger draining out of him. "Don't cry, honey. I'm sorry I had to kill him." His voice was very low and controlled. "Please stop crying, you're tearing my heart out."

"Get a clue! I'm not crying because you had to kill him, Ryland. I'm sorry he's dead, but he was trying to kill us both. I'm crying for you. I have no idea how to help you." Embarrassed, she threw water on her face to cover the tears.

He was silent, studying her averted face. "This is all for me? You're crying for me?" That was what she did. Turned him inside out with a few sentences. What was he going to do with her? "Lily, don't do that. You don't need to cry for me." Where his stomach had been in hard knots, now there was a warm glow. He felt like she'd handed him a Christmas present. No one had shed tears for him in a long time.

Lily heard the note in his voice. Happiness. She felt it in the room in spite of the weight of the guilt he was feeling. That little note allowed her to breathe again.

She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. Her long lashes were spiked. Beads of water ran down her soft skin, to the tips of her breasts. In spite of the bruises, she was an alluring sight sitting there. Her hair tumbled and curled in the steam. Water bubbled and brushed lovingly at her body. She took his breath away. Stole his heart. She
cried
for him.

"I can't think when you look like that, Lily. Why did you have to be so beautiful?" He didn't mean physical beauty, but he couldn't separate one from the other. He was sick at heart with what he'd done. He didn't think the blood of a friend could ever be washed from his hands but somehow her tears had managed to do it. Ryland stared at her, in the middle of what looked like a crystal palace, a princess he didn't deserve but was going to keep.

"I wish I was beautiful, Ryland. You make me feel beautiful." Her vivid blue gaze drifted moodily over his rugged features. "How could you think I would blame you for saving our lives? I feel what it cost you. I felt it when you did it."

"I saw your face. You wanted to save him." He blinked away the tears burning unexpectedly in his eyes. His throat felt raw with pain.

"I saw yours. I wanted to save him for you." She reached out her hand to him. Waited until he took her fingers and settled on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub. "We're connected somehow. And you're right. It doesn't matter if my father found a way to manipulate the attraction between us, I'm grateful you're in my life."

Ryland brought her hand to his mouth, nibbled on her fingers, resisting the urge to gather her close. She humbled him with her generosity. "Does your shoulder hurt?" He leaned forward to brush a kiss against the vicious bruise.

"I'm fine, Ryland. What about your ribs? Arly said he cleaned the scratch but you know knife wounds are notorious for infections." She sounded anxious, not at all his perfectly calm Lily.

He knelt beside the tub, reached beneath the bubbling water for her calf. He began a slow, deep massage, working her knotted muscles with infinite gentleness. "Don't worry, Arly scrubbed it with some kind of foul-smelling stuff he called bug juice. It burned like hell. Nothing could be alive, not even the tiniest germ."

"When I was a child, he swore by that stuff. I think he makes it up in the laboratory like the proverbial mad scientist. Every time I fell down, he swabbed it over my knees and turned my skin a very ugly shade of purple."

Ryland laughed. "That's the stuff, all right." He felt her wince beneath his massaging fingers and gentled his touch even more. "Tell me about Ranier. What do you think?"

"He was telling me the truth," Lily said. "I was so relieved. I've known him most of my life and I'm not certain I could have taken it if he had been involved in a plot against my father. Apparently, he received none of the messages my father sent him. Not his letters, or his emails, and not the phone calls. Interestingly enough, the general's aide is a brother to Hilton, the man Colonel Higgens sent to keep an eye on me." She reached under the water, gripped his wrist. "General Ranier was suddenly very worried, as if he were connecting dots to something. I think there's been a security leak for a while and he's suddenly putting two and two together."

"Maybe. If there's been a problem with a leak, they wouldn't advertise it. The investigation would be internal. No one would suspect Colonel Higgens. His record is impeccable.