The Chosen (20 page)

And with the passing of each blade he realized how much he liked having China in his arms just like this. Enough that he could easily imagine them in a different place and time having a life together. Pure fantasy, but why not indulge himself if he was more likely to get hacked to pieces than have it become reality. Five more blades to go.

Her body was so light, so agile, and fit his hands so perfectly. They moved in sync, their bodies understanding the motion of the dance now, so he no longer had to count. And for a brief bit of time, Remington relaxed into the moment too.

The last blade passed them, and he bent to capture her mouth in a kiss. Her lips buzzed against his as she hummed. Her eyes flew open at the touch of his mouth against hers as they came to a stop. Even though she’d stopped humming, the buzz moved through his system. He wanted her. Plain. Simple. Now.

A confused and bewildered look flitted through her eyes, and she pushed back from him. Her reserve fell firmly in place. “You’re a fantastic dancer,” she said, her voice soft and a bit wistful.

“It helps having a good partner who’s light on her feet.”

A blush infused her cheeks. She turned and started walking down the tunnel on the other side of the room of blades. She turned. “Are you coming?”

“Just taking a moment to catch my breath.”

The truth was Remington was enjoying the view. He watched the fabric of her dress shift over her ass as she moved and decided maybe her winning an argument now and again wasn’t such a bad thing after all. It had gotten them through the room without being cut to shreds or losing anything vital—that had to count for something.

But he was growing tired of the journey. He was tired, hungry, and cold. He stopped in his tracks for a moment. Cold? That didn’t seem right at all.

“Hey, Remington . . .” she called from up ahead in the tunnel. “You might want to come and see this.”

The moment they entered the next chamber, he knew something was off. The walls themselves seemed to glitter, and the floor was slick. There was no exit. It was a dead end. At least to the untrained Hunter that’s what it would look like. Remington knew better. There had to be an exit. Somewhere. “Watch your step. I think it’s ice,” he warned.

China exhaled, and her breath turned into a cloud of white. Her skin shrunk, and a shiver wracked her frame. But Remington was far worse off. Without his shirt his chest and back were exposed to the bitter chill as were his bare feet. “What is this?”

“I’m guessing it’s the place of biting cold.”

Her jaw began to quiver, her teeth clicking together. “Looks like Hell frozen over.”

Remington shot her a smile. “Then we must be getting close to the Book.”

But it was no laughing matter to her. Unless they got out of this ice box and soon, they’d freeze to death. Her stomach was already quivering, despite her rubbing her arms with her hands to create frictional heat. “How do we get out?”

Remington’s lips looked different. They were losing color. Turning blue.

“Until we can figure that out, come here.” He motioned with his hand for her to come closer.

China didn’t hesitate. Desperate to conserve heat, she cuddled into him. “I wish we were in Arizona right now.” Her body wouldn’t stop shaking.

“Think of the sunshine warm on your back.” His voice was so smooth, so inviting that China closed her eyes and imagined the warmth of the sun hitting her back and her neck. She drifted off for a bit, relaxing against the heat.

 

 

Remington was fairly certain his balls were about to freeze off completely. If it hadn’t been for China snuggled up against his chest and groin, they very well might have. He shivered as he kept looking for some sign, any sign marking the exit.

He nestled his cheek against her head, curling himself around her to keep her warm. And if he were to be honest, because she felt damn good. Her hair still smelled faintly of vanilla, but also of the water from the river and of woodsmoke from the torches the bone warriors had used to light the temple. He couldn’t do anything about their situation, but he could enjoy what he could of their current predicament.

He rubbed his hands over her arms. Even when freezing cold they were silky smooth. She fidgeted, moving a little, her thigh brushing up against his groin. The heat there was instant, and he grew hard just thinking about the texture of the skin on her thighs.
Stop it
, he firmly told himself.

Kissing her on the submarine had been a bad idea. Hell, this entire trip had been a bad idea, but he was stuck now. Well and truly stuck. And the only way out was to keep pushing forward.

He slid his foot back and forth over the ice, brushing the layer of frost away from the ice beneath. A faint shadow caught his eye. Remington straightened, jostling China awake with the movement.

“Wh-what is it?” she said, her voice thick with sleep.

“It looks like a triple cross, just down there. Or am I seeing things?”

China breathed on the spot on the ice, rubbing it vigorously with her hand to get a better look. “It is!” Buried there in the ice was a wooden triple cross.

“So what do we do?”

Normally Remington would have said dig, but there was no point. “Hand me the Blaster.”

China dug it out of the pack and handed it to him. Remington fired it up and waited for it to charge. The hum alone made him feel warmer. He took aim at the spot in the floor, made sure she was back away from where the edge of the blast would hit, took aim, and fired.
ZZZZoottt!

The floor collapsed in a rush of water, sending them spinning down as if they were in a drain. They came to rest on a smooth stone floor, sopping wet.

Remington laughed. “You wanted water to wash off with. There you go.”

China smacked him on the arm with her hand. “You did that on purpose!”

“How? Did you see any other means of getting through that floor?”

“No.”

“Then what are you complaining about? We got out didn’t we? You’re not cold anymore, are you?”

“No, but I’m wet.”

Remington did have to admit she was right in that regard. The black dress molded itself to her body, outlining every dip and curve of her very female form. A gnawing hunger that had nothing to do with food bit hard in his belly.

He forced himself to focus. “The sooner we get up and get moving, the sooner we’ll be out of here.” His tone was short, abrupt even, but he didn’t like losing control of himself around her.

“How do you know that?”

He whipped around and glared at her. “I just know.”

“You think you’re so superior!”

“Not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. I spent all my efforts trying to measure up.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment. “Measure up?”

He gave her a boyish grin. “Winn was the oldest—the apple of my pa’s eye. He could always run faster, shoot farther, and was stronger.”

“Well, of course, he was
older
.”

Remington brushed aside her comment with a flick of his hand and kept going. If she was going to understand this, she had to hear all of it. “Colt was my mother’s favorite. She made no bones about it, and neither did my pa. He was the one my pa let stay home. She’d bake Colt cookies when I was with my pa and Winn out on hunting trips, field-stripping weapons, cleaning their gear, knee-deep in battling Darkin.”

China’s face fell. “You never saw how much they loved you.”

“Oh, I
knew
they loved me, intellectually speaking, but I didn’t always feel it. And since I couldn’t be the center of either of their affections, I decided I’d be the best educated of my brothers. The most in command of myself and my destiny. I would not be dictated by the Legion like Winn, nor would I strive to be the spitting image of my pa, like Colt. I was going to be my own man.”

“That’s why you’re so damn hot and cold.”

He locked gazes with her. “I beg your pardon?”

“When you’re killin’ things in the hard places where death puts on a staring match with you, you turn ice-cold. Vacant. It’s like all the life gets sucked right out of you, and your eyes look like nobody’s home.”

Remington frowned. He had never looked at himself at those times, so it was difficult to argue the veracity of her claims.

“And when you kiss me . . .” A delightful blush infused her skin. “Well, you’re just about the hottest thing there is. All intensity. Like staring at the sun. Both sides of you are deadly—just hot and cold.”

“I’ve always been in the middle. I was born there.”

China grabbed hold of his arm and looked up into his face. “But it doesn’t make you less. It makes you more. Don’t you see? Colt is ruled by his passions and doesn’t always think before he acts. Winn is too busy thinking everything through to commit until it’s nearly too late. You are the balance. You complete them.” She paused for a moment, her eyes turning a shimmering silver. “You complete
me
.”

Her comment floored him.

He’d never considered them together as a couple, if only because she was Darkin and he was a Hunter. But what if? What if it were possible?

Perhaps if they’d been in a different time and place it would have been. He liked her. He truly did. And she certainly knew how to engage his baser instincts, as well as his intellect. But was it enough to close such a huge gap? Because despite all those things, he didn’t know if he completely trusted her.

He gave a heavy sigh. “China—”

She bit her bottom lip and held her finger to his mouth to stop him. “Don’t say it. I can see it in your eyes.” Her finger dropped, leaving him feeling oddly bereft of her touch.

“Let’s just keep going so we can get to the Book.” She turned on her heel and marched on ahead of him down the tunnel, leaving a sodden wet trail in her wake.

Remington ached. Why did he feel like he’d screwed up even though he was trying to do what was right?

The tunnels beneath the ice were just as much a warren as the previous ones. Trying to get her bearings down here without daylight or dark, or any kind of way to feel her way through made it impossible to tell which direction they were headed any more. Her anger had come down to a simmer and then lost steam altogether. What did it matter if he’d gotten her wet? What did it matter if she wanted him? The chances of escaping this place intact were slim to nill just as Diego had predicted.

Suddenly the tunnel came to a dead end. Green and black flames writhed over a glistening pool of what looked like congealed blood. The dark, viscous surface reflected the screaming faces and tortured images revealed in the flickering flames.

“What in blue blazes is that?”

“Darkin fire. Magical flame.” She edged closer, placing a hand on his arm, absorbing strength just from touching his hard muscles and knowing he was there beside her.

“Deadly?”

She gave him a sardonic look. “Isn’t everything in here deadly?”
Even you
.

Remington flashed her a smile that melted her bones. “We seem to specialize in deadly. What do you propose?”

China shook her head. His famous Jackson smile alone gave her plenty of ideas she could propose, most of them involving his clever hands, and wickedly wonderful mouth, and never leaving a prone position again. But that was for another time. If there ever was another time, the possibility of which was growing dimmer and dimmer.

As for the Darkin fire, there was nothing that could penetrate it. It was magical. Evil. Pure. It had no weaknesses that could be exploited.

“Can we fight fire with fire?”

She gazed up at him. The flicker of light from the flames threw the solid planes and angles of his strong face into stark relief, making a slow sizzle snap and spark along her veins. Just being near him did that to her. “How so?”

“You can change into anything, right?”

“Almost.”
Anything but a plain, boring human woman who could have your heart.

“What about a phoenix?”

China frowned. A phoenix. A Darkin creature made of fire. It just might work. It was genius. But there was just one problem. She placed her hand on his chest, felt the strong and sure beat of his heart beneath all that muscle. “The fire won’t let anything but Darkin pass, and I won’t go on without you.”

He grasped her around the shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “You might have to.”

In those blue depths China saw something she’d never expected: trust. It shook her to the core. Remington Jackson might not love her, but he trusted her, which was almost as good—almost. More than that, he appreciated her, and that was something she’d never gotten from Rathe. Ever. And in that moment something deep within her shifted. The iron grip Rathe had held on her fell away. She no longer cared if she received his approval. Not when something she longed for far more was in sight—love.

But all that responsibility on her shoulders made her uneasy. China shook her head, her sweat-dampened hair sticking to her skin. “I’m not the Chosen.
You
are. Your brothers are. It’s you who has to get the piece of the Book of Legend. Not me. You who must put it together to stop Rathe.”

He tipped up her chin, slowly brushing her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. Sparks of need flared into a full-blown flame. Her entire body grew hungry for him, wanted him, needed him, but China held herself back.

“I can’t do it without you,” Remington admitted.

“Why?”

He glanced at the wall of green flames. “That, for a start, and because you’re part of this legacy, China, whether you know it or not. All of us knew we couldn’t reach the piece of the Book on our own—we always knew it took Darkin powers. You are my Darkin.”

His touch was so tender, so loving, her heart fractured a bit.
His
Darkin. His
Darkin
. She didn’t want him to see her only as a child of the night. She wanted to be so much more. She stared up into the mesmerizing blue of his eyes and let her gaze stray lower to his mouth and the indention in his chin. With a sinking sensation born of past heartache, China realized she loved him, every inch of him, and she knew she was headed for heartbreak once more.

She pulled back from him and turned away, unable to bear being so close to the object of her affection, yet knowing it would all come crashing to an end sooner than later. Once he knew her terrible secret. “You’ll have to leave everything here. It won’t go through the fire.”

His mouth twitched. “Everything?”

“Your clothes, the pack, the Blaster.”

“But that means we’ll be leaving the codex, the diary and the statue behind.”

“We no longer will need the codex. We’ve found our way, haven’t we?”

“But the statue—”

She pressed a finger to his lips. “It’s a sacrifice we’ll have to make. Everything must be left behind.”

“Can I assume that would include your clothing too?”

Heat engulfed her from her scalp to her toes—a full-out body blush. “Yes.” But in the back of her head she was loathe to expose herself fully to him because it would be harder to conceal her awful, damning brand.

“Shall I help you?” The undertone in his voice was sensual. China’s heart pounded hard in her chest. She wanted to take him up on the invitation; Lord, did she want to. But there was a risk he’d question her.

He began unbuttoning his pants, and her mouth went dry. His bronzed skin was taut over an impressive chest dusted with hair just as dark as the thick hair on his head. The hair arrowed down past his navel toward his waistband, leading her gaze lower still. There a distinct ridge gave evidence of his desire.
If he asks about it, lie
, her libido whispered insidiously inside her head. Her desire won out over common sense.

Truth was she was glad to be rid of the black dress. Her fingers trembled as she unfastened the small buttons along her back. But she couldn’t get to all of them.

“Let me help.” His words were warm against the nape of her neck and sent a delicious shiver down her spine. His deft fingers made short work of the persistent buttons, skimming along her shoulder blades as he spread the bodice apart and slid the short sleeves down her shoulders. The dress fell with a whisper of fabric to the floor, leaving her in her corset, chemise, and bloomers.

He kissed the back of her neck, then beneath her ear, and across the slope of her shoulder as he unlaced her corset. China closed her eyes, absorbing the sensation—the smooth heat of his mouth, the gentle sweep of his damp tongue as he tasted her skin. She let it fill her up and radiate out through her body like sunlight reaching in to dispel the shadows that had haunted her for so long.

The pressure released around her ribs as the corset loosened, and the walls she’d built around her heart crumbled. He slid the corset down enough to reach around from behind her and cup her breasts in his warm, roughened palms. He drew her back to him, her bare back against the heat of his chest, his hair-roughed thighs brushing the back of her legs. China gasped at the sensation. Somehow in the time it had taken her to fiddle with her own buttons, he’d removed the rest of his clothing. She leaned her head back as he rolled the points of her breasts between his fingers.

Through the thin cotton of her bloomers, she felt the hard length of him pressed against her. It flexed, and the throb that had started when she saw his bare chest turned into a full-blown aching need that made her slick. She arched her back, pressing herself against him.

Remington growled deep and low, the reverberation of it vibrating through her back and making her breasts tighten further. She pulled open the fasteners of her loosened corset and let it fall to the ground. She reached for the strings on her bloomers.

He settled one hand on the curve of China’s hip. “Don’t.”

 

 

The intense heat of the cavern amplified the spicy sweet scent of her. He inhaled, letting it imprint on not just his mind, but on his soul. No matter where he went or what he learned, he would never forget how she looked, how she felt, the scent of her skin and hair in this moment. She turned in his arms. Her body warm and pliant, her skin damp from the heat. Her thin cotton garments clung to her damp skin, revealing almost as much as they concealed.

“Why?” Her voice was soft, breathless, her eyes shimmering.

“I just want to look at you.”

A glorious pink suffused her skin, making her breasts rosy and her areolas even rosier. He pulled her closer, bringing the damp slide of her heated skin against him.

A sultry smile curved her lush mouth, and he fixated on it, wanting desperately to kiss her, his hands kneading the flair of her hips.

“I thought all you wanted to do was look,” she teased.

“Semantics,” he answered, his voice husky and ragged with need. “Pretend I’m blind and I need my hands.”

Her eyes widened with delight. Her full lips parted slightly. He threaded his fingers into the damp hair at her nape, cupping the back of her head, indulging in the silken feel of it as he kissed her. Her lips were sweet and soft. She opened for him, her mouth welcoming him with a sensual moan that made him want to hold her tighter. The soft mounds of her breasts pressed against his chest. She was so damn soft against everywhere he was hard. Her body fit his to perfection like matched pieces from a puzzle.

He’d kissed women, plenty of women, but this with China was different. She reached inside him and twisted him up, made him want things he couldn’t have, desire things he shouldn’t. And damn, did he want more.

He pulled the strings just above her navel and felt the fabric of her bloomers relax and slip down her legs. He bent down, pushing the fabric down as he kissed the soft, smooth skin of her belly and nuzzled the fragrant curls at the juncture of her thighs. He remembered the smoothness of her thighs beneath his lips and the tension, already a throb he couldn’t ignore, increased, until his penis ached so badly he gritted his teeth.

“So perfect,” he murmured against the skin of her thigh as he gently lifted each dainty foot in turn and pulled the bloomers from first one ankle and then the other.

He stood and kissed her, his erection brushing the soft damp curls, and he flexed against the red-hot animalistic instinct to drive himself into her. She lifted up on her toes, the slide of her body against his mind-numbing. He circled her waist, intent on lifting her up. China tangled her arms around his neck as her kiss deepened, her tongue sliding over his teeth. Remington wasn’t sure how much he could take. The flames around them soared higher, a match to the inferno raging inside him.

But in the heat of the moment, none of it mattered, not the caverns and tortures of the temple, not finding the Book or his brothers. There was only him and the goddess in his arms, his alone for a moment that stretched into eternity.

 

 

For as long as she’d been around Remington he’d found a way to keep himself clean-shaven. But here in the bowels of the temple, his beard had grown, leaving his skin abrasive as he kissed her. The light scrape of his beard down her neck and over her breasts made the tender skin even more sensitive and responsive to the caressing touches that followed in the wake of his mouth.

“We need—” she panted.

“More time?” he growled against her breast as he pulled it into his mouth.

She groaned at the spike of sensation that shot to her toes. “A blanket.”

He slowly let her slide down the length of him, her body memorizing every ripple and roll of his muscled torso as she moved against it. Remington quickly pulled a blanket from his pack and spread it over their clothing, trying to pad the hard stone floor. “I’m sorry it’s not more comfor—”

China placed an index finger on his lips, then slid the finger downward over his sculpted bottom lip to trace the indention in his chin. “If I wanted comfortable, I wouldn’t be here with you, now would I?”

Hunger flashed and burned in his eyes. She followed the path of her finger with her mouth, swirling her tongue in the divot of his chin. She pulled him down with her as she lay on the blanket. Inside her everything flexed and tightened. She wanted to feel him inside her. Needed it. If she couldn’t have his love, she could have this one moment of perfection with him.

The green light of the Darkin fire highlighted his hair and the blue of his eyes, making him look even more intense. “I don’t know if this is the right thing for either of us, China, but I can’t stop myself.”

“I know.” She kissed him hard, putting everything she couldn’t say into her kiss. His heated weight on her body felt secure and strong, allowing her to let go and just ride the wave of need crashing over both of them with him. The hard, solid length of him slid home, and China cried out as her body responded with unbridled pleasure. Fireworks exploded across her vision, and sparks shot out along every nerve ending. Her hips lifted, taking him in farther. She wanted more. Everything he could give her, she’d take.

The need between them intertwined, until it was a living, breathing thing unleashing its fury on them both. Her body spun higher and higher, until it shattered, leaving her boneless and damp with sweat.

Remington rolled to his side beside her, breathing hard. His hair stuck damp to his cheek. He looked wild and untamed, nothing like the properly-dressed attorney who’d gotten her out of jail what felt like a lifetime ago. He turned his head to the side and gazed at her, his eyes softer now.

“I think I could die happy now.”

She smothered a laugh. “That’s good. We might have to do just that.”

He touched her hair, taking a piece of it and smoothing it between his fingers. “At least we’ll do it together.” He kissed her tenderly, and all the explosive warmth China had felt coalesced into a small ball in the center of her being.