The Dark Duet (10 page)

Turning my head to face him, Nikolai says, “You are special. Unique. Time has a way of branding those of us it has marked as a survivor. We either learn to accept this gift and wait for our calling, or we turn away from it and piss off something higher than we ever imagined could exist.” We both share a light laugh, locking gazes as the sound fades.

“Which one did you choose?” I ask.

“Patience has always been my crutch. She rewards those who choose to have faith in her skills.”

“How much longer do I have to wait?” I croak out through my tears.

“My eager little dove. Your moment to shine has arrived. Trust me. You only need to open your eyes and look around you.” We hold each other’s gazes, and I can’t help thinking of the kiss we shared and the way he makes me feel out of control. He’s sympathetic but withdrawn somehow. I wish I could make him feel as secure in my presence as he has done for me in his. I want Nikolai Belikov, maybe more than I’ve ever wanted anyone before. Sometimes, I don’t understand the power behind our attraction; the intensity of the way he makes me feel both scares and excites me.

He stands and starts gathering a bunch of covers he has sitting on the chairs across from the bed. Long blond locks fall into his face, giving him an air of mystery, since I can no longer see his eyes. The thought of spending the night alone after suffering through yet another one of my nightmares triggers the anxiety in my chest.

“I’ll sleep downstairs. On the couch,” he adds and steps toward the doorway.
Make your move, Alese. Stop being a chicken shit. It’s now or never.

“Wait,” I begin, trying not to sound too desperate, anyway. “I don’t want to be alone.”

We stare each other down for a good thirty seconds before he breaks up the tension storming between us, the electricity I sense whenever Nikolai comes around me, a gut wrenching sensation that rips at my heart and swarms through my body, a longing getting harder to ignore each day.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he mutters, but I can hear the indecision in his voice, can tell by the way he has kind of already started turning his body toward me that he’s torn between leaving or staying.

“Why is it a bad idea? I don’t have the cooties,” I joke, failing miserably at lightening up the mood.

“Cooties?” he asks in that hard Russian accent of his, making me remember he probably doesn’t neither get nor appreciate my American slang.

“Never mind. This is your room. Your bed. Why should you have to leave it?” I ask, shrugging and hoping my eyes convey the words my lips won’t say.

“It really is not a problem,” he almost whispers.

Oh, what the hell. Just go for it. “I’d really like it if you stayed with me. Just until I fall asleep.”

After staring me down for another ten seconds or so, he says, “All right, but only for a little while.”
Yes! Success!
I turn my head so he can’t see the grin forming on my lips.

He shuffles onto the bed, gets situated, and lies beside me with his hands clasped together over his stomach as though someone might chop them off if he tries to touch me. I don’t get it. He can toss me on my ass during a sparring match, can pull the crap out of my hair just before he kisses me like a raging bull, can snap someone’s neck without blinking an eye—or so I’ve been told—yet lying in his bed with a woman turns him into a saint. We lie stiff as boards at first; that is, until I turn my body and snuggle up to him. In return, he places an arm around me and turns his body toward mine just the tiniest bit, so now we’re spooning.

Oh yeah! Now we’re getting somewhere!

Nikolai holds me the whole night and doesn’t make a single move toward intimacy, even though I can feel his arousal, the way his cock bulges against the back of my thighs. I sigh deeply and calm the pang in my chest, although I can’t do a damn thing about the fire raging between my legs.

I don’t understand. What’s so bad about me that makes him act this way? I know he wants me, that much is painfully obvious, yet he refuses to make a move.

We complement each other. Our goals are the same: to take down the bastards who made us into the twisted fuck-ups we have both become, and to protect our families. Whatever crazy shit is going on in that gorgeous head of his holds him prisoner like a beautiful bird sitting in a cage hanging over a den of hungry lions.

I will find a way to let him know he can open up to me, and then I’ll have the chance to make him happy.

We can make each other happy.

~
Nikolai
~

She wants a chocolate-glazed donut and coffee. The assignment is a mission I welcome, however juvenile it may seem, as this small trip gives me the chance to be free of the way my hormones rage through my body whenever I’m in her presence.

We take our training to a new level this week. Part of me wants her to be prepared—she is, after all, a trained assassin of a different sort—but will she be able to pull off the requirements of a negotiation gone bad? That moment when the client decides he does not want to cooperate, and the deal goes dark?

Will she be able to take a life and live with herself after doing so? Thinking about Alese this way causes me to slip into the memory of my first conquest, the day I officially earned my nickname of the Ice Phoenix.

“You will walk into that building, charm the Brigadier, and pull him under your spell,” the Master Phoenix orders me. “And then, you’ll extract the information you need from his files in the basement and signal for us. Do I make myself clear?”

This is my first assignment, and at fourteen years old I’ve been living under the roof of one brute who has turned me into someone I no longer recognize, a person trained to love and to hate in the same breath. I should be prepared to handle bedding a man I intend to kill, but I’m not certain I can take a life, even if it means saving my own. Either I go in and finish my task, or I suffer the consequences of what one of our other house mates endured the night he failed to follow through on his assignment. I’ll face the Shadow Room, which is exactly what its name implies: solitary confinement in a dark room filled with the stench of sweat, fear, and death, while you listen to the punishment of others around you and wait for your turn to be attached to the chair.

“Do you understand, Blue Phoenix?” the Master asks, using the Order’s name for me at that time. I nod and slip behind the veil, the place where I separate the boy who walked into the Widow’s nest a year ago from the assassin who will bed and then kill the man I’m being instructed to go meet.

Inside of the posh complex, my target, a man called the Brigadier because of his extensive knowledge of military code practices, has prepared for my stay as though he will be housing a king. We are in Maharashtra, a small state in India known for housing cybercriminals. The arched doorways, extensive use of deep reds and striking green in the decor, dark mahogany furniture in the bedroom, and an extensive use of light fabrics in tapestries hanging on almost every wall demonstrates the Brigadier’s preference for the lavish ... which, ironically, is the reason why I was chosen for this task.

I step into the bedroom, my white shirt and trousers a stark contrast against the other hues in the room. Standing before a mirror, I wait for my assignment to enter the room.

The Brigadier is a stout man of around thirty-five or forty years of age. He has empty dark eyes, save for the spark igniting inside of them when he first sees me, and a mop of thick black hair characteristic of most people living in India. A dash of salt and pepper highlights the strands just above his ears.

“The Master Phoenix didn’t disappoint,” he says, circling me. We’re standing in his bedroom, and I’m staring at my reflection in a full-length mirror, keeping my eyes focused straight ahead except for the few times he walks in front of me.

Moving close enough to me that I almost choke on his abundant use of cologne, the Brigadier releases my hair from its ponytail. The straw-colored strands fall loose around my shoulders, and he runs both hands through it, sniffing the exposed area of my neck as he does so.

“Look at how beautiful you are.” Cupping my chin almost violently, he grasps a handful of my hair, wrenching my head forward and holding it in place so I have no choice but to stare at my reflection.

“You are going to make me so happy,” he states in my native Russian tongue. I don’t say a word. Instead, I keep my mind wrapped around my task, even when he undresses and bends me over, my traitorous body responding to his touch because that is what I’ve been trained to do ... to deceive by allowing my captor to believe he’s the one deceiving me.

Later that night, I have no problem slamming the needle containing the sleeping drug into his neck without checking the color of the tube I’ve used. The Brigadier’s breathing changes, a rasping noise escaping his thick throat. No matter. I shake him to make sure he’s under the influence of the drug, and he doesn’t move. I make my way down to the basement and locate the computer I’ve been assigned to copy.

I’m no cyber genius, so cracking the hard drive’s passwords takes almost an hour, and another one to complete the transfer. After I’m done, I notify the Master Phoenix using the secret phone I’ve been given and head back upstairs to wait for my rescue party.

Of course Fate has other things in store for me. Always.

I enter the dark bedroom, failing to stay aware of my surroundings in my eagerness to report the story of my success to the Master. Something doesn’t feel right. Too late I discover the mistake I’ve made.

“What a slippery little puppy you are,” the Brigadier’s voice says from the dark. The lights come on next, and I’m surrounded by no less than three men twice my size, including the Brigadier. “Did you get what you came for?” He’s cradling his neck, which now has a bandage on the spot I used to inject him.

“I did,” I answer in Russian, my first words since arriving in this musty hell hole.

“Good. Now you’ll return what you have taken,” he demands, holding out his thick hand, the same one that has explored every part of my body. The thought of the things he did to me and made me do hardens my resolve to hold my ground.

“I will not,” I answer, my gaze briefly flicking toward the blades attached to the insides of the hired helps’ boots.

The Brigadier releases a deep sigh and lets his hand fall. “Well, that’s too bad, little puppy. I was rather enjoying our time together.” He nods to one of the men beside him. I have no choice but to make act now; no choice but to take out the one thing holding this group of assassins together ... the Brigadier. There are only three of them.

I can do this. It’s my life or theirs.

Before the man reaches me, I duck toward his feet, snatching the blade out from inside the boot of the man headed toward me and slicing the backs of his legs before he has a chance to realize what I’ve done. Being small has its advantages. The second man cocks his gun, something he should have already done, but I suspect they didn’t expect a harmless ‘little puppy’ like me to react this way. I’m in his face in less than a second, and slicing the skin of his throat in the next one. He falls over, dying in a pool of his own blood. I hear a gun click from behind me. At once, I turn and flick the knife toward the chest of the man with the sliced calves, hitting my mark with a precision that surprises even me.

The Brigadier heads for the doorway, stumbling over the dying body blocking his way as he does so. Heart thudding in my chest, along with the adrenaline fueling the beast I’ve found inside of me, I charge him, stooping to remove the knife from the fallen man’s chest. The Brigadier makes his way into the hallway before I jump on him, taking him down with a well-aimed stab in the back of his neck.

He’ll never hurt anyone else this way ever again. I return to the room and stand in front of the mirror, the bloody image of a savage staring back at me. I’m intrigued by him, mesmerized; although, I realize someone is screaming.

That someone is me.

Eventually, the Master Phoenix arrives, his wide eyes scanning the scene around me. I’m no longer screaming, my voice gone. Shaking me and bringing me back out of the dark, the Phoenix says, “Nikolai. We have to go now.” I nod and obey, ignoring the bodies as I step over them and follow one of my older house mates who have arrived to assist him. All four boys move out of my, allowing me to pass, their gazes fixed on my face.

Inside of the van, as we head back to the airport, Yuri cleans me up, speaking softly as he does so. The Master Phoenix turns to me and says, “Tomorrow we’ll give you the tattoo to announce your official acceptance into the Order. From this day forward, you will be known as the Ice Phoenix.”

Walking in the Sunday morning sun gives me a chance to regain control of my senses, to understand what the hell is going on inside of my head. I loved holding onto Alese last night. The feel of her body next to mine sent me spiraling into a chasm I was not prepared to experience yet again, pulling me out of the gloom I’ve lived inside for the past decade since I escaped my life as the Ice Phoenix. I refuse to let my guard down, or perhaps it is too late.