The Token (#10): Shepard (7 page)

Another of the group stabs a thumb in my direction. “Does fancy pants speak for you?”

“No,” Marissa says. “But I—I don't need to leave with anyone else. Thank you,” she adds hastily, retreating a step closer to the Audi.

The shorter man steps forward, slapping something I cannot identify inside his palm. “Maybe we weren't
asking,
sweetheart.” His eyes move over her figure, like poisoned swamp water through a crack in the dirt.

“I'm not going with you guys,” Marissa says, taking another cautious step backward.

Ah,
the evil that you know,
I think with an amused twist of lips. “Get into the car, Marissa.”

“No.”

I waste a look her way. “I swore to protect you.”

She puts her hand on her chest. “Not to me.”

I chuckle. “A promise to oneself is stronger than a promise to anyone else.”

“You're a fucking queer,” the tall man says again.

The accusation is a first. I turn my attention to him, gauging how to kill him in the quickest way possible. “I am many things, but one with a liking for male flesh has never been one of them.” I do not hold back the honest distaste in my voice.

He spits a stream of foul brown juice on the ground. “Foreign fucker.”

I only smile. If they knew how local I really was, it would surprise them.

His expression hardens. “Get the pussy in the car and let's get outta here.”

I change nothing obvious in my countenance. “She will not be accompanying you anywhere.” I throw my voice behind me. “Marissa.”

“I can help you,” she replies instantly.

“I do not need help. Get in the car.”

After a heartbeat's pause, I feel her sink into the car. The vehicle rocks slightly beneath my hand as she softly shuts the door. The door locks engage with a click of finality.

The men rush me. Killing is terribly simple.

I can feel Marissa's eyes on my back as I murder them.

For her.

Marissa

Déjà vu overtakes me.

My hand is once again pressed against cold glass. But this time, it's a different view through this pane.

Shepard moves forward as the men charge him.

I don't see a weapon at first. Until blood, colored black from the highway lamp, boils at the man's neck, rendering the splitting of the skin of his throat into a second, yawning mouth.

The shortest man of the group circles his neck with his hands, and Shepard casually shoves him away with one hand. The man falls directly on his butt, his legs splayed out before him as the other three rush in.

Using the flat of his palm, Shepard places it on the back of one man and stabs low, grinding a knife up between ribs.

The man bellows, trying to reach around himself to grab the hilt.

Shepard kicks him in the back, and he flies forward, the knife still buried in his kidney.

I suck in a shaky inhale. The sound is loud inside the car, and my breath fogs the window.

Two down. Two to go.

I make a gagging cough. It's the cough before I vomit. I hit the door latch in a clumsy grab and open the door, leaning out, barely catching myself by the handle. The movement distracts one of the men—the other grabs Shepard's arms with both hands.

One of Shepard's arms escapes the hold, and he gives a hard hit in the throat to the one who caught sight of me exiting the car. It's a chopping strike I recognize from the dojo.

I have both hands on the glass now, watching the fight between my splayed fingers.

I watch the blood pooling from the man with the knife wound. Like liquid death, it is running toward where I hang out of the door.

Heat surges from my feet to my head right before I throw up, and I heave up whatever little bit of food I've had.

The man with the knife in his back begins to crawl toward me.

Oh my God.

Dropping to my hands and knees, I glance up, strings of vomit and spittle hanging from my lips.

Shepard cups his palm behind the head of the one he struck, slamming his knee into the dude's face.

Blood arcs as the man falls backward, and Shepard pivots smoothly, his own face bloody.

They got some hits in.

I spit the gross taste from my mouth and grip the door handle, hauling myself to a stand. Blood rushes to my head, and I bite back another round of puking as I watch Shepard dismantle the assailant.

“No!” the man screams.

“Yes,” Shepard says in low command, twisting the man's hand.

The wrist breaks, flopping backward.

Heat swamps me, and I bend in half, throwing up again. My hand lashes out, slapping the side of the Audi, and I raise my chin.

Shepard pushes the howling man with a finger. He tumbles backward, tripping over the dead man with an open throat, and falls.

Shepard prowls toward me like roiling violence.

Oh God.
I sink to my knees and heave again, clutching at my sides. Nothing comes out. Purged. I give a hysterical giggling hiccup and grimace at the taste.

Then look up.

Shepard kicks at the hilt sticking out of the guy on the ground, who still inches toward me.

The solid metal spins away, the blade still embedded.

I sway, seeing there's more blood than asphalt. Then the road does something weird. The pebbled black surface rises to meet my face, and I realize I'm fainting.

But I don't land. 

I float.

Before I finally succumb to the black that sucks at my peripheral vision, the smell of leather entombs me, and I fall asleep.

But not before I realize that I might have been better off taking my chances and waiting for the French mob to show up.

*

“Wake up.”

I blink, and my eyelashes stick together like glue. Gross.

Where am I?

I rub my eyes. Then memories crash into me like sleet in a storm, pelleting me with wet horror disguised as blood.

My stomach lurches, and I quickly roll over, scuttling across the seat like a startled spider.

I barely clear the open door.

Shepard steps back, and I dry heave, my stomach too empty to do much else. It's just going through the motions at this point.

After half a minute, I grab the jam of the open door and claw my way to standing.

Shepard produces a moist towelette and a half-drunk bottle of water.

I swab my mouth first, take a swallow of water, spit it out on the ground, and stare at him for a handful of seconds. “You're an evil man.”

His face is devoid of expression. “
Oui.
However, those men possessed evil intentions. If you would have gone with them, they would surely have committed horrible acts against you.”

“Things you've done, from the sounds of it.”

Shepard's soulless dark eyes look into my own, but he says nothing.

“Who are you? I mean—
really
?”

“I have answered everything I will at this time. I do hope that you are beginning to understand that we are better together than apart.”

That's up for debate.

Blood stains his shirt. He sees where my eyes trace the proof of the men he killed.

“Yes.” He wrinkles his nose at the sight of his button-down shirt, now missing a button and looking a completely different color. It is no longer light but colored by death.

I retreat a step, putting the back of a shaking hand against my mouth.

Shepard's hand is suddenly at my nape. “Breathe deeply, Marissa. The nausea will pass.”

The fear never will.
I do what he says, anyway. I take several large inhales.

I look at his shirt. Each dot of blood, each smear, each splatter of death stares back at me.

Shepard covers my hands with his and squeezes them.

I finally notice our surroundings. The Motel 6 sign is the first thing I see. The buzzing of late-summer insects drones as the far-off noises of traffic make their way to us from the highway.

We're parked under the shade of an immature leafy tree. There isn't an audience. I wipe my eyes again, unsure how long I've been out. Ashamed of how glad I am that I can't see the bodies anymore. The blood.

“We're in Montana.”

I nod.
Okay.
I briefly close my eyes. Now the police will be involved. We probably left a DNA trail like bread crumbs.

Jesus.
I put my face in my hands.

Shepard releases me, and I step back. He places his hands on the top of his shirt and pulls.

Material tears with a soft, ragged sigh. Buttons fly, bouncing hard on the cement of the parking lot. One hits me in my chest, and I give a surprised yelp.

Shepard smiles at my reaction. He tosses the ruined shirt into a bag that held some food we'd picked up at a gas station.

My gaze narrows on his bare chest that taunts me.

Murderer,
my mind whispers.

I gulp, wanting to touch him so badly I knot my fingers together. Then clench them when I notice the scars.

My breath catches at the viciousness of them. Crosshatching scar tissue lines his rib cage, curving around his muscular flanks. The muscles of his torso sink below the waistband of his pants.

My eyes follow the trail of destruction. The scars seem to have no end. I raise my face and meet his eyes.

He hikes a brow. “Like what you see?” The question is soft but full of menace.

I like what I see too much
. This man who is a former French mobster and kills so easily. Too easily.

I retreat a half step. “What are those scars from?” I swallow. My fingertips break from each other, and I make a move to touch the marks of abuse covering his flesh. 

He captures my hand, disallowing my touch.

Shepard turns, and I snatch my hand away from his hold.

His back is a ruin of scar tissue. There isn't a clean spot of skin anywhere. I cover my mouth, holding in the horror. Every bit of his flesh is covered with very old wounds. Unshed tears ignite the back of my eyelids with fire. “Who did this?” I ask.

His dark brown eyes narrow on me. “The Handlers.”

What—who?
“Why?”

My nose stuffs up, and snot and tears clog me.

Shepard glances at me over his shoulder. “Do not waste your tears on me.”

They roll down my cheeks on a slow, boiling path to my chin. “I can't help it,” I choke out.

He rotates to face me. “I have done horrible things,” he reminds me.

I care about those things he's done. His past. But seeing what others did to him first—without knowing what his choices were,
if
he even had them—I need to see.

Touch.

My fingers find him, and he grabs my wrists, squeezing hard. “Do not... touch me.”

Shepard grits his teeth.

“Let me.”

His grip intensifies.

I bite my lip to keep from crying out. The man is strong.

Shepard's face hardens to planes and angles of anger. And beneath that, I swear I see fear.

A man who killed four men without assistance, scared of one woman.

I make a move so elementary he should have seen it five miles away. Unless he didn't want to.

I twist my hands in opposing directions. Hard. The move breaks his hold, surprise flooding his face.

My hands circle his neck as I step onto the top of his feet, gaining me a couple of inches of height.

Our eyes meet, and his breathing quickens, the eye contact incredibly intimate. “You told me to let you in.”

I stroke a thumb over his inky eyebrow.

His breath smells of mint and warmth as it bathes my face. “
Oui,
” he replies in a harsh whisper.

“You first.”

Pain washes his expression—indecision. “I am not a man to be loved. To place trust in, faith—hope.”

Too late.
“I already have.”

He opens his mouth, and I think about putting my finger on it. Instead, I press my lips to his. I move mine over his in soft little presses and sucks. Shepard doesn't respond.

But his cock grows between our bodies.

I'm well versed on male arousal, having been on the unwilling receiving end of my share of it.

For the first time,
I
am the seductress.

There's something about two pieces fractured. Broken by similar circumstance. Finding that they can be glued back together. If one component is used in the process.

Just one.

Shepard groans into my mouth. “No,” he says, grabbing my hands, and with one of his own, he secures them behind my back. My shoulder muscles bunch uncomfortably.

I give a small gasp of almost-pain, and I think he'll pull away then.

He doesn't. Shepard responds to my kiss, and I've never been kissed before. Not when I wanted to be.

Shepard’s lips move like a branding of fire, a flame from his soul to mine.

His lips scorch, lighting me from within. His leg presses forward between us, destabilizing me. My legs spread as I stumble off his feet and apart.

He twirls me, flattening me against the car, my arms pressed behind as he pins me with his hips.

Shepard's hardness grinds into my pelvis.

I suck in a breath, and his tongue ties with mine. I moan, and he eats the sound, biting softly on my lips.

Shepard's hands release mine, and he tucks his in against the side of my head, holding my skull tight against the warming roof of the car.

Sunlight streams down on us, punching through the tiny canopy of the tree. A patch of light floods Shepard's face in profile, warming his eyes to molten amber before he dives to my neck.

“I wish to fuck you, Marissa.” His breath mingles with the sun, heating me. Shepard's formal tone mixed with the rough language makes me wet. A new experience. “Badly,” he adds.

He could easily rape me. Hell, he could
kill
me.

Shepard also protected me. Twice.

Another first.

I think of my studies. My job. My life. But I haven't been living, not really. Everything's been on hold for the
promise
of a future.

Shepard offers me a future right now. It's only a day's future—a near future.

But it
is
living, if only for the moment.

Saying yes is the worst decision I'll ever make.

I nod, once.