Tribes of Man: The Beginning [Tribes of Man] (Siren Publishing Classic) (12 page)

Don’t go!

I’m not going anywhere,
he said.

Raina felt him reach past her. After a moment, she felt the spray of the shower shift as he removed the showerhead from the wall and, beginning at her neck, ran it over her body. When he got to the space between her legs, he left the spray on her, aimed right at her clit. The needles of the shower were delicate torture. When his mouth settled on her breast, and the finger of the other hand slid into her body, she exploded. She writhed on his finger, trying to prolong the intensity of the feeling.

After her body quieted, he gave her one more quick rinse then moved the spray to himself.

“What about you?” she asked shyly.

“You’re going to be a little sore today,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I don’t think so,” was all she said before taking the soap and putting some in her hands. Beginning at his neck, she made the same journey over his body as he’d made on hers. She noticed the networking of scars that ran along the side of his body and worked to block out the transfer of remembered pain. By the time she reached his cock, he was trembling. She followed his lead, taking her soapy hand and running it over his balls and up his ass.

He hissed.

She grasped him in her soapy hand and began to pump his cock in slow, slippery strokes. “We need to make sure you’re nice and clean,” she said in a naughty little voice.

Gideon let out a strained laugh. “You keep this up, and it’s going to get messy in here.”

She took her hand away, and he gasped, “I didn’t mean to stop.”

She laughed and took the showerhead down again to rinse him. Then she knelt. “I’m not done yet. I just don’t like the taste of soap.” With that she engulfed him in her mouth. He let out a long, low growl and fisted his hands in her hair. He helped guide her with the pace while she ran her tongue on the outside ridge of his head.

Gideon was thrusting into her mouth with short, purposeful strokes when their long shower finally emptied out the hot water tank. The water went from hot to tepid to cold in a few seconds. Raina released him with a squeal, and the icy water hit his hot dick, making him yelp also.

“Goddamn fucking shit,” he said and reached around her to shut off the water.

Raina couldn’t help but laugh at the comment.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” he said in a menacing voice. He hauled her up and turned her around to face the shower wall. Then he ran his finger between her legs to ensure that he wouldn’t hurt her. The slide of his fingers over her stopped the laugh with a gasp. That gasp became a groan when he lifted her backside up and began filling her.

Raina cried out as his penetration reignited her pain.

He stopped and started to pull back out. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

“No!” she shouted. He stilled. Raina lifted herself on her toes then pushed back against him hard, impaling herself on him before he could move. The unexpected combination of exquisite pain and intense pleasure catapulted her into a vicious orgasm.

With three hard thrusts and a shout of triumph, he joined her.

All of a sudden Raina’s body went rigid with shock. She could see an image in the droplets of water along the wall. She couldn’t make it out, but she thought she saw a man running, blood running like a river behind him. When it almost reached him, he turned and looked at her. There was a network of scars along the side of his face. The blood coalesced into the figure of a man and reached for him. When Gideon went up in flames, Raina screamed.

* * * *

Raina’s wild scream pierced the air.

It was strident enough to make Gideon go on guard. He pulled back and turned to face the enemy. When he saw a shadow on the other side of the shower door, he reached to push the door out of the way so that he could fight. As soon as he reached for it, the shower door blew off its hinges and exploded into the bathroom.

Raina screamed again, Gideon froze in shock, and Kristano, standing in the bathroom, calmly handed him a towel and said, “I bet you want to know what that was about.”

Gideon snatched the towel to wrap Raina in. He also sent her his vision.

Raina grasped the towel to her and climbed out into the rubble, heedless of the broken pieces of Plexiglas and wall on the floor. Barely holding the towel in place, she grabbed Kristano and held on.

“You’ve got to help him,” she babbled. “He’s in danger. I saw. I saw. It was bad, please.” She was so panicked she didn’t even seem cognizant of the fact that Gideon’s rage, which was already sparked by Raina’s fear, was close to flying out of control at the sight of a mostly naked Raina in Kristano’s arms.

Kristano held her shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. He said in a hypnotic voice, “It’s OK. There’s no reason to worry. We’ll work it out. He has power. You know it.”

Raina was taking deep breaths. Kristano stepped back from her and said to Gideon, “I’ll be downstairs waiting. Gideon?” When Gideon looked at him, Kristano said, “Look in the mirror.”

Automatically Gideon’s eyes shifted to his image in the mirror. He was shocked at the sight of himself. His eyes glowed red.

* * * *

Raina’s gasp was loud in the frozen tableau of the moment. “My God,” she said almost reverently, “look at your eyes.”

She felt Gideon try to slam the connection shut, but she wouldn’t allow it. She could feel his embarrassment, both about the fading red glow of his eyes and the network of scars that ran along his body.

Gideon hadn’t had the chance to step out of the shower, and Raina stepped back into it with him. He watched in the mirror as she ran her hands along the scars on his chest and arm.

He shuddered.

“These don’t make you any less beautiful to me,” she said.

“You’re not seeing them well enough,” he said, moving her hand aside firmly.

“Then show me,” she said. Raina took Gideon’s hand and led him from the destroyed bathroom. She led him to her closet and opened the door. On the inside of the door was a full-length mirror. She faced him in front of it.

Raina stood on his undamaged side and watched him look at himself in the mirror. He looked at the unscarred side of his body, and she could almost picture him before the explosion—sleek bald head, intense green eyes, a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once. He wasn’t classically handsome, but he had a rough sexuality about him.

His gaze shifted to the puckered scars that began on his head and ran down the entire length of his body. They were worse on his shoulder and down his leg, as though he was curled into a ball when he burned. She could feel his disgust, not only at the sight of them, but also at the memory of how he got them. “It’s not just the scars, Raina. It’s what caused them.”

She punched his arm, and not lightly. “Stop it. It was not your fault.” Although he didn’t say anything, she felt his denial. “No! It wasn’t. You didn’t know, and you never would have put your team in danger.”

I deserve these scars and the pain that goes with them.

Raina moved behind him to stand on his damaged side. She kissed his scarred cheek. His face was wet, from tears or from the water from the shower, she didn’t know.

He closed his eyes, grabbed her to him, and buried his face in her neck. Although they were separated by nothing more than a towel, there was nothing sexual about it. At that moment, her soul touched his, healed his.

When he stepped back, he simply said, “We’d better get dressed and get down there before Kristano comes looking for us again.”

Raina took the “back to business” cue and said, “So, do you have any idea what you did to my bathroom?”

“No idea at all.”

Raina began getting dressed. “Then we better go figure it out.”

* * * *

“That was called the Waterfire,” Kristano said after they’d gotten seated in the living room.

“What is that?” Raina asked.

“And can I do it again?” Gideon added.

“Waterfire is a combination of your powers. The people of different tribes were discouraged from mating. It did happen sometimes, but generally, it was considered socially unacceptable. One of the things that happened when those of the different tribes merged was that their powers changed, not necessarily for the better. When Water and Fire mate, the Water tribe member suddenly found what he or she saw to be changed. Instead of knowing when rain was coming, he or she might see when someone was going to lie or hurt another. The predictions got darker and more personal. The Fire tribe member got the power and the curse of the Waterfire.”

Kristano was sitting on the chair, lounging with his arm hooked over the back of it. Despite his warrior’s bulk, he looked like a young man shooting the breeze with friends.

“But what is it exactly?” Raina wanted to know.

“It’s the ability to basically blow things up, light things on fire, destroy at a distance.” Kristano’s intense words belied his casual posture.

“But why would that be a curse for a warrior?” Gideon asked, intrigued by the idea of the advantage wielding that kind of power would have in battle.

“Because it’s hard to control. When warriors first get the power, they tend to make mistakes, like blowing up their mate’s bathroom.”

“Very funny,” Gideon said, his grin contrasting the sarcastic words.

“Actually, it’s true. Those new to the Waterfire were treated somewhat like ticking time bombs. They often accidentally hurt people or destroyed property. Once the warrior matured and got a better handle on the power, it became a huge asset. Unfortunately, you don’t have much time to get control. You are in the thick of the battle already.”

Gideon felt the familiar weight of responsibility rest on his shoulders. He just hoped that this time he wouldn’t screw it up.

“The changes in your powers may work to our advantage though, Raina. Being able to predict the weather is less important than being able to see your enemy. The biggest problem we have right now is that neither of you are able to control your powers yet. In addition to that, we have to find the other keepers, avoid Adder’s assassins, and figure out the ritual that the prophecy speaks of.” There was a long moment of silence while everyone absorbed the enormity of the task in front of them.

Raina was the one to break the silence. “Sounds like fun. Where do we start?”

* * * *

They started at the Twenty-Third Precinct bull pen. Although anxious to get started, none of them wanted to complicate matters by missing an appointment with the police.

They arrived at the precinct fifteen minutes before Wijinicki told them to arrive. It was a full half hour before he was able to get to them.

He led them into a lounge area. The walls were puke green, the brown leather couch had seen better days, and there was a vague smell of old coffee and unwashed body. Gideon couldn’t believe how much he missed it.

He liked being out on his own. His agency helped to soothe the rough edges from leaving the force, but he couldn’t deny that he missed the atmosphere of the station. The clean and calm environment of his office just wasn’t the same.

“Sorry to make you wait,” Wijinicki said as he gestured to a seat. “It’s been a madhouse in here all morning.”

They had decided Raina would be less likely to say or do something that would give away the real strangeness of the situation if Raina couldn’t see, so Gideon felt like he had to describe the room to her in his mind.

After he did so, she said,
You miss it.
It wasn’t a question.

Yeah.

He felt her mental hug.

“OK,” said Wijinicki as he opened a file, “we need to go over everything one more time.” Then he began asking questions.

After running through the events again, Wijinicki began asking her more personal questions. Raina would have been offended if she hadn’t had to answer those questions once before—right after her home was broken into and her roommate killed.

“Look,” she said after an hour of questions like “Do you do drugs?” and “Do you owe anyone money?” “I understand why you have to ask these questions, but my answers are going to be the same as they were after Michelle was killed. I have absolutely no idea why anyone would try to hurt me. I’m just a student. I work with ancient languages and classical studies. I’m not even in an interesting field like international business or finance. I wish with all my heart that I had an answer to this, but I don’t.”

It’s OK, baby. We expected these kinds of questions
, Gideon tried to reassure her.

I know, but I’m getting tired of them. There’s so much for us to do right now.

“Look, Ms. Kallan, I know this is invasive and kind of insulting, but I’m trying to understand if you were the target, or just a victim of very bad luck.” Gideon knew that Wijinicki’s tone was more respectful than it would have been if he hadn’t been there.

“I understand that,” she said, “but I don’t know what to tell you.”

“What about your work at the university? Is there any way you could have seen something you weren’t supposed to? Maybe someone could have thought you saw something you weren’t supposed to?”

“If I saw something I wasn’t supposed to, I can’t imagine what it is. I specialize in mythology and mythological figures, although my language skills aren’t too bad either. We don’t even usually get to see actual scrolls or artifacts, only copies. I know we haven’t had anything like that in the department since I was an undergraduate there.”

“That sounds like a dead end,” he said.

“Excuse the pun,” she joked weakly.

Gideon chuckled. Wijinicki just looked confused.

Just then a uniformed officer came in and gave Wijinicki a note. He read it over and turned to Gideon. “I’m sorry to have called you down here for this. It looks like you were just an unlucky victim, again. A group of terrorists are taking credit for the hit. I guess one of the students killed was the kid of someone in the State Department. Looks like he might have been the target all along.”