Blood glinted, and Sabrina bent down to look at the crimson-stained stone where Lara must have hit her head. She knew then how to find Lara before Powell returned, a realization that brought both relief and dread because it came with a price. Lucian, who’d betrayed Adam and was now working for Powell, was a Tracker. He could find a GTECH female through the essence of the blood residue that would follow her, wherever she went above ground. Lucian was loyal to Powell, but he was more so to himself, and she had something Lucian wanted. He wanted her, to turn her into a whore all over again, like she had been so many times. She’d been used and abused her entire life, and Powell had given her a chance to change that.
She’d thought that was behind her, thought that finally she was important, someone who made a difference, who mattered. That’s what being the leader of Serenity meant to her. “You are making a difference,” she whispered to the wind, a friend that allowed her the bliss of freedom. She wasn’t willing to lose her new life, not to Bar-1, and not to death. Her lips thinned, and resolve formed. She would not be the tramp that was walked on ever again, the woman who was used and abused.
If that meant she had to pretend to be Lucian’s whore for now, she’d do it. She’d tolerate Lucian if that’s what it took to ensure her security and freedom. She’d use Lucian, as she’d been used by so many, as Lucian wanted to use her. If he became a problem, she’d get rid of him, as so many others had tried to get rid of her. Except Powell. For that reason, Powell had her loyalty, and she’d do anything to keep his. Anything.
Chapter 3
Damion’s petite bundle of captive woman had a surprising amount of fight left, considering she was bruised, scraped, and had blood matted in her hair from a head wound. Just how much fight she had left was a little detail he’d found out the hard way when he’d ended their wind walk in front of a secluded cabin three hundred miles outside of Washington, and she’d tried to attack him.
Defending himself, he tried not to hurt her, his gut telling him there was more to this woman than met the eye. It wasn’t easy to be gentle, when she twisted, kicked, elbowed, and then kicked some more. But he took it all, defensively, not offensively. Then she bit the heck out of his hand, which might not be what he’d expected from a GTECH, but it was pretty darn effective because it hurt like hell.
He recoiled from the painful bite, and she threw a punch aimed at his nose. That’s where he drew the line. This had to end. He’d had his nose broken enough times to know he didn’t want it broken again.
Damion, once again, found himself catching her fist not a second too soon. “Enough with the violence already,” he ordered. “In case you didn’t notice, I just saved your life.”
“You didn’t save my life,” she ground out between her teeth.
“I suppose that woman you attacked back there was just trying to say thank you by beating you in the face?” he challenged. Determined to avoid her attacks, he shackled her wrists so she couldn’t throw another punch.
“I can hold my own with Sabrina,” she said. “And we both know you didn’t do me any favors. You kidnapped me to drag information out of me.”
When the truth might hurt, he’d learned, dodge or duck. He dodged and countered. “The last time I saw that rabid redhead, Sabrina was dealing ICE for Adam, helping him in his plot to get the entire city of Vegas addicted to a drug only he could produce.” A good reason to think Sabrina had taken a supply of ICE before the Renegades destroyed the stockpile, and that both she and this woman were ICE users. Except ICE users couldn’t wind-walk. No. They were full-blooded GTECHs, as impossible as that seemed. Back on point, he added, “Bottom line, Sabrina was kicking your ass.”
An instant of surprise flickered across her face, her gaze clouded, then she opened her mouth to speak. He had the distinct, certain impression, that she didn’t know Sabrina’s history, but she quickly pursed her lips.
Damion arched an inquiring brow, letting her know he hadn’t missed her reaction, which only served to tick her off all over again.
Her eyes sparked angrily. “She wasn’t kicking my ass, and you will not bait me into telling you anything. We both know you’re trying to manipulate me into giving you information, and that’s the only reason you interfered in that confrontation back there. Well, you might as well move on to torture, because your manipulation isn’t working. I’m not telling you anything.” She tried to twist away from him.
That was it. Even a soldier with respect for women had limits. Damion was done with all this struggling. He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around hers, so she couldn’t move.
Fury and indignation burned in her stare. “Remember this moment when the tables turn, and I hold you captive,” she said. “Because mark my words, the tables will turn.”
Heat slid through his limbs—the idea of being held captive by this woman was not so unappealing. Somehow though, he doubted sharing his fantasy of them wrapped together in naked, sweaty bliss—with silk ties and bedroom sheets—would work in his favor. Damn the woman was infuriating and soft, and sonofabitch, she felt good in his arms when she shouldn’t. She was a distraction, and perhaps that was what Adam had intended, a distraction that could turn deadly if he didn’t get his shit together.
His lips thinned and his expression hardened. “If anyone here is doing any manipulating, it’s you,” he said tightly. “In fact, for all I know, that whole fight back there was staged to get me to do just what I did. Take you someplace off the grid, where I’m vulnerable to attack. You could be wearing a tracking mechanism, and trying to keep me outside where a gaggle of wind-walkers can trap me. Or maybe you don’t need a tracking device. Maybe you’re on a Tracker’s radar.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer, his instincts setting him on alert. A human woman who’d had sex with a GTECH put off an energy or essence. From that point on, unless that woman was below ground level, a gifted Tracker could find her. He was one of those Trackers, and he sensed nothing in this woman, but then she was the first female GTECH he’d encountered. Just because he didn’t know how to track her didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. “That’s it. We’re going underground.”
“I’m not going—”
“Oh yeah, you are,” he said and bent over to pick her up. She yelped as he threw her over his shoulder and headed toward the cabin. He had a passage nearby that led to the underground emergency facility the Renegades had installed some time back, when more and more, they’d found themselves chasing Zodius threats to Washington. “And don’t even think about wind-walking, because I promise you, I’ll follow.”
He walked toward the cabin, tuning out the female’s curses, some of which would make a sailor blush. Hell, they might even make Chale blush, and that wasn’t an easy task. Her nice, round backside, just above where his hand rested on her bare thighs, wasn’t as easily tuned out. In fact, his hand itched to reach up and pop her right on one of those cute little cheeks just for making him notice it. Good thing she didn’t notice his distraction, or he had a feeling her verbal bashing would get worse.
Right about then she vehemently vowed, “I’m going to kill you when I get down from here, and…”
Then again, maybe she had noticed. Damion sighed and started up the steps to the porch. This relationship was off to a beautiful start if he ever saw one.
***
Lara had a plan to escape the GTECH, and that plan didn’t include being plagued by the dizziness that had started by the pool, which was made worse by blood rushing to her head that made her stomach churn. Nor the humiliation of having her dress fall to her waist, and her bikini-bottomed backside staring her captor in the face. It did, however, include cursing and yelling, both of which were meant to make him believe that was the only defense she believed she had left—that she’d accepted the inevitability of accompanying him into the cabin and just didn’t plan to go quietly. She wanted him to believe that she’d accepted he was physically stronger, that she k
new he could tag along if she wind-walked because he was touching her, so she wasn’t going to try.
Then, at the right moment, she’d catch him off guard and wind-walk, before he could do whatever magic he was doing to stop her. He’d follow. She knew that. Gaining a precious few seconds lead on him was her goal, enough to allow her to reappear in a public place with lots and lots of people where he didn’t dare grab her again. From there, well, she’d improvise. The most important thing, right now, was not getting locked in some underground cavern with a GTECH, who might not ever let her see the light of day again. Especially not when she knew he had to be the reason for her blackout, the reason she’d been incapable of wind-walking by the pool. She didn’t know if she could wind-walk now, if surprising him would release his control over her, but she had to try, had to fight to survive.
The GTECH took the last step to the porch, and Lara blasted out one last rush of rants, surprised at how easily four-letter words came to mind since she’d never actually used them. Adrenaline rushed through her, with the urge to flee now, but she forced herself to be patient, to wait until the last possible second, to wait rather than act, for that second when he reached for the doorknob. His hand closed around it, and Lara called to the wind.
Instant, piercing pain ripped through her head and left her panting, head spinning, fingers digging into the hard muscle of the GTECH’s back. He was doing it to her again. He was controlling her, and she couldn’t do anything to stop him.
“Bastard,” she hissed through her teeth the instant the pain began to ease, but physically she could feel her body weaken from the energy she’d expelled in her failed escape, her limbs growing heavy.
“So I’ve been told by you several times now,” he said dryly, walking inside the cabin and kicking the door shut. He flipped a lock into place, and then walked a few steps, though she didn’t know where, because she couldn’t see anything except the floor. But he kept talking, kept acting like nothing was wrong—like she wasn’t hanging over his damn shoulder in pain. “For the record,” he continued, “I prefer my name, Damion, to bastard. What should I call you besides, ‘the one with the wicked tongue and mean bite’?”
She wasn’t about to touch that wicked tongue comment, which sounded a little too suggestive, making her wonder if he’d evoked some deep, dark, captive-princess fantasy buried somewhere in the recesses of her mind. Then again, considering everything, it might just be the blood rushing to her head. “My name won’t matter if the blood keeps running to my head like this, and it explodes. Please. Put me down, and stop whatever else you are doing to me.”
“It’s ‘please’ now, is it?” he asked, but he didn’t expect a reply, immediately adding, “You’re a contradiction if I ever met one. Just a few more minutes.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but the energy seemed poorly spent, the time for her yelling and ranting gone, a failed distraction she now couldn’t afford.
It was time to be silent, to catalogue her surroundings for escape options, as Skywalker had taught her. She frowned, a funny flutter rushing across her chest. Skywalker? Who was Skywalker? Powell. She meant Powell.
The GTECH—Damion—stopped at a wall of some sort, and Lara managed a brief glimpse behind her of a worn, brown leather couch, two chairs, and shag throw rug on hardwood, before he started walking down a set of dark stairs. Automatic lights flickered to life as he began the descent, and Lara saw a sophisticated electronic panel close behind them. That wasn’t going to be easy to get past again without a security code.
He entered an elevator and headed deeper into an underground facility. Once inside, with the doors shut, he put her down, to her surprise. In the process, his powerful arm did a slow slide down her body, his palm running over her legs, her butt, her back. She felt every intimate inch of herself touch every hard inch of him—and not without reaction. By the time her feet hit the ground, she was hot, so hot. Unnaturally aroused by a man who was her enemy, and it made no sense. She couldn’t control what she felt. Forget the rush of blood to her head, it had all pooled lower—much lower.
Neither moved, their bodies still close, and the scent of him, all musky and male, enveloped her, entranced her. She told herself it was his unique GTECH abilities and refused to make eye contact, afraid to make eye contact. She stared at his chest, at her hands resting against the hard T-shirt-clad wall of muscle, and told herself to push him away. But, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she resisted breaking the physical bond. Push away! she silently yelled in her mind.
His hands caressed a path down her sides, sending warm tingling through her limbs, and she was lost in the sensation. That was, until she realized he was pulling her dress over her backside, because it had been shoved up over her hips, and she hadn’t even noticed. What was it about this man? She couldn’t keep her dress down around him.
Lara shoved out of his arms and in just one backward step, hit the wall behind her. Instinctively, her eyes lifted, and before she knew what had happened, they locked with his. Lord help her, she felt the connection to her toes, the silent snake of awareness wrapping around them, curling low in her stomach.
“Stop doing this to me,” she hissed, angry at his seductive abilities.
He arched a brow, amusement dancing in his dark eyes. “Stop doing what?”
The elevator opened, and before she knew what he intended, he hit a button on the panel, locking the doors open, and then spinning her to face the wall.
Once again, she was trapped, with the same big, strong, powerful GTECH body pressed hotly to hers, with no ability to use the wind to aid her escape.
Chapter 4
Being trapped with her back to a big, dangerous GTECH, not once, but twice in an hour, growing more physically ill with each passing second, didn’t exactly invite more of her bravado, but nevertheless, Lara gave it a whirl. “Are we really doing this little game again?” she demanded, trying to keep her voice as cool as the elevator wall that her hands pressed against, only to sound breathless, as though she were affected by her captive position, by the heat radiating off his big body into hers.
“You mean the one where I search you to make sure you don’t get to keep your promise to kill me?” he said, his body framing hers, his hands sliding to her waist. “Yeah. We are.”
“I guess Renegades don’t believe in facing their enemies head on?” she taunted, trying to get him to turn her back around, before he found her weapon. Fighting him would be wasted energy she’d need when a real opportunity to escape materialized. Saving her weapon had to be her goal. “You just prefer to stab them in the back.” That last part wasn’t a question. She knew it was true. She’d witnessed it firsthand.
“I’m not the one threatening to kill you,” he reminded her.
“It’s not a threat,” she managed, and to her dismay, he slid his leg intimately between hers and spread them wide. A sudden, unforgiving ache spread between her legs, an ache that belied who and what this man was. An ache he had to be creating, just as he was weakening her physically. He was messing with her mind, her skills, her body. “Then you know why you’re facing the wall, and I’m not,” he said, his tone low and sandpaper rough. “In fact, keep your hands on said wall until I tell you to move them.”
“In other words, don’t reach for the gun my bikini is hiding so effectively?” She tried to look over her shoulder at him, but froze when he framed her body, his hands covering hers and pressing them to the wall. His palms slid back down her arms, leaving a sizzling burn in their wake.
“Exactly,” he agreed, his fingers framing her waist, and she could hear the smile in his voice as he added, “I fully admit to a macho need to be the only one of the two of us armed and dangerous in this relationship.” His palms skimmed over her hips and down her thighs, until he was squatting down beneath her skirt, patting down her shoes.
“We don’t have a relationship,” she said, hating the unsteady, telling note in her voice that having this man sitting beneath the hem of her dress h
ad created. “We are experiencing an unfortunate encounter that is outlasting its welcome.”
“Sounds like the beginning of something wonderful to me,” he commented, a moment before his warm, callused fingers traced her calves and moved to her knees.
“Hey!” she objected, reaching down and catching his hand, as she met his gaze. “Not under the dress.”
“Oh yes,” he assured her, an evil glint of mischief in both his voice and his expression, “under the dress. I promise to make it fast and painless. Now be a good girl, and put your hands back on the wall.”