Bone Deep (12 page)

She wouldn’t allow him to bear that weight.

She noticed the bandage on his left shoulder and thought perhaps it was good she’d killed Azrael.

“Do not call me
Etzem
,” she said in a tight voice.

“Ah yes, things have changed since San Sebastian. What should I call you then?” he asked, arms at his sides, hands loose. His stance indicated he wasn’t worried. His face though was shut down, devoid of all emotion.

It was the reminder she needed that she faced a killer much as herself, one with a conscience.

“
Ubiytsa
is fine.”

“You speak my native tongue as if you were born there,” he told her.

Was he trying to distract her from her rage? She almost laughed. There was no escape from the hallowed embrace of that emotion.

“Did you hear me,
ubiytsa
?” he asked calmly.

Ninka’s language had always brought Bone a measure of peace. She had learned it first. Then Japanese, Gaelic, French, Arabic, Portuguese, and Spanish. Russian came as easy to Bone as breathing when she was with Dmitry.

She shrugged. “I speak many languages as if I were born in the country of origin. Another talent of mine Joseph made sure to hone. I have an ear for inflection.”

As she waited on his next move Bone catalogued her surroundings. A fifty by fifty foot mat covered the floor right in the middle of the room. The ropes dangled at each corner and she smiled, let the demon loose to flow and ride the blood in her body, bringing heat and hate to every molecule of her being.

He cocked his head. “I will not call you killer. Not here.”

“But you already have and I suspect it’s because you understand the truth. A killer is all that I am. Taking life is all that I know.”

“I disagree. There is more to you. I have felt it. I have tasted it. But you need the fight, so let’s fight.”

“I know who trained you,” she admitted casually, stepping onto the mat he stood in the middle of.

The lighting in the room was low, but it did not matter. She had been trained in the dark, in the light and every nuance in between.

He nodded. “I suspect you know much about me that I don’t know about you. One day soon we will talk about it all,
da
?”

“I killed Abela when I was nine years old,” she told him.

His reaction surprised her. He clapped. It was a taunt. “I heard he was killed by a student and once I knew about you I wondered. You move like him but lighter, faster. You are also emotionless, which is something he prized in his students. He was an evil man.”

“I wrenched his head from his body and took it back to Joseph. Abela was vain. He thought no one was as good at killing as he. Unfortunately, his student had become his teacher.” Bone sighed, letting it flow through her body and out her mouth. “I have known nothing but the fight for too many years to count. I have ended more life than you can imagine and you want to fight with me?” She snorted delicately.

“I would rather we spar but you seem determined to talk me to death. I came prepared for your best. Shall we?”

He took two steps and was in her space, breathing down her neck. The T-shirt she wore was no match for the heat he generated. It slithered down her neck, pebbled her nipples and sank under her skin. She shoved her reaction aside.

“We will dance. Are you strong enough to stop me from killing you?” she asked mildly. She wanted to applaud her restraint but could not move, strangely frozen by his warmth, by how he made her feel.

“Let us see.”

She flexed her hands and struck between one breath and the next, striking him in his injured shoulder with her open palm and curving around his body to stand behind him. He went to a knee at her punch, caught his breath and turned in less time than it took for her to blink.

He was good. Controlled enough to take the pain and remain composed so as not to strike out in fear or rage.

“Abela taught me how to channel my rage, but I fear here with you, I am out of control,” she mused, more to herself than him. She was afraid she would damage him even as she refused to acknowledge how much it would hurt her to do so.

He turned and swept out with his foot. Bone jumped and avoided the move with ease. As soon as her feet touched the mat, he was on her, striking everywhere—head, neck, abdomen, legs. She blocked his blows and turned many right back on him.

He was pulling punches and it pissed her off. She grabbed his left arm and twisted, sliding under it before pulling up and back. He grunted but turned into her hold, breaking it.

He rushed her, taking her down with sheer brute force, the same technique he’d used in St. Petersburg, but she slithered out of his hold and kicked him in the side. He rolled with her kick and came to his haunches. She stood five feet away and began walking in a circle around him. He didn’t try to follow her with his eyes and she admired his strength. Most men would be desperate to keep her in their sight.

“I would say your control is a thing of beauty.” He was barely winded.

But barely was enough and her rage knew it.

“You haven’t offered up much of a fight. I need more,” she bit out.

“I’m afraid I will hurt you, and that is something I find myself surprised I cannot do. It is the only thing that saves you, I fear.”

She laughed. Threw back her head and laughed, the sound hollow and ringing through the room. “What does it save me from?”

His face hardened, the blue of his eyes darkening to a storm-tossed sea. “Me taking you to this mat and fucking you until you can’t breathe, and I no longer crave the feel of you wrapped around my cock.”

Her heart knocked against her lungs begging for her breath back. There was nothing she could say—both her mind and body numb at the thought of him doing just that.

“You should hate me,” she whispered.

“It hasn’t happened yet, and believe me, I’ve tried. But maybe I can make you hate me enough that it’s no longer an issue,” he responded.

The heat in his voice singed her.

“You
will
hate me,” she assured him.

He inclined his head and the sadness of the gesture chased the numbness and replaced it with…pain.

Two more men entered from another door, and then there were three men to her one. She’d seen them in the courtyard earlier. They were part of Raines’ team and by the looks on their faces did not find her diminutive form a threat at all. This was his play then.

As the numbness had disappeared, so too did the pain. Red hazed her vision and she breathed through it, controlling the deceptive pull of the hate, making it hers thus making it a weapon.

“You cannot hurt me but you will let others?” she taunted him. “So much for your truth.”

He cocked his head and sighed. “I do not like the thought of anyone touching you—that was my truth. But you need a fight I can’t give you at the moment. Besides, they will be easy pickings for you,
ubiytsa
. They are here to tire you out for my grand finale.”

Killer,
he called her. She sank low, her stance solid and balanced, one foot slightly in front of the other, both knees bent. Bone closed her eyes and waited, giving over to the rage.

She closed her eyes. “Let us do this.”

They struck as a coordinated unit and she ducked low, avoiding each of them as she turned and punched one in the head and the other in the side. Both men grunted and fell but got up immediately. They rushed at her again and it was more of the same, a punch, a kick, and she was back in the forest outside of Vadim Yesipov’s mansion, craving death and needing the release.

She turned her mind off and kept her eyes closed. Bone opened her ears and her mind, drilling past the obvious noises of feet over rubber. She allowed the beat of their hearts and their breathing to reverberate in her ears. So many times she had faced opponents. So many times she killed. The lust rose and ebbed, a black wave pulling her under. Soon she would not be able to stop.

She followed their footsteps, all the time aware of exactly where Dmitry was in the room. He became her anchor and it was unacceptable. She stilled, took a deep breath and centered herself.

She didn’t need an anchor. She had her hate and in the times when she couldn’t handle the fires of her hate, she had her sisters.

Her senses flared out. The men hadn’t feared her when they’d walked in but now the room was permeated with their sweat and panic. She reveled in it.

Bone tossed one man in a classic Judo throw and followed him down, pulling her punch before she crushed his windpipe. She didn’t know what held her hand—maybe it was the subtle scent of juniper and pine entwined with her quarry’s fear that stopped her. The second man took advantage of her stillness, grabbing her around the neck and pulling her to her back. He wrapped his legs around her waist, but her arms were there so she was able to leverage and twist, gaining his top and punching him in the head, in the chest and capturing his hand, crushing the bones with ease. He screamed and tried to push her off.

The first man punched her in the side of the head and she rolled, taking the blow and coming to her feet for a split second before she pirouetted in the air and took him down with a single kick to the side of his face. He spun and fell, out cold while the first scrambled away from her, terror on his face as he tried to ward her off with his good hand.

Then Dmitry was there, wrapping her in a bear hug similar to what he’d done of the roof in St. Petersburg. She went limp and the demon inside scratched at her mind.

“Stop,” he urged in a gruff voice.

She hung there in his arms, the rage spiraling. “Fight me, goddamn it!”

“I will not. I cannot do this with you, Bone. Do not ask it of me. You are tearing yourself to pieces,” he said and in his voice was a struggle.

“It is all I know, Asinimov. Please do not do this to me.”

She had never begged for anything from anyone. Not from Minton, not from Joseph, not from anyone, yet she’d just begged Dmitry Asinimov.

“U tebya hrupkie kostochki. Sogneshjsja ti ili slomaeshjsja?”
he asked softly.

“I will not break!”

It was a scream from the very heart of her.

“I will not let you but neither will I let you break me,” he whispered and then he put her down, stepped away, and walked out of the room, leaving her alone.

Bone allowed her head to fall forward, the long, brown skeins of her hair lank with perspiration. She was nowhere near stable enough to see anyone. She needed to purge but suddenly it wasn’t as important as it had been when she’d walked in.

She looked around the room. The ropes still taunted her.

She was alone.

Always she was alone.

Dmitry made it to his room in time for the devil riding his back to sink in his fangs and tear into his soul. He closed the door and punched the wall, hand going through drywall with ease. He would not be the one to hurt her—it wasn’t in him.

But he’d been close to unleashing his own demons. She called forth parts of him he’d hidden for years under the veneer of a solid, stable man. She made him want to lose control.

He stepped out of his pants and walked to the bathroom. His hand was bleeding, his shoulder was doing the same and still he got under scalding hot water and showered, trying to eliminate the traces of her on his skin.

She felt right in his arms, her small bones and curvy body a benediction against his own. He wanted to stalk back to her, demand all the answers she had, fuck her blind and then walk away.

He struck the tile wall and winced. The tile cracked but did not break. He was left handed and his shoulder was on fire. The bitch had punched him right in it, moving for his weakness with no remorse.

The water streamed down his body, stroking his skin. He was hard with need. She alone did this to him and the fight, combined with the debilitating desire he had for her, solidified in his body. His cock responded to her unerringly.

He showered and got out, wrapping a towel around his waist and entering his bedroom. The shock of her presence was akin to fire ants under his skin. He swiped a hand down his arm before he could check the action.

“What do you want?”

She stood near the window, her body silhouetted by the dull light of the cloud-covered moon. In the distance lightning split the sky, highlighting her blank face and setting her eyes on fire.

He could not do this with her right now. There was too much unresolved between them and she was a killer. Yes, they’d danced around this fiery lust between them for years now—but she was too fragile to handle what he wanted to do to her.

And Dmitry was afraid he would be the casualty of their war.

“That is a question I have never been asked before,” she murmured. Her soft voice snuck its way into his heart and squeezed.

Just that fast she changed his mood.
Splintered
, he thought,
she is splintered
. She stood so still it was eerie and at the same time it filled him with fury. She’d suffered too much and he knew she’d only scratched the surface with the story about her parents.

He still did not understand why she hated Minton with such ferocity, or why, unlike her sisters, she smiled as she dealt death. She was the coldest fire and yet something inside her called to everything male and protective inside of him. He wanted to hold her, take her body against his and let her melt into him.

The silence grew and Dmitry found himself loathe to break it. She’d come here for a reason. He would know what it was but he wasn’t going to make it easy for her.

“The first time I saw you, my breath stopped,” she whispered as she turned to gaze to the night.

She managed to stun him and at the same time fan the flames of his desire for her.

“You were in Moscow, working with the Russian secret service. An international arms dealer had come across your path and that path intersected with mine. I was waiting for the dealer, you see. He was my target. Nobody crosses Joseph and lives to tell the tale. I was standing in plain site near Lenin’s Mausoleum. He thought it funny that he was making a deal for stolen weapons beside the Father of the Revolution’s memorial.”