Niko: Love me Harder (16 page)

“More like a thousand or four or five.”

She was sitting in a chair, but really was that close enough to the ground? She slipped out of the chair and moved to the floor carefully. That was better. Was it April? Nope. Guess this wasn’t an April fool’s joke. Did he even know about that holiday? She would have to ask him later.

“Kitten, are you ok?”

He called her kitten. That meant he’d delivered all of his news.

“Explain.”

“I don’t think our long lives is what the scientists intended. They wanted a weapon they didn’t have to worry about perishing quickly on the battlefield. So they manipulated us so that our cells continually regenerated. The DNA that was used was from beings who already had exceedingly long life spans. When combined with their manipulation, our life spans became un-chartable.”

“So you’re going to live what may feel like forever and I’ll die, leaving you behind for some other woman to have?”

She was proud of herself. Her voice had been nice and even. Voices could be deceiving. She was seething with anger over something he couldn’t help.

“You’re not going to die kitten. Your life span is linked to mine. It may even exceed mine. We aren’t sure. As far as we know, Aran and I are the first to be mated.”

Tears ran down her face, silently of course. Her body shook and she had a watery smile. In other words, she was a mess and she knew it. Part of her was happy she wouldn’t be leaving Niko, but the other half was scared of something that looked almost like eternal life.

How long could you live without getting bored or thinking in your head that you’re a god and everything should be for your pleasure?

“I’m ok. How would that work? How could we stay here without being discovered?”

“It can be done. Some have spent many years here without being discovered, but we don’t have to stay. We can go anywhere.”

She looked at him with fear in her eyes.

He crossed the room and sat on the floor next to her, taking her head and placing it in his lap.

“The hardest thing about living a long life is having no one to share it with intimately. I’ve had my brothers. Still, I craved someone to love. Now I have you, and kitten, you have me. We’ll laugh, love and go on adventures. It won’t be as disconcerting as you think.”

She nodded her head and breathed deeply, drawing his smell in. Her life had just changed again. The way she viewed life was changing. She found her stability in Niko. He would be there. Together, they could weather any storm.

He stroked her cheek as the shaking of her body started to reside. She allowed her eyes to close for a moment, enjoying the peace that came in the eye of the storm.

“My brothers will be here soon. Are you ready?”

“Yeah. Should I whip up something for them to eat?”

“What they’re hungry for, you can’t provide.”

They left his security room and made their way to the game room. She sat and eyed the VR game. She missed those few days where she’d been learning about his world.

“I have a present for you.”

Her eyes lit up. What could it be? He handed her a pretty hair pin, a little on the heavy side. Was it real?

“Put it in your hair.” She reached up and put it in.

“Beautiful. Now take it out and close your eyes and imagine the small stick in the VR game.”

She closed her eyes and did what he said. When she opened them, that same Vesko was laying in her hand.

“Where did this come from?”

“It’s your weapon. The one I promised to give you.”

“That was in a game Niko, not real life.”

“There is so much more to life kitten than you can imagine.”

“I’m going to teach you to slip into my mind, so you can see how to use it. There’s a specific weapon I want you to be able to use.”

“I can’t do that Niko. I can’t hurt anyone.”

“Dee, the created protect themselves, but it’s more than that. The created protect each other. You’re a created now. You’re one of us. One day you may have to protect yourself or one of us. You may have to protect Rena. How will you do that?”

Her eyes closed and her shoulders slumped. “I only ever wanted to be Dee.”

Life shouldn’t be any harder. Hadn’t she suffered enough? Funny, but all she wanted to be was happy. Was happiness worth fighting for? Her years flashed before her face. Years where she’d been abused and had accepted it. Years when she’d abused herself one way or the other.

Then it changed. Now she felt self-worth. She felt accepted and loved. Would she let someone walk into her life and snatch it all away? Her shoulders shook and she cried, for herself, for her mom? She wasn’t sure, so she just cried good and hard. Then she stopped and smiled.

She found her way into Niko’s mind without his help. She could feel his pride. It was like water to parched lips. He showed her the weapon and how to use the Vesko to form it. She learned to use it. She’d learned once that visualization was as effective as practice, if done right.

She felt every muscle in her body react as she ran through the moves. Muscle memory was such a tricky thing. He’d been right. She was capable of so much more.

She opened her eyes and saw a perfectly formed weapon. They walked outside. She sighted a leaf on a tree and blew it apart.

She turned and looked at Niko with a sad smile on her face.

“You made me deadly.” Her weapon turned into a hair clip, she placed it in her hair as she walked away.

Chapter Twenty-seven

They were all assembled in Niko’s game room, their game room and they were all looking at her. No one pushed her or rushed her. They treated her like family, like they would treat a sister if women had been made for them.

Rena looked at her, but she held her silence too. It didn’t matter, because Rena could read her eyes. She saw the awareness in them that Niko had pushed her further than she’d wanted to go.

She also felt the acceptance and the comradery. Rena had been pushed too. She took a deep breath. This wasn’t about her. It was about us. All of us.

“His name is Rick Vale. A nice simple name. Since when did the created start using such names?”

They all mumbled, protesting that each of their names was normal and simple.

“Rena, tell them.”

“I’m not in it. Do you know how hard it is to find a keychain with the name Rena on it? Their names are everyday names when put next to mine.”

Dee shook her head and looked at Hale who had his laptop out. He was doing a search on that name right now, looking for an address. An address she knew they would be paying a visit to. No one was staying behind. The created didn’t work that way.

“What happens if we find him?”

“Then we take care of him.” Aran’s voice was hard when he spoke the words.

“What about the cops?” Rena asked, making Dee happy someone had her back.

“The cops will never know.” Sergey inserted.

“What about Vance?” Sure he made her upset at times, but she wanted to find him alive.

“If he has him, we’ll find him.” Aran spoke and nodded to Sergey who nodded back.

“Got him.” Every head turned to Hale. “He lives about two hours from here in a nice woodland area.”

Every head left Hale and turned to Aran. He would give the orders and they would follow.

“We pay him a visit tonight. If he’s created, then our odds won’t be increased, but we lessen the chances of prying eyes. If he’s a human being used as a distraction by the created, then the chance of him hurting himself when we pay him a visit will have gone down. Either way, it’s a plus for our side.”

They all stood. One by one, they slipped away.

“Where did they go?”

“To prepare. They will be back here in an hour and then we’ll leave.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Although we rarely use a weapon, we’ll each carry one in case it’s needed. They will recheck the security in their homes. They will change into an outfit that was made for the purpose of tracking and hunting and they will reassemble here.”

“Why here? Why not at Aran’s? Why will they recheck their security?”

“They will reassemble here, because you tracked down the lead. So you’ll be given the honor of being the third on this. We will all recheck security, because you never go into battle unless you’re sure your home base can’t be compromised.”

He held out his hand and led her to the security room. She sat at her desk and toyed with her laptop while he began to run a security program. One, she realized, he ran every few days.

“You take this seriously. Have there been any attacks before this one on earth?”

“No.”

“Then why do you have so much security?”

He continued to tweak his sensors, before finally turning around and speaking.

“Tell me, kitten. What do you value?”

“Other than you?”

“Yes.”

“My car.”

“Do you take care of it? Do you fill the tank with gas, make sure the tires are fit?”

“Of course I do.”

“What if I asked you to go someplace of unknown distance with tires that were bald and a gas tank bordering on empty?”

“That sounds like a suicide mission.” She thought of deserted roads and snakes and men with guns. She shivered, so not happening.

“Now, what if I gave you a government mission and you left without securing your own borders only to come home to find that mission standing in your living room?”

“How’s our security system?”

“It’s fine.” He went back to tweaking his sensors.

They were paranoid all of them, but she understood it kept them alive. Now that same paranoia would keep her alive.

“Niko, what if more like this one comes?”

“Then we’ll take care of them.” He turned and left the room. She sat and watched her computer run through a program she’d created to link the company funds together, so she could see them as a whole.”

She waited impatiently for the program to stop running. When she’d the raw data before her, she began crunching numbers. She looked over at the credit cards to see that there were eight cards when there had only been seven several weeks ago. Had Aran given Rena a credit card?

She began to pull up the cards checking the name on each card and the date of issue. When she got to the last card, the name read Vance Baal and the date of issue was three weeks ago.

Had he been authorized to receive a card? She went to find Niko to ask. She walked away and then turned around and came back. She’d a feeling that leaving her computer on wouldn’t go over well.

She walked upstairs and found Niko, barely. He was wearing a material that she’d never seen. It blended in with the surroundings. She saw him, because he wanted to be seem.

“I was doing some more digging and I saw that there was an eighth credit card issued to the company. The name on it was Vance’s. Did you know that he had a credit card?”

“No.” He gave a slow shake of his head. “That wasn’t approved.”

Why would Vance have a credit card? He was the innocent victim here, but could he also have been stealing funds in a different way?

She’d watched Vance from the beginning, always surprised by the choice to make him the supervisor. There were many in her office she would’ve supported over him.

Again, she let it go, She wasn’t the one making decisions. He could’ve had special skills she hadn’t seen.

“I do agree with you.” She raised her eyes to look at Niko. “He wasn’t the best choice for the job. The best choice is standing in front of me. I needed time and he was a filler. Not a good explanation, but it’s all I have. With everything that had gone on with Aran, Rena and you, I needed to wait before I sprung something else on you.”

“Yet you thought it was ok to spring both yourself and your world on me?”

“I convinced myself that you needed both my world and myself in your life as much as I needed you in my life. I needed to be a part of you, so I justified my actions.”

Had she needed to be a part of his life? She now slept through the night, at least on nights he didn’t wake her up and make her insides melt. She’d finally made peace with the past, by dealing with her present. It was a slow process, but the memories that had made her want to cry or shy away from them, now gave her a joy that no amount of money or thank you could every repay.

She’d needed him in her life as much as he’d needed her. She simply hadn’t known.

“Do you want a thank you for invading my life?” She kept her face perfectly neutral, if only she could control her eyes. She felt them twinkling from her joy with him.

“A kiss maybe. Your beautiful lips against mine?” His eyebrows lifted as he fought the smile playing on his lips.

In the midst of turmoil, he was there for her. His easy smile at times made her forget that someone was after her. He made her feel that everything would turn out alright. Yeah, she needed this male in her life. She would rather fight for what she had, then sit in the dark hiding away from the world. She had tried that once. Pretending ignorance was a type of darkness that could eat your soul.

“Are you ready?”

She walked up to him and pressed her lips against his. Feeling his tongue lick against the seam of her mouth, she opened. The taste of him made her give a small moan in the back of her throat. For a minute, everything except Niko slipped away.

She felt the love he had surrounding her, flowing over and through her.

Finally, breaking the kiss, she answered his question. “Yes, I’m ready.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Niko and his brothers filled the game room. Add in the presence of Dante, and the huge room suddenly felt like a tight closet filled with alien testosterone. What she wouldn’t give for a camera at that very moment. If she could get these males on a calendar, she could make a fortune.

She smiled at the thought of Niko spread out with nothing but silk covering his waist. It was enough to send her down her own private path of lust.

“I’ll make that happen later kitten, but right now I need you to focus.”

Her face went red with embarrassment. She pulled her mind back and tried to concentrate on the plans.

Aran was talking. “We’ll get there right as darkness begins to fall, keeping the element of surprise on our side. We’ll be taking the modified jeeps that have been redone to make no noise. This will allow us to sneak in without announcing ourselves.” He’d looked directly at Dee as he explained himself.