Savage Bond (The Fallen) (8 page)

The Preserves had been carved out of the broad sweep of Russian steppe. Hundreds of years ago, Cossack fighters had ridden hard across this ground, driving their horses into bloody battles. Now, after the devastation of the Great Wars, the Fallen had bought up the land. There was nothing pretty left here, just a harsh, stony landscape that would have given even the fiercest Cossack warrior pause, all narrow, twisting chutes of rock shot through a barren landscape. Even in the almost impenetrable darkness that had surrounded them when the sun finally gave in and fell beneath the horizon hours ago, Vkhin's long-legged stride ate up the ground like he just couldn't wait to get where he was going. Which was far, far away from her.

Since he'd taken the lead when they'd set off, Ria had plenty of time to think—and to admire the view in front of her. Vkhin's big body was like something straight out of a dream, strong and sure. And that ass of his was something else. She wanted to beg him to take off the leather duster he wore like a suit of armor.

Which she wasn't going to do.

She didn't want to trust him. He had an ulterior motive, as he'd made perfectly clear. He wanted her pics—not her. And yet she was still tempted by him. She could admit that, to herself. She didn't have to say the words out loud, didn't have to give him that truth. He was big. He was brutal. And he was beautiful. She couldn't stop sneaking glances at him, because the reality of Vkhin was so much more than her surveillance footage had shown.

This trip had to be all business. Something was very wrong because her chopper should not have been taken down by winged angels. MVD needed that intel stat, which meant she needed to haul ass, get out and get home. With her vidstick.

Unfortunately, the only life line she had was a Fallen angel with the hardest body she'd ever seen and a chip on his shoulder even she couldn't miss. He'd made it perfectly clear that he didn't like humans. That
she
was trespassing on his territory. And he came with a price tag—she wanted out of here, he was claiming her vidstick for his own.

"Why do you really want my pictures?" She staked her own claim, forcing her hand not to check for the vidstick stashed in her bra.  "I understand the Fallen don't want MVD sticking its nose in the Preserves. It's your territory. These are your people. You've all made that perfectly clear. But why would my pics matter? This isn't one of those just-on-principle busts, Vkhin. We both know that."

He didn't slow down, those shitkicking combat boots of his eating up the ground effortlessly. "This isn't about MVD," he said, climbing over a pile of rocks blocking their path.

"Alright." She took the hand he held out to her. His fingers wrapped around her wrist, tugging her up. "They're just pictures," she argued. His fingers were warmth against her own, cooler skin. "Nothing you'd want."

"You have no idea what I want." As soon as her feet were firmly planted, he let go of her wrist.

The section of the Preserves they were field-tripping through must have been inhabited years ago, before the nuclear accidents of the Great Wars had rendered large strips of the Russian countryside uninhabitable by humans.  The ground was level here, a rusted-out car abandoned on the edge of their makeshift path. Maybe, there'd been a road connecting A to Z here long ago, before the Fallen had bought up the land and turned it into a paranormal prison. Now, the car's exterior was little more than rust-colored strips of peeling metal. The glass of the windshield had spider-webbed, thousands of cracks rippling outward from the hole in the middle. Somehow, that glass held despite the damage.

"I was shooting out of a moving chopper." She shrugged. "I doubt those shots are too clear. Your boys intercepted them, so you know exactly what I have." Which was more than she did. She'd shot on instinct, her finger on auto-pilot, because she'd needed the barrier between herself and the horror of what was unfolding on the ground.

"It doesn't matter now," he said. "If you don't go over the wall before the rogues catch up, it doesn't matter what you did or didn't see."

"Let's talk about that, shall we?" The kernel of anger was unexpected. She might not be as big or as strong, but she was part of this strange partnership. For some reason, he wanted something
she
had. He wanted—needed—to get her out of the Preserves. She didn't want to think about what would have happened if she hadn't had the photos as a bargaining chip. Nausea curled through her stomach. The winged angels had battered at the chopper like the bird was a toy. She could be dead.

All in all, MVD's recon mission had been a failure. Sure, she'd shot pictures, but what had she really captured?  She thought back over the scene on the ground, talking it through out loud. "Tell me when I get close," she suggested. "We fly in—"

"Illegally," he interrupted. "No humans in Fallen airspace. That was the deal, Ria. Whether you knew it or not, your superiors knew it real well. They knew they were sending you on a suicide mission."

Those words of his hurt, probably, she decided, because they were true.  She was disposable. Just like always. It didn't matter that
she'd
been sent. Someone had to go—and she'd been handy, like running through a drive-through when the hunger pangs hit and there wasn't enough time to do a sit-down.

"Fine," she said, because there was no point in harping on her role here. "MVD decides they need a closer look at what's going on on the ground in the Preserves because, you see, Vkhin, we've been hearing things. Rumors. Wild stories about flying angels, even though we all know your kind can't fly." What the hell, she decided. Maybe, she'd give him the truth after all. "I spot an anomaly while operating one of the drones—what looks like wingless rogues
flying
— and MVD chain of command decides it merits a second glance. So I go up, in a chopper, and we head for the problem spot. Only, the problem turns out to be that that spot isn't some blank spot on the radar with weird weather. No, what I'm seeing are flying objects.
Angels
, Vkhin, who've got their wings back."

He stopped then and just stared right at her. That hard, black gaze was the most lifeless, soul-less thing she'd ever seen. His eyes were cold as a bitch and she'd clearly connected one too many dots. He didn't like her conclusions. At all. So her breath shouldn't be catching, her eyes shouldn't be moving over the hard planes of his face, wondering how he'd got the small, silver scar on his left cheekbone. He didn't want her, she reminded herself fiercely. She was just the means to an end.

She hated the lack of light, the way the sky overhead was all impenetrable blackness. She stumbled because her night vision wasn't great and cracking open a torch would have been a nice move, but something about the darkness stopped her. That lack of light was menacing. As if something—someone—was watching. She could feel her pulse speeding up, slamming against the skin of her wrist, her throat. In another minute, she'd be fighting to breathe as the world and her chest closed in.
No.

Don't think about it.

Desperate for something new to think about, a distraction from the darkness, she replayed the scene in her head. So she had proof that some of the rogues had wings. Those wings were no happily-ever-after, but they didn't have to mean Armageddon, either. Half the world would dismiss the pictures as more evidence of media tampering. The other half would rant and rave, but just because a few of the rogues could fly, didn't mean the world was coming to an end.

Did it?

The flying angels had been different from Vkhin in more ways than just the wings. She tried to remember the how and the why of what happened, because she sensed the connection was important.

"The rogue Fallen on the ground—" she said, thinking it out—"not all of them had wings yet." Memory brought back the frantic click of the camera's shutter. She'd zoomed in on one dark shadow. No wings, not at first, just the red runes writhing on the male's scarred back. Forming one by one. "I have the recipe, don't I?" she said flatly. "Those words the winged angel was chanting—those are the magical step by step instructions on how to put a pair of wings back on a Fallen angel. I look at those pictures and figure out how to pronounce the runes, I can add wings to any of the Fallen."

"Maybe," he allowed. "But you're not sharing those pictures with anyone, Ria. You have to keep what you know to yourself."

That wasn't going to be a problem.

"So why not just kill me?" She had to say it, because that was the elephant in the room, wasn't it? She was alone with him. He'd already made it perfectly clear that he was bigger, stronger. Meaner. Snapping her neck would mean a handful of seconds to him—and whatever knowledge she had would be far more than off-limits to MVD.

"I don't want you dead, Ria." There was no mistaking the hungry look in his eyes, however. He wanted something.

At least the unfriendlies following their asses hadn't caught up and the lack of light would put them out of business until daylight, too.  The last winged rogue had disappeared from the horizon a half hour ago.  Maybe, they had an all clear for the moment. Vkhin risked a glance back at his companion and knew he had to call it. She was game, but no way she went any further. Not without a couple of hours to catch her breath. Plus, that new limp of hers screamed blister, too.

He could afford to give her an hour or two to rest, then they needed to be on the move again.

Didn't take long, either, to find a decent place to stop and hunker down once he'd started looking.

"We're stopping?" Her voice slurred with exhaustion as she trudged towards him. "I thought you wanted me to put out."

He ignored her last suggestion, but couldn't shake the fantasies running through his head. He was supposed to be cold. Unfeeling. He'd spent millennia serving as Zer's right hand. He was a warrior. He fought and he killed—and he had no fucking regrets about that. So he shouldn't feel this hunger for Ria Morgan. From the first moment he'd felt her watching him, he'd felt
something
however, a complicated mix of hunger and lust and an unfamiliar, unwanted tenderness.

He needed those pics. That was all this was.

He was only stopping because she was human and therefore fragile. Of course, if she bonded with him, that wouldn't be an issue anymore. But he didn't want to bond with anyone.

"I might have another mile in me," she said. He watched her put one foot in front of the other like she'd been drunk for a week and hadn't figured out the straight line deal. Yeah. Definitely time to call it quits. Whatever she had left wasn't much at all.

"Park it," he said and she stumbled to a halt, almost body-slamming him in her haze of exhaustion.

"You're quitting now?" She set her pack down, though, and followed it to the ground.

"You ask too many questions," he grumbled. His knife sliced clean through the branch, peeling the fibers off in long strands. He'd peeled rogues like that, let their screams wash right on over him because he had a job to do and intel to gather. She didn't know what kind of a monster she was prodding.

Before he could say something he'd regret, he got busy with his blade again and cuts a dozen long poles, lashing them together into a primitive frame. The raw cuts would advertise their presence, but speed was going to win the day tomorrow, not stealth.

She flipped open the bag, rummaging around inside it. "And you don't answer any of them."

"You're tired." He covered the frame he'd made with the tough nylon chute she'd jumped with. Kind of teepee-like, he decided. Wasn't the Ritz-Carlton, but, with the opening tucked at a right angle to the rising wind, she'd be out of the cold and damp. That was worth half a star right there. Her eyes followed him as he did his thing, undoubtedly full of more questions.

"How come you don't want to do that bonding thing?"

"You volunteering?"

Her mouth snapped shut. "Not really."

She hadn't, he noticed, denied the possibility flat out. Instead, she dropped her gaze and began rummaging around inside that bag of hers again. Eventually, she pulled out a granola bar and tore open the silver wrapper. He wished he could give her the doughnut and coffee he knew she craved, but there were some things he couldn't do.

"You want one?" she asked.

"I'm good for now." He collected a handful of rocks to weigh down the edges of the chute. Too bad he wasn't a Boy Scout, because this was merit badge material right here. "You got more water in that bag of yours, you should drink it. Make sure you don't dehydrate."

She chewed and swallowed. "This all part of the protect-and-evac deal you offered? A little hospitality for the night and you make sure I eat and drink?"

He stepped away from the skeleton he'd assembled. The branches would hold the chute nicely. Might not be the prettiest place she'd ever slept, but she'd be okay for tonight.

"You don't want to bond with me," he pointed out. "What you want is to get out of here. Preferably in one piece."

"In one piece is good." She nodded and took another bite of granola bar. "That's a plan I could get behind."