Wicked Hunt (Dark Hearts Book 3) (13 page)

Zorie

The water poured into the pool a few feet to my right.

He’d not moved for ages. Neither had I.

After the sex, he’d dragged me out here, washed me off, cleaned up and removed all evidence, with the diligence of a car detailer doing a car wash of a Ferrari.

I felt clean and defiled and torn.

Hate and love tussled in my mind.

I hated what he’d done. It triggered every grossed-out notion in my handbook. And I loved it.

I hunkered down onto my forearms, hid my face until only my eyes showed – enough so I could look at Grimm.

We were both naked. I’d had to kill a dozen mozzies and would probably come down with malaria or dengue or whatever was the Thai mosquito specialty.

The forest around us kept going at its business. Birds, trees, lizards, and other shit. The water relentlessly trickled into the pool. Small fragments of leaves drifted past and I watched, one-eyed. Would my world ever be the same?

Grimm was an animal.

Yet I could see him over there, as wrapped up in this tragedy as myself.

I’d loved what he’d done. Reveled in it. Even now, remembering stirred me to excess. If he’d arrived before me, cock out, I’d have sucked on it, impaled my mouth. My toes curled at the thought. Such a misuse of mesmer powers that Einar and Kaage shrank to nothing.

I think I loved this man...but not as he now was.

The stone was cold beneath my bottom. Midday by now. Or close to it.

He’d removed the chain, pried it off with pliers, and his muscles bunching and relaxing before my nose had awed me. My defenses against Grimm, at this moment, were minimal.

Why had he freed me?

Because chains were nothing compared to his mind?

Or was it something else?

He had his arms wrapped around his folded-up legs and his head partly buried in his arms. Much the same as myself. Hiding. Waiting.

A fact rose up and smacked me. I was free because he meant me to go.

Was this remorse? Awareness of wrong? The wisest action might be to walk to the car and leave.

I was never one to refuse a challenge when it seemed necessary. The Grimm I once knew would’ve cut off his arm rather than do what he’d done. If this was guilt, if I walked away, he might vanish into the jungle.

To approach him – dangerous. To walk away – I could see a tragedy waiting to fall upon him. I chewed my lip a while, stewing.

Then I rose to my feet, feeling the circulation returning to my legs. Pins and needles took a while to go away, then...I picked my way over to him, this feral thing.

The blood was gone from his body. It helped me see him as a man.

I squatted before him and waited until he lifted his gaze. Though the water might have dripped away, being midday, sweat shone on his face. His skin gleamed, his eyes gleamed. The musculature of his shoulders and arms had sharp curves that cut him into a wild landscape. Tremors shook him. He might erupt at my words.

I licked my lips then chanced it.

“I want to get you help.”

He only blinked.

“Will you come with me?”

“I will hurt you. No.”

Will.

Crap.

But he’d acknowledged the truth there. Progress. Maybe in an hour he would revert, though. If I was near him, bad things.

My chest hurt as I wrestled with what to do. There was never any answer but one.

“You helped me, Grimm. I won’t abandon you. I’m willing to take the risk.”

“You should go. Zorie, go. Please.”

My name coming from his mouth shocked me. I’d not heard him say it for many days.

“No. We go to the car. I’ll phone Mavros and that doctor. We’ll figure out what to do.”

“Go!”

“I won’t fucking abandon you.” I wiped tears from my cheeks. Go and leave him to go totally crazy? To die? Fuck no. I would not.

He unfolded his legs and stood, rested his back against the vine-tangled tree behind him. Floating shadows played on his skin. Naked, standing tall, he was godlike. A Hercules in the flesh. No wonder he’d flattened Mavros. He wrapped one hand about a dangling vine.

“While I have words. I might not tomorrow. This.” He drew a breath as if about to begin a story.

That he could still rustle up words and conclusions had me smiling. “Go on.”

“I had a stepbrother...his name...” His brow corrugated. “Tom.”

That alone stabbed me with fear. This couldn’t be.

“He took you one night. Tied you up. You killed him.” Then he stopped, as if that was enough.

The facts bludgeoned me.

I flung myself to my feet and backed up, horrified, rendered speechless as my thoughts ran amok. It couldn’t be.
Couldn’t.
How could Tom, the man who held a tight grip on my teenage nightmares, who had almost wrecked me until I found myself again, how could this person have known Grimm, been his brother? Or stepbrother?

I shook my head, eyes shut. When I opened them he was waiting, his face struck into sharp planes as if he anticipated my anger.

A long silence followed as I repeatedly clenched my hands into fists and released them, wishing there was someone to hit to make this go away. On top of what Grimm was becoming, and had done to me...devastating.

But he meant it to be so.

Wanted me to go away.

I did take another step backward.

“You waited all this time? All this time! Knowing that it would kill me to know that you...”
My friend.
How could he be a friend now? “And we are, were... Fuck.”

I wiped my mouth.

This was his method of stopping me from helping him.

“Fuck you. You kept this a secret all this time, because you worried it would turn me away from you? Knowing that secret! Not saying! Ugh.” Again I shook my head and I came to a conclusion in the middle of the firebombed state of my thoughts.

“You know what? I don’t give a stuff. Hear me? I
know
what you’re doing. It hasn’t worked. Come with me, Grimm, or I will stay with you here forever. I am not going.”

“Fool!” His fist pulled the vine downward, hard enough to make it creak.

“I...” I’d been almost about to say the
I love you
phrase. Was it true? I think I loved what he had been. Now, I wanted to do an extreme makeover before laying those words out. Loving a monster? No.

If I said it would he understand it anyway? Would it help me or stop him from coming with me? Unsure, of
anything
, I set it aside. “Please.”

I left that word there, hanging between us. It was all I had left.

The tears came unbidden, streaming down my face.

“Please?” A crease formed beside his mouth then he reached out to touch my face, running his knuckles down through the tears. “Oh, Zorie. I will come.” His eyes glistened as if he too were about to shed tears. “But I don’t want to hurt you...more. And not Mavros. Not him. You can’t talk to him.”

“Okay.” Eager to capitalize on my success, I agreed. “No Mavros and we will both do our best not to hurt each other.” I smiled sadly. God forbid I had to shoot Grimm.

He gathered me into his arms, twining them about me gently. The tremors were still there.

My fear was breathtaking in its intensity, but so was another emotion that I now couldn’t deny. I still didn’t say the words, afraid he would renege on his promise and disengage, because caring for me was why he’d been aiming to walk away.

If he knew, he might leave.

With my arms half-circling him, and my ear to his heart, listening to the beat, I whispered the words in my mind. Stupid words, nonsensical ones. Ones that defied logic.

I love you.

Johann

The phone call came out of the blue, just when I was examining my newly refurbished laboratory and wondering how much blood Kim Phuang would extract from me to pay for all this useless equipment. I didn’t recognize the caller.

“Hi?”

“Doctor Rudy?”

I straightened, brushing away a fragment of leaf that’d made its way in. Possums, I figured. It wasn’t worth getting too pedantic about repairs.

“Yes. Zorina?”

“Yes. We had some trouble getting to you. One of the men assigned as a guard threatened us with a gun. Grimm disposed of him.”

I knew all about the guard. Kim had added his treatment to my substantial bill. The man was still in hospital with a fractured arm, ribs, and minor head injuries. From what the driver had said, Grimm Heller had overreacted.

“Now tell me the truth Miss Brown. Has Grimm worsened? Is that what caused this?”

No reply.

“Because if it has, if he’s going to be violent, I need to know.”

“He might be. I can’t tell. He is probably worse.”

“Okay. Then here is what we need to do.” The
we
was deliberate. I meant to include her in the treatment plan, or appear to. This was a bonus. It gave me an excuse for what I wanted to do anyway.

“You give me your location and I will arrange for some trustworthy men to pick you up and bring you directly here. However, for everyone’s safety, I’m going to need Grimm to be restrained. Okay?”

Over the phone I swear I could hear her thinking, maybe almost crying. Oh, the agony. I grinned. Poor woman. She’d be worried I’d not allow them near me minus this restraint. What sane person would agree to this? Strange country, armed men picking them up, and I was an unknown, apart from whatever Nicholas had said to her about me.

“Okay. Okay. I agree.”

He must have terrified her.

“Good.”

As she fed me their location – the clever things had thought to find out prior to contacting me – I couldn’t help but be pleased.

Immobilize the man before he entered the facility? Check.

Make her think they were the dangerous ones, not me? Check.

I wasn’t sure this was going to work out though. The man was progressing faster than I’d hoped. He might turn out the same as Wolfe, when I’d been hoping he had a variation of the same strain of this infection. If this prion had strains. The difference in response might also be due to the patients being different. So little statistical data to go on, and so I had to make leaps in the dark. If Grimm was as dangerous as Wolfe, I may as well drop him into the pit as well, or kill him. If his prion was similar yet a little different, I could examine that difference to see if I could use it to create a more stable variant, one a man might desire. There was power in this. If Grimm had the same unique advantage over other mesmers that Wolfe had, the result would be worth the hassle.

I could be king. Of half the world.

I ended the call and swiveled on the lab stool then swiveled back. Nice leather under my ass too, and great padding. I should get another of these.

Yes. Risking Grimm’s violence would be worth it, up to a point. Beyond that, I’d tip him into the pit and go back to my hobbies – my drinking, my girls, my home movies via drone.

I speed dialed Kim and waited for him to pick up.

“Sà wàt dii.”

“Ka,” I answered. “I have good news! The girl and the man have turned up. You don’t have to worry about the danger though. He will let you tie him up. I suggest a strait jacket. A strong one. This time, I want your men to bring them through the gate. They can go when I have them both safely under control.”

Mavros

Breakfast at a Thai market was glorious in its variation. The
tuk-tuk
driver had shown me about five restaurants already.

I could try
om luad moo
, which was a delightful dish of boiled pork blood, or
khao kai jeow,
which was just rice and an omelet, then there was
patongo
, the Thai version of the donut, or
khao neow
something, a sticky rice lump topped with a slice of custard and wrapped in a banana leaf.

Or then again, I could have my IT man’s head on a platter. He’d cackled to me about how the back door method was working and he’d cracked the phone, as if this was something like the second coming. I needed the data ASAP and still wasn’t likely to get it for another twenty-four hours.

None of my influential friends had any influence here in Bangkok and I had little time to build a network of willing women. I wasn’t even sure how much influence women had here. Face or social status was important in Thailand.

“Here?” The driver waggled his arm at the latest restaurant. “
Khao rad gaeng
? Rice and curry.”

“Okay. This will do.” The cooking smelled amazing and the gaggle of customers seemed an indicator that the little place served good food. I did the
wai
that Thais seemed to do for thank yous and hellos, though I may have had it wrong. After exchanging money the man drove off.

I weaved past the people on the sidewalk and the propped motor bikes to stand beneath the rusty corrugated awning. My casual attire of long pants and plain cotton shirt was making me itch for something more sophisticated. A tie would probably strangle me with heat though. Already sweat was trickling down the middle of my back.

Once seated at a small table, I waved for the waitress and ordered. Then I lounged back in the freakily dainty plastic chair and wondered what the hell I was doing and why.

Back in the warehouse, Grimm had probably come close to breaking my jaw with his fist. He didn’t want me around. And Zorie? Maybe not her either.

They’d disappeared in Thailand and here I was running around spending cash to try to find them, and probably getting food poisoning in the process. The sex trade industry here was legendary and I didn’t need to be a mesmer to have a fruitful sex life involving almost any kink I’d care to think of. Only money was needed.

The waitress returned with plates of food before I figured out that
why
.

A stampede of cars and
tuk-tuks
, bikes and bicycles, in the street a few yards away gave me the answer. Someone out there would surely die today. Asian and African traffic seemed to have spawned from the same birthplace – the fifth circle of Hell.

I was afraid, that was my reason. Afraid they’d ended up in bad trouble. I couldn’t quite forgive Grimm – his attack had been vicious and violent – but I understood him. If he worsened, Zorie might suffer.

That...I rocked on the back legs of the chair, feeling them bend...that would make my day a terrible one. So, I would find out where they’d gone, make sure everything was okay...then what?

The two of them on the bed that day, cuddling together, it’d bugged me. I’d wanted to be in the middle of that, talking and being a part of it all.

The curry and rice was getting cold. I picked up a spoon and prayed it wasn’t too spicy as I ate a mouthful.

“Good, sir?” the waitress stopped to ask.

I nodded and swallowed. “Yes. Thank you.”

My phone buzzed with a text message alert and I tapped through to it.

IT guy should get a Christmas present early.

The phone wasn’t used much. One main recipient of messages. A Johann. Will email full attachment now. Invoice to follow.

Now that looked promising.

My laptop was back at the hotel. I’d read the email there.

I breathed fire for a second and spooned around the dish. A bright red chili emerged from the liquid and I fished it out and tossed it to a wandering dog.
Soi
dogs they were called – strays. Most of them had rabies. It was a sobering thought. Don’t get bitten in Thailand.

I wondered if that applied to some of the humans. From what I’d heard, the country had its fair share of monsters. Some human monsters were the men with the sweetest smiles.

Watch the ones who smile. It should be a motto.