Bone Rider (30 page)

Alien as it seemed, there was something about the way it held itself that was undeniably Riley. Tiny shifts as it worked residual stiffness out of its broad shoulders. An instinctive favoring of the left knee, mostly habitual now. Little things, but enough to bring Misha up short, remind him it was Riley beneath all that metal… or his body, at least. And that realization gave birth to an entirely different kind of terror; because there was no telling if Riley was still alive in there or had been replaced by this thing. Misha’s gun hand dropped, the weapon suddenly too heavy to hold up.

“Riley?”

His voice wavered precariously between the wintry remoteness of his professional persona and an emotionally charged rumble that was all Mikhail Tokarev.

There was no reply, but the armored head tilted slightly, silver gaze fixed on the gun. Slowly, Misha backed up. He lifted the gun to show his finger was well away from the trigger, reengaged the safety, and carefully put the weapon down on the dresser on the other end of the room. Chances were it wouldn’t save him anyway, and if there was even a remote chance that Riley could see him….

“It’s all right,” he said, steadier now even though his heart was still trying to climb out through his throat.

He stepped away from the dresser, from his weapon, against every instinct he had, because this was Riley—had to be Riley—and goddamn it, but Misha would not knowingly point a gun at him.

“I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m unarmed, see?” He spread his arms to emphasize his point, put his hands up and tried to smile. “You in there, cowboy?”

He’d better be, because Misha had no idea what to do if he wasn’t. He was so far out of his depth it wasn’t funny. The only thing he knew was that he wouldn’t—
couldn’t
—give up Riley. God knew where the armor had come from, what had happened to Riley when they’d been separated. Right that moment, Misha didn’t care. He was a methodical person. One problem at the time. He would find out the specifics later, provided he survived this encounter.

“Riley? Talk to me?”

He took another step closer, carefully, arms still up and movements slow so as not to spook the man-creature on the bed. He couldn’t match its speed and he had no desire to go up against those extending blades again.

“Come on, man,” Misha coaxed softly. “You know I won’t hurt you.”

The knight shook his head like a boxer after a particularly nasty hit. He clenched his fists, tensed, and then suddenly relaxed his stance. The armor disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. It melted into Riley’s skin as though it had never been there, leaving Riley crouched naked on the bed. The silver glaze over his eyes took the longest to vanish, but finally it bled away into a more natural gray-green-bluish hue. Eyes like November skies. Riley’s eyes.

Riley wobbled a little, looking dazed. Then he toppled over backward and sat down hard. He steadied himself with his arms, muscles flexing under smooth skin, his back arching reflexively to ease the strain on his shoulders. His legs splayed open carelessly and it most definitely wasn’t an invitation, but Misha’s Riley-starved body didn’t care, made him sway closer instinctively before he could stop himself. He dragged his gaze up to Riley’s face to see him check out the room, wary and bemused, trying to take in everything at once though his attention kept circling back to Misha. Riley’s breath stuttered, which made Misha’s pulse rate skyrocket again, then thankfully Riley’s breathing steadied.

“Misha,” he rasped, when he had assessed his situation to the best of his ability. “What the hell?”

A
RE
we dead?
Riley thought. His skull was pounding, his mind murky and confused. He felt as though he’d been trampled by a bull or two, only without the benefit of the painkillers the medics would’ve pumped into him had he wrecked. He fought for consciousness, felt his eyes slide open, but the dizziness didn’t go away and he didn’t actually see much of anything. The world was swaying around him in swirls of black and gray, which was actually a lot worse than any other kind of “not fully there yet” blindness he knew. Either he had the mother of all concussions, or this was the first step into the afterlife.

We’re not dead yet. We just got smacked in the head by an exploding countertop. Wake up, we’re in trouble
, a much-too-familiar voice piped up loudly, and then Riley’s body was moving on its own, propelled into action by a hot flood of… something. Forward and up—hello there, nausea!—and Riley didn’t know what was happening, but he hoped like hell McClane wasn’t about to slaughter an innocent bystander. Or throw up on them. They came to an abrupt stop then, perfectly balanced and ready to move. No upchucking was happening, and neither did there seem to be blood.

Note how I’m not killing him
, McClane declared proudly.

Riley might’ve been more appreciative had he had any idea what was going on. He tried to rouse himself, find out specifics, but his head was throbbing—or maybe that was his brain; he could’ve sworn it was about to go pop like an overripe berry under a truck tire—and his stomach was climbing up his throat. It was all very distracting. Beneath the god-awful headache and the sickness, he became aware of a weak scrabbling along his bones, an itch in his guts, an electric tingling in his muscles. It appeared that McClane wasn’t back to one hundred percent either at this point.

I’m working on it
, McClane informed him tightly.
Gimme a break, that fucking thing hit us before I had all shields up. I’m rebooting both of us here
.

Reboot faster
, Riley thought, mostly blind, feeling like shit, and completely disoriented. He was just awake enough to be really damn scared. He could tell that McClane was wrapped around him protectively, shielding him, and it made him feel safer, but also even more disconnected from the world outside his metal cocoon. He thought he heard somebody talking somewhere beyond the barrier. The timbre of the voice was unexpectedly soothing, but try as he might, Riley was too woozy to identify it or make out more than a fuzzy shape in front of them. The shape came closer, arms spread wide, talking gently and moving slowly as if Riley were a cornered animal ready to bolt or attack at the slightest provocation. He couldn’t deny that his heart was going a mile a minute, banging against his ribcage like a frantic rabbit desperate to escape from a cage.

Almost there, almost there
, McClane muttered, and then there was a short, sharp pain in Riley’s head and his hearing was back in time to catch a quiet, “You know I won’t hurt you.”

Got it
, whooped McClane.

Riley swallowed and the nausea receded, blinked and there was Misha, calm and charismatic as always. Riley’s first reaction was a feeling of such overwhelming relief that McClane immediately sank back through his skin and left him bare and exposed. Without the external support of the armor, Riley couldn’t muster the strength to stay in position. He sat down hard to avoid falling down, relieved when his butt met something reasonably soft instead of the floor. Apparently, he’d been kneeling on a bed. It was not a good place for facing Misha.

Riley blinked again and forced himself to look away, desperate for a chance to regroup before he had to deal with this unexpected development. They were in a room Riley had never seen before, door closed, sunlight flooding in through a narrow window. He had a hard time taking in much more than that, because his gaze kept going back to the man who stood at the foot of the bed. Misha looked good, Riley noticed helplessly and not a little resentfully. Tall and strong in dark slacks and a rumpled shirt with its sleeves rolled up to show off sinewy forearms and a five-thousand-dollar watch. Tired and disheveled as though he’d had an interesting day, rust-colored specks all over the front of his shirt, a smudge of dirt across his cheekbone and in dire need of a shower, yet somehow the beautiful fucker managed to look like he’d stepped right out of an action flick, a decoratively beat-up antihero fazed by nothing, ridiculously hot no matter what.

Riley wanted him so badly his breath hitched.

It was an extraordinarily bad time for Riley to acknowledge he wasn’t over this particular relationship in the least, hadn’t worked through anything, hadn’t dealt with shit. He had protected himself from the immediate hurt by denying its existence and suddenly it was there again, raw and painful, a pressure bandage ripped off a wound that went to the bone. His emotions gushed out in a bitter torrent of betrayal, anger, and need. Still so much fucking
need
for Misha after all that had happened, and it hurt, it ached, it made Riley stupid like good tequila. He shivered with it and hoped to God Misha didn’t notice. Two months of lying low, always looking over his shoulder, and now Misha had found him and Riley wasn’t prepared for it. He’d half expected to be assassinated by one of Misha’s men, or to turn around one day and get shot by Misha himself at point-blank range, but not this. Whatever this was.

“Misha.”

It was a low, gravelly rasp. Riley’s throat felt parched, desiccated. At least the headache was almost gone. He tried to hold on to his temper, be civilized, he really did, but all he could squeeze out past the knot in his throat was a tight, “What the hell?”

Misha’s gaze flicked down to Riley’s crotch, just for a second, then back up to meet Riley’s eyes. He raised an eyebrow. “I was about to ask you that. Looks like I’m not the only one who kept secrets.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Riley was up and off the bed before he knew it, McClane’s surprised
Whoa!
ringing through his head just before his fist connected with Misha’s face. No metal, no spikes, no force enhancement; nothing but two months’ worth of hurt and frustration from a man who had learned to throw punches in a little nowhere town west of San Antonio.

The lowlife liar went down with a satisfying lack of grace.

Good one
, McClane crowed, firing off a quick drum roll of popping pats down Riley’s back, which was one of the oddest sensations he’d produced so far. Then he crawled all over Riley’s knuckles from the inside, checking for damage.
Should’ve gone for his mouth, though.

“You keep out of this,” Riley ordered, too damn mad to give a shit about Misha overhearing him talking to himself.

What if he draws a weapon?
McClane asked, hopeful.

Riley didn’t take his eyes off the man on the floor. His head was pounding again, his heart ached, and his stomach felt like someone had torn a hole into it… probably the asshole currently trying to climb back to his feet.

“Then all bets are off.” He glared down at Misha, noting the blood on Misha’s face with both satisfaction and dismay. “Your nose broken?”

Misha sat back down, apparently not quite trusting his equilibrium yet, and raised a hand to his face to prod at his nose. His fingers and knuckles looked bruised and scraped, not as though he’d been fighting but more as though he’d been setting up fence posts without wearing gloves. Riley wanted to ask about it. Damned if he would.

“D’no,” Misha said finally, then turned his head and spat out the blood that had gotten into his mouth the second he’d opened it. “Fuck.” He spat again and looked up at Riley with a scowl. “Tell me that was not your best shot.”

He’s unrepentant
, McClane pronounced,
and insulting. And possibly suicidal. Can we kick him in the face?

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Riley snapped, choosing to ignore both Misha’s bullshit and McClane’s suggestion. His voice was rough with thirst and tension. “Where are we?”

“New Mexico,” Misha said promptly. He tried to wipe away some of the blood, but mostly just smeared it over his chin and cheek. He glanced down at his sticky, battered fingers in disgust and promptly wiped them on his shirt. The results were gruesome: he looked like a cannibal with no table manners. Also, the fresh stains next to the older ones drew Riley’s attention to the fact that what he’d thought to be dirt looked a hell of a lot like dried blood.

When Misha raised his head again, though, any speculation about what-the-devil he’d been up to while Riley had been out cold withered under the man’s gaze, sharp and so intense Riley’s pulse sped up considerably.

“How’s your head?”

The honest answer would’ve been “itchy,” because McClane was inching around in his skull, taking away the remains of Riley’s headache, making sure everything was in working order in there. Judging from the alien’s muttering, there had been damage, but nothing McClane couldn’t repair.

“It’s fine.” Riley realized he’d relaxed his stance a little, put at ease by Misha’s carefully non-threatening demeanor. It also finally registered that he was naked and half-hard. It was the latter observation that made him step back, away from the killer sitting so calmly on the floor. “What are you doing here?”

Misha licked the blood off his lip and scowled. “Getting slugged for saving your ass,” he grumbled, but there was no heat in his voice. He was damn near devouring Riley with his eyes, fingers twitching as if he wanted to reach out and touch, his pants tented suspiciously, but he stayed where he was when he added quietly, “I missed you.”

That was the last thing Riley had expected. He blinked, struggled to process, and failed. It didn’t make sense. Riley was a witness, a liability.

“What?”

“I missed you,” Misha repeated, something soft and yearning in his gaze that hit Riley like a punch. It looked so real. Wasn’t, couldn’t be, but for a moment, Riley almost believed it. Then Misha added, “You didn’t have to run. I wouldn’t have hurt you,” and that was such an outrageous lie Riley nearly choked on it.

The urge was strong to give in to the devil on his shoulder (and the one wrapped around his bones) and kick Misha after all, but in the end Riley couldn’t bring himself to add to the blood he’d already spilled. He’d never taken pleasure in hurting other people, and the idea of hitting Misha when he wasn’t about to fight back made him feel sick, especially knowing that with McClane’s enthusiastic assistance it’d be way too easy to shatter Misha’s skull. He took a step back, trying to distance himself from the man and the hurt.