Enemy Mine (12 page)

Those memories, still so vivid, warmed his heart. But crashing right behind them was the knowledge of what she had done. The fury and heartache resurfaced full force. He stared at her blood-smeared chest. The blood on her hands.

Nikko went into the bathroom and grabbed some towels, dampening one with warm water. Sitting down on the bed, he unbuttoned his shirt he had put her in and pulled it away from her chest. He averted his eyes from her breasts and slowly wiped the dried blood from her body. When he was done, he dried her, then buttoned the shirt back up. Save for the slow shallow rise and fall of her chest, she still had not moved.

For a long time Nikko stared at the soft flick of her pulse in her neck. The unusual necklace she wore moved with each beat of her heart. He looked more closely at it. The thing she’d ripped from that abomination’s chest glowed softly in a setting. Two settings were empty. Were there two more to be had? He reached out a finger to the bloodstone; it pulsed with energy against his skin. Intuitively, he knew it was important to Selena. She’d risked her life for it. He turned the necklace around her neck so he could unclasp it, then pulled it free. He lifted it up against the lamplight for a closer look. Seven rustic settings, probably platinum by the weight of it, five filled with what looked like crimson stones the size of a quarter that hummed with vitality. Power. What kind of power he did not know, but he knew it was important. He slipped the heavy necklace into his trouser pocket and turned his attention back to the woman he loved to hate.

He traced a finger down her jugular. Her pulse jumped against his touch. Her skin was as soft as he remembered it. Warm. Human, damn it! But what if she wasn’t? What if she was what Cross said she was? Was that how she had survived his attack? He had been livid. Out-of-his-mind crazy. He had strangled her. He had watched the color drain from her face, felt the life force leave her body.

“It’s over, Johnny.”

“What have you done?!”
he’d screamed when he looked down at her flat belly, the same belly that, the week before, had been swollen with his child.

“I’m not ready to be a mother. I—I had an abortion.”

His world had snapped in half at that precise second. What he did after, he had no control of. And though little Marisol’s blood was on her hands, he’d lived with the guilt and self-loathing of murdering the woman he loved.

The body beneath his fingers shivered. She was coming to. He opened his eyes, and his own heart stuttered.

Deep onyx-colored eyes stared at him. Her body was still, her breathing barely detectable. Nikko’s hand shook.

Her eyes flashed. She flung him off her with such force, he went hurtling backward into the wall. Nikko shook himself. It took a moment for him to comprehend what had just happened. She knew where the cask was, and she was going to make a break for it. His eyes narrowed. Over his dead body.

She stood on the bed, her fists raised at her sides, her chest heaving, her eyes flashing with fire. “Once killed, twice shy, Johnny boy.”

So that was how she wanted to play it? Excitement revved through him. He smiled and lunged. She met him halfway. Their bodies crashed together and went tumbling back against the headboard, splintering it to kindling.

Selena twisted out of Johnny’s grasp and heaved him off her. He grabbed her arm and flung her back onto the bed. She kicked his chest. The loud whoosh of his breath as it rushed from his lungs told her she had two, maybe three seconds before he regrouped. She grabbed the lamp from the nightstand, slammed it over his head, then leapt over him toward the window. It didn’t matter if she was on the first floor or the fiftieth; it was the closest, most expedient exit. She was supercharged by the infusion of his blood, and she knew that, like a cat, she’d land on her feet.

He caught her by the ankle and flung her back onto the bed. The force of her landing broke the frame.

His big body covered hers. His fingers dug into her hair. His fangs flashed.

He laughed at her shock. “Third time’s the charm.” He sank his teeth into her throat. Selena arched against him and moaned. She hated herself for that. As she called upon the stones, she realized that her neck was bare.

Damn him! She kneed him in the balls. He grunted in pain, just enough that his bite loosened. It was all she needed. She head-butted him. He stared at her in shock, and she stifled a laugh. His look was priceless, despite her blood that glistened on his lips. “Fourth time is fatal.” She head-butted him again and shoved him hard. But his grip held.

He forced her back into the mattress. His blue eyes burned bright as cobalt. His gaze swept her face, then lowered to her neck, then trailed lower to her exposed breasts. She recalled she had used her halter top to tourniquet Vegas’s leg. The shirt she wore was Johnny’s, she could smell his scent on it, but it had come undone when they’d crashed into the headboard.

He lowered his head and scraped his fangs along the rise of her breast. “Fifth time is final,” he hoarsely said. Then bit her.

She screamed. She thrashed and clawed at his shoulders and back, drawing blood. His fangs sank deeper. Selena arched as her body tightened. She could not breathe. She grabbed his hair and pulled it. But his voracious grip on her was relentless. He grabbed her hands and shoved them over her head. He blocked her knee with his when she tried to gouge him in the groin again. When she tried a third time, he forced his hips and legs between her thighs, preventing any further attempts.

A moan escaped her throat. Selena squeezed her eyes shut, hating the daemon part of her that responded to the pressure of him between her legs. His body reacted immediately. His fingers dug into hers. She felt him swell. His tongue stroked her skin, soothing the sting of his bite, but he still drank from her.

She felt his body temperature rise along with hers. Without the power of the stones to fend him off, she was victim to his seductive strength. And there was something else. She felt different. Hungry for something she didn’t understand. Empowered but in a different way from the nanorians. She could hear the rush of Johnny’s blood as it pumped frantically through his body. She felt his turmoil. His desire to hurt her but also his carnal need for her.

His fangs slowly withdrew from her. He licked where he had bitten. Selena exhaled. Her relief was short-lived. He nipped at her aroused nipple. She gasped, afraid he would bite her, then moaned when he slowly licked it, making her ache for more. His fingers dug deeper into hers. He was fighting the same battle she fought.

“Johnny,” she gasped, licking her dry lips. “Just get it over with.”

He raised his head and looked at her. She caught her breath. Red tinged his beautiful blue eyes. His Michelangelo face had hardened in passion. Just as much for the kill as for the fuck.

“I despise what you did to our baby,” he hoarsely said.

Selena’s heart clenched with such unbearable pain she could not look at him. The anguish in his eyes, in his voice, tore her up. She would give anything, except his life or their daughter’s, to be able to tell him the truth. But the truth would get him and Marisol killed.

Though he might never understand it, she had loved him enough to make him think the worst of her. Her heart pounded in her chest. She still loved him. That would never die. No matter what he did to her, she could take it.

“I’m sorry, Johnny,” she whispered.

He bared his fangs. “What
are
you?” His arrogant gaze swept the length of her. She was practically naked—her chest bare, her belly exposed. The silk sarong twisted around her hips revealed her thighs and the fact she wore no panties. His nostrils flared as he inhaled her scent. Selena held her breath, afraid if she moved, she would provoke his passion to the point of no return. “What have you become,” he sneered, “some kind of high-priced whore?”

His words were more painful than a sword in the heart. But it was best for them both if he continued to think the worst of her.

“I do what I have to do to survive.”

He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “You should be dead!” he ground out.

“Give me my necklace, and I will disappear from your life forever.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Over my dead body.”

Selena cocked a brow. “That can be arranged.”

He lowered his face to within inches of hers. “What were you doing in Kyrgyzstan? What did you inject me with? And what do you know about that cask?”

Selena knew she owed him some explanation, but that would only embed him deeper into her life. She needed him out of it!
Now
. But she was not leaving without the nanorians.

“If I divulge any of that information, it will get me killed.”

“Oh, I can make it so when you leave this room, you won’t be breathing.”

“Try it.”

Their gazes clashed and locked. Emotions played out in chaotic symmetry across Johnny’s face. After what seemed like hours, he nodded. “Before I do,” he said, his voice low and choked, “tell me where Marisol is buried.”

His request stunned her. The true depth of his sorrow hit her at that moment. Her lie was vicious and cruel, but, damn her father! He’d gone after Johnny with a vengeance. Johnny had chalked it up to Atlanta’s going to shit, but it was her father manipulating the criminal minds to go after Johnny. How else could she keep the man she loved from chasing after her and getting himself killed for the effort?

It took more power than a thousand nanorians not to tell Marisol’s father that the girl was alive.

“She’s in Georgia.” And it was true. But she was a happy, healthy eight-year-old.

All of the fight went out of him. She felt it drain from him. He rolled off her and sat on the edge of the bed. He raked his fingers through his hair. Selena wanted to go to him, to take him in her arms and comfort him. But she didn’t dare. Instead, she kept up the coldhearted bitch façade. “Where’s my necklace?”

He turned so fast, she pushed back into the mattress. His eyes blazed red.

She had pushed too far.

CHAPTER TEN

W
hat kind of coldhearted woman are you?” Johnny seethed. She watched his face harden to granite. “
What
are you?” Disgust laced his words, his tone, his facial features.

She blanched at his question, then gathered her pride protectively around her. Yes, she was coldhearted, but only because she had to be. For her own good. For Marisol’s own good. And even for Johnny’s own good.

She threw her hair over her shoulders and straightened her spine. “My father was a daemon who raped my human mother. So I guess that makes me a half-breed.”

His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. He moved off the bed fast, as if she were a pestilence. He walked to the large window and stared out over the restless Atlantic. His back was as rigid as a steel beam, his wide shoulders square, his feet planted firmly on the floor. “What is a daemon?”

Selena let out a long, exhausted breath, finding it oddly liberating that she could finally come clean with him. At least about what she was. “Everything you’ve heard and worse.”

He turned slowly and faced her. Gone were the disgust and anger. Now he looked tortured. “Is that why you had the abortion?”

Selena held her breath. She hadn’t expected him to come to that conclusion so fast. To come so perilously close to discovering her secret. She hadn’t aborted Marisol, but she’d lied about doing so because she was daemon. So in some way, she could tell the truth. Would it make him hate her less? Slowly, she nodded.

He swiped his hand across his face and shook his head. For a brief moment, understanding—maybe even compassion—swept his features before the anger resurfaced. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

She rose from the bed. “And what? Even if you believed me, you would have looked at me like you just did and told me to take a hike. Or do you expect me to believe you’d have wanted the baby, even knowing what I am? You’ve made your hatred of what I am, what I did to survive, clear. Even now you despise what I am. How would you have dealt with a child that wasn’t all human?”

His jaw tightened. “It wasn’t your call! That was a decision for me to make, Selena!”

“My father is the scourge of Hell!” she blurted out. “He has caused me nothing but pain and suffering all my life. He would have done the same to my child. He drove my mother to madness. She couldn’t stand the pain. She killed herself. No way was I going to subject my child to that.” Her voice lowered. “Or you.” And it was true.

“It doesn’t change the fact that you murdered my daughter!” he roared. He shook with passionate rage. He stalked closer. “If you knew all of this when you got pregnant, why did you wait so long, Selena?”

The blood drained from her face. The lies were eating her up. Selena inhaled slowly, held her breath, then exhaled. The moment of truth. Most of it. “I had hoped my father wouldn’t find out, but he did. Then all of those close calls happened to you at work. He was trying to destroy everything I loved! I couldn’t let that happen!”

“She was viable, damn you!”

Selena braced herself against his fury. His heartache. What would he do if he knew Marisol lived? Hate Selena more. She had never once questioned her motives, firmly convinced his hatred was worth it, but what she’d failed to consider was the pain he would live with every day. It was just as debilitating as what she lived with—or rather, what she lived without. Her daughter. She swallowed hard. No, it was worse. There was no anguish as terrible as the anguish he suffered.

“I’m sorry,” she softly said.

He paced the room. She felt his turmoil—his hatred, his desire to hurt her, but also his need for her to live. Abruptly he stopped. With his hands clasped behind his back, he said, “Tell me what happened back at your club.”

Selena tried to let go of the guilt, but it hung around her neck like a two-ton anchor, so she dragged it with her. It was her turn to go to the window and look out at the blackness of the night. Two hundred yards away, white-caps rolled onto the sands of Miami’s renowned beaches. She hugged herself, suddenly feeling cold. Alone, and tired. How much should she tell Johnny? How much did his vampire friend know? Without breaking her stare, she said, “Vegas was possessed by a Hellkeeper by the name of Malphas, a very strong daemon, and a superior prick. I drew him out and killed him.”

“Why?”

She spun around and faced him. “Because his death takes me one step closer to my father, and when I get there, I’m going to destroy him just like he destroyed my mother!” And just like he’d destroyed any chance of happiness with Johnny.

“Why did you cut out his heart?”

“Without it, he cannot regenerate.”

He cocked a brow. “What else?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t leave it. In the wrong hands it can be deadly.”

“In your hands?”

She smiled. “It
will
be deadly.”

“After you killed Malphas, what did you do to Vegas?”

Selena walked past him, not wanting to go there.

He grabbed her arm, and while his grip wasn’t brutish, it wasn’t gentle either. Their gazes locked. “After you killed Malphas, what did you do to Vegas?”

“I possessed him.”

Johnny let go of her arm and stepped back. “What does that mean?”

“It means I got inside his head. Had I wanted to, I could have driven him mad, made him do my bidding. Controlled him. Instead, I gathered information.”

“What information?”

“Nothing that concerns you, Johnny.”

He moved back into her personal space. “Since you shot me up with that concoction, everything about you concerns me.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, it doesn’t. Forget the last four days. Forget I’m alive. Forget all of it, Johnny.”

“Johnny is dead. My name is Nikko Cruz now.”

Nikko Cruz? He would always be Johnny to her.

“I don’t know why you came here,
Nikko
, but—” Selena’s nose twitched, every sense on high alert.

Sulfur. And a lot of it.

“Do you smell that?” she asked, moving toward him.

“Sulfur.”

“Daemons, Nikko, at least a legion of them. We need to get the hell out of here.”

“What—”

She turned toward the window and shoved Nikko toward it. As he went flying through the glass, she leapt after him, grabbing him as they tumbled down several stories to the parking lot. She tried to turn him so that she took the brunt of the impact, but he maneuvered her so that he did. They hit hard. Shrill screeching came from the daemons circling the hotel as they hunted for her scent.

She grabbed his hand and took off through the parking lot toward the water. There she had a chance to keep them at bay.

“I need that necklace, Nikko,” she said as they ran. “With it, we might have a chance.” With it, she could fry ten legions with a wave of her hand.

“No deal.”

Selena stopped short, breathing heavily, and glared at him. “I
need
the necklace.”

“Call your own legion of daemons.”

Her eyes widened. How the hell did he know she possessed that power?

“Call them.”

“I cannot call upon them to battle their own kind.”

“Then I guess it’s just you and me.”

“The necklace, Nikko!”

“Give me the answers I want, and I’ll give it to you.”

“The necklace is
mine
, you have no right taking it from me!”

“You took something from me that was far more valuable.”

He would never forgive Selena for what she had done, regardless of why, and he’d be damned if he was going to hand over the necklace. He knew the minute after she took out the daemons, she would take off, then go to ground. As long as he controlled the necklace, he controlled her. “Then I guess we’ll have to stand and deliver.”

The shrieking whirl had caught up to them. He took a step back despite himself. To his surprise, she braced him. Stood just behind him, as if giving him strength.

“Face them, Johnny. Brace yourself, don’t open your mouth or your eyes, and do not allow them into your thoughts or they will take possession of your mind. If that happens, you will wish you were dead.”

She grabbed his hand and looked up at him. “When you get the chance, run like hell for the water. Daemons are terrified of water and won’t follow you there.”

Grudgingly, he admired her bravery. Nikko took the necklace from his pocket and wrapped it around her neck but held on to it, keeping possession. The minute it touched her skin, the stones flared. He closed his eyes and set his jaw. Together they turned and Hell was unleashed upon them.

Heat singed his skin. A percussion of energy pushed, shoved, and prodded for entry into his body. Wild, wicked screams bombarded his eardrums. He forced his mind to remember his childhood prayers. He chanted them in his head. The swirling forces screamed louder. The sulfur stench was stifling. Nikko fought the need to open his mouth and breathe deep, the pressure almost unbearable.

He felt Selena’s body being pulled upward. Her fingers tightened around his. He reached out, grabbed her other hand, and pulled her against his chest. She nudged her head beneath his chin, pressing her lips to his chest.

The daemons ramped up their efforts. His prayers faltered. Instead, the image of his baby lying in a shallow grave erupted in his mind.

The maelstrom of the daemon attack ended as abruptly as it had begun. As if by magic, they disappeared into the night.

For long moments, Nikko stood silent and still, Selena pressed tightly against him. He slipped the necklace back into his pocket, wondering why she didn’t grab it and run. When her arms relaxed and she pulled away from him, he opened his eyes and stared down into two dark ones. She looked away from him and started walking.

“Selena!” he called, and went after her. She started to run. He ran faster and caught up.

“Selena, stop!”

She whirled around and angrily faced him. “Give me my necklace, Nikko, then turn and run as far and as fast as you can.”

“If you think you’re protecting me, I don’t need it.”

“I just saved you from being torn to shreds by that swarm of daemons!” She took a step closer to him. “I know you’re a big boy. And as long as you don’t hang out with me, you can take care of yourself. I want you to stay the hell away from me! I have a business to run. I have a life to live, and I can’t do that with you hanging around.”

“I have business with you, Selena, and like it or not, you’re going to cooperate.”

“We have no business.”

“What were you doing in Kyrgyzstan and what is Balderama to you?”

Selena shook her head. He was not going to leave her alone until she threw him a bone. Fine, she’d give Johnny—Nikko—just enough information to let him think she’d told him everything.

“I was in Kyrgyzstan collecting blood serums. I came across you dying on the roadside. I injected you with them because it was the only chance you had for survival. As I told you earlier, Señor Balderama was my mother’s good friend. He has been a surrogate father to me in many ways.”

“What kind of blood serums?”

“A little vampire—”

“More than a little—I feel like Dracula!”

“Okay, so a lot. And just so you don’t go blab it to the world, it’s illegal to extract blood from any immortal, and if I’m caught with the serums, the penalty is death.” She held her hands out palms up. “Look, I know it’s a lot, but you need to back the hell away. Forget all of it and go back to what you were doing.”

He ran his fingers through his hair in a frustrated gesture. “Selena, in less than a week my entire world has been shaken up like a snow globe. I was on the verge of death and the woman I was sure I killed with my own hands shows up in the middle of a third-world country and injects me with something that turns me into Superman with a hard-on. Next thing I know, my ex, the one I thought I killed, is a half-daemon. Oh, and she fucking kills daemons for a living!”

He shook his head and glared at her. “And while I know you’re feeding me some truth, you’re keeping the majority of it from me.”

“I don’t owe you anything.”

His rage flashed. “You owe me more than you can ever repay!”

“I deserve your hatred. But I’m not going to allow you to use it to manipulate me.”

“I’ll do more than manipulate you! You know about that cask, and you’re going to share that information whether you want to or not.”

“Or what? You’ll kill me?
Again?
”

“Yes.”

“Do you really think I care? I’m running on borrowed time as it is. Once word gets out that I’m the one destroying the Hellkeepers, my father will come after me, and if he doesn’t get me first, then the Order will get me for the Rev.”

Nikko pinched the bridge of his nose and slowly exhaled. “Rev? The Order?”

“Rev—it’s a combination of blood serums that can save a dying vampire’s life. It’s like a dose of supercharged adrenaline. As far as the Order goes, ask your vampire friend.”

“I’m asking you.”

“I’m in enough trouble, I can’t talk about it.”

“Why did you save my life?”

She glared at him. “I owed you.”

“At the risk of a death sentence?”

“Yes. Now we’re even.” She shrugged it off. “Besides, they’d have to catch me first, and if you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty good with a sword.”