Hunted Warrior (12 page)

He certainly didn't feel . . . except when he was with Avyi.

“Here.” He clasped her calves and slowly, with
aching
slowness, he pulled. At first she wove her fingers together and held her arms even tighter around her knees. But he was patient. He stroked her fingers, her knuckles, until they loosened. Her eyes held such a blend of yearning and fear. How often had she suffered that torturous combination?

Her entire life.

“Let go, Avyi. Let go.”

She released her fingers, focusing that vise-tight grip on the armrests of the chair. The gold and green and wariness in her stare never wavered. She hardly blinked. Mal returned his slow touch to her calves. He pulled. The soles of her boots scraped the wooden edge of the chair with a sound that made her jump. But then her legs were free. Her knees eased. Her legs stretched. Finally, the soles of those wicked combat boots were flat on the floor.

She sat in the chair like a woman unafraid, although fear still burned bright fires in her eyes. Her mouth was pinched to a tight white line that was even paler than her unusual skin. Could growing up in the labs have changed her complexion to such a degree? She should've been as robustly tan as the rest of the Dragon Kings, who practically glowed with the color of health and vitality.

“There,” he said softly. “Now breathe. Deeply. Use the chair to support you, not that rigid spine.”

“Only if you do the same.” She nodded to the floor. “There, by the bed.”

Mal sucked in air, then nodded in return. He was reluctant to let go of the firm muscle of her legs, but he had cultured far more discipline than the selfishness it would've taken to linger. He stood. For a moment, he simply stared down at her. He wasn't wearing his bandages. Although the gash on his shoulder remained deeply red, he was proud of his body. Some might call it conceited, but he didn't give a Dragon damn. Especially when Avyi looked up at him with an expression of pure appreciation. Her gaze traveled over every inch of his skin.

It should've been enough. But he wanted her touch to replace her perusal.

He returned to the plain mattress and pushed it halfway up the wall. The thing smelled of must and other scents he refused to catalog, but he did as she'd asked. No, she hadn't asked. She'd struck a bargain. He looked back at where she sat with her wrists still draped over the ends of the armrests. She had relaxed into the pose as if born to sit on a throne.

Mal sat, half on the mattress, half leaning against what padding it provided. He stretched his legs. She took in the angles of his body with quick flicks of her magnetic eyes.

“Why did you touch my hair?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“And you always do what you want?”

He laid his head back against the mattress. “Yes.”

She shrugged, then examined the nails of one hand. The look she arched him from over her upturned knuckles was pure challenge. “One day, you'll put that stubbornness aside and you'll assume your place as the head of our people.”

“I
am
the head of our people.” His voice boomed through the small space. He forgot to keep his unconscious mind spinning that ball of energy. It flickered out, leaving them in darkness.

Avyi was on her feet in a flash, gripping the doorknob. She paused only long enough to toss a quick “Good night” over her shoulder.

Mal made a fist and stared at the closed door. He was left with the useless mattress, the tiny room, the memory of a grown foundling's silky hair . . . and her infuriating words.

He wouldn't feel this defensive if they didn't hold—what had she called it?—a kernel of truth.

All he'd wanted was rest. To heal up. Regain perspective. Yet sleep never came.

*  *  *

Avyi sat next to Malnefoley on the step behind the hostel, watching a trio of children running after a stray dog. The dog looked terrified. The children looked far too malicious for her liking. Perhaps that's why she'd been drawn to Dr. Aster. He was a cruel man, but she'd always found welcome in his expressions. She'd been at such an age and in such a desperate state as to take whatever apparent kindness was thrown her way.

The heat from the Giva's arm next to hers reminded her that she was in a similar situation now. The way he'd touched her hair . . . It had been even more intimate than kisses shaded by the fervor of aggression.

But that wasn't kindness, and neither was how he'd behaved upon their initial meeting. Trying to electrocute her after keeping her captive for six months wouldn't be considered gentle by any standard.

The sun had come up. They remained under a slight awning that kept them hidden from the morning glare. Malnefoley wore a simple white T-shirt that stretched across his wide chest and defined the undeniable masculinity of his body. A white linen overshirt was unbuttoned and hung open, sleeves rolled to the elbows. In profile, watching the same children, he was breathtaking. The slopes and ridges that comprised his brow, his nose, his upper lip, his strong chin—
perfection
. Hair a little too long had been combed back, still damp. Locks fell carelessly across his forehead, easing the stark beauty of his sharply masculine features.

“Florence,” he said out of nowhere.

“Good.”

“Just like that?”

“I saw it last night, after I went to bed. You must've made some decision. The image of you beneath the dome of the cathedral was as clear as glass. No variables now.”

He grimaced, but she didn't know why. “Probably based on the idea that Florence couldn't possibly have worse accommodations.”

She smiled. “It wasn't the most restful night for me either.”

“That's an assumption. Maybe I slept like a baby.”

“Babies thrash and cry. So yes, maybe you slept like a baby. Was your bed as bad as mine?”

His smile was radiant, changing his face by shaping his mouth and cheeks with a new pattern of lines. She wanted to take a mental picture, so she could study this new version of the normally stoic Giva who harbored so much anger and frustration under his cultured surface.

“I can only hazard a guess,” he said. “Yes.”

She grinned. “Just
terrible
.”

“Do you see a five-star hotel in our future?”

“
Our
future?”

“If word gets back that you were witness to the attempt on my life, you'll be at risk of retaliation, too. I'm not through with you yet. The question of procreation is still of vital importance to our people, and I know you're not telling me everything you know. I don't appreciate drips and dribbles of information. I expect that from the Council.”

“Not from me?”

He looked at her dead-on. Eyes like the wind-tossed sea met hers, holding her as surely as he'd held her legs the night before. He'd stripped her of a defense she hadn't realized she resorted to so often. Curling into herself. Hiding by crouching and slinking. She envied the way Malnefoley strode into town, appearing for all the world like a dust- and blood-covered god, and carrying a Dragon-forged sword, no less. She had escaped Dr. Aster, but she hadn't escaped decades of being treated as less than nothing or, a step up, as a plaything.

“No, not from you. I don't know why you should be any different from the polite liars and cheats who make up the Leaderships of the Five Clans.” He looked away. “But you are.”

“Does that mean you believe in my gift?”

“Don't push it.”

“It weighs heavily on you—the problem of Dragon Kings' survival.”

“Yes.” He added that affirmation, although she hadn't intended her words as a question. “That everyone seems to be sticking their heads in the sand, all the while letting the cartels determine the future of our strongest warriors, is so Dragon-damned frustrating . . .”

He seemed to realize how much he'd divulged, because he stopped abruptly. His mouth was a pinched line, but nothing could erase the tempting slope of his upper lip.

Avyi permitted herself one indulgent thought. Just one. She wouldn't think about his firm, taut body or how much the wound on his shoulder fostered in her an urge to stand back to back with him, as his equal and his defender and his partner—everything a man and woman, a matched pair of warriors, could be. Those thoughts were too dangerous, too perfect, when she had no way to understand perfection.

No, she only indulged in the idea of kissing him again, this time with the gentle curiosity he'd demonstrated when touching her hair and unbinding her clenched body. He'd push her back until her body melted and let go of its ever-present tension. And he'd kiss her like a lover. It would be breathtaking with Mal . . .

Dragon be, she was thinking of him as Mal now?

She wanted a vision, a glimpse, but nothing came other than the same frustrating image of lying together with him, embracing, surrounded by gauzy white, their bodies pressed flesh to flesh. But when? How? Instead, she would have to rely on what she'd never given much thought to: the present.

He was arrogant, stubborn, inexplicably wrathful beneath his elegant exterior, and oddly powerless despite his personal strength and resolve. None of that mattered as much as one fact.

She
did
like him.

“Besides, Florence will hold more appeal than here.”

She stood and adjusted her scant gear. They'd purchased another knapsack for Mal to carry their provisions, which included spare clothes and more food. It would last them until they reached Italy. “Appeal is as good a reason as any for making a choice.”

He joined her in standing. “Really?”

“People do it all the time. Stay in. Go out. Fill their cupboards.”

“You've been talking grand futures and old myths. It didn't occur to me that smaller choices would be variables, too.”

She patted his cheek, as if humoring a child. “A small mind wrapped around a big brain.”

She set off so that he couldn't see her smile. His expression had been too priceless—utterly stunned and affronted.

An hour later, they sat knee to shoulder on a bus to the coast, and three hours after that, they reached the city of Heraklion.

“Considering what I've learned since,” Mal said, “why didn't you choose Sitia as your point of arrival? This is a bigger city. More humans.”

“More opportunities to be ignored. Even you, Giva—who knows who you are here?”

“Those Indranan.”

He crossed his arms and nodded toward a pair of men by a dockside bar. Avyi felt their tap-tapping in her mind, as they revealed themselves less by appearance than by the invasive nature of their telepathic powers. She noticed Mal had felt that tickle, as the first sparking flare of his powers came into being. Already he'd gathered static electricity. She shut her eyes, frowned, and nodded. If Mal needed her help, she would be there.

She had his back. Stranger still, she would've laid money on the idea that he had hers, too. Instead, she wouldn't wage money. She was wagering her safety and untold futures.

“They'll recognize me,” he said grimly.

“And me. I'm infamous, too.”

“And proud of it?”

Her companion was grinning again. “When was the last time you smiled so much in a day?”

Mal frowned, as if the question were spoken in a language he couldn't interpret. “I don't recall.”

“Good or bad thing?”

“Let's just call it a thing.”

“Fair enough. But they don't seem out for a fight. I wish they'd mind their own business, though,” she said, rubbing the base of her skull. “It's so rude.”

“Agreed. Now try playing political chess with their kind.”

“That's some poker face you must have if you can hide your thoughts, too.”

He shrugged. “Long practice.”

“Except from me. I read you like a book.”

“I take exception to that.”

The port was thick with masts, as if a misguided city planner had clustered all of its telephone poles in one place. A huge dock harbored long overnight tourist ferries. People unloaded crates and rolled goods up gangways. Passengers waited, sitting on their luggage or arguing with customs officials. Men from smaller ships called out their destinations and competed for business by literally out-shouting one another. Despite the necessity of blending in, Avyi was overwhelmed anew by the bustle of humanity. She'd been in isolation in the Tigony stronghold for months, in the labs for years, and among the wandering Garnis since before she could remember.

The present
 . . . It was a new, difficult thing to take in all at once.

“I arrived by helicopter,” Mal said offhandedly. “Unless you happen to have a passport I don't know about, we won't be permitted into Italy by conventional means.”

“You don't know a lot about me, but at least that's true. No passport. No records.”

“I suppose that means the slow route after arriving in Athens. There's a cruise liner that sails from Patra to Venice.”

“That sounds like Greece again, Giva.”

“This is where I trust you won't run, and you trust I won't have you locked up.”

Avyi adjusted the strap that held the precious quiver of arrows. “Sounds like you've made our plans already. I'm game.”

They took a taxi to where Mal's personal helicopter waited to take him home. He called his pilot, who arrived within the half hour. His man was visibly shocked at the sight of Mal's attire. Apparently he knew his place because he stared, ducked his eyes, and said nothing other than, “I expected you back days ago, sir.”

“I was detained. Back to Athens, Perdius. Then a refuel before we fly to Patra. Have Ginovosa meet us at the helipad. I want my suitcase ready for travel of all possible varieties, and another for the Pet.”

Avyi hid her cringing reaction to being called that again—by Mal, no less. She had become so attached to the idea of her new name. But who among the Tigony—no, who in the entire world—would know her as anything else? Just Malnefoley. Suddenly the fact that she had no passport, no identification of any kind, struck her as more than a technicality. She didn't exist. She only existed as a commodity and a vendetta.