Killing Time (3 page)

Struggling out of Koda’s arms and putting some distance between us, I made myself focus on figuring out why he’d saved me from a bittern’s fatal coma.

He must have seen the suspicion in my face. Tossing the empty plastic bottle aside, he rose to his feet. “While such things are meaningless to fae, I gave my word I would spare your life. And my word is more precious to me than you could begin to comprehend.”

“You know nothing about me.” My voice came out harsh and I cursed inwardly that the arrogant jerk’s low opinion of me stung.

He shook his head. “I know enough to despise everything related to the fae.”

Still weak, I rubbed uselessly at the braided leather band resting against my neck like a damned pet collar. “As do I.” From my periphery, I saw his startled expression as even I heard the corrosive bitterness in my tone. I breathed in and out a few times. “You’re not going to remove the bindings.”

I’d made it a statement not a question, but he answered anyway. “No.”

I gave him a look that said he’d won this skirmish, but the war was far from over. His glare challenged me to try something.

Moving on for now, I asked, “Do you know where the vampires have gone?”

“Why do you want to know?”

Biting back a bitchy response, I struggled to keep my tone reasonable. “Because a phone call would work just as well. I have to talk with the one called Jack.”

Studying me, Koda leaned his shoulder against a support column and looked sublimely unimpressed. “A phone call.”

“Yes. Five minutes, that’s all I need. Then I’ll be on my way and we’ll never have to see each other, ever again.”

He smiled and the expression was anything but pleasant. “You know as well as I do that phone lines can serve as conduits for supernatural attack. I won’t risk endangering—”

“Dammit, it can’t wait!” I was in a filthy mood and his insouciance was making it worse. “You’re screwing everything up!”

“It’s life’s little pleasures that make each day worth getting up for.” He lifted a black brow. “What do you want with Jack?”

Stubbornness tightened my jaw and Koda’s arrogance made me dig my heels in. “Tell me where he is first.”

“No way in hell. As I said, you stink of fae and the only time fae stop lying is when they’re dead.”

“Does your lousy attitude come naturally? I can’t believe you’d intentionally apply the same racist bullshit against me that white settlers once used against your people.”

One minute, I was sitting. The next, I was pinned against the wall. Koda’s face was drawn with fury, inches from my own. “The settlers were a willing tool wielded by manipulative fae bastards who wanted my people gone. They feared our connection with the earth and our ability to negate their control of the elements.” He shoved away from me and stalked to the other side of the room, taut as a bowstring and quivering with barely leashed rage. “Between the settlers, the cavalry, the U.S. government and the fae, we never stood a chance back then and we
still
have not recovered. I look around me now, and once again I see fae avarice focused on this continent. I see the fae king’s alliance with European supernaturals. I will not allow our native supernatural brothers to suffer the same devastation the nations did.
I will not!
I am done watching my kind wither and die!”

I rubbed a hand across eyes that felt like half a desert was embedded in them. It had been far too long since I’d last slept, but this was more than physical exhaustion—this weariness went soul deep. “I guess it wouldn’t matter if I told you I hate fae more than you could begin to imagine.”

He grunted. “As if I’d take your word for it.” I opened my mouth to protest and he held a hand up, silencing me. “Save it.”

I let my gaze rove around the familiar room—the cobwebbed corners, the boarded-over windows and the faded walls with their shadows where pictures had once hung. “How’d you find my hideout?”

Koda paced back and forth like a caged lion. “I was backtracking James’s trail to make sure no one was after him. Imagine my surprise to find you, hot-footing it to Dallas.” He shot me a look. “Care to tell me why?”

I shrugged, bone-tired. “Would you believe me?”

He shook his head. “Not a word.”

“Then why ask,” I muttered, watching him stride restlessly around the empty office. “How long have you been shadowing me?”

“You’d believe me?” He threw the words back.

“Try me.”

“Two days.” Disapproval colored his tone. “You were in too big a hurry. That’s what caught my attention.”

“I had my reasons.” Ignoring his arch look, I pressed, “So you found the deserted office highrise I used as a base and then what?”

He shook his head angrily. “My turn with the questions. You keep saying you’re not fae, yet you stink of them. What are you?”

I debated with myself for a second, then sighed, figuring it wasn’t worth yet another battle. “We are called bittern.” I shrugged a shoulder. “Among other things.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, as if against his will. “Like?”

I played with my jacket’s zipper so I wouldn’t have to meet Koda’s too-aware gaze. “Nothing flattering.”

“Bittern.” He shoved his hands in his pockets with a little too much force. “You’re serious.”

“It’s what the fae call us.”

“A bittern is a shy marsh bird. It’s a plain-looking, chunky brown thing with stubby legs and beady yellow eyes that point downward. Whoever named your kind had a twisted sense of humor or was an idiot.” Koda considered. “Possibly both.”

Uncertain, I chose not to respond.

He rubbed his jaw as he studied my expression. “Since you are clearly not the feathered kind, what is your type of bittern?”

If he didn’t know the appalling details, I wasn’t going to tell him. I clenched my teeth and looked away, keeping my mouth shut as the silence stretched.

His voice was soft and dangerous. “I could make you tell me.”

Bitterness laced my words. “There is nothing you could do that hasn’t been done.” Sneering, I met his black gaze. “Wanna see the scars?”

He looked at me sharply and a long moment passed. Twice, it seemed he would say something, but both times he pressed his lips together.

Weariness tugged at me. I shuffled to a corner of the room and sank to the floor. Slumping against the wall, I tilted my head back and let my eyes slit—not trusting Koda enough to close them, but too tired to keep them fully open. Despite my resolve to stay awake, I was just beginning to drift off when his voice roused me.

“You’re forgetting the bracelets, the necklace.” He moved closer. “With them, I can make you answer me.”

My eyes snapped wide. “Then why not do so and have done with this asinine situation? Ask me why I tracked the vampires. Ask me why I kept the bodach from slaughtering them. But I’m guessing that, even if you forced the answers from me with your damned bindings, you wouldn’t believe a thing I said.”

Koda stood over me, his expression indecipherable.

An idea formed in my mind and I laughed out loud. “Ah, I see. With the bindings, you can make me speak, but you can’t make me
speak the truth.
”

Rage tightened his handsome features and he turned away.

Exhaustion dragged at me as the silence between us stretched.

“Fae don’t sleep,” Koda growled.

“You just don’t listen, do you?” Rubbing my gritty eyes again, I sighed. “Is it really your intent to keep me here?”

He considered me, his expression mocking. “You just don’t listen, do you?”

I gave him a cool look. “The last person who tried to hold me against my will didn’t survive the experience.”

He raised a brow. “You can’t even stand up.”

I resisted the urge to do something sophomoric like flip him the bird. “Maybe I’m biding my time.”

He barked a laugh. “Shall I frisk you then? Make sure you don’t have any more hidden weapons?” He let his gaze linger on my lips, my breasts, the swell of my hip. “I could do a full-body search. It’s the only way to be sure.”

My cheeks heated with indignation. Warrior-to-warrior, one of the gravest insults was to behave as if your opponent’s skills were beneath contempt. And if you were a woman, the easiest way for a man to express his derision was to reduce the slur to the basest sexual connotations.

“Touch me and you’ll pull back a stump,” I snarled, infuriated when my commands to rise were utterly ignored by my exhausted body.

Koda’s lip curled. “Look at you, all puffed up like a day-old kitten.” At my sound of outrage, he grinned. “Besides jelly beans and sugar water, what do you require?”

With effort, I tamped down my anger. “You’re going out?” I tried to keep my voice level, but he caught the undertone of keen interest all too easily.

“For a brief time, yes. You will remain here until my return.”

I lifted my chin. “Of course.”

It was his turn to flush at how much sarcasm I’d infused into my words. “
Nibaawin,
” he murmured, bending over me. He reached a hand toward the band on my right wrist, freezing when I jerked away. Raising a challenging brow, he repeated the strange word and lightly touched his fingertip to the leather.

Both wrists and the skin on my neck warmed not unpleasantly and an inexorable exhaustion roared through my brain, dragging me down with its sheer weight. Infuriated, I fought back and shoved my chin up higher. Pushing away from the wall, I climbed to my feet and stood, swaying.

“Damn, but you’re stubborn,” he swore. “
Nibaawin, shiriki.
”

“What does that mean?” I mumbled, reaching out as my balance failed. It surprised me no end when he caught my hand with his own, steadying me. I would’ve guessed he’d let me eat carpet and crowed to see the resulting rug burn.

“It’s Lakota. It means
Sleep, Coyote.
” His voice was a deep rumble as he said something else I didn’t understand.

“Din’ know you were Sioux,” I slurred, trying to tug my hand free. “Not gon’ sleep.”

“I am friend and guardian of all the nations, not just Lakota Sioux. Hmm. Maybe I should call you
Akecheta.
Fighter. Or
Witkowin
. Crazy Woman.” He sounded bad tempered as always, but I thought I heard an undercurrent of admiration.

On second thought, no way. Not from Koda.

My eyelids refused to lift more than the slightest millimeter as I peered groggily up at him. “I got a few things I could call you, starting with—”

His short laugh interrupted me. “Spare me your sharp tongue.” Then he began a singing chant. I didn’t understand the words, but the cadence was soothing and somehow uplifting at the same time.

My eyes closed and I sensed Koda move closer, felt his hands on my shoulders as images filled my mind. Deerskin-clad dancers, the fringes and beads adorning their clothes swaying with their stately movements. Long black hair gleaming under the full moon, their tawny skin bathed golden by the bonfire’s light. The vision was so real, I could feel the prairie’s long grass tickle my outstretched fingers, smell the crisp scent of sage. Could hear the throb of the drums, the soft chanting of the holy man wearing his sacred eagle feather as he turned his wise gaze to meet mine…

Dimly, I felt myself being lowered to the floor with surprising care. Despite my determination not to sleep, I drifted off, Koda’s ancient song following me down.

When I awakened, sun was streaming in through the cracks on the plywood-covered windows, making long bright lines on the stained carpet and highlighting dust motes as they hung on the still air.

A few feet away from me was a Starbucks bag filled with pastries and donuts, a bottle of water and an unopened box of jelly beans. There was also a piece of paper with some scribbling on it, but I only glanced at it before crumpling it up and tossing it into a corner.

It was a veritable sugar feast and I greedily dove in, relishing the surge of energy as it hit my bloodstream. My brain ramped up then and I began to wonder what had happened after my blackout the night of the fight. I was pretty sure I’d killed all the bodach, but where had the six vampires gone? Would the one called Jack have stayed with them or would he have taken off on his own? From having tracked him, I knew that he’d only recently joined the group, but had no way of knowing how loyal he was to them.

Wiping crumbs from the front of my wrinkled, sliced-up white T-shirt, I stood on rubbery legs and waited for my balance to settle. It was always the last physical system to recover. No idea why.

Koda suddenly walked through the doorway and the fact that I’d not sensed his approach was beyond unsettling. He gave me a dark-eyed once-over, noting the empty Starbucks bag with no discernible reaction.

That he had showered and changed into clean clothes hacked me off. His fresh, faded jeans fit his long, lean legs and taut backside just as deliciously as the ones I’d damaged. The pullover black sweater hugged his broad shoulders and narrow waist in ways that made thinking difficult.

That I’d noticed any of this left me unbalanced and unsure of myself, two states I loathed. Seeking familiar ground, I chose to be angry that I was still dirty and wearing the same battle-worn outfit.

My voice came out sharp. “Where’ve you been?”

“You didn’t read my note?” he fired back.

My eyes flicked guiltily to the balled-up paper in the corner. “What note?”

He strode across the room and snatched it from the floor. Holding the crumpled paper at eye level, he muttered, “This one.”

“Oh. That note.”

“So you read it.”

“I saw the paper, but I didn’t read it.”

“Why not?”

“Why should I?”

He made a strangled noise. “It was addressed to you.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, so?”

I folded my arms over my chest and glared at him. “Just because someone addresses something to me doesn’t mean I’m required to pay it any mind. Especially since I’m only here because of your damned bindings!”

Impatience flared in his eyes. “This is easily the most idiotic discussion I’ve ever had the misfortune to experience.”

“Back atcha,” I growled, turning away to rummage through my backpack. I wasn’t really looking for anything, just using the activity as an excuse not to meet his irritated gaze. I sensed his movement but refused to look up, right until the moment his hand closed on the leather-bound book lying beside me. “Hey! Give that back!”

He held it up, just out of my reach as he read the cover. “
Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms.
”

“What?” I startled, freezing midlunge.

“The book. Its title is
Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms.
” He looked at me strangely.

Dumbfounded, I stared at him before shifting my gaze to the raised gold lettering on the worn cover. What a stupid subject. Never had I guessed that was what the thing was about. I’d thought it was so splendidly bound, it had to tell a fascinating story. I’d spent hours poring over the pages, thinking—maybe if I wanted it badly enough—somehow the symbols would make sense and I could learn the book’s secrets.

Recovering, I snatched it from his hands and shoved it in my backpack. A long silence stretched and the more I tried to ignore Koda, the more aware I was of his gaze.

His voice was low and shocked. “You can’t read.”

Appalled, I refused to look at him.

He bent to study my face. “That’s why you didn’t read my note. You couldn’t.”

Clearing my throat, I muttered, “Everyone can read.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“Go to hell!” I retorted.

Before I could stop him, he snatched the book out of my open bag and flipped to a page at random. Holding it up so I could see, he demanded, “Read something to me. Anything. You pick it.”

“I’m not playing your ridiculous games.” I reached for the book, but he held on.

“You can’t do it.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Then prove me wrong,” he challenged.

Suddenly, I’d had enough. “Are you so determined to prove your superiority? Or is it that you enjoy mocking me? Either way, it makes you a bully and an asshole!”

Something flitted across his gaze, so fast I wasn’t even sure I saw the flicker of what looked horrifyingly like pity. Without another word, he closed the book and handed it to me. I took it, not realizing I’d clutched it to my chest with shaking hands until I noticed him noticing. Cursing under my breath, I returned the thing to my backpack.

“I could teach you, if you like,” he said, his diffident tone making me look up.

Hope clogged my throat, but I mercilessly choked it down and made my voice cold. “That sounds perilously close to kindness. Be careful or I might get the impression you didn’t hate all things related to the fae.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “Thinking either would be a stupid mistake. My offer was based on simple expedience.” His stygian eyes burned with anger—an emotion that was a helluvalot easier for me to take from him than pity. “Had I known you couldn’t read, I would have drawn stick figures on the note. Or are you incapable of understanding even that primitive form of communication?”

I flinched and took an involuntary step back, mad as hell for giving ground and for letting his words cut so deep.

Koda lifted a hand as if in apology, but I spun on my heel and bolted for the door.

I got within eight feet when the bindings struck, hitting me between strides and dropping me to the floor as my muscles simply stopped responding. “Damn you,” I hissed on the trickle of air in my lungs. “Damn you.”

Koda knelt and ran a warm hand over the bracelets before touching a light finger to the braided leather necklace and releasing the bindings. “Sephti, I—”

I rolled shakily to my feet, hating that he’d called me by my rank designation, especially since it was all I had for a name. “Don’t,” I said in a harsh voice. “I get it, okay? All things fae suck. There’s no need to rub it in.”

His face went rigid as he stood. “I have something to do this afternoon, but I’ll be back by sunset.” He spoke words I didn’t understand, their melodic sounds at odds with his hard tone. “Stay here until I return. Don’t try to leave this room.”

Infuriated, I turned my back on him—another warrior insult, since it signified my disdain for the threat he presented.

I spent the next few hours in unaccustomed stillness and the waiting made me crazy, since each lost moment delayed my revenge. I imagined how Jack was putting miles between us while I sat on my ass in a dusty, abandoned highrise where some human had whiled away his mortal life pushing papers, filing meaningless forms and drinking foul black water he inaccurately called coffee.

The more I thought about it, the madder it made me, which was okay since being pissed was so much easier to deal with than despair.

I was still tired from having pushed so hard the last few weeks and I welcomed the anger at this, too. If I’d been smarter, I wouldn’t have been exhausted, the frenzy wouldn’t have taken over, I wouldn’t have fought so badly and I wouldn’t be wearing Koda’s damned bindings.

I was working myself up into a proper tizzy when I smelled something burning.

In a matter of moments, the hall outside the office filled with an impenetrable layer of gray, billowing smoke and I lost sight of the ceiling as clouds roiled in. That’s when I realized the floor I was sitting on felt rather warmer than it should.

I shot to my feet before remembering why this was a bad idea—the air was clearer close to the floor. Returning to my hands and knees, I slung my backpack over my shoulders and scurried toward the open doorway. Even breathing shallowly, the smoke burned in my lungs and set me coughing.

Worrying that my beloved motorcycle was turning into melted slag on the floor below me, I’d made it within five feet of freedom when lassitude pulled at my limbs, dragging me down to my belly. Again and again, I commanded my body to
move move move
, but the best I could manage against Koda’s bindings was an inch-worm crawl as the smoke thickened around me. The roar of the flames was deafening and the smell of scorched carpet, burning electrical wiring and crackling drywall made me light-headed from chemical fumes.

The bindings didn’t recognize the fact that the building was going up in flames around me—only Koda’s command that I stay put until his return. That I’d be reduced to ashes didn’t factor in.

Raging in my head at the arrogant man who’d effectively chained me to a freaking inferno, I had to wonder if maybe he was the one who’d set the fire. Just as quickly, I dismissed the idea—if he’d really wanted me dead, he’d had ample opportunity to make me that way. Besides, the speed and ferocity of this fire, as well as the impossibly thick clouds of choking smoke, told me it had been set by fae—Fire Kith, to be precise, since they had the ability to manipulate flame the way the other kiths or castes manipulated water, earth and air.

Even thinking about the bastards made me breathless with caustic hatred. I had to pause and make myself focus or risk that the rising rage would sweep me into another frenzy. Considering the conflagration around me, I might as well just kill myself and have done with it.

To gain my revenge, however, I had to get out of here.

Battling for every foot won, I made it halfway through the office door and onto the hallway’s scuffed tile floor. I’d hoped it would be cooler, that I could get some respite from the heat, but the surface was hot enough to sting my bare palms. At least my black biker’s pants and jacket gave me some protection, although the butter-soft leather created more friction on the tile than cloth would have, making me work twice as hard to go half as far.

“Sephti!” a voice bellowed and I lifted my head to see cowboy boots and jeans-clad legs pounding toward me through the wall of smoke.

“You idiot,” I rasped, “get on the floor!”

Koda knelt, touching the bracelets and necklace to release me as his eyes scanned my body. “You are unhurt?”

“Just a little crispy around the edges. What are you doing here? You do realize the building is on fire?”

His dark gaze glittered. “Yeah, I noticed.”

Getting to my knees, I ran a trembling hand through my hair, willing my muscles to shake off the lingering lethargy from his bindings. Coughing, I wheezed, “Still trying to keep your word to James?”

Koda shook his head, scowling.

“Then why the freaking hell would you run into a burning—”

“I came for you.”

“What?” I gasped, incredulous.

He looked away. “You heard me.” Swinging his head back to glare at me, he growled, “Somebody had to have set this fire—”

“Ya think?” Forcing my still sluggish body to move and not waiting for his response, I scurried on hands and knees toward the closest stairwell.

“Not that way! The fire’s worse there. We have to go the long way round.”

I whirled and headed the other direction. Figuring he’d have scouted the building and seen my precious Ninja, I asked, “What about my bike?”

Koda shook his head again.

I ground my teeth with fury.

Together, we struggled through the long hallway. Even with the hems of our shirts over our lower faces, we were choking on the astringent smoke. I’d begun to think we’d missed the stairwell when Koda grabbed my shoulder.

Running his hand down my arm, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and forcibly pressed my palm against an open doorway. He put his mouth near my ear and shouted, but the fire’s roar had grown exponentially and even my acute hearing couldn’t make out his words.

I grabbed his hand where it still gripped my arm and pulled, willing him toward the opening. His broader shoulders rammed into the door’s frame, slamming him into me, before we managed to right ourselves and get through. The air was better here since the stairwell served as a chimney to suck the worst of the smoke up and away from us. I caught a glimpse of Koda’s soot-covered face and wondered dimly how he could still look so damn good.

Shaking it off and pissed at myself, I slithered down the stairs as fast as I could without breaking my neck, sensing Koda right behind me. We made it to the ground floor’s emergency exit and I confirmed that it was safe to open by feeling the coolness of its steel—there was no fire on the other side.

Koda said something I couldn’t make out.

“What?” I shouted over the fire’s din, dipping my head closer.

He put his mouth by my ear. “Fae can’t touch steel or iron.”

I rocked back and looked at him, incredulous. “We’re about to get burned to cinders and you’re still hung up…” I shook my head in sudden fury. “Listen, buddy, this is the last time I’m going to say it.
I am not fae!
”

His eyes gleamed and I was astonished to see he was amused to have gotten a rise out of me. He leaned against the concrete doorframe and chuckled, his teeth white in his sooty face.

I scowled. “Now? With the freaking building burning down around us,
now
is when your sense of humor rears its pathetic head?”

He laughed harder and reached to open the door, freezing as I grabbed his hand before he could push it open.

“Wait a second,” I said. “The bastards left only one path for us to get out. What do you want to bet somebody’s waiting on the other side of this door?”

“Sonuvabitch fae,” he snarled, his amusement evaporating.

“Amen,” I muttered, extending my awareness to the spaces outside the building, checking for an ambush.

Practically twitching with impatience, Koda spoke by my ear. “Anything?”