Hunted Warrior Read online

  “Avyi, it’s me. Malnefoley. C’mon. Wake up. All the way, now.”

  He watched as the life came back into her eyes, first as suspicion. “Where am I?”

  “The Forza. On our way to Florence, remember? To find Cadmin.”

  He didn’t believe in Cadmin, and no way was he Dr. Aster. Both were benevolent lies to pull her free of the nightmare.

  She blinked rapidly, then pushed the backs of her hands across her eyes. She hadn’t been crying. It seemed more a gesture of frustration. “I remember. What are you doing holding me?”

  “I was only trying to wake you.”

  She raised her brows.

  Mal looked down as if he were watching another person. He’d taken up position on her mattress, lying beside her—almost on top of her. She’d pushed her upper body against his chest. His arms were around her back, cradling between her shoulders and down across her spine. Cradling was the right word, because the comfort he offered had little to do with the sudden realization that her lithe, compact form was nestled against his. It didn’t matter that she wore her black tank top and a charcoal gray sweater that sloped over one shoulder. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t reach an inch of skin other than her face and neck. He’d only wanted her to stop screaming, to save her from whatever had made her so afraid—or so angry.

  Realizing their closeness rekindled the cross between erotic and muddled thoughts. Her breasts were small but felt heavenly when pressed against his bare chest. He had chosen to sleep shirtless. They were only a few scant layers of fabric from being skin to skin.

  Too many layers.

  There were too many layers between them.

  He would’ve laid her down right then, naked man to naked woman, had he comprehended her true intentions. He wasn’t a noble man by refraining. No, he had been played a fool before, with his emotions amplified by physical ecstasy. The consequences continued to shred his soul—out of regret, and out of mortification.

  That didn’t mean he would let go of Avyi, especially when she rested her head back against the pillow with a sigh honed by pure relief. Her dark hair was midnight in their shared cabin, and it tickled his nose with its unexpected softness.

  “You were screaming. Do you remember why?”

  “I was hacking his head off.”

  “His? Dr. Aster?”

  She nodded.

  “But when I shook you and shouted for you to wake up, you didn’t respond.” He tipped her chin up and frowned. Had he been born Indranan, he would’ve used his gift of telepathy without shame. He wanted in her head that badly. Would knowing her thoughts be worth the pain he knew he’d find there? “But when I spoke to you as if I were the doctor, you responded.”

  “Words are powerful, and so is he.”

  “I’m glad the dream was to your advantage.”

  “Me, too. I prefer those to the ones where he wins our last contest.” She patted his chest in a dismissive gesture. “I’ll be fine now, Mal.”

  “You called me Mal.”

  “It was time. Go back to bed.”

  He touched the damp hair at her temples and trailed his fingers down to her parted lips. “And if I don’t?”

  *

  Avyi knew she would never be able to get back to sleep, even if Mal had returned to his bunk. He was pressed fully against her, holding her when the worst of her terrors were ripping her apart. That she desired him beyond the point of curiosity made her still. Her breathing had just been returning to normal when his question amped her adrenaline again. She couldn’t look away from his firm mouth, which had formed the words that would change everything between them, no matter her answer.

  Yet her dream still haunted her. It wasn’t a prediction, because victory shifted back and forth. She considered it a horror movie she wouldn’t see finished until she met her former master again. Face to face. The last confrontation before they would be free of one another. That was a prediction. He would kill her, or she would kill him. The field of battle, the weaponry, the method, the circumstances—they remained obscured, akin to knowing she and Mal would become lovers.

  Would they do so now? He practically asked as much, while she was the one in control.

  “Stay,” she whispered.

  Pushing away fear, she took Mal’s fingers in her own and encouraged him to continue tracing her eyes, her cheeks, her throat. She felt safer by offering her overt permission, leading him to every inch of skin he touched.

  Moonlight through the berth’s single window highlighted his profile and glimpses of the big body pushed flush against her. He wore his noble lineage well, with strongly defined muscles across his chest and down his abdomen. They bore the telltale striations of a man who knew how to care for himself. She had known so many Dragon Kings who relied on their gifts and let their physical assets deteriorate.

  That wasn’t the case with Malnefoley. He was chiseled. Virile. Tempting bronze hair dusted his pectorals and formed a narrow path between the square ripples of his stomach, to where it disappeared beneath the waistband of his briefs. That hair would tickle her breasts if she lay on top of him … or if he lay on top of her.

  Why shouldn’t I?

  His gift and his physical form were blessings from the Dragon. She would be well served by accepting those blessings into her deepest core. His negligent posture and complete relaxation called to her in primal ways. She was taut and almost scared by what might happen between them. He was apparently willing to wait. Didn’t he care? Or was he so assured that he knew it would happen eventually?

  Well, that was easy enough to answer. She’d told him as much. “We’re more enemies than allies,” she said, her throat tight. “I can’t believe in you, and you don’t believe in me.”

  “Are we going to? Is that part of what you’ve seen of our future?”

  “No …”

  “People make love without needing anything but the release.” His pectorals bunched as he adjusted his hold around her waist. “It’s called pleasure, Avyi. How much pleasure have you had in your life?”

  Frozen, she stared as Mal slipped his hand between their bodies and rubbed his right hand over his groin. Rather than embarrassment—she would’ve been mortified—he appeared as confident as always. His expression was intense. Desire shone from his eyes.

  “I’m thinking about us,” he said. “And I’m touching myself. Both give me …” He placed a delicate kiss just below her earlobe. “Pleasure.”

  “Then continue.” She gave him a smile that made the constant pressures behind her sternum lessen, before changing sensation. Adrenaline was one thing. This was the slow pour of honey in her veins. Lassitude and a deep craving intertwined. “Unless I need to tease you. I have ten fingers, after all.”

  “That was a joke.”

  Her smile deepened. “Was it?”

  “You show me.” Mal tossed the covers aside. It was all Avyi could do to keep from gasping. His manhood was long, thick, bulging against the confines of his briefs. The head pushed up against the waistband, altering the intimate shape of the underwear and making it erotic.

  “But lose the brass knuckles first,” he said with a matching grin. With even less ceremony than she would have thought, she handed them over. She swiftly stripped out of her shirt and cargo pants. If she stopped to think about what she was doing, she would stop altogether.

  She didn’t want that.

  She straddled him as she had in the maze, then dragged her fingertips along his muscled thighs and trim hips. The position gave her a measure of power she wasn’t willing to relinquish. His gaze traveled over her breasts, her belly, and returned to her face. He bracketed her hips with his strong hands and elegant fingers.

  “Damn,” he whispered.

  “Show me how.” Her voice didn’t sound like her. Husky. More deeply pitched. “I’ve never …”

  “Never?” His stunned expression was replaced by something like resolution. She’d hoped for as much. The Giva would loathe to shirk his duties, but sh
e only wanted the man named Malnefoley.

  She lifted just enough for Mal to push down his briefs. They lost all hesitation. His hands became more insistent as he touched her. She feasted on the feel of his hard body. His arms, angling to form a V as he explored her body, were thick with tense muscles. His chest was taut. His stomach was a rigid playground for her tongue, lips, fingernails.

  He lifted his head while pulling her nearer, then caught one nipple between his lips. Avyi gasped. Fear flickered, threatening its return, but she had known real fear. This was exactly as Mal had said. This was pleasure. She leaned into his wet caress as he circled sensitive skin with his tongue and teased her with gentle nips. With her hands threaded at his nape, she pulled him even closer. He switched to her other breast and deepened his kiss. Between his hands and his mouth, she was quickly succumbing to sensations that layered over each other until none could be named. It was just her and Mal—their surprising combustion.

  “Here,” he said, urging her hand between her spread legs. “Your turn.”

  She would’ve been embarrassed before, but no longer. Avyi was wet, aching. What began as a tentative touch quickly became more forceful as Mal worked magic on her breasts and she discovered her body’s own secrets. Their respiration matched, not in cadence but in urgency. She briefly wondered what it would be like to see Mal’s face hovering over hers, with his body in full mastery of hers, but that was too much. She needed to be above him. She needed to keep that fear of capture at bay, or she would lose these astonishing feelings.

  They met each other in a forceful kiss that was unlike their previous encounters. This had an underlying shimmer of tenderness, as well as anticipation. Mal stroked his tongue across hers until she moaned. They shared rather than warred. It wasn’t furtive, but a prelude to the dance yet to come.

  Avyi wanted that dance, before that underlying tenderness became as chilly as fear. Pleasure. This was for pleasure.

  “Now,” she whispered against his damp lips. “It has to be now.”

  “Not yet.”

  Mal urged her to lift higher on her knees—then higher still. He positioned her pussy above his mouth. She had thought his touch was amazing. The hot flick of his tongue, however, blew away the last remnants of thought. He tasted, suckled, licked. Avyi thrashed her head, bracing herself with both hands flat on the inner hull of the ship at the head of her bed.

  Her climax was so quick that she had no time to anticipate the onslaught of so much sensation. She grabbed the back of Mal’s head and arched as waves pulsed up from where he still bestowed the most erotic kiss.

  At his mercy now, she found herself straddling him again, but this time across his thighs. He covered her hands with his and showed her how to touch him, with strokes so strong that she thought they must be painful. Not so. He urged her to fondle his balls, massaging in a slower counterpoint to the heavy pulse they kept along his thick cock. It was fully engorged now, stunning in its rigidity and power. His eyes blazed. He grunted a curse and lifted his knees, digging his heels into the mattress.

  “Now,” he said on a groan. “Come to me, Avyi.”

  She braced a palm on his straining pecs. The muscles of her thighs trembled as she raised up enough to align his throbbing head with her sleek opening. Mal helped her, but only so much. Once Avyi had him fully in hand, he let his fall away. How could he know? Did he know? She needed to be the one to do this her way, as inexperienced as she was.

  He was hot and pulsing as she sank down, so slowly at first. But need got the better of her. She enveloped him in one swift move. A surprised cry slipped from her lips. Mal was there. He had sat up, with his bent knees supporting her back, with his crossed arms holding her close. They kissed. They touched. They rocked together as that moment of pain dispersed.

  “More,” he rasped against her throat. “You can give us more.”

  She found that she could. There was nothing barring them anymore. Nothing barred her. She grasped the strong muscles that sloped from his neck to his sculpted shoulders. The pace she set was forceful and sure. Mal tossed his head back with a groan, like an invitation—one Avyi accepted by licking up from his collarbone until they were kissing again. Her world centered on him, on all the ways their bodies connected. The deepest connection was where man met woman with the most primal strength. She took him as much as he took her.

  They locked gazes. Mal touched her hair, just as he had in the hostel. The surprise of that renewed tenderness was Avyi’s undoing. She rolled her hips and rode the magnificence he offered. Fire burned behind her eyes and along her skin and down her belly, until it was a blaze of need. That need consumed her as sweat slicked her skin and stole her breath. She pinched her nails into his pecs when the first burst of release made her gasp his name. Another followed as he continued to pump up, gaining speed, holding back nothing.

  He circled her body in a fierce grip. She sucked a patch of skin at his throat, then sank her teeth deep. Mal shuddered, then went rigid with a heavy grunt. After a few more lingering strokes, he flopped back on the mattress with a dazed, satisfied look on his handsome face. Avyi’s inner thighs were sore as she slipped free and joined him on the bed, half lying across his body. They were both panting.

  “That was …” She didn’t have the words. How could she describe how right that had felt, in too many dangerous ways?

  He hadn’t taken her virginity; he had provided the freedom for her to give it to him. “Fantastic?” he offered.

  She burrowed her face against his chest. It was as good a word as any, as she tried to completely shut down thought. The taste of his kiss remained on her tongue and the aftershocks of satisfaction still hummed in her blood. “Yes, Mal. It was fantastic.”

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  Mal didn’t walk through the next twenty-four hours in a fog, but everything he did was hazed with new sensation and sidelong looks at his companion. She behaved as if nothing had happened in that ferry berth. Only the way she walked gave her away. She had a looseness to her joints that belied her previous tenseness. Although just as wary, with her eyes a constant study in the suspicion a wounded soul used to assess the world, she walked beside him with what might almost be described as ease.

  As he and Avyi disembarked in Venice, Mal was dressed in Armani. He could’ve been a businessman headed to Switzerland for a G8 conference about the economic futures of the industrialized world. Instead, he was the leader of the Dragon Kings, hiding weapons in his luggage and trying to smuggle in a young woman without papers.

  She looked both respectable and radiant in a pair of slacks, a gauzy blouse, and a tailored jacket. Her fawn-colored merino wool suit created a striking contrast with her midnight hair, which was swept back from her delicate features. Ginovosa had outdone herself in finding an outfit to fit Avyi’s petite frame and help contain some of her prickly attitude.

  Although it was a strange thing to feel, he wanted her back in her clothes, boots and all, but their possessions had been stowed in a train station locker in Florence. Although the Tigony he’d sent to complete the task was one of his most trusted men, Mal hadn’t dared reveal that the chest contained his sword and the quiver. But now … this polished version of a beautiful woman wasn’t Avyi. The off-kilter vivacity was still there for any who looked hard enough, but she was straightjacketed. He wondered where she had stowed her switchblade and brass knuckles. He had no doubt they were somewhere readily accessible.

  No more, he thought. Not for the rest of her life.

  The first Italian customs agents they met were typically Italian. They weren’t ruled by clocks and hurry-scurry attitudes. They more resembled the humans of Mal’s homeland, where family, good food and wine, and enjoying life’s pleasures overruled pettier considerations. Greek, Italian … they were descended from the traditions taught by the Tigony. Mal’s selfish heart spoke their language. He hadn’t been raised to accept responsibility. There were always valets.

  And priestesses. And victims. />
  He knew how deeply the craving for bacchanalia went, and how greatly the Tigony had been responsible for the worst of it.

  “This is Avyi Tigony,” he said in Italian, presenting his passport and a convincing business itinerary for his stay in Italy. “She’s my wife and lost her passport on the ferry. We’ve looked everywhere. The ship’s captain was still searching when we docked.”

  Avyi only raised her brows. She didn’t seem averse to using any tactic. After all, she planned to search a world-famous cathedral for a mythical bow.

  The customs agent was small in stature and wiry, as thin as the cigarette he let dangle from his lips. Not exactly the stuff of high-end airport security. He examined Mal’s papers. He eyed Avyi, particularly lingering on her hair.

  Under the agent’s scrutiny, she assumed a placid expression that sent chills up Mal’s back. It wasn’t her.

  It was the Pet.

  She was everyone and no one.

  The agent handed back the papers and passport. He took a drag on the cigarette and pointed it at Avyi. “The Greek Consulate will be your next stop. We can have you escorted.”

  Mal smiled benignly. “No need. We don’t want to be a nuisance. Our ultimate destination is Berlin. Sorting out her passport is a first priority. Even more of a priority than the canals,” he said, as if by way of apology to Avyi.

  “Next trip?” Her plea had just the right timbre of petulant and genuine disappointment. “You promised.”

  “I did promise.” He kissed the top of her head, then added steel to his voice. “Next time you’ll remember not to misplace your things.”

  The agent smiled as if in agreement with Mal’s harder tone. They were a people who would rather have wine insulted—as proof of good taste—than to bear obsequious courtesy. They understood and appreciated the attitude of a spoiled child. Mal could affect that without effort.