Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games #2)(95)

My own voice is flat with hatred. “You better learn to sleep with one eye open, you sick son of a bitch.”

“Guard!”

Across the echoing space, the guard carrying Juanita turns back, waiting. S?ren gazes at me. One elegant eyebrow slowly lifts.

There’s an interval of excruciating decision. I hate him. I hate him with my whole being, with every cell inside my body. And yet I know without doubt what will happen to Juanita if I disobey his command.

And so, with my heart bleeding, I grit my teeth, bend my knee, and slowly sink to the cold stone floor.





Thirty-Five





Connor




It’s thirty klicks to the target, which is just under nineteen miles. We’re about to do a nineteen-mile hump over rugged mountain terrain wearing a fifty-pound ruck, in full body armor, carrying an M16, in temperatures in the thirties, with a good chance of sleet.

In the dark.

We could’ve gotten closer if we parachuted in, but then we ran the risk of not only announcing our presence but being shot from the sky like clay birds. There’s no telling what S?ren’s got up his sleeve. I wouldn’t put it past the bastard to have his location surrounded with surface-to-air missiles or even an armed regiment of sniper lookouts in the trees.

Which is actually the good scenario.

The bad scenario involves the aforementioned plus antipersonnel land mines.

So we flew into Fairbanks on the C-130, switched over to a Black Hawk to take us into the LZ, and now we’ve got boots on the ground as the sun sets over the jagged ridge of the North Slope. An icy wind whips the boughs of the yellow cedar and Sitka spruce into dark, snapping waves. Somewhere in the distance, I hear the lone, plaintive howl of a wolf.

I take a moment to check the compass. I glance at my watch. Then I look at the group of men standing in front of me, Ryan and four steely-eyed Marines named Kasey, Murphy, Reid, and ‘Big Swingin’ Dick.’

“This should take roughly five hours, boys. We’re gonna do it in three.”

After five wordless nods, we set off.





Thirty-Six





Tabby




For long moments, neither one of us moves or speaks. I feel S?ren’s gaze on me, feel the pleasure he’s enjoying at seeing me kneeling at his feet. Submitting.

Outwardly submitting. Inside, I’m a horde of barbarian soldiers with their swords drawn and their teeth bared, foaming at the mouth.

He steps forward. He stops beside me. I hold myself motionless, looking at his bare feet from my peripheral vision, thinking how vulnerable the arch of a foot is. I feel a caress on the top of my head, a stroke of his hand over my hair, and instinctively recoil, jerking away as if his touch burns.

I sense his disapproval in his silence. I know what he wants, and I have to force myself to give it to him—at least long enough to buy some time.

Slowly, swallowing back the hot rush of bile rising in my throat, I return to my submissive pose, head bent, hands on my thighs, balancing my weight on the balls of my feet and my knees. He offers his hand to me like one would for a dog to sniff, or a liege lord for a press of lips on his ring.

Juanita. Juanita. Juanita.

Gritting my teeth, I lean forward and touch my forehead to the back of his hand.

“No kiss?” he asks, lightly mocking.

I don’t answer, because the only words in my mouth are those of pure violence.

“All right,” he says after a time. “That will do for now. Look at me.”

I raise my head and meet his piercing blue stare. In spite of the intelligence there, it’s cold. Soulless. So unlike the generous dark warmth of Connor’s, those beautiful eyes of his that always looked at me with so much—

No.

I force the thought of Connor from my head, but S?ren has already sniffed it out.

His look sharpens. Lightly caressing my cheek with his knuckles, he whispers, “You think you can hide from me? You think I don’t know how much you wish you could hate me…but don’t?”

I lower my eyes and bite my tongue. Silence is my friend now.

“Come,” he says, his voice warm. “I have something to show you.”

He turns and walks away. When I don’t move, his guards step in. One of them prods me with his rifle. I cut him a look so lethal, he blinks.

I rise unsteadily and follow S?ren to the spiral staircase. The guards walk closely behind, our footsteps echoing off the metal. I take in everything around me, memorizing the space, looking for exits. When we reach the top of the staircase, I stop dead.

A few feet ahead of me, S?ren says over his shoulder, “Like what I’ve done with the place?”

The platform we’re standing on juts out from the entrance of the mouth of another, smaller cave, with two tunnels at the rear that wind out of sight in different directions. The main space has been retrofitted with steel and glass to form a large, open work area, lit up in a wash of white light. There’s a bank of servers behind a wall of glass on one side. Video screens dominate the other wall. In the middle of the room is an enormous, horseshoe-shaped desk forested with buttons, a keyboard in the middle. Behind the desk sit two white captain’s chairs.

It has the look of the command room of a starship.

I feel a prod in the small of my back and stumble forward. The guards silently mount the stairs and move to flank me on either side. S?ren saunters into the center of the cave and turns a slow half-circle, his arms held out.