Deadly Game (GhostWalkers, #5)(67)

Jack shrugged. “There’s nothing quite like seeing a woman wrapping my brother around her little finger. He’s whipped . . .” He grinned. “Literally.”

Ken muttered a suggestion that was anatomically impossible. “If you’re here, Kadan, who’s watching Briony? I wouldn’t put it past Whitney to try for another grab at her.”

Jack flicked him a warning look. “You can stop right there, Ken. I’ve stashed her somewhere very safe, somewhere Whitney would never think to look.”

“He knows where all the GhostWalkers live, Jack. He probably knows the safe houses as well. You should be home with Briony right now, protecting her.”

“Whitney doesn’t know about this house.”

Ken was silent for a moment. “She isn’t with a GhostWalker.”

Jack shook his head. “I sent her first to Lily’s place, and then she was supposed to have gone to visit with Nico and Dahlia. Lily smuggled her out and she’s safe with Miss Judith. I’ve wanted them to meet, so Jeff escorted Briony to her home. She’s promised she won’t leave the house and will stay out of sight. I’ve got two guards on them, but Whitney will never think to look for her there.”

Miss Judith was the woman who had turned their lives around and kept them both out of jail. She’d been a volunteer, working at the group home where they were placed, and she had seen the rage hidden beneath the icy and very frightening demeanor of the two boys who had been constantly shuffled from one foster home to the next. She wasn’t put off by their bad reputations or the fact that they had retaliated against a couple of their foster parents for mistreatment or the fact that they refused to be separated, running away each time the system had insisted on splitting them up. She looked beyond their horrific past, the fact that they’d killed their father and refused to be separated, no matter what the system said.

It was Miss Judith who had saved them, giving them a love of music and books and education. She taught them to harness the never-ending rage in positive ways, and when they joined the military and, eventually, Special Forces and then special ops, they created a very public and heated argument in order to ensure her protection against their enemies. Miss Judith had disappeared from their lives. She moved away for a year or so before returning to Montana. No one would ever find a single contact between them again.

Ken looked out the window, his mind once more reaching for Mari’s. How had it happened? He’d been so certain he was going to walk away from her, yet now that she was gone, he knew he couldn’t be without her. He had to find a way to control his baser traits. He wouldn’t be jealous and domineering. He’d be one of those men women were always talking about, sensitive and socially correct.

He looked at his reflection in the window. What a crock. Who was he trying to kid? He looked the monster he was. Truthfully, he had every intention of controlling her. He wanted her completely under his thumb. He was no saint—not even close—and he wasn’t going to pretend. She was going to have to learn to love the real man. He’d given her a choice. He’d told her to be sure. He’d warned her. Over and over.

His fist hit his thigh in a frustrated protest. Mari. Damn you. Where the hell are you? He tunneled his fingers through his hair, betraying his agitation. Come on, baby. You’ve got to answer me. Just touch my mind with yours.





CHAPTER 12




“Mari, come on, hon, you have to wake up.”

The voice was insistent. Mari moved her head, and immediately a jackhammer began to drive on full throttle through it. She suppressed a groan and forced herself to reach out with her psychic senses to tell her where she was and what kind of trouble she was in.

Rose. She could never mistake Rose’s soft feminine scent. Sean was there too. Bastard. He’d shot her full of something and knocked her out. He was going to pay for that. She heard the solid chink of a metal door closing. The sound of footsteps pacing. She was back in the compound.

Her body ached, her arms especially. She tried to relieve the pain by pulling them in close to her and found that she was cuffed to the metal rail of the bed.

“Mari,” Rose repeated. “Wake up.”

A cold cloth was pressed to her face. Rose leaned close. “Whitney’s going to be here any minute. Come on, honey. We need you alert.”

Mari pried her eyelids open and stared up into Rose’s concerned face. She looked like a little pixie with her too large eyes and sultry mouth and small, heart-shaped face. Rose was delicate and a little younger than the rest of them, with not quite as tough an exterior, but she had steel beneath that soft skin and delicate bone structure. She smiled at Mari.

“At last. We were getting alarmed.”

“Sean handcuffed me.” She jerked at her hands and turned her head toward the man standing guard. “Why?”

“You were communicating with the enemy,” he said.

“I was saving your butt, and right at this very moment, I can’t think why.” Mari maneuvered into a sitting position, clenching her teeth against the pounding in her head.

“Just how did you do that?”

She cast Sean the best glower she was capable of, dark and filled with contempt, withering even. She wanted him to wither. Switching her attention to Rose, she forced a serene smile. “I’m awake, hon. My head hurts like a bear, and I’m a little worse for wear, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to the senator.”