Bone Deep(10)

“You are a dog with a—” She caught her words and sighed.

He laughed and it moved through her body in a slow, warm tide. Surely it was the most stunning feeling she’d ever had.

“A bone? Yes, well, I do have one in my hands now, correct?”

His tone was teasing. The situation was anything but.

She turned then, took two steps back and lifted her face. He was stunning. The carved features of his face, thrown in relief by the night lights of St. Petersburg, made her heart beat harder. His gaze narrowed, expression going bleak.

For the laugh he’d just blessed her with, there was no happiness on his face. He was completely shut down.

“Come with me to Virginia, kostolomochka moja.” It seemed a plea wrapped in a command. My little Bone Breaker he called her. The name made her want to smile.

She knew every way to kill it seemed, but this man made her want to live and it hurt.

“No.” She shook her head. “Not yet. Death calls and it is time to mete out punishments. You know this, Dmitry, and yet you refuse to stop this insane crusade of yours. Leave me to this and we, all of us, will be better off. If you persist, we will dance and I will win. I have no choice,” she whispered.

“There are always choices. Do not hide behind your fear to make the right one,” he warned. “Your sisters sent me. They are worried you are losing sight of the goal.”

Anger exploded in her mind. He did this to her—made her experience so many emotions all at once that she couldn’t comprehend the depth and scope of her rage. “Then perhaps they should come tell me themselves? I have been known to kill messengers.”

“Do not make me hurt you, Bone,” he implored, his deep voice smoke over sandpaper. That he mimicked her words from moments ago gave her pause.

Hurt, hurt ,hurt…she was comfortable with that.

She cocked her head and stared at him. “Pain is nothing but a reminder that I was created for death. It is my alpha and omega—my beginning and my end. My heart craves it, my soul requires it. If you thought the prospect of pain would draw me in line, Dmitry Asinimov, you were wrong.”

She struck before she could question the need not to. One, two, three, she hit him with her closed fist, first to the side of the head, the next two to the gut. She sidestepped and went low, aiming a kick at his hip. He stumbled, clearly unprepared for her attack but gained his balance within seconds.

He spun to meet her next blow, blocking the swing of her arm. The force she’d swung with combined with his re-direction turned her. This gave him her back for mere seconds and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest and squeezing. She didn’t draw in a breath, rather she pushed out, because if he squeezed as she breathed out he had the upper hand. Bone aimed a kick backward at his knee as she swung her head back. She connected with his knee and his nose. Not hard enough to maim but she’d hurt him. He grunted and released her, shoving her away.

She glanced up as he shuffled and then once again he was coming, tackling her to the ground but bearing the brunt of the fall.

The man would undo her. Her rage rushed back in. How dare he try to protect her. This was war.

She was on her back and he lay within her guard. Their bodies were flush as their gazes met, his blue-black in the night and pleading. Bone ignored the unspoken request. She would neither break nor give in.

His full weight pressed on her. He was six feet four inches, two hundred fifty pounds of heavily muscled male and she was barely one twenty soaking wet. She relaxed, going limp and he took advantage, pressing his chin into the hollow between her neck and shoulder and grinding down. The pain was immediate but not such that she couldn’t function.

Instead she welcomed it—let it flow through her so it became strength. She twisted and brought her feet up to push against his hips. With a swift shift of her shoulders, she countered his attempt to subdue her and once again shoved up with her feet. He flew over her head and she was on him, taking his back as he rolled and wrapping her arm around his neck, leveraging the hold with her other arm.

He fell back and she was pinned beneath him but she folded her legs around his waist, squeezing to cut off his ability to draw in air as she did her best to choke him out. He tapped her arm desperately, a classic sign he was giving up, but she wouldn’t relent…couldn’t relent. This wasn’t a sparring session.

He went limp moments later and she released the hold before shoving him off. He fell to his side and Bone rubbed her chest at the pain there.

She glanced up again. Flakes of snow fell from the sky above her, a sanction from the darkness, and she knew a hurt she couldn’t counter. “I am not your Bone Breaker, Dmitry,” she whispered.

She had no time for this. There was another move to put into play and until she had Vadim Yesipov’s head in her hands, this part of her journey wouldn’t end.

She hadn’t held Ninka’s hands in the darkness like Bullet, so she would go after her betrayer with the fury of a million demons. She would rip and rend the one who sold her into Joseph Bombardier’s hands—the one who still catered to the devil who created them all.

She feared it would all be over too soon. What would she be without the hate and the kill?

Bone checked Dmitry’s pulse, found it steady and strong and then whispered the words she’d spoken to him two weeks ago.

“Do not follow me, Dmitry Asinimov,” she said at his ear. “Do not make me kill you.”