Wonder Woman: Warbringer (DC Icons #1)(38)

She registered a large form—a young male, about her height, broad in the shoulders. Good reflexes. He recovered quickly, shifting into fighting stance, and they faced each other in the dim light of the hallway, circling.

He lunged toward her. She seized his shoulders, twisting to the side to bring him down, using his momentum, but he adjusted his stance—very good reflexes—and regained his balance. He was strong, too, surprisingly so. Diana found it was a bit like reaching for a pitcher and discovering it full instead of empty—unexpected, but no great challenge.

She shifted her grip. The fabric of her attacker’s shirt bunched in her hands as she slammed him against the wall. The plaster splintered. He groaned, and she shoved him to the floor, pinning him facedown, one arm extended, the tendons bending as she applied pressure.

“I’ll break it,” she said as he struggled against her. “Be still.”

“Diana!” Alia was standing beside the destroyed door, staring down at them in shock.

“I told you to remain in the room.”

“Diana—”

“The situation is under control. Whoever dispatched this assassin sent a weakling.”

The young man beneath her grunted, trying to wriggle free.

She gave a tug on his arm, and he froze. “Who sent you?” she growled.

Alia clapped her hands over her mouth. She bent double, shoulders shaking, and for a moment, Diana thought she was weeping—but she was laughing. Was she having some kind of hysterical fit?

“Diana,” she gasped, “that weakling is my brother.”

Diana looked down at the male in her grip, his face planted in the hallway’s dirty green carpet. “Are…are you sure?”

Alia barked a laugh. “Pretty sure, yeah.”

Diana changed her hold, flipping the intruder so that he was pinned by her knees, and peered into his furious face. His gaze blazed with anger, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Now that she looked, she supposed he wasn’t dressed like an assassin. He wore a clean white shirt of fine cotton unbuttoned at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His head was shaved, though not quite smooth, and he had the same dark liquid eyes and brown skin as Alia. In fact, now that she was looking at him properly, the resemblance was striking.

“Why did you attack me?” she said.

“You attacked me.”

Diana winced. So she had. “Well, why were you trying to break into our room?”

He bucked once beneath her, and she used her body weight to shove him back to the floor. Brother or not, she didn’t know his intentions. “I was looking for my sister,” he snarled. “Who the hell are you?”

Alia cleared her throat. “Maybe you should let him up.”

“He’s in no danger. I’m not hurting him.”

“I’m pretty sure his ego is permanently bruised, and I don’t know what might be hiding in that carpet.”

“We should search him for weapons.”

“Diana, he’s my brother. Let him up.”

Reluctantly, Diana rocked back on her heels and stood, releasing him. She offered him a hand, but he ignored it, making what she thought was an unnecessarily dramatic show of shaking out his arm.

He came up to his knees and, in a single swift movement, yanked a gun from a holster near his ankle as he leapt to his feet. “You should have searched me for weapons.”

“Jason!” Alia yelped.

“I’m just making a point. If—”

Diana had never seen a gun outside of the pages of a book, but she’d been trained to disarm an assailant. Her hand snapped forward, striking the pressure points of his wrist. The gun dropped from his grip, and in the next breath she had him up against the wall, cheek pressed to the plaster.

“I was just making a point!” Jason said. “I was agreeing with you…whoever you are. Alia, will you call her off?”

“I’m not sure I should. What are you doing with a gun, Jason?”

“I have it for protection!”

“How’s that working out for you?”

Diana gave him a little shove. “Alia hasn’t been out of my sight once. How did you find us?”

“The trunk with the go-bag is equipped with an alarm in case of theft,” he said. “You triggered it when you broke in, although I have no idea what you did to that poor car. I asked the attendants if they’d seen anyone coming or going with a red backpack, and they remembered you two.”

“But how did you find the hotel?”

“The cell phone in the backpack.”

“A phone?”

“Yes,” he grunted. “There’s a burner phone in every go-bag. I followed the signal here.”

“Did you know this?” asked Diana, but the guilt on Alia’s face told her all she needed to know. She remembered how Alia had asked her to put the duffel back in the trunk. Had she done it deliberately so Diana would turn her back? She was surprised at how much the betrayal stung.

“Diana, I need to ask you to unhand my brother. Again.”

Grudgingly, Diana released him, but this time she patted him down. She decided not to think too much about the fact that she was in such close proximity to a male—friend or foe—and ignored his sharp “Hey!” when she ran her hand up his thigh.