Anew: Book Two: Hunted (30 page)

But now-- I sit up suddenly, clutching the sheet to my
breasts, and take a quick, frantic look around. In the glaring light of what
appears to be late afternoon, nothing seems either clear or certain.

Ian is asleep beside me. I stare down at the man I love,
relieved that he’s here but still struggling to accept that what happened last
night was no dream. I…we…the alley, the elevator, the balcony. All the rest!
Every carnal, impassioned, ecstatic moment of Carnival was real.

Tearing my eyes from him, I look down at myself. My wrists
are banded by faint red lines from the belt that he used to tie me. I’m sore in
places that I don’t usually think about. Even more, I can still feel him deep
inside my body as though he has imprinted himself on me forever.

A sudden wave of insecurity threatens to pull me under. No
matter how much I may want to deny how completely I submitted to him, I can’t
lie to myself. To all intents and purposes, I might as well have been the fuck
toy he once called me. That was a deliberate taunt meant to convince me that I
was anything but, yet it stung all the same. I can only pray that wasn’t how he
was thinking of me last night but the harsh truth is that I’m not sure. He’s so
different suddenly. Not the dark, wounded prince that I’ve thought of him as
but a being of another kind--unhindered by the past, unrestrained, and in some
sense at least, merciless.

My legs shake as I get out of the bed. There’s no sign of
the black lace robe and I don’t pause to look for it. Naked, I walk quickly
into the bathroom and flip on the shower. Without waiting, I step into it. The
first shock of the water makes me gasp. It fills like shards of ice striking my
skin but it warms quickly. Within moments, I’m surrounded by a cloud of steam.

I wash myself thoroughly, including shampooing my hair. In
the process, I discover several small bruises on my hips where Ian grasped me
right before he--

My cheeks flame. I remember it all--the shock, the ecstasy,
the soaring sense of liberation. My own unbridled embrace of his desires stuns
me. I don’t regret it but at the same time I’m more than a little confused and
self-conscious. How am I going to face him?

I give myself a hard mental shake. This isn’t the time for
second thoughts about my behavior. Not when I have far too many questions about
his. His change of heart about keeping me secure at Pinnacle House until the
danger from Davos is over. His sudden lack of concern about the inner demons
that have haunted him for years and threatened to drive us apart. His
willingness to go so far sexually, taking me into a dark realm and confronting
me with aspects of my own nature that I can only struggle to accept.

I want to talk with him about all this and more but when I
get out of the shower, wrap myself in a towel and go back into the bedroom, Ian
is still asleep. As I stare at him, my stomach growls a blunt reminder that my
body has other appetites and needs. Suddenly, I’m ferociously hungry. About to
call room service, I remember that all I’m wearing is a towel. At the palazzo
and Pinnacle House, clothes always seemed to just materialize. Not so here.
Apparently, a hotel that can provide bondage rope and sex toys can’t manage a
simple terrycloth robe.

I find my gown on the floor of the antechamber where I
dropped it during my little strip tease, a seeming lifetime ago. My stilettos,
thong, and mask are nearby. I leave them where they are, discard the towel, and
slither my way into the dress. So long as I don’t turn to expose my bare back,
I at least feel adequately covered.

Thoughts of coddled eggs flit through my head as I look for
the link. I’ve just found it and am scrolling down the menu for room service
when a sound from the bedroom stops me. For a moment, I think Ian is awake but
when I look through the door, he’s still asleep. And dreaming.

The sheet is pushed down, exposing his long, sculpted torso
to below his hips. I stare entranced at the play of muscles under his taut skin
until I realize that he’s having a nightmare. His big body moves fitfully in
the throes of it.

“No!” he murmurs, the single syllable redolent with pain.

Instinctively, I start toward him, my only thought to
comfort. But I stop abruptly when he cries out again.

“No, Susannah! Don’t leave me!”

All my breath escapes in a rush. There’s no mistaking the
depth of his anguish or the sincerity of his plea. He’s desperate. For her.

Susannah, the pure and good, spun glass and selfless
courage. The beautiful, serene woman in the portrait who I am absolutely
certain never knelt on all fours like an animal and let a man fuck her ass. He
longs for her. Not me.

I’m breaking apart inside. The room spins and for a moment,
I’m afraid that I’m about to be sick. Instead, I do the only thing that I can.
I run.

Out of the suite, through the elegant lobby where I’m dimly
aware that the few people who are around stare at me, and onto the street. I’m
barefoot, disheveled, and on the verge of breaking down completely. It’s as
though I’m trapped in the gestation chamber again, only this time I’ve made the
mistake of thinking that I can breathe. Instead, I’m drowning in anguish,
shame, and defeat. Only one thought holds me together--I have to get away.

A few blocks from the hotel, the spear of Pinnacle House
stabs the sky. I tear my eyes from it and focus instead on the flash of green a
little distance away. I’m near the park, which means that I’m just about a mile
south of the McClellan mansion. I can walk there.

I set off, driven by the desperate need for sanctuary, a
place where I can lick my wounds and at least try to recover some part of
myself. But I’ve gone only a few yards when I’m stopped.

Three large men in dark suits emerge from a black car parked
at the curb and block my way. For a moment, I think that they’re Ian’s men,
keeping watch on the hotel while he’s there. But an instant later, I realize my
mistake when one of the men speaks into his personal link.

His words send a bolt of icy terror down my spine.

“Tell Mister Davos that we have her.”

Ian

I
know something is
wrong before I open my eyes. The bed’s too soft, the sun’s coming from the
wrong direction, and my cock is limp. It’s that last one that gets my
attention. I always wake up with wood. It’s not a boast, it’s just a fact of
nature that makes me no different from most guys.

But not today. My cock has decided to sleep in. The last
time that happened was right after a halo jump went wrong. I opened too low,
came in too fast, and ended up with a broken leg and a nasty concussion.
Considering what could have happened, I was lucky.

I don’t feel that way right now. An alarm bell is going off
in my head. A skull-splitting claxon telling me to haul ass and figure out what
the fuck has happened. I’m out of the bed, scratching my chest idly as I glance
around the room before I realize where I am. L’hôtel Perle with its well
deserved reputation for discretion. I remember arriving last night…sort of…I
wasn’t alone.

I was with…Bo Peep? I have a vague memory of a sexy
shepherdess bumping into me after I left the Council meeting.

Please god, tell me I didn’t check in here with her and her
sheep. Amelia might forgive me for a lot of things but not--

Amelia! Oh, fuck!

My whole body jerks as the memory of what really happened
last night rips through me, a fusillade of images each more erotic than the
next. I feel as though I’ve been gut punched. Hard on it comes a wave of fear
worse than any I’ve experienced in battle. Where is Amelia? After what I did to
her, she could be in shock, broken, in need of help. A wave of panic threatens
to overwhelm me. I must be the last person on the planet she wants anything to
do with but I’ve got to find her all the same.

A quick search through the suite reveals nothing except a
handful of clues. A discarded thong on the antechamber floor along with the
mask and shoes that I remember she was wearing. Rope lying beside a chair. I
tied her there and then I…

The balcony, the bedroom, throat fucking her. It gets worse.
In the dressing room, I find a long strip of black lace that I vaguely remember
taking off her robe and using to tie her hands. And nearby… a jeweled butt
plug, the aquamarine stone in the handle twinkling at me.

I double over, my hands braced on my knees. It’s all I can
do to breathe. Self-loathing threatens to consume me. She was a virgin a few
weeks ago. She’s had next to no time to adjust to me, the world, or anything
else. And I did that? Worse yet, I remember all too well how much I enjoyed it
and everything else that I did to her. Even now, there’s a part of me that
wants to do it all over again.

My hands are shaking as I find my link and call Hollis. The
moment he answers, I ask, “Is Amelia there?”

He’s silent for a moment, digesting the full meaning behind
the question and no doubt trying to figure out what has me going over the edge.
“I thought she was with you.”

“No. Tell Gab to get on it. I need her found
now
.”

I call Edward next. He picks up right away but that’s the
last of the good news.

“She’s with you,” he says after I ask. “Isn’t she?”

“She was. I need to find her.” I can understand her not
going to Pinnacle House but if she hasn’t returned to the McClellans’ park side
mansion… What the hell does that mean?

“Shit, Ian, what happened?”

“I don’t know.” It’s a lie. I know damn well why she ran. I
just don’t know where to and the options are narrowing quickly.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says and I remember that Edward
has connections where I don’t.

“Find her,” I plead, not trying to hide the fear that is
exploding in me..

I dress. I leave the suite. I walk out of the hotel and
stand on the street. I’m an automaton, acting purely on instinct. All I can
think of is Amelia. I don’t even remember making the quick walk to Pinnacle
House.

Gab is waiting for me when I hit the operations floor. She
takes one look, starts to say something, and thinks better of it. Instead, she
says, “We have a problem. Someone’s blocking access to the sat feed. It’s a
hack, a good one. Clarence is working right now to break it. We should have
something soon.”

I close my eyes against the wave of combined fury and fear
that threatens to take me to my knees. Gab is the best there is, if she says it
will be soon, then it will be. Nobody, certainly not Amelia, will be helped if
I can’t control myself.

That thought’s almost laughable considering how I lost all
control last night. But at least if I have to wait, I can satisfy my suspicions
about how that happened.

“I’ll be in Medical. Let me know when you have something.”

The in-house hospital that’s a state-of-the-art facility is
empty, my guys who were injured in the Crystal Palace attack having all been
released. Only Doc Norris is there, which suits me fine. He’s a grizzled old
s.o.b. who I’d trust with my life, and have done more than a few times. He
gives me a funny look when I tell him that I want a tox screen run but he
doesn’t argue. I cool my heels for a few minutes before he returns with the
results.

He doesn’t pull any punches. His bushy salt-and-pepper
eyebrows lower as he glares at me. “You’ve been dosed with an illegal street drug.
Can I assume that you didn’t take it voluntarily?”

“Fuck, yes. What is it?”

He reels off a chemical name that means nothing to me, then
adds, “They’re calling it Jekyll/Hyde. It’s being billed as a nice, cheap high
with a few bells and whistles that the legal stuff doesn’t provide. But it’s
really a sophisticated smart drug with very nasty side effects, at least in
some cases.”

 A chill moves through me. I have to force myself to
ask, “How so?”

 “All recreational drugs break down inhibitions. That’s
why people take them. This one does the same but it’s also designed to identify
and eliminate structures in the brain that are associated with the long-term
repression of powerful impulses, essentially letting the psyche loose to do
whatever it damn well pleases.”

The knowledge that I behaved as I did last night because I
was drugged does absolutely nothing to ease my sense of guilt and remorse. How
could it when all the drug did was free me to do what I wanted to anyway?

“What’s it doing on the streets?”

Norris shrugs. “Good question. All I can tell you is that
it’s been showing up in emergency rooms for the past week or so. In some of the
people who take it, it’s triggered full-blown psychotic episodes during which
they’ve harmed themselves or others.”

My gut tightens as I think of Amelia. I’m hanging on to a
shred of hope, praying that she’s all right, when the significance of what
Norris just said sinks in. “Only some? What about the rest?”

 “People without particularly dangerous impulses just
find the drug to be liberating. On the other hand, the poor bastards with the
darkest urges get the ultimate bad trip. For them, once Jekyll/Hyde does its
work, there’s no putting the genie, or maybe I should say the monster back in
the bottle.”

A bolt of shock rips through me. Bad as the situation is, I
haven’t factored in the possibility that I might be permanently affected. I
feel as though I’ve just walked off the edge of a cliff. If there was ever a
chance of making amends to Amelia, it’s gone. She would never be safe with me
again.

“However,” Norris is saying, “the good news is that it
doesn’t look as though Jekyll/Hyde is going to be around for long.”

I’m still reeling from the bombshell he’s dropped on me but
I force myself to ask, “Why not?”

His smile is grim. “Twenty-four hours ago, the bodies of two
neurobiologists were found hanging from lamp posts in Marseilles, France, near
a warehouse that contained a lab where the drug was being made. The scientists’
throats were cut and they were left to bleed out in the street. The lab itself
went up in flames. Word is that Jorge Cruces was responsible.”

I’m not surprised. The lamp posts may be a little over the
top but Cruces is known for his ruthless administration of the drug laws. When
governments finally admitted what a waste of lives and money the war on drugs
had been, they turned it over to the one group of people who knew how to do it
right--the drug dealers. In return for keeping the really bad shit off the
streets--and all of it out of the hands of minors--Cruces gets unfettered
access to a world market for his own legal products, conservatively worth
trillions of dollars a year.

“It must have cost a shitload to design and manufacture that
stuff,” Doc muses. “Why would anyone put that kind of resources into a product
that was guaranteed to attract the attention of the guy who both controls the
legal drug market and has the authority to go after anyone who tries to do
business outside it?”

The who and why behind Jekyll/Hyde may be a mystery to
Norris but I have no doubt who’s responsible. Davos is one of the very few
people who knows enough about my past to realize where I’d be most vulnerable.
He has the wealth and power to get Jekyll/Hyde made and he wouldn’t hesitate to
field test it on the streets to be sure that it worked. The poor bastards who
will never get their lives back were just his guinea pigs. One more crime he’s
going to pay for.

“The tox screen shows that it’s still active in your
system,” Norris says. “Granted, you seem to be okay but the sooner we get it
flushed out, the better.”

I’m surprised to learn that I’m still under the influence.
Aside from the fact that I can’t think about Amelia without feeling like there
are two men inside me--the guy who wants to protect her and the one who wants
to fuck her again and again--I seem to be functioning normally.

“Not happening. We’re ramping up to a mission.” I have to
believe that. Gab and Clarence are going to find her and when they do--

Doc’s expression hardens. “You’ve been drugged, which means
that until proven otherwise your decision-making capability is in question. To
put it bluntly, you’re in no condition to lead.”

He’s right. Moreover, he’s got the guts to give it to me
straight. I have to respect that. “Colonel Hollis will run the mission. I’ll
just be along for the ride.”

Doc isn’t happy but he’s smart enough to know this is the
best he’s going to get. Even so, he says, “All right but once it’s over, I want
you in here for a full check-up. You’ve been exposed to a potentially dangerous
drug. We need to be sure that there aren’t any lingering effects.”

In my gut, I know that it’s too late to worry about that.
But all I say is, “Fair enough.”

On the way back to operations, I do what I know that I have
to. Amelia isn’t with her brother or grandmother. She’s become friends with my
mother and sister but I don’t think she’d go to them. In the unlikely event
that she did, I would know by now. That leaves just one other person she could
have turned to.

 “No,” Sergei says after I tell him why I’m calling. He
sounds a little hung-over, like he’s got his own excesses from Carnival to deal
with. But as soon as he realizes what’s happening, he’s fully alert. “I haven’t
seen Amelia. What have you done?”

Give the Russian credit, he cuts to the chase.

“I’m going to find her,” I say, not even pretending that I
don’t understand him. “Whatever it takes.”

“She loves you.”

What the hell?

“It’s obvious. When I tell her to imagine that you are
there, watching her dance, she becomes… More than any woman I’ve ever seen.”

I shouldn’t be hearing this from him but I’m grateful all
the same. His words are the only spark of light in the darkness closing in
around me.

“If she contacts you--”

“I’ll do whatever she wants,” he says calmly, “and you can
go to hell.”

Fair enough especially considering that I’m there now.

Gab is paging me as I walk back through the doors to
Operations. She doesn’t pull any punches. “You aren’t going to like it.” I hear
the sympathy in her voice. Gab knows what it is to love, which means she understands
how far a person will go to defend what matters most to them.

“Tell me.”

“Clarence came through; we’ve got the sat-feed back. Amelia
was picked up outside L’hôtel Perle going on ninety minutes ago. Black SUV,
looked like a classic, gasoline powered if you can believe that, with three
guys in it. We’ve been able to trace the vehicle. It went south, about a mile,
then took a ramp leading down to what we have to assume is an underground
garage or other facility. From then on, we’re blind.”

“Where were they exactly when you lost them?”

“Forty-second and Fifth, near the old library.”

That shock I felt back at the hotel when I realized what I’d
done was nothing compared to what hits me now. I’m free falling in zero gravity
and there’s no way to stop.

I must look as bad as I feel because Gab takes a quick step
toward me. “Boss, you okay?”